Ravage: An Apocalyptic Horror Novel (8 page)

He headed over towards Mark and nodded at the man as he
neared him at the side of the bus. 

“You doing okay, pal?” the man asked Nick.

“As well as can be expected.  How’s the leg?”

“Mostly healed.  Hurt it few weeks ago at me old
man’s garage.  Me own stupid fault, ya know?  Tripped down one of
them pits.  Isn’t hurting too much now, though.   Just make me a
clumsy devil, ya know?”

Nick laughed.  “I wouldn’t want to have to make a
getaway with that thing.”

“For sure.  I’m just blessed Dave picked me
up.  A right calamity we is in right now, ya know?”

“Putting it mildly.”

“Well, if we all stick together, we will get through
this, I is certain.”

Nick patted the man on the shoulder.  “I think so,
too, Mark.  It’s good to meet you.”

“Likewise.  Think I’ll go back on the bus
now.  Take the weight off me leg.  See how the lad is doing.”

Nick nodded as the towering Jamaican hobbled off. 
“I’ll let you know if anything transpires,” he shouted after him.

“You part of the morale squad or something?” said Eve,
standing nearby.  She had a frown on her face.  “Who made it your job
to check up on everybody?”

Nick turned around to face her.  The sour look on
her face, mixed with smudged makeup, gave her the look of a sad clown. 
“What’s the problem?” he said.  “I’m just trying to keep myself busy.”

She shrugged.  “No problem.  Just wonder why
you bother, that’s all.  We’re all fucked, but you keep going around like
everything is going to be fine.  We’ve got a bus with no petrol, a guy
with a broken leg, and a pair of geriatric bingo warriors.”

Nick huffed at her.  “Well, being negative isn’t
going to do anybody any favours, is it?  Should I have just left you in
that closet?”

“Yeah, probably.  It was safer than standing in the
middle of a field, or letting that crazy little girl attack us.”

“No one exactly
let
her do it, Eve.  And the
girl was sick, not crazy.”

Eve flapped her arms.  “Are you kidding me? 
The people we’ve seen don’t just need an aspirin.  They’re totally
screwed.  They’re monsters.”

“My son is not a monster.  My wife is not a
monster.  You’re as bad as Cassie.”

“I know,” she said.  “I was listening to what she
was saying and she’s right.  Soon as you put one of those crazies down,
they get right back up and stumble after you all over again – only this time
they’re dead.”

“Sorry, I have trouble believing that – even with all
that I’ve seen.  Dead people don’t walk around.  There must be some
other explanation that makes sense.”

Eve flapped her arms.  “Viruses don’t usually turn
people into bloodthirsty psychopaths, either, but hey, you know what, it
happened anyway.  Someone came and turned the fucked-up factor all the way
up to eleven.”

Nick pointed his finger.  “Just calm down,
Eve.  You’re getting worked up.”

“Get your goddamn finger out of my face.  Who made
you so important that you think you can manage everyone?”

“Eve!  I’m just trying to help.  What’s gotten
into you?”

“I just don’t want to be here with you people.  I
don’t feel safe.”

A scream from the bus cut the conversation short. 
Nick looked around to witness one of the bus’s side windows cracking.  It
looked like someone’s head had been pushed through it and then pulled back
inside.

Eve looked up.  “What the hell?” 

Nick sprinted over to the bus doors and jumped up the
steps.  When he looked down the aisle, he was confused by what he saw.

The teenager, Jake, had shoved Mark up against the side
of the bus, forcing the man’s head back against the broken window as he tried
to bite a chunk out of his face.  Mark tried to resist, but his bulbous
cast was wedged beneath the seats.

Nick fell forward as Dave ran into the back of
him.  When he, too, saw what was happening he swore loudly. 
“Shite!  Jake is one of
them
.”

Nick shook his head.  “How?  What
happened?”  Then it occurred to him.  “Jake’s hand!  The little
girl bit him.  She infected him.”

“Then it must be a virus,” Dave said.  “We have to
get away from the kid before we catch it, too.”

“We can’t just leave Mark.  He needs our help.”

The Jamaican mechanic’s screams were suddenly cut short
as Jake’s teeth sank deep into the man’s windpipe.  Nick watched in horror
as veins and cartilage were torn away like wet spaghetti.

Dave grabbed a hold of Nick’s woollen coat.  “We’re
already too late.  Come on!”

He hated to run, to just abandon Mark as Jake ripped his
face and neck into bloody shreds, but he had to face it that Dave was
right.  It was too late.

We have to get the hell away from Jake.

Dave was already off the bus.  He shouted at Nick
to hurry up.

But Nick was frozen. 

Jake turned his head and spotted him still standing
there at the front of the bus.  He hissed with bloodstained teeth. 

Nick finally managed to get himself moving.  He
spun around and leapt off the bus as quickly as his feet would carry him. 
Dave punched a big red button beside the bus’s door and it clamped shut with a
hiss.  A second later Jake crashed up against the glass, glaring at them
with swollen, bloodshot eyes.  Gory chunks of flesh hung from his teeth
and he spat and snarled.

And he let out a screech.

Everybody outside the bus gathered together.  Dave
motioned for them all to get moving.  “Everybody run!” he shouted. 
“Jake is infected.  We have to get away from him or he’ll pass the disease
on to us.”

There was a brief smattering of anxious mumblings, but
then everybody took off like it was the start of a race.  Nick held up at
the back, trying to keep everybody moving in the same direction.  The two
old ladies were clearly the slowest and needed help to make it across the
uneven and muddy terrain. 

He glanced back behind him to see the bus shrinking away
into the distance as the group put distance between themselves and it.

Then he saw Jake emerging from the front of the bus,
climbing through the hole where the windscreen used to be.

“Shit!”  Nick started pushing the two old ladies to
move faster.  “Come on, come on,” he shouted.  “Move!”

Behind them, Jake let out another piercing scream.
 The fleeing passengers picked up speed, finding energy reserves that only
the fear of death could liberate from a person’s muscles.  Eve and Cassie
were at the front of the pack now, heading for the treeline at the edge of the
wide picnic area.  Carl and Dave were right behind them, their rotund
figures betraying their respectable sprinting abilities.  Then was Pauline
and Kathryn, barefoot after taking off their heels and keeping up a decent pace.
 Finally, at the back, the two old ladies ran their hardest.  Nick
was close behind them, urging them to go faster.

Nick glanced back.  It wasn’t good. 

Jake would be on them long before they all made it to
the treeline.  Even if they did all make it, they wouldn’t be safe. 
Jake would just follow them into the woods.

Game over, man
. 
What the hell do we do
now?
 

Suddenly, one of the old ladies stopped dead.  She
doubled over, clutching at her chest.  Her friend stopped, too, putting an
arm around her.  “Ethel! Ethel,” she shouted.  “We have to keep
moving.”

Nick slid to a stop beside them both.  “Come on,”
he urged.  “He’ll be on us any minute.  We have to keep moving.”

Ethel fell to her knees, wheezing.  “M-my heart.
 I can’t.  I need to stop.”

“No,” said Margaret.  “I won’t leave you here.”

Nick grabbed Margaret’s brittle forearm and tried to
pull her away.  “Come on, we have to go, or else we’re all dead.”

“Then
you
go,” Margaret urged, pulling back her
arm, surprisingly strong.  “But I’m not leaving Ethel to face that monster
alone.”

Jake was getting closer; would be on them any second.

Ethel rose up on one knee.  She grabbed Margaret’s
hand, squeezed it tight.  “I’m not letting you get hurt because of
me.  If you don’t get moving right now, Margaret Skinner, I will come back
to haunt you.  I swear I will.”

Margaret looked ready to burst into tears.  Nick
stared down the field.  Jake was only metres away now, lolloping across
the grass like a deranged ape.

Ethel fell back down onto the floor, rolling onto her
side and clutching at her chest.  She looked up at her friend and hissed
the word, “
Go
.”

Nick grabbed Margaret’s arm and this time she didn’t
resist.  The two of them got moving, leaving behind Ethel as she suffered
a heart attack on the floor.  Nick hoped it was that which would claim her
and not Jake’s savage teeth.  

But it was not to be.

The last thing he heard before Ethel’s screams pierced
the air was the old lady shouting at Jake, “I’ve taken shits harder than you,
you pussy.”

Nick couldn’t help but chuckle as he and the others
passed into the shadows of the treeline.  The only thing that wiped the
smile from his face was when he looked back and saw the feisty old dame being
ripped apart like a tough old steak.  Jake’s yellow coat had suddenly
become very red.

chapter seven

Nick and the others eventually
came to a stop in a clearing about half a mile into the woods.  Everyone
was sweating, having run uphill most of the way.  At least they had
managed to leave Jake behind as he chowed down on poor old Ethel.  Nick
could still hear the infected teenager’s animalistic shrieks sounding off in
the distance.

Dave slumped up against a gnarled oak tree. 
Perspiration soaked his dirty brown and grey hair and matted it against his
forehead.  “I pray we never have to do that again,” he said,
panting.  “I think I left one of my lungs back there.”

“Tell me about it,” said Nick.  He knelt down on
the floor and tried to catch his breath.  “Has anyone else been bitten since
this morning?”

“Why?” Cassie asked.

“Because that’s what happened to Jake.  That little
girl bit him on the hand.  Now he’s infected.  That’s how this thing
is spreading.  One infected person bites a healthy person and that person
becomes infected, bites the next person and repeats the cycle.  I feel
dumb for not understanding it until now, but it makes sense.  I just can’t
believe how quick it happens.”

Carl spat a wad of saliva into the mud and wiped the
moisture from his face.  “So we could all end up like one of those
things?”

“If you get bitten, yes,” said Nick.  “Has anybody
been
bitten?”

Everyone shook their head. 

“Okay,” said Dave, seeming to relax a little.  “We
all better be real careful from now on.  We come across someone infected
and we do our best to run for it.  No trying to fight with them like we
did that little girl.”

“That was unavoidable,” said Nick, feeling bad about
Jake’s fate and how it had involved him trying to help with the little girl.

“Unavoidable or not,” said Eve.  “We have to be
more careful.  I’m not ending up like one of those monsters.”

“They’re still people,” Nick shouted.  “My wife and
son were infected, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you keep calling them
monsters.”

“I’m sorry,” Eve said, folding her arms, “but as nice as
people might once have been, if they’ve caught whatever this thing is then
they’re monsters now – plain and simple.”

Nick clenched his fists. 

Before anything else was said, Dave shushed the both of
them.  “There’s no point arguing over it.  I think we all know, deep
down, that these people are sick – infected – or whatever.  But they’re
also dangerous and we cannot forget that.”

“I think some of them are dead,” said Cassie.

The group went silent.

“This nonsense again,” Carl muttered.

“I think she’s right,” said Eve.  “Nick killed an
infected old man back at the garden centre where he rescued me.  The guy
came right back to life and came after us again.  He was all messed up and
slow and everything, but he was still moving around, even with most of his neck
missing.”

Nick shook his head.  He couldn’t contain his grief
any longer.  It had been building in the pit of his stomach like an ulcer
and now felt like a leaden weight in his guts.  He had to let it
out.  “I…I killed my son.  He was infected, too, but he didn’t come
back to life after I killed him.  He stayed dead.  He
is
dead.” 

“Well, that shoots Cassie’s theory right out of the
water,” said Carl.  “The dead are not getting up and walking around.”

Nobody said anything.

The full weight of the confession suddenly dawned on
Nick and he didn’t like the way so many sets of eyes were suddenly staring at
him.  He didn’t want their judgment – not about what had happened to
James.  They could never understand his loss, or what had occurred in that
kitchen.  Nick wished he hadn’t spoken, but the words had exploded from
him like pus from an infected wound.  He hadn’t been able to stem it once
it began flowing.

And now they all know.  They know what I
did. 

Nick stood up and tromped his way deeper into the woods,
wanting to escape their stares and judgments.

And my own guilt.

A few minutes later he slumped down against an old
spruce tree that came up out of the ground at a weird angle.  He leant
back against its trunk and started bashing his head against the bark, again and
again, harder and harder.  Eventually he saw stars. 

He burst into tears, crying so hard that he thought he
might suffocate as the sobs seized his chest and cramped his diaphragm.

James, Deana…I miss you both so much.  You’re my
world, and you’re not here.  I’m alone and going through hell.

What do I do?

How do I go on without you?

As Nick’s grief took hold of him, he wanted to
die.  He wanted it all to be over.

I can’t go on.

Eventually his body became so weak from sobbing that he
could no longer even sustain his own weight.  He slid sideways down the
spruce’s bark and fell onto his back.  He found himself staring up at the
grey sky, wondering if it might rain.  Covered in dirt and blood, the
thought of being cleansed by Mother Nature was comforting.  Perhaps the
heaven’s themselves would open and drown him in a downpour.  He hoped so.

A twig snapped nearby.

Nick rolled onto his chest and looked up in the
direction of the noise.

“Hey,” said Eve, stepping over the undergrowth and
hiking towards him.  She came and knelt down on the ground nearby,
stretched out her legs and then lay down right next to him. 

Nick sighed.  “Hey.”

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Just…getting some stuff out of my system.”

“I’m sorry.” 

“What for?”

“For the things I said earlier.  Well, pretty much
for everything I’ve said to you since we met.  I know I’ve been a bit up
and down.  I’m hormonal at the best of times and this situation certainly
isn’t helping.”

“You said I
rescued
you.”  Nick recalled the
words she had used.

“Yeah, well…that’s because you did.  I just don’t
like feeling like I owe anybody anything.  It’s a flaw I have.  I’m
sorry I called your family monsters.”

“It’s okay,” Nick said.  “I just don’t want to
think of my family as being beyond help.  I keep trying to convince myself
that this will all blow over and that Deana and James will be waiting for me as
soon as I get back home.”

“James is your son?”

“He
was
my son.  I’m pretty sure he’s gone.”

“What happened?”

“He was sick, just like Jake was, and the little girl –
and everybody else, I guess.  He came running at me in the kitchen like a
wild animal, and I-I….I slipped.  We both fell down and his head hit the
chair.”

“He didn’t come back, like Mr Curtis?”

“No.  I was in the house for another ten minutes
after that and he stayed…
still.
  Mr Curtis was back on his feet
almost right away.”

“Maybe it has something to do with their injuries,” said
Eve.

Nick shrugged.  “Dead is dead, isn’t it?  Why
would it matter how they die?”

Another twig snapped.

“You have to go for the head,” said the deep voice of a
stranger.