Ravage: An Apocalyptic Horror Novel

by Iain Rob Wright

  Nick shook his head in despair at the loss of Jan, but he seemed to find the resolve he needed to continue. He and Renee made a last-ditch effort to get to the truck.

  Come on, guys. You can make it.

  Just as Nick and Renee were getting close, a scream startled everyone inside the truck. Annaliese craned her neck and saw through the rear window that Michelle had snapped out of her daze and was now standing up and screaming hysterically at the dead all around her. As soon as they spotted her they turned and headed for the truck.

  “Damn it,” said Eve. “They’re coming this way.”

  The first of the dead reached into the truck and grabbed at Michelle’s ankles. Annaliese watched, powerless, as she was dragged kicking and screaming into the crowd. She disappeared so fast that it was as if she were sinking into a sea. One minute she was there, the next she was just another part of the ever-moving mob.

  Nick and Renee made it to the truck, slumping up against its side with exhaustion.

  “In the back,” Annaliese shouted to them. “Get in the back.”

  The truck bounced on its suspension as the two men leapt onto the cargo shelf. The dead clawed at them, trying to drag them back out again.

  Time to go.

  Annaliese stepped on the accelerator. The truck bolted forward.

  Stalled.

  A body leapt onto the bonnet and thumped at the broken windscreen. Annaliese cursed out loud and got the engine back in gear. She tried to pull off again and was relieved when the vehicle shot forward and picked up speed.

  Glad I still know how to drive.

  More bodies fell beneath the wheels and the truck whined unhappily under the additional stress. It was never designed to drive over bodies.

  “Where do we go?” Eve asked. “They’re everywhere.”

  The dead were indeed everywhere, and that was just the ones from the house. When the ones from the bottom of the hill arrived, there would be zero chance of escape.

  “We need to head for the access road just past the house,” Annaliese told her passengers. “It leads down the hill and into the towns. It’s how the staff and delivery drivers used to come and go.”

  Eve took a breath and nodded. Annaliese could feel the younger woman shaking beside her. In the rear view mirror she could see Nick and Renee fighting to hold on. Despite not wanting to, she slowed down. She didn’t want to lose the two men off the back.

  “Wait!” said Eve.

  Annaliese turned to her. “What? What is it?”

  “We need supplies or we won’t last the week.”

  “We have to go. We have no choice.”

  “What if we can’t find food…or water?”

  Something occurred to Annaliese. Something that made her point the truck towards the woods. “Hold on,” she said. “I know where we can get supplies, but we’ll have to be quick.”

  She took the truck off into the treeline at the edge of the park. It was hard work steering the truck through the woods in the dark, but there was no choice to drive slowly. She knew the dead would be everywhere within the hour. Eve was right, though: they needed supplies if they had any chance of surviving on the road.

  She had to concentrate hard to try and remember the way she had come when she fled the greenhouse. When the truck broke through the trees and entered into the open area of the crop field, she knew her memory had served her correctly.

  We might just do this.

  Something jumped out in front of the truck and Annaliese turned sharply to avoid it. The tires skidded in the muddy ruts and came to a violent stop.

  “What the hell was that?” Eve asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Annaliese, peering out of her side window. “There was somebody in the road, but I can’t see anything.”

  A man jumped up against the glass.

  “It’s one of them,” Pauline cried.

  Annaliese stared out of her window felt her heart turn to stone. She recognised the man outside.

  “It’s Mike,” she said, feeling sick to her tummy.

  Everyone in the truck was silent. They had all liked Mike.

  “Oh, thank God. Anna!”

  Annaliese’s eyes went wide and her breath caught in her lungs. She stared at Mike with disbelief. “You’re alive?”

  Mike nodded. “Of course I am. I could use a doctor, though, or maybe a good vet. Do you know any?”

  Annaliese opened up her door and fell out on top of him, wrapping her arms tightly around his waist. “I thought you were one of them.”

  Mike winced. “Ow, ow. Easy.”

  Annaliese back away and looked down at Mike stomach wound. “How did you…”

  Mike pulled up his shirt to show a layer of blood-soaked magazines. “He still got me pretty good, but the armour took most of the damage. That guy who jumped us gave me a right beating before he left, though. It wasn’t until I saw the fireworks that I even found the strength to move or even know where to go. I take it the dead are coming?”

  She nodded. Mike looked an absolute mess, but should be alright with rest. “Get in the back with Nick and Renee,” she said. “We’re getting supplies and then getting the hell out of here.”

  Mike headed around to the back of the truck and the other men helped him up. Annaliese hopped back in the driver’s seat and got them all moving again. The greenhouse would be just up ahead.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  The truck pulled into an area Nick didn’t recognise. There was a large, rectangular greenhouse in the centre of the clearing and rows and rows of planters either side of it. Even from outside he could see the glass building was piled high with supplies.

  The truck stopped and Annaliese got out. “Okay everyone,” she said. “Grab as much as you can as quickly as you can. Who knows when we’ll have a chance to get more.”

  They all hopped out the truck and got to work. Nick went into the greenhouse before Annaliese, and together the entire group formed a line, passing out boxes and moving them down towards the flatbed. There was plenty of bottled soft drinks and water, along with bags and bags of dried seeds and nuts meant for the animals. What they didn’t have much of was time. Nick had least of all.

  Seconds ticking away.

  Within ten minutes the back of the truck was fully loaded with supplies and there were several more boxes on the front seats ready to go on passenger’s laps.

  Nick stood beside the truck and waited for everybody to gather. All of them now had weapons again; various gardening implements they had found in the greenhouse. He himself had armed up with a shovel. Not that he needed it.

  “Okay,” Annaliese said, opening up the driver’s side door and readying herself to get in. “This is it. Time to go see what’s left of the world. I can’t say we have much chance of making it, but we’re going to do our best. The people in front of me right now are the people I am glad are here; the people I trust. No matter what happens, I just want to thank you all for reminding me what family is.”

  Everybody stood in silence and seemed to think about that. In some perverted way they were all family.

  I’m going to miss them.

  Nick took the opportunity to say goodbye. He cleared his throat and moved to the centre of the group. “I just want to thank you all as well,” he said. “You gave me something to live for after everything else I had was gone.” He looked at Eve. “You especially, Eve. If I hadn’t met you I probably would have given up before the first night was through. My son would have liked you.” He chuckled. “My wife….not so much.”

  Eve laughed. “Come on, that’s enough sappiness for one day. We have to get going.”

  “Not me,” said Nick.

  Eve frowned at him. “What are you talking about?”

  “I just can’t go with you.”

  “Why not?”

  Renee came and stood in front of Nick and looked him in the eyes suspiciously. Something obviously dawned on the other man because his eyebrows went high on his forehead. “He is bitten.”<
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  “No he isn’t,” Eve said, rolling her eyes and scoffing.

  Nick rolled up the sleeve of his woollen jacket and showed revealed the ragged bite wound on his wrist. “They got me back at the house, just before we lost Jan.”

  Renee looked down at the ground for a moment and then back up at Nick. He had tears in his eyes. “I am sorry, my friend.”

  Nick sighed. “Yeah, me too.”

  Eve started crying, too. She went up to Nick and hugged him tightly. “I don’t think I can leave without you.”

  Nick hugged her back. “Yes, you can. You have no choice. You’re a survivor, Eve. That’s why you’re still here. You just keep on surviving, okay?”

  Eve backed away from him and nodded. She was clearly trying to hold herself together. Her lips were pursed tightly together as she fought away her emotions.

  Nick took off his woollen jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. “You take this,” he said. “It’s going to get cold soon.”

  Eve smiled at him, despite the tears rolling down her cheeks. “It smells like you.”

  Nick waved a hand. “Now go on. Get out of here before I try to eat you all.”

  Teary-eyed, but knowing what must be done, everyone started climbing back into the truck. Nick took the time to say his goodbyes to Anna.

  “Sorry it went down this way,” she said to him.

  “Me too, but somebody has to stay behind to let the animals free anyway. Can’t leave them caged up to starve to death, can we?”

  Annaliese smiled. “I feel better knowing they’ll be free. Thank you.”

  “You just look after everyone, you hear me?”

  Annaliese snapped off a salute. “I promise.” Then she got into the truck and started the engine.

  Nick turned around to look for Pauline. He couldn’t let her leave without saying goodbye. She and Eve had been with him since the beginning.

  He spotted her over at the edge of the woods, pulling up some carrots from a plot and dumping them into a sack. Nick saw the danger before she did.

  But it was too late.

  Two dead men came out of the bushes and grabbed Pauline by her arms. The one on her left took a deep bite from her neck.

  “Nooo!” Nick sprinted towards her, holding up the shovel he had armed himself with. He reached the edge of the clearing and smashed the shovel against the two dead men’s skulls, one after the other. Both of them fell to the ground dead. Pauline fell to the floor beside them. Blood pumped from her neck and soaked the grass. Her eyes were still open and staring at Nick.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  She smiled and then went still. Nick was glad it was the expression she died with.

  I’m sorry I didn’t turn around faster.

  Nick looked back at the truck. The others were all staring in horror. He waved a hand at them. “Go! Get out of here,” he shouted. “More will be coming and you won’t get another chance to leave.”

  They all stared sadly for a moment, but then Annaliese faced front and got the truck moving. She took it slowly at first, but eventually sped up and headed into the woods. Nick sat down on the grass and watched the truck disappear into the trees. He really was going to miss them all, but he wouldn’t trade things for the world. Soon he would be back with his wife and son.

  He lay back on the grass, looked up at the stars, and wondered what Heaven would be like. And if he would ever get there.

  Epilogue

  Nick had needed to work fast to get all of the animals free in time. A moment longer and the dead would have swarmed over him, having finally made their way from the grounds around Ripley Hall.

  The various animals had run wild as soon as he’d let them loose. The dead just ignored them. It was as if anything other than a human being was invisible to them. Hopefully, the animals would find a way to survive. The world was now free of men hunting them and using them for food. Maybe, if anything, the world would at least be better for the animals.

  Once he had finished opening up all the enclosures, Nick had climbed up onto the roof of the orang-utan exhibit. The zoo now teemed with the dead and the rooftop was one of the only safe places left. Now he just sat peacefully, watching the dead wander about aimlessly while he waited for the end.

  Nick could already feel himself changing. A deep exhaustion had fallen over him and his vision had taken on an unnatural orange tint, almost like he was seeing everything through a sepia filter. His internal organs felt heavy, like all movement inside of him had ground to a halt. He felt as though he was dead already, but that his mind was just a little slow in catching on.

  Above all else, however, he felt at peace. He could finally stop running, stop fighting, stop surviving. Really, his life had ended the moment his son had died. Now he could finally move on, to whatever fate had lined up for him next.

  Thud!

  Nick turned around. He did not flinch or even worry. Nothing could frighten him anymore. Fear only existed with the possibility of loss. He had already lost all he could

  Sitting on the roof behind him was Lily. She had leapt from a nearby tree. She hooted at him as she shuffled nearer. Nick saw that she held a carrot in her hand. It looked suspiciously like the ones he had seen at the greenhouse.

  Lily reached out and offered the vegetable. Nick laughed but shook his head. “No, thanks. It would just be wasted on me. You eat it, Lily.”

  As if understanding, Lily sat down beside him and took a hefty bite out of the carrot. Nick reached over and patted her fur.

  “You can’t stay here for long, Lily. I’m sick, and eventually I’ll become dangerous. I think you understand that. For now, though, I’m glad you’re here. I hope you make it out of this mess better than me.”

  There was silence for a while and Nick stared of into the distance. The sun was beginning to rise above the horizon like a ball on a string. It was his last morning on Earth and he was feeling pretty damn good. The very notion was absurd, but it was true.

  “You think they’ll be okay out there?” he asked Lily. He was thinking about Eve and the others. Their chance of finding safety seemed pretty slim, but at least there was a chance. He could still hope for them. “You think they’ll keep on surviving?”

  Lily hooted.

  “Yeah.” Nick nodded and smile. “That’s what I think, too.”

  With a smile on his face, Nick lay back and watched the sun rise. A few minutes later, he rose with it.

  The End

  Path of Infection

  SEA SICK

  Daniel Houser staggered into Southampton General hospital and found his way to reception. A weary-looking nurse peered back at him from behind an ancient CRT monitor. Her spectacles were lopsided, which may have been because her ears were not level.

  “Can I help you?” she asked, quite obviously forcing a smile.

  Houser cleared the fiery gravel from the back of his throat and nodded. “Something’s wrong with me. I think I have the flu or something…but worse.”

  The nurse gave him a curious look, as if silently pitying him for assuming he could possibly make a correct diagnosis of himself. “Okay,” she said. “Fill out this form and I will have someone come see you shortly.”

  Houser took the form and selected a seat in the waiting area. He was glad to see that the form was only a single page long, but even the thought of filling that out felt like too much. He was so…weak.

  What on earth did I catch?

  He plucked the stubby pencil from the top of the clipboard and began filling out the questionnaire. His hand was frustratingly unsteady.

  NAME: Daniel Houser

  DOB: 05/12/198

  RACE: White British

  Houser filled out the rest of his details, including his parent’s address where he could be reached, and then got down to a box marked: SYMPTOMS. With blunt pencil marks, he wrote: headache, blocked nose, sneezing, itchy eyes, aching joints, stomach pain, throbbing ears, dizziness…

  Before Houser had chance to write
down more of his symptoms, a slender woman in a doctor’s coat entered the waiting room. He struggled to his feet to catch up to her before she left. She turned and smiled when she spotted him approaching. The name on her badge read: Clark.

  “Hello, sir. Can I help you?”

  “I…I need to see someone.”

  The doctor looked past Houser, at the chairs behind him. No one else seemed to be waiting for the moment, so she nodded. “Okay. Is that your information?”

  Houser handed over the clipboard.

  “Come this way.” Dr Clark led Houser into a nearby examination room. She pointed to a treatment table in the centre. It was lined with recycled paper from a roller at one end. “Hop on up,” she said. “Let’s take a look at you.”

  Houser failed to get himself up the few inches onto the table and it took him a second attempt to climb up onto its surface.

  So weak.

  The doctor headed over to a cluttered desk in the corner of the room and examined the clipboard he had given to her. After a few moments of checking his information, she turned to face him and tutted. “We are feeling quite under the weather, aren’t we?”

  Houser nodded. “I’ve never felt this bad in my life. I feel rough as hell.”

  “Well, my name is Dr Clark. Let me see what I can do for you.” She pulled the stethoscope from around her neck and placed the receiver against his chest by going up under his t-shirt. “Hmm,” she said. “Your heart rate is a little fast. Have you taken any drugs or alcohol in the last twenty-four hours?”

  “I…smoked a bit of weed to take the edge of my headache.”

  She nodded. The admission of guilt was obviously uninteresting in her line of work. “That could explain it,” she said. “When did you start feeling ill?”

  “Couple days ago. Some of the guys I work with started feeling bad, too. We assumed it was a bug going round. You get sick a lot living on a boat.”

  The doctor raised an eyebrow at him. “You live on a boat?”

  Houser nodded. “I’m a merchant sailor. We just docked in Southampton after a salvage operation in the Med.”