The Human Zoo (Book 4): The Ruin Nation

by Wood, Kolin

  Juliana remained, rooted to the spot at the turn of the corridor. The sobs had ceased with the sound of the voice, and with it, any clue as to the direction that she should be moving in. Any one of the many rooms could be holding the girl.

  Something caught her eye. A faint light source appeared in the frame, moving at about chest height, and panic immediately scrambled her brain. If they had light, then she would be easy to see; like a cat’s eye on a dark motorway.

  With her heart hammering in her chest, Juliana reached out in the direction she believed the wall to be. The rough block felt abrasive under her fingertips, and she forced herself forward until they traced the chipped edge of a doorway.

  Farther along the corridor, the light was still moving, growing bigger with every step. Juliana ducked inside, tripping on a pile of rubble just inside the threshold of the door. She fell painfully, and stifled a yell, almost squeezing down on the trigger of her gun in the process. Something sharp, most likely metal or glass, raked down the side of her calf but she ignored it, pressing her back tightly against the wall. Beads of sweat ran races down both sides of her face. The steps continued, their pace steady and almost march-like.

  The light drew closer, forcing the shadows to retreat into the corners of the room. Aware that she could now easily be seen, Juliana glanced around, desperately looking for somewhere better to hide. But the barren room offered her nothing of use.

  The rough slab grazed her back. Juliana slid down the wall and balled herself into a crouched position, trying her best to utilise the rubble pile as cover, the gun gripped tightly in front of her chest.

  Perhaps there are only a few of them, she thought in an attempt to calm herself. If so, the shotgun would see to them.

  More light filtered in as the soft padding of feet grew louder. It sounded as though they were right outside the room. Juliana counted down in her head and closed her eyes, pulling a long, deep breath in and then blowing it out slowly through her dry and pursed lips.

  What are you afraid of?

  She was not afraid to die. She still felt the same; every breath that she had drawn since the day of her kidnapping had been nothing but added time. Torturous time. Time without Michael and time without John. Momentarily, Tanner’s face popped into her mind. She liked him, but there would never be a substitute for the happiness that had been so unfairly ripped away from her all those years ago. Besides, she had absolutely no idea if he was even still alive.

  By now, the approaching light had dispelled all but the smallest patches of gloom. Juliana opened her eyes, and pointed the shaking barrel of the gun at the door opening, an adrenaline fuelled yell banging on the bars of her lips.

  First person in gets a face full of lead.

  But the person walked on past, and the shadows began to slink back out from the corners to reclaim the night. Juliana released the breath that she had been holding in her lungs and leaned her head back against the cold, stone block. She counted in seconds, trying to work out roughly, how many people were walking there.

  Four, five, six, seven…

  Seven seconds.

  Depending on the pace, that would give time for three people, four at the most, to walk past the room. Suddenly, the odds did not feel so stacked against her. The gun, which had only seconds ago felt like an oppressive weight in her arms, felt reassuringly sturdy again.

  Her thighs ached as she straightened, uncaring of the noise of the fabric of her jacket, as it dragged up the wall. The light around her continued to fade, and Juliana felt a renewed sense of confidence return.

  In these shadows, I’M the hunter, motherfuckers.

  Avoiding the rubble this time, she used the final glimmers to navigate over to the door and poked her head out in the direction of the assembly room. She watched as the group of indiscernible number, passed through the large, barren opening at the end of the corridor and moved away from her into the huge room. Suddenly the light went out—probably extinguished by the force of the wind—and everything was plunged into almost total darkness once again. Silently, she cursed herself for not seizing the moment and striking when their backs had been turned. Had she done so, she felt sure that the shotgun would have cut them all to pieces before the candle had time to hit the floor.

  The wind howled the same solemn note from some way off. Exhaustion climbed onto her, tugging at her limbs and it was then that heard it: that same sobbing sound of a girl crying.

  Confident that the people were out of earshot, Juliana dared to speak, her voice low and controlled.

  “Hello?”

  Instantly, the crying stopped.

  Juliana stepped from the room, out into the corridor, unsure of which way to turn. “Hello?” she tried again, this time trying to inflect some more of her own femininity into her voice to soften it. She twisted slowly to allow her ears the best chance of honing in on the sound.

  For a few seconds, she could not hear anything. Juliana stopped moving.

  “Hello?” A girl’s quiet, muted voice called out suddenly from somewhere close by. “Wh… whose there?”

  Juliana followed the sound, turning left to move deeper into the building, spearing the darkness with the double barrels of her rifle. At regular intervals she stopped to test the wall for a break until she found another doorway. “Are you in here?”

  A terrified voice cried out in panic. “Help me! Please!”

  Juliana spun and plunged into the shadows, desperate to reach the girl and quiet her before her cries alerted everybody in the building. With the gun in the crook of an arm, and one hand in front of her face, she walked until she estimated herself to be in the centre of the room and stopped.

  “Help!” The girl shouted, again.

  “Quiet!” Juliana hissed, inflecting more malice than intended.

  Immediately the crying stopped.

  “Listen,” she said. “I watched you come in here, with your friend. I’m here to help you, okay, but I don’t know what is going on, or who these people are… and I can’t see a bloody thing.”

  For a few seconds, nobody replied. When the voice came back, it was quiet and controlled. “There’s a candle, over here on the floor to my right. There’s matches too. He leaves them here.”

  Happy that the girl had enough mettle to grab a hold of herself but still blind, Juliana took a few slow and careful steps in the direction that she believed the voice to be. “Keep talking to me,” she said. “Nice and quiet.”

  “Wh… who are you?” the voice said, granting her more direction.

  “My name is Juliana,” she said. “I’m nobody.”

  She pressed forward, her fingers outstretched. Rustling sounded on the ground right in front of her and Juliana took a step to the side.

  “Almost there,” she said softly.

  By now she was so close that she could hear the girl’s breathing.

  Her fingertips touched the cold slab of the wall and she stopped.

  “That’s it,” the girl said. “Somewhere there on the floor.”

  Very carefully, and holding the gun pointed away from the sound of the girl’s voice, Juliana crouched down. She ran her fingers down to where the crease of the wall met the floor, and then scuffed the surface, first one way, and then the other, until she felt them bash against something.

  There.

  Reaching out, she discovered a partly-melted candle, and a small, cardboard box. Raising the box up to her ear, she shook it, and several matchsticks clattered around inside.

  “Found it,” she said, setting the candle back down on the floor and fumbling blindly for a match.

  One thing that the years of incarceration had taught her was the art of lighting a candle in the dark. With skilful precision, and extra careful not to waste what could be her one chance of light, Juliana lit the small wick on the first try. The poorly-made candle spluttered and spat as the flame struggled to take hold. Gradually, a small halo of light appeared. It grew bolder and more intense as the burning fibres of the wick
freed themselves from their wax bindings.

  The girl lay tied down on her back on the coarse, hard floor. Ropes encircled her wrists and ankles and pulled them above and below her, securing her in place with piles of heavy-looking concrete slabs. Bright, glassy, green eyes shimmering with tears looked up at Juliana from within a shock of bright red, curly hair. The girl’s clothing, a filthy-looking denim shirt and cut off shorts looked intact and, aside from a slight bruising on one cheek, she appeared to be unharmed.

  “Are you hurt?” Juliana asked, bending down to untie the rope binding the girls legs in place. “What’s your name?”

  “Becca,” the girl replied, her voice awash with relief. “And no, I’m not hurt.”

  Juliana struggled with the knot, eventually reaching with frustration into her pocket for the knife. The blade flashed in the candlelight, bringing a moment of panic to the girl’s eyes.

  “Becca,” Juliana panted as she proceeded to cut through the girl’s bindings, “I don’t know what the hell these guys are up to, but we need to get moving, now. I know the way out of here. Can you walk?”

  In response to the question, and with her arms now free, Becca sat up to rub her wrists. “I can walk, but I’m not going anywhere. Not without John.”

  Juliana was just about to protest when the sound of the name caught her off balance and stole the words from her tongue.

  “John?” she asked, her brow creased.

  Becca nodded as she pulled the last of the rope from her ankles. “Yeah, my friend, John. They have him, somewhere in here. I’m not leaving without him.”

  Juliana shuddered and cleared ridiculous thoughts from her mind. “But…”

  “No buts,” Becca said. “I’m sorry. Thank you for coming to save me but… I’m not leaving without him. I can’t.”

  Just then, a horrific sounding scream erupted from deep within the putrid bowls of the building. They continued into a broken howl that seemed to last forever, breaking only when the voice had no breath left with which to power it.

  Juliana turned to Becca and saw a fresh sliver of tears decorate her eyes.

  “That’s him,” she said. “That’s John.”

  Chapter 27

  The head, which was bald and yellow like a painted beach pebble, popped as the bullet hit just below the ear. The force of the blow sent the crazed man sprawling to the ground like a well-struck bowling pin, and left a hole the size of a fist in the side of his face.

  Methodically, Tanner lowered the gun, muzzle down between his knees, and cocked the bolt back. The spent cartridge hit the bare floorboards and rolled out of sight as the familiar, acrid smell of spent gunpowder crept into his nose. Without rushing, he re-set the bolt, raised the barrel up onto the windowsill and lowered his face until he could feel the warm wood against his cheek. The rifle was an older model, but strong and true; plenty good enough for a man with Tanner’s experience to wield with grace, and dish out a whole world of pain on anybody unlucky enough to be down the end of his sights.

  Over on the left hand side of the square, behind the fountain, the man with the plaid shirt was still alive. His hat had gone and his face was a mask of blood, but Tanner could see that he otherwise looked to be okay. In his hand, he still held Juliana’s rifle and wielded it with bone-crushing force at any of the things brave enough to come near him. Beyond him, crouched down and hidden beyond some hastily overturned tables and chairs, a group of injured men were being tended too by a rotund, elderly woman. A long plait of silver hair hung past her waist at the back, and her arms were covered in gore up to her elbows. Beside them, thrown together in a gruesome pile, a stack of bodies lay still and unmoving.

  Tanner continued to scan, past the fountain, to Paul’s Bar where he and Juliana had sat drinking only the previous evening. The tables and chairs were now all missing and the floor glistened with broken glass. Something moved by the bar itself, and Tanner reached up and over to refocus the sights with his good hand while still holding the gun at a squeeze between his chin and working shoulder. A pair of legs twitched violently from underneath the scarred top. Tanner watched repulsed as a crazed man suddenly appeared, chewing heartily on a string of bloody intestines which hung like a butcher’s sausage from either side of its mouth.

  Without thinking twice, Tanner aimed, breathed out, and squeezed on the trigger. The bullet struck in the dead centre of its chest, knocking the thing flying in a puff of blood. He cocked the bolt, drawing the sight back to the owner of the twitching legs, only to find them still.

  Ignoring the ache in his back and neck, Tanner straightened up, set the rifle between his legs and wiped a bead of sweat from between his eyes. Below him, the square seethed with people, like maggots in a discarded refuse bag. Devoid of ammunition, many of the city’s inhabitants who had stayed behind to protect their homes and families had resorted to fighting hand-to-hand, using knives and axes, or anything heavy enough to inflict damage. From the safety of the room, Tanner watched on, amazed as fathers and sons fought side by side with mothers and daughters.

  It’s been this way since the beginning of time, he thought, reaching for another bullet. We are animals, no matter how much we pretend otherwise.

  The burn in his shoulder had lessened to a faint warm glow, helped by the fresh bandages and several large slugs of the home brew. Tanner had managed to pull himself back from a state of near-total collapse and now, as he sat and picked apart the heads of the creatures below, he felt a huge twist of regret that he had not gone back with Charlie to help Juliana. Not that he didn’t trust his old friend—the pair of them had ridden through the gates of hell together and walked out smiling on the other side on numerous occasions. But Juliana had entrusted him to protect her and he had failed. In fact, it was her that had saved him, and on more than one occasion now. If nothing else, he owed her a debt. But it was too late to worry about it now. Charlie would be able to cover the ground quickly and, as much as it pained him to admit, he had two working arms.

  Incensed, Tanner loaded the next round quickly and reset the gun back on the sill. He picked a target and fired, whooping loudly as a body spun three hundred and sixty degrees and fell, the top of its shaved head missing and spurting blood like a freshly sprung fountain.

  Chapter 28

  The screaming had stopped. Juliana moved in a stooped run across the huge open space, her hair whipping needles at her face and her heart still pounding in her aching chest. She felt giddy, unsure as to the reason for her sudden weakness. Something in the scream had pierced right through her, like a needle through the chest of a voodoo doll, right into the very core of her soul. It infected her on the inside, like a possessed spirit, repeating the scream over and over.

  But she refused to allow her brain the chance to start playing tricks. She needed to be strong.

  The girl, Becca, followed behind her in a similar crouched run, her frizzy red hair now tied back tightly from her face. In her hand, she clutched the hunting knife, the same one that Juliana had taken from the body of the dead boy in the prison. Better to have the both of them armed, she had thought, than risk being caught out. Besides, Juliana had been able to tell almost straight away that Becca could cut the mustard when it came to looking after herself. She was only young, but she carried a look in her eye had already made Juliana feel better about the situation.

  Five against two; now, those are odds that I can handle.

  Juliana’s throbbing legs could not carry her fast enough as the pair raced through the foreboding shadows of the huge, crypt-like building. They crossed safely through the large hall, and soon found themselves at the doorway leading to the staircase. The screams told them that Becca’s friend, John, was still somewhere inside. The only question now was up or down?

  Crouched in the shadows just inside of the door, Juliana put a reassuring arm around Becca’s skinny shoulders. The rancid stench of vomit and decaying meat infected this part of the building like cancer. Through the thin material of the denim shirt, she co
uld feel the girl shivering. Not surprising, given the amount of body fat on her, Juliana thought; she’d seen more fat on a skeleton. The girl was pretty though, and not just in the usual way, but in a knock you off your feet striking way. Her green eyes shimmered with a wisdom way beyond her years.

  As Becca looked up at Juliana now, those green eyes bored holes into hers, just as Tanner’s had done the first night that she met him.

  “Which way?” Becca said.

  Juliana simply shook her head. The building was huge, and there was no time to be gambling on a direction and searching around like beetles in the dark. They needed a sign. As much as she hated to admit it, they needed John to scream again.

  For a few long seconds nothing happened. Then the sound of somebody hammering filled the silence. The scream that followed was long and haunting, less acute than the first but harrowing all the same. Juliana felt her blood freeze and her heart miss a beat in her chest. Beside her, Becca whimpered.

  “Oh god. What are they doing to him?”

  But Juliana did not answer. She was already up and moving, heading blindly down the staircase in the direction of the scream. The scream that made her skin crawl more than anything that she had ever known.

  The stairs levelled out into a landing and turned the corner, and Juliana stopped to wait for Becca to catch up. Another single flight of steps led down to the bottom where a thin, ghostly green light ran a strip across the floor.

  Curious, and with slower steps, Juliana continued down, covering her mouth to quiet the sound of her breathing and lessen the assault of the stench. A single, green glow-stick lay discarded against the wall at the bottom of the staircase, and Juliana stooped down to pick it up. She turned to face Becca, and the faint light cast an eerie hue over her lower face, making the darkness around them seem even more impenetrable.

  “Jesus,” Becca said, as her face contorted with disgust. “What in the hell is that?”

  Juliana spun, the green stick held out before her like a torch. She knew the reason for the smell without looking, yet the sight that met her caused her to shrink back in horror. Beside them, a pile of partly rotten and decomposing bodies lay twisted and broken in a heap. A swarm of feasting flies, their bodies engorged on rotting flesh, took flight. Disgusted, Juliana waved her arm to swat them away from her face. Shattered skulls with no eyeballs sat twisted on broken necks; mouths devoid of teeth or tongues, cried the unheard screams of the dead. This close up, the smell was so offensive, that it made her want to heave, and she straightened quickly before Becca could garner a closer look.