Savage: An Apocalyptic Horror Novel (15 page)

Sally had a big grin on his face.  “I think I
might have just the thing for you fellas.”

Garfield was wary.  “What?”

“Check behind that shed over there.”

Garfield looked across at the old rickety shed and
wondered what the Australian was talking about.  It was full of old,
rotten hay.  “You best not be planning anything stupid,” he said.

Sally chuckled.  “Just go check it out.  I
promise
yer’ll
like it.”

Garfield slid a chef’s knife from the band on his left
thigh and crept towards the shed.  He walked with a little extra bend in
his knees, ready to spring at the first sign of an ambush, but he made it to
the shed without any cause for alarm.  He stepped around the side
carefully, stopping every couple of feet and listening for any movement behind
the shed.  Zombies were easy to hear, shuffling around and clicking as
their joints wore down, but the living could still lie in wait silently. 
The Australian said he was alone, but that didn’t mean he was.

Garfield took the corner of the shed and stepped out
into the open with his knife held high.  He was surprised by what he saw,
but also very pleased.

“You found it yet,
cobber
?” Sally shouted from
the front of the cottage.

Garfield stared at the old horsebox trailer and
nodded.  It was wide enough to hold a single stallion. 
Or four men and a good load of supplies.
  “Yes,
I’ve found it,” he shouted back to the others.  “It’s just what we need.”

But the price for the horsebox was taking along a
stranger named Sally.  Whether or not that would turn out for the best
remained to be seen.

A
nna rubbed the tiredness from her
eyes and yawned.  The events that had transpired at dawn were now like a
daydream, just two hours later.  Despite what Roman suspected, the members
of the pier had not dumped Birch’s body into the sea.  The sea was theirs
and they would not spoil it with the dead flesh of a rapist.  Chris and
Jimmy had carried Birch through the gate and dumped him next to the boxer and
the skinny woman they had killed not two days before. 
He can rot with
them.

Now everyone stood huddled in the diner.  Despite
their fleeting victory over the three strangers from the fleet, each of them
now wore a look of deep concern on their faces.  There were a thousand
members of the fleet currently floating on their doorstep.  If they’d just
made an enemy, they had made a big one.

Tim eased himself down onto a chair in the diner and
let his crutches collapse to the floor.  Blood oozed beneath his bandages
but there was little Anna could do about it.  She would just have to keep
the wound clean and hope for the best. 

He glanced around the room.  “It’s very good to
meet you all.  Sorry it’s not in better circumstances.”

“Save it,” said Anna.  “I stuck up for you, but
only because I liked those men less than I like you.”

Tim nodded.  “Understandable.  I’ve brought
trouble to your doorstep and for that you must hate me, but everything I told
you was true.  The reason we’re all in this situation, the reason we had
our lives ripped from us, is Samuel Raymeady.  That man is the Devil.”

Alistair grunted.  “So you said, but his side
claim you’re a terrorist.  Who are we to believe?  How is it you
ended up with a bullet in you?  Garfield said he found you inside a
storage container.”

“He did.  That’s where I went to die after Roman
shot me.” 

“Why did he shoot you?” Poppy asked.  She had a
stern look on her face.  “Did you do something bad?”

“When the infection first hit,” Tim explained.
 “I knew Samuel’s plan was to commandeer a navy frigate his company was
building and start collecting people.  I made sure I was amongst the first
group of survivors brought on board.  The arrogant swine didn’t even
recognise me.”

“You knew him as a child?” Anna confirmed.

“Yes.  He was…
sickly
…as a child, the only
son of an extremely wealthy family.  I was sent to see him as part of an
investigation into any external causes at the home that could have been causing
his ill health.  The family had tried everything, but nothing got Samuel
out of his bed.  At the time, I was a sort of an environmental scientist.
 I tried several experiments to find a cause for Samuel’s condition, but nothing
gave any answers.  Needless to say, things turned out badly for me in the
end.  I went into that Worcestershire manor house whole and came out with
a broken back.  It was six years before I could even stumble around like
an insect on these crutches.  Once I managed to leave my wheelchair,
though, I devoted my life to bringing that evil boy to justice.  But that
evil boy grew into an evil man and I remained a cripple.”  He sighed and
shook his head.  “I thought that by getting aboard the
Kirkland
I could
at least finally put a stop to the man before he ruined what little left there
was of the world.  I failed to do that as well.”

Alistair folded his arms.  “You tried to blow the
ship up?”

Tim shifted in his seat and winced
in pain.  Sweat beaded on his brow.  “I admit there would have been
casualties, but in the long run lives would have been saved.  I’ve
witnessed Samuel bulldoze through anybody who dares stand in his way his entire
life.  By stopping him I was hoping to save all of the victims he is yet
to meet.  The men and woman aboard the
Kirkland
are already
lost.  They worship their captain.  They think he saved their
lives.  If only they knew the truth.”

Rene came and brought them all a glass of water
each.  Tim sipped his gratefully, as did everyone else.  No one had
realised how thirsty
they
were.  Rene stopped
when he was in the middle of the group and rubbed his hands together
thoughtfully.

“What is it?” Anna asked him.

Rene sighed.  “This man, Tim, speaks of terrible
things.  He says that the man, Samuel Raymeady, is a tyrant and a
monster.”

“He is,” Tim confirmed.  “He’s like Hitler
crossed with
Godzilla.”

“Then my concern is that our actions may anger him and
that we have made an enemy of a monster – of a
Godzilla
.  I
fear that Samuel Raymeady may
bulldoze
us next.”

Anna sipped at her water and nodded wearily.  In
the heat of the moment she had gone with her gut and done what she thought was
right, but now that the events were laid out more clearly it seemed like they
had all made a big mistake. 
We still did what was right, though.

“What should we expect to happen?” Anna asked Tim.

Tim didn’t seem hopeful as he spoke.  “I think
they will come again, but this time with more men and weapons.  They have
a few guns aboard – pistols mostly – but they’re more likely to
snap an arm than fire a gun.”

“They shot you,” said Alistair.

“They did.  Once my gunpowder plot was discovered
– although I still can’t work out how Samuel found out – I managed
to flee the ship before anybody caught me.  I headed inland and
disembarked at Dartmouth.  From there I followed some train tracks, hoping
it would lead me north.  Roman, although his real name is Damien Banks,
managed to track me, probably from the fires I lit to keep warm – stupid
of me, really, but it was either that or freeze.  I was holed up in an old
petrol station when he came.  I broke the windows and screamed and
shouted, tried to raise hell.  Luckily the dead were near and heard
me.  They swarmed, and as Roman was out in the open, they all went for him
first.  I hobbled from the petrol station, hoping to go in the opposite
direction while my enemy was distracted.  Roman took a shot at me and hit
the target.  Before I passed out, I managed to climb inside an open
storage container and close the door.  All I was hoping for was to die in
peace, but then your man found me. 
A miracle really.
 
We should make a movie about it.  Where is he, anyway?  Always nice
to meet a fellow ginger.”

“Garfield went on a supply run with the others,” said
Anna.  “They’ll be gone for a few days.”

“He goes out a lot,” said Poppy grumpily.  “He
gets us all our food.”

“Well, I hope he returns soon,” said Tim.  “The
more of you here the better.  Hopefully Samuel will leave you be once I
give myself up.”

Anna raised an eyebrow.  “You’re going to give
yourself up?”

“I’ve put you people in enough danger already. 
Samuel won’t stop until he has me.  I don’t plan on running forever. 
I don’t have the spine for it, or the legs.”

“Then why did you resist in the first place?” said
Alistair.  “We could have given you up and there’d be no danger.”

“Of course there would be.  Samuel is a danger
everywhere he goes.  The reason he wants me dead is because I know the
truth.  And now so do you people.  My burden is shifted.  I can
die in peace.  I’ve been trying to get someone to believe me about Samuel
for years, and now that I have I’m giving up.  A cripple has no place in
the wastelands.  I’ve told you all what I know, but quite frankly I’m
happy for Samuel to just do what he wants with me and be done with it.”

Rene was shaking his head.  “Your burden is now
ours.  You have doomed us all.  Samuel will become our enemy as he
was yours.”

Anna raised her hand.  Rene could be a tad
dramatic at times.  “Not if we give Tim up and say we don’t believe him. 
We’ll explain that after what their man, Birch, did to Poppy, we were angry,
but that we think Tim is a lunatic and don’t want anything to do with him.”

Tim folded his arms and winced as his wound
creased.  “I think that would be smart.  Samuel wants followers, not
enemies.  The battlefield on which to fight him is not head-on.  The
fact that you people know the truth is enough to light the fires.  It
means the entire world does not belong to Samuel Raymeady, even if he thinks it
does.  You people need to give me up and keep your heads down. 
Survive and grow and don’t let Samuel turn the world into his own private
dictatorship.”

Alistair folded his arms.  “As long as Samuel
doesn’t just destroy us all and be done with it.”

Poppy whimpered.  Anna placed a hand on her
shoulder.  The girl shouldn’t really be listening to any of this, but nor
was it fair to keep her outside after what had happened to her.

“Samuel won’t do that,” said Tim.  “He’s too
smart.  He’s wearing the hat of benevolent leader.  Killing innocent
people isn’t in his interests.  Roman will be back, I promise you, and
when he comes, you people need to play nice and hand me over.  They’ll
string me up on the
Kirkland
and make an example of me, but you’ll be
okay.  I’ll die a coward and a traitor, but I’m cool with that. 
Meeting you people and telling you what I know is redemption enough for
me.  Everything will work out fine.  Trust me.”

Anna nodded.  It all sounded like a good idea.

D
amien had managed to re-board the
Kirkland
without anybody important seeing him.  He’d climbed the rigging, which ran
down the starboard side and allowed people to moor their yachts and climb
up.  Only a single guard patrolled the gunwale and he had seemed half
asleep when Damien headed past him.  Hopefully Samuel would not even know
he’d returned.  The longer Damien could put off meeting with him, the
better.  The first person he wanted to talk to was Harry. 
I don’t
even know where to begin.  Which question do I ask first?

Before he sought out his friend, though, he had
retired to his private berth to get some sleep.  After the events on the
pier Damien was out on his feet and just wanted to sleep.  He washed the
blood from his spear in the stainless steel sink and stared into the cracked mirror. 
His stump was bleeding, too, which added to the mess.  It was all he could
do just to get out of his clothes before collapsing on his bed and passing out.

He slept through the entire morning and part of the
afternoon, dreaming the whole time, but remembering nothing once he
awoke.  It was probably for the best considering what nightmares he might
have been having.  As soon as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes, Damien
thought about seeing Harry.

Harry didn’t have a private berth on the
Kirkland
– he stayed in the bunkhouses with a majority of the other civilians
– which was why it was a surprise when Damien opened his hatch and found
him waiting there against the wall of the passageway.

“I thought you’d never wake up,” he said with a smile
on his face.

Damien snatched at Harry’s shirt and yanked him inside
the berth.  “Does anyone else know I’m back?”

Harry shook his head.  “I doubt it.  I was
the only one out on deck waiting for you.”

Damien thought about the events of last night and
suddenly became overwrought with rage.  “Why were you waiting for
me?  Wanted to know the latest about your partner in crime, Tim?”

Harry didn’t seem surprised.  He sat down on the
bed and sighed.  “Tim told you, then?  I wondered if he might. 
To be honest, I assumed he was dead after you shot him.  How did he
survive?”

“Some people on the pier patched him up.  Anyway,
what the hell, Harry?  Tim said…” He lowered his voice.  “
He said
that you were involved in trying to blow up the sodding ship.”

Harry sighed.  When he looked at Damien he was
tired and weary.  There were wrinkles on his forehead that seemed to have
come overnight and his skin was grey.  For a second all was forgotten.
 “Your headaches are getting bad again, aren’t they?”

“Yes.”

“
Bad
, bad?”

“Bad as before.  Worse, actually.”

Damien sat down on the bed beside his friend and said
nothing.  There was nothing
to
say.  Harry had developed a
brain tumour three years ago that had grown rapidly.  The pressure on his
brain had caused excruciating headaches, made him blind in one eye, and
half-crazy.  At
its
worst, Harry used to space
out and start mumbling religious nonsense; talking about an endless snow storm
and Angels coming to reap the Earth.  He would point at Damien and tell
him that everyone was supposed to be dead, that they were all buried in ice and
snow.  It had got pretty frightening towards the end and the prognosis was
that it wouldn’t get any better in Harry’s final months.  There was
nothing to be done, the doctors said.

But Damien hadn’t accepted that.  Harry had taken
him on as a teenager, took him away from the crime-ridden council estates, and
trained him up to be a master carpenter.  Learning a trade and finally
having a father figure had changed Damien’s life completely.  He had once
sold drugs and dealt violence to those who crossed him, but had gradually
become a hardworking man who wanted to put his past behind him and do good
things.  It was Harry’s kindness that had changed the course of Damien’s
life for the better.  He owed the man everything.  So when the
doctors had said Harry was going to die, Damien had refused to allow it. 
He took to the Internet and researched every clinic, health trial, and
treatment he could find.  Eventually he had come across an experimental
drug trial in South Africa.  The only problem was that it had been
expensive.  Damien had needed to sacrifice everything he had to gather the
money to pay.  But he had done so, and it had worked.  Harry got
better.  The cancer went away…almost.  Harry had been due to fly out
for the final round of treatment, to eradicate the last few cancer cells
remaining.  But then the world had ended, along with any notion of
healthcare.  Both he and Harry worried that the cancer would return from
the few cells remaining, but tried to put it out of their minds; there was
nothing they could do but hope.

Then, several weeks ago, the headaches started
again.  Neither of them had wanted to admit what that meant.

“I’m sorry,” said Damien.

Harry nodded.  “Me too.”

“Is that why you tried to set off the bomb?  Are
you losing it again?”

“No!  Tell you the truth I had nothing to do with
the bomb Tim tried to set off.  It was me who helped get him off the ship
before they found him, though.  I got him in a lifeboat during the night
and sent him away.”

“Why, Harry?  How did you even get involved with
this guy?”

“By seeing what is right in front of me
. 
Samuel Raymeady is evil.”

Damien snorted.  “Wow, you and this Tim really
have it in for the captain, don’t you?”

“Are you really so blind?  Samuel is a dictator
in the making.  He’s building his little empire, rescuing stragglers and
earning their love, but the harsh reality is that the captain of this ship is
the man who ended the world in the first place.  Samuel Raymeady destroyed
everything.”

“So that he could rise up as the leader of the new
world, right?  I’m not buying it.”

Harry blinked.  “Have you ever noticed how many
people go missing around here?  There was a guy named Dennis, worked in
the mess hall, remember him?”

Damien vaguely remembered a man with glasses and a
crooked nose.  “I think so.  What about him?”

“When did you see him last?”

“I don’t know.”

“Exactly.  Dennis let slip that he intended
taking a boat with a couple of his friends and heading down to Spain where it
would be warmer.  They wanted to find someplace quiet and try to live on
the land again.  Dennis disappeared the night before he was due to leave
and everyone assumed he’d finally set off.

“Maybe he did.”

“Except I knew the friends he was leaving with and
none of them had seen him.  I can promise you that Samuel made Dennis
disappear.  He won’t have any dissenters or want-
aways
in his fleet.”

“You have no proof.”

Harry went to say something but stopped himself.

“What?” Damien asked.  “What were you about to
say?”

“I…I saw Samuel on the aft deck one day and…
.and
I saw what he was.  He’s the devil, Damien. 
I’m telling you.”

Damien leapt up from the bed and marched the
room.  He placed his hand on his head and swore at the ceiling. 
“Damn it, Harry.  It’s just the brain tumour.  You’re having funny
turns again.  You’re talking bollocks.”

“They’re not funny turns.  I see things that
others can’t.  There’s a layer beneath the surface that most people don’t
know about, but just you wait.  You’ll see what Samuel Raymeady truly
is.  He’s not our saviour.  The only thing he cares about is
collecting his kingdom.”

“That bomb would have killed hundreds of people,
Harry.  How can you judge Samuel when you were party to something like
that?”

Harry stood up from the bed and faced Damien.  He
winced for a second as if getting up had hurt his head, but when he recovered
he gave his friend a hard stare.  “I told you I knew nothing about
that.  My own plans were to be more surgical.  I only wanted to take
out Samuel.”

He’s going to get us both killed with this nonsense.

Damien looked down at his spear.  He was already
guilty of murder.  Once Samuel found out about Birch and Fox, Damien would
be a dead man himself.  But if he took Harry’s life and revealed him as
the second traitor, perhaps all would be forgiven?  Harry was dying of a
brain tumour, anyway, what harm would there be in ending his suffering?

The weight of Damien’s spear suddenly made his arm
ache.  He tried to raise it but couldn’t. 
What the hell am I
thinking? 
He couldn’t hurt his friend, no matter what the
reason.  Harry had looked out for him when nobody else had.  Harry
had made him a man, been a father to him.  There was no way he could turn
his back on the only person he’d ever loved and respected. 
Especially not for a dickhead like Samuel Raymeady.
 
“If Samuel finds out that you’re planning against him…”

Harry shrugged.  “Way my head feels, I’ll be dead
soon anyway.”

The thought made Damien’s stomach roll.  Whatever
happened, he was going to lose his only friend – either to cancer or
execution.  The world had just become even shitter than it used to be.
 Damien was soon to be alone.  Harry was the moral centre that had
given him his path through life.  He didn’t know what would become of him
once Harry was gone. 
Will I go back to being the useless thug I was
when he found me?  Maybe a thug is all I am deep down.
 
Sam tells me to do something and I do
it.
 
Where do I draw the line?

Harry came and placed a hand on Damien’s
shoulder.  “I’m getting old, Damien.  My time is nearly done, but
there are still people out there who have futures left.  Not if Samuel
Raymeady gets his way, though.  You need to stop him.”

“Stop him from
what
?  You’ll get me killed
for saying things like this.”

“Dying is better than living beneath the throne of a
despot.”

“You sound crazy.”

“Perhaps I am; but I’m not wrong.”

“If Samuel finds out, I can’t help you.”

“I know.  Don’t worry about what happens to me,
Damien.  You just keep yourself safe.”

“Some chance of that.  I’ve come back onboard
without doing my job for a second time.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean your buddy, Tim, is still alive.  He’s
out there on that pier now, and when Samuel finds out he’s probably going to
kill everyone there.”

Harry looked sick to his stomach.  “How many?”

Damien shrugged.  “A handful.  There’s a kid
with them.”

Harry rubbed at his forehead with the heel of his
fist.  For a moment it looked like he might collapse.  “You can’t let
him hurt a bunch of innocent people, Damien.  Don’t you see that this
proves what I’m saying?  Only a monster would be so intent on causing death. 
You’ve seen his temper before.  What right does he have to attack those
people at the pier?”

“Maybe you should have thought about that before you
helped Tim escape.  He’s the real reason those people are in danger. 
You still haven’t told me how you two ever got involved with one another.”

Harry sat back down on the bed.  He cleared his
throat and rubbed at his temples for a moment before speaking.  “One
night, my headaches were pretty bad, so I went outside to get some air.  I
found Tim on the promenade deck, hanging over the edge and looking down at the
sea.”

“He was going to jump?”

Harry nodded.  “I asked him what was wrong and he
just
said
“I couldn’t stop it.”  “Stop what?” I
asked.  He looked at me and said that he “couldn’t prevent the end of the
world.”  My reaction was to laugh.  Nobody could have stopped the end
of the world, so why was this guy beating himself up about it?  I told him
not to blame himself; what could he possibly have done?  That’s when he
told me, “I could have killed the man responsible.””

“He told you that man was Samuel Raymeady?”

Harry shook his head.  “Not at first, but I
convinced him to get down from the edge and have a drink with me.”

Damien raised any eyebrow.  “You don’t drink.”

“I did that night.  I fell off the wagon so that
Tim could share his story with me over a couple bottles of beer.  I told
him I was ten years sober but that I was making an exception to be his
friend.  I could tell it meant a lot to him to have someone to talk to for
an evening, but it was still several days before he told me his story. 
When he did he told me how he’d been following Samuel Raymeady since the man
was a boy.  Tim told me about all the things he’d witnessed and researched
over the last two decades – all of the money Black Remedy funnelled into
secret medical research projects and the heavy funding they gave universities
working on epidemiology – but he was too late to stop any of it. 
Samuel Raymeady wiped out the world without anybody ever suspecting him –
anybody except for Tim and handful of kooks he called friends.  Tim knew
everything, but nobody important would listen.  When the virus was finally
released, it was too late for anyone to do anything.  There was no hope.