Ravage: An Apocalyptic Horror Novel(58)

The girl stood up and joined him. Her blonde hair was a tangled mess and her cherry lipstick and black mascara were smudged. “We thought help was coming when we heard someone coming down the hall. When we looked out and saw you there we were sure of it, but then we realised you were being chased. What is going on?”

Annaliese climbed back to her feet and checked the room’s door. It was much weaker than the ones downstairs in the main house. It wouldn’t hold forever. Even now it bulged and rattled with every blow against its outer side. She put a finger to her lips to keep the young couple quiet. Then she whispered to them. “If we keep quiet, they should go away. They seem to operate on sight and sound.”

“They?” asked Charlotte. “Who are they?”

“I don’t exactly know. Something bad has happened to a lot of people. Pretty much your entire company came down with some kind of sickness last night. It’s infected them with some kind of bloodlust.”

“Paris Hilton’s balls,” said the lad. “That’s crazy.”

“Crazy is a pretty good word for it,” she said, “but this is no joke. People are dead. Things are really screwed up.”

“So what do we do?” asked the girl. She turned to the lad and grabbed his wrist. “Clark, I’m scared.”

He hugged her close. “I know, baby. Everything is going to be okay, I promise.”

Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Casanova.

“We need to get outside,” she said. “There are people downstairs – uninfected people – that are relying on me. I came up here to lead the sick people away. Now that I have, we need to get outside and join back up with the group and get somewhere safe.”

“Okay,” said Clark. “We’re ready to do whatever you need.”

Annaliese hurried across the room, dodging around the bed and heading towards the window. Dawn sunlight flooded in and painted a golden rectangle against the room’s olive carpet. Birds chirped outside as if all was ordinary. The ground outside, beneath the window, was grassy and probably soft, but the drop was still a good twelve feet or more.

“Strip the bed,” she said.

Charlotte and Clark looked at her confused but did as they were told. They got to work quickly, throwing aside the pillows and duvet from the room’s double bed. In the meantime, Annaliese examined the room’s window. She located the catch and flicked it free, releasing the window from its frame. It was old fashioned leaded glass that opened outwards to one side. It wasn’t the widest gap, but should be big enough for her purposes.

If it’s not, then we’re in a lot of trouble.

When Annaliese turned back around, she saw that the young lovers had finished stripping the bed for her and were now standing by anxiously. Each of them stole furtive glances at the door as it continued to shake on its hinges.

“Concentrate,” Annaliese told them, snapping her fingers several times. “We’ll be out of here before they get inside. Now, bring me the mattress.”

Fortunately, the mattress had handles and wasn’t too heavy. Charlie and Clark slid it over to the window and propped it up against the frame.

“Right,” Annaliese said. “It will be a squeeze, but I think we can get this through the window. We can use it as a crash mat. Let’s get it up through the gap.”

“Okay dokey,” said Clark in a voice that sounded nervous.

Together the three of them worked the mattress up onto the window ledge and began shoving it through the opening. The mattress was too wide to fit perfectly but as they pushed, squeezed, and folded, it began to go through a little bit at a time.

Crack!

Behind them there was the sound of splintering wood.

Crack!

“Oh, no,” cried Charlotte. “They’re going to get in.”

“Just keep pushing,” said Annaliese. “Focus on what we’re doing, not on them.”

They shoved as hard as they could, but the mattress seemed to be getting heavier. Annaliese knew it was just her muscles getting tired. Sweat began to bead on her forehead as she shoved at what was beginning to feel like an immovable object.

The door continued to splinter and rattle on its loosening hinges.

Crack!

Annaliese shoved harder, gritting her teeth.

Suddenly there was movement and, all at once, the mattress seemed to take on a life of its own, slipping through the window frame and tumbling over the ledge. It almost dragged Annaliese right out after it as it plummeted to the ground below.

“Right,” she shouted. “Charlotte, you go first. Quickly!”

Charlotte stared out the window and then looked back at Annaliese. She shook her head. “I can’t just jump out of the window.”

“It’s either that or stay here and get ripped apart.”

“You go,” she said, pointing at Clark.

Clark shrugged. “Fine.” He put a foot on the windowsill and then hopped up into the window frame. He steeled himself for a moment, and then took a step forward. Without a sound he disappeared from view, sinking down below the window ledge. Annaliese glanced out to see that the lad had landed face down on the mattress. He seemed a little disorientated at first, but was soon on his feet again and waving at them to say he was okay.

“Now you,” said Annaliese to Charlotte.