Ravage: An Apocalyptic Horror Novel (36 page)

“Damn it,” said Eve.  “They’re coming this way.”

The first of the dead reached into the truck and grabbed at
Michelle’s ankles.  Annaliese watched, powerless, as she was dragged
kicking and screaming into the crowd.  She disappeared so fast that it was
as if she were sinking into a sea.  One minute she was there, the next she
was just another part of the ever-moving mob.

Nick and Renee made it to the truck, slumping up against its
side with exhaustion.

“In the back,” Annaliese shouted to them.  “Get in the
back.”

The truck bounced on its suspension as the two men leapt
onto the cargo shelf.  The dead clawed at them, trying to drag them back
out again.

Time to go.

Annaliese stepped on the accelerator.  The truck bolted
forward.

Stalled. 

A body leapt onto the bonnet and thumped at the broken
windscreen.  Annaliese cursed out loud and got the engine back in
gear.  She tried to pull off again and was relieved when the vehicle shot
forward and picked up speed.

Glad I still know how to drive.

More bodies fell beneath the wheels and the truck whined
unhappily under the additional stress.  It was never designed to drive
over bodies.

“Where do we go?” Eve asked.  “They’re everywhere.”

The dead were indeed everywhere, and that was just the ones
from the house.  When the ones from the bottom of the hill arrived, there
would be zero chance of escape.

“We need to head for the access road just past the house,”
Annaliese told her passengers.  “It leads down the hill and into the
towns.  It’s how the staff and delivery drivers used to come and go.”

Eve took a breath and nodded.  Annaliese could feel the
younger woman shaking beside her.  In the rear view mirror she could see
Nick and Renee fighting to hold on.  Despite not wanting to, she slowed
down.  She didn’t want to lose the two men off the back.

“Wait!” said Eve.

Annaliese turned to her.  “What?  What is it?”

“We need supplies or we won’t last the week.”

“We have to go.  We have no choice.”

“What if we can’t find food…or water?”

Something occurred to Annaliese.  Something that made
her point the truck towards the woods.  “Hold on,” she said.  “I know
where we can get supplies, but we’ll have to be quick.”

She took the truck off into the treeline at the edge of the
park.  It was hard work steering the truck through the woods in the dark,
but there was no choice to drive slowly.  She knew the dead would be everywhere
within the hour.  Eve was right, though: they needed supplies if they had
any chance of surviving on the road.

She had to concentrate hard to try and remember the way she
had come when she fled the greenhouse.  When the truck broke through the
trees and entered into the open area of the crop field, she knew her memory had
served her correctly.

We might just do this.

Something jumped out in front of the truck and Annaliese
turned sharply to avoid it.  The tires skidded in the muddy ruts and came
to a violent stop.

“What the hell was that?” Eve asked.

“I don’t know,” said Annaliese, peering out of her side
window.  “There was somebody in the road, but I can’t see anything.” 

A man jumped up against the glass.

“It’s one of them,” Pauline cried.

Annaliese stared out of her window felt her heart turn to
stone.  She recognised the man outside.

“It’s Mike,” she said, feeling sick to her tummy.

Everyone in the truck was silent.  They had all liked
Mike.

“Oh, thank God.  Anna!”

Annaliese’s eyes went wide and her breath caught in her
lungs.  She stared at Mike with disbelief.  “You’re alive?”

Mike nodded.  “Of course I am.  I could use a
doctor, though, or maybe a good vet.  Do you know any?”

Annaliese opened up her door and fell out on top of him,
wrapping her arms tightly around his waist.  “I thought you were one of
them.”

Mike winced.  “Ow, ow.  Easy.”

Annaliese back away and looked down at Mike stomach
wound.  “How did you…”

Mike pulled up his shirt to show a layer of blood-soaked
magazines.  “He still got me pretty good, but the armour took most of the
damage.  That guy who jumped us gave me a right beating before he left,
though.  It wasn’t until I saw the fireworks that I even found the
strength to move or even know where to go.  I take it the dead are
coming?”

She nodded.  Mike looked an absolute mess, but should
be alright with rest.  “Get in the back with Nick and Renee,” she
said.  “We’re getting supplies and then getting the hell out of here.”

Mike headed around to the back of the truck and the other
men helped him up.  Annaliese hopped back in the driver’s seat and got
them all moving again.  The greenhouse would be just up ahead.

Chapter Forty-Two

The truck pulled into an area Nick
didn’t recognise.  There was a large, rectangular greenhouse in the centre
of the clearing and rows and rows of planters either side of it.  Even
from outside he could see the glass building was piled high with supplies.

The truck stopped and Annaliese got out.  “Okay
everyone,” she said.  “Grab as much as you can as quickly as you can.
 Who
knows
when we’ll have a chance to get more.”

They all hopped out the truck and got to work.  Nick
went into the greenhouse before Annaliese, and together the entire group formed
a line, passing out boxes and moving them down towards the flatbed.  There
was plenty of bottled soft drinks and water, along with bags and bags of dried
seeds and nuts meant for the animals.  What they didn’t have much of was
time.  Nick had least of all.

Seconds ticking away.

Within ten minutes the back of the truck was fully loaded
with supplies and there were several more boxes on the front seats ready to go
on passenger’s laps.

Nick stood beside the truck and waited for everybody to
gather.  All of them now had weapons again; various gardening implements
they had found in the greenhouse.  He himself had armed up with a
shovel.  Not that he needed it.

“Okay,” Annaliese said, opening up the driver’s side door
and readying herself to get in.  “This is it.  Time to go see what’s left
of the world.  I can’t say we have much chance of making it, but we’re
going to do our best.  The people in front of me right now are the people
I am glad are here; the people I trust.  No matter what happens, I just
want to thank you all for reminding me what family is.”

Everybody stood in silence and seemed to think about
that.  In some perverted way they
were
all family.

I’m going to miss them.

Nick took the opportunity to say goodbye.  He cleared
his throat and moved to the centre of the group.  “I just want to thank
you all as well,” he said.  “You gave me something to live for after
everything else I had was gone.”  He looked at Eve.  “You especially,
Eve.  If I hadn’t met you I probably would have given up before the first
night was through.  My son would have liked you.” He chuckled.  “My
wife….not so much.”

Eve laughed.  “Come on, that’s enough sappiness for one
day.  We have to get going.”

“Not me,” said Nick.

Eve frowned at him.  “What are you talking about?”

“I just can’t go with you.”

“Why not?”

Renee came and stood in front of Nick and looked him in the
eyes suspiciously.  Something obviously dawned on the other man because
his eyebrows went high on his forehead.  “He is bitten.”

“No he isn’t,” Eve said, rolling her eyes and scoffing.

Nick rolled up the sleeve of his woollen jacket and showed
revealed the ragged bite wound on his wrist.  “They got me back at the
house, just before we lost Jan.”

Renee looked down at the ground for a moment and then back
up at Nick.  He had tears in his eyes.  “I am sorry, my friend.”

Nick sighed.  “Yeah, me too.”

Eve started crying, too.  She went up to Nick and
hugged him tightly.  “I don’t think I can leave without you.”

Nick hugged her back.  “Yes, you can.  You have no
choice.  You’re a survivor, Eve.  That’s why you’re still here. 
You just keep on surviving, okay?”

Eve backed away from him and nodded.  She was clearly
trying to hold herself together.  Her lips were pursed tightly together as
she fought away her emotions.

Nick took off his woollen jacket and wrapped it around her
shoulders.  “You take this,” he said.  “It’s going to get cold soon.”

Eve smiled at him, despite the tears rolling down her
cheeks.  “It smells like you.”

Nick waved a hand.  “Now go on.  Get out of here
before I try to eat you all.”

Teary-eyed, but knowing what must be done, everyone started
climbing back into the truck.  Nick took the time to say his goodbyes to
Anna.

“Sorry it went down this way,” she said to him.

“Me too, but somebody has to stay behind to let the animals
free anyway.  Can’t leave them caged up to starve to death, can we?”

Annaliese smiled.  “I feel better knowing they’ll be
free.  Thank you.”

“You just look after everyone, you hear me?”

Annaliese snapped off a salute.  “I promise.” 
Then she got into the truck and started the engine.

Nick turned around to look for Pauline.  He couldn’t
let her leave without saying goodbye.  She and Eve had been with him since
the beginning.

He spotted her over at the edge of the woods, pulling up
some carrots from a plot and dumping them into a sack.  Nick saw the
danger before she did.

But it was too late.

Two dead men came out of the bushes and grabbed Pauline by
her arms.  The one on her left took a deep bite from her neck.

“Nooo!”  Nick sprinted towards her, holding up the
shovel he had armed himself with.  He reached the edge of the clearing and
smashed the shovel against the two dead men’s skulls, one after the
other.  Both of them fell to the ground dead.  Pauline fell to the
floor beside them.  Blood pumped from her neck and soaked the grass. 
Her eyes were still open and staring at Nick.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She smiled and then went still.  Nick was glad it was
the expression she died with.

I’m sorry I didn’t turn around faster.

Nick looked back at the truck.  The others were all
staring in horror.  He waved a hand at them.  “Go!  Get out of
here,” he shouted.  “More will be coming and you won’t get another chance
to leave.”

They all stared sadly for a moment, but then Annaliese faced
front and got the truck moving.  She took it slowly at first, but
eventually sped up and headed into the woods.  Nick sat down on the grass
and watched the truck disappear into the trees.  He really was going to
miss them all, but he wouldn’t trade things for the world.  Soon he would
be back with his wife and son. 

He lay back on the grass, looked up at the stars, and
wondered what Heaven would be like.  And if he would ever get there.

Epilogue

Nick had needed to work fast to get
all of the animals free in time.  A moment longer and the dead would have
swarmed over him, having finally made their way from the grounds around Ripley
Hall. 

The various animals had run wild as soon as he’d let them
loose.  The dead just ignored them.  It was as if anything other than
a human being was invisible to them.  Hopefully, the animals would find a
way to survive.  The world was now free of men hunting them and using them
for food.  Maybe, if anything, the world would at least be better for the
animals.

Once he had finished opening up all the enclosures, Nick had
climbed up onto the roof of the orang-utan exhibit.  The zoo now teemed
with the dead and the rooftop was one of the only safe places left.  Now
he just sat peacefully, watching the dead wander about aimlessly while he waited
for the end.

Nick could already feel himself changing.  A deep
exhaustion had fallen over him and his vision had taken on an unnatural orange
tint, almost like he was seeing everything through a sepia filter.  His
internal organs felt heavy, like all movement inside of him had ground to a
halt.  He felt as though he was dead already, but that his mind was just a
little slow in catching on.

Above all else, however, he felt at peace.  He could
finally stop running, stop fighting, stop surviving.  Really, his life had
ended the moment his son had died.  Now he could finally move on, to
whatever fate had lined up for him next.

Thud!

Nick turned around.  He did not flinch or even worry.
 Nothing could frighten him anymore.  Fear only existed with the
possibility of loss.  He had already lost all he could

Sitting on the roof behind him was Lily.  She had leapt
from a nearby tree.  She hooted at him as she shuffled nearer.  Nick
saw that she held a carrot in her hand.  It looked suspiciously like the
ones he had seen at the greenhouse.

Lily reached out and offered the vegetable.  Nick
laughed but shook his head.  “No, thanks.  It would just be wasted on
me.  You eat it, Lily.”

As if understanding, Lily sat down beside him and took a
hefty bite out of the carrot.  Nick reached over and patted her fur.

“You can’t stay here for long, Lily.  I’m sick, and
eventually I’ll become dangerous.  I think you understand that.  For
now, though, I’m glad you’re here.  I hope you make it out of this mess
better than me.” 

There was silence for a while and Nick stared of into the
distance.  The sun was beginning to rise above the horizon like a ball on
a string.  It was his last morning on Earth and he was feeling pretty damn
good.  The very notion was absurd, but it was true. 

“You think they’ll be okay out there?” he asked Lily. 
He was thinking about Eve and the others.  Their chance of finding safety
seemed pretty slim, but at least there
was
a chance.  He could
still hope for them.  “You think they’ll keep on surviving?”

Lily hooted.

“Yeah.”  Nick nodded and smile.  “That’s what I
think, too.”

With a smile on his face, Nick lay back and watched the sun
rise.  A few minutes later, he rose with it.

The
End