In The End | Book 3 | After The End

by Stevens, GJ

  Knowing it outmatched me, I scrabbled over the centre console, glimpsing back as it fell through the missing window.

  With no other choice but to get out, I cursed our speed building along the straight road.

  Pushing the passenger door open, I paused, glaring at the tarmac rolling past, getting faster every moment I looked, but the fear dissolved when I felt a slap at my foot and I jumped out, hoping I wouldn’t land in the path of the VW still rushing us forward.

  A shot rang out as I hit the road, glass shattering as I tumbled with no way to control my direction, only with hope I was rolling out of danger.

  When nothing hit me, and I came to rest on my back with my legs tucked up to my chest, I unfolded hearing the VW’s engine so loud and pushed myself flat to the road.

  The VW passed by, basking me in its heat and spray of exhaust.

  Blinking, I sat up, trying to make sense of what had just happened, then saw the back of the camper racing away along the road with the BMW still at its front.

  Climbing to my feet and with a sudden realisation, I looked back the way we’d come, but with relief I saw no creatures chased. The reassurance didn’t last when a blast of a horn drew me back to the VW heading off into the distance, swerving from side to side as if Alex were trying to dislodge the creature gripping the roof rails with the other bent over the side, its arms swinging down to hit at the windows.

  I ran, watching as the VW grew smaller with the BMW veering to the right and disappearing through the hedge, down into what I could only imagine as a river when a great crash of water spewed into the air.

  With the VW surging away, its movement became more erratic as it veered left then right and back again until someone, or something, launched out from the side of the campervan, landing in a heap to lay, unmoving on the road.

  I sped, despite the ache pounding down the side of my body.

  As the distance grew too great I slowed, gripped by despair at who the body could be as I watched the camper take a sharp turn to the right, flipping to its side, then rolling over and down the incline and out of sight with debris flying into the air.

  I pushed myself forward to run again.

  33

  The world had fallen silent, other than the sound of my breath.

  With pain screaming from my legs, I ran on, concentrating on the white vapour rising from where I’d seen the VW roll out of sight and the lifeless figure on the road.

  Closing the gap, the column of smoke turned black, billowing to great clouds as I searched for any sign of life in the distance. I forged forward, gritting my teeth against the pain whilst dreading an explosion from beyond the ragged remains of the hedge.

  Racing past the gap made by the BMW, I chanced a glance too late to see anything but the steep incline.

  Still with no sign of movement from the slumped body or survivors where the van had crashed, I ran faster still.

  With every second it soon became clear Beth lay on the road with bloody marks along her arm and her neck at a sharp angle; an angle incompatible with life, in the sense of what the word used to mean.

  Pushing down the guilt of not getting close and checking for a pulse, I kept up my pace as I took a route wide of her body.

  I didn’t have time to linger on the grief, arriving at the hedge line moments later and the great gash in the foliage where the VW had busted through sideways, rolling to splinter branches, crashing through what had grown unhindered for so many years. Leaves scattered the route gouged in the soft ground, leaving behind plastic and glass shrapnel littering its path.

  Before I followed the trail of smoke, I saw the unmistakable chrome bumper, twisted and mangled as it had been shed to the side to settle next to the remains of a pale arm.

  I felt immediate relief when I saw an armless creature, a once human being, lying mangled in the churned earth. From his crushed skull I could just about tell he’d been a man, with thick eyebrows below an opening in his head where grey tissue leached to the ground.

  Slowing to a jog, I peered down the bank. Picking my way through the metal debris, I saw the rifle with its barrel bent in the middle amongst flesh and foliage. My heart rate rose again at the sight of the remains of the camper at the end of the great track of mud down the bank.

  The body of the VW sat upside down in the bed of a low river, the exposed underside billowing with smoke from the engine as its bulk partially dammed the slow flow of the water which refused to let the tragedy impede its journey.

  With my fear not abating, I caught sight of Shadow paddling in the river as if in a daze, then shaking away the water before he scrabbled up the bank towards me.

  I rushed forward, seeing the glass missing from each window, the white of the primer showing through the metal body in great swathes.

  Movement caught my eye, pushing away the question of whether anyone could have survived. I gripped at the side door, unsurprised when it didn’t slide. Peering in, Cassie lay on the upturned roof in amongst the contents of spilt suitcases and bags from the previous passengers. Water pooled by her foot as it searched for a route around her unmoving body.

  Rushing to the driver’s side, I stared to Alex, crumpled face down, but she was at least raising slowly to her hands and knees. With the door wide and with no other choice, no emergency services on the way with cutting equipment and spinal boards, I ducked low, grabbing at Cassie’s foot, relieved at her pained calls as I dragged her outside to settle on the grass at what I hoped would be a safe distance from any explosion.

  Stopping to grab a small green first aid box half buried in the mess, I did the same with Alex, only needing to guide her in the right direction.

  Bounding back to the minibus for a third time, I peered in, pausing when I couldn’t see Jess, my gaze instead latching on another body shivering and struggling for breath. It took me a moment to realise it was Mandy as the rush of water had cleared away the worst of the scarlet from her face.

  With a gust of wind, the van filled with choking smoke.

  Gritting my teeth, I grabbed her by the legs, pulling her to safety. As I let her feet down to the grass, a blast of heat shot across my back, followed by the boom of pressure knocking me down as the fuel tank released its energy in a great fireball.

  Alex was the first to rise after the blast, calling out Jess’s name as I wracked my brain trying to figure out if I could have missed her as I searched inside.

  34

  JESSICA

  I never lost consciousness. I just couldn’t move. With my eyes wide and fixed on the sea of unending branches and leaves, I lay facing upward.

  Hearing the great rush of water, I settled back with the fading memory of my flesh tearing and bones breaking as I fell through the thorns.

  I never closed my eyes for more than a moment, despite the pain. Despite the fear for Alex. And the others, of course.

  I tried to turn, twisting to my side, but when my shoulder burst with feeling I couldn’t hold back the vicious call.

  As the pain died, I looked along the length of my arm and just before the wrist, a bone pressed, tight against the skin.

  I heard my name called close by. The gentleness of the voice took me by surprise despite the panic rising in her tone.

  Rolling to the opposite side, and fighting to regain breath stolen at the effort, light greeted me as hot knives seared in and out of my shoulder and I knew the scrape and jab of thorns had been nothing in comparison as I rolled from the bush’s clutches, tumbling down the bank.

  Footsteps raced in my direction as I slowed. Someone called my name with excitement, then again with more care, as if remembering the danger all around.

  Her visage came into view as I lay on my back, settling in an unknown place. I glanced to the busted bone and with surprise I saw the roll had straightened out the limb and I could barely make out the damage. The pain, as I tried to lift, made it clear it hadn’t been a vision.

  Alex grasped me by the shoulders, hurrying me to my feet as she chec
ked I was okay.

  “My arm,” I said through heavy breath, and she looked back with a thin smile as if trying to hide her own pain from the bruises to her face.

  Logan stepped to my side, reached out to help me steady as I gritted my teeth.

  “Beth?” I said, remembering how she’d been plucked out through the window with such ease as the campervan swung left and right in Alex’s attempts to shake the creatures off the roof.

  He shook his head and with a furrowed brow, he spoke. “We have to get away,” he said, already looking back along the trail of destruction from the road.

  The surroundings were a mess. Great gouges in the muddy bank. The VW billowing black smoke with flames engulfing what hadn’t already fallen off.

  After checking I could hold myself up, Logan rushed to where Cassie still lay on the grass and helped her to her feet as Alex snapped open a first aid kit, rifling through its contents to pull out a fabric sling.

  The pain eased with my arm held up, wrapped in bandages and splinted with a broken branch. Mandy climbed the steep incline, her movement slow and cautious, followed by Logan, Cassie and Shadow.

  Alex guided me by the arm, with each step jarring through my broken bone.

  Soon back to the road and with glances all around, we continued along the road we’d planned to take away from the roadblocks, but with footsteps instead, and in silence.

  Hope rose as after a while we came to a cottage nestled to the side of the road. In the driveway, a four by four BMW rested with its passenger window open, but moving closer we saw the clear cubes on the road and that no glass remained in the car or cottage’s ground-floor windows.

  “It’s no good,” Logan said.

  Leaving the car and the cottage behind, and with the pain in my arm easing with each step, the emptiness of my stomach soon became the pressing need.

  Within a scant distance, a dirt side road split off where we walked, marked out by a sign showing the way to ‘Home Farm’. With barely a glance in each other’s direction, we diverted on the new route.

  After a five-minute walk and with the pain in my arm barely there, I felt the need to release it from the bandages to test if it was just a trick or if it had really healed in the short time since the slightest of movement put me on the verge of passing out.

  But did I dare do anything to raise Logan’s suspicions?

  35

  LOGAN

  Five minutes after passing the sign, a ramshackle patchwork of corrugated roofs came into view with a treasure trove of useful supplies promised behind their battered doors. The ache in my joints seemed to ease and Cassie’s weight at my shoulder reduced when, between us and the first of the weathered agricultural sheds, I saw a stout cottage with its front door shut.

  Letting Cassie down to sit on a vast stone marking the fork to the cottage and the farm, then checking she hadn’t worsened, I turned to the others only a few steps behind as Shadow trotted off towards the farm buildings. Some colour had returned to Jess’s cheeks and gone was the effort I’d seen in her face as her injured arm caught with each step.

  Alex held close by her side and Mandy walked with Alex’s coat zipped up to her neck, her face highlighted with a darkness the water hadn’t washed away.

  “How’s the arm?” I said to Jess as they caught up. She barely acknowledged the question, instead taking more interest in the cottage and the buildings beyond. “Can you watch Cass while I check out over there?”

  “I’m okay,” Cassie said with her head bowed.

  Jess nodded anyway.

  “Alex. Can you take the house?” I said, and she glanced at her side, looking to Jess’s arm in the sling. When Jess waved away her concern, Alex turned back, already stepping towards the front door.

  “Look for shotguns. Car keys, or any other keys in case the sheds are locked. Food.” I paused, collecting my thoughts as I took the first steps in the opposite direction of the fork. “Mandy. Go with her. Find some clothes for everyone.”

  “Yes. All right. We’re not children,” she said, then she followed after Alex.

  “Grab painkillers or something to bring down Cassie’s fever. Get as much of everything as you can carry,” I added, before turning and striding after Shadow as I ignored Mandy’s sarcastic reply.

  “Yes, daddy.”

  Speeding to a jog, I turned back as I heard breaking glass, but when the distance between us was already so great, I thought again about calling out my advice, convinced they should already be well aware they might not be alone.

  With his nose buried deep in the gap between two double doors, Shadow waited at the first of the tall sheds on the right of the hard-packed dirt road. As he sniffed at the edge with his tail raised, I peered along the shed’s window-less corrugated skin.

  Stepping to his side, I went to usher him away when I caught the first hint, quickly turning to a stench coming from beyond the door.

  It wasn’t the same foul odour I’d grown to expect. It was more like the decay hanging in the air at the school’s bungalow. It told of true death; of rot and decomposition. Not the danger of the dead risen.

  I looked along and over the road to the next tall building, much the same height but with a wide double sliding door and wheel ruts leading away. A noise from where I’d come made me look backwards to Cassie still sitting on the large stone, staring at the ground. Jess looked to the cottage out of view.

  I knew I shouldn’t open the doors. The smell alone told me I should have left the building alone, instead stepping across the road to where the evidence showed my search would be more fruitful.

  Despite my common sense, I pulled the doors open, twisting away as the wall of thick stench and a warmth that took me by surprise lodged in my throat as I took a step forward into the cattle shed.

  Shadow stayed at the threshold as I looked high, not finding anyone hanging from the rafters. Holding back a deep breath of relief, I gazed through the bars to the rotting flesh of the herd of cattle laying the other side.

  Through emaciated flesh, thin skin contoured the great round of cow’s ribs as I looked to each. How long had it taken for these animals we’d bred to depend on us so wholly to lose their battle for life?

  It must have only been three or four days since we’d left the holiday home and we’d found the world changed, but these poor animals had been left alone for a lot longer, casting doubt on when the world had started to go wrong.

  Desperation hit when I caught a movement in the corner of my vision, the flicker of a great lid and its sullen eyes staring right at me.

  Racked with guilt, I turned away whilst trying not to think of how many of the beasts were on the edge of death, knowing there was little I could do to ease their situation without inflicting further cruelty. Instead, I hung all hope on Alex finding a shotgun and a bountiful supply of shells so we wouldn’t miss just a few.

  Feeling such a coward as I sealed the doors, I took no relief from the cold air so much fresher than it had seemed for such a while.

  I travelled without thought to slide the door of the opposite shed, taking less delight than I should have when I saw the pickup truck, a Ford of some sort.

  With a double-cab and a short bed at the back, it would be perfect as long as Alex could find the keys. I tried the handle, then turned away, not able to glance to the shed opposite.

  As I headed outside, the pickup’s lights flashed at my back and I saw Alex with a set of keys in her hand, her head swinging from side to side as she searched me out. Cupping my hands, I caught the keys mid-air.

  To the bass sound of the engine, I drove to the front of the cottage, watching as Jess loaded supplies into the back. My despair at the lack of a shotgun faded when I saw Jess’s sling hanging loose around her neck as she used the bandaged arm.

  ***

  Despite the cold, Shadow kept his nose to the crack in the window as Alex directed each of my turns of the wheel with her finger tracing the map taken from the cottage. They’d found no shotgun, but
plenty of supplies. As I drove, most of us ate from tins, Cassie only accepting the painkillers and a blanket as she sat between Jess and Mandy. Jess turned down any offers.

  To my surprise, a stern look in Mandy’s direction was enough to stop her kicking off when she saw she had to sit next to Cassie. Even after washing her face at the house, blood lingered in her creases, but with fresh clothes, Mandy looked less like one of those creatures.

  I didn’t tell them what I’d found. I didn’t tell them what I’d left behind in the barn. Too eager to get moving, I didn’t raise a question when Jess nodded, catching me staring at her use of both hands to load the back of the pickup as if the pain we’d all witnessed had been a false memory.

  It was Mandy who raised the subject after a few short miles.

  “So your arm is okay now?” she asked, keeping her voice even.

  I looked to Jess in the rear-view mirror as she glanced Mandy's way, giving a shallow tip of her head.

  “It sounded like it was broken back there,” she said.

  Jess didn’t reply for a moment, still looking in her direction as Mandy stared out of the window, stroking down Shadow’s back.

  “I guess I’m lucky. It’s just bruised,” Jess said. I saw Alex looking to Jess when she spoke.

  Dismissing the conversation, I was too eager to enjoy the sensation of putting distance between us and the challenges we’d left behind, soaking up every minute on the journey towards the A30 and the wide sweeping road we’d travelled down a few days before New Year’s Eve.

  We were heading out of the South West and it would take a great deal to crush my optimism.

  Despite my elation, I remembered the signs for the Foot and Mouth outbreak, having forgotten them until our journey. I remembered the fun we’d had in the car. The games in the convoy of three, calling out at every yellow car across the phone lines, and the childish names we gave to the towed caravans.