The End of Us

by D, Hannah

  Zoe tried to move her knife out of the skin eaters head but found that it was stuck and wouldn’t budge. Zoe started to pull against it before she felt a body falling down against her back. Zoe let go of the knife handle and jumped around to find herself staring at Mandy holding a bloody knife. Zoe looked at the ground and found the skin eater that had fallen against her back on the floor. Zoe was just about to have been a skin eaters happy meal.

  Mandy walked up to the skin eater that had Zoe’s knife stuck in it’s head and twisted and pulled it until it came free. Mandy handed Zoe back her knife and Zoe smiled and mouthed a thank you to her. Mandy smiled back at her.

  They made their way up to the second trolley bay. They were halfway there now.

  “Why are they standing in such small groups and not together?” Zoe asked.

  “I don’t know. I have no idea how these skin eaters partly alive brains work”Michael answered.

  “It’s something we’ll think about later, after we’ve finished this stupid supply run” Mark said.

  “Okay, we ready for the next lot?” John asked them.

  “After you” Zoe said.

  They followed John back out, this time Zoe going last so she didn’t need to kill the skin eaters this time. Jeff, Simone and Arthur took them out with ease. They had managed to do better than Zoe had since she had gotten her knife stuck in it’s skull. Zoe always kept a watchful eye on the ones in her group who went up to kill a skin eater in case one tried to sneak up on them.

  They made it to the next trolley bay and Zoe looked back to find their watchers had also moved up closer to them and were standing in the second bay. Zoe felt so uncomfortable having people watching her every move. It was very unnerving.

  “Right, we’re on the last bunch before we get to the front of the building. Where do we go once we’ve taken those skin eaters out? Straight into the Tesco?” John asked.

  “Maybe not straight in. We’ll wait at the front door for a few minutes and poke our heads in to see if we can tell what the skin eater situation looks like in there” Jeff said.

  “Got it. Let’s go again” John said.

  Zoe was one of the first ones out of the trolley bay again. This time the skin eaters had noticed them coming towards them thanks to Arthur banging his baseball bat against the pole of the trolley bay when he left it.

  “Shit, sorry!” Arthur cringed as the loud bang sound rang out in the car park.

  The skin eaters shuffled toward Zoe and Arthur. Zoe didn’t bother using her knife this time. Zoe went back to using her trusty hockey stick. Zoe swung her hockey stick to connect it with the skin eaters heads and felt that all too familiar thud, felt the skull shatter and the hockey stick piercing the skin eaters brain. It was a feeling Zoe was used to and enjoyed it a little bit.

  Arthur was managing fine on his own, taking out the skin eaters with ease with his baseball bat. Arthur loved that baseball bat and was lucky it was metal since the force he used it against the skin eaters would’ve surely broken a wooden bat.

  Arthur and Zoe had managed to take care of the last few remaining skin eaters on their own and went over to join the others at the main door.

  “Have you managed to see anything?” Zoe asked Michael.

  “Nothing so far. It’s pretty dark in there” Michael told her.

  “There aren’t any lights on so it’s just the windows giving us light in there” John said.

  “Any light is enough light for us. Shall we just go in?” Zoe asked.

  “I suppose so. Not going to see anything more from here” Michael shrugged.

  They went into Tesco slowly, one by one again. Broken glass crunching beneath their feet as they walked through the broken automatic doors. Once inside they were able to see the broken Tesco. There were shelves that had been brought down and were tumbled on one another. More broken windows were shattered and tills had been opened and broken into for when people might’s been trying to steal money at the beginning of the epidemic.

  ‘Don’t think they’ll be needing money anymore’ Zoe thought.

  “I think we should split up and get looking. I don’t think there’s any skin eaters in here and if there is there won’t be that many” Michael said.

  “Fair enough. Me, Zoe, Simone and Arthur will go this way” Jeff said as he pointed to the right of the store.

  “Cool. We’ll go over here. Grab a trolley and shove whatever supplies you find into it and we’ll meet up back here” Michael said.

  “No bother. Run into any trouble you or us can’t handle let out a shout” Jeff said.

  “Cool. See you soon” Michael said.

  Zoe, Jeff, Simone and Arthur walked off to the right, Simone grabbing a trolley on the way. They all kept their eyes peeled for any sign of skin eaters floating around in here. Arthur spotted a skin eater not far up ahead in one of the aisles and went off to go take care of it. One swing of his bat that connected with the skin eaters head and down it went and remained motionless.

  Arthur had bent down and started picking up some very questionable cheese.

  “I don’t think we could eat that” Zoe said pulling a disgusted face.

  “We could just give it to that Rachael?” Arthur said smiling a wicked smile.

  “I think she’d then probably force us to eat it!” Zoe said.

  “True. I don’t want to eat mouldy cheese” Arthur said as he dropped the cheese back down on the floor.

  They looked like normal people just out doing some shopping if it weren’t for the torn up store and skin eaters. They had bumped into a few more skin eaters down the aisles but not too many. Most of them were wearing the Tesco uniform so they had been workers who had maybe gotten stuck here when the epidemic started.

  They had managed to get quite a bit of food from Tesco. There were quite a lot of cans still left lying on the floor underneath the broken shelves and boxed food as well. They had pretty much hit the jackpot with food here.

  “I wish we could keep it all” Arthur said as he looked at their almost full trolley.

  “I know but we still get to keep half” Simone said.

  “And soon we’ll be able to keep all of our supplies when we get away from Rachael” Zoe whispered.

  “Can’t wait” Jeff said.

  Zoe hadn’t spotted any of their watchers following them so she guessed that they were hanging around outside waiting on them to come back out. They must’ve trusted them enough in here not to run away. They couldn’t exactly run away anyway when there were still members of their group on the Pentland Hills. Zoe wasn’t going to put anyone at risk of being harmed.

  “I think we’re pretty much done” Jeff said.

  “Yeah think so. Lets head back to meet everyone else” Simone said.

  They walked back to the designated meeting spot to find they were the first ones back here. Hopefully they wouldn’t be waiting too long so they could get out of here and back to the remaining members of their group on the Pentland Hills.

  That was when they heard it.

  A blood curdling scream coming from the direction the other half of their group went.

  “Shit. Lets go help them!” Jeff shouted.

  They ran off in the direction towards the scream. It kept going which was sort of a good thing because it meant that no one was dead. Zoe thought it was a woman’s scream and knew that Sarah and Mandy were the only females who went with the other half of their group.

  ‘Oh god please be okay!’ Zoe prayed to herself.

  The closer they got to the scream the more they heard panicked voices, grunts and loud bangs and thumps of bodies hitting the floor.

  They had made it to the clothes section of the Tesco and found a bloodied scene. Skin eaters were surrounding Michael, Sarah, Mark, John and Mandy and one of them had a tight hold on Sarah who was pushing against it’s head trying to stop it from biting her. Sarah’s knife was lying at her feet and she was unable to bend down and pick it up.

  “Get off of me” Sarah
screamed as she struggled with the skin eater.

  Simone ran up to the skin eater and plunged her own knife into it’s skull making it stop trying to bite Sarah and slump to the ground. Sarah took a quick breath before bending down to pick up her knife.

  “Thanks” Sarah said to Simone as she went off to attack more of the skin eaters.

  They sprung into action and starting killing the skin eaters that had flocked around them. Zoe saved John from nearly getting a chunk taken out from his shoulder as a skin eater had approached him from behind and John was too busy killing the skin eater in front of him to notice.

  Zoe spotted Mark struggling with three skin eaters that had circled him and as she went to go and help him she felt her feet go out from under her and her body slammed down onto the floor.

  Zoe spun her body round to find a skin eater had a hold of her trousers and was inching it’s face closer to her leg. Zoe tried to kick the skin eater off but it’s grip was too tight. Zoe sat up and put her knife into it’s head stopping it’s process of trying to eat her.

  Zoe stood back up and was faced with a horrible sight. More skin eaters were coming towards them. It looked like they were coming through the open back door that took them outside. The front of Tesco had barely had any skin eaters because it seemed as though they had all been gathered at the back.

  “Guys, we need to get out of here now!” Zoe shouted.

  “Where!?” Mark yelled.

  “Back out through the front! There’s a herd of skin eaters coming through the back door!” Zoe shouted.

  “Let’s go then!” Mark shouted back.

  They managed to fight off the last few remaining skin eaters that were closest to them before running off back towards the front door. Zoe heard the wheels and noise from the trolley and looked back to see John running with it. Jeff grabbed their trolley from the front as well before darting through the door.

  Zoe stopped at the door as she wanted to make sure that everyone got out of the Tesco. Once Simone ran through Zoe went to run off behind her as that was everybody out.

  Zoe stopped though for a few seconds as she stared at all of the skin eaters shuffling their way through the Tesco. They weren’t as big a herd of skin eaters as the one that had been at the costco but there definitely were enough there to have overpowered everyone and killed them all.

  The skin eaters had tried, without even thinking since they were dead, to trap them in the Tesco like they were prey so that the skin eaters could get some food. Zoe blinked a few times at the oncoming skin eaters coming through the Tesco towards her before she snapped herself back and moved her legs to run after the others back to the campervan.

  Zoe caught up to her group quick enough and this time they weren’t bothering to try and be quiet and sneak back to the campervan. They ran along the path and this time attracted the skin eaters attention onto them from the opposite side of the road. Those skin eaters started to shuffle their way after them.

  They didn’t have enough time to kill those skin eaters however. They made it back to the campervan and Mandy swung open the door and started to help Jeff lift the trolley into the campervan. There was no point in wasting what precious time they had unloading the trolley. The trolleys were going with them.

  Zoe stayed at the back of everyone as they all made their way into the campervan. The skin eaters from opposite the road started to appear in the Kwik Fit car park coming towards them. John and Sarah were just getting the trolley onto the campervan and John still had to run around to the front of it to get into the drivers seat to drive them away.

  Zoe moved towards the skin eaters approaching them and started to kill them off. As soon as she’d killed one another skin eater was right behind it ready to take it’s place on trying to eat her. Zoe kept swinging her hockey stick into all the skin eaters heads creating a pile of bodies lying around her. Zoe felt the skin eaters blood hitting her in the face as she smacked them in the head. The blood was cold as it hit her on the face and Zoe could feel it dripping down from her face and onto her neck.

  “Zoe we’re all in! Come on and lets get out of here!” Jeff shouted to her.

  Zoe heard the collective moans and shuffling feet coming towards her and her group as the skin eaters from the Tesco had found their way towards them. Zoe killed the last skin eater that was at her face before running back to the campervan and jumping inside.

  “GO GO GO!!!!” Mark shouted.

  John reversed the campervan to get them to face the road before moving them off towards the main road. Zoe felt the skin eaters closest to the campervan get hit and some again went under the wheels.

  “I need to go the opposite way from when we came. Theres too many of them coming up that road at us for me just to run them down!” John shouted.

  “That’s fine, just go!” Jeff yelled.

  John slammed his foot down onto the accelerator and went speeding off up the road. There were skin eaters coming towards them but John wasn’t bothered about trying to avoid them, he just ran the campervan straight into them and running them over. John just wanted to get everyone out of there alive.

  Zoe went to look out the back window of the campervan and saw the herd of skin eaters still trying to come towards them. Zoe and the others were lucky they managed to get out of there alive as well as managing to bring the trolleys full of supplies with them as well.

  “Where the hell did those skin eaters come from!?” Michael asked shocked.

  “They were coming from the back. The skin eaters must’ve been out there instead of out the front” Zoe told him.

  “I knew it was too easy. I knew something would happen!” Sarah said.

  “Well at least we got out of there alive” Simone said.

  “Just” Sarah said.

  Zoe was about to ask what had happened to their watchers when she saw their motorbikes appear from out of a side street to follow them. They must’ve heard all the commotion coming from inside and ran off instead of even trying to offer help to them by helping fight off the skin eaters. They would’ve been hiding in that side street to see if they had even made it out of there alive.

  “We never managed to shake off our watchers. They’re back following us” Zoe told everyone.

  “Typical that they run away from a fight. Cowards” Michael guffawed.

  “We just have no luck at the moment” Mandy said.

  “Ah but our day will come. Believe me. Karma has a way of coming back around” Arthur said.

  “How wise of you to say so” Mandy said to him.

  “I am very wise thank you!” Arthur smiled.

  Everyone laughed apart from Zoe. Zoe just didn’t have it in her to laugh at anything right now. They had just narrowly escaped death again and Zoe didn’t know how many more times they would manage to do it. They had also avoided anyone getting bitten as well. That luck only happened a few times, not all the time.

  Zoe and everyone in their group had to get away from Racheal and her lot fast. Zoe didn’t think she and her group would be able to survive another supply run anytime soon. There were also too many blind spots in a supermarket. Skin eaters could really just come out of nowhere as they had all just witnessed.

  “You’re being pretty quiet?” Jeff asked her.

  “Just got a lot on my mind” Zoe told him.

  “We’ll get away from Rachael soon you= know. The next few days” Jeff said to her.

  “I hope so Jeff” Zoe said to him.

  Zoe and Jeff didn’t talk anymore as they settled down into a quiet silence. Mark and Mandy were going through the trolleys to see what they had all managed to get. It wasn’t just food that they had gotten but clothes as well. They had been smart enough to pick up winter clothes instead of summer clothes since they were nearing the end of August which meant the end of summer.

  “You think we should hide some of the stuff in the campervan?” Arthur asked.

  “No point. We’ll be leaving the campervan in the car park and travelling over
the Pentland Hills when we manage to run away from Rachael and her watchmen” Zoe told him.

  “This time we need to remember to bring the guns!” Jeff pointed out.

  Zoe couldn’t believe that when they’d left the campervan to travel up the Pentland Hills, without the intent on going back at all, that they had left their guns sitting there.

  “Can’t forget those again!” Zoe said.

  Zoe wished that they could’ve kept all the supplies that they’d managed to get since there was so much and they had almost died for it. Zoe especially wanted them to keep the clothes for themselves but she knew that Rachael would probably snatch those up right away. Zoe had a feeling that Rachael might take all of the clothes.

  John had warned them a few times to hold on as he took sharp turns here and there and was beginning to avoid the skin eaters on the road now that they were further away from the herd of skin eaters and they weren’t even able to see them anymore.

  “We’re not too far away from the Pentland Hills now” John shouted back to them.

  “Thank God!” Mandy said.

  Zoe hoped that the rest of the group had been managing fine up there for the past twenty four hours that they’d been away. There shouldn’t have been any trouble up there anyway and they were all free from skin eaters to attack them as well.

  “Think we’ll make it back up the hill before it’s night?” Michael asked.

  “I don’t think there’s any point on climbing back up tonight. We have to meet that Rachael tonight in that ski restaurant tonight to give her half of these supplies remember?” Sarah said to them.

  “Damn. Forgot she wanted that tonight” Michael grunted.

  “We’d be as well staying down in that restaurant for tonight and make the climb back up the hill tomorrow morning when we can see” Zoe said.

  “I suppose so” Michael said.

  Zoe had no idea how many people Rachael was going to bring with her tonight to meet them. Zoe hoped that it wouldn’t be an ambush and that all of their supplies would be taken and they would get hurt or killed by them.