by Casey, Ryan
And he had to get up.
He had to get to his feet.
Because if he didn’t... something even worse would happen.
But as he lay there and drifted, as consciousness slipped away, a blackness surrounded him. And he heard a voice.
“Noah?”
He looked around. Looked into the darkness.
And behind him, he saw Kyle.
He was the same age he was all those years ago, the last time he’d saw him. And Noah looked at his hands and arms and realised he was younger again, too. He was a child again. He was back in that hospital. Back by his brother’s side. Right where he should be.
He tried to walk over to Kyle. He could see his lips moving, see him trying to say things. He could hear him too, barely even a whisper. He had to get closer. He had to make sure he was okay. He couldn’t leave him. Not again.
“I’m coming, Kyle. I’m coming for you.”
He clambered towards his little brother. The floor felt like tar, sticking against his boots. The harder he tried, the harder it became to walk, to move. And the harder it became, the more his stress grew.
“I won’t leave you. I won’t let you down. Not again.”
He heard something, then. A shout. Something over his shoulder. Hell, for a moment, it even sounded like a scream.
He knew something bad was happening back there. Something terrible. And as much as he didn’t know what it was, as much as he didn’t understand it in this hazy state... he knew Kyle was more important. He knew his little brother was more important.
“Please, Kyle,” he said. “Hang in there. Please. Please.”
He traipsed closer to Kyle, and he realised something. The hospital bed was changing. And Kyle wasn’t lying on anything anymore. He was standing there. Only he was older now. Chocolate brown hair. Freckles across his face, like he’d always had as a kid. Handsome. Smiling.
And Noah was older now, too. He was back to his normal, ordinary self.
He stood at Kyle’s side. Saw him smiling back at him.
“Kyle?” he said. “Did I do it? Did I save you?”
Kyle reached out a hand and placed it on Noah’s arm.
“You already saved me,” he said. “I wouldn’t have made it as far as I did. Not if it wasn’t for you.”
A lightning bolt inside Noah, then.
An explosion of emotion.
Tears streamed down his face.
His jaw shook.
Everything cracked apart.
Because hearing those words.
Hearing his brother’s words.
It unlocked something inside him.
It changed something inside him.
“Now go on,” Kyle said. “You saved me once already. Go and save someone you can save.”
Noah frowned. Kyle started to drift. He wanted to cling on to him. He wanted to keep him here.
But then he heard the shouting in the lounge behind him.
He heard the kicking. The struggling.
And then he realised what this was.
He remembered.
Jasmine.
Colin.
He had to help her.
He had to save her.
He looked into his brother’s fading eyes, and he took a deep breath.
“I won’t let you down,” he said.
And then he turned around, and he looked to the lounge...
His eyes opened.
He took in a lungful of cool air. His body shivered. He tasted blood. His head ached from his collision with the solid floor.
In the lounge, he heard struggling.
Heard Colin laughing. Shouting.
And he heard Jasmine shouting back.
Noah stood up.
He grabbed that long, metal fire stoker. Tightened his grip on it.
And he looked into the lounge as he stood at the doorway.
He couldn’t change the past.
But he could do something now.
Right now.
He stepped into the lounge, and he took a deep, shaky breath...
Chapter Forty-Nine
Jasmine felt Colin’s weight pressing down on her, and she wasn’t sure she could keep breathing much longer.
He wasn’t doing anything with her. None of the horrifying things she feared. But he was just sitting there. Wobbling from side to side. Laughing. Specks of blood dripping down onto her, all around her.
She wondered whether the virus was taking hold of him. Whether it was evolving, getting stronger, tightening its grip.
And if it was, maybe she had an opportunity to make a break for it.
Maybe she had a chance.
But every frigging time she tried to wriggle free, he shifted his weight onto her, crushed her back, her belly, and she was trapped all over again.
She lay there, face flat, listening to his manic, detached cackles. Listened to him muttering and mumbling things she didn’t understand. Things that didn’t make sense.
“So many years. So many goddamned years. And this is how you treat me?”
She wanted to call for Barney. She didn’t know where the hell he’d gone. But she knew he scared easily, and he was showing that clearly now.
She wanted him to race to her rescue.
But at the same time, she heard her mother’s voice.
The one that told her she needed someone to protect her. To look after her. That she needed someone by her side because she wasn’t strong enough on her own.
And she didn’t want that to be true.
She wanted to prove herself, just like she’d always wanted to prove herself.
She looked around the room. Looked for something she could grab. Something she could use. Anything that might double as a weapon.
But she couldn’t see a thing.
And Colin’s shifting weight kept on making it hard to breathe, hard to think.
She had to think.
She had to do something.
She had to act.
Colin reached out, then. He clamped his sweaty fingers around her neck, pushed her to the floor. Her cheek right against it. Her jaw pushed so hard it felt it might shatter under his weight, like her face might burst.
“Just had to be kind,” Colin muttered. “Just had to... to fall in line.”
Fall in line.
Those words.
Words Jasmine had heard so many times.
Words she’d been told time and time again.
Fall in line.
Because she wasn’t strong enough.
But no.
She was strong enough.
She was a fighter. And she’d fought so hard all her life.
She wasn’t about to give up now.
She felt his face so close to her. Smelled the rusty metal blood. Saw his saliva drooling from his plump, purple tongue.
She was fucked if he was infected already.
So she might as well just accept it and do whatever the hell she could.
So she spun around and clamped her teeth against his tongue.
Hard.
She bit down on his tongue. Heard him screaming out. Tasted blood. Felt him shaking, struggling, twitching. Punching at her, trying to shake her free.
But she just kept pressing down.
Pressing down hard.
For all the pain she’d been through.
For all the loss she’d suffered.
She kept on pressing down—
He loosened his grip of her.
She let go.
Colin fell back against the floor. Blood oozed from his mouth, rich and purple. She could taste it against her lips. She wanted to vomit. But at the same time, she felt recharged. She felt full of adrenaline.
And she felt ready for whatever this bastard might throw at her.
“Bitch,” he mumbled, his words slurred. “You—you bit my tongue. You bit my...”
He stumbled to his feet.
Stood over her. Tall. Muscular.
But wounded.
; Defeated, even if just a little.
“I’ll make you pay,” he stuttered. “I’ll make you...”
It all happened so fast.
He rushed towards her.
And then something cracked through the air.
The fire stoker swung against his head.
His skull cracked, and he fell to the floor.
Twitched a little. Shook a little.
And then went still.
Jasmine looked up.
Noah stood there. Bruised on his forehead. Bleeding. But standing.
He looked into her eyes.
And she looked back into his.
And as they stood there in this lounge, the man before them taken out by them—together—they walked over to one another and wrapped their arms around each other.
Chapter Fifty
Noah and Jasmine walked out into the garden as the sun began to set.
It was a warm night. Quiet. The kind of night a barbecue might’ve taken place on, on normal days. And Noah could almost hear it, as he stood there staring out at the luscious green grass. The sound of glasses chinking against one another. Of laughter. The smell of the fattiest burgers cooking away, of smoke in the air.
But tonight wasn’t one of those nights.
Tonight was a very different night.
And Noah couldn’t shake the feeling that it was the first night of many.
He looked at the shed. Jasmine stood by his side, Barney between them. They’d been avoiding this moment for a few hours now, ever since they’d taken Colin out together. Noah remembered walking in that lounge, getting ready to bury that metal into his skull if he had as much as a finger on Jasmine.
But Jasmine had already fought him off
Colin was already wounded.
Noah just delivered the final blow.
He held Jasmine’s hand. It still felt strange, in a sense. Alien. Not like it used to. They hadn’t spoken about each other. They hadn’t spoken about the past or about the future. They’d just moved Colin’s body out front and then sat there, together, trying to wrap their head around this day, trying to decompress, trying to move forward.
But they were outside now. Walking towards the shed. Because Kelly had been in there a few hours now. They hadn’t heard a peep from her. Noah feared the worst. Jasmine was a little more hopeful, but he knew that was probably just a defence mechanism. Probably protecting herself from the inevitable. From more pain. From more loss.
But that’s why they were outside now. That’s why they were conquering this, no matter what they had to face, side by side.
“You okay?” Noah asked.
Jasmine glanced at him. A few specks of Colin’s blood still peppered against her cheeks. But no signs she was infected. No signs she was ill. “I’m not okay,” she said. “But I’m ready. For whatever.”
Noah tightened his grip on her hand, just a little.
And then he nodded.
“Good,” he said. “Then let’s go find out.”
They walked down the patio area. Climbed up onto the garden. Walked along it. The closer he got, the less sure Noah grew about this. The less sure he was that he wanted to find anything at all there. Because as much as he never used to like Kelly... they’d made strange strides today, in this long, never-ending day. A day where so much had changed.
But he had to step up.
He had to face it.
Jasmine had been here for him after Eddie. And now he had to do the same for her.
He reached the shed door, and Jasmine stopped.
She stared at it. Eyes wide.
“I’m not sure I can do this,” she said.
Noah turned to her. Put a hand on her shoulder.
“You can,” he said. “You’re stronger than you realise.”
She smiled at him.
And he smiled back at her.
Then he turned and opened the shed door.
When he stepped inside, the first thing that hit him was a strange smell. And for a moment, he thought it might be a bad sign. That it might be Kelly.
And then he saw Kelly shift around and frown, pulling an earplug from her ear. “You two mind shutting the hell up? I’m knackered here. Forty winks would really be appreciated.”
Noah laughed. And Jasmine laughed, too. And there was a moment where all caution dropped. Where Jasmine rushed over to Kelly. Where she wrapped her arms around her.
Because she was okay.
Kelly was still here.
“How you feeling?” Jasmine asked.
Kelly shrugged. “Tired. But... well, I haven’t bled anymore. What was that banging I heard? Not at it already, are you?”
Jasmine glanced at Noah, and Noah blushed. “Not exactly.”
“You’re not trashing my house, are you?”
Noah thought of the smear of blood across the lounge floor. “It’s a long story.”
Kelly stood up with them, then. Walked to the shed door with them. Seeing her in the fading light, Noah realised she looked better than earlier. Healthier than earlier. And they weren’t in the clear yet. They didn’t know they were safe yet. They didn’t know how this virus worked yet.
But they stood there. Together.
Because that’s how they were going to conquer this.
Together.
“What now?” Noah asked.
Kelly puffed out her lips. “Cards Against Humanity, get blind drunk and figure the rest out tomorrow?”
Noah smiled.
Jasmine smiled, too.
And as they stood there, together in the setting sun, despite all the pain and all the horror, Noah felt hope.
And then he heard a voice.
A familiar voice.
“Room for one more?”
He looked down the steps.
Eddie stood there.
Smile on his face.
Alive.
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The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. Any reference to real locations is only for atmospheric effect, and in no way truly represents those locations.
Copyright © 2020 by Ryan Casey
Cover design by Damonza
All rights reserved.
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Published by Higher Bank Books