The gap between the trees widened and the moonlight got brighter. Anna threw herself out of the woods and then her legs finally gave out. She fell face-first onto the ground. Pavement. She had fallen onto a path.
“Now you screwed, sweetheart.”
Anna flipped onto her back, but didn’t have the energy to get up. She was done.
The stranger stood over her.
She tried to crawl away, but could only flap her arms uselessly. She screamed out for help.
“Anna, what’s wrong?”
Alan raced down the path and then stopped to look at her quizzically.
“Alan,” she cried out. “You have to help me.”
“Nobody be helping you, darling,” said her attacker. She saw now that it was a young black man. His left eye was bloody and gouged, but seemed to be a few weeks healed. His clothing was torn and muddy, a grey tracksuit just like the ones Jan and Rene had worn upon their arrival.
Anna managed to climb up and threw herself into Alan’s arms, clinging to him desperately. “He’s trying to kill me, Alan. He stabbed Mike. Shawcross… Shawcross”
“Where is Shawcross?” Alan asked calmly.
“He’s in a greenhouse. He found the zoo’s agriculture plot.”
“Yes, I know,” he said.
Anna looked up at his face. “Y-you know?”
Alan nodded. “Yes. Shawcross showed a handful of us yesterday. Explained the food situation.”
“What situation?”
“That too many greedy mouths to feed is going to mean big problems.” The young black man had moved closer to them without any kind of urgency or fear.
“Alan,” she said slowly. “Do you know this man?”
Alan smiled then shrugged. “Calls himself Dash. Shawcross bumped into him a few days back. He’s been staying at the greenhouse. He’s been helping us get set up.”
Anna pushed Alan away. “He stabbed Mike.”
Alan sighed. “Hey, I liked Mike, but there’s not enough food for all of us. Tough decisions have to be made.”
“Decisions made by who?”
“By me.” Shawcross emerged from the treeline, his face matted with blood and one of his eyes was swollen shut. Mike had really done a number on him before taking a knife to the belly.
“You’re a psychopath,” she shouted at Shawcross. “What gives you the right?”
“Taking it, gives me the right. Some of us recognise what the world has become. If the human race is going to survive, some of us need to be pragmatic. Until things are more stable, we can support only the core group.”
Anna took a step back as he approached her. “Core group? What are you talking about?”
Shawcross grinned. “You could say the people who respect my way of thinking are the core group. The rest of you are…disposable.”
Anna tried to run, but Alan grabbed hold of her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I really am.” He seemed to genuinely mean it, for there was no pleasure in his eyes at all. She still wanted to kill him, though.
“Let me go, Alan.”
“I can’t do that.”
She tried to shrug off his grasp, but he was too strong, so she opted to knee him in the groin.
Alan doubled over in pain, but managed to keep hold of her as he went down, still keeping her from getting away.
Dash planted a right hook on her cheek and sent her vision spinning as the ground came up to meet her.
“You right, Shawcross. She a feisty bitch.”
“Just take her into the woods and deal with her.”
“My pleasure.”
Anna blinked, trying to steady here vision. She couldn’t get her feet to move as Dash moved to grab her.
Something descended from the trees. It landed behind Dash and then all of a sudden he was rocketing forward. He landed on his face beside Anna, unconscious.
Alan screamed. Shawcross backed away.
Someone had come to Anna’s rescue.
Lily stood over her protectively, making a guttural huffing sound as a warning to anybody stupid enough to come close.
Anna lay on her side in shock, unable to move, until one of Lily’s hands grasped at her shirt and tugged. Get up, the ape was trying to communicate to her. Get up now.
Anna pushed herself onto her feet and started backing away. Shawcross made a move towards her, but Lily hooted aggressively, and he changed his mind.
Anna looked around and realised she was in the zoo, not far from the cable car station. From there, she could make it to Big Dog restaurant and find the others. She had no option but to find them and hope that they would help her.
“You’ll regret this,” Shawcross shouted as she ran away. “You and your goddamn monkey.”
Anna gritted her teeth. She’s an ape, you idiot. For the last time, she’s an ape!
And she just saved my life.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Up ahead, the Big Dog restaurant came into view.
With nobody pursuing her, Anna allowed herself to slow down. If she didn’t she was going to collapse again.
She hobbled up the steps to the restaurant and approached the open window. Peering through the gap, she saw the glare of a half-dozen candles. Out of energy and almost out of fight, she climbed through the window.
“Anna? What the bloody hell’s happened to you?” It was Eve. “Are you okay?”
Anna shoved Eve away from her. “Are you with them? Are you with Shawcross?”
“W-what do you mean?”
“Shawcross, Alan, and…and some other guy. They killed Mike. They’re trying to kill me. Are you with them?” Eve stood awkwardly, staring at her like she was mad. But Anna was not mad. She lashed out and grabbed Eve by the throat, surprised by her own ferocity. “Are. You. Fucking. With. Them?”
Eve shook her head eagerly “No, no. Hell, no. I don’t even know what you’re talking about, Anna. Let me go. We’ll sort this out.”
Anna let the girl go. “I…I’m sorry.”
“You’re safe now,” Eve said. “Okay?”
Anna said nothing. She slumped against the wall and slid down to the floor. Eve disappeared into the shadows, but returned with Cassie and Pauline. Cassie held out a drink for Anna, which she took greedily.
She swigged the lemonade down in one gulp and let out a gasp. “T-thanks. I needed that.”
“What the flipping hell is going on?” Pauline asked her.
“Shawcross is a fucking psychopath, that’s what. He kidnapped me and Mike. Now Mike is dead, at least I think he is. I don’t see how he’s not.” The thought of losing Mike was enough to send her into an endless flood of tears, but for now she just used it to fuel her anger.
Pauline put a hand to her mouth. “You can’t be serious.”
Anna got back to her feet. “I’m serious. Shawcross will be coming here any minute. I need to find out who’s on his side and who’s still fucking sane.”
“I had nothing to do with it.” Eve quickly said. “I swear.”
“Me either,” Pauline said.
They all looked at Cassie, the only one yet to speak.
“What?” she said. “I didn’t know, either. I promise.”
“Okay,” Anna said. “So the only people I don’t know about are Michelle and Jan. Where are they?”
Blank faces.
“I don’t know,” Eve said. “Michelle was with Alan earlier.”
“I think it’s safe to say that Michelle will be on whichever side Alan is,” Pauline said. “They’ve been stuck together like glue for weeks. He’s become a bit like a father to her.”
Anna sighed. “Great. That makes us outnumbered, especially if Jan is with them.”
“I reckon he is,” Eve said. “He’s been pretty close to Shawcross the last few days – think he sees him as the boss. He’s an ex-prisoner, probably likes having a regime to follow.”
Anna slumped against the wall. “Great. Last thing we need is having to go up against a hardened criminal the size of the Hul
k.” She suddenly thought of something. “That reminds me. This new guy with Shawcross, he was wearing prison clothing. Spoke like a wannabe gangster.”
Cassie whimpered. “W-was he black?”
“Yeah, do you know him?”
Cassie nodded and became ghostly pale. “It can’t be.”
“No way,” Eve said. “It can’t be Dash…can it?”
“Who the hell is Dash?”
“A degenerate we picked up along with Jan and Rene. We thought…well, we thought he was out of the picture.”
“Well, now he’s back in the picture and he seems pretty dangerous.”
Cassie whimpered again.
Anna stared at the girl. “You okay?”
“Dash tried to hurt me once. He…he frightens me.”
Eve and Pauline both placed an arm around her. Anna didn’t have time to join them. “We need to arm up,” she said. “Let’s get whatever we can, right now.”
“We can’t fight them off,” Cassie said. “There are more of them than us, and they’re men.”
“No. Mike was a man. These are little boys trying to have all the toys as well as the whole nursery. They may have the advantages, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to lie down and get fucked.”
“I’ll go get some things to defend ourselves with,” Eve said.
“Okay, make sure mine is something long and sharp. I need something to shove up Shawcross’s arse.”
Pauline looked Anna dead in the eye. “You really think we have any chance of holding them off on our own?”
Anna thought for a second and then smiled. An idea had just occurred to her. “We’re not going to be doing it on our own. We have reinforcements.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nick didn’t kill Dave. It was Shawcross. He admitted it to me. He must have had Dash do it.”
“I knew it,” Pauline said. “I knew Nick wouldn’t do something like that. Let’s get him out of that damn cellar.”
Anna nodded and marched across the restaurant. There was a door at the back of the bar, which opened to the cellar staircase. She grabbed the brass handle and twisted.
It was stuck. Locked.
“Does anybody know how to get this door open?”
“Shawcross has the key,” Cassie said.
Anna booted the door in its centre and then again next to its hinges. There were no weak points. It wouldn’t give.
“We’ll never get it open in time,” Pauline said. “They’ll be here.”
Anna shoved up against the door once more but then gave up and sighed. If they had any chance at all of fighting Shawcross’s coupe, they needed Nick. The other three women trusted him and would crumble without him.
Anna banged her fists against the door. “Nick! We need to get you out of there.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Nick opened his eyes and sat up. He was hot and threw his itchy, woollen blanket to one side. Rene, who hardly ever seemed to sleep, was already up and was standing over Nick patiently, as if he’d been waiting patiently for him to awake.
“W-what’s going on?” Nick asked.
Rene motioned silently to the cellar door. He had stopped talking again after their very brief conversation.
“Nick, can you hear me?” Anna was shouting from the other side.
“Anna, is that you? What is it? What’s wrong?”
“It’s Shawcross. He’s lost the plot. Mike’s dead and there’s some thug called Dash running around doing Shawcross’s dirty work. They set you up over Dave’s murder.”
Nick wondered if he’d just heard her correctly. “Did you say Dash?”
“Yes, Dash. As in the third prisoner you picked up with Jan and Rene.”
Nick looked at Rene who stared right back at him with wide eyes. There was no way Dash could be alive, not after the fall.
Nick climbed the stairs. “Open up.”
“Shawcross has the key.”
Nick grunted and punched his fist against the concrete wall. “Damn it!”
Rene placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Shawcross does not have the only key, my friend.” From within the pocket of his tracksuit, Rene pulled out a long brass key that was attached to several others via a Ripley Heights key ring. “Perhaps he should have checked beneath the bar too, no?”
Nick stared at Rene with disbelief. “You mean you could have let me out of here at any time?”
Rene tilted his head, a sagely expression. “Escaping your cell would not have restored the other’s trust in you. I had this key only for emergencies…”
Nick was just glad to have a way out. He took the key from Rene and slotted it into the lock, giving it a solid twist. The lock clicked and the handle released.
Anna wore a puzzled expression when he opened the door. “What? How did you—”
“It’s not important.” He moved past her and spotted Eve, and immediately headed towards her.
“Eve,” he said. “I’ve missed you.”
To his surprise, she wrapped both arms around him and squeezed him tightly. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I should have believed you. Shawcross is responsible for Dave’s death. We should never have blamed you.”
Nick eased her away. There wasn’t time for apologies, or any need for them either. “No harm done. Just promise to trust me from now on.”
“I promise.”
He cleared his throat and looked around at Rene, Anna, Cassie, Eve, and Pauline. A table in the middle of the room was piled with makeshift weapons and he picked up a replica hunting rifle from the midway shooting game. It would make a good club in a pinch-especially since it had been modified with a nine-inch nail wedged into the barrel like a bayonet.
The rest of the group armed up. They stood in a loose huddle, staring at each other apprehensively. Cassie looked the most nervous and was clutching a sharp blade against her chest like it was a crucifix.
“So, just fill me in one last time,” Nick said. “Shawcross has Dash with him and they are going around killing people?”
“Alan is with them, too,” Pauline said. “Maybe Jan and Michelle too.”
“Shawcross has this crazy idea,” Anna explained to him, “that the group’s chance of survival is better if there’re fewer of us. He’s found the park’s greenhouse and has stockpiled all of our supplies there. Apparently there isn’t enough to sustain us all.”
“So the crazy sonofabitch is trying to…what? Cull us?”
Crunch!
The group turned to the open window as the sound of cracking glass and shattering plates came from outside. Someone had breached the minefield, confident enough not to watch their step.
“They’re here,” Anna said, holding up a butcher’s knife.
“Everyone keep quiet,” Nick said, “and get down.”
The group took cover behind the bar.
Minutes passed.
Nothing.
Then something came flying through the open window and thudded on the floor of the restaurant. It was a severed head.
Anna moaned as she stared at the disembodied skull. “Lily! You bastards.”
“We’ve killed your precious friend, Anna,” came Shawcross’s nasally voice from outside. “If you don’t surrender now, we’ll systematically kill every one of your precious animals at the zoo.”
Anna started to cry. Nick could see that the threat wouldn’t work on her, wouldn’t make her give up, but it was upsetting her a great deal. It upset him, too.
“You’ll kill them anyway,” she shouted back. “So don’t take me for a fool.”
“That’s the last thing I take you for,” Shawcross said. “You’re a smart, rational person, Anna, so if you come out peacefully I’ll rethink things and let you live.”
“You’re fucking crazy!”
“I’ve never been saner. I am strength and endurance. I am leadership and intelligence. I am survival for all those who follow me.”
“You’re batshit insane is what you are,” Nick shouted.<
br />
“Ah, Nick. Is that you? I take it that our darling, sweet Anna has emancipated you? Just another transgression she’ll later come to regret.”
“Just give this up, Shawcross,” Nick shouted from behind the bar. “You’re not hurting anybody else tonight.”
“I beg to differ.”
There was silence for a while. Nick again made eye contact with Anna as the two of them tried to figure out what was happening.
Eve moved from her position by the soda fountain and joined Nick at the bar. “Do you smell that?” she asked him.
Nick smelt it: petrol. It came in through the window and pooled on the wooden floor of the restaurant.
Pauline and Cassie realised what was happening and looked at Nick like frightened mice.
“Come out,” Shawcross demanded, “or burn alive.”
“Bite me,” Nick shouted.
“Do not test my resolve.”
“You won’t do it because, if you do, you’ll be as screwed as we are.”
“And why is that?”
“Because you know that fire attracts them. You set fire to this restaurant and you bring a shitload of death up the hill. The dead and infected will be up here within the hour, not to mention the fact that you could end up incinerating the whole park. I don’t think the Royal Fire Brigade is operational anymore.”
There was silence outside. Nick knew, of all things, Shawcross was a careful man. He was a planner above all else. He wasn’t about to set fire to one of his biggest assets. He wouldn’t scorch the earth he wanted to claim.
“I think you need to find a Plan B,” Nick said, “and if it involves you coming anywhere near us, I’m going to kill you, Shawcross, you fucking weasel. Understood?”
“You’ll regret this, Nick.”
“Not before you do.”
There were sounds of a discussion outside, the tone heated and irritable.
“What do you think they’re doing?” Eve whispered to Nick.
“I don’t know, but we’re sitting ducks in here. Sooner or later they’ll come up with a plan to get us out, or kill us where we stand.”
“What do we do?”
Nick thought about it for a moment. “I think we should leave here, but on our terms, not theirs.”
“What do you mean we should leave?” Anna said, scurrying over to him.
The BIG Horror Pack 2 Page 26
