Ravage: An Apocalyptic Horror Novel(28)

“What happened?”

“He was sick, just like Jake was, and the little girl – and everybody else, I guess. He came running at me in the kitchen like a wild animal, and I-I….I slipped. We both fell down and his head hit the chair.”

“He didn’t come back, like Mr Curtis?”

“No. I was in the house for another ten minutes after that and he stayed…still. Mr Curtis was back on his feet almost right away.”

“Maybe it has something to do with their injuries,” said Eve.

Nick shrugged. “Dead is dead, isn’t it? Why would it matter how they die?”

Another twig snapped.

“You have to go for the head,” said the deep voice of a stranger.





Chapter eight


Nick leapt to his feet. So did Eve. Standing several feet away, beside a large conifer bush, were three large men: two black and one white. One of the black men was bald with a pointed goatee, while the other was well-groomed with short cropped hair and stubble. The white man was huge – six-and-a-half-feet, at least – and heavily bearded. He looked like one of those American bikers you often saw on television with names like Axel or Bones. All three of them were wearing the same grey tracksuits and white trainers.

“Who are you?” Nick asked them.

“Could ask you the same question,” said the black guy with the pointed goatee.

The large white man put his hand up to silence his associate and then smiled at Nick. “My name is Jan. Janwin Banks. This man on my right is Renee. The charmer on my left with the Fu Manchu is Dash. Don’t ask what his real name is, though, because he won’t tell you.”

“You’re prisoners,” Nick surmised from their matching attire. He backed away slowly, pulling Eve with him.

Jan held his hands up. “Hey, brother, there’s no need to fear us. We’re stuck in the same shit puddle that you are. We’re just trying to make it somewhere safe.”

“How did you get free?” Eve asked.

“The f*ck it gotta do wid you, sweetheart?” said the one named Dash.

Jan sighed and shook his head. He took a step forward, his large hands still out in front of him. “Let’s just say that we’re victims of circumstance. The guards that were relocating us to a prison in Nottingham are all dead.”


Nick and Eve backed away more rapidly.

Jan laughed and shook his head. “No, not because of us. There was an accident. Some silly bollocks driving a Land Rover went right into our minibus. Next thing I know, there’s a bunch of lunatics tearing apart our P.O.s. We weren’t cuffed or anything, so we did a runner. It was either that, or suffer the same fate as the guards. There were five of us to begin with, but we didn’t all make it. It appears the world has become quite dangerous as of late. In fact, I preferred it on the inside.”

“There’s some sort of virus infecting people,” said Eve, “making everyone crazy.”

The man nodded and scratched at his impressive beard. “Makes sense. People don’t act like savages for no reason, not even in prison.”

Nick asked a question. “You said something about needing to go for the head?”

Dash spoke up in reply. “Yeah, it’s the only sure way to put ‘em down for good, you dig?”

Jan shrugged in agreement. “Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but when one of these ‘infected’ people dies they have a tendency to come back.”

“You know that for sure?” Nick asked.

Jan nodded solemnly.

“Told you,” said Eve.

“When they come back,” said Jan. “They come back different. Slower and easier to deal with, but they tend to group together and come after you in a pack. You can only stop them for good with a good blow to the head.”

Eve gave Nick a look and he understood what she was thinking. James had not come back because he had struck his head on the chair. He had been spared the fate of coming back as a ghoul. There was a certain amount of relief in that, but not much.

“How do you know all this?” Nick asked.

“Because we saw that shit,” said Dash. “We’ve been hiking it all the way from Nottingham. Seen some seriously wacky shenanigans since then, blud.”

“It wasn’t too bad at first,” said Jan. “But the last couple hours things have gotten much worse. I don’t even know the name of the last town we passed through, but there was no one there left alive. They were all infected or dead. We managed to lay low and avoid them, but if they’d spotted us then there would have been no chance to escape them all. That’s why we made for the countryside and these woods. I suppose you two had the same idea?”

“There’re half a dozen of us actually,” said Nick. He wanted to let the three men know that he wasn’t without backup if they tried anything. “We came here in a bus.”

“Mind if we join up with you?” Jan asked.

Dash pulled a face. “You serious? We don’t need to team up with this honky and his bitch.”

Nick clenched his fist and took a step forwards. “I think you might want to learn to keep your mouth shut, blud.”

Dash stepped forward to meet him. “You want a piece of me, honky?”

Jan stepped between them both. “Look, with all that’s going on, I think safety in numbers is the only thing that is going to help any of us. If we join up then we can try to figure something out, together.”