Surviving The Ravenous

by King, Christine

  Jason, Lara and I squeezed in the front cab of the van, we decided it was the best thing to use because it had quite a lot of space and we put buckets and containers into the back of it, some of which we filled with water and first aid stuff.

  Chapter 7 – Fire

  The fast drive towards the pier was quiet; we hardly said anything as we left the castle far behind and raced towards the smoke of the distant fire. Each of us was caught up in our own thoughts, and I was terrified about what we might encounter. I was also concerned that we wouldn’t be able to help and that if the fire was indeed at the pier, we would find our friends hurt or dead. The time seemed to drag; we were all getting more and more tense as we realised the fire wasn’t a cottage on fire or something less scary. As we began the descent to the seafront, we could see it was the pier that was ablaze, Lara gasped, and I felt my stomach knot. The rides had flames licking all around them; smoke billowed into the sky and orange flashes raced across our vision. We parked as close as we could without the smoke compromising our vision and piled out of the van, I could feel the warmth as soon as we emerged from the cool interior. The flames seemed to be a mass of yellow spitting heat, rising up against us as we checked our surroundings for ravenous. Seeing no movement in the empty streets; I kept watch near the truck as Jason and Lara ran towards the pier. The fire could attract ravenous, so I was not taking any chances, and I loaded my weapon in readiness. Even from where I stood beside the van the heat of the flames was intense, black smoke filled the air and I hoped Lara and Jason would be careful. I looked out at the deserted shop fronts bathed in golden light; it would almost be beautiful if it wasn’t so terrifying and horrendous. It seemed like an age before I saw a figure emerge from the smoke and heat; I felt exhilaration when I saw it was Jason; he had a person over each shoulder. He bent down and dropped them on the ground, calling out to me between coughs and wheezes. I abandoned my post and ran over to drag the first figure towards the van as Jason headed back into the flames. Looking down at the body I was dragging I realised it was Tessa her blonde hair was singed, and the back of her dress was melted to her, I couldn’t tell if she was breathing but I had no time to check for vital signs. I pulled her bodily into the van, laying her on the cold metal floor and putting her into the recovery position, I tried to be conscious of where her skin was burnt but I was also trying to hurry, then I ran back to the second figure.

  I was sure it was Geeta from the size. She seemed to have nasty burns to her face and hands, which made identifying her difficult. I lifted her frail frame and carefully placed her next to her mother in the back. She seemed to be breathing, but I wasn’t sure. Running back towards the pier I could see Lara beating out some flaming rags on the ground, I rushed to her side, and only then could I see that the rags were actually another body on the ground. Lara was hitting at it with her jacket and I knelt down and began to roll the person to help put out the fire, their body was so hot to the touch that it burnt my hands and the flames licked at my skin causing blisters to form. As I rolled the person over, I could see it was Jarl, he had his eyes wide open and knew he was dead. I pulled Lara away, shaking my head and coughing as I breathed in the acrid smoke. Lara went to run back, but I stopped her and dragged her towards the van. She tried to pull away, confused, but I got my breath back and said “Look” as I pointed down the street. The ravenous were coming, hundreds of them, they were running towards us. I could see the outline of running figures all heading our way in the light from the blaze and although they were quite far away, they were moving with a lot of speed, I knew it was unlikely to be anything but ravenous, the chance of that many survivors coming to help was pretty slim, it had to be ravenous. Lara cocked her gun and waved me away; I opened the back door of the van, hearing Lara starting to shoot at the closest ravenous. Climbing in with Geeta and Tessa I grabbed two sheets and poured water from the bucket over them, carefully I placed the sheets over their bodies and as I finished Jason ran up supporting Siam. He pushed him into the van and shut the doors, shouting at Lara to get in. Lara stopped shooting and opening the side door she jumped into the driver’s seat. As she shut the door we speed off. Siam was badly burnt, one of his arms looked black and cracked, and he was yelling loudly for us to turn around. “My father, my brother,” he kept repeating. I tried to cover him with a wet towel, but he pushed me away and knelt by his mother. “Will she live?” He asked, trying to listen for her breathing. I couldn’t answer as I was still coughing from the smoke. I could hear Jason in the front shouting at Lara in a croaky voice. “Some are still following, head into the village.” The van raced around a corner and I found myself thrown into Siam’s lap. He cried out as I brushed against his burns, but I had nothing to hold on to, “sorry” I tried to say but he wasn’t listening he was holding his mother’s arm with his good hand and kept looking towards Geeta with eyes full of fear, pain, and worry.

  The van finally came to a halt and Lara climbed over the front seats to help me. We used some of the water to clean Tessa and Geeta’s burns, but Siam was still pushing us away and repeating. “Help them first.”

  Geeta was breathing, but it was laboured, Tessa was awake and groaning in agony.

  “We have to get back to the castle,” I said trying to keep Tessa still, Jason opened the van door and checked outside.

  “I think we lost them,” he said coming back in “I didn’t want us to lead them straight to the others, let’s head back now and hope for the best.” He moved across to the driver’s side, started the van and we drove quickly towards the castle.

  As we arrived Mark lowered the drawbridge. He had obviously been keeping watch for us. We waited for it to open all the way and then drove the truck into the castle grounds. As Mark raised the bridge back up, I opened the van’s back door and Siam jumped down holding his badly burned arm. Ali came running out with wet towels. We wrapped up Geeta and carried her gently into the main house. Siam followed allowing Ali to loosely place a wet cloth over his arm, Mark was asking him questions about Del and Haliem, but he seemed unable to answer.

  Jason brought in Tessa and we all gathered round to see what we could do to help. I gave Tessa and Siam strong pain killers and we placed Geeta in a tin bath full of water. I knew we couldn’t waste the water and in my mind, I had already earmarked it for crop watering later; it surprised me that I could think of such things in the midst of this horrific situation but I think it was my mind’s way of coping. Carefully we cut away Geeta’s melted clothing. She wriggled but didn’t wake as we tried to keep her body in the water. The burns she had weren’t that substantial once we removed her blackened garments and cleaned the soot from her skin, her face was black with smoke and as we cleaned it away, we could see the blisters slowly forming on her mouth and cheeks. I left Lara holding her in the bath and went to help Tessa remove her dress. She had a few nasty burns to her back, and I removed the melted material from the reddened areas, trying not to cause her too much pain. I gave her a loose-fitting wet shirt to cover herself with and asked her what had happened.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered, her voice barely registering, “last night everything was fine and then Del had an argument with Haliem, they went outside together,” she began to cough so I waited patiently and gave her some sips of water. She pushed away the bottle and continued. “A little later he came back but said Del was going to try for the castle. Jarl was angry at this and said that it was a stupid idea; he made Haliem go after her. They came back after a while, but Del was sulky. She refused to eat with us, hardly spoke, and when we all headed to bed, she took a blanket and slept by the door. We all went to sleep but I guess Haliem smelt the smoke and woke us all up, I could see the flames coming into the building. I don’t know where it started, I am sure I had put out the stove, and we had no candles burning. Jarl tried to put it out, but it had spread along the planks and was getting out of control. Our way out was getting blocked. I grabbed Geeta and ran out of the building. Smoke was everywhere. I pulled her to the ga
p in the planking and tried to get the bridge in place so we could cross to the mainland, but it was too heavy. Siam had to come and help. I tried to make him come across with us, but he wanted to help his father. He ran back to the building and told us to go across. I felt the flames on my back, and I tried to protect Geeta; we stayed low and inched our way over the bridge. Then I think I blacked out, when I came to, I was in the van with you…… Where is my husband? Did Haliem and Del make it?” I looked at the ground and mumbled that we had found no trace of Haliem or Del, but that Jarl hadn’t made it. Tessa began to dry sob, and I wanted to comfort her, but I couldn’t hold her with the burns on her back and shoulders. I made soothing noises and held her hand while she hung her head in sorrow.

  Siam came over and sat near his mother, “I didn’t see Del, but I think Haliem jumped into the water. Perhaps Del followed him,” he said hopefully.

  Tessa looked up with a slight smile. “Perhaps they are ok?” she half asked. I knew that if they had come up on the beach, they would have met the hordes of ravenous that had swept the area. Their chance of survival was low at best, but I didn’t say anything to Tessa or Siam as they had been through enough and who was I to take away their hope. We grabbed the last of the bottles of water from the gift shop and made everyone drink as much as they could. The coughing subsided, and our heads began to clear.

  Mark explained to Ali that her sister was missing, but that there was a chance she had survived, Ali looked fraught and Mark promised that once we had seen to the others, we would send out a search party for Del and Haliem.

  The sky lightened as we tended to our friends' burns; I hadn’t realised so much time had passed. As morning came Tessa and Siam fell into a fitful sleep induced by the painkillers. They needed constant supervision so that they didn’t make the burns worse or pull off their bandages. Geeta was still resting, but we had moved her from the tub of water onto one of the beds. It finally rained, a blessing from above and we all ran around putting out containers to catch the water, I stood in it for a few moments letting it wash away the smoke and dirt from the fire. Rain was a blessed relief, and it would be great for our crops and our dwindling supply of fresh water. We all silently hoped that it had put out the pier fire and that Del and Haliem had managed somehow to survive. I knew Ali would be praying for her sister’s safe return, and I put aside my petty dislike of Del and sent up a prayer for their survival.

  Once the containers were out and had started to fill with water, we were all tired beyond reasoning; we left Geeta and Tessa with Siam in the large communal area then we all fell into our beds trying not to think of our other friend’s fates and of what the next day would bring.

  Chapter 8 – Ravenous

  We woke up a few hours later; the rain had stopped; but no one had been on watch, Mark ran up one of the turrets and then called us up after him. Lara, Jason and I headed up knowing it couldn’t be good, as we arrived and looked over the top we could see movement and with a sinking feeling we began to observe the crowd below, about twelve ravenous had started to mill about outside the castle, I wondered if they had followed us. They walked around in the bright sunlight; they seemed to stay away from areas of the grass that were still damp from the earlier shower and they stayed away from the moat, but I could tell the ground was drying out fast as they began ripping at the grass and trying to knock over the trees. We stood and watched them for a while; they seemed to know we were inside. Mark set up shooters in each of the four turrets and we tried to pick them off. We didn’t use Lara’s gun as we had hardly any shells left for it, but we used some of Jason’s arrows. They were not quite as accurate as shop brought ones, but we hit a few of the ravenous. It was hard work and after a few hours we had only had three real successes and it was even more worrying that additional ravenous kept turning up. Already another six had joined, and they began to stagger around the castle, trying to find a way in that didn’t require them to go near the moat. Lara wanted to use the shotgun, but Mark insisted “Arrows only, we may need the limited supply of your ammunition when we are in a real fix”.

  Geeta awoke, and Tessa had to tell her about her father. We could hear her wailing with grief all around the castle. Siam went up to help to bandage his sister in clingfilm, and I gave them all a dose of our makeshift antibiotics to help stop any infections.

  Jason still had a cough from all the smoke he had inhaled, so I made him take it easy. We wondered if we didn’t make any noise or show ourselves, they might just go away. Lara spent the day entertaining Adam and keeping him away from the battlements. We didn’t want him to see the growing hordes outside. We tried to get on quietly with daily life, but it was distracting knowing they were out there. Ali made a great dinner and even Geeta who was confined to bed rest enjoyed it. We moved her to her own room, so she had more privacy. Siam and Tessa stayed upstairs with Geeta most of the day. We let them be a family and thought it was best to leave them alone to grieve together.

  As darkness came, we all gathered in our usual room, Ali lit the fire and we sat in silence eating and thinking about the threat outside. Tessa came down and collected some food. She thanked us again for all we had done and took up some clean bandages and painkillers. Lara went to help and when she came back down she had tears in her eyes “Geeta is finding it hard to talk,” she said wiping her eyes “She has some nasty blisters and kept calling me Lala as she can’t pronounce Lara.” I saw a few tears fall and got up to comfort her but she stepped back and shook her head, “If that little girl can be so brave, I can too,” I nodded and took Adam to get some water for hot drinks before bed. Mark and Jason took it in turns to check outside but reported back that there was no real change, Adam fell asleep and we all headed to bed with our watch rota set. I was awake for a long time before I could finally nod off, I couldn’t turn off my brain. I kept thinking about being trapped in this castle forever and how long it would take for everyone to blame me. I had fitful dreams where Mark and Jason threw me outside for the ravenous to feed on, and I woke up with a shout when Jason shook me gently to let me know it was my turn to watch. He asked me what was wrong, and I told him about my dream and how much I was to blame for the situation, telling me not to be silly, he kissed my face and held me for a while. As he held me, he mumbled plans for our future into my ear and I felt a little better and ready to face the others, so I got up, kissed him goodbye, and headed to the nearest turret. It was chilly outside, and the stone felt cool on my hands as I climbed the tower. The moonlight shone down making the ravenous almost glow, I could see they were still running about, some had dead animals that they were chewing on; some had things in their hands that looked like body parts. I tried to focus and without being seen I shot a few arrows at them, but I only managed to shoot a couple in the leg and one in the stomach. That wouldn’t stop them; I knew it had to be a killing shot to do any damage. Mark came and relieved me as the sky began to lighten; I told him what I had seen and how many shots had connected. He patted me on the back and took up his station.

  I didn’t feel much like sleeping, so I headed to the living room; Tessa was already there, starting breakfast. She moved stiffly and had on a dress with the back cut out to try to stop anything rubbing against her burns. I began to help her, and we chatted about how well Geeta and Siam were doing. I checked her burns and could see a large blister which I hoped was a good sign as it surely meant they were healing. As the others began to come down, we had made porridge with dried milk powder and set the table ready for them. It was very tasty. Adam poured some honey into his and asked for seconds; Jason enjoyed the porridge and started looking around for any leftovers. Tessa took some upstairs to Geeta and Siam came down and helped me to move furniture about and to sort through things we might use. Even with one arm functioning, he was eager to help. As we worked, he came up with a good idea about trying to clear out the ravenous. “How about we set fire to some cloth tied around arrows and shoot a few of the horde outside that might make them all catch fire?” I thought i
t was worth a shot, and so we headed to the turret together. Siam lit the arrows as I fired. We almost shouted in delight as the first one caught on the ravenous clothes and began to burn. Lara came up attracted by the noise; she looked impressed at the idea and started to shoot some arrows herself. At first, it seemed to be working really well. Their clothing caught fire and as they passed others the flames spread. We began to celebrate, Lara kept saying, “That’s for Lance,” as another and another burnt. But the flames began to die out, and the ravenous seemed to be too soggy with blood and other body fluids to burn with just a small flame, their clothing burnt away but their flesh just scorched and blackened a little and then the fire simply went out. It was not going to work; we needed an accelerant or some way of getting them all at once. We had neither, petrol was the best thing we had, but how could we douse them all, it was impossible.

  The day continued at a slow pace, outside of the castle forecourt was a no go area, clothes laid around unwashed as we couldn’t gather water from the well to clean them and the river was obviously out of bounds, the plough that we had left out there was being destroyed by the ravenous as they bumped into it and tried to bite at the wood. More ravenous seemed to be turning up by the hour; it was as if they could smell us or hear us from great distances. I stood around wishing for rain as that might clear them all away, but the sky remained cloudless and sunny. I watched them as they wandered about biting at each other and the trees; they seemed to only bite the trees if they wandered into one and if they sat down their hands automatically ripped at the ground and stuffed it into their mouths. Most of them had overhanging bellies, and I actually saw one fall over, I assume dead as he didn’t move again, his insides must have been so clogged from all he was eating. They defecated over themselves and wandered through their own filth, humanity at its lowest and least human. It repulsed me.