Surviving The Ravenous

by King, Christine

“You guess!” He almost shouted at me, “Mark just saved your hide!” Mark nodded at the big guy.

  “That’s Jason, our shaven-headed soldier; I am afraid he’s not very big on tact.” I nodded and tried not to turn red out of anger and embarrassment.

  “That’s Lara, and that’s her Italian fellow Lance.” Mark continued pointing at the members of his group. The blonde girl came over, she seemed a little shy; her daggers had been put away. I realised that she was actually quite a bit younger than me, perhaps in her mid-teens. “Hi, I like your bow,” she said quietly, I shouldered the weapon. “Thanks,” I replied, “I like your hair.”

  Lara’s face broke into an enormous grin, “I could do yours for you if you like, it keeps it neat and it doesn’t matter if you wash it.”

  I smiled back at her, feeling lots of built-up tension leave my body; these people seemed normal and nice. “Ok, maybe later.”

  I turned to face the group, hoping my questions wouldn’t alienate them. “I will worry about my hair after someone tells me why that woman was chasing me and why it was necessary to kill her?” With my last comment hanging in the air, I looked at Jason meaningfully, but he just turned away.

  Mark walked to my side and spoke in a soft voice. “She was ill, crazy, or on a kind of high; we’ve seen a few like her on our travels. They eat everything they can, even people, dead or alive, they chew on grass or tree bark and they smash stuff, it’s like the gas didn’t kill them but affected their minds. Jason hates them; one killed his sister before he knew what was happening and now if he sees them, he kills them.”

  I looked down at the woman again there was still a huge, blissful smile on her pale face, blood was splattered around her mouth and bits of dirt and grass were smeared on her cheeks; I felt a shiver go down my spine.

  “Would she have hurt me?” I asked in a hushed voice.

  Mark nodded “She would have tried to bite you and she could have killed you” I pointed to the arrow in her chest “So is she dead? Will that kill her?”

  Jason butted in. “They aren’t Zombies,” he spat. “They don’t infect you with a bite; they’re not the living dead, they are just people and they die, just like people.” He paused to breathe in.

  ” Well, they are tougher,” he conceded. “It’s like they’re on drugs. They don’t seem to feel much pain, but a shot through the heart or the head and they go down just like anything else.”

  I looked at Mark and asked the question that I had been thinking about throughout my loneliness. “Why aren’t I dead like all the others?” Mark shrugged, “Immune I guess, like us.”

  Lara touched my arm gently, “We are going to find somewhere to wait this out. Want to come?”

  I looked around the empty town; the shops front’s smashed, full of clothes never to be worn and food that had probably gone rotten. I thought of the people all around, dead or crazed. I thought about saying a hundred things, asking if this could be ridden out? Wondering if there were others like this smiling, crazy woman about to attack and why it seemed there were only five people still relatively sane and alive? But it seemed pointless. These people didn’t have answers, they were just trying to survive. Like me. Alive in a place full of dead people. Even standing in the bright sunshine, in the middle of the day I felt spooked and very alone. “Sure, if you are all ok with me tagging along?”

  Mark grabbed my arm in a friendly manner. “Of course, there doesn’t seem to be many of us left, we have to stick together.” As he spoke my heart raced with joy and I felt my stomach flip as Mark touched my arm, I was enjoying the moment until Jason grunted, “I just hope you can use that bow.” As Mark let me go and walked back to the group, I felt alone again. Lance came over and took Lara’s hand, “The more the merrier,” he said cheerfully.

  I smiled at them all, “So what’s the plan?”

  Mark suddenly looked a little worried. “Plan? Well, we are trying to find as many people as we can and then we’re thinking we could go to a big supermarket and see how long we can last.” I looked at him thoughtfully. “That’s it?” I asked, a little taken back. Jason spun around, “Can you think of a better one?” he sneered.

  I took this as a challenge, so I sat on one of the headstones and thought for a moment, “Who knows the most about these crazies?” I gestured towards the smiling dead woman. Jason looked me up and down.

  “That would be me,” he stated this as a fact, sitting opposite me. I tried not to look upset as I had hoped it would be Mark, but I questioned him, and he was right, he knew quite a bit. Since his sister had been killed he had made it his personal mission to find out all he could about the ravenous humans (as he called them due to their never-ending appetites, and as we began to think of them) He knew they were constantly hungry and smashed things without a second thought, they attacked without provocation and didn’t feel pain. They were similar to drunks or people on certain types of drugs, except they seemed to detest water and there was no getting through to them. They ate whatever they could, smashed what they couldn’t eat, and didn’t seem to need sleep.

  I thought for a while, “How much do they dislike water?” I asked Jason.

  He shrugged and said proudly, “I tortured one for hours with a water pistol. They hate the stuff, it’s like it burns them.” I nodded but tried not to encourage him to tell me more. Unfortunately, Jason felt he needed to continue, “I caught one in my back garden, it’s got high walls and the thing couldn’t get out. I sat in an upstairs bedroom window and watched it eat the grass then the dirt, it tried to eat the shed but when it couldn’t, it destroyed it. It was blind I think, or at least it was having trouble seeing and then it began to run at the wall trying to escape. I threw some petrol over it and tried to set it on fire when that didn’t work I started firing a water pistol at it just for target practice and that got its attention, it ran to the far side of the garden and tried to hide.” Jason looked smug “It looked like an old bloke, but boy could it move when it felt that dirty water.” I wasn’t impressed by Jason’s exploits and although I knew one of the ravenous had killed his sister, it was still sickening to me to think of torturing anything for fun. Suddenly I had an idea; I looked up at the others. “Ok, then I have got a suggestion for where we could go. I went on a trip with my friend a few years ago, it was to a castle near here, the castle is in a lake, it’s on an island in the middle, the lake is like a moat, there’s a drawbridge and old thick walls, it could keep us safe and if we are looking to survive, it could be the place to do it.” I looked around at their faces.

  Lance spoke first, “That’s quite good really, surrounded by water and big enough to house many people.”

  Lara nodded along, “and people used to live in castles,” she added a little slowly. “So, we could pretend we were in the olden days,” she looked wide-eyed and amazed at her contribution.

  Mark glanced at Jason. “Well, the supermarket was your idea, but this sounds good too. I think we should go for it. How about you, mate?”

  Jason stared around at the faces of the others and seeing he was beaten huffed, “Sure, whatever, but we need supplies”. Everyone started talking at once as the excitement of the plan jumped from person to person, even Jason made suggestions. “We need a truck.” He stated at one point and everyone agreed. “From what I saw the roads are pretty empty,” I said. “We just need a map to the castle.” Lara and Lance volunteered to go find a map in the bookstore, it was weird not being able to just look up the map on my phone but everything electric was dead. We made a list of things we would need; food, clothes, ammo, even amusement. Mark set everyone a task, he seemed to be the leader of this little group, he also made us move to another part of town because, as he said, and Jason agreed. “Once one ravenous comes, more soon follow.”

  We scouted around and soon smashing into the shops became second nature. I collected all I could carry and hauled it back to the roadside where we had put everything we collected. Jason drove up in a large delivery truck and I began to help him
load up. He watched me heft a box of tins into the back and asked. “Do you know how to use that weapon?” I looked back at the bow on the pavement and sensed an opportunity to make friends with him. “Not really, I can point and shoot but I usually miss, I noticed you are a good shot, could you teach me?” Looking at me thoughtfully, he said. “Sure.” Then turned away and climbed into the truck to lift the next box. Suddenly there was a scream, Jason instantly dropped the supplies, jumped down from inside the truck, and set off running in the sound's direction. I stood there a moment, fear gripping my body; I wasn’t sure if I could move, then I realised it had been a woman’s scream which could mean Lara needed help, or some other poor girl was even now under attack from the ravenous things. If Mark and the others had not helped me, I’d probably be dead right now. I had to help; turning away from the truck, I swept up my crossbow from the ground and started to run. I estimated the sound had come from the mall and that seemed to be the way Jason had gone. I headed in that direction, loading the bow as I went, my heart hammering in my chest and my eyes scanning around me for movement or danger.

  As I approached the mall, I couldn’t see anything amiss. The glass double doors were propped open, so I went inside. The first few shops were closed up, then as I approached the clothing store I could see it had its shutter up and the lock was discarded on the floor; it had been cut off so the shop could be accessed. Turning the corner, my breath caught in my chest as I saw Lara dangling in the air, perched on a swaying shop sign, surrounded by about 30 of the ravenous humans trying to grab at her. How she had managed to climb up on to the protruding shop sign was beyond me, it was quite large and it hung from reinforced wires, the ravenous crowd were trying to reach her by jumping at the sign, and as their fingertips brushed it, it swung alarmingly almost tipping Lara off into the crowd below.

  Lara was clinging on and trying hard not to scream, but now and again the sign shook violently, and Lara seemed unable to stop herself from screeching loudly. This was a terrible idea as it had undoubtedly drawn more ravenous to her.

  Jason was on a nearby escalator, bow waving wildly as he tried to find an open shot without giving away his position. Mark was climbing a shop front at the other end of the mall, his bow held between his teeth. Lance was nowhere to be seen. I had to do something, but what?

  I kept my head low and studied the crowd. If they caught my scent or heard me move, they would be on me in a second, I was too close and had no place to run.

  I stayed near to the ground and lined my shot up. The arrow flew and went into the back of one of the ravenous human’s heads. It spun around and fell to the ground; the others pounced on their fallen comrade and tore at him. I realised they were also biting at each other and some had huge patches of skin missing. They didn’t seem to like the taste of the flesh that they had ripped from the one on the floor and losing interest they jumped for Lara again.

  I looked at the crowd and realised there were too many of them. Even with all of us picking them off it would be a long job and eventually they would hear us or sense us and then we would have to run, leaving Lara all alone and anyway she didn’t look at though she would be able to hang on much longer.

  I thought hard about the mall and the surrounding shops.

  Slowly I put down my bow and took off my heavy jacket; I tightened the laces on my pumps and took a few deep breaths. Then, knowing what I was about to do was probably the stupidest thing I’d ever done, I ran out from my hiding place and shouted. “Stop screaming Lara and stay still” Lara stopped and froze, mostly from the shock of seeing me and hearing me yell at her. All the ravenous turned to face my direction. Their milky eyes blindly searching, ears pricked for the slightest noise.

  I screamed as loudly as I could and ran for the doors. Behind me, I felt the air shift as they moved towards me, and then the thumping of feet as they began to run. “Get Lara to safety,” I shouted as I tried hard not to trip over my own feet. My heart thumped hard as I felt sweat start to seep through my clothes. The ravenous fell over each other in their attempts to chase me and as I had hoped they bit and clawed at each other slowing their progress.

  I ran for all I was worth, and this time I tried very hard to follow the advice I’d once heard. ‘When running away from anything, never look back, it will not make you run faster, just trip over something or run into something and if you’re not running your fastest, run faster!’

  I dashed for the glass exit doors, glad to see they were still propped open, and raced through into the avenue of shops and businesses that lined the area leading to the Mall.

  I knew the shop I wanted and headed for its garish pink sign with the gang of ravenous close on my heels.

  A long time ago I’d worked in that gaudy, over-priced shop on the weekends, it was a clothing store and I knew the layout very well and I knew it had no shutters.

  The front window glass was broken, which saved me time. I skidded through the broken safety glass and dived into the store, avoiding mannequins and rails of flashy attire. I raced towards the back and climbed the shelving as I had done many times to change light bulbs or replace broken polystyrene ceiling tiles. Despite the manager telling me off regularly and pointing out the very safe step ladder out the back and the very important health and safety policy that I was ignoring.

  I pushed the closest tile up, out of the way; quickly, I heaved myself into the space between the store and the glass ceiling high above. With a swift kick, I knocked over the shelving unit and being very careful to put my weight only on the metal frames around each bit of flimsy polystyrene; I crawled toward the next unit. I knew all the units were interlinked; it had been something of a sore point with the business owners in this area.

  I could hear the ravenous scrabbling along below me in the store following my movements and I knew at some point they would find a way up, but I had to follow through with this, if I was quick enough and careful enough I could make it to the next unit and leave them in an empty store.

  I could see the next section coming up and that’s when I smelt smoke.

  It poured up from the shop below, filling the small area I was in with its throat clogging, eye-stinging stench. I tried not to panic as my vision blurred and my eyes watered uncontrollably. Had the ravenous done this? Surely, they were not smart enough to think of smoking me out.

  The tiles were now getting warm, and the metal frames under my hands began heating up too. It would become unbearable soon. I accidentally put my hand on a tile and felt it give way under my weight. The tile fell, and I almost went with it. I could see into the shop below and the heat rose up to hit me in the face.

  The ravenous below me howled as the flames engulfed them. They ran from the store, their bodies on fire, and still the flames licked at the clothes racks and the trendy wooden designs on the walls.

  I moved as fast as I could and almost jumped across the divide. The polystyrene tiles the other side gave way as I hit them, and I fell like a dead weight into the space below.

  I winced as I tried to jump up. I looked around me, but there were no flames yet and no ravenous.

  My shoulder had slammed into a shelving unit and my back hurt where I’d hit the floor.

  I rubbed my arm and dragged myself to the front of the store. There was smashed glass here as well. The sunlight shone into the store, filling the gloomy space around me with patches of gold, and I could see the stock of necklaces and jewellery strewn across the ground. Even here I could feel the heat from next door, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before the fire burnt through the insubstantial walls. I crawled out through a smashed panel in the entrance and coughed my way into the sunshine. I heard someone calling my name and turned to see Lara running towards me. “Thank god you’re safe.” She was crying, and she wrapped her arms around me. I sagged into her and felt her lose her footing, but suddenly Mark was there catching us both. “You’re ok,” he said, keeping me upright. I let him hold me although I knew I was capable of standing up on my own, it was nic
e to feel his arms around me. Ravenous were pouring out of the shop a few feet away, but they were too busy burning to notice us. The smell of cooked flesh filled my nose, and I began to retch as Mark helped me to the street.

  “Look, I’m sorry.” A voice shouted behind me. As I turned, I saw Jason strolling up. Smugly he said, “I knew you’d get out.” With a flourish, he handed me back my bow. “The others said I shouldn’t, but I had the lighter and the petrol can, it seemed like a perfect opportunity.” I looked up at him as I held my bow. My lungs felt as if they were filled with soot and my raw throat burnt as I swallowed. “You set it on fire?” I croaked, slowly catching on. Jason nodded, “Yes, but I knew you’d be ok, this lot panicked, but I thought she’s got a plan.” I pushed Mark away and stood upright. “I almost died, and you tell me you did it on purpose.” Jason rolled his eyes. “You got out,” he stated as if speaking to a slow child. “The ravenous that followed you burnt up, and those that didn’t burn ran away, so no worries.” I nodded slowly. “You’re right, no worries,” I agreed, I smiled a huge smile at him, raised my bow and smashed it across his head.

  Lara gasped as Jason fell. Blood splashed onto the ground from his wound and he cursed loudly. Mark looked a little self-satisfied, “I told you she wouldn’t be happy mate.” As he walked towards the truck, he winked at me and shrugged his shoulders. I looked at my bow and the gash in Jason’s head. “Oh no,” I said guiltily, feeling a little sick. Lara looked at my worried face. “He deserved it,” she stated angrily. “I would have done the same.”

  I shook my head. “It’s not that,” I said sadly. “It’s my bow, I think I broke it.”

  Mark started laughing and Lara joined in. “Hang on,” I said looking around, I realised someone was missing. “Where’s Lance?”

  Lara held up a walkie talky, “He went to get some supplies; he didn’t know what was happening because I dropped my one of these as I was running.” I visibly relaxed. “So, he’s ok?” I asked. “Yes, he is,” Lance said, coming up behind us and embracing Lara.