Ravage: An Apocalyptic Horror Novel(44)

But they did make it.

Are we safe?

Nick pulled his car’s sliding door shut and watched through the plastic windows as Dave did the same in his. Both groups were now inside a protective cocoon.

But Nick realised something terrible.

Looking across at the other cable car and then checking out the occupants of his own, he noticed that someone was missing.

Margaret wasn’t inside either car.

“No, no, no!” Nick looked out at the car park and spotted the old woman stumbling across the pavement, too old to sprint as quickly as the rest of them.

He made for the door, but Jan stopped him. “You won’t make it in time, brother. Her nine lives are up.”

“I have to get her. We only just saved her.”

But it was too late. The infected mob engulfed Margaret like a swarm of flesh-eating locusts. They pulled her arms at weird angles, snapping her fragile bones and sinking their teeth into her tissue-paper skin. It took only seconds for the mob to strip her flesh like a pack of ravenous piranha, leaving nothing but a wet mess on the floor that stained the concrete like spilled red paint.

Oh, Margaret.

The rest of the infected hit the cable cars hard, rocking them on their moorings and sending everyone inside against the steel walls like beans in a maraca.

“There’s no way these cars are going to hold,” Jan said.

“We be screwed, honky,” said Dash, glaring at Nick. “Good plan, Einstein.”

The infected bashed their fists against the plastic windows, making them rattle and loosen in their frames. One of the infected – a large Asian man that reminded Nick of his co-worker, Paul – got his fingers inside the sliding door and started to work it back and forth on its hinges.

Nick looked across at the other cable car and saw that its occupants were equally as doomed. Eve stared across over at him with fear in her eyes. There were only moments left before the infected would get inside and pluck them all out like tasty pilchards from a can.

We’re totally screwed. There’s nothing we can do.

Nick glanced around, taking in the sight of the infected up close from behind the windows. Their snarling expressions spoke of unbridled fury. It was as if rage had become their sole function. The infected were unable to do anything except kill. The only reason they lived was so that others would not.

What will they do when there’s no one left?

Turn on each other?

Nick took one last, regretful look at Eve and began to wish that he had left her in the cupboard he had found her in. He had not rescued her. He had doomed her. She looked back at him, terrified, and seemed to be doing some last chance reflection herself.

Then she began to move.

In fact, Eve’s entire cable car had started to move. As Nick steadied himself against the walls of his own cabin, he realised that he was moving, too. The cable cars were working, moving up the suspension lines and scaling the hill.

“What’s happening?” Cassie asked. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “Why are we moving?”

“Someone has switched on the cable cars.” It was the only thing that made sense.

One of the cable car’s windows was pressed in and about to come lose completely, but it would all be okay now. They were moving away, rising up in the air where the mob could not reach them.

All, except one.

The large Asian man was hanging from the door and had managed to get one of his arms through the gap. He was clawing at them and trying to make his way inside as his legs dangled in mid-air.

The car continued climbing upwards, but their passenger held on.

Nick kicked at the Asian man’s arm, but the blow did not seem to register. He just snarled and clawed even more furiously as he tried to get at the passengers inside the car.

“Screw this,” said Jan. He took two steps backwards, against the opposite 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 ground below. Nick peered out the gap. The Asian man hit the muddy ground fifty feet below them and shattered. It looked as though every bone in his body had snapped off in the wrong direction. Despite that, the man was still moving around and trying to get up.

“They don’t give up, do they?” Nick commented, more to himself than the others. “It’s like they don’t feel pain.”

“Everything feels pain, man,” said Dash, standing up beside him.

Nick shook his head. For some reason, the infected did not. They didn’t feel anything except rage and hunger. They were animals, monsters. Demons. Nick finally accepted that the infected were beyond saving and that life was now purely about survival. He knew that understanding that would lead to a big change for all of them. No one would make it through the days ahead intact as the people they were before. They would be forced to adapt. Or they would die.

Nick finally accepted that James and Deana were gone.

And his entire life along with them.

I don’t even know who I am anymore.

Guess I’m going to find out.

Nick gazed down at the treetops passing by beneath the cable car as they ascended the hill. The woods were getting thicker the higher up they got. Once the snarling mob at the bottom of the hill was out of sight, the view was actually quite breathtaking. The woods seemed to go on forever; their autumn-coloured leaves were never-ending swirls of orange and red. One hundred feet above the ground and things were once again peaceful.