What will they do when there’s no one left?
Turn on each other?
Nick took one last, regretful look at Eve and began to wish that he had left her in the cupboard he had found her in. He had not rescued her. He had doomed her. She looked back at him, terrified, and seemed to be doing some last chance reflection herself.
Then she began to move.
In fact, Eve’s entire cable car had started to move. As Nick steadied himself against the walls of his own cabin, he realised that he was moving, too. The cable cars were working, moving up the suspension lines and scaling the hill.
“What’s happening?” Cassie asked. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “Why are we moving?”
“Someone has switched on the cable cars.” It was the only thing that made sense.
One of the cable car’s windows was pressed in and about to come lose completely, but it would all be okay now. They were moving away, rising up in the air where the mob could not reach them.
All, except one.
The large Asian man was hanging from the door and had managed to get one of his arms through the gap. He was clawing at them and trying to make his way inside as his legs dangled in mid-air.
The car continued climbing upwards, but their passenger held on.
Nick kicked at the Asian man’s arm, but the blow did not seem to register. He just snarled and clawed even more furiously as he tried to get at the passengers inside the car.
“Screw this,” said Jan. He took two steps backwards, against the opposite wall, and then leapt forward, delivering a hefty kick to the centre of the cabin’s metal door. Its rusty hinges gave way and the entire sheet of metal, along with its infected hanger-on, went plummeting to the ground below. Nick peered out the gap. The Asian man hit the muddy ground fifty feet below them and shattered. It looked as though every bone in his body had snapped off in the wrong direction. Despite that, the man was still moving around and trying to get up.
“They don’t give up, do they?” Nick commented, more to himself than the others. “It’s like they don’t feel pain.”
“Everything feels pain, man,” said Dash, standing up beside him.
Nick shook his head. For some reason, the infected did not. They didn’t feel anything except rage and hunger. They were animals, monsters. Demons. Nick finally accepted that the infected were beyond saving and that life was now purely about survival. He knew that understanding that would lead to a big change for all of them. No one would make it through the days ahead intact as the people they were before. They would be forced to adapt. Or they would die.
Nick finally accepted that James and Deana were gone.
And his entire life along with them.
I don’t even know who I am anymore.
Guess I’m going to find out.
Nick gazed down at the treetops passing by beneath the cable car as they ascended the hill. The woods were getting thicker the higher up they got. Once the snarling mob at the bottom of the hill was out of sight, the view was actually quite breathtaking. The woods seemed to go on forever; their autumn-coloured leaves were never-ending swirls of orange and red. One hundred feet above the ground and things were once again peaceful.
Nick was yanked backwards and thrown violently to the floor of the cable car. He shook his head, dazed and confused. “What the hell?”
Jan and Dash were standing over him.
I knew I couldn’t trust them. Now I’m going to pay for it.
Jan smashed Dash in the ribs with his fist, like a heavyweight boxer, knocking the wind out of the smaller man and doubling him over. Then he shoved Dash backwards, right through the open doorway.
Hundreds of feet in the air.
Nick leapt to his feet as Dash’s screams faded towards the ground below. The sound of him hitting the treetops and smashing through the branches was sickening. It wasn’t even clear if the snapping sounds were from tree limbs or Dash’s bones.
“What the hell did you just do?” Nick cried out.
“Saved your life,” said Jan calmly. “Dash was just about to send you on your merry way, before I decided that he was the one who ought to go. Just ask Cassie.”
Nick stared at Cassie, who was sitting nervously on the cabin’s bench. She nodded to him. “He’s telling the truth. Dash gave Jan a wink behind your back. He was about to push you out until Jan pulled you out of the way.”
“What? But why? Why would he want to kill me?”
Jan huffed, as if the answer were obvious. “Because he tried to take liberties with Cassie last night and you weren’t going to let it go. In fact, he was planning to get rid of Dave, too – Carl as well, if need be, but that kind of resolved itself when Kathryn reappeared.”
Nick sat down on the bench beside Cassie, feeling unsafe to be anywhere near the open door after what had just happened. “I don’t understand,” he said. “Weren’t you his friend?”
“Dash? That gangbanging piece of shit?” Jan shook his head. “No way. I just got stuck with him when the prison guards were killed and our transport was sprung.” He pointed at Renee who was silent as always. “Renee’s not a problem, but Dash was a degenerate. I seen him do some real nasty shit the last forty-eight hours. Me and Renee were already looking to ditch him when we ran into you and Eve in the woods.”
Nick looked at Cassie and frowned. “So, Jan didn’t, you know…hurt you?”
She shook her head solemnly. “No. Carl and I were fooling around in the kitchen. He was on top of me when something hit him from behind. It was Dash. He came at me and tore off my shirt. Then Jan came and stopped him.”
Jan shrugged. “Renee saw Dash get up in the night and go into the kitchen. He shook me awake. We knew he’d be up to no good, so I went after him. Turns out I was right. I caught him red-handed and told him to go back to the restaurant before I beat the hell out of him. Usually he’s not the type of guy to back down, but I think he understood I wasn’t playing around. Then you turned up, brother, and got the wrong idea.”
Nick looked at Cassie. “Why didn’t you tell me at the time?”
“Jan told me he would deal with Dash, but I had to keep quiet, otherwise Dash would hurt more people.”
“If everyone found out about it, Dash would have kicked-off. He’s a loose cannon. When I got back after my conversation with you, he wanted to know what was up and why you had got involved. I told him that you wanted answers. Dash wasn’t happy being told what he could and couldn’t do, so he told me he was going to take you out, along with Dave and Carl, then hole up with all the women at the restaurant.”
“You told him you’d help,” Nick surmised, flabbergasted by what he was hearing.
Jan nodded. “I did, yeah, but I planned to take him out first, or at least try to ditch him. Then the alarm woke everyone up and things kind of took on a life of their own. It wasn’t until we stated climbing this hill that an opportunity presented itself. Dash gave me a wink, letting me know he was about to take you out. So I took him out first. You can thank me later.”
“I’ll thank you now,” said Nick. “I owe you.”
“Don’t sweat it.”
“No,” said Nick. “I judged you wrong. I treated you like a criminal and that was unfair.”
“Not really. I am a criminal. In fact I was a pretty rotten piece of shit for a long time. Even my own son, Damien, didn’t want to know me after a while. He headed up north to set up a furniture business with a guy he met in a pub. Not seen him in years. I think losing the respect of my son was what made me want to sort myself out - and that’s exactly what I did. One day I’ll find my boy and make things better. Tell him I’m proud of him for finding his own way and not ending up like his old man.” For a second, Jan seemed to get teary, but he scratched at his beard, blinked, and then seemed okay again. “No, brother, I can honestly say that after eight years inside, my intentions have been pure for at least the last five. I’m not the same man I was when they put me inside. But that’s a story for a differen
t day.”
“Well, I hope one day you get to tell me all about it,” said Nick, standing up and moving over to the open door again. He kept safely to one side and peered out at the tree canopy below. It was so thick now that it was like a bed of leaves beneath them. Whatever fate had befallen Dash had been obscured by the thick foliage, and that was probably for the best. Nick had seen enough death for one morning.
The cable car reached the final third of its ascent and he squinted up at the approaching summit and the concrete platform that topped it. It was hard to be sure, but he thought he could see someone standing there, ready to receive them. That person must have been the one who had started the cable cars.
That person was their saviour.
But who the hell are they? he thought as the cable car neared the top of the hill.
Part Two: Top of the world
Chapter Twelve
28 hours earlier…
Annaliese washed her hands in the steel sink and watched the blood drain away with the cold water. The birth had been a success. Rita, one of the zoo’s Clydesdale horses, had delivered a healthy 80lb foal and seemed to be recovering well. Annaliese had provided very little assistance and had only been there to oversee the pregnancy and guide the birth. Now that it was over she was looking forward to getting back home and resuming the sleep she had been woken from at 3AM.
“That went really well, I thought,” said Bradley, Ripley Height’s resident veterinary nurse. It was he who had called Annaliese at home when Rita had gone into labour. Despite the lack of complications with the delivery, the young man had gone very pale. It was likely his first delivery. Everyone felt woozy the first time.
Annaliese smiled at Bradley, while also stifling a yawn. “Yes, it was completely by the book. Good stuff. You just need to make sure that Rita allows her foal to suckle, but other than that, nature should take care of itself.”
Bradley back at her – in fact he was beaming. He looked cute, like a boy with a new bike. “It was pretty bloody amazing, to tell the truth,” he said enthusiastically. “I’ve…I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“You’ll see many more births, trust me,” she said. “In fact, assisting a birth is one of the few parts of the job that never gets old. Bringing new life into the world is a gift; something that should never be taken for granted.”
Bradley nodded thoughtfully. “A gift, yeah. I know exactly what you mean. So, are you off back home now?”
She pulled her green woollen cardigan from a nearby clothes peg and wrapped it around herself. “Too blooming right I am. I’m exhausted. I’d only been in bed a few hours when I got your call.”
“One of the downsides of being a vet on call, huh?”
“The worst one,” she said. “I need my sleep. Always have.”
“Sorry I had to wake you. I couldn’t have done it without you, though. You were amazing.”
“It’s no problem.” She gave her hands one last rinse in the sink and wiped them dry on a towel. “I’ll be back here on Wednesday to do my monthly check-ups. Will you be here?”
“I’ll be around. As usual.”
Annaliese nodded. She respected the fact that Bradley lived on the park grounds and pretty much worked seven days a week – he was young, eager to gain experience, and truly loved his work – but she thought he’d be better off having some semblance of a life, too. He was a young, average-looking bloke with a good job. There was more to the world than a modest zoo on top of a hill.
“You should get out more,” she said. “You’ll end up working yourself to death before you’re thirty. You need to find a balance between work and life. Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream.”
Bradley raised any eyebrow. “Did you come up with that yourself?”
“No, John Lennon did, but if you can’t trust the Beatles, who can you trust? Just don’t work yourself to death.”
He shrugged. “I enjoy it. Tell you the truth, I sometimes like spending time with the animals more than I do people. Sad, huh?”
“A little bit; but I know what you mean.” She really did understand the peaceful tranquillity that being around animals brought, and how it was the total opposite of the stress and anxiety that being around people caused. “But that’s a dangerous road,” she added. “You’ll end up a hermit. Get yourself out on the town. Grab a drink and a girl, and be irresponsible for a night.”
“You fancy going with me?” he asked.
Annaliese spluttered at the unexpected question. “Me? I’m almost ten years older than you are. You can find far better company than me.”
“I don’t think so. I’d like to get to know you better.”
Annaliese was surprised. She had no idea that Bradley thought of her in such a way. She didn’t know what to say, or even how she felt about the suggestion. It had been years since she’d dated anybody.
For good reason.
I’m damaged goods.
“I…I’ll think about it, Bradley,” she said. “See you Wednesday.”
He seemed a little disappointed, but not devoid of all hope. In all honesty, she was not turning him down, just stalling for time while she considered her options. She never did anything without weighing up the pros and cons first. It was too easy in life to make mistakes and fill your head with regrets. She often thought fast, but she always thought smart.
She headed out of the stable’s washroom and stepped into the concrete corridor which led past the four stalls housing the zoo’s Clydesdales. The reek of oiled leather and musky smells filled the air.
Rita was lain down in the first stall, cleaning her mewing foal with her coarse tongue. The stallion, Cassius, was in the booth next to her, sniffing at the air with interest.
The proud father.
At the end of the corridor, she turned the deadbolt on the block’s exit door and stepped outside. The cold atmosphere of dawn pinched at her cheeks and slapped away some of her tiredness. It didn’t stop her from letting out a long, drawn-out yawn, or rubbing at the fuzziness behind her eyelids.
She glanced at her watch: it was 6AM. The birth had been a long one, even if not particularly complicated. She hoped she wasn’t too tired to drive. Rush hour would be approaching soon and she was feeling like a zombie, dead on her feet.
Let’s just be honest. I’m hungover.
What Annaliese had not told Bradley was the reason she had gotten so little sleep in the first place. She had passed out drunk at 1AM, alone in her flat, not even making it to her bed from the couch. It was the same way she ended most evenings, but they didn’t usually result in her being called out two hours later to attend a birth.
Why am I such a mess?
Huh, like I don’t know the answer to that question.
Still, it’s been three years…
It was her own fault. Annaliese had been a vet for seven years now and should have been used to being on call. It was part of her vocation. No different to a plumber getting shit on his hands. Just one of the downsides. All jobs had them.
She gave her shoulders a vigorous rub and got going. The sun was balancing on the horizon, chasing away the darkness with its amber glow. The various enclosures of the petting zoo were filled with sleeping animals that would soon awaken, or nocturnal species that were preparing for slumber. The silence of the night would soon give way to the snuffling of pigs and the bleating of goats. Not to mention the motorised whirring of the fairground rides that littered the park and would be operating soon.
Up ahead were the zoo’s only truly exotic inhabitants: a small family of orang-utans that had been donated to the park several years ago by a failing Scottish zoo. It was a mystery why the owners had ever accepted to house the pair of primates when all they were prepared for at the time were the various domestic animals at the petting zoo. Annaliese imagined they saw it as a lucrative tourist attraction to compliment the park’s various rides and amusements. It was an immoral way to view such magnificent creatures, but at least time and money had bee
n spent ensuring the orang-utans were given a suitable habitat. Their half-acre plot at Ripley Heights put their former Scottish habitat to shame. Eventually the two primates had even been content enough to breed. They had a one-year old infant male with them now.
They’re a little family, she thought with a degree of melancholy that could even have been jealousy.
Jealous of an orang-utan. That’s a new low.
She decided to stop for a moment and take in the beauty of the animals before she reached her car and headed home. The female, Lily, was currently awake. She was cradling her sleeping infant on the large, grassy mound that sloped down on all sides into a dug-out moat. It was landscaped in such a way as to prevent escape. The walls around the moat were a good fifteen feet high from inside the enclosure. At the rear of the space was a green-painted bungalow that offered the primates a warmer refuge during winter and was also an ingress point for the zoo’s staff to enter the enclosure.
Annaliese waved at Lily and was moved when the female orang-utan waved right back at her. It wasn’t so much a surprise, as Lily was often receptive to humans, happy to interact, but it was still a heart-warming experience to be looked upon and acknowledged by such a magnificent being.
She scanned the enclosure for Lily’s mate, Brick, and found him sprawled out in the habitat’s mangrove tree. He was sleeping soundly and every few seconds one of his limp legs would flinch and jump. His snores filled the air.
Lily gave Annaliese a bemused look as she held her baby that seemed to suggest she was thinking, men, huh?
Annalise grinned. I hear ya.
Her Prius was located in the staff car park that was up top, rather than the public one down below by the Rainforest Café. She hated the narrow, two mile road that would take her down the hill and back to the lower altitudes of the nearby villages. She wanted to get going sooner rather than later to tackle it. The longer she waited the more tired she would become.
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