SAFE HAVEN: REALM OF THE RAIDERS

by Christopher Artinian

  Mike put it safely in his back pocket and went to find the rest of the group. Emma and the children were sat with Raj and Talikha. Sammy and Jake were happily reading, Raj and Talikha were talking quietly to each other and Emma was casually glancing through an old copy of Heat magazine. “Hard to believe you have a degree in English Lit,” said Mike, smiling.

  “Hard to believe someone hasn’t punched that lopsided grin off your face.” Sammy and Jake giggled.

  “I’ve got to go on an errand.” The children stopped giggling and looked up, concerned. Emma put down the magazine and stood up.

  “Where are we going?” she said.

  “I’m going,” he corrected, “to the hardware store to get a couple of things we need.”

  “Go back to your books,” Emma commanded the children. She grabbed Mike by the arm and led him off to a quiet corner on the library floor. “If we need supplies, we’re going together.”

  “There’s no need. I’ll be there and back before you know it. You’ll just slow me down.”

  She adjusted the grip on his arm and spun him towards her. “Fuck you, Mike. Who do you think it was who got you out of Candleton and to the van? Who do you think fought off the RAMs and protected the family while you were unconscious? This isn’t the Mike Fletcher show any more. We work together as a team. I don’t deny that I’m not as adept as you are yet at dealing with things, but if I don’t get the experience, I’m never going to be. We go together.” Emma felt empowered giving the orders and Mike was clearly taken aback.

  “What’s got into you?”

  “I could have easily died when the hotel collapsed, but I got out with a couple of cuts and bruises. While I was under that debris, I forced my fear out. I said to myself that I wasn’t going to be scared any more, and you know what? It worked. I’m not going to run away from my fears any more, Mike, I’m going to face them head on. Whatever dangers are ahead of us, we’re going to face them together.” She turned and began walking away.

  “But what about Sammy and Jake? What if something happens to us?”

  She didn’t bother turning around, she just carried on walking. “A building collapsed on me, Mike. Was I any safer inside than outside? Anything could happen to any of us at any time, we just have to deal with it.”

  *

  “You are such a complete prick,” said Jenny as Shaw’s eyes painfully fluttered open. For a moment he just stared at the underneath of the bunk above him, then he slowly turned his head. The cell was made of grey breeze blocks. There was a toilet in one corner and a small sink. Two plastic chairs from the mess hall had been dragged in, leaving visible traces of rubber on the tiled floor. Shaw’s holdall sat on top of one of the chairs. Jenny sat on the other, her legs crossed, two of her fingers tightly clutching a cigarette. There were three detention cells, open at the front but for the bars. Jenny and Shaw had been put in the middle one. Lucy’s was the one furthest from the guard station, and the one nearest to the guard station was being used to keep the supplies under lock and key. The guard station itself was unoccupied, but every few minutes, soldiers carrying boxes of supplies could be heard marching in and out of the cell next door.

  “Did you hear me?” asked Jenny.

  Shaw let out a sigh and gently reached to feel the back of his head where Thomson had hit him. It was more or less the same place where they had coshed Mike, and it hurt. He moved his eyes towards Jenny. “Yes... yes, I heard you.”

  “Good. Just wanted to make sure we got off on the right footing.” She put the cigarette in her mouth and reached under her chair and into her bag to pull out a paperback with a big-bosomed damsel on the front and a handsome man on horseback behind her. She turned her chair slightly away from the bed and began reading.

  “How long have I been out?” he asked groggily.

  “About an hour,” she replied.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs Martin, I messed up.”

  “Do you think?”

  “Look, I’ll make this right.”

  “And how exactly are you going to do that?” she asked, motioning towards the thick metal bars.

  He put his head back on the pillow and let out a sigh. “I don’t know yet.”

  “Prick!” she said again and carried on reading.

  *

  Beth, Tracey, Annie and John claimed the two bunk beds nearest to the toilet and shower rooms at the back of the first barracks. The dormitory was clinical and depressing. The chipped plasterboard walls were painted a white which was now almost grey after years of neglect and abandonment. Some of the bunks had rusted, and virtually all of them squeaked as weight was put on the springs. The white sheets and grey woollen overblankets used by the last occupiers of the dorm were still on the beds. They smelt old and musty like everything else.

  “I don’t like this place. I don’t want to stay here,” said Annie.

  Tracey put her arm around her shoulders and kissed her head. “It will be different again when we’ve got it aired out and it’s had a lick of paint,” she said.

  Beth just stared across at her. Nothing about this place was alright, nor was it going to be. What had occurred in the mess hall earlier was a taboo subject. Nobody had talked about it. Most seemed to have convinced themselves it hadn’t happened, but the days of Beth living in denial were long gone. She had thought there would be safety in numbers for her and her siblings, but she now realised she had made a serious error of judgement. Numbers meant nothing if nobody was prepared to do the right thing. She recognised some of the faces around her from when she had visited her uncle in the past, but they weren’t any more than casual acquaintances. She had known these people for years, but they meant nothing to her. Lucy, Emma, Mike, Sammy and Jake she had known for only a few days, but they had proved themselves to be decent, honourable, brave people a thousand times over. She had chosen a crowd of strangers over a small handful of friends. Was it stupidity or cowardice? She wasn’t a coward, that much she knew. She had made a bad choice.

  She became deaf to Tracey’s attempts to comfort the children and began to survey her surroundings. The villagers looked scared. They found bunks where they could, stowed their belongings beneath and tried to find a small amount of comfort in their remaining friends and relatives. Their old lives were over. The homes were gone. Now it was time to start afresh in this tragic bleakness that surrounded them. Humphrey was frantically moving from bed to bed, searching for Raj or Talikha, but most people were too busy wallowing in their own misery to notice him. As Beth caught sight of him, she beckoned him across and gave him a big hug. She had always loved dogs. The family dog had disappeared soon after the quarantine. She had been devastated, but with no way of getting out to search for it, there was nothing she could do. She grabbed Humphrey’s collar and buried her head into his silky mane. “Hello, boy,” she said, taking hold of his name tag and reading it. “Hello, Humphrey.” Annie, John and Tracey were oblivious to the dog, but Beth saw it as a good excuse to get out of the barracks, to explore the place a little. She unfastened the strap from her holdall and clipped it onto Humphrey’s collar, creating a makeshift lead.

  “I’m going to take the dog for a walk,” she said, standing up. Without waiting for a reply she headed down the cluttered walkway between the beds and out of the door. A soldier stood guard at the entrance. “The dog needs a walk,” she said, feeling the need to explain herself.

  “Don’t stay out too long. It’ll be dark in a couple of hours,” replied Hooper. She nodded and he watched her leeringly as she walked away.

  The second barracks was just a few metres to the right of the first. She looked past the mess hall to the main administration building and beyond. She felt a need to figure out the layout of the place; it could be vital if there was any trouble. She guided Humphrey to walk towards the administration building. He seemed more than grateful for the attention and was a worthy performer, helping her keep up the pretence. She couldn’t see any more soldiers, but she could hear voices and the clatter of boxe
s as a truck was unloaded. Heading further down the road, she kept glancing back as more of the buildings became visible. Lucy’s familiar ambulance was parked outside of one. That was obviously the hospital. She noticed a smaller brick building at the back of the administration building and then saw the soldiers unloading the van. She was heading in the opposite direction and couldn’t make out too many details, but it looked like there were bars on the windows. It made sense that those were the detention cells that Shaw mentioned. She couldn’t see any more structures, so instead continued down the road to enjoy a few minutes of solitude away from the grimness that had swallowed the barracks and the occupants within.

  *

  Mike grabbed hold of Emma’s waist and helped her down to the ground as she climbed from the roof of the library. He put a single finger up to his lips and signalled for her to follow him. He retraced the steps he had made a few days earlier when he had first been looking for the library, careful to hug the side of the buildings to keep their visibility to a minimum. He checked the map and veered off to the left. They were on a path running parallel with the main street. Although they hadn’t seen any RAMs, the familiar ominous growls didn’t sound like they were too distant. Mike pulled Emma close to him and moved his lips close to her ear. “We take the alley on the right and that takes us onto High Street. The place we want is across the road and down a ginnel about thirty metres away.” He pulled back to make sure Emma had heard him. She nodded and the pair edged down the alleyway. As they approached the opening Mike ducked low and knelt down on one knee. He edged his head out and looked up and then down the street. There were cars parked on both sides of the road, making viewing difficult. He saw one RAM a long way off in the opposite direction to the way they’d be travelling, but he couldn’t see any others. He rose tentatively to get a better view of the main road. Shit, he thought as he saw eight of the creatures aimlessly trudging around, their torn filthy clothes revealing ghoulish grey skin, their sunken eyes searching fruitlessly for prey.

  Mike turned to look at Emma. He used his hand to signal for her to crouch. He did so himself, and the pair slowly and silently moved off, using the cars as cover. They travelled the length of three cars then paused to make sure the RAMs hadn’t moved. They moved off again, keeping low and out of sight. They paused again after navigating the length of four more cars. The RAMs still hadn’t moved. Mike looked across the road and pointed excitedly towards the alley leading to the hardware store. Emma grinned and nodded. As they began to move again they heard movement behind them, followed by the sickening gurgle of a RAM. The creature stumbled through the broken door of a ladies’ fashion shop and lunged towards Emma with its arms outstretched. Mike swiped its arms away and got between the hungry beast and his sister. In a fluid motion he pulled a machete from his belt and plunged it through the soft, stinking grey flesh underneath the assailant’s chin. The long blade jerked up through the pallet and into the brain, exploding like a gory volcano as it made a wide hole through the skull. A treacly mixture of slow-pumping blood, flesh and spongy tissue oozed out of the creature as its shattered pupils shrunk to mere pinpricks. The body collapsed back towards the door, smashing glass shards as it fell. Mike withdrew the blade before the sludgy fluid flowed over the hilt and onto his hand.

  He glanced back to make sure his sister was okay. She did not return his gaze. Her eyes were looking down the street, not in the direction of the eight RAMs they had been trying to avoid, but at the other ones that were now emerging from other shop entrances and alleys. He jerked her round and pushed her in the direction of the hardware shop. “Run! Now!”

  Emma took tight hold of the hatchet that Mike had given her and began to charge towards the alley. He quickly followed her as all the RAMs up and down the street began to converge. The growling became more intense and more excited as the beasts sensed fresh prey.

  “I’ll hold them off in the alley, you get through the window. When you’re through, open the fire door and shout, you got that?” he yelled as they sprinted across the street.

  They reached the narrow ginnel and Emma continued down it while Mike placed the machete back in its sheath and took out the pump-action shotgun. He braced himself for the army of RAMs that would soon be entering the narrow passageway. It was no more than a metre wide, so his plan was to kill enough of them quickly so as to form a barrier that would give Emma enough time to get into the hardware store and for him to make his escape.

  Emma reached the end of the alley and came out into the small square. Opposite was a wide, sturdy, chained metal gate that used to be open during business hours for the small shops to receive deliveries, but other than that, the area was self-contained. She looked above the doors for the shop names. She found the one that said Milgrew’s Ironmongery and pulled the recycling bin from Tulliver’s Pet Supplies across to use as a step up to the high window. As she did so a thick, rotten piece of wood fell forward. The bin had been helping to hold it upright. It revealed an emergency exit which someone had clearly tried to kick in at some stage but with limited success. Nice security, she said to herself as she noticed the damp broken wood around the hole in the door. Confusion overwhelmed her senses. She could hear the growl of the RAMs as the first of them made their way into the tight dark alleyway, but now there was something else, a low rumbling with intermittent chirps that were getting louder and louder. All of a sudden a throng of furry bodies swarmed out of the hole in the door.

  “Aaarrrggghhh!” Emma released a scream of primal fear and leapt on top of the sturdy green plastic bin.

  Mike immediately thought the worst – that his sister had been bitten – and began to run down the alley despite the RAMs. He had travelled just two metres when the first small, squeaking creatures came scurrying towards him. He immediately knew what had caused Emma to scream, and despite the horror of being trapped in the middle of an alley with rats rushing towards him on one side and RAMs on the other, he felt a surge of relief that his sister had not been attacked. Over the growls and the squeaks he heard her whimpering in fear.

  Mike didn’t have any time to think, so it all came down to instinct. He aimed the shotgun at the RAMs and fired at head height. The sound in the narrow ginnel was deafening and his ears began to ring straight away. The first two RAMs flew backwards, causing a domino effect. Mike wasted no time and put his back against the wall, pressed his right foot and then his left hard against the opposite wall to wedge himself a good three feet off the ground. He aimed and fired again, causing another group of RAMs to go down and the ones behind stumble and fall. He shimmied another foot higher as the first rats began running under his legs. He looked down the alleyway and saw they were still streaming in, hundreds of them. The stench caused a gagging reflex; they had obviously come up from the sewer. He was grateful that for the time being they seemed oblivious to him and were speeding down the ginnel towards his attackers. The first group of RAMs that had fallen began to drag themselves to their feet again, but now Mike was safely off the floor, he could keep them incapacitated for a while. He released another deafening shot which brought down the beast nearest to him.

  Mike had seen enough wildlife programmes to know that the rats’ instincts were probably driving them towards the light behind the RAMs, so they would more than likely run over and through them, possibly causing more of them to stumble, which, presuming the number of rats was not endless and at some point the alley would be clear again, would give Mike enough time to get through to the hardware store. But when the first of the rats reached the first RAM lying on the cobbled stone floor, Mike began to feel physically sick with fear.

  Rather than running over or running through, the rats attacked the RAMs. Excited squeaks and gnashing teeth echoed in the alley, drowning out the growls of the RAMs, who despite being attacked were still single-mindedly trying to reach Mike. He watched in horror as he saw the rats tear away chunks of clothing and dead flesh from the beasts already on the ground. Then he gawped as other RAMs were engulfed by
the ravenous, scurrying horde. Rats quickly and comfortably scuttled up legs, torsos, arms and shoulders to sink their lethally sharp teeth into the soft grey faces. The vermin did not share Mike’s repulsion of the beasts’ ghoulish flesh; for them it was a banquet. A huge RAM began to climb unsteadily over a number of his fallen brethren, oblivious to the one-sided battle that was ensuing. Mike readied his shotgun, but then the giant was overrun by a wave of brown furry bodies biting angrily at anything that could provide nourishment. The giant collapsed to its knees as the rats devoured its leg muscles. It stretched out its arms in one last desperate attempt to reach its quarry, but Mike was a comfortable distance away from the beast. It finally dropped its arms when several rats swarmed over its head and began feasting on its eyes. The hulking figure collapsed to reveal the carnage that was still taking place behind.

  Mike looked below him to see there was no more movement, no more rats. He had no idea how many had attacked the RAMs, but he didn’t think it could be far off a thousand, if not more. He jumped to the ground and sprinted down the alley, glancing back repeatedly to make sure he wasn’t being followed. He came out into the square and saw the bin with the broken window above it. He banged on the fire door. “Em, it’s me, hurry!”

  The door opened, revealing a dim service corridor. Mike rushed in and slammed the door behind him. Emma stood there petrified as he pushed her out of the way. He burst into the toilet, ignoring all the broken glass on the floor, and vomited violently into the bowl. He waited for a second, thinking he was done, then did the same again. Finally, he stood up straight, and wiped his mouth.

  “Are you okay?” screamed Emma, frightened something had happened to her brother.

  “I will never be okay again,” he said, placing a hand on his stomach to try and ease his queasiness.

  “Did you get bitten?”

  “No,” he replied realising for the first time that he had been so overwhelmed by the carnival of horrors that had played out before him that he hadn’t even thought about his own safety.