Wearily, he rose to his feet. His right cheek felt like it was on fire and, as he prodded his face, he discovered that a patch of skin the size of his palm had been shorn clean off. The wound stung ferociously and was accompanied by a tingling throb in his elbow. If he hadn’t been wearing his thick woollen coat, things might have been even worse.
Nick looked around with no clue what to do next. His car was banged-up, but probably still drivable. Most of the damage was to the bodywork. The problem, though, was that he felt so shaken-up that he didn’t feel safe getting back behind the wheel. At least, not just yet.
Not to mention my sick neighbour in the back seat who was trying to bite me.
He needed to find a place to sit while his nerves calmed down. The hollow feeling in his legs and stomach was most likely the cumulative shock of the morning’s events finally catching up with him, mixed with the most current event of being in a car accident. The urge to vomit and the overwhelming desire to faint fought an ongoing tug-of-war over his existence. If he didn’t do something soon, the likelihood of both happening at once would be a good bet.
The country road was deserted, surrounded on both sides by fields. There was, however, a small garden centre fifty yards ahead. There was a good chance someone might be there – someone who could sit Nick down and help him make sense of everything.
He started to drag his feet forward, the loose gravel of the road crunching with every step he took. To get to where he was going, he would have to pass by the three wrecked vehicles in the centre of the road. It was then that he started to worry about Lara. Would she come at him again as he passed by?
Is she one of them now?
Them? Who are them?
Nick was in a constant state of confusion as to whether people needed help or if they were totally beyond it. Every time he tried to assist someone they ended up attacking him. Even his own wife and child had seemingly wanted him dead. It hurt his head to even think about.
Is their condition reversible, temporary, or what?
Why was Lara okay at first, but then ended up trying to attack me, too?
He stepped carefully as he approached his car. He could see that Lara was still inside and still moving about. She was hanging, partially, out of the driver’s side door. The airbags had deployed and were squashing her torso up against the seat. She was scrabbling at the gravel road and reaching out towards Nick with a hungry expression, but seemed unable to free herself completely from the car.
Once he got closer he could see the reason why. Lara’s legs were tangled up in the seatbelt. The more she tried to crawl away, the tighter the strap became around her ankles. She wasn’t going anywhere. Still, Nick trod carefully, steering clear of her clawed fingernails and bleeding jaws.
She looks like an animal.
Before he was totally away from the wreckage, Nick stopped and examined his injured neighbour closely. He wasn’t sure why he said it, but he asked, “Can you hear me, Lara?” followed by, “Are you okay?” Both were stupid questions, he knew, but he just couldn’t fathom that a woman he was speaking to only half-an-hour before was now completely out of her mind.
But, of course, Lara gave no response to his questions. She just kept trying to get at him like a dog pawing for a morsel of meat lost beneath the fridge.
Nick shook his head, wishing he could understand what was happening; wishing he could do something.
What is making you want to attack me? It makes no sense. I tried to help you.
He decided to leave his concerns behind for the moment. His primary focus was finding somewhere safe to rest up for a while. Lara would have to stay where she was for the time being.
The garden centre up ahead seemed deserted, but there were a couple of cars sat on its pebbled car park. Nick wondered if they belonged to the owners, or perhaps the cleaners. Either way, when they saw the state of him, they would surely take pity and offer assistance. They could try and phone for help, too; 999 might be back up and running by now.
He climbed a nearby embankment and crossed over onto the pebbled parking area. The main entrance was up ahead: a pair of automatic glass doors with pot plants on either side. He was surprised when the doors opened for him. Considering the early hour – 7:15 according to his watch – Nick had assumed the centre would be closed. He wasn’t about to complain, though, so he stepped through the doors gratefully and looked around.
The first part of the garden centre seemed to consist of indoor planting, incense burners, and wind chimes. Nick almost jumped out of his skin when he brushed past a set of aluminium pipes that immediately began tinkling.
Jesus!
The smell inside the building was one of musky perfumes mixed with the assorted earthen scents of soil and plants. In contrast to the many heady odours picked up by his nose, his ears detected nothing except the fading clinks of the aluminium wind chime.
“Hello,” he called out. “Hello, is anybody here?”
Nick considered that someone must be there as the electric doors had allowed him access. It would be crazy to leave a place like this unlocked and unmanned.
Up ahead was an alcove with a banner above that read: AQUARIUM. Nick headed inside and looked around. The space was full of wall-to-wall blue-lit fish tanks, all of them containing either exotic or mundane species. Nick had once kept tropical fish himself and instantly recognised the tiny plecs that inhabited one particular tank. He also knew that they would eventually grow a dozen-times larger in the right environment. There were also brightly-coloured bettas, fat-bellied mollies, and a playful batch of weather loaches mixed with African dwarf frogs. Then he spotted the girl in the corner, peeking out from a storage closet beside a large tank of Discus fish. As soon as he set eyes on her, she fled back into the cupboard, pulling the door closed behind her.
“Hey,” he shouted after her. “I need help. I’ve been in an accident.”
The girl said nothing. The door remained closed.
“Please,” he said. “I’ve been through hell and I just need some help.”
“Go away!”
“Why?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Go away,” the girl repeated from inside the cupboard. “Before they hear you.”
Nick raised an eyebrow. “Before who hears me?”
“The owners. They’ve gone…mad.”
Nick shook his head. Not here as well.
“There’s no one around,” he said. “They’ve gone. You can come out.”
“No. They’re out there somewhere and I’m not coming out. No way.”
Nick contemplated going over to the cupboard and yanking the girl out by force, but decided that would be an unkind thing to do and counterproductive to his situation. No, his only option was to keep speaking and try to reason with her.
There was breathing. Nearby.
Nick sensed a presence behind him. He heard the panting breaths of a stranger right at his back. Before he even had chance to turn around someone pummelled him in the spine and sent him reeling forward onto his hands and knees. He twisted around onto his rump and saw a hunched-over old man in an olive-coloured cardigan. The woollen garment was covered by flakes of scalp and grey dandruff.
The old man was insane, just like all the others.
Nick scampered back to his feet just in time to dodge an attack from the old man. He quickly ran to the corner of the aquarium and tried to find an escape. But there was none. He found himself cornered between an opened-top terrarium of Musk turtles and a tank of blue lobsters.
The old man’s eyes went unnaturally wide as they stared at Nick, almost as if they were going to pop out of their sockets and land on his shoes.
With nowhere to run, Nick stepped forward to meet the old man’s charge, grabbing a fistful of his cardigan and holding on tight. He used the old man’s momentum as a weapon and twisted sideways, flinging him headfirst into the tiers of fish tanks. Water flooded out onto the carpet as the glass frontages shattered.
The old man’s h
ead had impacted a tank full of neon tetras and was now lodged between the jagged edges of the glass. The vicious crags bit and tore at the soft flesh of his wrinkled neck and his attempts to get free only opened up the wounds wider.
Nick staggered away, dizzy from exertion.
I can’t take much more of this.
Blood mixed with the remaining water at the bottom of the broken fish tanks and turned the liquid a murky red. The poor neon tetras inside did their best to keep swimming in their suddenly shallow tank. The old man continued twisting and squirming and the gash in his neck opened up even further. Eventually it began to spout thick arterial blood. His sandaled feet twitched and kicked for a few moments as he continued trying to get free.
Then he went still.
Nick sat down on the floor and took some deep breaths. Being on such high alert, so full of adrenaline, was beginning to take its toll on him. The urge to scream at the top of his lungs and yank out his hair was beginning to take over. Nick just wanted it all to stop. It was too much to deal with any longer.
“What’s happening?” It was the girl in the closet. “What’s going on out there?”
“I think I just met the owner,” he said, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. “I wouldn’t recommend his customer service. Are you going to come out now? I could really use some help.”
“No.”
“Stop hiding out in a cupboard like a goddamn child. You need to get a grip.” There was more silence, but he was sure the girl was thinking things through in there. “Come on,” he said. “I’m not looking to hurt you.”
Slowly the cupboard door began to open. From behind it the girl peered out. “Fine,” she said irritably. “But the first sign of danger and I am back in the closet.”
Nick nodded wearily. He tried to smile. The girl was still just a teenager – possibly early twenties. She was a dark-featured brunette with lighter streaks in her chocolate-coloured hair. Her big brown eyes were full of trepidation and she viewed Nick with suspicion. The look suggested that maybe her morning hadn’t been much better than his had been.
“What happened here?” he asked her.
“I’m still waiting for someone to tell me,” she said. “I got here early because Mr Curtis wanted to set up a new display for some ornamental scent burners he got on consignment. I let myself in as usual but the place was deserted. So I went around the back to the cottage – that’s where Mr Curtis and his wife live – and I found the front door wide open. Next thing I know, Mr Curtis and his wife are running at me like lunatics, screeching like animals. I ran back into the store but I didn’t know what to do, so I ended up in the closet with the two of them outside waiting to get me. After a while they went away, but I stayed inside anyway. That’s when you came along.” She looked at Mr Curtis, his head still trapped inside the fish tank, his body limp and lifeless. “I don’t get it,” she said. “He was a nice old man. I don’t know why he would want to hurt me.”
“It’s not just him,” Nick explained. “People have been losing their shit all over town. My wife, too, and my…my son.” He didn’t want to think about James. He turned his mind to more proactive endeavours. “We should try to get some help. Do you have a phone here? Or Internet access?”
The girl nodded. “Yeah, we have both in the office, but there’s a problem.”
“What?”
The girl nodded toward Mr Curtis. “Well, I’m looking at Mr Curtis, but where’s his wife?”
As if to punctuate her point, a far-off crash caused them both to turn towards the aquarium’s exit.
“Close by, would be my guess,” said Nick. The young girl started back towards the cupboard. He went after her. “Hey, you’re not going back into hiding. We need to deal with the situation.”
“You deal with it. I’m going to sit down on the vacuum cleaner with the door closed.”
Nick grabbed a hold of the girl, a little harder than he meant to. Fortunately, the show of force seemed to steel her nerves.
She sighed and shook her head resignedly. “Fine,” she said. “But can we at least get something to defend ourselves with?”
“Sounds good to me,” said Nick.
***
They found what they needed in the storage closet where the girl had been hiding. Nick removed the head from a broom handle to turn it into a weapon and the girl found herself a hammer.
“What’s your name, by the way?” he asked her.
“Eve.”
“Nice to meet you, Eve. My name is Nick.”
“What’s with your face?”
“I had a car accident. Hurts like hell. My car is in worse shape than I am, though. It was brand new. An Alfa Romeo.”
“Whoop-de-frikking-do. Can we just get this over with?”
They headed out of the aquarium and re-entered the rest of the store. Past the wind chime display and indoor plants was a greeting card stand. Beyond that was a maze of swinging benches and assorted garden furniture. Past all of it was a bottleneck leading to a totally new area.
“What’s through that archway?” Nick asked.
“The café and checkouts.”
Nick nodded and crept forwards, broom handle raised over his shoulder like a baseball bat. The area ahead was cloaked in shadow, lit only by the weak morning sunshine filtering in through the skylights. Through the archway, and to Nick’s left, was a quaint café – more of a cosy tearoom really. To his immediate right was the store’s checkout area.
He looked back at Eve and raised an eyebrow of concern. “Be careful,” he told her. “She could be hiding anywhere. These sick people have a habit of blindsiding you.”
Eve didn’t reply. She hung back and kept her distance.
The cash-tills up ahead were set into a booth with two long desks about four feet off the ground. Behind the booth was the store’s exit, leading back out to the parking lot.
“Hello,” Nick said in a raised voice, deciding it would be better to alert Mrs Curtis and see her coming than to have her sneak up on them. “Mrs Curtis, are you here?”
“What are you doing, dumbass?” Eve hissed.
“Trying to flush her out. Better that than she gets the drop on us.
Sure enough, Nick’s calls were met by the sounds of someone shuffling behind the tills. A woman sprang up from inside the booth and faced them over the counter. A stringy ribbon of flesh hung from her lower teeth like a strand of rancid dental floss.
“That her?” Nick asked.
“No,” said Eve.
Nick frowned at her. “No? Then who the hell is she?”
“I have no fucking idea.”
A hungry growl spun them both around. There was an old lady in a blue frilly dress glaring at them from inside the café. Her face was pressed up against the glass as she growled at them. Apparently the café had not been so empty after all.
“That’s her,” said Eve. “That’s Mrs Curtis.”
The old woman threw herself through the partition window of the café and rose to her feet on the other side. It was like something out of The Terminator.
Now the two women flanked Nick and Eve from both sides. The lady inside the till booth leapt the counter and sprinted towards them. At the same time Mrs Curtis came at them from behind.
“Run,” Nick shouted, dropping the broom handle to the floor, realising it was useless.
Eve hurried after Nick and the two of them ran back through the garden centre’s main floor. Nick clattered into a chiminea a hundred yards on and almost tumbled to the ground. He only just managed to keep his balance and keep running. As he reached the automatic doors where he had first entered, he realised that they were not going to open. He and Eve were on the wrong side of the sensor.
“Damn it,” he said, glancing back over his shoulder at the two women clambering through the store after him.
“This way,” Eve shouted, dragging him by one of his coat cuffs. “There’s a fire exit.”
Nick followed Eve into the depths of the store. Th
e two feral women were only a few steps behind them. The only thing keeping them back was their clumsiness. They bashed and stumbled into the various displays like drunks in a marathon.
Up ahead, Eve skidded to a halt. Nick almost went right into the back of her.
“What the hell are you doing?” he said. “Keep moving.”
“Look,” she said, pointing.
Nick looked to his right, towards the aquarium, and could not believe what he saw. Mr Curtis was back on his feet. His neck wound was so deep that his head hung unnaturally to one side. He was slower now, stumbling along like a new-born calf, and moaning hungrily.
Nick shook his head. “There’s no way he could still be alive.”
“I don’t think he is,” said Eve.
Nick didn’t have time to ask what she meant by that, because Mrs Curtis came crashing through a display of garden shovels, sending them clattering to the ground. Eve got moving. A split-second later, so did he.
At the far end of the garden centre was a heavy glass door with a green FIRE EXIT sign flickering above it. Eve threw herself against the push-bar and shoved the door open, stumbling out into the car park. Nick leapt through right after her. They quickly put their backs against the other side of the door to shove it closed. It was slow progress, though; the fire door built to move slowly to prevent causing drafts.
Come on, come on. Close goddamnit!
Two inches before the door was shut, both Mrs Curtis and the other woman threw themselves against the other side. A struggle ensued and Nick and Eve fought back against the unexpected strength of their pursuers.
“How are they so strong?” asked Eve. “Mrs Curtis is almost eighty.”
“I don’t know,” Nick said. “But we need to get this door closed, right now. Look!”
In the parking lot a bleeding man stumbled in their direction. His head craned like a bird when he spotted them and he let out a moan. Nick was grateful the guy wasn’t a sprinter like the two women inside, or else they would already be done for.
He must have been one of the drivers of the crashed saloons. He’s covered in broken glass.
Eve began to groan under the stress of pushing the door closed. “I’m slipping,” she cried out. “I can’t hold it much longer.”
Ravage: An Apocalyptic Horror Novel Page 5