Savage: An Apocalyptic Horror Novel (27 page)

“I’ll do it,” said old man Bob, marching up beside
Hugo and reaching down to pick up the shovel.

Hugo reached down and grabbed the shovel first. 
“No.  I’ll do it.”   
Time to start doing what needs to be
done.  The days of floating around aimlessly are behind me.
 He
strolled up to Samantha and carefully placed the shovel’s blade against her
throat.  Then he leapt up with both feet and brought his full weight down
on her neck.  It still wasn’t enough.

Samantha’s neck split open and her head lolled
sideways, but she still lived.  She gargled and coughed as blood filled
her airways.

“Shit,” said Jimmy.  “Do it again.”

Hugo jumped back up onto the spade and completed the
job.  Samantha’s spinal cord snapped and her head came away from her
body.  Hugo strangely felt nothing.  The woman had been dead when she
was bitten, not when he removed her head.  It would have been nice to know
her better, but the world held little regard for friendships anymore.

Before anyone had time to mourn Samantha, the gate
fell inwards with a resounding
crash
!  Immediately the dead fell
forward in a clumsy heap of bodies, falling to the deck and rolling around, but
slowly they clambered back to their feet, one by one.  Before long there
were dozens of them making their way down the deck.

Hugo went and grabbed his daughters and held them
close.  Houdini yipped by their feet.  There was no time to make it
down to the beach now, and even if there was, the dead waited down there
too.  They were done for.
En
toute
chose
il
faut
considérer
la fin.

Old man Bob and Jim closed-in beside Hugo with their
weapons held high.  “Looks like the end of the road, me
ducks
,”
said Bob.  “I’m sorry you didn’t all get to live as long as me.”

“That’s a blessing,” said Jimmy.  “Your
nutsack
is like a dried-out teabag.”

Both men laughed, but Hugo did not join them.  He
kissed the top of his daughter’s heads and held them close.  “I am sorry,
my darlings
.   Je
vous
aime
tous
les
deux
.
”

“We love you too, daddy.”

The dead got closer and Hugo fought not to close his
eyes.  He needed to be strong for his daughters.  “Don’t be afraid,
girls.  It will be over soon.  I am with you.”

Yip!

“Houdini too.”

The rotten, pus-filled faces bore down on them, broken
ankles and twisted knees carrying them forward.  Rotten teeth chomped the
air, seeking living flesh.  Soon they would have it.

When the dead were only a dozen feet away, the entire
pier rumbled and shook.  A monstrous sound filled the air and suddenly the
dead began to part and fall beneath a wondrous beast.  When the sound of
gunfire began, Hugo could barely trust his eyes. 
 
“I don’t
believe it,” he said to his girls with disbelief and excitement in his
voice.  “We are saved.”

T
he Challenger 2 Battle Tank had made
short work of the motorway, clearing a steady path for the pursuing 4-tonne
trucks.  Lemon drove one while Cat and David commanded the other. 
The two paratroopers, Price and Barker, piloted the tank, while Garfield sat in
the open hatch ring, manning a heavy machine gun on top of the turret.  It
was fixed in place and hopefully wouldn’t tear his shoulder to pieces like the
SA80 assault rifle had.  His deltoid muscle still cried out every time he
moved.

The motorway was littered with wrecks and dead men,
just as Garfield had expected, but the heavy tank shunted the puny vehicles aside
as if the road was a bowling alley and the Challenger was a 14lb ball.
 Garfield made light work of any dead standing in the way, ripping them
apart with the GMPG he manned on the turret.  Any that came too close fell
under the front of the tank and came out the back as bloody paste. 

Their small convoy arrived at the pier a few hours
before dawn.  What Garfield found there made him cry out.

The first thing he saw was smouldering flame, lighting
up the dark like a litter of bonfires.  The first thing he
heard
was the moaning of the dead everywhere. 
Oh God,
he had
thought. 
The pier is gone.

But it had not been gone, not completely.  Half
the pier was missing, while the other half smouldered from dying fires. 
The dead swarmed everywhere like ants over an ice cream cone.  Their
collective moaning was so loud that it almost drowned out the roar of the
Challenger’s monstrous engine.  Something had happened while they were
gone.  The pier was gone. 
Where are they all?  Where’s
Poppy?

The tank flew forward up the deck, flattening hordes
of the dead and leaping up over the fallen gate.  Garfield fired the
machine gun madly, shearing off heads and arms by the dozen.  He didn’t
realise it at first, because of the racket, but he was screaming at the top of
his lungs.  Empty bullet casings filled the air like angry wasps. 
His finger ached on the trigger.

Movement at the end of the broken pier made Garfield
swivel the machine gun around, ready to fire at a new target.  He was just
about to pull the trigger again when he saw old man Bob standing there. 
The dead were closing in on him.  Garfield swivelled left and right,
taking down as many dead as he could find.  When nothing else moved, he
climbed out of the turret and leapt down to the deck.  Barker had given
him a 9mm browning and shown him how to use it, so he pulled it from his
waistband and popped a shot off into a dead man’s skull that had reached for
him from the floor.  He glanced around, searching for any more danger, but
Lemon had angled one of the trucks across the gate and blocked any more of the
dead from getting inside. 
Can always rely on Lemon.  Where’s
Poppy?

Up ahead, old man Bob was hunched over, grabbing his
knees and taking great big breaths.  There were people beside him who were
all sobbing.  It was clear the cavalry had arrived just in time. 
“What happened?” he yelled.  “Where’s Poppy?”

Old man Bob remained crouched over.  Standing
with him was Jimmy, and a middle-aged man he didn’t recognise.  There were
also two young girls and a dog. 
Who the hell are
they
?

Jimmy couldn’t look at Garfield as he spoke. 
Instead he turned away and pointed at the gaping hole where the other end of
the pier used to be.  “Things are bad, man.  You got here just in
time.  Everyone’s gone.”

Garfield hurried across the deck towards him. 
Bodies lay everywhere and he had to hop over them with each step.  “What
do you mean,
gone
?  What happened, Jimmy?  Tell me!”

Jimmy pointed out at the sea.  In the darkness,
Garfield could see several ships lit up and
two dozen
more lurking in shadow.  A huge Navy frigate floated amongst them, lit
like a beacon.  “Some boats came. 
A shit-tonne of
‘
em
.
  They were looking for that guy you
found in that lorry container.  Tim, his name was.  Some douchebag
with a spear for a hand came aboard and started throwing his weight around, but
Alistair and Anna were having none of it.  One of the men who came aboard
tried to…” Jimmy cleared his throat.  “Tried to hurt Poppy.  Things
got screwed up and that battleship out there fired at us.”

Garfield felt like he was going to throw up.  He
had to take three deep breaths just to stay standing.  “Okay…let’s take
this slowly.  You’re telling me that someone came and did this? 
Because of the man I found?”

Jimmy nodded.  “His name is Tim.”

Garfield didn’t care what the man’s name was. 
“Where’s Poppy?”

Jimmy looked away.

“Where is she?” Garfield yelled.

A man he did not recognise came forward to answer his
question.  The way the two young girls were clinging to him, they must
have been his daughters.  He had a French accent.
 
“I am sorry
for what has happened, my friend.  I think the little girl you are talking
about is the one just behind you.”

Garfield turned around slowly.  There was no one
behind him other than Lemon, Chris, Cat, and the two soldiers – certainly
no Poppy.  Barker and Price were doing clean up, taking out any dead that
still wriggled and crawled along the deck.  “What are you talking about?”
asked Garfield.  “Where is she?”

“The little girl, Poppy.  She is lying just there
behind you.”  The Frenchman pointed.  “I am sorry.”

Garfield looked where the man was pointing and felt as
if his stomach was about to explode.  Acid rose up his gullet and burned
his throat.  His breath came out in wounded gasps.  There were bodies
all around, which was why he’d missed her the first time.

Poppy was laying in a row of bodies, with Alistair and
Chris either side of her.  Her face was ruined, blackened and torn, but
she was still his beautiful little girl.  One of her plaits had come
unravelled but the other lay over her shoulder.  She looked
peaceful.  Garfield fell to his knees beside her and cradled her in his
arms.  She felt so light that he wondered how she didn’t just float away. 
It was a child’s body in his arms.    

I was so scared of her becoming a woman.  Now
she’ll never be one.
  Garfield knew it was his
fault.  He brought the injured man to camp, then set off and abandoned
everyone.  He was so fixated on getting guns to protect the pier that he
ended up leaving it defenceless.  The irony disgusted him.

He leapt back to his feet.  “Who did this? 
WHO FUCKING DID THIS?”

The Frenchman staggered backwards and clutched his
daughters.  The little dog at his feet barked at Garfield, but he didn’t care. 
He would happily beat them all bloody if they didn’t tell him, right now, who
was responsible for everything that had happened.

Old man Bob had managed to catch his breath and
straightened up.  Tears streaked his face.  They glistened like
silver slug trails in the moonlight.  “The captain of that fleet is Samuel
Raymeady.  He is responsible.”

Garfield showed no reaction.  He just wanted the
facts.  “The richest man in the world?”

Old man Bob nodded.  “Yeah, he was the head
honcho of Black Remedy, that company which seemed to own just about everything
back before the infection hit.  The man you found, Tim, tried to blow
Samuel up by planting a bomb on the ship.”

“Why?”

“Because he knew Samuel was responsible for everything
that happened one year ago.  Black Remedy engineered the virus that killed
everybody.  Samuel planned to start a new kingdom or something, I
dunno
.  It’s all a bunch of
bloody drama and fairy tales, but one thing is true: that son-of-a-bitch fired
his cannon at the pier and now Poppy, Alistair, Samantha, and Chris are all
dead.  That ain’t
no
fairy tale.”

Garfield clenched his fists, but needed to hear more
before he acted.  There were names missing from old man Bob’s story. 
“Where are Anna and Rene?”

“With Tim,” said Jimmy.  “The three of them took
Hugo’s boat and headed for the frigate.  Anna’s plan is to surrender and
then try to take Samuel Raymeady down.  They won’t be coming back. 
It was a suicide mission.”

Garfield stood stiff and swallowed the lump in his
throat.  Every fibre of his body wanted to turn around, pick Poppy up and
take her away from all this, but he was sure that if he did he would shatter
completely and never
recover
.  For now, he had to
put Poppy out of his mind.  There was a situation that needed to be dealt
with.  Without word, he left the others and walked down the pier.

He found sergeant Price standing next to the
Challenger.  He was stamping his thick army boot onto the heads of any
dead men still moving.  The deck had become thick with bloody slurry.

“This the camp you were telling me about?” Price
asked.

Garfield nodded.

“Shit luck.  You know what happened?”

“Yes, and I know who is responsible.  Will you
help me?”

Price narrowed his eyes.  “You wreck my home,
kill my commanding officer, and then drag me along to a burning ruin.”  He
laughed.  “Yeah, I’ll help you.”

The man had a point.  Garfield had brought him
nothing but disaster.  “Why will you help me, after everything that’s
happened?”

“Because when that bloody dingo was trying to take my
head off with a shotgun, you intervened.  You even got shot for it –
good thinking with the magazines by the way.  You’re one of the good guys
– or at least whatever counts for one these days – and whoever
caused all this is definitely
not
.  The world is on a knife-edge. 
It could go either way.  Personally, I want to see the good guys win and
the bad guys get their arses kicked.  You want my help, you got it.”

Garfield nodded.  He wanted to hug the man, but
he doubted it would be appreciated.  Instead he turned to the Challenger
tank.  “Will this thing still fire?”

Price smirked.  “Old Betsy?  Oh, she’ll do
more than just fire. She will rain the wrath of the God’s down upon her
enemies.  She will shock and she will awe, scorch the earth dry until
nothing remains but crust and sand.  She can kick some bloody arse, is
what I’m telling you.”

“Good,” said Garfield.  “I want you to fire on
that Navy frigate out there, the one all lit up like a floating village. 
The man who did this to the pier is the captain of that boat.”

Price smiled wider.  “You mean I get to shove it
to a bunch of Marines?  Bleedin’ marvellous.  Barker!  Load up
Betsy.”

Corporal Barker nodded and got to work.