“Looks like we’re on our way, then. Let’s get started.”
Nick vaulted the basketball midway game and begun pulling stuffed dinosaurs down off the shelves. He threw them out so that they landed in a loose pile on the pavement.
Annaliese entered through the back of the Arabian Derby and started grabbing the biggest plush toys she could find. There would be more than enough to use as pillows.
“We’re going to need a bag or something to carry this stuff back,” he shouted over to her. “Any ideas?”
“The gift shop. It might sell tote bags.”
“Let’s go check it out. We can look for the ponchos at the same time.”
Nick vaulted back out of the basketball game and joined Annaliese on the pavement. She led him towards the gift shop and was grateful that she had once visited the park with her husband back when they were courting. It was useful knowing her way around the theme park area of Ripley Heights.
The gift shop was up ahead and themed like a fairytale cottage. Nick picked up a rock from a nearby flowerbed and let fly with it. It smashed out a window of the shop.
“That’s how you guys do this, right?”
Annaliese laughed. “Nowadays we do. Got to tell you, though, I really miss using doors.”
“I miss a lot of things,” said Nick. “I miss crap television and pop music.”
“Huh!”
Nick looked at her. “What?”
“Nothing. It’s just that those are the things I miss, too. Aren’t you supposed to missing football and the pub?”
“Hey! Way to stereotype me. I’m not really that kind of guy. I’m more wine and a movie at home with the wife. At least…I used to be.”
“Come on,” she said, changing the subject. “Let’s get inside.”
They climbed through the broken window of the gift shop and headed inside.
“Fantastic,” she said, heading straight for a hanger full of souvenir hoodies. “These should keep us all warm.”
“And here are the ponchos,” said Nick, thumbing through a folded-up pile of plastic sheets. “They’ve got souvenir towels over there as well.”
“And here are the tote bags.”
Nick laughed. “Well, that was easy. Makes me wonder when something’s going to go wrong.”
There was an explosion.
It shook the floor beneath them.
But it came from far away.
Both of Nick’s eyebrows were stretched high and Annaliese thought he looked a little like a shocked clown. “What the hell was that?” he asked her.
She shook her head and chewed at the side of her mouth. “I don’t know. We should go check it out.”
She hopped back out through the window and told Nick to hurry after her. There were still aftershocks coming from whatever had exploded in the distance and several continuing mini-explosions made it quite easy to pinpoint the direction. She headed towards the edge of the park, back to where the cable car station was located.
“What are you going to do?” Nick shouted after her. It’s not like we can go down the hill to investigate.”
Annaliese skidded on her heels as she headed around the park’s Magic Carpet carousel and arrived at the cable car station. From there she had an unobstructed view from the top of the hill to the landscape below.
Nick bumped into the back of her. His jaw dropped open. “Hell’s bloody bells.”
Hell is a good word for it.
Annaliese was holding her breath and she suddenly let it out as the pressure in her lungs increased. In the distance, past the woods and forests that surrounded Ripley Heights was a nearby village. Annaliese could just about make out the spire of a church there. The whole place was in flames, for at least a square mile. The fires blazed from a hundred different sources. Some licked at the sky for hundreds of feet. As she scanned the horizon she saw other distant villages ablaze also. It was as if the earth was burning.
“It’s all over,” said Nick. “Totally over.”
Annaliese couldn’t argue. Civilisation was burning. For all she knew they were the last human beings still left alive.
And they were stuck on a hill with nothing to do but await their own deaths.
“What do you think is happening down there?” Annaliese asked Nick in a whisper. Shock would allow her to speak no louder.
“I guess a petrol station went up or something. This whole area is pretty wooded. One place probably went up in flames and set the whole area on fire.”
“What if the fire makes it over here?”
Nick sighed. “Then I guess that’ll be the end of the last safe place on Earth.”
Annaliese felt herself crying. Doesn’t feel so safe to me.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Looking out at the blazing remains of civilisation was a surreal experience. Common sense suggested that Nick should be on his knees, weeping and crying out in desperation, but all he found himself doing was staring. The level of horror was so high that something inside his brain kicked in; a defence mechanism designed to keep his mind calm…keep him sane amongst the insanity.
Annaliese stood next to him and was staring with the same numb expression. Suddenly, she pointed something out. “Look,” she said. “They’re moving away.”
Nick looked down the hill at the car park. Like a herd of grazing buffalo, the massive horde of infected people had begun to turn around and face the direction of the flaming village on the horizon. A factory in the distance ignited and went up in a gulf of orange flame and obsidian smoke.
“It’s the explosions,” Nick said. “It’s leading them away.”
“That makes sense. They operate off sight and sound. They’re heading for all the noise. We might actually be about to catch a break here.”
Nick took one last look at the infected, funnelling away into the distance, and then turned to look at Annaliese. “Let’s get what we need and tell the others.”
“Okay, let’s head back to the gift shop and load up the tote bags.”
“Ready when you are.”
They headed back to the gift shop and got to work. They loaded up the tote bags with the plastic ponchos and hoodies. There was so much stock that they ended up looking like pack mules as they struggled to carry all of the tote bags. The last thing they gathered up were the plush toys from the midway games that they could use as pillows.
“This should be more than enough,” said Nick, peering over the top of his load.
Annaliese agreed and they started to make their way back towards the restaurant. With tote bags wrapped around both of his arms and a pile of plush toys balanced in front of him, Nick was having a tough time seeing. It made him think about how Deana used to make fun of the way he would always be so determined to get all the shopping bags from the boot of the car to the house in one single trip.
Guess I haven’t changed completely.
Up ahead, he heard rustling. It sounded like Annaliese was heading into the hedges that ringed the park’s outer pathways. He was just about to ask her what she was doing when he heard her cry out.
Nick dropped the bags he was carrying and looked around frantically. As he did so, he ended up treading on a stuffed dolphin. His ankle twisted and he cried out in pain.
Annaliese was struggling on her back with an infected on top of her. There was a second infected person coming out of the bushes; a Chinese guy with broken spectacles.
Shit! What do I do?
Nick knew that if the infected Chinese man made it over to Annaliese he would have no problem sinking his teeth into her as she struggled with the woman. Nick would have to take the man down first.
Here goes nothing.
With a rapidly swelling ankle, he lolloped towards the Chinese man and leapt into the air. He planted a sloppy flying kick in the best impression of Bruce Lee that he could manage. The man went stumbling backwards into the bushes and Nick landed and hissed out in pain. He spun around to see that Annaliese had the infected woman around the throat and
was trying to bring up her knees as a barrier between them.
Nick went to help her.
He grabbed the infected woman around the waist and tugged her backwards. At the same time, Annaliese kicked out her legs and struck the woman’s abdomen. The extra momentum sent Nick reeling backwards to the floor with his arms still wrapped around the woman’s waist. He held on tightly as Annaliese hurried to her feet.
“Keep her there,” she shouted.
“Yeah, no problem,” said Nick, sarcastically.
Annaliese disappeared out of sight. The infected woman thrashed about in Nick’s arms. He suddenly felt alone…abandoned.
Then Annaliese reappeared and dove at the infected woman in his arms. She swung her arm and cracked the woman across the face. Nick felt the body go limp and quickly dumped it to the side. He scurried back to his feet and saw that Annaliese held a jagged rock in her hand. It dripped with blood.
“Very effective,” he said. “Think you can-”
Annaliese’s eyes went wide.
Nick was tackled from behind by the infected Chinese man. He fell to the floor face down and struck his head on the pavement. Immediately his vision dimmed and his hearing buzzed as though his ears were full of flies.
He was hardly aware of what happened next as he lay on the floor impotently. Sounds of a desperate struggle ensued, but he was unable to do anything.
I need to help, Anna.
Or she needs to help me.
There was a wet sound.
And then silence.
Nick was still dazed when the struggling stopped. He wanted to roll onto his back and see what was happening, but every time he tried to move, a wave of nausea flooded over him. His head clanged like a kettle drum.
I think I’m going to puke.
A hand clamped down on his wrist and squeezed. The breath caught in his chest as he lay there, still powerless.
“Come on,” Annaliese told him. “I handled it.”
Nick blinked and tried to stop his vision from tilting. He took a few deep breaths before he was able to place his palms on the pavement and push himself up. Annaliese helped him to his knees and then, slowly, onto his feet.
He wobbled a bit and she grabbed a hold of him. “Whoa, you okay? You took a pretty big bang on the head, there. I can already see the swelling coming up.”
“I don’t feel right, I…” His words trailed off as he saw the blood pouring from Annaliese’s neck. He reached out a hand, but then stopped himself.
Her blood could be infected. Don’t touch it!
Annaliese stepped away from his grasp and frowned. She followed his gaze and looked down at her shoulder. She saw the blood there and her mouth dropped open.
“Oh, no,” she said. “No, no, no.”
Nick stepped forward and put his hands on both her shoulders. Suddenly his headache was gone, replaced by trepidation and fear. He caught Annaliese’s gaze and looked her dead in the eye. “Are you bit?” he asked her. But she didn’t seem to hear the question and stared into space. “I said, are you bitten?
“I…I don’t know.”
Nick shook his head. “Damn it!”
Annaliese began unclasping the buttons of her shirt and tugged the material away from her neck and shoulder. Nick leant forward to examine her wound.
Damn it, damn it, damn it.
There was a lot of blood. It was bright red and already clotting. It wasn’t from a deep wound, but that wouldn’t matter if it was from a bite. Nick followed the bleeding to its source, until it became clear what they were dealing with.
I can’t believe it.
He stepped away from her and let out a sigh.
Annaliese eyes went impossibly wide. “What?” she pleaded. “Am I bitten?”
Nick shook his head and stepped closer to her. He reached a hand around her neck and plucked something from a gash he had discovered on the back of her shoulder.
Annaliese flinched. “Shit! What was that?”
Nick held the sharp twig out in front of her and watched the relief take over her. He couldn’t help but laugh with relief. “It was sticking right out of you. It was in pretty deep, but there’s no bite.”
Annaliese put a hand to her forehead and rubbed. “Thank God! I must have landed on it when the infected woman took me down to the ground. Jeez, that was close.”
“What were they doing up here anyway?” he asked her, hoping she would have an answer.
“They must have followed you up in the cable car,” she said. “Climbed up the hill after you.”
Nick looked around anxiously, eyeing the treeline that surrounded the park and led down the hill. “You think there are more?”
Annaliese shrugged. “I bet there are more in the trees, but if we get out of sight they should all head back down towards the village with the others. These two must have been nearby when the explosions happened. They probably already had us in their sights.”
Nick looked down at the scattered items they had been carrying back to the restaurant. Then he looked back up at Annaliese. “I think that once we get all this stuff back, our only priority for now should be getting this place secure. The infected may be heading away for now, but I’m sure more will come by eventually.”
Annaliese nodded her head, staring at the ground as she thought about things. “We need to make this place a fortress.”
“Either that,” said Nick. “Or we need to start watching our backs every second.”
Chapter Thirty
Almost three weeks had passed since the decision was made to dig in five-hundred feet above the ground. Nick was grateful for stumbling upon the survivors at Ripley Heights. He knew he would be dead if he hadn’t.
Several more infected people had found their way into the park grounds over the days that followed. They quickly lost Greg to one of them. He had been checking out the woods when an infected man dressed in a Royal Mail uniform jumped out at him and took him to the ground. He was dead before anybody could get to him.
The group had mourned Greg’s loss and had shared a common regret that nobody knew him well. It just made everyone feel even luckier to still be alive.
Dave had hunted down most of the infected in the nearby woods after that, by himself. He took them out with his chef’s knife and came back every night covered in blood. The man now kept the blade constantly strapped to his waist like Rambo.
It had now been more than four days since any infected had been spotted inside the park. Things had finally begun to feel a little safer. The makeshift walls, fences, and barriers that they had erected in key areas also added to that feeling of security.
Still, it was far from ideal living. The power had finally failed and the water pressure was getting lower each day. They no longer used any of the park’s toilets and had taken to finding their own individual spots in the woods. It was a degrading devolution of their once civil habits. They now had to go shit in the woods like any other animal. Human superiority had been reduced to nothing.
Now that everyone had time to think and rest up a little, a dark mood had fallen over the group. They each began to mourn the losses of both their previous life and their all of their friends and loved ones. Nick, too, had become morose as the full weight of what had happened finally washed over him. He would often wander off on his own, just to cry. Never again would he see his wife and son. He would never even get to see a photograph of them. All he had were the rapidly fading images in his mind. He would never get to play football with James or make love to Deana. They were both gone. Forever. The burden of that loss had tarnished his soul. He was no longer the man he used to be.
No longer a man at all.
In the last few days, the group had formed a ‘camp’ around the Big Dog restaurant. They had erected a waist-high wire fence around a large portion of the grounds, separating the steep decline of the surrounding hill from the level pathways of the park. It was not high enough to stop any infected entering, but it would at least slow them down. The least sec
ured place in the whole park was the access road that led down the hill to the nearby villages. It was located by Ripley Hall. Nick and Alan had done their best to block it off with a portable candy floss stand and a ride-on lawnmower they had found in the warehouse, but it wasn’t ideal.
But, as things went, they were in as good a position as they could be. The burning villages in the distance made clear that any remnant or morsel of safety was a true privilege. To still be alive after all that had happened was a lottery win.
“Hey, man, you’re never going to believe this,” said Mike.
Nick shook his head and frowned. “Believe what?”
Mike grinned. “Just come.”
Nick followed him towards the zoo. The group had not spent much time amongst the animals, but Anna had been making sure they were all fed and watered. Nobody said it, but they all knew that the animals would probably end up as food eventually; none of them wanted to get too attached.
Much harder to eat a pig with a name.
Mike led Nick past the pig stys and up to a large enclosure with a big fat tree in its centre, then he stopped and looked at him as though there was supposed to be something obvious he was seeing.
Nick shrugged his shoulders. “What?”
Mike sighed and pointed. “You blind, or what?”
When Nick finally saw it, his mouth dropped open. “Wow! Is that real?”
“Course it’s real.”
Nick stared up at the Orang-utan perched in the trees and could barely believe it. It was hanging around as if it were no different than a common grey squirrel. Nick supposed that the animal belonged to the zoo and had somehow gotten loose?”
“Is it…dangerous?” Nick asked.
“Beats me,” said Mike. “Alan has run off to get Anna. She’ll know what to do.”
Nick eased himself down onto the floor and sat on a patch of grass. He propped his head up on his hands and gazed at the copper-coloured creature in the treetops.
Amazing.
The orang-utan stared down at the assembled group with something approaching disinterest. It seemed completely at home in the trees and was no doubt satisfied to have such freedom after having been enclosed in the zoo for what may have been its entire lifetime.
Ravage: An Apocalyptic Horror Novel Page 26
