The End of Us

by D, Hannah

  “Well, now we get to decide all of their fate” Jeff grinned.

  “Jeff, is Tom out there as well?” Zoe asked him.

  “Yeah he’s out there. Why?” Jeff asked her.

  “Jeff, he helped us escape. He left the key to the door and walked away when he could’ve shouted out to someone that we were escaping. I think whatever we decide, we should spare him” Zoe told him.

  “It’ll have to be a group decision Zoe” Jeff told her.

  “I know, I just think he deserves a chance” Zoe told him.

  “I’ll take it into consideration. Now, lets get this bitch out to the front with the others before she wakes up and opens her trap” Jeff told Zoe.

  Zoe nodded her head and went around to pick up Sylvia’s feet whilst Jeff picked her up under the arms. Sylvia was not the lightest and Zoe even struggled just to carry her legs. Zoe could’ve blamed the pain in her stomach stopping her from being able to carry Sylvia’s legs but really, they were just very heavy. The pain in Zoe’s stomach probably didn’t help that much either.

  Zoe and Jeff managed to get Sylvia down to the front to join the others. They all looked very unhappy and angry with everyone for turning the tables on them. They had even managed to get the man who was in the CCTV room down here and tied up. Zoe was impressed.

  “Oh my god Zoe, are you okay!?” Simone came running up to her.

  “I’m fine really. Just got into a bit of a scuffle with Sylvia. That why she’s knocked out” Zoe said proudly.

  “Well done you. She deserves so much worse though” Simone said.

  “Exactly what I told her before I kicked her in the face” Zoe said.

  “Oh nice one Zoe, wish I could’ve seen that!” Arthur said excitedly.

  “You always want to see everything” Zoe laughed.

  Everyone had came up to make sure that Zoe was okay even though she’d told them all multiple times that she was fine. Simone had inspected her swollen wrist and said she’d make Zoe an ice pack for it to try and bring down the swelling after they’d decided what to do with Sylvia and everyone who were currently tied up in front of them.

  Michael walked up to Sylvia and slashed cold water over her face. Sylvia jumped awake, coughing and spluttering from the water.

  “What the hell is this?” Sylvia demanded.

  “You’re on trial for your crimes shall we say” Michael told her.

  “Crimes? Oh don’t be so childish! Let us go at once!” Sylvia demanded.

  “Not until we decide what to do with you all” Jeff told her.

  “You are wasting time for us to be working on our experiment!” Eve shouted out.

  “I think that experiment’s null now. You see, our friends, Sophia, Lewis and Mike have all went into that room of horrors and are taking care of your experiment” Micheal sneered.

  “Don’t you dare touch anything! You will ruin all of my progress and I’ll have to start all over again! If I could even start it again!” Eve said angrily.

  “We’re hoping on the not being able to start it again part” Jeff told her.

  Zoe could see Eve and Sylvia practically shaking with anger. Tom, Jack, Claire and the CCTV room guy just looked scared. They looked like they would rather walk away alive from here than be killed on the spot.

  “Lets take a vote on if we let them live or we kill them” Michael said.

  “All in favour of letting them live?” Jeff asked.

  Not a lot of people lifted their hands. Thos who did lift their hands said they wanted everyone to live apart from Sylvia, Zoe included.

  “Alright, and those in favour of killing them?” Jeff asked.

  Now the majority of the group raised their hands in favour. Jeff raised his arm and looked apologetically at Zoe. Zoe gave Jeff a sad smile, saying that she understood why he wanted them all to die. They had all been apart of this horrible experiment of their own will at some point which meant that they couldn’t really be trusted.

  “Please don’t kill us” Claire pleaded.

  “She threatened us to keep going along with everything. We didn’t really want a part in it we swear!” Liam said to them.

  “Please! We’re really sorry for all of our actions!” Jack cried out.

  “Jut let us go. We’ll never bother you again. You’ll never hear from us again” Tom said.

  “You’re all weaklings! You were all on board with everything until we got captured!” Eve said.

  “Traitors!” Sylvia shouted.

  Zoe had just about had enough of all of the squabbling and yelling coming from them all. Zoe could believe that Sylvia had threatened them to go along with that experiment, Eve as well since she was just as involved and obsessed with it as Sylvia was.

  “Enough! I don’t want to hear you anymore!” Michael shouted.

  They all stopped crying out and arguing amongst themselves and looked up at Michael.

  “Look at you all acting like children! Not so happy now that the tables have turned!” Michael grinned.

  Zoe looked at Sylvia who was sitting up on her knees, her back straight as a post, chin sticking out defiantly almost begging Michael to start on her and go for her. Eve seemed to have cowered down some after Tom whispered something into her ear. Zoe was guessing that Tom was wanting Eve to back down so that they might make it out of this alive.

  “So tell me, what are you going to do after you kill us?” Sylvia asked Michael.

  “Leave this shithole of a place. No chance are we staying here after everything that you’ve put us through” Jeff growled.

  Sylvia started laughing, a good, deep belly rumble of a laugh. They all looked at each other confused as to why she was laughing and then the lightbulb went off in Zoe’s head.

  “We won’t be able to leave. This place is crawling with skin eaters” Zoe told them.

  “They tell you this?” Jeff asked her.

  “I overheard them talking about it when we were sneaking out of the back corridor” Zoe told him.

  “I want to see it with my own eyes. I don’t believe one word that comes out of their mouths” Michael growled.

  Zoe nodded her head and understood that Michael wasn’t saying he didn’t believe her, Zoe didn’t believe it one hundred percent either if she was being honest with herself.

  “Let’s go check those CCTV camera’s” Zoe said.

  Zoe walked off with Michael, Jeff and Sarah following her. They didn’t speak to one another and nobody continued to ask Zoe what had happened back when she was trapped. Zoe wasn’t prepared to go into a full blown detailed account of everything that she’d had to witness, especially with what happened to that woman Sheila. That was something Zoe would never forgive herself for.

  They made it to the room with all of the CCTV camera’s. Zoe was the first one in and all she saw was the fuzzy black and grey signal that you would get on a TV that showed it had no connection.

  “This can’t be happening!” Sarah exclaimed.

  “They’ve done this on purpose!” Michael bellowed.

  “Sneaky bastards!” Jeff yelled.

  Zoe remained quiet. She knew that Sylvia would’ve had a trick up her sleeve however she had another plan.

  “Sarah, is that door still open that takes you to the roof?” Zoe asked her.

  “Yeah it is! We managed to keep them from locking it by a few of us keeping it guarded!” Sarah told her excitedly.

  Zoe didn’t need to tell them her plan, everyone was already on the move to go up to the roof. Zoe knew that her group weren’t going to let Sylvia take away all of their resources. They went through the doors and climbed up the stairs. Zoe practically nearly ran up, the only thing stopping her from doing that was the pain in her stomach.

  ‘Goddamn you Sylvia’ Zoe thought angrily.

  As soon as they made it to the top of the roof they could already hear the dreaded noise of the skin eaters from below and it was definitely more than just a few of them.

  They walked over the to the edge o
f the roof and looked down at all of the skin eaters below. Zoe swallowed back a breath and widened her eyes at the sight. Her stomach started to drop.

  “Holy shit” Michael said.

  “How are we going to get through all of that?” Jeff gasped.

  “We’re stuck here” Sarah whimpered.

  Zoe still didn’t say anything. She had no idea and no plans for how to get everyone out of there and through the hoard of skin eaters below. It looked like the skin eaters were right at the main doors as well. Zoe could see them surround the campervan and car just at the front door. They really were completely stuck here.

  “Anyone have any idea’s on what to do?” Jeff asked.

  “None.”

  “Zero.” Both Michael and Sarah said.

  “What about you Zoe? Any idea’s floating around?” Jeff asked her.

  Zoe turned to look at the three of them. She felt so defeated and done in. She had no idea’s for them when usually a plan would’ve already formed. There was just no way to get through that hoard.

  “I don’t have anything. Even if we fight our way through the skin eaters just to get inside the campervan and car we won’t be able to drive anywhere. There’s just far too many of them” Zoe told them disappointingly.

  “Shit, Shit, Shit!” Michael yelled.

  “We should’ve left whilst we had the chance. I’m so sorry I made us stay. This is all my fault that we’re now stuck” Zoe told them.

  “No don’t say that. You did manage to free those people trapped back there. Look we’ll come up with something. Let’s just go back down there to tell everyone and see if we all can’t come up with a plan” Sarah said.

  “Let’s go” Jeff said.

  They walked back down to the main area of the costco to join everyone else. Michael told them the bad news about Sylvia telling the truth about there being a hoard of skin eaters outside and how difficult it would be to escape, in fact it would be near impossible to make it out of here alive with all the skin eaters it there.

  “So we’re stuck here?” Sue asked.

  “For now. We’re hoping that we can come together to make a plan to get out of here” Sarah told them.

  “Oh, you are all so delusional. There’s no way out and you’re stuck here and will end up dying here alongside us” Sylvia laughed.

  “Shut up you psycho bitch!” Sophia shouted as she punched Sylvia in the face.

  Sylvia was knocked unconscious again and fell into a heap on the floor. Everyone turned to look at Sylvia, Arthur was grinning at her.

  “I guess you could say I’m off my meds to describe what just happened” Sophia smiled.

  Zoe started to laugh and everyone joined in. It was a dark joke that Sophia had made about herself but it was a laugh that they all needed during the dark moment they found themselves in.

  “We can help you escape if you let us go?” Jack asked.

  “Yeah right, as if we trust you enough already. You lot stay tied for now” Arthur told them.

  “Please? We know this place inside out? We can help! Please just trust us this once!” Claire pleaded.

  “Why not just tell us possible ways to get out?” Mark asked them.

  “We want to go with you. We don’t want to be left behind” Tom told them.

  “Hmm, well for now you lot just stay tied there. We’ll speak to you if we need to” Michael told them.

  Zoe refused to life her head to meet any of their eyes. She did want to untie them and really, they could all use as many hands to fight these skin eaters as possible.

  “Zoe I helped you, please help us?” Tom asked her.

  Zoe lifted her head to look at Tom and felt everyone’s eyes trained on her, waiting for her response.

  “I’m sorry Tom, it needs to be a group decision. I can’t go against them” Zoe told him.

  “I understand” Tom said sadly.

  Zoe let out a frustrated breath and closed her eyes for a few seconds. When she opened them everyone was still staring at her.

  “I need a moment to myself. Excuse me” Zoe told them.

  Zoe walked away and decided to make her way back up onto the roof. It wasn’t exactly quiet up there but at least she would be on her own. She would just have the skin eaters moans to keep her company.

  Zoe walked over to the edge and looked down at all the skin eaters. They hadn’t noticed that she was standing up here. Zoe thought that the skin eaters didn’t even know that there were people inside the building. They hadn’t made an effort to try and break into the building and with a hoard of skin eaters that size, they would break in easy.

  Zoe felt the heat baring down on her back. Scotland was still having it’s heatwave with barely any clouds floating around in the sky.

  ‘It’s got to end soon, it’s coming into Autumn and the rain and cold weather will start’ Zoe thought.

  Zoe looked over to where the motorway was and saw how crowded it had became from all of the skin eaters. Zoe had no idea what was bringing them over this way. She looked behind her to see if there was anything there like a fire or something but didn’t see anything. It almost felt like someone had trapped them here on purpose. Zoe’s mind drifted off to blame Brian and his followers for this. It was very likely that this was all down to them.

  Zoe sat down on the roof, just overlooking the edge thinking about how they might try to get out of here. It seemed impossible and Zoe really didn’t want to be stuck here. This place already had too many bad memories stuck to it.

  Zoe was looking over at a patch of land that seemed to have no skin eaters at all on it when the idea jumped into her head. She couldn’t believe that she’d missed it.

  Zoe jumped up from where she was sitting, wincing a little at the pain in her stomach she kept forgetting about, before moving as fast as she could back down to her group with her idea. She was pretty much taking the stairs two at a time, almost jumping with glee.

  Zoe ran out and went up to her group, panting as she’d ran out of breath with a smile plastered on her face.

  “I have an idea!” Zoe exclaimed.

  They all turned around to look at her with smiles on their faces.

  “What’s the idea?” Mandy asked excitedly.

  “The fireworks stored here. We set them off way in the distance and the skin eaters will follow the noise and the lights of it taking them away from here” Zoe told them excitedly.

  “That’s actually brilliant! I forgot they had fireworks stored here!” Lewis exclaimed.

  “Oh you really are such a genius!” Jeff told her as he grabbed her face and planted a kiss on her lips.

  “Alright save that for when we make it out of here and remember there is a child present!” Mike laughed.

  Everyone seemed a lot more hopeful and excited.

  “We will help you whatever way we can to get us all out of here” One of the men from the back room said to them.

  “Appreciate it mate. We could use all the help we can get from those that we trust” John said to them.

  “And what do we do with those who are tied up?” Zoe asked.

  “We put them into one of those offices for now until our plan is all set up and then we handle them” Michael said.

  Zoe nodded her head and walked away to go and find the fireworks. She didn’t want a part in helping to lock away anybody, especially since she had been subjected to that. She knew exactly how it felt to be treated like a prisoner.

  Zoe just hoped that her group would come around to the idea of not killing them.

  Except Sylvia. Zoe would kill her herself.

  Chapter 21

  The fireworks were easy enough to find. They were stored right in the middle of the costco. It was a good thing stores really liked to be prepared ridiculously early. The sign had read, “fireworks for sale for guy fawkes night! Don’t be too late to get yours!”.

  ‘I don’t think anyone will be celebrating guy fawkes this year’ Zoe thought to herself.

  Zoe decided to
go back and get one of the trolleys to carry all of the fireworks to the stairs to take up onto the roof. As she walked past her group she saw them dragging Sylvia into one of the locked offices. Sylvia was making it difficult for them by digging her heels into the floor and thrashing around.

  “You will not get away with locking me away! This will be the worst mistake you’ll ever make!” Sylvia was yelling.

  “Oh give it a rest will you!” Mark shouted back at her.

  Zoe barely even glanced at Sylvia but she could feel her staring at her. Zoe held her head high and continued on walking to the trolleys.

  The good thing about these trolleys were that they definitely were big and long enough for all the fireworks she was planning on taking up onto the roof. They were easy enough to control as well.

  “Need any help?” Alice came and asked her.

  “Yeah sure if you’re not busy?” Zoe asked her.

  “Nah, feels wrong locking people away. I’d rather help you” Alice told her.

  Zoe smiled at her and nodded her head. It was nice to see that someone had felt the same way as she did. Zoe was half expecting Sue to agree with Zoe and be against locking these people up but Sue had actually helped walk people over to the office and locked the door. It seemed that Sue was changing or maybe just had felt that unsafe with these people that she didn’t mind locking them up.

  “How many we taking up there?” Alice asked Zoe, bringing her out of her thoughts.

  “Oh, uh let’s take up six of the boxes” Zoe told her.

  “Will that be enough?” Alice asked.

  “It’ll be more than enough, trust me” Zoe told her.

  Zoe and Alice put six of the firework boxes onto the trolley and made their way over to the stairs. The trolley was a little more heavy now with the fireworks on them but they both managed fine on their own.

  It was a little more tricky to get the boxes up the back stairs to the roof. They began each taking a box up on their own, just pushing the boxes up the stairs but the last two boxes they took an end each to get them up.

  Every time they had opened the roof door to place the fireworks boxes outside the moans from the skin eaters just seemed to get louder and louder. It was like the skin eaters were beginning to realise that there was food in here for them. Zoe kept on looking over the roof edge to see if the skin eaters were beginning to advance on the building to break in but they were still as clueless as earlier.