Ravage: An Apocalyptic Horror Novel (14 page)

Maybe they really have become monsters. 

Nick carefully replaced the ceiling tile and continued
on along the railings.  He had to keep his face pointed downwards, chin to
his chest, as age-old insulation and dust swirled around him; disturbed, most
likely, for the first time in years.

If the infected don’t get me, asbestos poisoning
will.

He eventually stopped where he imagined the restaurant
floor to be and carefully positioned himself astride two parallel rails. 
He pushed on them to test their strength.  They groaned a little but kept
their shape.  Above him, Jan’s muffled shouting continued to keep the
infected herded together in one place.

Nick took a deep breath and prepared himself for what he
was about to do.
  Here goes nothing.

He smashed his fist into one of the flimsy ceiling tiles
and sent it plummeting to the floor.  A couple of infected people directly
below stared up at him and instantly let out one of their high-pitched
screeches.  Nick held his breath, terrified, but was glad to see that his
plan was going as expected.  He hung his head out of the hole, making sure
he was easily visible to the rest of the infected below.

“Hey!  Come and get it, silly bollocks!”

The screech of the infected brought others near. 
They funnelled in from the corridors and kitchen areas, and even more started
pouring in from outside, dragging themselves in through the broken windows.

It wasn’t long before the restaurant floor was packed
shoulder-to-shoulder with infected.  There was even one or two of the
slower ones amongst them.

The ones that might be dead.

Now’s not the time to think about that.

“Come on,” Nick shouted down at them.  “Let’s have
you!”

Infected people continued to pile in and fill the floor
of the restaurant.  They reached up at him futilely, like worshippers
praising God.  Eventually he was satisfied that nearly all of them were
gathered inside the building.  Their collective screeching was so loud now
that it was hard to hear the alarm siren.

Time to get out of here.

Nick pulled himself back up from the hole in the ceiling
and swivelled around on the railings. 

Suddenly he fell.

The rail had bent and lowered by about six inches. 
Nick froze, closing his eyes and praying that the rail did not give any
more.  The sounds of the infected below him seemed to get even more ravenous
as he hung perilously above them.

After a few seconds had gone by, he slowly lifted his
hand and grabbed the rail further along.  Then he moved his
knee.  

The railing groaned.

Nick kept moving.

He headed back the way he had come, being mindful to make
as little noise as possible.  His intention was for the infected to remain
in the restaurant, looking up at the hole in the ceiling where they had last
set eyes on him.  He would escape the building through the staffroom
window without being spotted.  He just had to be quick, and quiet. 

And that’s just what he did.  He travelled back
through the crawlspace and dropped down onto the staffroom’s sofa.  He
wasted no time in hopping back through the open window and heading
outside.  As soon as his feet hit the ground, he turned around and shouted
up to Jan on the roof.

“Hey!  The back of the building is clear.  Can
you get down?”

After a few seconds Jan appeared at the edge of the
roof.  “What’s happening?” he asked.  “They all went inside the
restaurant.”

“I know.  I lured them in.  Get down from
there quick and we can make a break for the trees and try to find the others.”

Jan was visibly relieved, his chest losing a full inch
as he let out a whistling breath.  He crouched down and lowered himself
onto the lip of the roof, before letting himself go.  He hit the ground
with a
thud
and Nick had to steady the man as he landed.

“Come on,” he said, yanking Jan towards the woods. 
“Margaret is waiting for us.” 

The two of them raced into the trees, fighting to keep
their speed as the headed up the growing incline of the hill.

“Do you think the others will have waited?” Jan asked as
they huffed and puffed.

“I doubt it.  In fact, Dave pretty much said that
they wouldn’t.”

“What’s the smart thing to do, then?  They could
have gone in a hundred different directions.”

Nick stopped running and stamped his foot.  “Damn
it!”

Jan looked worried.  “What is it?”

“Margaret.  I told her to wait for me.  She
was right here in this spot, I’m sure.”

“Calm down.  I’m sure she’s here somewhere.”

Nick turned a circle, scanning the trees that surrounded
them on all sides, but there was no sign of Margaret.  His heart beat
rapidly in his chest.

Crack!

A far off snapping of twigs.

“Do you hear that?”  Nick set off towards the
sound.  Jan was right behind him.  After passing through several
yards of thick trees and thorny shrubs, a figure became visible in the
distance.  Nick spotted the coloured-flash of their clothing.

He and Jan picked up speed, aiming for the stranger up
ahead.  Nick almost tripped over a half-buried tangle of roots at one
point, but Jan managed to reach out and keep him on his feet.  Less than a
minute later they had caught up with the unidentified person.

“Eve!” he said, doubling over and wheezing once he knew
it was her.  “What…are you doing…out here on your own?”

“I came to find you.  The others are going to move
on if you’re not back in ten minutes.”

“That was dumb of you,” Nick admonished her.  He
straightened back up and tried to control his breathing.  “Where’s the
group now?  Do they have…Margaret?”

“Dave took everyone down to the bottom of the hill, by
where we first found this place.  And, yes, Margaret found us.  She’s
with them.”

“They should have gone
up
the hill not down,” Jan
said.  “Less likely to be infected people up high, I reckon.”

Eve shrugged.  “Dave said that it would be a waste
of energy climbing up the hill.  He wanted to go back the way we came
in.  He said it was the only place we knew was safe.”

Nick shrugged.  “Whatever.  Up, down.  I
don’t care.  Let’s just catch up with them before they leave us high and
dry.”

Eve led the way, taking them horizontally across the
hill, and then slightly downwards towards the bottom.  The screeches and
wails of the infected had stopped now as the restaurant’s security alarm
finally died out.  Now the only sounds left was the pounding of their feet
and the snapping of twigs and autumn leaves.

“They’re down here,” said Eve, pointing. 

At the bottom of the hill, Dave and the others were gathered
in a tight bunch.  Margaret waved at Nick as they approached.  “Thank
Heaven’s you’re okay,” she said.

Nick went and gave the old lady a quick hug. 

Dave had his arms folded impatiently.  “We were
just about to give up on you.”

“Thanks for waiting,” Jan said.  “What’s the plan?”

“We head back into the woods we started in.  We
know it’s clear of infected because it was clear when we came through.”

“So was the car park,” Carl remarked.  “But it’s
certainly had a few visitors since then.”

“That was the alarm,” Dave said.  “It brought them
to us overnight.  They obviously heard it from in the distance.”

“But Dash managed to turn the alarm off after only a
couple of minutes,” Eve said.

Dave shrugged.  “They must have just headed for it
when it was going off and carried on in that direction when it stopped. 
When they hear something they must set off in that direction until they come
across something else to distract them otherwise.”

“You mean someone to chow down on,” said Dash.  He
looked over at Jan.  “What were you doing, anyway? Risking your life for
this honky?”

“Let’s just get out of here,” said Jan.  “I’m not
in the mood for being hunted by those things; and it’s only a matter of time
before one of them stumbles upon us.”

Carl screamed.

Nick stumbled backwards in shock as Carl crashed to the
muddy ground.  Someone had attacked him from behind and was now clinging
to his back, arms wrapped around his neck.

“Damn it!” Dave shouted.  “It’s that bitch.”

Nick looked down and could not believe it.  The
attacker was Kathryn.  She was struggling with Carl on the ground and
trying to sink her teeth into him.  Her face was still swollen with the
bruises Dave had inflicted on her, but her eyes were now bulbous white orbs
leaking blood.  Blood also poured from her mouth, so thickly that it was
like her insides were melting.

“Help me!” Carl cried out.  “Somebody get her off
m-“

His words were cut short.  Kathryn’s teeth sunk
deep into his throat.  She ripped away his carotid artery and chewed on it
like a length of sausage.  Carl writhed in agony as he struggled to take a
breath through a throat that was filling with fluid.

A wailing screech from the group’s right-hand side made
them all spin around as one.  Several metres away, coming towards them
like an Olympic sprinter, was Jake.

“They must have heard the alarms, too,” Nick
shouted.  “It brought them in this direction.”

“Everybody run,” Dave bellowed.

No one needed convincing.  They all sprinted back
the other way, towards the car park.  When they burst back out of the
treeline, hitting the unforgiving concrete, the group skidded to a halt. 
Several of the infected had now poured back out of the
Rainforest Café
and
were outside again.  Jake’s screeching had alerted them and they were now
staring toward the treeline with their swollen eyeballs.

“There’s nowhere to run,” Eve said as she shuffled up
beside Nick.  “We’re surrounded.”

Nick knew she was right.  Jake and Kathryn hunted
them from the woods behind, while dozens of infected had started to fill up the
car park ahead.  He looked around desperately for an option. 

“There!” he pointed.  “Head for the cable cars.”

The group did as he said and sprinted across the car
park.  The infected outside the café spotted them immediately and filled the
air with their collective screeching.  Then they stampeded as one,
clattering across the pavement like a pack of bloodthirsty wolves.

With every step Nick and the others took towards the
cable cars, the mob of infected got closer.  Nick didn’t know if they had
any chance of making it, but the air was filled with the echoes of their
hurried footfalls as he and the others ran as quickly as they could.  They
were running for their lives. 

They ran so fast that Nick worried his legs might fail
at any second.  None of them could quit, though.  They had to keep
running.  “Quickly,” he shouted.  “Into the cars.”

On the raised cement platform, only two cable cars were
accessible.  All of the others were hanging at spaced intervals up the
hill.  The cars were too small to accommodate everyone individually, so
the group were forced to split into two.  Nick leapt into the nearest car,
followed by Cassie and the three prisoners.  Cassie seemed immediately
uncomfortable in the presence of the men, but there was no time to comfort
her.  The rest of the group were lagging further behind and barely managed
to make their way inside the remaining cable car before the infected reached
the platform. 

But they did make it. 

Are we safe?

Nick pulled his car’s sliding door shut and watched
through the plastic windows as Dave did the same in his.  Both groups were
now inside a protective cocoon.

But Nick realised something terrible. 

Looking across at the other cable car and then checking
out the occupants of his own, he noticed that someone was missing. 

Margaret wasn’t inside either car.

“No, no, no!”  Nick looked out at the car park and
spotted the old woman stumbling across the pavement, too old to sprint as
quickly as the rest of them.

He made for the door, but Jan stopped him.  “You
won’t make it in time, brother.  Her nine lives are up.”

“I have to get her.  We only just saved her.”

But it was too late.  The infected mob engulfed
Margaret like a swarm of flesh-eating locusts.  They pulled her arms at
weird angles, snapping her fragile bones and sinking their teeth into her
tissue-paper skin.  It took only seconds for the mob to strip her flesh
like a pack of ravenous piranha, leaving nothing but a wet mess on the floor
that stained the concrete like spilled red paint.

Oh, Margaret
.

The rest of the infected hit the cable cars hard,
rocking them on their moorings and sending everyone inside against the steel
walls like beans in a maraca.

“There’s no way these cars are going to hold,” Jan said.

“We be screwed, honky,” said Dash, glaring at
Nick.  “Good plan, Einstein.”

The infected bashed their fists against the plastic
windows, making them rattle and loosen in their frames.  One of the
infected – a large Asian man that reminded Nick of his co-worker, Paul – got
his fingers inside the sliding door and started to work it back and forth on
its hinges.

Nick looked across at the other cable car and saw that
its occupants were equally as doomed.  Eve stared across over at him with
fear in her eyes.  There were only moments left before the infected would
get inside and pluck them all out like tasty pilchards from a can.

We’re totally screwed.  There’s nothing we can
do.

Nick glanced around, taking in the sight of the infected
up close from behind the windows.  Their snarling expressions spoke of
unbridled fury.  It was as if rage had become their sole function. 
The infected were unable to do anything except kill.  The only reason they
lived was so that others would not.

What will they do when there’s no one left?