The End of Us

by D, Hannah

  “Alex okay in there?” Zoe asked her.

  “He’s fine. Nobody is getting in there to harm him” Sarah said determined.

  Zoe nodded her head and ran off to join the fight happening behind the campervan. They had all thought it best to hide Alex in the campervan away rom the fight and also so he was sitting there already if it came time for them to leave the building and run. It took a load off of everyone’s minds and Alex was content enough as he could be sitting in there. Zoe had every faith in Sarah that she would protect Alex and he would be safe.

  It was absolute chaos in the depot lot. There were bodies lying littered on the ground. Skin eaters and humans. As Zoe ran up to take out a few skin eaters heading toward Alice she glanced at the bodies lying on the ground. So far, she didn’t recognise any of them as being from someone from her group.

  Alice was using all her limbs to fight off the skin eaters. Her gun had fallen to the ground and she had no other weapon to help defend herself. Alice had a skin eater by it’s head, trying to push it away from her. Zoe plunged her knife into the skin eaters head coming up from the side of Alice and grabbed the gun from the floor, using it to shoot the skin eater Alice was trying to push off her. Zoe quickly passed Alice the gun who used it to shoot off the skin eater that was right behind the one Zoe had just shot.

  “Thanks” Alice yelled before running off to take out someone from Brians group.

  Zoe ran in between everyone who was fighting, helping out anyone who needed help, looking for Jeff. She had no idea where he was in amongst all of the fighting bodies and skin eaters.

  “Motherfuckers! Brian where are you you little prick!?” Zoe heard Michael roar.

  Brian seemed to be absent from all the fighting. Zoe hadn’t seen him since he walked behind the vans that the skin eaters were held in. Had he ran? Where they close to winning? Zoe had no idea. For all they knew Brian was away hatching up part two of his plan, probably bringing in more skin eaters.

  Zoe felt a hand grab her wrist as she was running to help Mike fight off people from Brians group. The hand pulled Zoe back and Zoe spun around to find Colleen staring at her, blood running down her face from a cut in her head.

  Zoe raised her other hand with her knife in it but Colleen grabbed that hand and pulled it down.

  “Zoe stop! I’m not going to hurt you!” Colleen shouted to her.

  “Let the fuck go of me Colleen!” Zoe yelled back at her.

  “You have to get out of here! Brian, he’s bringing more people here to fight you. He had more of them stashed away at another one of his hiding spots. You won’t win this. Go while you still have the chance!” Colleen pleaded with her.

  “Why should I believe anything you have to say!”

  “Because I don’t want you all to die. Please, get everyone and go. This place isn’t worth dying over!”

  “How do I know that you’re not planning something with him to get us to leave and there’s people waiting to ambush us!?”

  “You just have to trust me on this!”

  Just as Colleen said this she pulled Zoe to the side and took out a skin eater that was creeping up behind Zoe to take a bite out of her.

  “If I wanted you dead, I would’ve let that skin eater kill you. Now Go!” Colleen yelled at her as she ran off into the crowd of fighting bodies.

  ‘We have to go’ Zoe thought.

  Zoe knew that Colleen was telling the truth. It was easier for Colleen to have let that skin eater bite into Zoe. It would have been an easier kill. Colleen had saved her life and this was now the second time that she was warning them to leave. Brian wasn’t here because he was away getting more people to attack them. Zoe knew he had been up to something, he wouldn’t miss killing more people than just Kirsty.

  Zoe ran in between everyone, trying to find all the people from her group. She spotted Arthur and Mark first and ran up to them, yelling at them that they had to go now as Brian was bringing more people to fight them and to get to the campervan now. Mark and Arthur shouted that they would help Zoe round everyone up and darted off to do that.

  Zoe fought off more skin eaters, searching for Jeff. Eventually she spotted him, taking out a member of Brians group with a gunshot to the head. Zoe began to run up to him when she felt hands grab her shoulders and a hit to the back of her head.

  Zoe let out a cry and shout and spun around and felt a fist punch her in the face. Zoe staggered back and saw her attacker. A woman, the same build of Zoe was there raising her fist to punch Zoe again. Zoe dodged her fist and landed a punch of her own into the woman’s stomach. The woman let out a grunt and doubled over, catching a breath into her lungs. Zoe grabbed the woman’s shoulders and lifted her knee up to collide with the woman’s face. The woman fell down the ground and as Zoe turned to run away she felt the woman grab her ankles and Zoe fell to the ground. Zoe spun her body around and the woman was beginning to start to crawl over Zoe. Zoe lifted her knee again and managed to hit the woman in the stomach with it however it wasn’t hard enough to stop the woman from making her way toward Zoe to attack her.

  The woman had one of her hands on Zoe’s shoulder, the other in the air ready to hit her and that was when Jeff’s boot came flying towards the woman’s face and the woman went motionless on the round. Jeff held his hand out to Zoe which Zoe grabbed and stood up.

  “You okay?” Jeff asked a little breathless.

  “I’m fine. Jeff we have to leave. Brian, he’s bringing more people to fight. We have to go!” Zoe told him.

  “Okay, we’ll go. I’ll help you get people moving to the campervan.”

  “No it’s fine, Arthur and Mark are helping me. Just get to the campervan and make sure everyone gets there!”

  “I’ll get the car started as well” and with that Jeff ran off.

  Zoe dodged a few skin eaters and people from Brians group. They were all also having to fight the skin eaters as well and not just Zoe and the rest of them. The skin eaters just never seemed to stop coming. There weren’t that many skin eaters in the vans to still be coming through the gates, so many had already been killed.

  ‘The noise we were making must’ve drawn more of them here’ Zoe thought.

  Zoe found a few more people in the group and told them to get back to the campervan and the car, making sure to not shout it too loud in case anyone from Brian’s group overheard them and made their way up there as well.

  “Zoe! I think that’s everyone been rounded up!” Arthur yelled to her as he came up next to her.

  “Right, lets get ourselves up the..” Zoe trailed off as she heard a familiar voice shouting.

  “BRIAN!! GET YOUR PSYCHO ASS OUT HERE AND FIGHT ME!” Michael bellowed.

  “Shit! Arthur you get back to the rest of the group. I’ll go get Michael” Zoe told Arthur.

  Arthur nodded his head and went of to join the others as Zoe made her way over to where she heard Michael’s voice coming from. Zoe soon found him as he took a skin eaters head clean off from it’s shoulders. It was a gory kill, even for a skin eater.

  ‘Brian must be really angry’ Zoe thought.

  “Brian, we have to go. Now!” Zoe yelled to him when she was close to him.

  Michael spun around to face her, eyes glaring and Zoe swore she could feel the anger radiating off of him.

  “I’m not going any where. Not until I shoot Brian right in the fucking head!” Michael yelled at her.

  “He’s bringing far more people here to fight us, too many for us to handle. We have to leave now or we won’t survived!” Zoe pleaded with him.

  “That son of a bitch! We can’t just let him live!” Michael yelled as he plunged a knife into an approaching skin eaters head.

  “I agree but this isn’t the end. We’ll get him another time!” Zoe yelled back, fighting off the closing in skin eaters.

  It was now or never. Zoe didn’t want to leave Michael on his own but if he wouldn’t budge then she would have to leave him. She wasn’t that stupid as to die over someone else�
�s stubbornness.

  “Fine! Lets get out of here!” Michael yelled.

  It was at that moment that they heard the noise of approaching trucks. The ‘beep, beep, beep’ noise of them reversing.

  Zoe and Michael turned to face them now approaching the front gates. Zoe knew that this wasn’t good. Not good at all.

  “Think you can still fight us? Try facing even more of us!” Brian bellowed with an evil laugh to follow as the truck doors opened.

  “Oh My God” “Holy Shit” Zoe and Michael said together.

  There were four trucks standing in front of the gate. Two of the trucks had more skin eaters exiting them. The other two trucks had humans leaving them, weapons raised.

  “Michael. Get Moving!” Zoe yelled as she tugged on his sleeve.

  Zoe and Michael turned and ran toward the campervan and car as fast as they could. There were only skin eaters to fight when they ran past, majority of the people Brian had let into the depot lot first had been killed by Zoe and everyone else or killed by skin eaters themselves. They got to the campervan, puffing for a breath.

  “Everyone here?” Zoe asked Sarah.

  “Yep. Lets get going. Alice knows a weak spot in the side fence for us to drive through. The fence should break easy she says” Sarah told her.

  Zoe climbed into the campervan with Sarah following after and slamming and locking the door. Mike, Sue, Arthur, Sophia and Mandy were the only ones missing.

  “They’re in the car” Sarah told her after spotting Zoe looking around for them.

  “Okay, lets get the hell out of here!” Zoe said.

  John pushed his foot to the gas and they went lurching off with Alice pointing out which part of the fence to go through. Zoe hoped that the others in the car were close behind them. Zoe spotted a walkie talkie sitting on the dash of the campervan which meant that the others in the car had one as well so they could keep in contact with each other.

  “That part there John you see it? Where the fence is bending out from the building a bit? That’s where we’re going to drive through” Alice told him.

  “Okay, everyone hold on to something!” John yelled as he pushed on the gas even more.

  ‘Please let us get through’ Zoe pleaded.

  It was a loud crash and there was metal scraping on metal which was not a nice sound to the ears but they had managed to break through the fence without getting stuck or just bouncing back off of the fence without breaking through.

  “You guys make it through?” Alice asked through the walkie-talkie.

  “We’re through. Right behind you guys” Zoe heard Arthur say.

  “Let’s get going before we’re followed” Zoe said.

  “Where to?” John asked.

  “Stick to the costco plan. We’ll go there” Zoe told them.

  No-one had any rebuttals against that idea and everyone seemed to agree.

  Zoe looked out of the window at the side of the campervan to look back at the depot building where they had lived the past few weeks.

  The place was still locked in a fight but this time between Brian’s group and the skin eaters they had let lose into the depot lot/skin eaters that had made their way there, attracted by all of the noise. Brian and his group seemed to be taking out the skin eaters with ease. Zoe hoped that the majority of depot and the building would be unliveable for Brian and his group and they would have to leave the place they wanted to take over to make another place for themselves.

  Zoe did spot Brian amongst everyone there, with his shiny gun pointed at the campervan. He didn’t bother to shoot at them, he just watched them leave. Zoe knew that he would have a smile on his face at his victory of driving them away from the depot.

  On one hand, Zoe wanted to see Brian again, to fight him and kill him for all he had done to them. However, on the other hand, Zoe wished to never see or hear from Brian and his group again. She didn’t want to see someone else get shot in the head like poor Kirsty.

  Zoe glanced at look at Lewis who was sitting in the corner of the campervan, tears strolling down his cheeks. Mark had an arm around it, whimpering to him, telling him that everything was going to be okay.

  Zoe could see that Sarah was trying to stay away from Lewis and his pain at losing Kirsty. Sarah knew all too well how it felt to lose someone you loved. It was definitely something that Sarah couldn’t go through or even help someone through with again so soon. Losing Chris was still too raw for her.

  “You okay?” Jeff asked Zoe as he came to sit next to her.

  “I’m okay. Where’s Alex?”

  “He’s sitting up front with John and Alice, he wanted to watch how John drives. He wants to learn” Jeff said with a laugh.

  “Well, there aren’t anymore laws to stop him learning before seventeen!”

  “Ah that’s true! My own little taxi driver!”

  “Skin eater epidemic can have it’s perks!”

  Zoe and Jeff both giggled at that amongst themselves. It was the little jokes they had during the hardest times that seemed to keep everyone together. It’s made them still feel that they were human.

  Zoe noticed that Michael hadn’t said one thing to anyone yet. That he hadn’t even moved from where he was sitting, he was just glaring at the floor of the campervan, his hands clutched around his gun, his mouth set in a firm line.

  “Michael? Are you okay?” Zoe asked him.

  Michael didn’t even register that Zoe had spoken to him. He was still glaring at the floor, not moving.

  “Michael?” Zoe asked him again.

  Still, there was nothing from him. Zoe looked to Jeff who shrugged his shoulders at her.

  Zoe crawled over to where Michael was sitting, figuring it was better to talk to him from sitting on the floor rather than towering over him, he might feel threatened if she done that.

  “Michael?” Zoe said to him, trying to look him in the eyes.

  It was clear that saying his name and speaking to him wasn’t going to break him out of his angry trance that he seemed to be in.

  Zoe reached forward and placed a hand on Michael arm.

  Michael’s head whipped up when Zoe had touched him. He looked directly at Zoe, his eyes angrier than Zoe had ever seen someone’s eyes go.

  “I was so close. So fucking close to killing that bastard!” Michael yelled, still glaring at Zoe.

  “I know Michael but we had to get out of there or we would’ve died” Zoe told him.

  “One shot. Just one shot in the head and he would’ve been gone!” Michael spat.

  “We can fight him again, when we’re more prepared” Zoe offered.

  “There won’t be a time when we’re more prepared! He’s always one step in front of us! Don’t you see that!” Michael yelled.

  Michael had grabbed Zoes wrist as he was yelling. He had grabbed her wrist so tight that Zoe was already beginning to lose feeling in her hand.

  “Michael, you’re hurting me” Zoe told him.

  “We had a shot. Why the fuck did we run! That bastard will think he’s won now!” Michael yelled again.

  “Michael, please let me go!” Zoe shouted.

  “I’ll fucking go back myself since no one else wants to go back. I can take him on. Easy!”

  “MICHAEL!” Zoe shouted.

  Michael was either muffling out everything that was going on around him because he was so angry or he just wanted to hurt someone for ruining his chance at killing Brian. Zoe hoped that it was the first option.

  “Michael, mate, let Zoe go before she loses her goddamn hand!” Mark said to him.

  Zoe didn’t even see or hear Mark come over to where she and Michael were sitting. She was too busy concentrating on not losing her hand to blood loss. Zoe hadn’t even noticed Jeff being held back by Sarah to stop him from coming over and fighting Michael himself.

  “Michael, let her go!” Mark said to him forcefully.

  Michale blinked and looked at Mark before looking down at Zoe’s now bright red hand before shaking his hea
d and letting her go. Zoe felt that she was about to faint at the blood now beginning to rush back into her hand.

  “Sorry Zoe. I just got angry and sometimes my anger can get the better off me” Michael apologised to her.

  “No, it’s fine. We’re all a bit agitated about how that went down” Zoe told him.

  Michael looked like he was about to say something else before Mark sat down in front of him and started to speak to him. Zoe walked over to where Jeff was still being held back by Sarah, the anger radiating off of him.

  “Jeff, calm down. It’s fine, I’m fine” Zoe told him as she grabbed his head and turned it to make him look at her.

  Jeff’s eyes softened and he instantly relaxed, taking Zoe’s now pulsing sore hand into his own and massaging her wrist from where Michael had grabbed her.

  “You okay?” Jeff asked her.

  “I still have my hand so I’m more than okay” Zoe told him with a smile.

  Jeff didn’t smile back at her, he was concentrating on her painful hand.

  “Jeff, seriously, I’m okay. He just got lost in his anger and frustration” Zoe told him.

  “Nobody gets to touch you like that. I was ready to kill him” Jeff told her.

  “Well I’m okay and it won’t happen again.”

  “Damn right it won’t happen again! If it does then no one will be able to hold me back and I’ll kill whatever asshole decides to hurt you!”

  “Believe me, I won’t let anyone hurt me myself!”

  This made Jeff laugh. Zoe was just happy that he hadn’t been on the roof when the man had her by the throat, Jeff may have done a Michael and ripped the head off. Thinking of that made Zoe realise how painful her throat actually was and how thirsty she was.

  “You think you could grab me a bottle of water?” Zoe asked Jeff.

  “Not a problem” Jeff said as he kissed her cheek.

  Zoe reached her non-painful hand up and felt her neck. She could feel that her neck was a bit swollen from where she had been chocked. It hurt her each time she swallowed the saliva that was building in her mouth.

  Jeff came back and gave her the bottle of water which Zoe had to stop herself rom snatching out his hand and took a large gulp of water. Zoe cringed and nearly eat out a wail and a tear when she swallowed from the pain in her throat. Jeff noticed.