But now, there were other sounds, too. Activity on the boat next door. Raised voices barking commands. Banging and crashing. A woman crying … pleading.
Lisa stopped moving. She tried to listen.
James and Anita opened their eyes and sat up.
The new sounds faded into the distance.
The voices and laughter died down to a murmur.
The music continued.
The three of them looked at each other in silence. Eyes wide in fear and confusion.
Then, a single woman's scream rose over the music. It was a scream of absolute terror. It chilled Lisa to the bone! Her skin prickled and the hair on the back of her neck bristled. Anita let out a gasp.
The crowd roared.
Chapter 13 - Day 16 - Earlswood
The doors opened and their guard peered in.
"Time for the fun to begin, guys!"
"What's happening? Where are you taking us?" Anita asked.
"You'll find out soon enough," the man said. "Come on! You first!" He pointed at James.
"No!" Anita cried.
"It's ok. It's ok." James tried to reassure her, as he was roughly shepherded out of the door.
Two other men entered the room to escort the two women outside. Anita struggled and pleaded with them.
"Please, no! Don't do this!"
Lisa forced herself to stay calm. She kept her hands behind her back, confident that one good jerk on the tie would free them. She tried to catch Anita's eye - to give her a signal of some kind - but the girl was distraught.
Outside, the mood was ugly. All eyes were on them as they were led into the heart of the crowd. People parted like a wave to create a path for them. Low voices murmured jeers and insults. The air sizzled with anticipation. A gob of spittle hit Lisa on the cheek and dripped down her face. She resisted the urge to wrench her hands free and wipe it away.
The music thumped. Torches burned around the edge of the space. The air smelt of smoke and paraffin. But there were other smells. Smells that she knew well. Those of decaying infected and the metallic odour of freshly spilled blood.
Suddenly, they were in an open space. The crowd closed around them. Lisa stifled a scream. Anita dropped to her knees, sobbing, and James began to struggle against his captors.
A steel mesh fence had been erected around a wooden platform in the centre of the area. The space between the platform and the crowd was littered with bodies. Some were infected, with knives buried deep in their skulls. But, from the bright red blood that still oozed from their wounds, others appeared to be uninfected.
A man was dragging the body of a young woman to the edge of the platform. Her head lolled to one side, revealing where the side of her neck had been torn away. Two straining infected were chained to the inside of the fence at one end. Money was changing hands all through the crowd.
It suddenly dawned on Lisa what it was.
It was a fighting ring.
A tall, bald man in leather boots and trousers, stepped into the centre of the ring. His bare chest glistened with sweat. Reptilian tattoos crawled over his head and body. His back and shoulders were huge. In his hand, he held a long, curved sword. He raised it skywards. The crowd hushed.
He pointed the sword at James.
"You!" he shouted.
James was wrestled up the steps into the ring.
Anita sobbed harder.
The man walked over to the infected and prodded them with the sword. They writhed and snarled. The crowd cheered.
One of them had been a young man with a long beard and curly brown hair that reached his shoulders. The other was a middle-aged woman in a tattered nightdress. A curler dangled loosely from a single lock of hair on her otherwise balding scalp.
Someone in the crowd shouted.
"Je-sus!"
Others took up the chant.
"Je-sus! Je-sus! JE-SUS! JE-SUS!"
The man pointed his sword at the young male infected. He turned to the crowd with a quizzical expression.
"YES! YES! YES!" they shouted. "JE-SUS! JE-SUS! JE-SUS!"
"Place your bets!" the man shouted, and the crowd erupted in a frenzy.
Lisa could hear Anita's screaming above the wall of noise.
The big man unfastened James' wrists and pushed him into the centre of the ring. Someone began to undo Jesus' chains from outside the fence. The man exited the ring leaving James alone with the infected. He looked around, searching the faces in the crowd until his eyes found what they wanted. Anita! He mouthed something to her, and her screaming stopped.
Jesus was free from his chains. He staggered towards James, arms outstretched, teeth bared, brown saliva frothing from his mouth.
Lisa closed her eyes.
Although she didn't watch, James evidently put up a fight. The cries and shouts of the mob went on for a long time. Their "oohs" and "aahs" revealing every twist and turn of the battle. But eventually, a communal sigh of disappointment, and a long wail of anguish from Anita, indicated that it was over.
Lisa felt detached. Cold. She knew what had happened. She knew Anita must be devastated. She knew James must have been terrified and would have suffered unimaginably. But she knew that the ordeal wasn't over. That, for them, it was just beginning. For them, the worst was still to come. But she didn't seem to be able to feel anything. There didn't seem to be an emotion in her that she could draw on to adequately feel the horror of the moment. All she could think about was the fact that her wrists were almost free, and that they might still have a chance.
Then, the bodies had been cleared, the big man was
