Ravaged: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Taken World Book 1)

by Flint Maxwell

  “Brad, let’s go!” Logan shouted.

  He was not going to lose another person; first Brooke and then Derek. There was no need for this boy to die, too. And he knew there was no winning against this thing, not by beating it like a piñata.

  But Brad wasn’t listening to Logan. He kept on striking the creature.

  Logan let go of Jane and pushed forward toward Brad. He grabbed him roughly by the arms, making his next blow go wide, but the monster was big enough now that it still connected.

  The thing that was once Brooke Long howled in pain and what Logan thought was mostly anger. Brad in his grip again, he gave a great yank toward the garage.

  Outside, the other monsters barked madly.

  Logan screamed as tentacles whipped past his head, demolishing what was left of the walls. The floor rose and fell like mashed piano keys, and the three of them were spurred forward the wrong way, faster than their own legs could take them, through the ruined threshold of the short hallway.

  Two tentacles came at Logan now.

  He dove forward and to the left, trying to create a diversion, and the tentacles split the kitchen sink in half as they missed him by mere inches. No water sprayed; there was only shattered metal, glass, and granite.

  “Logan!” Jane yelled.

  “Go!” he yelled back. “Go before it sees you!”

  They did. Now she and Brad were by the garage’s entrance. Separating Logan from them were the entwined tentacles. He heard the skitter-skitter of the other creatures coming, the slimy squelch of the large blob of a body pulling closer.

  He stood up on shaky legs; he was going to make a run for it. That was all he could do.

  The tentacle struck out again.

  Logan juked right and went left again, but this time, he wasn’t as quick as before, and cold death touched him. He got hit on the side of the shoulder. Hardly a devastating blow, but the coldness on his skin felt like a gunshot—or at least what Logan thought a gunshot would feel like.

  His shirtsleeve ripped, but the flesh wasn’t broken.

  He cried out and stumbled as he clutched his arm. Then Jane and Brad’s hands were grabbing him and pulling him into the garage.

  The smell of grease and dust had never been so inviting.

  Cold wind behind him. He couldn’t see the tentacle now, but he could feel its movement. It was readying itself for the knockout blow. He imagined a guillotine blade hovering over the back of his neck.

  His brain told his muscles to move.

  They didn’t listen. He was momentarily paralyzed.

  “No!” Jane shouted.

  She pushed past him like a tornado. As Logan dropped onto the cold concrete of the garage floor, landing on his side, he saw his wife running at the tentacle, a screwdriver in her hand.

  She’s crazy, he thought fleetingly. Crazy or not, Jane saved Logan’s life. With a thrust, she stabbed downward and hit the monstrous limb.

  The creature screamed in agony in what was left of the kitchen.

  Jane pulled the screwdriver free. It dripped with black blood as dark as ink. She thrust the tool downward once more. She didn’t score a direct hit, only a slash, but it took out two of the eye-suckers, spraying the floor with a dark membranous fluid like jelly.

  The tentacle retreated as the creature kept up its bellowing. Brad shoved the garage door closed and wedged a chair up under the doorknob. Logan knew that wouldn’t stop it, but maybe it would slow it down.

  Now Jane grabbed him roughly by the shoulders. There was no way in hell she would’ve been able to pick him up under normal circumstances—but these were not normal circumstances. Logan had heard of people possessing near-superhuman strength in times of great stress, mothers lifting up cars to free their trapped children, moving boulders and ceiling beams that had fallen during earthquakes. Logan was no car or boulder; he weighed about two-fifty. So it wasn’t completely surprising that Jane was able to tear him up off the rubble and put him back onto his feet. What was surprising was the ease with which she was able to do it.

  Brad ripped the cover off of the Toyota. It looked brand new: chrome gleaming, champagne-colored paint sparkling like it had been freshly waxed.

  “Oh fuck,” Brad said. “I hope it starts.”

  They could barely hear him over the shrill roar of the creature inside the house.

  “What do you mean?” Jane shouted frantically. She kept a hand around Logan’s waist, having since discarded the screwdriver.

  Logan didn’t think he’d need her more this night than she’d need him, especially after the crash, but time and time again, Jane surprised him with her strength, with her tenacity.

  “I mean we haven’t driven this piece of shit in, like, years,” Brad answered.

  “Looks brand new to me,” Logan said. “Have faith.” He parted from Jane, reached for the door. “Come on, get in. We don’t have much of a choice… We aren’t getting out of here on foot.”

  What sounded like an explosion came from the other side of the wall. The creatures outside were still beating heavily at the house’s siding. They barked and growled and shrieked.

  I’m in Hell, Logan thought. This isn’t Ohio. This is Hell.

  Beneath the door that led into the kitchen, those little worms that had made up Brooke’s legs on her deathbed inched into the garage.

  Brad reached into his pocket, and his hand came back out with keys. He pressed the unlock button. The headlights blinked on and off.

  “Battery isn’t dead,” Jane said, hope turning her mouth into something like a smile.

  Not that dead, Logan thought, but he wouldn’t say it aloud.

  Have faith.

  Jane crowded into the backseat, and Logan went in after her. Brad climbed into the driver’s seat.

  Just as he did this, the door to the kitchen blasted open. Three tentacles, twirling almost hypnotically, came right for Brad. Logan heard the young man stifle a sob. He was shaking, too, shaking so bad that he almost dropped the car keys. Thankfully, he didn’t.

  The tentacles slapped against the glass, leaving a slime-trail in their wake. Logan noticed, with a grim satisfaction, that one of the tentacles was still leaking that inky black blood, and that more than a few of its dozens of eyes were still blinded, courtesy of Jane.

  “Please start please start please start please start—” Brad repeated.

  Key in the ignition.

  Logan held his breath. Jane gripped him tight around one bicep.

  The engine—

  Ground. Sputtered. Choked. Stopped.

  Logan felt the world melt away, felt the deflation of hope right in the center of his heart. Now the cold hand of Death was gripping him around the throat—except it wasn’t a hand.

  It was a tentacle.

  “No—no—no—no—no!” Brad screamed.

  The creature was still in the process of expanding. Will it ever stop? The walls were blowing out. The roof was caving in. The very foundation of the house was sinking, and Logan could feel it. No imagining it this time.

  Brad turned the key again. More sputtering. But then—

  It caught.

  The engine purred to life, and an array of warning lights illuminated the dashboard: low tire pressure, low oil, check engine—you name it.

  “Shit,” Brad was saying. “The garage door. The electricity is off. It’s not gonna lift—”

  Logan leaned forward and shifted the car into reverse. “Fuckin’ floor it!” he shouted.

  A tentacle came down on the windshield with enough force to crack it. Jane recoiled.

  Logan leaned back, put his arm on Jane, trying to calm her as much as he was trying to calm himself.

  “Better strap in,” he said, and almost laughed at his own voice. “I think we’re gonna have company outside. A whole damn welcome party.”

  That was an understatement. The chorus of crowing and screeching and chitter-skittering was loud enough to make a man go insane, which Logan already felt on the verge of.
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  “Shit!” Brad said.

  He gripped the wheel tight, didn’t bother looking back, and hit the gas pedal. The Toyota lurched. The smell of burning rubber hit their noses—a much better scent than what was coming off of the expanding corpse-creature squeezing itself into the garage.

  Then the group was thrown forward by the momentum of the moving car. Logan leaned over and covered Jane when the Camry hit the door. For a split second, he thought there would be no chance that they’d make it through. They just didn’t have enough speed; it was basic physics.

  But he was wrong.

  After all, the garage door was hardly stronger than the flimsy aluminum used for soda cans, and it had already been weakened by the smaller monsters trying to get in and get at their flesh.

  The busted garage door thumped beneath the four tires. The Toyota did a little gallop then found concrete again.

  “Don’t brake!” Logan shouted. “Keep going!”

  What happened next was quite impressive. In one smooth motion, Brad cut the wheel and shifted back into drive. They were now facing the road, partway in the front lawn, mere feet from falling in a ditch.

  The ditch, however, was the least of their worries.

  An army of monsters stood around the house.

  They were different than the ones that had caused Jane to crash the Honda, and the one that had ripped Mr. Russell into shreds and would later infect Brooke Long by gouging her leg. Each creature seemed to be of another species than the one next to it, but they all seemed to have come from the same place: Hell.

  Eyes upon eyes looked at the Toyota. Violent red or the same complete black as the void. Some of these stood on stalks three feet high, others dangled in places that a human being would never expect to find a face.

  A spider-like creature made the first move, skittering across the cracked blacktop on a dozen limbs. It stood up on its hind legs. Pincers as long as fence poles clacked together so loudly that the sound seemed to make the crack in the windshield widen.

  Logan was at a loss for words; so were Jane and Brad. None of them spoke. Logan didn’t think they could, at that particular moment in time.

  The spider-thing landed, thudding on the ground. Those violent red eyes screamed murder. The monster let out a burst of noise from what Logan thought was its mouth. The sound was like a large fork scraping across a larger dinner plate.

  Then Logan saw the stinger at the base of its segmented body. The sharp point dripped poison blacker than anything the human mind could imagine. Though he saw this, he didn’t fully comprehend it.

  More and more of the monsters made their move. Creatures as large as Great Danes, thick with muscle and rigid, scaled flesh. Maws open, large teeth dripping saliva. They surrounded the car. They crept closer, sizing up the threat. There had to be over two dozen of them. Some of them resembled scorpions, segmented bodies, curled stingers. Others were more akin to crabs, with their claws and hard-shelled bodies. And then, of course, there were the monsters that resembled nothing at all. Logan wouldn’t have been able to compare them to anything had someone been holding a gun to his head; he would’ve come up blank. Because these creatures did not compare to anything on Earth. They were simply beyond the human mind’s understanding.

  The reason why was simple: they were not human and they were not of this planet. But here they were, claiming the Earth as their own, decimating populations, infecting others and turning them into unspeakable horrors—

  Another explosion, this time behind them. Logan turned around and peered through the back window. The roof of the house had blown off. What looked like an enormous wriggling ball of mucus with a hundred tentacles of varying lengths and thickness now swallowed up what was left of the house.

  Logan thought he saw one large eye in the center of the shimmering muck. And the worst of it all? That eye was human; it held a semblance of Brooke Long.

  Despite Logan’s frozen vocal cords, he forced himself to speak. “Go!” he said.

  But Brad was as stiff as a corpse.

  Logan fell into the front seat of the Camry. He pressed on Brad’s right thigh, and the engine revved, causing the Toyota to lurch forward and Logan to fall into the backseat.

  They hit the spider-thing at about fifteen miles per hour. One of the legs snapped with a sound like breaking sticks, and the spider-thing tumbled over the windshield, its weight enough to shatter the glass.

  The tires screamed as the Toyota found the road.

  “Keep going!” Logan said.

  They mauled another one of the creatures. The thing made a sound like a garbage disposal as it was crushed beneath the wheels.

  Jane screamed; Logan echoed. But these screams weren’t in fear, they were in triumph.

  They were in the clear. Finally.

  They’d driven five miles before any of them were able to speak. Outside, Logan could hear the monsters, could hear their moans and screeches, their unholy sounds. The leaves in the trees rustled. Some trees fell altogether.

  Logan closed his eyes.

  Jane was the first one to speak. “Try the radio.”

  Logan could’ve smacked himself in the face. It was such a simple act, so obvious and right under his nose, that he’d missed it. But his fingers were trembling. The adrenaline was wearing off.

  Somehow, someway, they’d gotten out of the house.

  They had lost Derek, and Brad’s mother, true… but the three of them were still here, and their loved ones would’ve died for nothing if Logan, Brad, and Jane gave up now.

  Brad said, “What?”

  “The radio. Maybe we’ll pick up something.” Jane unbuckled her seatbelt and climbed into the front.

  Logan was mumbling, “Careful, careful,” under his breath from the back. She paid him no mind.

  With a click, she pressed the radio button. They received nothing but static, the same as when Logan had found the handheld radio in Brad’s garage.

  “Keep trying,” Logan told her. He found his heart swelling with that familiar hope. “Jane, just keep trying.”

  She did.

  On an AM station, they picked up a signal. A voice said, “Cleveland…Ironlock…” and then it said, “We’re surviving up here…holding them…off…”

  The signal died after that.

  Brad stopped the car. They were on a two-lane blacktop that was mostly still intact, though a few cars were scattered all over like long-forgotten toys.

  “What do we do now?” he said.

  No one answered because the radio was blasting static through the speakers; more than that, none of them could’ve answered. Their throats had closed up. Their bodies had become shaky with anticipation, with hope.

  But Logan Harper thought four words, and they were: We can’t give up.

  Want to find out how a zombie apocalypse could end the world? Sign up for Flint Maxwell’s mailing list and receive your free copy of Test Subject 001, an introductory story to the Jack Zombie series!

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  Afterword

  Geez, this story was hard to write. I had about four false starts on it. First, it was going to be huge, then it was going to be in a different tense, blah-blah-blah. The bottom line is that I thought the previous versions sucked. Maybe you think this version sucks, too, but if you’ve read this far into the book, I certainly hope not. But like the characters in Ravaged know: Stranger things have happened.

  Anyway, this is the version that I actually finished, the one I was satisfied with, and the one that sparked my creativity enough to let me write two sequels (and probably more) immediately upon finishing. So this is the version I’m standing by. I hope you enjoyed it.

  Best,

  Flint Maxwell

  September 26, 2018

  About the Author

  Flint Maxwell live
s in Ohio, where the skies are always gray and the sports teams are consistently disappointing (not so much lately). He loves Star Wars, basketball, Stephen King novels, and almost anything horror. You can probably find him hanging out with one (or all) of his five household pets when he’s not writing, reading, or watching Netflix.

  Get in touch with Flint on Facebook

  Also by Flint Maxwell

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  Dead Coast (Book 4)

  Dead End (Book 5)

  Dead Lost (Book 6)

  Dead Judgment (Book 7)

  Fright Squad Series

  Fright Squad: A Comedic-Horror Adventure

  Fright Squad 2: The Monster Games

  Fright Squad 3: Night of the Slasher

  The Midwest Magic Chronicles

  The Midwest Witch (Book #1)

  The Midwest Wanderer (Book #2)

  The Midwest Whisperer (Book #3)

  The Midwest War (Book #4)

  Something Dark: Horror Stories

  Let Us Out