Ravage: An Apocalyptic Horror Novel (22 page)

Chapter Twenty

Annaliese knocked on the door to the
Reptile House and spoke her name.  A few seconds later, Shawcross opened it. 
The people inside were all now armed with various rudimentary weapons: mops,
bits of wood, and other salvaged materials.  They looked like a lynch mob;
all that was lacking were the torches.

Shawcross faced her down.  “Is it safe?  Are the
doors of the house closed?  What was all that noise?”

“The house is secure,” she told him.  “As long as we
all stay back from the grounds then all of the infected people should stay
locked up inside.”

“What about the zoo, the park?”

“I think it’s safe.  There were some infected people
wondering around outside, but they’re dead now –
dead
dead.”

Shawcross raised an eyebrow.  “You killed them?”

“Not exactly, but they’ve been dealt with, trust me.”

He seemed irritated by the lack of concrete facts but, after
a moment’s thought, he seemed to be satisfied with what he’d been told.

“Then we should leave,” he said.  “Go and find help;
someone who can clear this whole mess up.”

Annaliese shrugged.  “If that’s what everybody wants to
do.”

Mike spoke up.  “We don’t know that it’s any safer
elsewhere.  No one has been able to contact help.  Back in the
kitchen nobody could get a call through on their mobiles.  And
you
,”
he nodded towards Shawcross, “put a call through on the landline when things
first went bad.  Nobody came.  I have a bad feeling.”

Shawcross rubbed at his chin and stared at Mike for a
moment.  “So what are you saying?  That we’re doomed?  That
nowhere is safe?”

“I’m just saying that I don’t think we should take safety
for granted.  It might be a luxury right now.”

“You’re saying we should stay here?” Annaliese asked. 
She wasn’t sure whether it was a good idea or not.

Mike nodded.  “We’re five-hundred feet above the
ground, on top of a hill surrounded by woodland on all sides.  The only
thing we don’t have is a castle and a garrison of archers.  If this thing
– whatever it is – has spread, then I feel much safer up here than down there.”

“Nonsense,” said Shawcross.  “These people have
families to get back to.  We need to report all this to the police.”

“Not if it means us dying,” Mike said.  “And I’m not
sure there is any police to report things
to.
  You already called
them, remember?”

Shawcross folded his arms.  “We’re leaving.”

Annaliese put her hand up.  “Hold on a minute,
Shawcross.  You don’t speak for everyone.  Perhaps it would be better
if we tried to find out what the situation down below is first, before we get
in our cars and set off into the unknown.”

Shawcross growled, an audible noise in his throat. 
Annaliese noticed then that the man’s slick, ginger hair was now back in place,
re-styled and orderly.

Back in control.

One of the strangers in the group spoke up.  “I’m not
going anywhere unless I know it’s safe.”

“Me either,” said another.

“I want to go home,” someone else disagreed.

“It seems we are not agreed,” said Annaliese, realising how
smug she sounded but not caring anyway.

Shawcross huffed.  “Fine!”

“We should try and get some news,” said Mike.  “Does
anywhere in the zoo have a television, or a computer with Internet access?”

Annaliese nodded.  “There’s a small office block and a
warehouse at the rear of the zoo.  There are computers there and a
staffroom with a television.  We may be able to get something to eat as
well.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Mike.  I’m dead on my
feet.  I doubt I’ll be getting any sleep, so a bit of grub sounds like a
good compromise.

There were murmurings of agreement amongst the others in the
group at the sound of food being mentioned, and their anxious looks softened
slightly.  The thought of fulfilling a basic need was enough to
re-motivate most people.

“Well, if we’re all decided, then I will lead the way,” said
Shawcross.  He brandished a thick branch that he had probably taken out of
one of the reptile exhibits.  The way he was holding it made him look like
a scout master.

“It’s your rodeo,” said Annaliese.  “Just try not to
leave anybody to die.”

Shawcross shot her a scathing look, but quickly readjusted
it to a smile.  “Of course not, Anna.  It’s important that we all
stick together.”

Yeah, right!  Wish you’d felt that way earlier when
you were closing the door on me.

Shawcross headed up to the exit door and stood beneath the
fire exit sign.  He looked at the assembled group to make sure they were
all ready and then gave them a quick nod.

He opened the door.

The day had become bright and clear.  The air was crisp
and invigorating.  Annaliese stepped out behind Shawcross and looked
around at the landscape.  Visibility was now much increased with the sun
higher in the sky.  The zoo’s many exhibits were all easy to spot and the
theme park’s rollercoaster,
The Hood
, towered into the sky at the far
end.

Shawcross pointed.  “The offices are over there.”

Everyone kept in a tight formation and glanced nervously left
and right, ready to run at the first sign of danger, but as they headed past a
cage full of lemurs, all seemed to be clear.

Annaliese craned her neck to look over at the eastern side
of the zoo as she followed on after everybody else.  She tried to make out
what was happening inside the orang-utan’s exhibit, but it was too far
away.  Her heart still ached for Lily.

The group passed by the various animal enclosures, peering
into each one as if they were on a tour.  Many of the more intelligent
animals, the pigs, cows, and birds, were rattled by the recent commotion, but
the smaller, less aware animals all seemed oblivious.

“Okay,” said Shawcross, slowing the group down.  “These
are the offices, just here.”

Annaliese had been inside the boxy, cement office block a
few times in the past.  She had, on occasion, needed to fill out paperwork
for the zoo and had often done so inside the admin office.  She had also
spent time inside the staffroom once or twice.  Bradley would often buy
her a coffee.

Poor Bradley.

Shawcross headed up to the front doors and pulled on the
handles.  They were locked.  He tutted and sighed.  “We’re going
to have to break in.  I suspected as much.”

Annaliese raised an eyebrow.  “Break in?  And how
do you propose we do that?”

Shawcross scoffed at her.  “I’m sure we can manage to
break a window without too much trouble.”

She looked around.  The windows of the rectangular
building were all thick, double-glazed.  She knew breaking a window looked
easy in the movies, but she suspected it would be quite the task in real life.

 “What you reckon?” Mike asked her.

She shrugged and folded her arms around herself.  It
was a little chilly.  “Don’t know.  It would be nice to get inside,
so it’s worth a try.  I just worry about making too much noise.”

“As long as we put the window out in with a single blow, it
should be okay,” Shawcross assuaged her.  “We just need to find something
that will work well enough.”

“How about that?” said Clark, pointing to a nearby vehicle.

Annaliese recognised the large flatbed truck as being
Bradley’s.  He had used the sturdy vehicle to ferry animal feed and other
materials between the exhibits.  It was parked next to a small warehouse
that sat beside the office block.  But the truck wasn’t what Clark was
pointing at.  It was what was in the flatbed that was important.

Shawcross clicked his fingers.  “Perfect.  Just
what we need.  It’s going to be heavy, though, so could I have a volunteer
to help me, please?”

Mike volunteered and he and Shawcross headed over to the
truck.  The stack of breeze blocks on the flatbed offered the perfect
solution for putting through a window and Annaliese let out an exhausted sigh
at the thought of getting inside the offices and finally getting to sit still.

Shawcross dragged one of the blocks to the edge of the truck
and Mike put his hands under it.  Together they managed to shuffle with it
over to the front of the building.

“We could use a third pair of hands for this,” said
Shawcross.

Annaliese hurried up to the two men and placed her hands underneath
the breeze block.  The cement was cold to the touch and gritty.

“After three,” Shawcross said.  “We all shove it
towards this window here.

“One…two…

“Three!”

They heaved the block up into the air and watched it tumble
towards the double-paned window.  The glass cracked and then gave
way.  The way the panes were tempered led to them falling out of the frame
in a few solid sheets rather than shattering into many shards.  It worked
out well, because once the window pane had fallen, the aluminium frame was
clear and safe to climb over.

“Come on,” said Mike.  “Let’s get inside.”

The group formed a line and began to funnel through the open
window.  Shawcross went first, feeling it his duty to lead the way. 
Annaliese was the last to go inside.  She wouldn’t have felt right leaving
people outside where she couldn’t see them.  For some reason she felt
responsible for them.  She didn’t want to see anybody else get hurt.

The room they had entered into was a typical office, with
cluttered desks and coffee-stained keyboards.  Annaliese picked up a photo
frame from the nearest desk and examined it.  There was a woman in the
photo with two young boys.  Annaliese wondered if they were all okay.

She glanced at a clock on the wall.

“Hey, I just had a thought,” said Annaliese.  “If
everything is okay elsewhere then people should start arriving for work
soon.  It’s gone eight.”

Mike shrugged.  “I really hope so.  I’ll give a
kiss to the first person I see, but…”

Annaliese nodded.  “I know, it’s a pretty big hope.”

“I just think that there’s no way that this thing isn’t
happening elsewhere.”

“We should find a television.  Then we’ll know.”

Shawcross opened up the door that led into the outdoor
corridor.  He raised a hand to keep everyone back while he checked that
the coast was clear.  After a few seconds, he beckoned to them all and the
group got moving.

The hallways were unlit and eerie.  Whenever Annaliese
had visited the building previously, the various corridors and offices had
always been bustling.  It wasn’t that the zoo employed a lot of people,
particularly; it was more that the corridors were narrow and the rooms small.

Shawcross halted beside a door on the right.  “This is
the staffroom,” he said.  “Let’s get inside.”

He opened the door and reached in for the light
switch.  The room became bright, illuminated by the light Shawcross had
switched on and also by several windows that overlooked the woods at the edge
of the park.  The room gave Annaliese a strange feeling of normality as
she looked around it.  The pool table in the centre was still littered
with balls and cues where a game had been abandoned mid-session.  An empty
crisp packet adorned a small side cabinet.  A forgotten coat hung from a
wall peg.  The room’s plush sofa seemed inviting.  Somebody had left
a paperback on one of its cushions,
The Final Winter
.  The room had
a lived-in feel and spoke not of the horrors that had occurred so close by.

“Thank the heavens,” said Mike as he ran over to a snack
vending machine at the far side of the room.  He pulled some change out of
his pocket and began pushing numbers into the keypad.

“Is there a phone in here?” Charlotte asked.  “I want
to try and call my mom.  The one in the hotel room didn’t get a dial
tone.”

“There’s no phone,” Shawcross told her.  “But there’s
something even more important.”  He headed over to the cabinet beside the
pool table and swept aside the empty crisp packet.  He plucked up a TV
remote that had been hiding underneath it.  The old-fashioned CRT screen,
fixed to one of the room’s corners by brackets, flickered to life as Shawcross
pointed the remote at it and pressed a button.

The picture was dim for a moment, but slowly faded in. 
The news came on, loud and blaring.

Mike moved up besides Annaliese, a chocolate bar half-raised
to his mouth.  “Holy cow,” he said before taking a bite.  His face
wore an expression of utter shock as he chewed robotically.

Annaliese watched the news report with utter horror. 
Banners at both the bottom and top of the screen read, NATIONAL
EMERGENCY.  The anchor-man providing the report looked mortified; not at
all like the unflappable journalists the BBC usually placed in front of their
cameras.

“We are getting word from France that Paris has now been
declared a quarantine zone.  Armed forces are forming a perimeter around
the city and are preventing anybody from leaving.  There are suggestions
from local sources that the UK Government is preparing similar measures for
London and other major cities.”

Shawcross was shaking his head.  “This cannot be.”

“
We take you now to scenes outside Westminster, where an
emergency government assembly is holding crisis meetings
.”

The newsfeed switched to a camera on location.  It
showed the full scope of the nightmare they were now living in.  There was
total silence in the staffroom as they all realised just how much trouble they
were in.

The camera feed was from a helicopter a hundred feet above
the Thames.  The lens was focused on the spiny structure of the Houses of
Parliament.  Unbelievably, the face of Big Ben was dented and scorched as
if some airborne vehicle – perhaps another helicopter – had collided with
it. 

Gathered in the thousands, laying siege to the parliament
buildings, were ranks and ranks of infected people.  It was obvious that
the mob was infected because of their animal-like movements and the collective
pitch of their screams.  They covered the streets of Westminster like the
legions of Hell.