The End of Everything Box Set, Vol. 1 [Books 1-3]

by Artinian, Christopher

  Wren smiled, “And we got lost, and Dad refused to ask that old man where we needed to go.”

  Robyn laughed. “Yeah, and Mum ended up getting blisters on her feet and she didn’t talk to him that night.” Both girls smiled, but their smiles faded, as happy memories became sad ones. “I miss them so much.”

  “It’s only been a few days. It feels like a lifetime, but it’s only been a few days.”

  Their father had been bitten, not by a dog or animal, but by one of their neighbours. That meant something more than a tetanus shot now. The world as everyone knew it had come to a speedy end. A virus transmitted by bites and scratches turned humans into rabid killing machines interested in nothing but infecting more victims. The two girls had watched their father turn and their mother get savaged right before their eyes. It was not something they were ever likely to forget.

  They had escaped their peaceful Edinburgh suburb, travelling north until they happened along Thomas and Isabel Jack and their family. They had taken the two sisters in and given them a new start. This had all been in the space of a week, and, save the odd tear, neither of the sisters had found time to grieve. But now, as they took this Sunday afternoon stroll together, their minds cast back to what they had lost.

  “I was thinking, maybe we could make something and put it in the garden under that pine sapling?”

  “What do you mean?” Wren asked.

  “Y’know, a plaque or something in their memory. It would be nice to go out there and look at their names and remember them. It’s like we could pay tribute to them, mourn them properly.”

  The two sisters continued up the long lane, vigilant, but finding some comfort in talking about being able to mourn their parents. “I like that idea. You were always the artistic one; do you think you can make something?”

  “I’d like to,” Robyn replied

  The two sisters looked across at each other and smiled, their eyes were glazed with tears, and though they had cried plenty over the last few days, now there was the tiniest glint of happiness behind them too. They could actually pay their respects. “I like that idea a lot.”

  The lane finally widened and led into a car park. There was a single white van parked there with the company logo emblazoned on the side. Beyond it stood a single-storey, flat roofed building with ANDERSON’S ARCHERY painted on a big sign above it. The D in ANDERSON’S was designed to look like a bow.

  There were posters in all but one of the windows, and it was that one that Wren walked up to. She banged hard on the glass with her flat hand and waited. “Looks like nobody’s home,” she said walking up to the side door and pulling a crowbar out from her jacket. She handed her javelin to Robyn and began to jimmy the lock.

  “You are way too good at this for a fifteen-year-old.”

  “I think I missed my calling,” Wren replied, smiling.

  The dark, wooden framed doors creaked open as the lock disintegrated. Wren placed the crowbar back in her jacket before taking the javelin from her sister.

  “So, explain to me again why we’re doing this.”

  “I told you. We’re going to see if they’ve got some stuff lying around that will be useful for us.”

  “You mean, like bows and arrows?”

  Wren sighed, “Yes, I mean bows and arrows.”

  “You don’t even know how to shoot. Don’t you think it’s a little dangerous?”

  “Are you sure you’re seventeen and not seventy?”

  “Funny. You won’t be laughing when you end up like King Harold.”

  Wren turned and looked at Robyn. “I’m so proud of you right now.”

  “Why?”

  “You made a historical reference that was actually correct. My big sister, the nerd.”

  Robyn raised her middle finger. “Yeah, well, I was never a crawling little teacher’s pet, was I?”

  Wren smiled as they walked into the reception area. To the side of it was a small shop section with a number of bows on stands. Wren walked back to the front and tore all the posters down from the windows so there was enough light for them to see. She headed to the bows and began picking them up one by one, testing the weight of them. “You should try these out too.”

  “Erm, no thanks. I’m more than happy with my pointy stick. What the hell’s brought all this on, anyway? Why the sudden urge to learn how to fire a bow?”

  “We’re heading to a builders’ yard tomorrow. Who knows what the hell we’re going to find there? As we run out of things, we’ll have to make more trips, and at some stage, Thomas is going to run out of shells for that shotgun. Don’t you think having the ability to fire a long-distance weapon might be handy?”

  “I dunno, Thomas strikes me as the kind of guy who’d have a good supply of shells. He strikes me as a guy who’d have a good supply of everything,” Robyn said, finally succumbing and picking up one of the bows.

  “Okay, then explain to me why we’re taking a trip to a builders’ yard to get concrete.”

  “It wasn’t his fault this whole ‘end of the world’ thing went down. He didn’t expect to be building those polytunnels by himself; he’d got everything arranged.”

  “I know, I know. I’m just saying. Stuff happens that we can’t control and the better we can look after ourselves, the safer we’re going to be.”

  Robyn put her javelin down and took the bow in both hands. “This is a real skill y’know, it’s not like you’re just going to pick one up and know how to shoot.”

  Wren walked across to a book carousel and immediately removed one of each title, everything from: Archery for Beginners, to The Advanced Archer. “It’s like I keep telling you, Bobbi. Everything can be learnt from books.”

  “God, you really are such a nerd,” she said, firing an imaginary arrow at her sister.

  “I know we’re not going to have much time, what with helping Thomas and Isabel at the farm, but it’s not like you’ll be going out with your mates, or I’ll be...actually, I’ll be doing what I’ve always done. No big change for me. But I thought it would be nice for us to do this together, to learn something together that would actually be a worthwhile thing. Something that could help us. Remember how much fun we had stabbing at Dad’s coveralls with our javelins?”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll give it a go.”

  Wren smiled. “We’ll grab some gear and go outside to the range.” The two girls picked up a couple of bows each and a few quivers of arrows then headed to the range at the back. The targets were all set up, ready and waiting. There were lines in white chalk drawn on the grass with distances written in circles.

  “This looks good,” Robyn said walking to the nearest white line at the middle target. She picked up a bow and started examining it, occasionally plucking the string like it was some instrument in an orchestra. Wren sat down and started reading the Archery for Beginners book. Robyn suddenly noticed her. “Ohhh myyy goddd!” she said, turning her back on her sister and picking an arrow out of the quiver.

  “You shouldn’t really mess around with that before we’ve learnt the basics,” Wren said.

  “You shouldn’t really mess around with that before we’ve learnt the basics,” Robyn said in a mocking, high pitched voice.

  “Yeah, well, don’t come running to me when you’ve twanged one of your nips off with the bow string,” Wren said, turning the second page in the book.

  Robyn looked down and zipped her leather jacket up. “You don’t need books for everything, y’know. The Native Americans didn’t have a book when they invented these things to beat General Custard, and I’m pretty certain there wouldn’t have been some little nerdtard around telling them how to do it. They learnt it for themselves.”

  Wren looked up from her book. “Sometimes, I can’t believe we’re related. The bow and arrow have been around for over sixty-thousand years, a long, long time before Custer’s Last Stand, you moron.”

  “Whatever,” Robyn said, placing the nocking point into the nock of the arrow, resting the arrow on the she
lf, drawing the string back, and carefully lining up her aim through the sight window.

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Wren said, rolling her eyes.

  Robyn released the arrow and watched as it flew through the air. It landed in the outer section of the red circle. Her mouth dropped open, as did Wren’s. “I did it! I did it!” she screamed, jumping up and down. “Did you see that? I did it!”

  “Calm down. Beginners luck. Bet you can’t do it again,” Wren said, placing her book on the ground and standing up.

  Robyn bent down and picked up another arrow. She placed the bowstring in the nock and lined the arrow up just as she had before. She cast a nervous glance towards her sister, before turning her head back to concentrate. She released the string and watched once again as the arrow sailed through the air, landing two centimetres closer to the centre. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!” Robyn said laughing and holding the bow in the air triumphantly. “I can do this. I can really do this!” There was an expression of pure joy on her face as she looked back at the target. “You try.”

  Wren picked up her bow and arrow. She copied the actions she had seen her sister perform. She lined up the sight and released the bowstring. The arrow travelled a few metres before skidding the rest of the way along the ground, stopping about four metres short of the target. She tried again, and again, and again, each time with equally poor results, while Robyn took to it like a natural. Shot after shot, she hit the target and even managed a couple of bullseyes.

  “This obviously isn’t my thing,” Wren said.

  “Finally. Something you can’t do that I can,” Robyn said, smiling.

  “Don’t rub it in,” Wren replied.

  “Sorry, Little Miss Perfect.”

  “I’m going to go have a look around inside. There might be some food or something.”

  “Okay. I’m going to stay out here a while,” Robyn said, taking aim with the bow again.

  Wren wandered off, making her way back into the club building and beyond the front desk to the locker room. The walls were lined with tall lockers, and the temptation to see what was inside was too much for Wren. She went back out to the reception area and peered under the desk. She pulled out her torch and looked under the counter shelf, but did not see what she was looking for. She opened the drawers, and there it was: a bag of keys. She knew from all the athletics meetings she had been to that there was always a spare set of locker keys somewhere. She headed back into the locker room and started opening doors. Half way around, she wished she hadn’t bothered. The lockers were either empty, or they had something as mundane as a spare pair of socks or trainers inside. Although, one actually had a collection of pornographic magazines and a bottle of vodka; another had a box full of expensive-looking cigars, and Wren wondered what kind of an archery club this actually was. Her heart was no longer in it, but she did not want to head back outside just yet and face her sister’s gloating, so she turned the key in one more locker and found three small black cases.

  The cases were way too small to hold bows, and she took them out and placed them on the wooden benches in the centre of the room. She opened the first case to reveal a pistol crossbow. She examined the device in awe for a moment before carefully placing it down and opening the other case. It was an identical bow, and the third case contained nine new packs of ten bolts each, and one pack that had been opened and used, but all the bolts were still present. The instructions for loading the bows and their operation were included in each of the boxes. Wren sat down and read through the instructions, practicing loading with the self cocking mechanism. These instruments seemed much more straightforward than the archery bows. She put them all back in their cases and went out into the shop to grab a holdall, placing her new-found treasures inside. She put the bag on her shoulder and started making her way back out, when she suddenly froze as two creatures came into view at the car park entrance. Where they had come from, she had no clue. She looked around for her javelin, and that’s when she remembered she had left it out on the archery range. She looked across towards the open double doors as the beasts drifted towards them. Closing them now would be a fool’s errand, and the lock was broken anyway. She stood there for a moment longer, hoping they would move away to the left of the building and give her enough time to go get Robyn so they could make their escape. That’s when one of them caught sight of her through the glass.

  “Oh shit!”

  chapter 2

  Wren ran back into the locker room and pushed the two heavy benches up against the door. As much as she liked her new weapons, she realised she would have to learn how to use them before she could even think about trying to defend herself with them. She pulled one of the lockers across and pushed it down with a deafening clatter, then shuffled it into position on top of the benches. That’s when she heard the hammering start against the door. She looked up at the high, frosted glass windows. They were too narrow for even her to climb through.

  The door would hold for the time being, but there was no other exit from the locker room, and what would happen if her sister came to find her? The creatures would go after her. Wren took her eyes away from the door and looked around, trying to think of some means of escape. She toppled one of the lockers onto its front with another echoing crash. The creatures’ growls amplified with excitement, and the speed of the hammering hands increased. Wren climbed onto the horizontal locker and hoisted herself up onto the top of another. She reached across and opened one of the windows.

  Robyn was still at the range, happily practicing away, oblivious to the fact Wren was under siege. “Bobbi!” she yelled at the top of her voice. “Bobbi!” she cried again.

  Robyn paused her aim and brought the bow down. She started to look around to see where the sound had come from, then noticed her sister waving frantically out of the high, narrow window. She began to head across, slowly at first, thinking it was just her sister getting excited about something nerdy, like a replica of the bow Tonto used. But then she saw the look on her face, and the closer she got, the more she could hear the frantic banging. Robyn began to run. “What is it?” she said as she reached her sister.

  “Bobbi, two of those things have me trapped in here.”

  “What? How?”

  “I don’t know! I was just on my way back out to you when I saw them in the car park.”

  “Shit!”

  “Exactly,” Wren replied. “I need my javelin.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know, but I’ll feel a little safer if I’m armed.”

  Robyn leant her bow up against the wall and ran back across to where she’d been practicing. She picked up her own javelin and Wren’s before heading back to the locker room and passing the weapon through the narrow gap. “What if I head round, bang on the window, and get them to follow me? Then you can get out.”

  “And how do you get away from them?”

  “Erm…”

  “Let me think a second. Okay, I’ve got an idea.” She climbed back down from the window and headed to the locker with the porn mags and the vodka bottle. She tore the two centre pages out of one of the magazines then twisted them into kindling before stuffing them in the top of the bottle. She went to the locker with the cigars and took a book of matches out of the box. “Thank god for dirty little secrets,” she said as she climbed back up to the window.

  She lowered the vodka bottle down to her sister carefully, then dropped the book of matches.

  “What do you want me to do with this?” Robyn asked.

  “Set fire to the van, then get out of sight. It might distract them and get them out of here?”

  “Do all of your plans involve burning stuff?”

  “In fairness, only one of them has, so far.”

  “Yeah, an entire village. You realise, if I set fire to that van, smoke’s going to rise into the air. More things might come,” Robyn said.

  “Right this minute, we’re out of options.”

  Robyn
set off towards the car park, and Wren climbed back down.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Robyn could hear the banging from inside as she approached the front of the building. She lit the paper wick of the vodka bomb, waited until it caught, then hurled it at the car windscreen. It arced through the air and her heart stopped for a moment as it looked like the flame would go out, but then it erupted into a blue and orange wave as the bottle smashed on the windscreen. There was a whoosh, and Robyn did not wait around to see if the creatures had heard it. She ran back around to the changing room. She arrived at the open window, and immediately something was different. She could no longer hear the banging.

  “Wren,” she called as loud as she dared, but there was no response. “Wren,” she said again. This time she heard footsteps and a clunking sound before Wren’s face appeared back at the window.

  “I think it’s worked. I’m going to get out while I can.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Wait for my signal.”

  “What? Signal for what?”

  “We’re going to have to take these things out, Bobbi. That’s our only option.”

  Robyn’s shoulders sagged. “This is the last time you get to choose our Sunday activity.”

  “Just stay out of sight until it’s time to move.”

  Robyn disappeared and Wren climbed down. She went across to the door and slid off the locker she had used in the barricade, this time trying to make as little noise as possible, as she dragged the benches out of the way. If she made it out of this, she would come back for her pistol crossbows, but one thing at a time. There was another loud, hollow whoosh from outside as the flames took a greater hold of the van. Wren pulled open the door and straight away saw the thick, dark grey smoke being carried away by the breeze. She edged out and saw the two creatures had gone outside and were stood near the van, entranced by the movement of the smoke and flicker of the flames.

  Right then and there, Wren vowed to herself that she would learn how to use the pistol crossbows. What wouldn’t be better than being able to shoot these things at a distance? She knew even with the javelin, which she now held out in front of her, she would have to get much closer than she would like. She reached the entrance and stood there for a moment. It had been a few days since she had been face to face with one of these creatures. She and Robyn had been through a lot in a short time; they had fought their way through Hell, and they had both hoped that the horror was over—for a while, at least. But here they were again.