Savage: An Apocalyptic Horror Novel

by Wright, Iain Rob

  Yip!

  “Just watching the world go by, huh? You and me both. Boys together, no? We must spend our time thinking so that we are best able to protect our delicate young ladies.”

  The little dog hopped down from the roof and came to Hugo’s side, wagging its tail like a maniac. The six-year old dog was a good companion for the girls, but it was heart-breaking to see the animal without a field in sight on which to run and chase a ball.

  Hugo patted the dog again. “One day things will be different. You might be a very old dog by then, but I promise you that you will once again get to run amongst the pigeons.”

  Yip!

  Out across the Channel, the Kirkland cast a vast shadow against the twilight background. Its thick cannons and spindly radars jutted out at sharp angles and made the mighty vessel’s silhouette seem like it belonged to some exotic beast. Hugo wondered what the captain was doing right now.

  Hugo had met Samuel Raymeady only once, early on, when the captain had assembled a man from each ship of the fleet and introduced himself, although it was unnecessary. Everybody knew who Samuel Raymeady was. The richest man in the world. Who’d have thought a businessman would be responsible for saving so many lives. I used to think the man was greedy with all his money and power, but how wrong I was. He is a saint.

  At the time, the men and women who had come aboard the Kirkland were broken and battered, some of them dying from wounds and infection. Samuel had assured them all that they were now all safe. The world had plummeted into the abyss, but they had survived extinction. They would survive upon the sea, regain their strength, and retake the earth one day. He promised them salvation, and from the fire in his voice and the passion on his face, Hugo believed every word of the man. Samuel Raymeady was their saviour.

  As Hugo thought about how grateful he was, his mind inevitably turned to his losses. His wife, Patricia, had not survived the infection. She had come home from work sick one day and gone straight to bed. Hugo had nursed her as best he could and left his job as an accountant to pick up the girls from school. It had seemed no different to the flu, that night. The next morning Hugo had awoken to find his wife in the en suite. She was raving and mad. When she tried to claw and bite at him, he had smothered her in a blanket and lay on top of her. When Daphne and Sophie called to him, he shouted back that school was cancelled and that they could go watch television. Hugo restrained his wife for almost three hours, pleading with her calm down, but she was like a wild animal beneath the sheet.

  Then she had fallen into a coma. Nothing he did could wake her. He sprinted into the kitchen and grabbed the phone, but when he called emergency services, the line was busy. That was when his precious daughters came and told him that all of the cartoons were cancelled and that the news had come on every channel. Hugo had watched the reports for twenty minutes, barely blinking and barely breathing. He had taken his daughters and ran. That day seemed so long ago. I wonder whatever came of my darling, Patricia. I hope she is in peace.

  As Hugo stared out at the Kirkland’s long silhouette, he noticed that it seemed to be wheeling around and pointing back towards the English coast. Other boats were turning around as well.

  “Are we on the move, Houdini? Are the fishermen displeased with this spot or is there bigger intrigue afoot?”

  The fleet often travelled, yet sparingly. Fuel was at a premium and not all of the boats had sails. Hugo placed a hand over his brow and tried to see past the glare of the setting sun. He spotted the signal off the Kirkland’s starboard bow. A small Coast Guard ship that remained ever close to the frigate had hoisted a flag upon its tall radio tower. The flag was green and it meant ‘follow’. The Kirkland moved slowly and there would still be time to rest, but Hugo disliked falling too far towards the rear of the fleet. The Kirkland was the centre of law and order. The closer Hugo was to it, the safer he felt – the safer he felt about his daughters.

  Hugo patted Houdini on the head one last time. “Time to go inside, mon ami. We’re on the move.”

  When Hugo started the yacht’s 43HP diesel engine, his daughters joined him in the pilot’s cabin. Both of them looked apprehensive. “Where are we going, papa?”

  “Wherever the good captain takes us, my beauties. Do not worry. The kind man, Samuel, would never do us wrong.”

  Yip!

  “You see?” Hugo laughed and set off after the HMS Kirkland. “Houdini agrees.”

  POPPY

  “So what did you bring me?” Poppy asked excitedly. She and Garfield were sitting inside the ice cream shop where they lived. Behind the long refrigerated counter was Poppy’s space, with her toys, games, and old mattress, while Garfield slept on the shop’s tiled floor in a simple sleeping bag. Right now, both of them sat on stools beside a bench that ran the length of the wall.

  Garfield almost smiled at her; he never managed a full one, but Poppy had begun to read the subtle signs of whether or not he was happy. Right now, Garfield was happy. “I may have a thing or two I found on my travels,” he said, delving into the rucksack he had with him. “Let me have a quick look.” Poppy placed her hands on her knees and waited anxiously. The first thing Garfield pulled out was a pair of toothbrushes, still in their packaging. “How about this?” he asked. “You need to look after your teeth, Popcorn.”

  Poppy frowned and shook her head.

  The next thing Garfield pulled from his bag was a stapler. “Can never have enough office supplies,” he said.

  Poppy growled.

  “Okay, okay. Let me have one last look and see if I have anything inside my bag.” He fumbled around inside for a long time, tutting occasionally and raising his eyebrows thoughtfully.

  Poppy could contain her excitement no longer. “You’re killing me,” she spluttered.

  “Got it!” Garfield pulled out a colourful stack of glossy paper and held it in front of her face. He gave another of his brief almost-smiles to go with it.

  Poppy glanced down at the magazines and frowned. There were pictures of women on the front covers, along with makeup and perfume adds. “What are these?” she asked.

  Garfield flicked the top one open, revealing an article about weight loss. “They’re women’s magazines. They have all kinds of articles. They were really popular, before…well, you know.”

  Poppy took the magazines and leafed through them. There were lots of articles full of words, and pictures of food, lipstick, mobile phones and other boring stuff.

  “You don’t like them.” Garfield said. His eyelids drooped like a sad puppy’s.

  Poppy shrugged. “I…yeah, they’re great. I just didn’t expect them.”

  Garfield sighed and looked away. He always looked away when he felt bad. Poppy was the only person he ever kept eye contact with for more than a few seconds. Poppy’s mummy always said it was rude not to hold eye contact, but Poppy thought it was because Garfield was shy, not rude.

  “I just wanted to get you something you can use,” he muttered. “You’re growing up so fast and…and I don’t really know what you’ll be going through. Your body will change, for one thing.”

  Poppy blushed.

  Garfield blushed too. “Sorry, it’s just…I…”

  Poppy reached out and touched his wrist. “I know. You want me to read about woman’s things.”

  “Sorry you don’t like the magazines.”

  “I would just rather have you around to teach me things, than read about them in a bunch of old books. We haven’t spent time together in ages.”

  “I have to go out, Poppy. I have to feed us.”

  “I know you do. But I’m growing up, you said it. You got me these magazines because I’m growing up, so let me come with you.”

  Garfield shook his head immediately. “We’ve spoken about this. It’s too dangerous out there. The dead…”

  “I want to come with you, Garfield. I hate it around here. We were fine on the road before we found this place.”

  “We almost died a dozen times and you barely spoke
a word you were so traumatised.”

  “I’m older now.”

  “Less than a year.”

  “But-”

  “Enough!” Poppy was startled. Garfield never raised his voice to her. “I won’t take you out there, Poppy. It’s too dangerous. I won’t let you get hurt. I can’t…”

  Garfield never showed how he felt, but right then it looked as if he were about to cry. Poppy suddenly felt very guilty. She nodded slowly and looked down at the floor. “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you mad.”

  Garfield huffed. “I’m not mad, you silly girl. I’m scared. It’s my job to keep you safe, but you’re growing so fast that I can barely keep up. I’m worried I won’t be able to look after you soon. The others will have to help me.”

  “I don’t need looking after,” said Poppy. “I just need you, but you keep going away. You keep leaving me and sometimes I wonder if you’re ever going to come back.”

  Garfield looked at her, keeping eye contact the whole time he spoke, even though she knew he would have found it hard. “I’ll never leave you, Popcorn. I’m always thinking of you and I will always come back. Everything I do, I do because I have no choice. I do it to keep you safe. I made you a promise, didn’t I? When I cooked you bacon in that old hotel outside Oxford and we played eye-spy all night, laughing. When we set out the next morning, you told me you wanted to live at the hotel because you liked it there. I told you that it wasn’t the hotel you liked, it was the fun we had had the night before. I said that we could have fun wherever we went but that we must keep moving. When you said you were scared, I promised to keep you safe. Remember?”

  Poppy nodded and smiled. She looked back at their time on the road fondly – it hadn’t all been bad, not after they got used got it. They had never been apart back then, and towards the end, before they had found the pier, they were always giggling. It never mattered that they were always in danger and that terrible things surrounded them every day, they would always cheer each other up. Now, neither of them ever smiled. Garfield was always foraging and she was always alone.

  There were tears in her eyes as she spoke, she knew. She had to stop crying all the time. “I love you, Garfield. I miss you when you’re gone.”

  Garfield’s eyes went wide as she said the word ‘love’. She had never said the word to him before, had not said it at all since her parents died. She did love him, though. He was all she had. The only person she could rely on and her only friend. He had looked after her for more than three months on the road and she would be dead if not for him. He took me away from that horrible place where my mummy and daddy were monsters. He brought me here where it’s safe. Even if the pier is boring, it is safe.

  For a moment, Garfield looked as though he was going to say the word back to her, but instead he just said, “I miss you, too. Now go get ready for bed. I have to leave early in the morning. One game of eye spy and then we sleep.”

  Poppy nodded. She slid off her stool and walked away silently. Tears tried to spill from her eyes, but she fought them away. She didn’t want Garfield to go. He was always leaving her and she started to wonder if he really did care the way he said he did. Why didn’t he say it back? She climbed onto her mattress and closed her eyes to sleep. She didn’t want to play eye spy.

  Why didn’t he say ‘I love you’ back?

  GARFIELD

  Garfield packed the last of the smoked mackerel into his backpack and placed it next to his bottled water. It would not be enough to sustain him permanently, but he intended to find supplies on the road. The infection had ravaged the country so fast that most supermarkets and petrol stations were still well stocked. There had not been enough time, or enough survivors, that looting had ever taken a firm hold. The world had died on its feet before people’s minds ever had a chance to turn to long-term survival.

  The chef’s knife in Garfield’s belt was accompanied by a claw hammer, a screwdriver, corkscrew, and a metal pipe all hidden about his person. It was foolish to rely on a single weapon. Garfield had seen good men perish who had.

  The other foragers – they could be called his men, although he would never say so himself – were all ready and waiting. They stood with heavy backpacks and had armed themselves with various weapons. The plan was to make haste to the church on the edge of town and get a couple of vehicles working. There were ten foragers plus Garfield. Lemon was their master of unlocking, a shy, stumpy man, who stuttered when he was stressed. There wasn’t a door he couldn’t get through or a car he couldn’t hotwire. His bag of tricks contained everything from wire cutters to hacksaws. Kirk was second-in-command and the group’s resident badass – if a little too cocky for Garfield’s liking. Cat was the only female member of the group, and tougher than all of the men. She travelled with David, her lover. Squirrel and Danny were the pier’s screw-ups, lazy and stupid, but agreeable and humorous. Last came Luke, Tom, Gavin, and Lenny – a group of sensible middle-aged men that made up the reliable backbone of the foraging party. Each of them insisted on wearing a bunch of red football shirts they had found in a sports shop. They believed the bright colours made it easier to see each other in the field. Perhaps they were right. Our little band of brothers, Garfield thought. Closest I’ve ever had to friends.

  The group would need to get the largest vehicles it could find and pray that the batteries still had a spark, and that the petrol in the tanks had not evaporated. The foragers would be leaving behind their sleds, so whatever vehicle they found would also act as the carriage for whatever supplies they managed to scrounge. Guns and ammo, hopefully. And Doritos…

  The morning tide was out and there was nothing but moist sand and seaweed beneath the front section of the pier. It had started to rain and the smell of salt was thick in the air. Garfield would be glad to be rid of that familiar smell for a few days. He missed the old smells of car exhaust and greasy spoon cafes, but those things were no more. They had been replaced by the stink of death.

  Anna headed towards Garfield, holding something in her hands. When she got close enough, she offered the item to him. “For the road,” she explained.

  Garfield took the can opener from her and smiled. “Good thinking. I’m so used to bringing canned food back that I forgot I’m going to need one for the journey.”

  “No point finding a tonne of food if you can’t get at it. Sometimes it’s good to carry something other than a whole bunch of weapons. How many do you have on you right now in that magnificent coat of yours?”

  Garfield shrugged. “Weapons? I’m not sure. Seven, maybe…no, eight.”

  Anna laughed. “Well, I hope that you won’t need any of them. You be safe out there. There’s no way of telling what you’ll find.”

  Garfield knew well enough what he would find in the towns and cities. “I expect to find the dead.”

  “For starters,” said Anna. “But I worry more about any people left alive. Take it from me, the living are just as dangerous as the dead.”

  Garfield nodded – he knew that well enough already. Several times on the road he had caught hungry-eyed men spying Poppy from a distance, hoping to take her. A handful of them had tried, but Garfield had dispatched each one without mercy. He would not allow Poppy to be used and spoiled like a can of beans. Her innocence was more precious than anything else left in the world, and Garfield would kill a hundred men to protect it. Finding the pier and the relative safety of the group living there had been a true blessing. Poppy had been safe from the leering gaze of feral men ever since. But she’s fighting me all the time to go back out on the road. She doesn’t remember how bad it was. She looks at the past through rose-coloured spectacles. Not that I blame her after all she’s been through.

  Garfield bent over and placed the can opener inside the shin pocket of his cargo pants then straightened back up. “I plan to stick to the countryside as much as possible. With a bit of luck I’ll be able to bypass any trouble. There’s no need to worry.” Anna looked at him oddly for a moment, as if she wan
ted to say something. “What is it?” he asked her.

  “It’s…it’s just something the injured man you brought back said.”

  “Oh, yeah. How’s he doing?”

  “He’s been pretty stable over night, but just after I patched him up he said something strange.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said…” Anna stopped and chuckled to herself. “You’re going to laugh at me, but he kept saying the word ‘Roman’ over and over again. It went on for nearly an hour before he fell unconscious.’”

  Garfield smirked, but not because he thought it was particularly funny. “Don’t people say all sorts of things in that kind of condition? Couldn’t the pain have made him delirious?”

  “Yes, it could have. In fact, that was probably the reason. Gave me a bad feeling, though. Whoever shot him is still out there. Be careful, okay?”

  Garfield had thought about the group that might be out there with guns. If they were a threat, he would much rather encounter them away from the pier where it would not endanger the others.

  “I’ll be safe, I promise. You look after Poppy for me, okay? She’s…growing up. It might help her to spend some time with a woman for once, rather than hanging around rooftops waiting for me all the time. Where is she, anyway?”

  “She’s coming, don’t worry. She told me she needed to get something and that you weren’t to leave until she saw you.”

  Garfield rolled his eyes. “As if I would. Silly girl.”

  Like a genie summoned, the talk of Poppy brought her racing around the corner of the Sea Grill restaurant and over to the open walkway leading up to the gate. Her white-blonde plaits trailed in the air behind her like tentacles from a squid.

  “Hey, Popcorn. I was just about to leave. You almost missed me.”

  Poppy scowled. “You would never leave without saying goodbye. I would kick your butt as soon as you was back.”

  Garfield fought a smile. She’s not kidding. “You’re right. I wouldn’t dare cross you, Popcorn.” Poppy giggled. She jumped the two feet between them and gave him a great big hug around his waist. “Careful,” he warned her. “You’ll cut yourself on my knife.”