Ravage: An Apocalyptic Horror Novel (35 page)

“No more killing,” said Nick.

“Then what?  What do you plan to do with me?”

Nick was silent.  He had no answer.

Shawcross nodded slowly.  “Exactly.”  He took a
step backwards, towards the house.  Then he took another.

“What are you doing?” Nick asked.  “Get away from
there.”

“I’ve looked after this house like it was my own for ten
years, did you know that?”

Nick shook his head.  He quickened his steps, hoping to
get close enough to grab Shawcross without him making a bolt for it. 
There was some distance to close before that could happen though.  They
still had to shout to be heard.

“I was in charge of a piece of history.  Lords have
lived here; cousins to kings and queens.  Powerful men with royal blood
running through their veins.  My job was to walk in their footsteps and
respect their past.”

“Where are you going with this, Shawcross?  What’s your
point?”

“My point is that you all fucked it up!  You brought
death to Ripley Hall.  You tarnished its legacy and now you scuttle around
like rodents, disrespecting the history of where you are; disrespecting my
position as guardian of this place.  I was in charge here and you knocked
me down, you violated me, and you reduced me to your level.  You took away
my integrity and the integrity of this place.  You have no respect, for
anything.”

“It’s just a house and a shitty amusement park,
Shawcross.  A cash cow.  The integrity of this place was lost long
before we arrived here.”

Shawcross took several more steps backwards.  He moved
up onto the front steps of Ripley Hall.  “Hold your tongue, for you know
not the nonsense you speak.”

Nick put his hand up and increased his pace to a jog. 
Renee and Jan kept close behind him.  “Hey, man, get away from there and
stop acting crazy.  The whole place is full of infected people.”

Shawcross shrugged.  His eyes were droopy and
tired.  He looked like a mad man and spoke in a faraway, dreamy
tone.  “It is full of my guests and I would be grateful if you referred to
them as such.  I should go tend to them, make sure things are in
order.  Heaven knows what state the house will be in.  It’s time to
clean up.”

Shawcross turned around and headed up the few final steps to
the house.  He stood in front of the doors.

Nick ran as fast as he could, closing the distance, hoping
to get there before…  “Shawcross, just get back from there, please.”

But Shawcross did not turn around.  “Do you know what I
think, Nicholas?”

“No,” said Nick, skidding on his heels and stopping just
feet away from the front doors to the house.  He now walked slowly, his
hand out in front of him.  He did not want to make any sudden moves. 
“No, Shawcross, I don’t know what you think, but we can talk about it.”

Shawcross shook his head and smiled.  He was no longer
listening or even looking at them.  He was talking to himself.  “What
I think, is that we are all fucked.  And, if that’s the case, I think I’d
like to be with my house.  It’s where I belong.  I’m the manager, you
see.  Ripley Hall needs its manager.”

Shawcross turned around, inserted his keys, and opened the
doors.

“NO!” Nick shouted, sprinting forward to stop the man even
though it was already too late.

The dead flooded out like pus from a wound.

They sprawled on top of Shawcross, pinning him to the ground
beneath a pile of bodies three-deep.  His flesh was mercilessly torn away
by a dozen hungry mouths, but Nick did not hear the man scream.  Shawcross
remained silent as they tore him to pieces, but the look in his eyes was one of
sheer terror.  It looked like he was afraid of whatever came next.

Hell would be too good for you
, Nick thought, before
Jan grabbed his collar and shouted, “Run!”

Chapter Forty-One

“He’s dead,” Annaliese said to
Michelle.  “I’m sorry.”

Alan had bled out pretty quickly.  Annaliese suspected
that his celiac artery had been severed.  Michelle was distraught.

“Help me get her up,” Annaliese said to Pauline.  “We
need to go help Nick.  Who knows what Shawcross will try next.”

Pauline grabbed one of Michelle’s arms, while Annaliese
grabbed the other.  Eve and Cassie stood nearby.

“Just leave me with him,” Michelle begged.

“No, we’re going to look after you, Michelle.”

She and Pauline half-dragged, half-carried Michelle along as
they headed away from the rollercoaster and back towards the restaurant. 
They could decide how to clean up the mess they were all in later.

If that’s even possible.

There were noises coming from somewhere in the park. 
The sounds were familiar.

“What is that?” Eve asked.

“I know what it is,” said Cassie.  She sounded close to
tears and was clutching her knife close to her chest like a talisman.  “I
know what it is.”

Two seconds later, Annaliese made sense of it, too.  It
was the moans of the undead.

“The infected are here,” Eve said, terror in her eyes.

“No,” said Cassie.  “The infected scream.  The
dead moan.”

“Who gives a shit?” said Eve.  “If they’re here then
we’re screwed.”

Annaliese struggled to hold on to Michelle, who had fallen
into a catatonic state of shock.  “Not necessarily,” she said.  “The
dead are slow; we might be able to cope with them as long as there’s not too
many.”

“We need to find Nick,” said Eve.  “He might be in
trouble.”

Annaliese nodded and reaffirmed her grip on Michelle. 
Pauline did the same on the other side.  “Okay, let’s get a move on,
then.”

They all headed on over to the restaurant, calling out for
Nick and Jan along the way; but they found neither and continued onwards,
hoping to find them somewhere in the park.  The moans of the dead
continued in the distance.

“They sound closer,” Cassie said.

Annaliese nodded.  They
did
sound closer. 
The dead were obviously on the move in their direction.  She lifted her
chin and angled in on where she thought the moaning was coming from. 
She’d already suspected the source, but now she was more or less certain. 
“It’s coming from the house,” she said.  “Somebody’s let them out of
Ripley Hall.”

“Shawcross,” Eve said, almost spitting the word out of her
mouth.

“Probably,” Annaliese said.  “He’s crazy enough.”

Up ahead was the park’s office building and the warehouse
beside it.  The doors to the warehouse were wide open and sounds came from
inside.

“Is that one of them?” Pauline asked.

Annaliese wasn’t sure.  It could have been Nick inside,
shuffling about, so she called out for him.

There was no answer, but the noises from inside the
warehouse abruptly stopped.  Bradley’s truck was parked right in front and
prevented Annaliese from getting a clear view inside.

“Hold on to Michelle,” she told Eve, then headed around the
truck and towards the warehouse.  The first thing she noticed was that the
crates of fireworks, and some of the petrol, had been moved to the front of the
storage building, by the entrance.  The second thing she noticed was…

“Dash!”

Dash was bleeding from his left arm and the stains on his
tracksuit looked black in the moonlight.  The half-healed wound of his
blinded eye glistened in the dark.

“Hey, baby,” he said.  “You’s just in time for the
show.”

Annaliese stared down at the fireworks and then back up at
Dash.  “What are you doing?” she said.  “Just come out of there.”

“No can do, sweetheart.  You fuckers blind me and then
stab me in my arm!  There’s gonna be payback.”

Dash pulled a lighter from his pocket and flicked it.

The flame seemed to hang in the air, flickering in the
darkness and lighting up the shadows in a vibrating cone of light.

“You light those fireworks and every monster at the bottom
of this hill is going to start making its way towards us.  They’ll come
from miles around.”

Dash grinned at her.  “That’s the idea.  If I
can’t have this place, then neither can you.”

Dash dropped the lighter.

Annaliese stood in stunned silence as split-seconds seemed
to pass like minutes.  Eve and Pauline screamed from somewhere behind her.

The lit flame tumbled through the air, landing inside one of
the crates.

There were a couple of second where nothing happened.

Then all hell broke loose.

Dash dived down onto the floor just as the first firework
exploded.  A split second later, a hundred more went off; some flying
upwards and lighting up the starry sky and others whizzing around the warehouse
like flies in a jar.

Beneath the sounds of exploding gun powder and igniting
petrol, Dash cackled like a hyena.  He sounded ready to die, so long as he
took others with him.

Without realising it, Annaliese had hit the ground. 
Now she lay face down on the floor, her nose mere inches from the
pavement.  She daren’t move.

After what seemed like forever, the final fireworks hit the
sky and fizzled out.  Then there was near silence, but for the soft
crackling of flames that began to take hold of the warehouse.

Annaliese was shaking, her stomach hot, her heart aching. 
She waited for the inevitable.

Hungry moans filled the air; not just from Ripley Hall, but
from what seemed like everywhere.  The collective sound carried on the
wind from miles around, from all directions.

The dead were coming.

All of them.

Annaliese leapt to her feet and spun a circle.  Pauline
and Eve were climbing back up off the floor as well.  Michelle remained
slumped in a foetal position on the ground.

Dash made a run for it.

Annaliese headed straight after him.  With the loss of
blood and the reduced vision, Dash was easy prey.  She clattered into him
from behind and took him painfully to the ground.  She grabbed a hold of
his injured arm and made him scream in agony, but he managed to surprise her by
striking back with his elbow and catching her in the eye socket.  The blow
rocked her and Dash used the opportunity to transition off his back and climb
on top of her.  He smashed her in the mouth with his fist.

“Told you I was gonna get you, bitch.”

He hit her again, splitting her lip from corner to
corner.  The blood in her mouth was hot and sweet.  Dash raised his
fist again, ready to hit break her face.

“Get off her, you son of a bitch,” Cassie screamed. 

Dash turned his head just in time to see the knife
coming.  It went in under his chin and slid up into his skull.  He
was dead before he could even make a sound.

Annaliese kicked Dash off of her and watched him slump onto
his side.  Cassie had left the knife embedded in his jaw and didn’t seem
to want it back. 

“Are you okay?” Annaliese asked her.

Cassie was trembling, her arms shaking in great
tremors.  Annaliese got up and put an arm around her, tried to console
her, but was quickly pushed away.  “I-I killed him,” she said, almost as
if she couldn’t believe it.

“It was him or me, Cassie.  And I’m glad you chose me.”

“We all are,” Eve added.  “You did nothing wrong.”

Cassie shook her head and sobbed.  “I-I stabbed him in
the face.”  She bent over and vomited, but before anyone had time to get
close enough to help her, she straightened back up and suddenly ran away.

“Cassie, come back,” Annaliese shouted.  She went to
give chase, but Pauline stopped her by grabbing a hold of her arm.  She
was about to argue and shrug herself free, but then she saw why Pauline had
stopped her.

Eve shouted a warning.  “Cassie, look out!”

In all her despair, Cassie had run headlong into an
approaching group of the dead.  They fell over her like a moving wall,
their rancid, sticky bodies moving shoulder to shoulder.  When Cassie
collided with a tall brunette woman, who was stumbling along on a broken red
stiletto, she fell to the ground and screamed.

The dead woman fell on her immediately, biting into her face
like a cantaloupe.  Blood spurted into the air as Cassie’s nose was chewed
right off her face.

Annaliese couldn’t help herself.  She started forwards
to help the girl.  This time, both Pauline and Eve grabbed a hold of
her.  “She’s already dead,” said Eve.  “You know that.  We have
to get out of here.”

Annaliese closed her eyes as the dead continued ripping
Cassie apart.  She gave her fear one more moment to take hold, and then
shook it away.  She opened her eyes and took a breath.  “Okay,” she
said resolutely.  “Let’s get our arses off this bloody hill while there’s
still chance.”

Eve gawped at her.  “What?  How?”

Annaliese reached into her pocket and pulled out Bradley’s
keys.  She pointed in front of her.  “We take that truck,” she
said.  “And drive over anything that gets in our way.”

The dead were currently occupied with Cassie’s half-eaten
corpse, but there were more coming from the direction of the house.  They
would have to move fast.

“Pick up, Michelle, we have to go now.”

The three of them grabbed Michelle and attempted to carry
her.  Pauline and Eve held the girl’s legs while Annaliese grasped her
body.  They waddled sideways as they sought to get her over to the truck.

“Dump her in the back,” Annaliese said.  “We don’t have
time to make her comfortable.

There was no argument and the three of them hoisted Michelle
up and over the side of the vehicle’s cargo shelf.  She flopped onto the
wooden panelling and just lay there, staring off into space.

Annaliese hurried around to the driver’s side door and put
the key in the lock.  The central locking engaged and the doors were
unlocked.  “Eve, Pauline, squeeze in the passenger side.”

The two women did as they were told and Annaliese started
the engine.  The moment the vehicle came to life, she instantly felt
safer.  The thought of being on the road after being cooped up on this hill
for so long felt exhilarating.  She reversed the truck and pulled it
around to face the other way.

Thank God the battery didn’t run flat.

The dead from the house were coming in their droves now and
Annaliese could already hear more of them coming up the hill from the distant
car park below.  Soon, they would be surrounded.

“What about Nick and the others?” Eve said.  “We can’t
leave without them.”

“They’re already dead,” said Pauline.

“They have to be,” said Annaliese. 

But then she saw them.

“Jesus,” said Eve.  “Is that Jan?”

Up ahead, surrounded on all sides by the dead, Jan fought
for his life.  He battled the dead bare fisted, clocking them with right
hooks and snapping the necks of any that got too close.  Fighting
side-by-side with him were Nick and Renee.  All three of them were unarmed
and desperately trying to survive.

“They’re going to get ripped apart,” said Pauline.

Annaliese gunned the engine and shifted into gear. 
“Not if I can help it.”

The truck shot forward, accelerating quicker than she
expected.  She steered the bonnet towards the thick lines of the dead and
sped up as much as she could.

The first body she hit went clean over the bonnet and landed
behind them.  Blood splattered the windscreen, which somehow had remained
intact.  The second body went down rather than up, falling beneath the big
wheels of the utility truck. 

Annaliese stamped on the brake and turned the wheel
sideways, sending the vehicle into a skid.  More bodies went down as the
truck slid along like a plough.  The windscreen finally cracked and glass
shards fell onto the bonnet.

The truck came to a stop.  The dead were all around.

Annaliese rolled down her side window and screamed through
the one inch-gap.  “Nick! Jan!  Renee!”

In the distance, amidst the shadows of rotting bodies, the
three men turned around.  They saw the truck and seemed relieved by its
presence.  Immediately the three of them started making their way towards
it.  They pushed and punched at the dead, dodging their grasps and avoiding
their bites.  The truck was their salvation, and they were so near…

But there were just too many of the dead.  Their
reaching, clawing hands made a net impossible to escape.

Annaliese watched in horror, praying for her friends to make
it.  But there seemed to be no way.

A dead waiter knocked Jan sideways with an elbow, which led
to the man losing his footing.  His ankle twisted and he fell down to one
knee.  It was all it took for the dead to take him.  Probing hands
dragged Jan to the floor and wrestled him into submission.  He kicked out
and caught a dead man in the chin, managed to snap the neck of another that
knelt down beside him, but as soon as one body fell away, two others joined
it.  He could not fight them all.

Nick saw that the big man was down and stopped his journey
towards the truck.  “Jan!” he shouted out, trying to push his way through
the dead.  Renee fought to help, too.  But the dead were all over
them.  Jan disappeared under a blanket of bodies and then was gone from
sight.  His angry shouting was the last thing they would know of him.

Annaliese shouted through the window.  “Nick, Renee,
come on.  Come on!”

Nick shook his head in despair at the loss of Jan, but he
seemed to find the resolve he needed to continue.  He and Renee made a
last-ditch effort to get to the truck.

Come on, guys.  You can make it.

Just as Nick and Renee were getting close, a scream startled
everyone inside the truck.  Annaliese craned her neck and saw through the
rear window that Michelle had snapped out of her daze and was now standing up
and screaming hysterically at the dead all around her.  As soon as they
spotted her they turned and headed for the truck.