The End of Us

by D, Hannah

  “Ready?” Jeff asked Zoe.

  Zoe didn’t think she was going to be ready for anything anymore, they had too many surprises coming at them from all directions but she was definitely ready to get back to the rest of their group and make sure they were all okay.

  “Lets get back” Zoe smiled to Jeff.

  Arthur led the way back up and through the hills. Zoe had spotted two skin eaters a bit off in the distance eating from a dead sheep, too engrossed in their meal to notice them walking past them. Zoe didn’t even bother going off to kill them. She had thought to herself that the more skin eaters they left scattered throughout the Pentland Hills then the more they had to use against Rachael and Brian and their groups. They wouldn’t know exactly were the skin eaters all would be but if Zoe and her group did then they would hold the advantage.

  “We’re not far from our group now” Arthur turned to tell them.

  “Good. They’ll all be fine, I’m sure of it” Zoe told them.

  They had only stopped to take short breaks getting back to their group, too anxious to properly catch their breaths. Arthur was charging ahead but did stop for everyone so that they wouldn’t lose sight of him and get lost.

  Soon they were making their way back up the last hill towards their group. Zoe had glanced behind her before their climb up to see how many followers they had this tie which turned out to be five followers. Zoe knew there would be more up this hill with the rest of their group which meant they had more to get away from and they wouldn’t be sneaking away from them. They would have to fight them to get away. There was no time for them to speak away and they had to get Sue back.

  Arthur was the first one up the hill and Zoe could hear everyone greet him, Mike the loudest of them all. When Zoe got up to the top of the hill she spotted Mike and Arthur hugging and Zoe could see the redness from Mike’s eyes.

  He had been crying with worry over Sue.

  Zoe saw Jeff run over to Alex and Sophia. Alex had launched himself into Jeff’s arms and Zoe could hear Jeff telling him that everything was going to be okay and that he was okay.

  “They took away Sue” Alex cried out.

  “We know bud but we’re going to bring her back” Jeff told him.

  “You promise?” Alex asked him.

  “I promise” Jeff told him.

  Zoe looked around at the rest of her group and looked over those who were left on the hill to see if she could see any visible marks that they’d been hurt. They hadn’t from what she could see.

  “Did they hurt anyone?” Zoe asked them.

  “No. They only threatened us with their weapons and took Sue. Said they needed leverage to make sure we stayed in line” Alice told her.

  “Sue put up a fight though. She’s not one to just be taken away” Mike said proudly.

  “We’re getting mum back” Arthur told Mike.

  “If they hurt her, even a little bit, I swear..” Mike trailed off.

  “Don’t worry, we told them we’d kill them if they harmed at all” Michael told them.

  Michael took responsibility for telling everyone what had happened at the Tesco and the events after it. When he got to the part about telling them that Brian was now back in their lives it caused a little bit of an uproar. Lewis was the loudest of them all.

  “He killed Kirsty!” Lewis yelled.

  “He’ll die for it one day” Michael promised.

  “He’ll pay for it” Lewis said angrily.

  “Definitely” Michael agreed.

  When Michael got to the part about them bringing out Sue, Zoe could see Mike tense and worry etched over his eyes. Michael made sure to emphasise that Sue hadn’t been harmed in the slightest when they saw her. Zoe told Mike that they wouldn’t hurt her since they wanted to keep them all in check and to keep working for them.

  “They’re too greedy to want to risk people bringing them supplies” Zoe assured him.

  Mike opened his mouth to reply to her but closed it again as he spotted their followers coming up the hill behind them. Zoe quickly looked around and couldn’t see any other people watching them from on top of the hill who had already been there. Zoe waited for their group of five followers to get out of earshot before asking anything.

  “Were are the people who stayed here to watch you guys?” Zoe asked them.

  Alice signalled to Sophia who quickly took Alex away from Jeff and out of earshot from the rest of them before answering Zoe.

  “They threatened to kill Alex if we even thought about moving from this spot. They both had to take Sue down to where they met you guys since they had tied her hands together” Alice told them in a hushed voice.

  “Over my dead body they would’ve killed him!” Jeff said angrily.

  “We didn’t want to push them and risk his life which is why we stayed here” Alice said.

  “Of course. Anyone would’ve done the same” Zoe assured her.

  Zoe saw the anger radiating off of Jeff but as soon as Alex was back beside him he let it go for that moment so that he could be with his little brother. Zoe could see Sophia’s mouth was set into a firm line. She was also angry over what had happened but Zoe also knew that Sophia would be hating herself for not doing anything more. Zoe wanted to say to her that she had done great and that Alex was safe which was the main thing.

  Zoe wasn’t going to say anything to Sophia though. Zoe wanted to give her, Jeff and Alex time alone to be a family again. They were frightened for their safety now.

  “So is there any form of a plan yet?” Mike asked.

  Zoe told them about how they were going to get away from Rachael and Brian before they had to meet with them in three days. She also told them they were going to get Sue back before they went anywhere.

  “And how do we manage that with them watching us every second of every day?” Lewis asked.

  “We may have to take care of them instead of sneaking away” Zoe told them.

  “Take care of them? As in..?” Mike trailed off.

  “Yeah, we might just have to kill them” Zoe said.

  “That would make us just as bad as them” Lewis said.

  “We’ll avoid it as much as we can but it may be our only option to get free from them” Zoe told them.

  “And then we’ll hopefully never have to do anything like it ever again” Michael said.

  Everyone was quick to agree with Michael about never doing it again but Zoe couldn’t agree. The world was no longer a place that was fair and easy. Zoe knew that they would probably run into another group of people who wanted to use and take advantage of them but hopefully that next time they wouldn’t wind up being trapped and would get away a lot quicker.

  “Let’s just focus on the here and now and what we’re going to do” Zoe said to them.

  “So we have less than three days really to come up with a plan, get Sue back and run?” Alice asked.

  “Pretty much” Zoe told her.

  “Talk about doing everything in such a short space of time” Alice gasped.

  “The sooner the better” Arthur said.

  They all huddled together to try and come up with some idea’s but were having no luck. It seemed that every idea had a flaw in it.

  Waiting until nighttime and sneaking down the hills, get Sue and run wound up having a flaw that there would be people watching them everywhere.

  Kill everyone in their path was just a death sentence for everyone.

  Half of them sneaking down to get Sue whilst the other half planned an escape route, got a vehicle and came and collected them just made no sense since they had no way of communicating with each other.

  And lastly, jumping in the campervan and car and driving to swiftly pick up Sue and keep driving away until they lost Rachael and Brians and their groups just seemed like something out of a movie and unrealistic to work.

  “This is just going nowhere” Arthur grumbled.

  “Nothings going to work!” Lewis said frustratingly.

  “Something will. We
’ll come up with it at some point” Zoe reassured them.

  “If we don’t then we’re screwed and we’ll be working for them for the rest of our lives” Lewis huffed.

  “We won’t work for them for the rest of our lives. Trust me” Zoe said.

  Zoe looked at all of their faces and saw that they did trust her but maybe just not enough trust in her to get them all out of working for Rachael and Brian and getting Sue out from their grasp at the same time. Zoe was even beginning to lose a little bit of faith in herself at this point.

  “I’m going to make us all something to eat” John announced.

  “I’ll help you. I need to think about something else other than escape plans” Alice said.

  Zoe wished that she had something like cooking to help take her mind off of making up failed plans for a while. There were skin eaters floating around down the bottom of the hill again but Zoe forced herself to stay put and to not go and kill them off. She still had thoughts about using the skin eaters to their advantage in their escape.

  Zoe had went to sit in silence in the grass for a bit on her own. Her thoughts started to drift back to her days working behind the bar on the weekend. She didn’t want to keep thinking about skin eaters and groups of other people wanting to use them and threaten them with the lives of others.

  Zoe went back to the night of her last bar shift before the epidemic had even started. It had been a busy night with all the students not having anything to do since they were off now for the summer. Zoe had seen a couple of questionable guys and girls who looked well under sixteen but they’d been let into the nightclub anyway.

  Zoe had had her hands full on that shift, she hadn’t stopped all night. There had been a fight that had broken out, Zoe had overheard one of the girls at the bar talking about it and saying how they swore they seen one of the guys trying to take a chunk out of the others arm. At the time Zoe had no idea that it could’ve been a skin eater.

  Quite a few people had been thrown out over that fight and the one who had been trying to bite people had been taken off in an ambulance, not that it would end up doing him any good anyway since he was already dead but who knew at that point.

  At the end of the night and after all the partiers had finally left and the doors were closed and locked Zoe went to start cleaning the bar. She was lucky she was on shift with the good people and they sent her home, taking over the cleaning of the bar since she had to be up early for her cleaning job at the bank.

  Once Zoe had left she noticed a figure hanging around at the bins just outside at the back wall of the nightclub. She had asked whoever it was if they were okay and needed any help getting a taxi but all they done was moan at her. Zoe had shrugged her shoulders at that point and decided to walk away, thinking that the bouncers would be out soon after collecting their nightly pay and they could haul this person into the taxi.

  When Zoe had gotten back to her flat and into her bed she had even given the weird events of the night a second thought. It was really just typical drunk people and how they acted and Zoe had seen plenty of that in her years from working behind a bar.

  If she’d only looked a little closer and she may have gotten out of Edinburgh a lot sooner than she had and might not have ended up in the situations that she had been.

  However, if she had gotten out sooner then she wouldn’t have ended up with the group she was with now and she probably would’ve been all on her own. Zoe didn’t even know if she would’ve managed to have survived for this long on her own.

  Probably not.

  Zoe thoughts just began to swirl around and around in her head with all of her what if questions and how her life would’ve turned out if she had went off on her own. Zoe had been with her group for not even two months yet and she couldn’t think of being on her own anymore.

  “Here you are Zoe” Alice’s voice came from beside Zoe.

  “Oh! Thanks Alice” Zoe smiled, overcoming the fright Alice gave her.

  Zoe had been too lost in her own world to have even realised that enough time had went past for Alice to have made the burger that was now sitting in Zoe’s hands. Zoe was so grateful that Alice and John had brought all the cooking essentials they needed to still cook hot meals. Rachael and Brian had been gracious enough to leave them the burgers but there wasn’t much else they had left for them.

  Zoe did enjoy the burger but the taste wasn’t as good as she thought it would be. The burger just tasted like bile halfway through. Zoe knew it was because her head was on other things and she was feeling worried about Sue and when they might be able to rescue her. Zoe hoped that Rachael and Brian had enough sense not to harm Sue if they wanted more from her group. Zoe started to bite her fingernails from worry.

  “Bad habit that” Jeff commented from beside her.

  “I do it when I’m stressed or worried” Zoe told him.

  “Worried about Sue?” Jeff asked.

  “I am. I just hope we can get her out of there and we can all escape from that lot” Zoe said angrily.

  “We will. I have enough trust in us to think that we’ll manage it” Jeff said confidently.

  Zoe wished she had half of his confidence right now. It might end up being Jeff who keeps the groups spirits up for once instead of herself.

  “I put my trust in you now Jeff” Zoe told him.

  “That mean I’m in charge?” Jeff asked her.

  “I suppose it does” Zoe smiled at him.

  Jeff didn’t say anything more to Zoe, he only held out his hand to her as he stood up, offering it for Zoe to take it and follow him to wherever it was he wanted to take her. Zoe didn’t even have to think for a second before taking his hand and following him.

  Jeff led Zoe down and over a dip in the hill just opposite from where the rest of their group was. Nobody asked where they were going. Zoe guessed that no one even noticed them going off, they were all too worried about Sue and how they were going to escape and run away from Brian and Rachael.

  Jeff took Zoe behind the bushes on the hill next to where their group were and Zoe was stunned at the set up Jeff had done there. There was a blanket laid out on the ground with a bottle of wine and some plastic cups sitting on top of it. The blanket was perched on a perfect viewing spot so that Zoe could see the three forth bridges clearly. The sun was beginning to set and it was the most romantic thing a man had ever done for her.

  “This is amazing” Zoe told Jeff.

  “I figured I was due you a proper date” Jeff said shyly.

  “Where did the wine come from?” Zoe asked him.

  “I grabbed it at that Tesco and hid it in the bag with the guns” Jeff grinned.

  “Smart man” Zoe smiled at him.

  They both sat down on the blanket and Jeff opened up the bottle of wine. He handed Zoe her cup first before pouring his own and holding it in the air towards her.

  “Here’s to surviving this far and making tonight count” Jeff grinned.

  “Here Here” Zoe said as she clanked cups with Jeff.

  Zoe and Jeff had started off chatting about the usual things and about their past. Zoe shared more with Jeff sitting on this blanket than she had done with anyone else in her life before. Jeff was also being very open about his own past and how raising Sophia and Alex was actually really tough for him.

  “You think anyone is going to be wondering where we ran off to?” Zoe asked Jeff.

  “Nah, I told them we’d be here and to only interrupt us if it was a life or death emergency. We deserve a night just us two” Jeff told her.

  “You really are a romantic at heart aren’t you?” Zoe asked him with a smile.

  “Guilty as charged” Jeff laughed.

  Their joint laughter soon started to bubble away as they moved closer together. Zoe could feel her breath shake as she leaned closer to Jeff. She could hear Jeff’s breathing getting shaky as well. This time it felt different than the rest because this time they both wanted it to go the full distance and they knew that it would happen wi
thout interruptions this time.

  “You sure you want to do this?” Jeff asked Zoe, his face close to her own.

  “I’m sure” Zoe breathed.

  As soon as their mouths touched sparks seemed to fly off of them. This kiss was different to the ones they’d shared between them before. This kiss was slower and they melted into each other with more gentleness rather than the rushed ‘I must have you now!’ Scenario as they’d had before.

  Zoe felt Jeff’s hands slide up her arms before gliding back down to her sides and soon his hands were on her skin. Zoe felt a shiver of pleasure go up her spine. Jeff slowly took her top off leaving Zoe in only her bra. It didn’t take long for Jeff to unhook her bra from the back and slide the straps down her arms leaving goosebumps in it’s wake.

  “You’re so beautiful” Jeff said as he admired her.

  Zoe didn’t get a chance to say anything before Jeff’s lips were back on hers. Zoe felt Jeff gently massage her breasts which cause Zoe to let out a small moan into his mouth. Jeff reacted to her moan by continuing to massage her breasts and nipples. Pretty soon Zoe felt that it was unfair that she were the only one topless and slowly removed Jeff’s top up and over his head.

  “You’re not so bad yourself” Zoe smiled at him.

  Zoe saw the pleasure in Jeff’s eyes as he gave a slow, seductive smile at her before pressing his lips against hers again. Jeff guided Zoe onto her back as he pressed himself against her. Zoe could feel how excited Jeff was as he pressed himself against her causing her to moan more into his mouth as they kissed.

  Jeff moved away from Zoe’s mouth and started to kiss his way down her neck slowly before going down her chest and then letting his mouth concentrate on her nipples. Zoe felt her hips buck up as he did this and felt Jeff’s mouth grin as it was around her nipple.

  After Jeff had teased her enough to the point that Zoe thought she was going to combust she felt Jeff kiss his way down her stomach until he got to the waistband of her jeans. Jeff leaned back and undid Zoe’s jeans, taking them slowly off her, Zoe lifting her bum off the ground to help him. Jeff then stood up and took off his own jeans and throwing them to beside where he’d put Zoe’s. Zoe felt her heart flutter in her chest at the sight of him. She considered herself lucky to have found this man amongst everything that was going on.