Renee shrugged as if it was nothing.
“Long story,” said Nick. “I’ll fill you in later.
“Fair enough.”
Shawcross was out of breath, too, and had slowed down to a panicked stagger. In front of him was the dark spectre of Ripley Hall.
“What are we going to do with him if we catch him?” Jan asked.
“When we catch him,” Nick said. “And I don’t know. I’ll figure it out once we have him.”
They entered onto the lawns of the grand old house and stuck close to the rows of trees that towered over the lawns. Shawcross kept glancing back over his shoulder at them, but made no effort to increase his speed. He seemed broken and unable to run from them any faster.
Nick cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted. “It’s over, Shawcross. You’re done.”
Shawcross turned around to face them. He was panting heavily. “It…would…appear so…wouldn’t it?”
“No one else needs to get hurt, buddy,” Jan said. “Just surrender.”
Shawcross shook his head and gave them an icy stare. “You really think I’m stupid enough to do that? You’d just kill me. You have no choice after what I’ve done.”
“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.<
br />
“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.
Annalie
se 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!”
Ravage: An Apocalyptic Horror Novel Page 34