"The Ruined Ones" Extract

I wrote my manuscript for "The Ruined Ones," a post-apocalyptic thriller in less than a month. Over 300 handwritten A4 sized pages and typed it up pretty quick. I edited and edited and then when it was nearly where it should be it got pushed aside as my busy life got in the way. Very recently I got back to it and did one final polish and have now started to send it off to agents, seeking representation in order to traditionally publish it. I have received 100% positive feedback from all the beta readers and am super excited to start down the road to getting it out there in the world and would like so share some of it with you all. Here is the first chapter of "The Ruined Ones."

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CHAPTER ONE

The knife touched the bottom of the cake and Shaun leant over the table to kiss his beautiful wife, Katrina—the nearest girl. That was when they heard the first explosion. A small flock of lorikeets took flight from the bottlebrush tree towering over the barbeque area in his Dad’s backyard, where he’d been celebrating his thirty-second birthday with his wife, father and younger brother, Lewis.

“What the hell was that?” Lewis asked, shoving corn chips into his mouth.

“Beats me,” Shaun replied. “A car crash maybe.”

“I didn’t hear a crash,” Katrina said. “Just the bang. You don’t reckon it was the service station do you?”

“Nah, no way, honey,” Shaun replied. “That would’ve been a much bigger bang.”

“I’m gunna go check it out,” Lewis said, shoving his handful of corn chips into his mouth and brushing the crumbs off on his already stained cargo-pants.

The others followed, leaving behind the cake Katrina had spent all night baking and decorating—the cake none of them would get a chance to eat.

Already several other curious cats gathered in the street, craning necks and looking around, trying to figure out what was the sound they’d all heard. Another bang. This one a little louder, a little closer.

“Oh shit,” the teenage boy from number twenty-two said as he began to laugh. This was more than likely the most excitement he’d ever experienced in his entire video-game-playing, techno-music-listening-to lifetime.

“It came from down town,” someone else said.

“Oi, Gary—get up that tree there,” the teenager said to his friend who was with him.

“Hell no. I ain’t gettin’ up there. I’ll fall and break my bloody neck. You do it.”

“Whatever, pussy.” He gave Gary a playful shove and began scurrying up the tree as if the act was an ingrained talent.

A light breeze blew towards them from the North, bringing with it the smells of wood and other unknown objects burning.

“Holey Motherfuck,” the kid up the tree said as he neared the top.

“Watch your mouth, boy,” said a man who’d just joined them—possibly the kid’s father. Shaun didn’t know; he didn’t know his father’s neighbours.

“What is it?” Someone asked—a middle-aged woman with her hair in a 50’s styled scarf, chewing her near non-existent nails like a rat at a wire.

“There’s so much smoke,” he replied. “And fires. Not just in two spots either but…Well, everywhere down town.”

The wind picked up, now slowly losing its invisibility now laced with the smoke from down town.

The kid was already climbing back down from the tree, as some of the residents of this part of the street were hurrying back into their homes to gather what they could, in case the fires spread this far.

Another bang. This time a different sound. Softer and more like a loud crack. Another just like it immediately followed, then another. Soon the air was echoing with the faint yet unmistakable sounds of gunshots.

No one needed any further prompting. Everyone who remained in the street—including Shaun and his family—ran back to their homes.

“What the Hell is going on?” Katrina said as they ran back inside. Shaun was already in the lounge room, turning on the television.

It was like 9/11 all over again. Every channel wiped of any regular programs, now plastered with all the same news reports. Bombings, shootings, mass destruction, looting, hysteria.

Shaun stopped on channel 55, a female news reporter currently standing on a busy street in New York while a voice safe in a studio somewhere talked to her about the chaos going on around her.

“… Can’t answer that Sally,” the field reporter said. “All we know is at this stage, there have been confirmed simultaneous bombings all over the world.”

The reporter constantly looked around her as she spoke. People ran past behind her with arms full of stolen goods. The sounds of people screaming and crying, shop windows smashing, the unmistakable crunching of a car accident somewhere off screen, threatened to drown out the reporter’s voice. A group of three men only meters behind her were fighting, which she seemed to be keeping a careful eye on in particular.

“Here in the United States, all the major cities and most of the smaller ones have already been attacked by an organization sources are saying call themselves the Domitors. Complete and utter destruction across all states. We’re hearing similar reports from the UK, Asia and there in Australia where you are, Sally. It seems this organization has—”

What came next happened so fast you would have missed it if you’d sneezed.

Something dark blue, shiny and dinted appeared on the screen before seconds later, an out of control car ran down the reporter as it mounted the sidewalk and sped right over the top of her. She barely had time to scream before the car flattened her with a nauseating crunch.

The camera operator and the reporter in the studio simultaneously cried out. The screen turned blank almost instantly, the image replaced by the woman in the safety of the studio, her hands clasped over her mouth a split second before she leant over and let the contents of her stomach explode from her, painting the desk she sat behind.

“Roll clip B117,” a man’s voice said from somewhere off screen. Pre-recorded footage of destructive events unfolding all around the world appeared on their television set. Across the middle of the screen ran a red tape with words sliding along it, repeated over and over.

All citizens evacuate major cities in a calm and safe manner.

“Grab the keys, honey,” Shaun said to his wife, who was staring blankly at the television screen, her hands clasped firmly on her belly not yet showing any sign of the eight-week-old fetus growing inside her. Shaun tried to imagine what was going through her mind—he had an idea—but the thought was fleeting. No time to stand around procrastinating. They’d wasted enough time watching the news report as it was and although they now had a translucent image of what was happening, it didn’t change the fact the broken fusillades of gunfire were getting closer. The smell of smoke and cordite in the air was getting stronger.

Shaun put his hands on his wife’s shoulders and beneath his touch she was shaking.

“We need to go—now, Kat. Get the keys.”

She simply nodded but didn’t move.

“Kat,” Shaun urged, raising his voice slightly and giving her a gentle shake. Tears began to fall from her eyes, as she tore them away from the television screen to look at her husband.

“Okay,” she whispered.

Shaun and Katrina’s Landcruiser was parked on the street. Katrina grabbed her handbag but they collected nothing else. They simply left.

Just as they reached the car, they heard a loud crunch just up the street behind them. Moments later, the yelling started.

“Christ! Weren’t you looking where you were going?”

“Were you?”

“You backed into me, idiot!”

They didn’t stop to watch the spectacle as Dennis Lowood from right next door, and some other guy, argued about whose fault it was their two cars had collided.

The street Alfred lived on—where he had raised Shaun and Lewis—was a busy one, so they found themselves weaving in and out of traffic to avoid car accidents and people parked on the side of the street, packing their belongings into their cars.

Shaun quickly turned off down a side street, making his way south; heading for the outskirts of town. He drove as fast as he could. No one inside the car said a word. The only sounds were the occasional sniffles coming from his wife, who sat beside him crying, her head leaning against the passenger window with her hands laced together over her stomach.

He focused only on the road; only on getting his family out of town safely. He noticed the burning house they drove past as they turned onto Hume Street, although about a hundred meters further up the road, he didn’t see the woman hunched over the bleeding body of a man on the footpath. Nor did he see the two men fleeing the scene, one holding a knife painted with blood, the other carrying a big bag.

He hit the brakes hard when a boy no older than fifteen rode his push bike across the road directly ahead of them, yet he didn’t even slow when a fluffy beige dog ran across his path a few moments later—he hadn’t had time to react anyhow. A nauseating pang of guilt ripped from Shaun’s stomach to his chest, although, he tried his best to lock it away. Katrina gasped at the thump and began to cry even more.

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Being a huge fan of post-apocalyptic books, films, shows etc. (hardcore Walking Dead fan here) I really enjoyed writing this book and am pretty excited to be working on the sequel now too.

Thanks for reading and I really hope you enjoyed it! Ta-ta for now but not for long!