Ravage: An Apocalyptic Horror Novel(85)

“Hey! Way to stereotype me. I’m not really that kind of guy. I’m more wine and a movie at home with the wife. At least…I used to be.”

“Come on,” she said, changing the subject. “Let’s get inside.”

They climbed through the broken window of the gift shop and headed inside.

“Fantastic,” she said, heading straight for a hanger full of souvenir hoodies. “These should keep us all warm.”

“And here are the ponchos,” said Nick, thumbing through a folded-up pile of plastic sheets. “They’ve got souvenir towels over there as well.”

“And here are the tote bags.”

Nick laughed. “Well, that was easy. Makes me wonder when something’s going to go wrong.”

There was an explosion.

It shook the floor beneath them.

But it came from far away.

Both of Nick’s eyebrows were stretched high and Annaliese thought he looked a little like a shocked clown. “What the hell was that?” he asked her.

She shook her head and chewed at the side of her mouth. “I don’t know. We should go check it out.”

She hopped back out through the window and told Nick to hurry after her. There were still aftershocks coming from whatever had exploded in the distance and several continuing mini-explosions made it quite easy to pinpoint the direction. She headed towards the edge of the park, back to where the cable car station was located.

“What are you going to do?” Nick shouted after her. It’s not like we can go down the hill to investigate.”

Annaliese skidded on her heels as she headed around the park’s Magic Carpet carousel and arrived at the cable car station. From there she had an unobstructed view from the top of the hill to the landscape below.

Nick bumped into the back of her. His jaw dropped open. “Hell’s bloody bells.”

Hell is a good word for it.

Annaliese was holding her breath and she suddenly let it out as the pressure in her lungs increased. In the distance, past the woods and forests that surrounded Ripley Heights was a nearby village. Annaliese could just about make out the spire of a church there. The whole place was in flames, for at least a square mile. The fires blazed from a hundred different sources. Some licked at the sky for hundreds of feet. As she scanned the horizon she saw other distant villages ablaze also. It was as if the earth was burning.

“It’s all over,” said Nick. “Totally over.”

Annaliese couldn’t argue. Civilisation was burning. For all she knew they were the last human beings still left alive.

And they were stuck on a hill with nothing to do but await their own deaths.

“What do you think is happening down there?” Annaliese asked Nick in a whisper. Shock would allow her to speak no louder.

“I guess a petrol station went up or something. This whole area is pretty wooded. One place probably went up in flames and set the whole area on fire.”

“What if the fire makes it over here?”

Nick sighed. “Then I guess that’ll be the end of the last safe place on Earth.”

Annaliese felt herself crying. Doesn’t feel so safe to me.





Chapter Twenty-Nine

Looking out at the blazing remains of civilisation was a surreal experience. Common sense suggested that Nick should be on his knees, weeping and crying out in desperation, but all he found himself doing was staring. The level of horror was so high that something inside his brain kicked in; a defence mechanism designed to keep his mind calm…keep him sane amongst the insanity.

Annaliese stood next to him and was staring with the same numb expression. Suddenly, she pointed something out. “Look,” she said. “They’re moving away.”

Nick looked down the hill at the car park. Like a herd of grazing buffalo, the massive horde of infected people had begun to turn around and face the direction of the flaming village on the horizon. A factory in the distance ignited and went up in a gulf of orange flame and obsidian smoke.

“It’s the explosions,” Nick said. “It’s leading them away.”

“That makes sense. They operate off sight and sound. They’re heading for all the noise. We might actually be about to catch a break here.”

Nick took one last look at the infected, funnelling away into the distance, and then turned to look at Annaliese. “Let’s get what we need and tell the others.”

“Okay, let’s head back to the gift shop and load up the tote bags.”

“Ready when you are.”

They headed back to the gift shop and got to work. They loaded up the tote bags with the plastic ponchos and hoodies. There was so much stock that they ended up looking like pack mules as they struggled to carry all of the tote bags. The last thing they gathered up were the plush toys from the midway games that they could use as pillows.

“This should be more than enough,” said Nick, peering over the top of his load.

Annaliese agreed and they started to make their way back towards the restaurant. With tote bags wrapped around both of his arms and a pile of plush toys balanced in front of him, Nick was having a tough time seeing. It made him think about how Deana used to make fun of the way he would always be so determined to get all the shopping bags from the boot of the car to the house in one single trip.

Guess I haven’t changed completely.