Nick kicked at the infected man’s arm, but the blow had no effect. He just snarled at them and clawed even more furiously.
“Screw this,” Jan said. He stood up against the far wall and then leapt forward, delivering a hefty kick to the centre of the cabin’s metal door. Its rusty hinges gave way and the entire sheet of metal, along with its infected hanger-on, went plummeting to the treetops below.
Nick peered out the open doorway in shock and watched as the Asian man cartwheeled through the canopy of branches a hundred feet below, disappearing towards the ground.
“They don’t give up, do they?” Nick said, more to himself than anyone else. “It’s like they don’t feel pain.”
“Everything feels pain, honkey,” Dash told him, sounding almost philosophical.
Nick didn’t think that was true. The infected did not feel pain. They felt only rage and hunger and maybe hate. They were animals, monsters, demons…zombies. Nick finally accepted that the infected were beyond saving and that life had become about survival. No one could hope to make it through the days ahead and remain the people they were before. They would be forced to adapt, or they would die.
James and Deana were gone. Nick’s entire life was gone. He wasn’t sure what was left.
He gazed down at the treetops as the car leisurely climbed the hill. Now that the snarling mob at the bottom of the hill was out of sight, the view was actually quite beautiful. The woods went on forever; autumn-coloured leaves a never-ending swirl of orange and red. It was a peaceful moment, and Nick knew that it might just be his last peaceful moment he would ever have.
Something hit Nick from behind and he was thrown violently to the humming floor of the cable car.
He shook his head, dazed and confused. “What the hell?”
Jan and Dash stood over him as Cassie whimpered in the corner.
“Time to die, honkey. Whatever this place is, it belongs to us.”
Dash was about to kick Nick in the face, but was stopped short when Jan hammered him in the ribs with a fist, knocking the wind out of him in a startled wail.
Then Jan shoved Dash backwards, right through the open doorway, where he fell into thin air and was gone.
“What the hell did you just do?” Nick screamed, leaping up to his feet.
“Saved your life,” Jan said. “Dash was about to send you on your merry way. Ask Cassie.”
Nick looked at Cassie who was fidgeting on the bench. “He’s telling the truth,” she said. “He was going to push you out until Jan saved you.”
“What? But why? Why would he want to kill me?”
Jan huffed as if the answer were obvious. “Because he tried to take liberties with Cassie last night and you weren’t going to let it stand. In fact, he was planning to get rid of Dave, too.”
“I don’t understand,” Nick said, moving away from the open doorway. “Weren’t you his friend?”
“Dash? That gangbanging piece of shit? No way. I just got stuck with him when the prison guards were killed and our transport was sprung.” He pointed at Rene, who was continued to remain silent. “Rene’s not a problem, but Dash was a degenerate. I’ve seen him do some really reprehensible things the last forty-eight hours. Me and Rene were already looking to ditch him when we ran into you and Eve in the woods.”
Nick looked at Cassie and frowned. “So, Jan didn’t, you know, hurt you?”
She shook her head. “No. Carl and I were fooling around in the kitchen. He was on top of me when something hit him from behind. It was Dash. He came at me and tore off my shirt. Then Jan came and stopped him.”
Jan said, “I saw Dash go to the kitchen. I knew he’d be up to no good so I went after him. Caught him red-handed trying to force himself on poor Cassie. I told him to get his ass back to the restaurant before I beat the living hell out of him. Usually he’s not the type of guy to back down, but I think he understood I wasn’t playing around. Then you turned up, brother, and got the wrong idea.”
Nick stared at Cassie. “Why didn’t you tell me at the time?”
“Jan told me he would deal with Dash, but I had to keep quiet, otherwise Dash would hurt more people.”
“Dash was going to take you out before you had chance to bring it up,” Jan said. “He planned to deal with Dave and Carl too eventually, so that he could hole up with the women at the restaurant and be top dog. He was no different in prison, only there were no women.”
“You told him you’d help him kill me,” Nick guessed. “Jesus.”
“Of course I told him that, but I planned to take him out first, or at least try to ditch him someplace. Then the alarm went off and everything took on a life of its own. It wasn’t until we started climbing this hill that an opportunity presented itself for Dash to kill you, so I intervened and killed him. You can thank me later.”
“I’ll thank you now,” Nick said. “I owe you, Jan.”
“Don’t sweat it.”
“No.” Nick was adamant. “I judged you wrong. I treated you like a criminal and that was unfair.”
“I am a criminal,” Jan said. “It was perfectly rational. Truthfully, I was a rotten piece of shit for a good chunk of my life. Even my own son, Damien, didn’t want anything to do with me. Haven’t seen him in years and I don’t want to reinsert myself into his life. I think losing the respect of my son was what made me finally decide to sort myself out – and that’s exactly what I did. One day I’ll find my boy and make things right. I’ll tell him I’m proud of him for finding his own way.
“Prison changed you?” Nick said.
“After eight years inside, my intentions have been pure for at least the last five. I’m not the same man I was when they put me inside, but that’s a story for a different day.”
“I hope I get to hear it,” Nick said honestly.
The cable car reached the final third of its ascent and Nick squinted up at the approaching summit. It was hard to be sure, but he thought he could see someone standing there, ready to receive them. That person must have been the one who had started the cable cars. The one who had saved their lives.
That person was their saviour.
But who the hell were they and what were they doing at the top of the hill?
Part Two: Top of the World
Chapter Twelve
28 hours earlier.
Anna washed her hands in the steel sink and watched the blood drain away. The birth had been a success. Rita, one of the zoo’s Clydesdale horses, had delivered a healthy 80lb foal and seemed to be recovering well. Now that it was over, she was looking forward to getting home and resuming sleep she’d been woken from at 3AM.
“That went really well, I thought,” Bradley said to her. He was Ripley Height’s resident veterinary nurse and it was he who’d called Anna when Rita went into labour.
Anna smiled at the boy and stifled a yawn. “Y-yes, completely by the book. Make sure Rita allows her foal to suckle, but other than that, nature should take care of itself.”
Bradley beamed. “It was pretty bloody amazing, to tell the truth. It was my first birth.”
“You’ll see many more working at a zoo.” She spotted a flake of blood beneath her nail. “It loses its charm.”
“So…are you going home now?”
“Too blooming right I am. I’m exhausted. I’d only been in bed a few hours when I got your call.”
“One of the downsides of being a vet on-call, huh?”
“I need my sleep. Always have.”
“Sorry I had to wake you. I couldn’t have done it without you, though. You were amazing.”
“No problem.” She gave her hands one last rinse in the sink and put on her cardigan. “I’ll be back Wednesday to do a check-up. Will you be here?”
“I’ll be around. As usual. Seven days a week, eighteen hours a day. I love the work.”
Anna admired Bradley for living on the park’s grounds – he was young and eager to gain experience – but she thought he’d be better off having some semblance of a
life as well.
“You should get out more,” she told him. “You’ll end up working yourself to death before you’re thirty. You need to find a balance between work and life.”
He shrugged. “I enjoy it. Tell you the truth, I like spending time with animals more than I do people. Sad, huh?”
“Yeah, very sad, but I know what you mean.” She really did understand the tranquillity being around animals brought. It was unhealthy to retreat from people entirely, though. “Get yourself out on the town. Grab a drink and a girl. Be irresponsible for a night.”
“You fancy going with me?” Bradley asked, his cheeks instantly growing red.
Anna spluttered. “Me? I’m ten years older than you. You can find better company than an old woman like me.”
“I don’t think so. I’d like to get to know you better. Besides, you’re like what…thirty-two.”
Add another three years and you’d still be a year short, Anna thought to herself. She was surprised. She’d had no idea that Bradley thought of her in that way. She didn’t know what to say or how to feel about it. It had been years since she’d dated.
“I…I’ll think about it, Bradley,” she said, and perhaps she would. The boy wasn’t without charm or looks. “See you Wednesday.”
Anna headed out of the stable’s washroom and into the corridor that reeked of oiled leather and horse piss. Rita was lain down in her stall, cleaning her mewing foal with her probing tongue. The stallion, Cassius, was in the stall beside her.
The dawn chill pinched her cheeks and invigorated her a little, but it didn’t stop her from rubbing at the fuzziness behind her eyelids. Her watch read 6AM. She was almost dead on her feet.
The real reason she’d gotten so little sleep wasn’t the call-out, it was because she’d passed out drunk, alone in her flat, at 2AM. She hadn’t even made it to the bed. It was the same way she ended most evenings. Especially when it was an anniversary.
She gave her shoulders a vigorous rub and got going. The sun balanced on the horizon, ready to leap into the sky. The various enclosures of the petting zoo were filled with sleeping animals that would soon wake or nocturnal creatures that would soon sleep. The silence of the night would soon give way to the snuffling of pigs and the bleating of goats.
Up ahead were the zoo’s only truly exotic inhabitants: a small family of orang-utans. Anna imagined the park owners had seen them as a lucrative tourist attraction. It was an immoral way to view such magnificent creatures, but at least time and money had been spent ensuring they were given a suitable habitat. The half-acre plot at Ripley Heights was one of the best in the country and the original pair of apes had happily produced an infant, now one-year old.
The female, Lily, was already awake, cradling her sleeping boy in her arms. Anna waved and was moved when the orang-utan waved back. It wasn’t so much a surprise, as Lily was often receptive to humans, but it was still remarkable.
Lily’s mate, Brick, was sprawled out in the branches of the habitat’s mangrove tree, sleeping soundly, his snores filling the air. Lily gave Anna a bemused look that suggested she was thinking something along the lines of: men, huh?
Annaliese grinned. I hear ya, sister.
Anna’s Prius was in the staff car park up top, rather than the public one by the Rainforest Café down below. As she headed towards the park’s Jacobean manor house, Ripley Hall, where the car park was located nearby, she spotted a pair of young lovers hiding amongst the lawn’s sycamore trees. They’d obviously spilled out of the manor from some boozy, corporate function.
Half the money the Ripley Heights made was from hiring out the many rooms and facilities of it grand hall and grounds. There was a lot of profit to be made from supplying ample amounts of booze and warm beds for the night.
Anna cleared her throat loudly as she neared the two lovers, determined to let them know they’d been spotted. There was no way to avoid them on her way to her car and she was damned if she was going to be the one who felt uncomfortable.
However, the young lovers ignored Anna’s presence. The man was really going for it, nuzzling at the woman’s neck with animalistic passion. You could hear the wet, slopping sounds from several feet away.
“Excuse me,” she said. “Perhaps you should take that back inside. The park will be opening soon. Probably time to call it a night.”
The couple continued necking.
“Hey! Time to wrap it up. Party’s over.”
Finally, Anna got a response. The man ceased his fevered nuzzling of the woman’s neck and looked at her.
Anna almost collapsed as her knees suddenly went weak.
The man’s face was smeared with blood. A sliver of what looked like flesh hung from his cracked and splintered teeth. The young woman slumped to the ground, her neck torn open and gushing.
Anna stepped backwards, shaking her head and fighting the urge to vomit. Vet or not, she had never seen such a horrific sight in all her life.
“Back the hell away,” she shouted at the approaching man. “Stay back.”
The man kept coming.
Anna’s heel caught on a root and she stumbled to the ground. Shooting pains ran up her spine, emanating from her coccyx.
The man was on her immediately, falling on top of her and clawing at her shirt. He was trying to bite her.
Anna let loose a scream as the weight on top of her seemed to grow. She pushed with all her might, but it was no use. The man was too strong. His jaws snapped mere centimetres in front of her face.
“Somebody help me! Help!”
“Anna?”
Anna craned her neck and saw Bradley racing towards her.
“Bradley, help me get this psychopath off me.”
Bradley tackled the man, throwing him to the ground. Anna clambered back to her feet, panting and whining with fright. Bradley got up and immediately went to her, cradling her in his arms as she wept.
The man rose up off the ground. Bloody tears poured from his eyes, staining his cheeks red. His face was a picture of rage.
Bradley stood in front of Anna protectively and faced the man down. “What the hell is with this guy, Anna?”
“I don’t know, but that woman is dead. He ripped her goddamn throat out with his teeth.”
“Pissing hell!”
The man stumbled towards them, quick and determined, jaws chomping at thin air.
Bradley wound up a punch and let fly. His fist connected hard with the man’s chin and made a sickening thup sound.
The man kept coming.
Anna was pretty sure the punch should have floored all but a professional boxer, but the man was unaffected and grabbed a hold of Bradley’s collar. The two of them collapsed to the ground in a struggle.
Bradley yelled out in agony as the psychopath clamped his teeth down on his hand, grinding at the middle and ring fingers.
“Jesus, Bradley.”
“Help me,” he screamed.
Anna had to act fast. Her eyes fell upon a small picket sign, set into the ground by a short metal spike. She yanked it free and pointed it at the crazy man, her hands shaking. “Get off him now, or I’ll drive this right through your goddamn eyeball.”
The man ignored her threats and continued tearing at Bradley’s fingers, moaning in ecstasy as torrents of blood spilled from the wound into his mouth.
“I’m warning you,” Anna said.
“Just get him off me,” Bradley yelled.
Anna saw no other option. The man clearly wasn’t going to stop. It was as if some wild fever had taken over him, removing all powers of rationality. The man was a vicious animal.
Anna leapt forward and drove the metal spike into the man’s shoulder. It sunk easily into the soft flesh and sinewy muscle.
The man didn’t flinch.
Anna couldn’t believe what was happening. The man felt no pain, even when stabbed. She stood stunned and disbelieving. Bradley’s screams became a faraway echo as she tried to make sense of the situation.
“Ann
a…help.”
Anna snapped out of her daze and rushed forward, yanking the spike from the man’s shoulder and releasing a jet of blood into the air. At that same moment, Bradley’s fingers finally came free of their knuckles, gristle and cartilage tearing and giving way. Bradley wailed as his two fingers disappeared into his tormentor’s mouth.
Anna took her opportunity. The crazy man had lifted his head as he came away with Bradley’s severed digits in his jaws. He chewed the severed fingers ecstatically, even as Anna lifted the spike into the air and brought it down hard against the top of his skull. The sharp metal fought against thick bone, but quickly delved deep into the soft tissue beyond.
The man’s body went stiff. His chewing stopped and he toppled sideways onto the lawn.
Bradley shuffled away on his back, clambering as quickly as he could from his now-dead attacker. He held his injured hand in front of him as he stumbled to his feet, too much in shock to pay it much mind.
“Come on,” Anna said to him. “We need to get you some help.”
They took off towards Ripley Hall. There were several phone lines inside which they could use to call help.
Anna had to almost drag Bradley up the steps to the front doors. He was weak from shock and leaning on her for support. “Come on,” she encouraged. “We just need to get you inside and then you can sit down.”
She pushed on the door handle and shouldered open one of the two heavy wooden doors. A crystal chandelier and several wall sconces brightly lighted the foyer, but the reception area was entirely deserted.
To Anna’s immediate right were Ripley Hall’s grand dining room and the kitchens beyond. To her left were the function suites and bar. Straight ahead was the winding staircase that led to the two upper floors and bedrooms.
She headed for the vacant reception desk. Behind it was the door to the front office. She tried the handle and was disheartened to find it locked.
Bradley flopped down on a nearby swivel chair and closed his eyes as he fought against the pain. His finger stumps dripped slick trails of blood, which began to form sticky pools on the floor.
The BIG Horror Pack 2 Page 12