“Paris Hilton’s balls,” the young man said. “This shit is crazy.”
“Crazy,” Anna agreed. “This is no joke. People are dead. Things are really screwed up.”
“So what do we do?” Charlotte asked. She turned to the young man and grabbed his wrist. “Clark, I’m scared.”
He hugged her close. “I know, baby. Everything’s going to be okay, I promise.”
“We need to get outside,” Anna said. “There are people downstairs – uninfected people – that are relying on me. I came up here to lead the sick people away. Now that I have, we need to join back up with the group and get somewhere safe.”
Clark nodded. “Okay. We’re ready to get the hell out of here.”
Anna went to the room’s only window. Dawn sunlight flooded in and birds chirped outside as if all was ordinary. The ground outside beneath the window was grassy and likely soft, but the drop was significant.
“Strip the bed,” Anna said.
Charlotte and Clark looked at her with confusion, but then did as they were told. In the meantime, Anna examined the room’s window and located the catch, flicking it free. It was old-fashioned leaded glass window that opened outwards to one side. It wasn’t the widest gap, but was big enough.
When the couple had finished stripping the bed, they watched the door anxiously.
“Concentrate,” Anna said, snapping her fingers. “We’ll be out of here before they get inside. Bring me the mattress.”
Charlotte and Clark managed to drag the mattress over and, together, they propped it up against the window frame.
“It’ll be a squeeze,” Anna said, “but I think we can get this through the window. We can use it as a crash mat.”
They worked the mattress onto the window ledge and started shoved it through. It was too wide to fit perfectly, but as they pushed, squeezed, and folded it, progress was made.
Crack!
The door splintered.
Crack!
“Oh, no,” Charlotte cried. “They’re going to get in.”
“Just keep pushing. Focus on what we’re doing, not on them.”
They shoved as hard as they could, but the mattress started to feel heavier as muscles grew tired. Sweat began to bead on Anna’s forehead.
The door rattled, loosened on its hinges.
Crack!
Anna shoved harder, gritting her teeth.
Suddenly there was movement and, all at once, the mattress tumbled over the ledge. It almost dragged Anna right out after it as it plummeted to the ground at speed.
“Charlotte, you go first. Quickly!”
Charlotte stared out the window and then looked back at Anna, shaking her head. “I can’t just jump out the window.”
“It’s either that or stay here and get ripped apart.”
“You go,” she said, pointing at Clark. “Now, move!”
Clark didn’t argue. He leaped up on the window frame and threw himself through. Anna watched him land face down on the mattress. He was disorientated for a moment, but was soon on his feet and waving up at them.
“Now you,” Anna said to Charlotte. “You need to jump.”
Crack!
Charlotte looked like a rabbit caught in headlights. She started hyperventilating.
A probing arm came through the door, clawing at the air with its bloody fingernails.
“Go!” Anna shouted. “Before it’s too late.”
Charlotte climbed onto the ledge tentatively, pausing to look down at the ground below. Anna placed a hand on the girl’s back and shoved. She hit the mattress below and rebounded into the grass. She started sobbing but managed to give a thumbs-up.
Crack!
It was Anna’s turn and she climbed up on the ledge. Her hamstrings were painfully tight from her desperate sprint through the hallway.
The door behind her continued to splinter as the infected threw themselves at it like battering rams.
Right, Anna told herself. I’ll count to three.
One…
Two…
Thr—
She stopped herself when she realised she’d forgotten something.
Mike’s wallet.
She didn’t know why, but she couldn’t leave without grabbing it first. She quickly hopped down off the window ledge and located the wallet in clear sight – right on the bedside table where Mike said it would be. She snatched it up quickly, surprised by how heavy it was.
The door burst open.
Anna raced back towards the window, but was cut off by a large man with a flap of skin hanging off his face. With a fresh surge of adrenaline, she was able to duck beneath his grasp and spring up onto the window frame in one fluid motion.
Clark and Charlotte waited for her below.
Before Anna managed to jump, arms grabbed her around the waist and tried to pull her back. Shoving all her weight forward, she managed to get her legs over the windowsill and let gravity take her. She fell. She fell fast and awkwardly, as a heavy weight bore down on her back. She hit the mattress like a rock and heard something snap. The fabric covered springs were less forgiving than she’d anticipated.
The next thing she knew, something was clawing at her back and trying to kill her.
Chapter Sixteen
Anna struggled. A flash of white-hot pain stabbed through her right hand, but she had no time to investigate the cause. If the infected man who had followed her out of the window managed to bite her, she was doomed.
Clark wrapped his arm around the infected man’s throat and tried to pull him away. Charlotte grabbed a hold of Anna and yanked her to safety.
The pain in Anna’s hand exploded once again, but she ignored it until she knew all danger had been dealt with. She kicked out at the infected man and sent him sprawling backwards. Clark followed up with a hard shove that sent their attacker to the ground.
“What do we do?” Charlotte asked, voice thick with fear.
Before Anna could answer, another body landed on the mattress and bounced off onto the grass.
Then another.
The infected continued to fall through the bedroom’s open window. They jumped one after the other like lemmings. Four infected men and women now crawled up from the ground. One of them limped on a broken ankle.
Anna looked at Clark and Charlotte. “We need to get out of here now.”
“No shit,” Clark said.
They took off across the rear gardens of Ripley Manor, heading around the side and towards the front of the building. Hopefully Shawcross and the others would be there waiting for them.
The infected screeched and gave chase.
“They’re coming after us,” Charlotte cried.
“Just keep moving. The longer we’re in sight, the more of those things will come through the window.”
They rounded the corner of Ripley Hall and entered the front lawns. Now that dawn had arrived, the nearby buildings of the zoo and park were visible.
“This way,” Anna said. “We need to meet up with the others.”
Clark looked back over his shoulder. “They’re gaining on us. How are they so fast?”
Anna looked back to confirm. Three of the four infected who had fallen through the window were now gaining ground on them. Something made them quick, like they were burning some kind of fuel inside.
Anna sprinted across the lawn, ducking between trees and hopping over bushes. She skipped over the body of the man who had attacked and bitten Bradley and noticed that the dead woman was gone.
Ripley Hall’s front doors were hanging wide open, the foyer inside empty.
“Where are they?” Anna shouted. “Where the hell are they?”
“We should run back inside,” Charlotte said.
“No, it’s full of infected people. We need to find someplace safer. The others should be out here waiting for us. Where are they?”
The infected would be on them any second. There was no place to run that offered absolute safety, but staying and fighting would be suici
de.
“Anna!”
She spun around to find Shawcross and the others. They were fifty yards away, shouting from the doorway of one the zoo’s buildings.
“Come on,” Anna said. “They’re over there.”
With safety in sight, Charlotte and Clark seemed to find additional strength. They picked up speed and managed to overtake Anna. The infected managed to pick up speed too. Their screeching was endless.
“Quickly,” Shawcross shouted as he held the doorway open for them up ahead.
Charlotte and Clark sprinted the final thirty yards to the building. Shawcross ushered them inside to safety. He motioned urgently for Anna to hurry who was yet to make it.
She was going as fast as she could, but the infected almost had her. She could feel them right behind her. Her thighs burned and she just couldn’t keep up the pace anymore. There were still ten yards left to run when she felt fingertips at her back.
Shawcross slammed the door shut.
She had no place to go.
The fingertips at her back turned into palms and progressed to grabbing hands. The infected grabbed her, yanked her to a halt.
She spun around, caught the nearest man in the jaw with her elbow, but was so exhausted that the momentum sent her sprawling onto her hands and knees. The three infected surrounded her, screeching and snarling.
The door to the building reopened and somebody emerged out of it.
Mike ran towards Anna with a length of broom handle raised above his head. He batted her attackers around the side of the head and tops of their skulls. Anna clambered back to her feet, desperately holding on to a glimmer of hope that she would find safety. Tremors wracked her knees, but she clenched her jaw and kept fighting.
Mike grabbed Anna by her lapels and yanked her behind him. He took another swing with the broom handle and hit the nearest attacker beneath the chin.
“Look out,” Anna shouted. An overweight woman in a ripped blouse lunged at Mike, who managed to turn around in time to ram the broom handle like a spear right up into the woman’s nose. He gritted his teeth as he forced the wooden shaft into her skull until the woman’s entire body seized and went limp.
Mike let go of the broom handle and let the body slump to the ground.
“Come on,” Anna shouted. “Leave them. We have to go.”
They galloped the last twenty yards towards the building and made it inside, panting and wheezing. Shawcross closed the door and stood anxiously beside.
Anna had a bone to pick with the man; but first she had to see why her hand hurt so badly.
Chapter Seventeen
“You were just going to leave me out there to die!” shouted Anna, clutching her injured hand against her chest. From a cursory examination, it looked like she had dislocated her finger. The building they were in was the zoo’s reptile house.
“I have to look out for the group,” Shawcross said. “I thought you were done for. They had you. You were never going to make it.”
“And yet here I am, alive and well.” She turned to Mike and nodded. “I owe you.”
“Don’t mention it,” he said. “We never would’ve gotten out of that damned kitchen without you, so we’ll call it even. Looks like you ran a little rescue mission, too.” He motioned to Clark and Charlotte.
Anna nodded. “Yes, this is Ch—”
“Charlotte and Clark. Yeah, I know,” Mike said. “We work together at the Tamworth branch.”
“It’s good to see you’re okay, Mike,” Charlotte muttered.
“Where did those infected come from?” Shawcross demanded. “And what is wrong with your hand?”
“We had to jump from an upstairs window. The infected followed us out. My hand is fine. Dislocated I think. I’m not bitten if that’s what you’re afraid of.”
“Damn it!” Shawcross banged a fist against the corn snake’s terrarium, making them hiss and flick their tongues. “We’re trapped in here, no better off than we were in the kitchen.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Mike said. “We have multiple exits and open space if we have to make a run for it. There didn’t seem to be many out there – just a handful.”
“What if they keep coming through the window?” Charlotte said. “There could be dozens more.”
Anna shook her head. “I don’t think they’ll jump out the window unless they spot someone. As long as we lay low, everything should be…” her words trailed off.
“What?” Shawcross grunted. “What is it?”
“You left the front doors of the house wide open. There’s nothing to stop the infected guests from spilling out into the grounds.”
“Shit! You’re right,” Mike said. “We were in such a panic that we all just ran outside.”
“We need to get those doors shut before they gather back in the foyer. We won’t be safe otherwise. We don’t know how long it’ll be until help arrives. I’ll have to go back outside.”
“No way,” Mike said. “You’ve already risked your neck enough. Look at you, you’re exhausted.”
“Then who? Is anybody else willing to volunteer?”
There was silence amongst the group.
Anna tutted. Their lack of courage didn’t surprise her. People were selfish. Test them and they’d always look out for number one. Her ex-husband had taught her that lesson. “I’m going back out in five minutes,” she said. “I just need to catch my breath first.”
“Then, I’m coming with you,” Mike said.
Anna shrugged, secretly surprised. “Fine. The more the merrier.”
“I’ll see if I can find something to defend yourselves with,” Shawcross said, wandering off into the darkness of the reptile house. Anna had the feeling that he just wanted to be away from her and the guilt of what he had done. A reptile house was just the place for him.
Mike took Anna to one side. “I’m really sorry to ask, but did you—”
“Find your wallet? Yes, I have it. Almost died trying to get it, but I got it.” She slid her hand into her jean pocket and hissed as a bolt of agony shot through her knuckles.
“What is it?”
Anna held her hand out in front of her. Her little finger was bent back at an unnatural angle.
Mike looked as though he might gag. “Christ. It looks broken.”
She examined her twisted digit and shook her head. “I must have done it when I fell out the window.”
“You fell out of a window? What do we do?”
She grabbed her little finger with her other hand and took a deep breath. “We don’t do anything.” Then she snapped the finger back into place, yelling out against the agony.
Then the pain was gone, replaced by a cold numbness.
Mike looked at her in astonishment. “That was pretty badass.”
“No point being a vet if I can’t even fix myself. Now, let’s get the doors to Ripley Hall closed so we can finally sort this whole mess out. Here’s your wallet.”
Mike nodded and started to unbutton his bloodstained shirt, exposing a gleaming white vest beneath.
Anna put a hand out to stop him. “You sure that’s the best thing, going out there in just a vest? What if one of those things bites you?”
Mike fastened the shirt back up. “Good point. I’m just starting to freak out about all this blood on me, you know?”
“Whose is it?” She could see it wasn’t his, but from the pained expression that flashed across his face, she was sorry for asking so bluntly. “Sorry.”
He waved his hand. “No, it’s okay. It wasn’t anyone I was close to, just a co-worker, Graeme. But he had a son and a wife, you know? He was a happy guy. Deserved better than to be ripped apart like...”
Anna placed a hand on his shoulder and rubbed. “We’re going to get to bottom of this, okay? You’re doing really great. You’re my hero, in fact.”
He smiled at her and straightened. “Thanks,” he said, but then sighed deeply. He ran a hand through his messy black hair and seemed to prepare for whatever cam
e next. “Let’s do this,” he said.
Chapter Eighteen
Anna didn’t get going right away. She and Mike took Shawcross up on his offer of finding them weapons.
“Here, take this,” Shawcross said, handing Anna a long metal pole with a kink at the end, normally used for dealing with the exhibit’s many snakes. Mike found himself a shovel and weighted it up in his hands.
“So what’s your plan? You know, eventually your luck’s going to run out, taking all these risks.”
Anna glared at Shawcross. He seemed perfectly happy to let her take all those risks when they benefited him. “If nobody does anything,” she said, “then we’re up shit creek with only half a paddle. I don’t want to go out there, but somebody has to. If you’re so worried, why don’t you go close the doors?”
Shawcross gave her a thin-lipped smile. “I’m needed here. Guest welfare is still my responsibility.”
“I don’t think so,” Mike said. “I think you’re officially off-duty.”
“I’m never off-duty. Ripley Hall is my building and you are my guests.”
Anna looked at the gathering of shell-shocked survivors and saw there was less than a dozen in total.
“Fine,” she said. “You carry on playing host while we risk our necks.” She turned to Mike. “You ready?”
He nodded and they headed to the building’s exit. “Should we try heading out through a different door?” he asked. “They could be right outside.”
Anna thought about it. “I don’t think we’re going to be safe coming out of any door. At least we know what to expect behind this one.”
Mike hefted the shovel up. “Okay, I’m ready when you are.”
“Just remember,” Anna told him, “don’t let them bite you.”
“I stopped getting hickeys at fifteen.”
“Here goes,” she said, easing the door open and peering outside. It looked all clear so she stepped through. Mike followed closely. “Wonder where they went.”
“They’ll be around here somewhere. Stay alert. We need to get to the house.”
Anna took cover behind a concrete statue of a Chameleon and checked up ahead. Past the trees of the lawn, Ripley Hall was silent. Its doors remained open and its lights were still on, but all was quiet.
The BIG Horror Pack 2 Page 15
