In The End (Book 1): In The End

by Stevens, GJ

  I drove slowly, letting the wheels turn, snaking around the death and decay. I saw no movement other than the smoke. I saw no imminent threat, but I didn't kid myself it couldn't change in an instant.

  We travelled halfway around the compound before the fence and the main building were at their closest and the route became impassable, blocked with a sea of bodies for which it was too difficult to tell which side they'd belonged to.

  I pictured the last stand in my head. A line of troops with their guns up and expressions set, waiting for the creatures to gather in the bottleneck, waiting for the prime range; only then letting rip, mowing down time and again. But something had caught them by surprise, something in the air bearing down.

  I saw the machine gun post beyond the bodies, the heavy weapon mounted in the hastily-constructed fortification of sand bags. The gunner was gone, the assailant too, leaving just the weapon and the road scattered with a sea of shell casings.

  To the side was a fire exit, the doors open from the inside with another stack of bodies which were easier to identify. Their white, bloodied coats and camouflage clothes told me of their allegiance. The blood slicked a line down the centre of the corridor behind, its surface ruined by heavy footsteps told me the story; they'd evacuated, running into the bottleneck and the hail of crossfire before falling to the ground. The soldiers would have been left with no choice; they'd had to make sure they were not coming back.

  “I'm going in,” I said, pulling off the seat belt and turning away from the thick air drifting through the missing window.

  “Why?” Lane replied, climbing into the front seat. “Let's drive, find where the quarantine zone ends and get the hell out of here.”

  I shook my head.

  “Where is that? What direction? Where do we get the fuel? How many of the petrol pumps still work?”

  “Logan’s right,” Cassie said.

  I could tell she was doing her best to keep her voice level.

  “The place is so big. Someone who can help might be alive.”

  Lane looked at Cassie, then turned to the children huddled in the back.

  “It's a mistake. We're safer on the road,” he said, taking one of the handguns from the passenger seat.

  I leant in, pulling him close, pushing my mouth to his ear and whispering the firm words.

  “They'll be dead before you get out of the county,” I said, as quiet as I could.

  He put his hand on mine, gripping my head and squeezed gently.

  “I'm sorry,” he said, tightening his grip. “But they're dead already.”

  I let go, pulling out of his grasp.

  “Find another,” I said. “Go.”

  He sat looking down at the floor.

  “Look, over there,” I said, pointing to another khaki-green Land Rover parked at the side of the building. “And there,” I said, my voice building. “Take one of those and run.”

  He didn't move, just looked at me and I turned away. Still, I saw as he turned to Cassie and I knew she would look back with a face full of sympathy.

  Lane looked down to where Andrew lay silent, the old woman at his side, Cassie reaching over to put a hand on Andrew's chest.

  He looked over at the children, then to Shadow, his eyes reflecting the light as his head raised.

  Then he turned, pulling open the door and left, letting it shut quietly on the hinges before I could open my lips and blurt out our secret about Jack.

  I didn’t know if it would make him stay. I didn’t know if he’d try and take the boy with him. I stayed quiet.

  “I thought he was better than this,” I said, to no one in particular.

  Cassie's hand reached out, resting on my shoulder. She was warm, for now. We needed her strength, needed what she had left.

  I handed her the last handgun, pulled open the door and stepped out, not watching Lane as I strode into the corridor whilst keeping to the side, even though the blood had dried hard.

  I heard noises echoing. There was life in the building still, but I didn't know if it was their second time around.

  86

  The sting of antiseptic was all but gone from the air, replaced with the breath of decay and burning plastic clawing at my throat. The hum of fluorescent tubes had gone, too, leaving just my long shadow stepping before me as I approached the first door.

  Like the others I'd seen on my first visit, it was tall and white with a porthole at head-height, but rather than seeing to the other side, all I could make out were dark shadows passing behind the white paper blocking my view.

  I knew from my last visit what would have become of the people who'd been on the other side.

  The cold stung my hand as I twisted the metal handle, slow and calm. After the smallest of pushes, I let go, relieved as it held firm.

  Trainers squeaking on the tiled floor, my shadow grew taller as I headed further down the corridor. Glancing down, I watched as the trail of blood thinned, but the gruesome slick remained my companion with each step.

  I searched for any sign of life, death, too, but the doctor's office was the first place I wanted to find; the only place I guessed would be a hideout.

  If someone had survived, had held out for the miracle boy, I wanted it to be the place where I would find them.

  Along each side of the corridor I counted five doors, before a sharp turn to the right.

  A noise came from outside. Was it a call from the people I'd left behind? Or one of those creatures we had no effective defence against?

  Whatever had made the noise I knew it wouldn't be smart to stay apart from my friends for long without Lane there for protection.

  The next few doors were closed and with no portholes I pushed my ear to the cold wood and listened. I heard vibration through the building; heard movement reverberating along the wall, on the floor above perhaps, but nothing I could pinpoint to the other side.

  I turned the handle, regretting I'd left the handgun behind as I did, but time was of the essence as I thought of Andrew's speedy decline, knowing Cassie, too, would look worse with each moment.

  The door opened to darkness and when nothing lashed out or pounced towards me, screaming, I stepped to the side and let it open its full arc.

  The meagre light reaching this far down the corridor was enough to make out the store of medical equipment. Unfolding a wheelchair, I pulled it out of the room and let the door swing closed, cursing as it slapped hard against its frame.

  I ran back, pushing the chair at my front.

  Cassie hadn't changed; Andrew was no worse, but no better. Shadow’s wound wasn’t bleeding out like the others.

  I drew an optimist breath; maybe dogs weren’t affected by the disease. They’d be the new rulers of the world when humans were extinct.

  I shook off the thought. The weight of the rifle felt good in my hands as I grabbed it from the passenger seat.

  Along with pulling the torch from the pack, I shouldered the rucksack and made sure Cassie held the handgun out as she slid out to the road.

  Andrew woke as I lifted, but slumped to the side as I let him down into the chair. He woke again as I placed Shadow on his lap, his hand reaching to take a long stroke of his back.

  Movement caught my eyes as I took a quick scan of our surroundings, but I flinched away from the figure, instead my gaze fixing on the space where the second Land Rover had sat.

  I swapped a glance with Cassie. She shrugged, her face full of empathy. I'd wanted to understand; instead, I did what I did best and pushed the pain down, burying it inside.

  I turned back to where I'd seen the movement, to two soldiers walking in a line, their backs hunched over, their camouflage soaked dark in different patterns.

  I'd made the right decision and pushed the chair through into the corridor, the wheels squeaking against the floor. I paused just beyond the entrance but pushed on as I abandoned clearing the bodies and pulling closed the doors.

  Without voice or command, we fell into a natural formation. Cassie foll
owed at the back, glancing everywhere we'd walked while I went ahead. Ellie pushed the chair whilst the old lady shepherded the kids. As I watched her form them in a group, her face almost as clear as mine, she showed no sign she'd witnessed the death of her husband; the death of her old life.

  The floor was alive with tall shadows, except when caught by the swing of the thin torch, as was the wall at our front as we walked its length, listening at each door for a pause and trying each handle before moving on.

  I was looking for a sign; some way of knowing if there was anyone left living. It wasn't easy to spot until I turned the corner.

  I peered around, slow at first, watching the trail of blood end at a door. The words 'Safe Harbour' ran in bold maker on the long wooden panel but smeared over with blood, as if someone had tried to wipe the letters away.

  Rushing forward, barely looking down the length of the corridor, I tried the handle and it gave. My heart raced with delight at my choice to stay; I’d kept faith in others when I'd relied on myself for what seemed like an eternity, even though it had only been a matter of days.

  I let the others know to wait as Andrew's front wheels rounded the corner before opening the door wide.

  The first sign was the darkness, the second the emptiness of the room. The packing crates were still there. The desks in the centre too. Papers were still strewn across its surface, but now scattered to the floor as well.

  I forged ahead, letting the door swing back and I saw the third sign as I rounded the desks.

  The body lain, its lab coat once white, face-down on the floor. A gun rested beside where most of the head had fallen.

  Blood and grey hair stuck high to the wall.

  87

  The doctor was gone and with her went all hope, my plan evaporating like the foul smoke.

  Lane had been right and the low hurried calls from the corridor told me it would not be a simple case of rewinding our path.

  I knew before I stepped from the office the two soldiers would be making their slow way towards us, but I hadn't accounted for the crowd at their back, seven or more figures just behind. The details were lost in their silhouettes.

  Cassie levelled her gun, aiming high as I arrived by her side.

  I put my hand to her forearm and whispered, “You'll draw more in.”

  She let me lead her back around the corner where she stayed to the rear, keeping her place in our order as I returned to lead.

  I pulled the doctor's office door closed, not voicing what I'd found; not letting them in on my race to figure out what we would do next.

  Instead, I took steps, following the torch beam to the slow plod of feet and the squeak of wheels.

  Scanning left to right, the corridor was a mess with debris. Large sandbags lay halfway along the centre, piled high either side of the corridor in a haphazard dark mass. Blood pooled at the base, the walls scratched, strafed with bullets. I tried not to imagine the horrific battle which must have taken place.

  Along the walls I recognised pairs of doors. The doctor had led us through one of these, but I had no impulse to take the same journey again, knowing what would have happened once we'd left.

  Each of my footsteps resounded around the corridor, echoed at my back with the five other pairs and squeak of the wheels. At least the sound following grew no louder.

  Tracing the walls up and down, I saw no more writing, no more graffiti guiding our way, just the occasional splatter of blood and pot marks of brass embedded in the wall.

  Walking at a pace no faster but no slower than the Cords, I ran through the layout of the hospital in my head. If I remembered rightly, around the next corner would be the room where Cassie and I had first been taken; where we'd been subjected to the thorough exam to make sure we were not bringing anything in, even though it's what they'd wanted.

  They would want Cassie now. She'd been recently infected. Andrew, too; both their bleeding stopped soon after they'd been bitten.

  McCole's face flashed into my head. How long had it been before his bandages? It couldn't have been much over five minutes, but still he'd died. Still he'd turned.

  I flinched my head back from its downward drift, lifted high and took a thick, copper-tasting breath.

  It was no way to think; this was not the place to reflect.

  A light flashed ahead and my reaction was quick; I killed the torch without pause. With the darkness, the close footsteps stopped, the wheels ceasing their irritating noise.

  The white light was gone, blinking out so soon, making me think my brain was overworking. I would have carried on thinking the same if it hadn't been for the footsteps, loud and energetic with purpose.

  But there was something else. The steps were uneven, like someone walking with a limp. I kept the torch unlit, even though this was what I'd wanted, what I'd searched for.

  Someone had come through the double doors, through the entrance we'd been brought through and now they were making their purposeful way down the corridor towards us.

  With footsteps slow, I hoped to make no noise, hoped to give no reason for the others to do anything but stand and wait for my command. So far it had worked, the echo of the uneven steps at my front helping to mask my own progress.

  One handed, I pushed the rifle out, digging it into my hip for a second time whilst remembering McCole's advice.

  The sound of the steps became so much clearer in an instant. I stopped, tried to slow my breath, realising they'd turned the corner and were right in front of me.

  Still I waited, wanted them close; couldn't let them run away in panic if they could help us. I didn't want to scare them off if they were a survivor and we could be the ones to help them. Or maybe looters were already on to this place. I didn't want to give them the chance to escape, either.

  As the thoughts rolled around my head, the footsteps stopped and a new noise took up. It was the sound of effort, of strain and I clicked on the torch.

  There, in the bright circle, a man stood hunched over; he was halfway through a turn and in his thin, sleeveless arms he held a large sandbag with the contents dripping down.

  The man was gaunt, hair stuck to his scalp, his skin so thin in the bright light I could see dark veins running up and down. His eyes were white and his face covered in dark dried blood.

  It hadn't been a man for some time and those weren't sandbags in the pile.

  The soldier's body fell to the floor and the creature's mouth dropped open. I knew the noise it would issue before the scream began.

  88

  I was firing, shooting from the hip before the roar of the scream hit my ears.

  I stepped back, keeping my speed down, despite knowing the bullets were missing each time. Light flashed from behind me and I turned, regret gripping tight across my chest.

  Ellie pushed Andrew through the ward’s door, the kids running after to the place I hadn't wanted to go back to, but now I knew it was our only sanctuary.

  I didn't turn to face the creature; knew it would be a waste of time, a waste of the energy I craved for which I needed to give a head start on a creature focused on hunting me down.

  Perhaps its stomach was full of its feast, but I didn't wait to question how I'd made it to the door before I was dead; before it dragged me off by its jaws.

  It had followed, I was sure. The run of its legs, the slap of its feet against the floor told me all I needed to know.

  Still, I grabbed Cassie's looped arm, my hand catching as she fired past my ear. I dragged her with me through the doors, pushing her in front whilst catching her eye, but not able to make sense if she'd hit the target.

  The room was bright, even though the windows were masked with great sheets of white plastic I could only guess were reinforcing the glass. The plastic inner seal had been pulled down and lay in tatters, its shredded, blood-streaked remains discarded to the side.

  There were no guards. No patients. No nurses or attendants left; just a handful of bodies, each with a catastrophic head wound. A wound we
knew was the only way of stopping the dead from living a second time; if you could call being under the control of the Zombie Cordyceps Mould living.

  The ten beds were still there, rearranged, disordered, pushed to the side, their blankets and sheets each covered in a different bloody motif. Bandages, thin metal chairs and other debris, the monitors, their screens blank, cables snaking from their mouth lay scattered across the floor.

  Shadow whined with pain as he jumped down from Andrew's lap and as he bared his teeth, a sudden fear gripped across my chest. The pressure welled up and almost turned to tears as his head moved and, limping, he turned his attention to the double doors.

  “The beds,” I shouted, and the able-bodied took action. All but Tish knew what to do, driven by the same instinct to jam whatever they could against the door we had no way of locking; the door which had no jamb to push against and hold it closed.

  With the beds pushed up and rolled against the door, they were too heavy to lift or to pile on top of each other; it was a sorry obstacle one of the Cords could summit with such little effort.

  The weapons I'd seen the guards carrying were gone and our rushed inventory confirmed we were low on ammunition, with one clip left for the half-empty handgun and what remained in the rifle's magazine, maybe ten rounds, all we could rely on.

  The doors cracked hard against the beds with a great bang and each of us shook as the rattle repeated. With my arms open wide, I turned and ushered everyone back to the far end of the room.

  They ran, wheeling Andrew along. Cassie stayed by my side and looped her arms around mine, gripping tight as we turned and took the slow walk to the end of the ward.

  “Shadow,” I snapped when I saw he'd stayed behind. He started his backward step, limping.

  Bang went the door, soon joined by the dull thud. I pictured the slow soldiers catching up, joining the push against the doors. The beds moved as the gap between the doors widened.

  As soon as I could see teeth snapping in the gap, I looked again, scouring the room to the rasp of Shadow's bark.