The BIG Horror Pack 2

by Iain Rob Wright

  “Sooner we accept that we are, the better,” Dave said. “I’m ready to go and check things out now. Anybody want to join me?”

  Anna didn’t want the new man to wander off alone, but she didn’t want to be stuck with him either. “Mike,” she said. “Could you get Greg and Michelle and go with him? I think more heads would be better.”

  “Sure thing. I’ll get them now.”

  “I’ll start making an inventory of what we have,” Shawcross said.

  “Excellent,” Anna said. It was a job she was hoping he would volunteer for. It would keep him busy and out of the way for a while. She turned to Nick. “Should you and I go look for bedding material?”

  “Sounds good to me,” he said. “Let me just check in with Eve and the others, so they know what’s happening.”

  Anna waited while Nick checked in with his companions. He seemed to take responsibility for their welfare and she had a feeling it was to mask a deeper concern. Clearly something was eating away at Nick, but he was dealing with it by concentrating on looking after his group. Perhaps that was what she too was doing. Usually she didn’t care about other people, yet had somehow found her way into a position where they were relying on her.

  After a few moments, Nick returned. He was holding a pint of coke and took a sip from it. Then he offered the glass to her. “Hope you don’t mind, but with all the excitement it feels like I might faint if I don’t take a drink.”

  She waved a hand. “Hey, you’re very welcome. We need to be tight with our supplies from now on, but you folks are more than entitled to a drink.”

  He motioned toward the window. “Shall we?”

  Anna nodded and they both headed for the broken window.

  “So,” Nick said. “What’s the deal here? Do all of you work here?”

  “No, actually. Just Shawcross. I’m a vet that was on-call here. Everyone else was staying in Ripley Hall for a company function.”

  “Really? Wow. Do you think you’d be alive if you hadn’t been called out here?”

  “I doubt it. Being here is probably the only reason I’m alive, if the news is anything to go by.”

  Nick’s eyes went wide. “You’ve seen the news? What did it say?”

  “Not a lot. It went off soon after, but it was pretty clear that this is happening everywhere.”

  They made it through the window and headed out into the park. “This is the goddamn apocalypse, isn’t it?”

  Anna tittered. It was crazy to use the word in a literal sense, but it was the most apt. “The news said there was military in some places, but didn’t say where other than up north. Maybe if we hold out long enough, things will change.”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  There was a brief silence as they walked and Anna took the opportunity to probe her new companion. “I guess for some of us, it already feels like the world has ended.”

  Nick nodded. “Pretty much.”

  “You said you had a wife and child?”

  Nick looked away from her. “Yeah. Deana and James. They were both infected. I left Deana alive, but James…”

  “I get it. You don’t have to say. I can’t imagine what you went through.” She did, however, have some idea. She’d had a son once, too.

  “The people in your group seem pretty glad to have you around. Most people are infected or gone, so I guess we should try to count ourselves lucky that we’re even still here. Least that’s what I keep telling myself. Only thing that’s keeping me from going crazy.”

  Nick glanced at her. “Did you lose anybody?”

  “Yeah, I lost someone, but not because of all this. Guess I’m lucky that none of this horror has directly affected me like it has other people.”

  “I don’t think anybody’s lucky anymore. I’m sorry for your loss, whenever it might have been.”

  Anna smiled glumly. “Thank you.”

  They were back to the midway games area and Nick came up with a suggestion. “We could use the plush toy prizes as pillows – some of them are pretty big and they look soft.”

  Following the same train of thought, Anna had an additional suggestion. “I think they sell wet weather ponchos in the gift shop. They could be good for bedding.”

  “Looks like we’re on our way, then. Let’s get started.”

  Nick vaulted the basketball midway game and begun pulling stuffed dinosaurs off the shelves. Anna 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 and cushions.

  “We’re going to need a bag or something to carry this stuff back,” he said. “Any ideas?”

  “The gift shop might have tote bags.”

  Nick vaulted back out of the basketball game and joined Anna on the pavement, where they then headed over to the gift shop.

  Nick picked up a rock from a nearby flowerbed and let fly with it. The window shattered.

  “That’s how you guys do it, right?”

  Anna laughed. “Nowadays we do. Got to tell you, though, I really miss using doors.”

  They climbed through the broken window of the gift shop and made it inside. Anna went straight to a hanger full of souvenir hoodies. “These should keep us all warm.”

  “And here are the ponchos,” Nick said, thumbing through a folded-up pile of plastic sheets. “They’ve got souvenir towels over there as well.”

  “Here are the tote bags.”

  Nick laughed. “Well, that was easy. Makes me wonder when something’s going to go wrong.”

  Right then, there was an explosion. It shook the floor beneath them but came from far away.

  Nick looked at her and went pale. “What the hell is that?”

  Anna chewed at the side of her cheek. “I don’t know.”

  She hopped back through the window and told Nick to hurry after her. There were still aftershocks coming from whatever had exploded and several mini-explosions made it quite easy to pinpoint the direction.

  “What are you going to do?” Nick shouted over the noise. “It’s not like we can go down the hill to investigate.”

  Anna 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 area below. In the distance, past the woods and forests that surrounded Ripley Heights, was a nearby village. It was in flames. The fires blazed from a hundred different sources and, as she scanned the horizon, she saw other distant villages ablaze also. The earth was burning.

  “It’s all over,” Nick said. “Totally over.”

  Anna couldn’t argue. Civilisation was aflame and for all she knew they were the last human beings alive, stranded up there on that hill.

  Shock would not allow her to speak.

  “What if the fire makes it over here?” Nick asked

  Anna finally found her voice. “It’ll be the end of the last safe place on Earth.”

  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, crying out in desperation, but all he could do was stare. The level of horror was so high that his brain desensitised him to it in order to cope.

  Anna stood next to him and was staring with the same numb expression. Suddenly, she pointed. “Look! They’re moving away.”

  Nick stared down at the car park and saw. Like a herd of grazing buffalo, the massive horde of infected began to turn toward the flaming village on the horizon. A factory in the distance ignited.

  “It’s the explosions,” Nick said. “It’s leading them toward the village.”

  “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 Anna. “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. The last thing they gathered were the plush toys from the midway games.

  “This should be more than enough,” Nick said, peering over the top of his load.

  Anna 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 reminded him of how Deana used to make fun of him for determinedly getting all of the shopping bags from the boot to the house in a single trip.

  There was rustling up ahead, as if Anna was heading into the hedges. He was just about to ask her what she was doing when he heard her cry out.

  Nick dropped the bags 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, hopping onto his other foot.

  Anna was struggling with an infected woman on top of her. There was a second infected person coming out of the bushes too, a Chinese man with broken spectacles.

  Nick knew instantly that he’d have to take the Chinese man down first. Anna was incapacitated by the woman on top of her, which would make her easy prey.

  He lolloped towards the Chinese man, determined to reach him before he got to Anna, and leapt into the air. He placed an awkward kick into the man’s chest and sent him stumbling backwards into the bushes. Then he landed down on his bad ankle and hissed in agony.

  Anna had the infected woman around the throat, struggling on the floor.

  Nick went to her aid, grabbing the infected woman around the waist and throwing her backwards. At the same time, Anna kicked out her legs and struck the woman’s abdomen. The extra momentum sent Nick reeling backwards to the ground with his arms still wrapped around the woman’s waist. He held on tightly as Anna hurried to her feet to help him.

  “Keep her there,” she shouted.

  “Yeah, no problem,” Nick said, sarcastically.

  Anna disappeared for a moment, making Nick panic, but then she reappeared and dove at the infected woman on top of him. She held a jagged rock in her hand and smashed it into the infected woman’s skull until it was dripping with blood.

  Nick limped over to her. “Are you okay?”

  Anna’s eyes went wide.

  The infected Chinese man tackled Nick from behind. He fell to the ground and struck his head on the pavement, going still. His vision dimmed. His head buzzed.

  Nick was hardly aware of what happened next as he lay on the ground impotently. Sounds of a desperate struggle ensued, but he was unable to do anything but stare up at the sky.

  There was a wet sound. Then silence.

  Nick was still dazed when the struggling stopped. He wanted to roll onto his back to see what was happening, but every time he tried to move, a wave of nausea flooded over him and his head clanged like a kettledrum.

  “Anna?” he moaned. “Anna, are you there?”

  A hand clamped down on his wrist and squeezed hard.

  “I handled it,” Anna told him, leaning over him.

  Nick took many deep breaths before he was able to place his palms on the pavement and push himself up. Anna helped him to his knees and then, slowly, to his feet. His ankle throbbed.

  “You took a pretty big bang on the head,” Anna told him. “I can already see the swelling. Do you feel okay?”

  “No, I don’t feel right, I…” His words trailed off as he saw the blood pouring from Anna’s neck. He reached out a hand, but then stopped himself. Her blood might be infected.

  Anna frowned at him. She followed his gaze until she was looking down at her own shoulder. When she saw the blood there, her mouth dropped open. “Oh, no,” she said. “No, no, no.”

  Nick stepped forward and put his hands on both of her shoulders. Suddenly his headache was gone, removed by trepidation and fear. “Are you bit?” he asked her, but she didn’t seem to hear. “I said, are you bitten?”

  “I…I don’t know.”

  Nick shook his head. “Damn it!”

  Anna unclasped the buttons of her shirt and tugged the material away from her neck and shoulder. Nick leant forward to examine her.

  There was a lot of blood, bright red and already clotting. It wasn’t from a deep wound, but that wouldn’t matter if it came from a bite. He followed the bleeding to its source, until it became clear what they were dealing with.

  He stepped away and let out a sigh, shook his head.

  “What?” Anna pleaded. “Am I bitten?”

  He didn’t answer her. Instead he reached a hand around her neck and plucked the thing he had discovered embedded into her shoulder.

  Anna flinched. “Ouch! 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. “It was sticking right out of you. It was in pretty deep, but there’s no bite. Must have been when you fell.”

  Anna put a hand to her forehead and rubbed. She obviously couldn’t fight the tears that escaped her. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank God! Thank everything. Jeez, that was close.”

  “What were they doing up here?” he asked her. “I thought they were all heading away.”

  “They must have followed you up in the cable car,” she said. “Climbed up the hill after you and where already in the park when the explosions began. We need to be more careful.”

  Nick looked around anxiously, eyeing the treeline that surrounded the park. “You think there are more?”

  “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’d been carrying and quickly gathered them all up again. “I think that once we get all this stuff back, our main priority should be getting this place secure. The infected may be heading away for now, but I’m sure they’ll be back eventually.”

  Anna nodded, staring at the ground as she thought about how close she had come to death. “We need to make this place a fortress.”

  “And we need to do it fast,” Nick said. “Or else we’re all dead.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Almost three weeks had passed since everybody had settled on top of Ripley Heights’ monolithic hill. Nick was grateful for stumbling upon the survivors there, for he knew he would be dead if he hadn’t.

  Several more infected people had found their way into the park grounds during the days that followed and Greg had been lost to them early on. He’d been checking the woods when an infected man took him to the ground and bit him. He was dead before anybody could get to him.

  The group had mourned his loss for a day or two, sharing regret that nobody had known him well. It made everyone feel luckier to still be alive, and more eager to know one another.

  Nick had hunted down most of the infected in the nearby woods after that by himself. He went out with only a handful of knives strapped to his belt and came back every night covered in blood. There were things inside his head that he was trying to deal with and somehow violence was the only thing that made him feel in control of himself. It worried him.

  It had now been more than four days since any infected had been spotted inside the park. The makeshift walls, fences, and barriers added to their feeling of security, but it was still 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 individual spots in the woods. It was a degrading devolution of their once civil habits, but it was necessary. Human superiority had been reduced to nothing and they were no longer anything more than animals in the way they lived.

  With time to rest, a dark mood ha
d fallen over the group as each of them mourned the losses of their previous lives. Many times someone would wander off alone to cry.

  The group had formed their camp around the Big Dog restaurant where they’d erected a waist-high wire fence around a large portion of the surrounding ground. It wasn’t high enough to stop any infected from entering, but it would at least slow them down.

  As things went, they were in as good a position as they could hope to be. The burning villages in the distance made clear that any remnant or morsel of safety was a privilege. To still be alive after all that had happened was a lottery win.

  “Hey man, you’re never going to believe this,” Mike said to Nick.

  “Believe what?” Nick muttered.

  “Just come with me.”

  Nick followed him into the zoo. The group hadn’t spent much time amongst the animals, but Anna had been making sure they were all fed and watered. They had already started to get milk from the three cows and eggs from the various chickens. Nobody said it, but they all knew the animals would probably end up as food themselves eventually. No one wanted to get too attached for that reason.

  Mike led Nick past the pig sties and up to a large enclosure with a big fat tree in its centre. He looked at Nick like things should be obvious.

  Nick shrugged. “What am I supposed to be seeing?”

  “You blind or something? Look!”

  Nick’s 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. Why wasn’t it in an enclosure?

  “Is it…dangerous?” he asked nervously.

  “Beats me. Alan’s run off to get Anna. She’ll know what to do.”

  Nick sat down on a patch of grass and propped his head in his hands, gazing at the magnificent creature in the treetops. The orang-utan seemed completely at home and seemed satisfied to have such freedom after likely being enclosed for what may have been its entire life.

  For some reason, seeing an animal so wild and free lifted Nick’s spirits. It brought him back slightly from the deep melancholy in which he’d been drowning. When Anna finally arrived at the scene, he’d not taken his eyes off the animal once.