Ravage: An Apocalyptic Horror Novel (17 page)

“Come on,” said one of the strangers.  “Get the table
back up against the doors.”

“I’m doing it, I’m doing it,” said another.

“Damn, they’re at the door.  They’re going to get in.”

“No, no.  We’re fine.  Just keep pushing.”

Together, the group of strangers managed to get the kitchen
doors reclosed and barricaded them with a heavy wooden table and one of the
room’s industrial fridges.  The bloodthirsty mob outside beat their fists
against the oak doors, but the ancient wood held firm, designed to stand the
test of time.

Annaliese peeled herself off the tiles and crawled over to
Bradley who was lying on his side and wheezing.  His skin had become
alabaster-pale and his finger stumps continued bleeding onto the floor.

“Is he bitten?” asked a voice that she recognised.  It
was Shawcross, the manager of Ripley Hall.

She stared up at the man, surprised by his wild ginger hair
that was usually so neatly combed, and his flush red face that was usually so
pale.  She shook her head in confusion.  “What?”

Shawcross huffed.  “Bradley,” he said.  “Did one
of those
things
bite him?”

“Things?  What are you talking about?”

Shawcross smashed his fist against the wall.  “Fuck
sake, will you just answer the question, you dumb bitch.”

Annaliese was on her feet in a flash.  How dare anyone
speak to her that way; especially a wretch like Shawcross.  “Who the hell
do you think-”

“Yes, I’m bitten,” Bradley uttered from the floor.  He
held up the mangled stumps where his fingers used to be.  “I need help.”

Shawcross shook his head and marched across the room, over
to one of the aluminium work counters.  “You’re way beyond help,” he said,
and then yanked a wooden meat tenderiser from a set of hooks on the wall. 
He started back towards Bradley and the strangers in the room spread out to the
sides of the kitchen, as though they wanted to give him space.

Annaliese watched Shawcross cross the tiles with the mallet
clutched tightly in his bony fists.  “What the hell are you doing?” she asked
him incredulously.

“What does it bloody well look like?  We have to kill
him.”

Bradley’s eyes went wide and he started trying to get
up.  He couldn’t manage it, though, and flopped down onto his side
again. 

Annaliese stood over her colleague protectively.  “Are
you insane?” she said.  “You’re not killing anybody, you lunatic.”

“He’s serious,” said a nearby woman.  It was the one
who had opened up the doors for Annaliese and let her inside the kitchen. 
She seemed anxious, but there was also a steely determination in her misty blue
eyes.  “Have you not seen what happens when someone gets bitten?”

Annaliese shook her head and held out a hand to Shawcross to
keep him from advancing any further.  “No, I haven’t.  I have no clue
what is going on here.  All I know is that there’s a dead woman in the
gardens and people keep attacking me.  Can somebody here explain that to
me, please?”

Shawcross sighed and leant himself up against one of the
kitchen counters.  He lowered the meat tenderiser so that it hung less-threateningly
down by his thigh.  “It started in the middle of the night,” he
said.  “Everything went to hell.”

Annaliese managed to get Bradley
back onto the swivel chair and fetched him a glass of water.  He was
unable to take more than a couple of sips.  She couldn’t help but notice
the way everybody in the room kept eyeballing him suspiciously, like he was a
bomb ready to go off.  There was only a handful of people in the room, but
they all looked terrified.

What happened to these people?

“Okay,” she said to Shawcross, moving over to the aluminium
counter in the centre of the room.  “Let’s hear it, then.  I want to
know exactly what is going on.”

Shawcross shrugged.  “Well, I’m afraid I will have to
disappoint you there.  None of us can tell you
exactly
what is
going on.  We can only tell you what we know.”

“Good enough,” she said.

“Firstly, though, how come you’re even here, Anna?”

“I was on call.  Bradley needed assistance with a
birth.”

Shawcross nodded but seemed uninterested.  The zoo and
amusement park outside were never any of his concern; he was only in charge of
the manor and its use as a private venue and hotel.  He didn’t care about
anything else.  The guy was a tool.

“Everything went okay, by the way,” she told him, on the off
chance he was interested.  “I was just heading for my car to go home when
I encountered a pair of strangers in the gardens.”

Shawcross seemed interested again.  He leaned
forward.  “Oh? What happened?”

“It was a man and a woman.  The woman was dead – ripped
apart by the man.  The guy came at me like a lunatic.  If it wasn’t
for Bradley coming to my rescue, I would be a goner.”

“And Bradley got bit?”

Annaliese nodded.  “Yes.  But I thought you were
going to be the one explaining things, so why am I the one doing all the
talking?”

Shawcross sighed.  “Okay, fine.  It started out as
a night like any other.  I was hosting a corporate function just like I
have a million times before.  Drinks were flowing, bar tabs were rising,
and not a single person had started a fight.  It was as smooth as
ever.  But a few people were under the weather.”

Annaliese frowned.  “Under the weather?”

“Not everyone was ill,” added the woman who had let her into
the kitchen.  “Just a couple people.  Jeff Danks and Bob Foster from
the Southampton branch were the worst-off.”

“Yes,” Shawcross agreed.  “Just a couple of people were
sick at first.  I assumed they just had the sniffles.  There were
about three or four of them in total, all sneezing and sweating.  None of
them were getting involved with the rest of the party.  They didn’t dance;
they barely drank.  They just sat there looking like death warmed up.”

Annaliese shrugged.  She didn’t know where this was
going.  “How is that connected to what is happening now?”

“Because they were the first to turn…
nasty
– for want
of a better word.  I checked on them throughout the evening, of course –
asking if they needed assistance or even just some Paracetamol – but they were
barely responsive.  By about 1AM they looked like they were on death’s
door.  One of them even had a nosebleed.  The last thing I decided,
before everything turned upside down, was to ask Stephen and Antoine to help
the sick guests up to their rooms.  They were bringing down the mood of
the other guests.”

Annaliese knew the two bus boys Shawcross was referring
to.  Antoine was a student from French Guyana and had an interest in
animals.  He had come and spoken with Annaliese many times.  A gentle
boy.  Stephen was a typical English teenager, earning a bit of pocket
money while he decided on what he really wanted to do with the rest of his
life. 

“Where are Stephen and Antoine now?” she asked.

“The sick guests attacked them.  They…they just sprung
to life like wild animals and took the poor boys down to the ground.”

Annaliese remembered the man who had attacked her outside
and nodded. 
Wild animals
was as good a description as any.

“They tore out poor Stephen’s throat before he even knew
what was happening.  I have no idea what I will tell his family.”

Annaliese turned around and examined the barricaded doors at
the front of the kitchen – the oak panels shook with each blow of a fist behind
them – and then she glanced at Bradley.  The young veterinary assistant
was barely conscious, but at least his hand had finally stopped bleeding.

“They just…
attacked
?” she said.  “But that makes
no sense.”

“Must be a virus or something,” somebody muttered.  “I
bet terrorists did it.  Like that attack on the Cruise Ship last week.”

“Or it could be some new kind of drug,” added another. 
“Like that bath salts thing in America.”

“Next thing we knew,” Shawcross continued, ignoring the
various conspiracy theories that had begun to bandy themselves around the room,
“half the guests were injured and bleeding.  Or dead.  Thirty guests
ripped to pieces in minutes.”

Annaliese placed a hand over her mouth.  She could
hardly believe what she was hearing. 

“That’s not the worst part,” Shawcross added.  “Those
that were left of us eventually managed to get the sick guests under
control.  We grabbed a hold of them and locked them in the wine cellar
beneath the bar.  Some of us got bitten or scratched in the process, but
together we managed to succeed.  We thought we were safe, that the whole thing
was over….”  He wiped the back of his hand against his clammy forehead and
ran his fingers through his damp ginger hair.  “I put through a call to
emergency services and those of us left standing set about trying to help those
who were not.”  He looked at Bradley and shook his head.  “We have to
deal with him right now, before it’s too late.”

Annaliese put her hand out to keep him in place. 
“Nobody is doing anything until I understand what it is you’re all afraid of.”

“Isn’t it obvious?”  Shawcross almost shouted in her
face.  “He’s going to become one of them.”

She stood up straight and grabbed a glass from beside the
sink.  She filled it to the top with water and then swigged it down in one
gulp.  She shook her head and stared down at the floor.  It was only
then that she noticed all the dried blood on the kitchen tiles.

“What the hell happened in here?”

Shawcross let out a long breath that seemed to lower his
gangly height by a full two inches.  He was acting nothing like the
organised and confident man she was used to. 

“Follow me,” he said to her.  “The rest of you stay
here.  Be vigilant.  Find something to tie Bradley up.”

Annaliese followed the man to the back of the kitchen. 
He led her to an industrial chiller and placed a hand on its long aluminium
handle.

“You ready for this?” he asked her.

“I don’t even know what
this
is.”

“Well, you’re about to find out.”  He yanked open the
door and a mist of cold air immediately escaped and invaded Annaliese’s
lungs. 

It took a few moments for the mist to clear.  

She could not believe what was inside.

If this is a nightmare then please let me wake up.

“These people were all merely injured when we holed up in
here.  Just cuts and bruises mostly.  But by the time we locked
ourselves inside the kitchen, we knew what would become of them.  We had
already seen it happen at the bar.”

Annaliese stared at all the people tied up in the
freezer.  They thrashed about, spitting and hissing, some of them
screeching at the sight of her.  Ragged wounds covered many of them while
some appeared almost uninjured.  All of them had the sickness,
though.  Blood smeared each of their orifices and their skin was puffy and
red.  Annaliese stared at each one of them in turn, daring not to blink
for fear that something terrible would happen while she was not watching. 

“What happened in the bar?” she asked.  She needed to
know more.  She needed to make some sense of what she was seeing.

“Like I said, we were helping the wounded.  Some people
were dead, their throats and stomachs ripped open.  But others just had
minor bites and scratches.  We tried to patch up their wounds, but they
seemed to deteriorate fast.  One woman only had a bite on her wrist and
she passed out unconscious and wouldn’t wake back up again.  We assumed that
it was the shock.  I was feeling pretty weak myself.  But then the
others began to rise.”

“Rise?”

Shawcross nodded.  “The wounded were unconscious when
the people we could have sworn were dead started getting up and coming after
us.  Young Stephen’s neck had been ripped to shreds, but he was back on
his feet, stumbling around like some kind of drunk.  All of the people who
we were positive were dead got back to their feet.  We assumed that we had
gotten it wrong, that the people had not been dead at all, but then one of us
got too near... 

The dead came after us like something out of a horror
movie.  But then, just when we couldn’t dream of things getting worse, all
of the unconscious people snapped awake and came after us as well.  They
were quick as lightning, not like the dead ones, and outnumbered us three to
one.  We were lucky that any of us made it out alive.  A group of us
ended up in this kitchen, but half our number was badly injured and
bleeding.  It was too late for them, we already knew.”

Annaliese pointed at the people in the freezer.  “You
mean these people?”

“Yes.  We had all seen what had happened to those who’d
been injured in the bar lounge.  They got very sick very fast, passed out
unconscious, and then woke up again, with whatever it is that’s driving people
insane.  When one of the injured guests started feeling weak from his
injuries, he volunteered to be restrained in case he became violent like the
others.  We attached him to the refrigeration racks in the freezer and
turned up the thermostat so he wouldn’t freeze.  Then, slowly, one-by-one,
all of the people with injuries – no matter how small – started to come down
with the sickness.  Eventually, we had no choice but to secure everyone in
the freezer for safety – theirs
and
ours.”  He let out a small
laugh that was more of an exasperated huff than anything else.  “You know,
it’s funny,” he said, “but not a single one of them protested as we locked them
up inside this fridge.  It’s as though they knew they were doomed;
resigned to their fates.”

“They’re not
doomed
,” said Annaliese.  “They’re
just ill.  We need to call for help.”

“You’re forgetting that I already did.  I placed the
call about…” he looked at his watch, “eight hours ago.  Nobody has arrived
yet.  We’ve been waiting in here all night, listening to those monsters
outside tear the place apart.”  He seemed almost close to tears at the
thought of the manor being out of his control.  “Then we heard you
shouting,” he said.  “To be quite frank, Anna, I thought it was a bad idea
opening up the doors for you, but Kimberly didn’t feel it was right to leave
you out there to die.  It was her that opened the doors for you.”

Annaliese patted him on the arm.  Her usual opinion of
Shawcross was that he was a stuffy, pedantic asshole, but she could tell that
he was genuinely shaken by everything that had happened.  He seemed
fragile to the point of breaking.  “It’s okay,” she said to him. 
“You were just being pragmatic, and that’s good.”

He seemed relieved to hear her say that.

Annaliese took another glance at the prisoners –
volunteers
– in the fridge again.  All of them were glaring at her and reaching out
with their hands.  They were all making that wretched screeching sound.

“They only make that noise when they can see you,” Shawcross
said.  “I think it’s how they let each other know when they find someone
to attack.  Fresh meat or whatever.”

Annaliese cringed at the description.  She didn’t like
to think of herself as
meat
in any scenario.  “This is all
impossible,” she said.  “There is no known condition that could cause this
kind of behaviour.  Cannibalistic rage?  It’s…it’s insane.  The
stuff of fiction.”

Shawcross slammed the freezer door shut.  The
screeching immediately stopped.

“I can’t make any more sense of this than you, but I have
one last thing to show you that might make you accept what we’re up against.”

Annaliese took in a breath and fought against the rising
sickness in her stomach.  How much more could there be to see?

At the very back of the vast industrial kitchen was a door,
which Shawcross now stood in front of.  Annaliese assumed it was the
pantry. 

“What’s inside there?” she asked.

“See for yourself.”  He twisted the door handles and
pulled it wide open.

Annaliese shook her head.  “Just when I think things
are screwed up enough.”

Inside the pantry, hanging from a light fixture by what
appeared to be a bright red tie was a body.  It was kicking and wriggling
as it hung by its neck.

“When I said everybody went willingly into the freezer I
wasn’t entirely truthful,” Shawcross explained.  “James was one of the
company managers at the function last night.  He never owned up to having
been bitten; none of us knew.  He covered it up with his sleeve. 
While we were all distracted with moving the injured people into the freezer he
must have snuck off on his own.  I found him hanging like this a few hours
ago.  I haven’t told the others.”

“He’s been like this for hours?  That can’t be. 
Nobody could-”

“Survive being hanged by their neck all that time?”  He
finished the sentence for her.  “No, they could not.  This man is
categorically dead.  Check his pulse if you don’t believe me, but I would
probably advise against getting that close.”

Annaliese watched the businessman swinging back and forth by
his tie.  The purple ligature marks around his neck were proof enough that
the blood supply and oxygen had been cut off to his brain.  There was no
way the man could still be alive.  What she was looking at was an animated
corpse.