Ravage: An Apocalyptic Horror Novel

by Iain Rob Wright

  chapter ten

  When Nick opened his eyes he was back at home, standing in his kitchen. Deana stood at the sink, washing dishes with her back to him. James lay on the cold tiles, staring up at the ceiling as if he was paralysed.

  James, what are you doing on the floor?

  Nick stepped forward and looked down at his son. He tried to speak to him, to tell him to get up, but no sound escaped his lips. When he pressed his fingers to his face he realised that it was because he had no lips. There was only coarse scar tissue where his mouth should have been.

  Oh God…

  Deana turned around to face Nick. Her face was mouth-less, too. Her eyes were wet with blood and crimson tears stained her cheeks. In her hand she held a claw hammer. She offered it to him. For some reason he could not stop himself from taking it. He held the heavy hammer in his hand and spun around as if he were suspended by invisible wires. He was powerless to take control of his own body as he took two strides across the kitchen floor and knelt beside his son’s paralysed body.

  James continued staring up at the ceiling, blinking occasionally, but never moving.

  Nick raised the hammer above his head – he stared into his son’s eyes – then brought it down with all of his strength. It struck James right between the eyebrows, caving in part of his skull and filling his eye sockets with blood.

  Nick felt sick, horrified by what he had done.

  He raised the hammer again.

  This time he struck his son in the mouth, shattering his small teeth into tiny shards. James choked and spluttered as he struck with the hammer again, shattering his jaw completely and sending it sideways.

  Nick wanted to die, to stop existing, and escape the abominable fate of destroying his son’s beautiful face.

  He raised the hammer again.

  Nick swung the hammer downwards, again and again, spraying blood and bone fragments into the air and coating everything with gore as he split apart flesh and mashed up brain matter. By the time he was through, there was nothing left of James but a lumpy, red residue on the grimy kitchen tiles.

  He had just killed his son.

  Again.

  And Nick knew that he would keep on doing the exact same thing every night when he closed his eyes. Sleep would never again come easy.

  In his dreams, he looked over at his wife pleadingly. This time Deana was facing him. She held a chef’s knife in her hand. Again, Nick was powerless as he took it from her.

  When he turned back around, James’s face was back to how it had been, untouched by the vicious blows of the hammer; once again innocent and beautiful.

  Nick knelt down and got back to work.

  He raised the knife.

  ***

  Nick’s eyes snapped open. His breathing was wet and ragged, hurting his chest as it forced its way from his lungs. He was surrounded by darkness, not full black but more of a floating gloom. When he saw the moon through the windows, he remembered where he was – he remembered everything.

  Oh God. James, Deana. What the hell happened to my life? It just went away in the blink of an eye.

  He sat up a little too quickly and thought he was going to throw up. The taste of cheap burger meat rose up and filled his gullet. Then he heard something and spotted that the lights were on in the kitchen area behind the counters.

  In the darkness, he could see the fuzzy shapes of Eve and Pauline sleeping nearby. Whoever was in the kitchen, it wasn’t them.

  Then who?

  He rolled onto his knees and rose slowly to his feet. After what everybody had been through, he did not want to wake anybody up unjustly.

  The sounds continued. As he headed over to the gap in the service counter, it seemed like somebody was weeping.

  What the hell?

  Is somebody crying?

  Nick kept his footsteps slow and careful. He slid between the various cookers and countertops and tried not to make a sound. For some reason he felt compelled to creep, to keep his approach clandestine.

  At the far end of the kitchen was an L-shaped corridor where the fridges were located. Peeking out from around that corner was a pair of legs. The feet sported heavy work boots that Nick thought he recognised.

  I know whose boots those are.

  Nick rounded the corner to see Carl lying face down on the floor. There was no blood and it was not immediately apparent what had happened to him. He could even have been sleeping, but somehow Nick knew it wasn’t true. He knew it for sure when he spotted Jan standing over Cassie while the girl cowered on the floor without her shirt.

  Jan’s eyes immediately went wide when he noticed Nick’s presence. He quickly put his hands up in submission, holding them high above his head. “This isn’t what it looks like, brother,” he said.

  “You have no idea what this fucking looks like,” Nick growled. He looked down at Cassie, who was visibly stricken by whatever event had just transpired, and then shook his head in disgust. “Cassie, it’s okay. Come over here, to me.”

  For a second it looked like she might refuse, but then she clambered to her feet shakily and scuttled over to him. Nick placed her behind him.

  Jan stared Cassie hard in the eye as she cowered behind Nick. “You remember what we spoke about, sweetheart, okay?”

  “You don’t talk to her,” Nick said. “You don’t say a word to her, you understand me?”

  Jan shook his head. “You got this all wrong, brother.”

  “The only thing I got wrong was letting a bunch of criminals tag along with us. Soon as the sun is up, you’re gone. When the others hear about this they’re going to lynch you.”

  Jan laughed, his barrel chest heaving in and out. “Who? You and Dave? Don’t make me shit myself!”

  Nick shoved out at Jan angrily, but found himself swatted aside like a measly fly. The larger man punched him in the ribs and then shoved him aside with ease. Nick flopped to his knees, clutching his abdomen. His lungs felt like they might explode as he fought desperately to catch a breath.

  Jan strode forwards and shoved him backwards with a large right foot. He glared down at Nick as though he were a child. “We’ll talk about this in the morning,” he said, “and we’ll see who gets lynched.”

  Then the large man turned and walked away. As he did so, he looked Cassie in the eye again. “You just keep quiet and things will sort themselves out, sweetheart. Trust me.”

  Nick managed to catch a strangled breath and roll onto his side. He shuddered in pain. Cassie came up beside him and helped him to his feet. Her shirt was rolled up on the floor and she hastily picked it up and put it back on over her white, satin bra. Then it was as if she had suddenly remembered that Carl was unconscious. She dropped to her knees beside him and patted his cheeks. “Wake up,” she pleaded.

  Carl began to moan. His eyes fluttered open slowly. “W-what happened? My head feels like a Skoda parked on it.”

  “I think you got struck from behind,” Nick explained. “By Jan.”

  “Motherfu-“

  “Don’t worry about it for now,” said Cassie in a soothing voice. “We can talk about it tomorrow. Let’s just go and get some sleep.”

  Together they picked Carl up off the floor and started dragging him towards the restaurant floor. He was still pretty much out of it, but was gradually regaining his senses.

  “What the hell happened?” Nick asked Cassie.

  She shook her head. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Jesus, Cassie. Don’t listen to what that son of a bitch told you. It’s okay now, you’re safe. You can tell me what happened.”

  Cassie huffed as they got Carl down onto the floor beside the service counter. “None of us is safe anymore. We’re all screwed.”

  Nick didn’t want to argue with the girl and Cassie obviously didn’t want to talk about what had happened; at least not right now. There was no point prodding her.

  “Okay,” he whispered to her. “Get some sleep and we’ll talk in the morning. Don’t go wandering
off anywhere, okay? Stay close.”

  Nick headed back towards his spot between Eve and Pauline. He looked around for Jan and the other prisoners as he went. The three of them were huddled together on the floor by the restaurant’s exit doors. Jan seemed to be having a heated discussion with Dash, but both lowered their voices when they noticed Nick’s presence.

  What are they talking about? Are they plotting something?

  Nick settled back onto his spot on the floor and took a deep breath. His breathing was still laboured after the punch Jan had delivered to his ribs. The guy was big – huge – no doubt about it, and if it came down to violence Nick wasn’t confident what the outcome would be.

  “Hey,” said Eve in a whisper. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” he lied to her. “I’ll tell you about it in the morning. Just make sure you and Pauline don’t go anywhere in the night without letting me know first.”

  Eve shuffled across the floor so that she was only inches away from him. “Okay,” she said. “Same goes for you. No sneaking off again without telling me first.”

  “Deal.”

  Nick stared up at the ceiling and wondered what the morning would bring.

  Chapter Eleven

  The alarm woke everyone.

  Nick leapt to his feet in an instant. His heart beat like the footsteps of a thousand sprinters. He spun around on the spot, disorientated and confused.

  “What’s happening?” Eve cried out from the floor.

  “I don’t know. Something tripped the alarms.” Nick grabbed his coat up of the floor and put it on quickly.

  “But I thought Dash turned them off,” said Pauline, hurrying to her feet along with Eve.

  Nick looked over and saw that Dash, Jan, and Renee were still huddled in the corner by the doors. They seemed just as confused as everybody else. But that didn’t mean they knew nothing. He marched over to the prisoners and pointed his finger at them. “Did you do this?”

  Dash shook his head. “Do what, man? Why would we set off the alarms?”

  “I can’t imagine why you do most of the things you do. Why is it going off again? I thought you disconnected it?”

  “Nah, man. I just smashed up the console and shut off the intruder alert. The alarm is still intact. I just cut the link between the broken window and the siren. It was an ancient piece of shit. Piece of cake.”

  Nick shook his head in despair. “So what set it off again?”

  Dave came storming out of the ‘STAFF ONLY’ door, shouting and cursing. “What’s going on? Why is the alarm going off again? And why is all the power off?”

  “There’s your answer,” Dash said to Nick. “If the power went out then the security system probably went over to a battery system or something. It tripped the alarm all over again.”

  “So what do we do?” Nick demanded.

  “Disconnect the battery power and the whole system will be dead.”

  “Well, we need to do it quickly before any infected people find their way to us.”

  “Nick?” Eve tapped him on the shoulder.

  “Not now, Eve.”

  “Nick!”

  He shot her an irritated glance. “What?”

  “I think that ship might have sailed.”

  Nick spun around to see what she was talking about. It soon became very clear.

  Standing at the many windows of the café, peering in with their bloodshot, swollen eyes were dozens and dozens of infected people.

  Carl shook his head frantically. “We…are…screwed.”

  All at once, the infected mob burst in through the windows. Their bodies hit the ground clumsily, embedding themselves with shards of glass. But they got back to their feet quickly.

  It felt like the room was closing in.

  “Everybody get out of here!” Nick screamed at the top of his lungs. “Run for it.”

  Everybody bolted, but there was no way out of the restaurant – all the doors and windows were blocked by the infected – so they made instinctively for the only barrier they could find: the fast food service counter.

  “Into the kitchen,” yelled Carl. “There’s a fire exit at the back.”

  The infected screeched as they gave chase, clambering up and over the counter in a flood of limbs. Nick and the others rounded the L-shaped corridor of the kitchen and wasted no time in gathering up against the fire exit that Carl had promised them was there. Jan leapt into the air and kicked the push-bar that crossed the door’s centre and it flew open with a clatter. The air rushed in from outside; it was crisp and cold.

  “Everyone outside,” Dave ordered.

  Jan stood in the doorway, holding it open and ushering everyone out. Nick waited whilst the women funnelled through, ready to shoot out right after them.

  But it was then that he realised someone was missing.

  “Shit!” he said. “I have to go get Margaret. She’ll still be in the staffroom.”

  “Leave her,” Dave said. “You’ve got no way to reach her.”

  Nick stood still, tempted to fight his way back through the kitchen and into the restaurant. But the infected were everywhere. In fact, they were rounding the corner right now and closing in on the fire exit.

  Jan grabbed a hold of Nick and pulled him through the doorway. Dave immediately slammed the door shut behind them. The infected mob clattered against the other side, beating at it furiously.

  It had been close, but they had all made it out, with only milliseconds to spare. Nick let his shoulders drop as he looked back at the locked door. Everyone except Margaret. We left the poor woman to die.

  I’m sorry.

  Everyone was huddled at the back of the steep hill, behind the café. They were currently hidden from the car park, and from the lethal monsters that were loitering there.

  “We have to go,” said Dave, “before they realise that we’re back here.”

  Nick shook his head. “We can’t just leave Margaret behind. She might still be alive in there.”

  Dave shrugged. “You do whatever you have to, but the rest of us are getting out of here.”

  Eve gave Nick a pleading look. “We have to get out of here before they find us. You can’t help her.”

  “You go with everyone else,” he told her. “I’ll catch up with you.”

  Eve shook her head vigorously. “No way. You have to come with us.”

  “I will. Just get going.” She went to argue with him but he didn’t let her. “Just go!”

  Everyone clambered up the hill, struggling through the undergrowth and heading back towards the woods they’d arrived from yesterday. Nick watched them go, but was surprised to see that Jan was still standing there beside him.

  “What the hell are you doing? Get out of here.”

  “I figured you could use a hand.”

  “I don’t want your help.”

  “Well, maybe the old dear inside does. You selfish enough to turn me away when a woman’s life is at stake?”

  Nick huffed. “Fine, let’s just do this.”

  He pressed his back against the building. There was no way inside the fire exit, but he knew that the staffroom had a window. If he could find it, he might be able to get Margaret out.

  Jan followed Nick as he moved cautiously around the building. The keening pitch of the security alarm was deafening, which made it impossible to hear what was around the next corner.

  I could be walking right into a whole bunch of them.

  He stopped at the edge of the building’s rear wall and prepared himself to peek around the corner.

  “Be careful,” said Jan. “Those things see you and they come at you like heat-seeking missiles.”

  “I know. I’ve seen enough of them.”

  Slowly, inch-by-inch, he leaned around the corner, searching for the nearest threat. He soon pulled his head back and cursed. “Damn it! There must be at least a dozen of them around there.”

  Jan scratched his beard. “I have an idea.”

  Nick sighed. �
�What?”

  Jan looked upwards at the building’s roof. “It’s a single story. With a boost I should be able to get up there; create a distraction for you.”

  “But, then, how do you get down again without them getting you?”

  He shrugged. “One thing at a time, brother. You in?”

  Nick thought about it and then nodded. “Okay. Let’s do it.” He threaded his fingers together and made a platform for Jan to step on, before hoisting the large man upwards. “Jesus Christ, you weigh the same as an elephant.”

  Jan dangled for a second and then heaved himself up in a finely executed pull-up. At the top, he straightened up and brushed the dust from his knees. “Only two things to do in prison,” he said, looking down at Nick from the roof. “Educate one’s mind and exercise one’s body. You ready? I’ll try and get them to follow me around to the other end of the building so that you can get the old dear free and clear.”

  Nick nodded, but kept a serious look on his face. “You know we’re still going to have that conversation about what happened to Cassie?”

  “Looking forward it,” said Jan as he raced off to the opposite side of the roof.

  Nick waited and listened for the distraction.

  “COME ON, YOU STINKING ARSEHOLES. COME GET IT!”

  Nick decided that was his cue. He peeked back around the corner to see that the infected gathered there had turned around and were now racing to the other side of the building. The coast was clear.

  He hurried around the next wall, peering inside each window as he passed. After looking into the kitchen, and then into the manager’s office, he found the window that led to the staffroom.

  There was no sign of Margaret.

  Damn it.

  He tapped on the glass lightly. “Margaret! Margaret, are you in there?”

  She appeared from her hiding place behind the room’s sofa and Nick sighed relief. She trotted up to the window and seemed glad to see him.