“Don’t worry, son, don’t worry, I’ll get us out,” Joseph said, desperately trying to think how. The cab of the van was separated from the back by a solid piece of board that they had put up to avoid loads falling forward if the van ever had to brake suddenly. This added safety feature, that Joseph had been so pleased with at the time, now had him imprisoned. Then he remembered the Leatherman multi-tool that Beth had bought him for his last birthday. At first he hadn’t really seen the point – he already had better screwdrivers, pliers and knives in his own tool box – but he gradually became less reliant on his old box of tools and used this pocket miracle his daughter had given him more and more. Now it could very well save his life. He had installed the dividing board using normal wood screws; they had been perfect for penetrating the reinforced plastic surround of the cab. It would take him a while, but he’d be able to unscrew the board and drive the van out, then that young nurse could fix his boy. Joseph was shifting boxes to get to the board when he heard some movement behind him. He turned around to see Peter slowly getting up. He approached his son and then stopped abruptly. The boy’s eyes were no longer his own. The pupils flared angrily in the dull light, the irises and whites now an eerie opaque grey. Peter’s face, once rosy like a freshly picked apple, was draining of colour as each second passed. A guttural gurgling started in the back of the boy’s throat as he limped towards his father. Then he pounced, pivoting from his good leg, but Joseph had time to get out of the way and the creature that had once been Peter fell on a pile of boxes. The farmer wasted no time and climbed on top of him. The beast twisted and writhed, snapping at Joseph’s hands and arms with its teeth.
“Don’t worry, son. Don’t worry. I’ll get you some help,” he said desperately, madly, hopelessly. Although only in his late fifties, his face had assumed the look of an octogenarian. This was one tragedy too many. He glanced around and saw the sturdy lashing straps they used to secure loads, then looked down again at his son. “I’m sorry I have to do this, son, but it will be for the best, you’ll see.” Joseph manoeuvred one of Peter’s hands down by his hip so he could kneel on it rather than hold it, then did the same with the other. It took him the best part of ten minutes to weave the straps around Peter’s body, but in the end, his son was almost immobile. The immediate danger was over. Joseph left him snarling and writhing like some trapped reptile and began to remove the partition.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Inside the house, Lucy and Emma had not been able to see the events unfolding in the van. They hoped that the fact they had heard the shutter slam down meant that Joseph and Peter were safely in the back. As Lucy had feared, the shots had attracted more RAMs. The total number was probably around thirty now and even more were appearing at the driveway entrance. From the direction they were coming from, she assumed they were residents of the village down the lane. They heard the sound of breaking glass from downstairs.
“Oh shit, they’re inside,” Lucy said. Emma rushed across to close the door.
“Have we got anything to wedge it shut with?” she asked. All they had left in the room was some bottled water and the weapons bag. Was this really how it was going to end for her? She then remembered the hunting knife in the bag and slid it across the floor to Emma. “Try this,” she said, less than optimistically.
Emma placed the knife in the small gap below the door and then kicked it repeatedly, creating a solid wedge. “It won’t last forever, but it’ll give us a bit of time.”
“Great, we’ve got a few extra minutes to think about how horrible our death is going to be before it actually happens. Thanks,” Lucy said, beginning to show real terror for the first time since Emma had met her. She wanted to reply with something reassuring, but what could she say? There were dozens of RAMs heading their way and nothing between them but a wedged door.
“We’ve still got the guns and ammo,” Emma said, pointing to the holdall.
“Yeah, I suppose we can take a few of them out before they get to us,” Lucy replied and reached into the bag.
Emma stood with her back against the door, her chin leaning against her chest, her eyes downcast. She heard the first footsteps on the staircase. Thud, thud, thud. She gripped the crowbar she had taken from her brother’s stash of weapons. “I wish Mike was here,” she said, not even realising the thought had turned into words.
“I don’t think even Mike could get us out of this one, sweetie.”
“Maybe not, but he wouldn’t give up. He’d never give up.”
“We’re not giving up, but when they get through that door, and make no mistake, they will get through, I don’t rate our chances,” Lucy said, carefully checking the magazines in the handguns.
An idea hit Emma like a hard slap across the face. She pulled the crowbar from her belt and knelt down, jamming the straight edge into the tiny gap between two floorboards. She levered one up slightly, then turned the crowbar round to the claw end and completed the job, pulling the floorboard clean off the joist. Now that there was a hole, the second board was even easier to get up. She looked underneath. There was a gap of about eighteen inches and then a typically flimsy piece of plasterboard forming the ceiling of the room below. Lucy looked at her as if she had gone insane. Emma looked back, wide-eyed, and the older woman couldn’t determine whether it was madness or excitement.
“Are you okay?” she finally asked.
Emma began pulling up more floorboards as quickly as she could while the first of the RAMs thudded against the bedroom door. “Give me a hand, quick,” Emma shouted.
“What the hell, Emma?”
“Don’t you see? Underneath the floorboards all you’ve got are some narrow joists and then plasterboard. That can’t take a person’s weight and those things don’t have the intelligence or co-ordination to balance on the beams. If one of those things steps on the plasterboard, they’d just fall straight through to the room below. If we can take up enough boards before they get that door open they won’t be able to reach us,” she blurted between grunts as she pulled up board after board.
Lucy didn’t waste time talking and knelt down beside Emma. The pair tugged and pulled at the boards, throwing them into a corner of the room. The banging on the door was getting louder as more hands beat the wood, sensing live prey inside. The two women carried on. Looking towards the doorway would do no good. They had one chance and this was it.
*
Joseph’s hands developed blisters as he used all his brute strength to remove each screw. They had been put in using an electric screwdriver, then tightened with a large Stanley from his father’s tool box. It was fifty years old and could easily last another fifty. It was a sturdy tool, and although what he had in his hand was ingenious and useful, it was hard going when it came to loosening some of the screws. Eventually he levered the last few turns and pulled the final one free with his fingers. The board had been measured and cut well, so it remained wedged in place. The noise outside was growing louder. Although he was sure the creatures became more vocal as their agitation grew, he was equally sure that the increasing volume was also due to more of the beasts joining their ranks. He sat for a moment to get his breath back and looked at what had been his son still jerking around in the confines of the strapping. “Don’t worry, son. We’ll get you patched up. You’ll be as good as new.”
*
The door began to give with the force of the RAMs pushing against it. Emma and Lucy paid no attention to the cuts and splinters on their fingers and continued as fast as they could. Sweat was dripping off them onto the dry wooden floorboards and they were panting like thirsty animals, but they were nearly done. Emma triumphantly pulled up the last board of the row and stood up to survey their work. There was boarding just in front of the door, extending into the room by no more than two feet. Other than five narrow joists, set equally apart across the length of the room, and the plasterboard ceiling of the lounge below, there was nothing between
them and the door but the five by four corner they had left themselves. The two women slouched down, exhausted, with their backs against the wall. Lucy reached across and grabbed two bottles of water. They took large gulps, eyes glued to the entrance. All they could do now was watch and wait as the door slowly shifted forward.
*
Rather than tearing away the partition and escaping as quickly as the van could move, Joseph stood and looked mournfully towards what had once been his son. He climbed back over the array of supplies Peter had secured and sat down opposite the writhing figure trying to break out of the strapping like a lunatic attempting to escape a straightjacket. The farmer leaned against the side of the van, which was shaking with each punch and slap from the marauding pack outside. He felt no fear of the creatures. He felt no fear for what might happen to him. He just looked towards Peter and grew sadder with each passing moment.
The beast continued its violent struggle, occasionally pausing for a second to lock eyes with the man on the other side of the van. Where there had once been admiration and love, now there was only the same piercing malevolence that was to be found in the eyes of any of the infected creatures. Joseph’s sadness slowly turned to anger. Not with Peter, but with himself, for allowing this to happen. With himself, for just a few moments ago promising his son it would all be fine, that he would get him patched up. There was no cure for what Joseph saw in his son’s eyes, and the pounding and battering outside was just a further validation of that fact. The noise became more deafening, but Joseph became less and less aware of it as he watched the figure across from him pull two, then three fingers free from underneath the strapping.
*
The first few fingertips crept their way between the door and the frame. A human would be in agony, as the pressure created by the wedge was still great enough for the bottom of the door to be flush with the frame. But these fingers, these creeping, grey tendrils, had forced their way through, and the small gap they had created amplified the guttural, choking growls from the landing.
Emma was twenty-four years old and Lucy was thirty-four, but they each instinctively reached out for the other’s hand like frightened children reaching for a parent.
At first, the creeping digits, having made their way through the gap in the door up to the knuckles, froze like the legs of a giant spider trapped beneath an encyclopaedia. Then they slowly began to move, clenching and unclenching, clenching and unclenching, as if gradually waking up from a deep slumber. The pallid colour alone was enough to send spasms of fear through Emma. All the vigour and resolve of a few moments before, when she had been tearing up flooring like the Tasmanian Devil in the old cartoons, had now gone. She clutched Lucy’s hand tightly and Lucy reciprocated. They had bought themselves time, but that wasn’t going to protect them from the slideshow of horrors they were about to endure. They could close their eyes, but what if one of the beasts happened to run towards them and managed to step on the joists rather than fall between them onto the plasterboard? The odds were against it but then again, twelve months ago, what were the odds of a person dying from a virus, only to come back as some terrifying monster hell-bent on feeding on the living?
*
Joseph’s reanimated son lay across from him, tirelessly stretching and wriggling beneath the straps. One hand was free and it balled into an angry fist, seemingly shuddering with pent-up rage. The creature’s second hand was working its way free too, one finger at a time. Joseph didn’t know whether it was by design, by reason, that the beast had started to liberate its other hand or whether it was simply that the body was moving so violently that it had jerked free. Regardless, Joseph just sat there, watching what had been his son’s flesh turn from a healthy pink to a milky grey hue.
*
A high-pitched screech broke through the low growls of the creatures on the landing as a hand and then an arm followed the fingers into the bedroom, forcing the wedge to scrape against the floorboards. The two women watched in horror as more of the ghoulish limb became visible. Another screech as the shoulder pierced the threshold, and then part of a face. The mouth opened slowly and deliberately, teeth bared, jaws flexing in anticipation of feasting on the two women. Emma looked away; if this was going to be her last day, she did not want that to be the final image burned into her memory. Lucy watched, her face crumpled, her eyes resigned. The RAM forced its head, then its chest, through the door. It was side-on and making slow headway, but the wedge wasn’t going to stay in place forever and it would not be long before the RAM broke through completely. It got stuck momentarily between the door and the frame, and that enraged it still further, its army green T-shirt and cropped hair the only clue to who it had been in its previous life. Its eyes and head convulsed like someone having a seizure. Globules of thick saliva dripped over its bottom lip as the low growl from the back of its throat intensified. The other RAMs outside joined in, sensing that the prey was closer, and Emma pulled her hand free of Lucy’s to cover her ears and block out the sound. Tears streamed from her eyes. Lucy picked up her shotgun and pumped it, ready for action.
*
As the monstrosity worked its second hand free, it pushed itself off its back and began sidewinding towards Joseph like a desert snake. Its eyes locked on his, its grey flesh thirsty for a fountain of dark, red blood. The excited gurgling in the back of its throat became more frantic with each jolting advance. Joseph continued to watch, his demeanour unchanged.
*
Finally the wedge was knocked across the remaining floorboards and fell onto the plasterboard. The creature ran towards the women. Emma sensed Lucy stiffen; she opened her eyes and uncovered her ears. The beast was in mid leap and everything slowed down as if it were being played out frame by frame. Lucy brought the shotgun up ready and Emma reached for the crowbar, wrapping her fist tightly around its cold metal shaft. She could see behind the leaping figure more grey flesh, grey eyes and gnashing teeth making their way into the room. The toe of its boot landed on a joist. Lucy and Emma held their breath in anticipation as that split second seemed to puncture time.
*
Finally, Joseph stood up, with his back still against the pounding metal of the van. What had been his son was now just twelve inches away, still desperately shuffling towards him. “If there’s any part of you still inside there, son, I want you to know I’ve always been proud of you, I’ve always loved you.” The creature carried on struggling, unmoved by the emotional outpouring. Joseph took two steps away, forcing the RAM to change course. “I’d give my own life to bring you back from this, son, but there is no way back, I can see that now. I’ve got to protect what’s left of the family, and to do that I’m going to have to do things that only God can forgive me for, because I know for a fact that I’ll never forgive myself.”
*
The boot twisted and slipped down the side of the joist. The former soldier’s heel punched through the plasterboard ceiling as if it were a sheet of dry pasta. The beast’s other foot caught on the next joist, and its teeth punctured its upper lip as it hit the solid wood of the first beam at full speed. It felt no pain as it plummeted through the thin plasterboard ceiling, but Lucy and Emma winced, not out of any sense of pity, but simply imagining how painful it would have been for them. A large hole was left as the flailing hand of the RAM disappeared to the floor of the lounge below. The rest of the horde advanced swiftly from the landing. Some hit joists, like the first; others landed straight onto the plasterboard. All of them fell hopelessly, leaving a flip book of monstrous images shooting glances of pure malevolence towards their potential prey before vanishing through the floor. More advanced until there was nothing between the doorway and the small area where the two women sat other than the exposed joists. Eventually the attacks stopped. Were the creatures learning? Were they reasoning? Or was it just an animal instinct? There was no roaring engine or moving vehicle to confuse their senses, just two frightened women. The RAMs massed outsi
de the room, watching the trapped prey. The door was now fully open, the floor was gone, and Emma and Lucy could see the beasts shoving and jostling on the landing and stairs, trying to get closer to their quarry. Below, the women saw bloodthirsty creatures looking up, some crippled with broken limbs after their falls, some reaching upwards with unbridled hate and energy. The growling and the gurgling, the snarling, the anger, the hopelessness. The hopelessness consuming them.
*
The young RAM finally freed an arm and dragged itself towards Joseph, who was up at the partition looking for his weapon. He picked it up and stepped towards the struggling beast. “I’m so sorry, son,” he said again as he raised the shotgun towards the creature’s head. One last lunge and the RAM’s hand clamped onto Joseph’s ankle for leverage. Its fingers dug deep, but Joseph felt nothing. The emotional pain far outweighed any physical discomfort. He stared down the barrel and felt for the trigger, then hesitated. He turned the shotgun around and bludgeoned the monster instead. The creature eased its grip as it lost consciousness, and Joseph freed his foot, unaware of the tiny scratch that the RAM’s nail had made through his wool socks. The bereaved father set to work applying more strapping; he put a burlap sack over the beast’s head and tied its neck and body firmly to the metal shelving in the back of the box van.
*
Emma stood and looked out of the window. She couldn’t see any more RAMs on the driveway, but the house and van were both surrounded. “There aren’t any more coming in,” she said to Lucy.
“When the firing started, these were probably the ones within earshot. Guns can be as much of a liability as they are a necessity.” Lucy looked into the bag of weapons, knowing as she said it that they were the only protection the two women had, but that they could also alert other RAMs to their whereabouts. “I guess this is what they call a catch-22, kid.” Without realising, both women were having to speak louder to hear themselves over the houseful of low, choking growls and grunts.
SAFE HAVEN: RISE OF THE RAMS Page 15