Dilemmas of Summer 2015 - Batch 3

Along Came the Spider

“Remind me why I even take you out shopping with me Rebecca?” Jennifer remarked jokingly as she unlocked the front door to their home. “I mean, you’re only ever interested in clothes that are coloured varying shades of black.”

    With a wry smile forming on Rebecca’s lips, covered in jet black lipstick, the gothic girl answered, “Well all you’re ever interested in are clothes that are coloured vary shades of pink.”

   “Touché,” Jennifer smirked in response, looking into her shopping bags and noting the various dresses, shoes and accessories all coloured varying shades of vibrant pink. Even her current outfit was coloured in the same vivid manner, the glamorous red head wearing a strapless pink dress with pink high heels. Rebecca by contrast hadn’t bought anything, the gothic girl with hair as black as night content with her current outfit, consisting of her dark top with see through fabric over her sleeves and midriff, black miniskirt, dark nylons and knee high black boots with a suitably high heel.

     “Must admit it’s nice for things to be so quiet for once,” Jennifer remarked as they walked through into their kitchen. “There hasn’t been a peep from Sean for weeks now. I wonder what he’s up to?”

   “Hey let’s not worry about that psycho for now. Let’s just enjoy our down time away from all that snooping and getting constantly captured,” Rebecca suggested brightly. She then shouted loudly, in the attempt to alert their housemate to their arrival, “Hey Zoey, you around? Fancy watching a movie tonight or something?”

   The only response she got came in the form of a couple of muffled squeals originating from their living room.

   Jennifer and Rebecca looked at each other in alarm, not liking the sound of that at all. They then darted out of the kitchen and ran through the closed door of the living room.

   “Nnnnnmmm, gggtttt wwwyyyyyy gggrrrlllssss!” Zoey cried at them as they burst in, but Jennifer and Rebecca were stunned at the sight of their friend’s predicament. The gothic girl, with dark hair the same shade as Rebecca’s, was positioned against the far wall. She was held in place by a white coloured cocoon which enveloped every part of her body save her booted feet and her head from the nose upwards. Her arms were pinned to her sides and her legs trapped together, and a series of well-placed strands of material welded her to the wall.

   “Oh my God, Sean’s goons got to her!” Jennifer cried out in alarm. “Hang on Zoey we’ll save you!”

   “Jennifer wait,” Rebecca cried, trying to hold her friend back. She’d noticed something was strange, even stranger than seeing her friend cocooned. She’d noticed that the bindings were not made out of bands of silk, as was usually the case when Sean’s forces paid them a visit. Rather these bonds looked like they were made out of a kind of stretchy medical tape.

   Jennifer hadn’t noticed this, and she darted forward to help her friend. But inadvertently her pink heels made contact with a hidden pressure sensor camouflaged against the carpet. This activated an array of hidden devices which emitted jets of sticky, string like material that completely coated Rebecca and Jennifer, disorientating them.

   “Yuck! Ew! What is this stuff?” Jennifer spluttered as she tried freeing herself of the material, but only entangling herself further.

   “It’s some kind of sticky string,” Rebecca replied even as she tried pulling it out of her eyes. “Keep calm or else we’ll…”

    She trailed off as she felt something prink against the exposed skin of her shoulder, like an insect had bitten her. Almost instantaneously she felt her body seize up and her legs turned to jelly, and she crumpled to the ground in a heap.

   “Rebecca what’s going…” Jennifer began before she too felt the prick against her shoulder, and within seconds she too was on the floor, strands of her long red hair covering her face like a veil. Rebecca tried calling out to her, but the words were lost in her numbed throat. The only parts of her body she could control were her eyes and her breathing.

   Then out of the gloom of the darkened room she saw a set of green glinting eyes staring at her. She could make out at least four, glowing ominously through the darkness as they drew closer and closer, until standing over her was a figure dressed from head to toe in black, every part of their body covered. The only part of their body not black were the green night vision goggles they wore over their eyes.

   The intruder stared first at Rebecca, then at Jennifer, then it seemed to decide to deal with the glamorous redhead first. It knelt down beside her with a roll of white tape in its hands. It then proceeded to wrap it around her ankles, legs and knees, then it encased her upper body, pinning her arms against her sides. Then it gently opened her mouth, placed a sponge inside, before slathering strips of tape over her lips to seal it in. Rebecca assumed that Jennifer was awake for the whole ordeal, but both could only watch as the intruder moved away from Jennifer and over to Rebecca.

   There the figure knelt down and began to repeat the process on the gothic girl. Around her booted ankles went the white tape, then around her knees, then around her upper body pinning her arms to her sides. She stared angrily up at their masked face as her mouth was stuffed then covered over by tape to seal it in.

   That would have served to have effectively bound them, but the intruder wasn’t stopping there. From their pack he produced a long roll of white medical gauze. Then he returned to Jennifer and began wrapping up her feet with the material. Rebecca realised that what they had done to Zoey they were going to repeat on them. The intruder didn’t take any half measures, ensuring every inch of Jennifer’s legs were utterly encased with the material. The hem of her pink dress was soon covered, as the intruder continued to wind around her body until every part of it, from shoulders to feet, was covered. For a final touch her red hair was swept aside so that her mouth could also be enveloped by the material.

   Then it was Rebecca’s turn. Soon her black boots were covered by white sticky material, then her nylon-clad legs, then her black dress, then her shoulders, then her dark hair was pulled away for her mouth to be covered. With that both girls became thoroughly cocooned, and once the drug had worn off it allowed them to test their bonds, only to discover they wouldn’t budge an inch.

   The intruder had one last trick up their sleeve. They picked up the jiggling, mewling Jennifer before propping her against the wall next to Zoey. Then making use of what remained of the white tape he plastered it over her fabric cocoon to fix her against the wall. Soon Jennifer was locked in place, the only part of her ensnared body she was capable of moving being her head.

   Sure enough Rebecca was next. As she was picked up by the intruder with glowing green eyes and propped up next to her friends. Then the tape was applied. Fastening her body and knees to the wall Rebecca was soon rendered completely helpless.

   The intruder stood for a moment analysing their prisoners, as if congratulating themselves on a good job well done. Rebecca eyeballed them defiantly, mumbling through her gag, “Wwwwwttt dddd yyyymmm wwwnnnttt wwwwttt ssssss.”

   Evidently the intruder’s motivations lay elsewhere. Once certain the three young women weren’t going anywhere they made for the laptop computer that was resting on the nearby table. They flipped it open and inserted something into the USB drive, which began flashing with a blinking red light.

   “Wwwwttt rrr yyymmm ddddnnnn?” Jennifer exclaimed in bewilderment. Rebecca however knew exactly what was happening. Clearly this intruder was working for someone, trying to find out whatever she and Urblake knew. They were currently investigating some very unsavoury characters, perhaps none more unsavoury than the villainous Sean. Whoever this intruder was, they weren’t here for the girls. They were here for the evidence they had gathered.

   “Llvvvv ttthhhtt llllnnn!” Rebecca tried to cry out, but the intruder ignored her muffled protests. Instead once the download was completed they gave one last look at their cocooned captives before they left the building as silently as they had first entered.

   Rebecca, Jennifer and Zoey could only writhe, twist and moan through their bindings, fighting against the ever increasingly hot and stuffy prisons. But despite their attempts they couldn’t break free. It wouldn’t be until Urblake returned two hours later that they would finally be freed from their restraints, and only then would they be able to discern why this mysterious stranger had invaded their home.
   

Amanda Jones’ Coffee Break

   “What can I get for you hun?” the waitress asked the young woman who had just taken a seat towards the back of the café.

    “Just a coffee please,” Amanda Jones replied, flashing the waitress a sweet, innocent smile. “Actually make it a large one, I’ve got a big essay to finish tonight.”

   “One large coffee coming up!” the waitress confirmed, before she returned to the counter to fulfil the order. Amanda reached into her handbag and pulled out her smartphone, pretending to idly flick through her messages while checking out her surroundings. There were only two other occupants of this café, a pair of builders who were finishing up their pancakes. She saw them gawping over at her as they got up to leave. Clearly they were impressed by the sight of the beautiful college age brunette wearing a white short sleeved blouse, denim hotpants, dark hose and navy blue converse sneakers. She ignored their gawping as they walked past her to leave the café. Amanda Jones had a job to do.

    “Here you are hun,” the waitress announced as she brought the coffee over. Amanda thanked her, and immediately took a hearty sip of the steaming hot beverage. The young sleuth cast her eyes over at the waitress, noting how she was pretending to clean the tables. She was certainly acting suspiciously, which made Amanda suspicious in turn.

    Amanda hadn’t just come here for a coffee break. She looked through the window at the bank positioned across the road. Rumour had it that a precious gem had been placed in a safe deposit box there by a visiting foreign benefactor to Amanda’s college. In the weeks beforehand this café had been set up almost overnight. The timing of this, plus the café’s bizarre unfriendliness to anyone who overstayed their welcome, had set off snoop alarms inside Amanda’s head, and she’d decided to go investigating.

   A theory was already forming inside her head. Amanda slipped off her shoes and then began placing her hose clad feet across the wooden café floor. This wasn’t just her fidgeting. At various points across the floor she could feel an acute vibration through the wood. It was rhythmic, and had a set pattern. It certainly couldn’t have been caused by the rumbling of the outside traffic. Amanda smiled to herself, realising her theory now had some weight to it.

   Quickly she began typing a message to send to her snoop friends back at college. ‘I think there really is something going on at this place. Meet me here at…’ she couldn’t type anything else because at that point the waitress returned to her table, so she quickly pressed send.

    “Anything else for you hun, though I should tell you we’ll be closing in five minutes,” this waitress informed her.

    “No thanks, I’m just…finishing up,” said Amanda, her response broken by a loud and obvious yawn. “Phew, sorry about that, guess I really needed that coffee,” she added as she began batting her eyelids as the room grew strangely blurred.

   “Yes I daresay you did Miss Amanda Jones,” the waitress said with an ominous smirk. “How’d you like our coffee? It’s a very special blend we save just for snoops like you!”

   Amanda was alarmed at how this woman seemingly knew her name, but her body failed to respond to this revelation. The strength seemed to leave her arms and legs, and the room continued to slide out of focus. Only when she looked at her half-drunk cup of coffee did she realise what had happened. She’d been drugged!

  But by that point it was too late to do anything about it. She fought its effects for as long as she could but soon her numb and unresponsive body slumped against the table. With her brunette locks sprawled across the table top Amanda’s eyes finally fluttered to a close.

   Once certain Amanda Jones was out cold the waitress moved to the café entrance and flipped the sign around from ‘Open’ to ‘Closed.’ Then she returned to the snoozing sleuth, grabbed her underneath her arms and dragged her off of the chair. Hauling Amanda through the café, with the sleuth’s hosed feet dragging across the floor, the waitress then shouted at the top of her voice, “Give me a hand here Cedric! We’ve got a Nancy Drew wannabe to take care of.”

    Two hours later

    The first thing that struck Amanda when she regained consciousness was how cold she was. She shivered involuntarily as she roused herself, and tried bringing her hands around to warm herself. But she couldn’t. She then felt coarse ropes binding her hands behind her back, with additional cord enveloping her upper body preventing her from moving her upper arms. She tried moving her legs next and sure enough they’d been bound too, the ropes wound around her ankles and knees and biting against her skin through the fabric of her nylons.  

   She tried calling out for help, but she failed. Firstly because a rag was filling her mouth and was held in place with a strip of cloth cleave gagging her. Secondly because her muffled cries didn’t alert help, but the goons occupying the same basement she was being held in, all of them covered in dirt and carrying heavy mining equipment. Amanda’s suspicions were proved correct at that point. They were tunnelling underneath the bank with the intention of robbing it!

   The waitress was among these goons, and when she saw Amanda had regained consciousness she smirked evilly and said, “Welcome back to the land of the living sweetheart. Sit still and be a good girl. We have a schedule to keep. We’ll deal with you once we’re done!”

   “Gggttt bbkkkk hhhrrrr. Nnnntttt mmmmmggg!” Amanda cried through her gag as she watched these criminals one by one disappear through a trapdoor in the cellar floor that was concealing their tunnel. When she was on her own she began struggling desperately for freedom, but the ropes wouldn’t budge. With her brown hair flicking about she twisted her head around looking for a means to escape, when she saw a spade with a sharp edge a few feet away from her. She smiled through her gag. Leaving her alone with a cellar full of mining equipment. Not a smart moves by these supposedly master criminals.

   Using her hose clad feet she dragged her bound body over to the spade, the shuffled around and began rubbing her wrist bonds against the edges. It didn’t take long for the ropes to fray and then fall away, freeing her hands. Amanda swiftly had herself untied and ungagged. She dusted herself down and re-affixed her blouse, which had ridden up revealing her mid-riff during the struggle, before she made for the staircase leading to freedom. She tiptoed upwards, her un-shoed feet not making much noise against the steps. She turned the handle and stepped back out into the café…

  Only for her to be grabbed from behind by an unseen assailant and have a chloroform soaked rag clamped over her mouth and nose.

   Amanda struggled against the grip of her attacker, grappling with his vice like arms and trying not to breathe in the sweet smelling chemical. But the surprise attack had caught her off guard, and soon she felt herself succumbing to sleepiness. As he vision faded she thought to herself that evidently these goons weren’t stupid enough to leave her unguarded after all.

   Three hours later

   “Thanks for the tip off girls,” the police chief said to Kat and Hannah as they watched the members of the criminal gang being led into the back of the police van in handcuffs. “These guys won’t be doing much tunnelling from their prison cells.”

   Neither Kat nor Hannah were enthused by his words. “But we just passed on the message from Amanda,” Kat told him. “We haven’t had a message from her since.”

   “And I found her shoes underneath one of the seats, so she’s definitely around here somewhere,” Hannah added.  

   As they watched two police officers carrying a heavy wooden crate which they intended to catalogue as evidence, the chief told them, “We’ll scour this building top to bottom, and if she’s not here we’ll search the area. Rest assured we’ll find…”

   “Hey watch where you’re pushing this thing,” one of the officers said to his partner as the crate rocked violently, and collided against his knees.

   “I didn’t do anything,” the second officer protested, shortly before the crate rocked again, as if it had a life of its own.

   “I think there’s someone in here,” the first officer announced loudly. They put the crate down and as fast as they could found something to pry it open.

   The lid was pulled off to reveal a very irritated looking Amanda Jones, duct tape slathered over her lips and her limbs bound with copious amounts of rope, her tied hands tucked underneath her knees and her feet resting against the crate from where she’d been kicking it. She’d roused an hour after her chloroform induced slumber to find herself trapped in this confined space, and had had to endure it for two hours further, a good thirty minutes of which had seen the entire police force scouring the building oblivious to her plight.

   ‘Well, better late than never,’ Amanda thought as she was helped out by her friends.


Kellie’s New Job

   “Ah you must be our latest recruit!” Rob Easy, chief executive his own chain of banks, announced with his loud, booming voice as he strode in to inspect his office staff, his eye focusing on the attractive brunette seated at her new desk. “Kellie isn’t it?” he asked politely.

   “Indeed it is Mr Easy,” Kellie answered brightly, flicking her long brunette hair out of her face so it tumbled past her smart, dark suit jacket which was covering her blue silk blouse, her outfit completed by a dark skirt, dark nylons and black high heels. “Thank you very much for giving me this job.”

   “Well I’m sure our recruitment team has picked well,” Rob Easy replied heartily. “I look forward to working with you, and it there’s anything I can do to make things more comfortable for you, please let me know.”

   Kellie looked at her new boss and said, “Well there is one thing you could perhaps do for me, you know, to make me comfortable, as you suggested?”

   “You name it,” Rob Easy replied.

    “Could you perhaps loosen these ropes for me a little?”

    Kellie was referring to the white nylon ropes that had been used to bind her to her office chair. Her wrists were fixed behind her, with her torso bound to the chair back. More ropes were looped around her legs both above and below her knees, had been used to fix her ankles together, and in turn been attached to the crosspiece of the chair. She wriggled a little to emphasise her point to her new boss, while testing her restraints but finding them strong and unyielding.

   She wasn’t the only one in such a situation. The four other members of her administrative team had been tied up identically to her. Her new colleagues, a long haired blonde named Julie, a bob cut dark haired girl named Phoebe, an African-American with long braided hair named Mary, and an Asian girl named Diana, were all dressed in smart skirt suits and heels, and were all tied to their office chairs with white ropes about their bodies at the same points as Kellie’s. But they had also been subjected to red ballgags jammed between their teeth and buckled behind their heads. They didn’t seem too perturbed by this turn of events. In fact they were even laughing and grinning through the rubber balls inside their mouths, jiggling a little in almost amusement.

   “Were you not informed about our monthly hostage scenarios Kellie?” Rob Easy asked quizzically.

   “I think I’d have remembered something like that,” Kellie answered, trying not to sound too curt.

   Rob Easy immediately leapt into an explanation. “Well unfortunately we have recently been the target of some unscrupulous individuals looking to steal the contents of our safe and rob our clients. We have had no less than six invasions in the past year. To that end we decided to start doing hostage training drills. We started by tying up our employees simply, you know, hands, feet and cloth gags. But the criminals wised up to our scheme, and started binding us up more stringently. So we trained to escaper even harder ties, and they kept on tying us up tighter. This is why we’ve now got to this point.”

   “I thought this was a bit much for a simple hostage scenario,” Kellie remarked as she tugged vainly against the intricate ropework binding her.

   “Yes, I’m sorry that you’ve been thrown into the deep end with this,” Rob Easy remarked. “That’s why we didn’t ballgag you. I thought it would be a bit much for you to contend with on your first day.”

    “On the contrary, I think people learn better when they are thrown in at the deep end,” spoke the man dressed in black with a thick balaclava covering their face, four other masked goons following behind him.

   “Oh no, not again!” Rob Easy howled.

   “Hhhhhh nnnnmmmm, nnnntttt gggggnnnn!” chorused the gagged Julie, Phoebe, Mary and Diana, as the invaders trained pistols on their position.

    “What are you doing here?” Kellie demanded of the intruders.

     “Hey a newbie!” one of the masked goons said with obvious delight. “And they took the time to tie her up for us too.”

    “You were right boss, we didn’t need to bring any rope this time after all!” another said, sounding a little bit surprised, and also a little bit disappointed.

   “Why did you think that?” Rob Easy cried.

   “Easy, you’ve been bragging about your new hostage practice sessions on Twitter and Facebook,” the chief crook told him. “What better time to rob a bank when half its employees are already tied up!”

   Kellie realised these crooks had a point. She was also beginning to realise why this job was so well paid. They hadn’t mentioned in her contract that she would spend several days a year literally roped into the office. “You really think you’re clever don’t yyyyymmmmmggggg!” she began to argue before a goon picked up the only unused ballgag resting on a nearby desk and pushed it into her mouth, the goon pulling away strands of her brown hair to buckle it behind her neck.

    “OK then you know the drill Mr Easy!” the chief goon announced. “Off we go to the safe for us to have a quick rummage and then take what we fancy.”

    “Everyone not tied to a chair come with us, we’ll lock you in the store room once we’re done. Try anything funny, these ladies will be the ones who’ll suffer,” another goon ordered. Soon the whole criminal gang and the rest of the office workers bustled out of the office, leaving Kellie and her four new co-workers to struggle and fight against their bonds. But the knots had been tied extra tight, evidently their fellow workers wanted to ensure their test was a thorough one. How ironic it was that they had contributed to their co-workers captivity.

   As Kellie strained against the cords welding her against the chair she cast her eye over to her new desk and she saw two possible routes to her escape. Her phone on her desk, and a computer with a keyboard at arm’s length. Perhaps even in her bound state she could shuffle over and reach it? She decided to give it her best go, and immediately started bucking and thrashing, dragging her chair in the direction of her new desk. It was hard going, with her feet fixed to the crosspiece she was limited to dragging herself over inches at a time, and with her arms tightly fixed maintaining her balance was just as hard.

    But somehow she dragged herself ever closer to her desk, and even managed to twist her body and chair around so that her hands were positioned near the objects which she hoped would bring her freedom…

   But she shuffled too far, too fast, and she lost her balance. The chair legs tilted dramatically, and over Kellie went. She landed on her side, squealing into her ballgag as she went. Her head fell against the floor, and her brown hair fell over her face, concealing her brown eyes. She wriggled her bound feet and fought to lift herself up, but the ropes held firm.

   And then, to add insult to injury, she looked up at the underside of the desk and saw a red panic button affixed underneath it. “Gggggggggggmmmmm,” she cried in frustration. So many potential means of escape just a matter of feet away from her, and she couldn’t reach it because she’d been tied up…by her own work colleagues.

   There was a loud bang as the crooks returned to check on the bound girls. Kellie flicked her hair out of her eyes to eyeball them defiantly as one walked over and said in amusement, “Been busy newbie?”

    “Dddddmmmmm yyyymmmmm!” Kellie grunted in reply.

    “Well gang, we got what we need!” the chief crook sneered. “We locked your buddies downstairs. I’m sure one of you will be getting free soon. Anyway, looking forward to doing all this again in a couple months’ time!”

    With that he and his gang slung their bags of swag over their shoulders, and with the choruses of five bound and ballgagged women ringing in their ears, they stepped outside to make their getaway.

   And so as the minutes ticked by, Kellie thought through the events of her first day at her new job. No induction, no introductions, no new tasks to be completing, no freedom, no escape, and no means of alerting anyone to her situation.

   Kellie immediately began wondering what exactly the length of her probationary period was again.