In The End | Book 3 | After The End

by Stevens, GJ

  “What?” I said, but they both just nodded in reply.

  “Let’s go,” Alex said, and I turned to Mandy who’d caught up.

  Out of courtesy, I asked. “What do you think?” I got nothing back other than her scorn radiating when she refused to look me in the eye. Still, she followed as we left the road.

  Walking with a slow, considered pace, we kept the hedgerow between us and the building as it receded to reveal the tall glass walls of the dealership. A sign stood at the front rising to just below the roof with a round logo sat on top of bright red writing.

  My eyes widened when beside the dealership’s car-crammed lot was a petrol station. With our pace increasing, I kept focused on the detail, careful to guide Cassie over the central barrier between the lanes.

  Despite the distance remaining, I squinted through the large glass front, but couldn’t see any sign we should avoid the place.

  The foliage ended as the hedgerow was replaced with a low brick wall.

  “Everyone wait here,” I said, still peering to the glass as I settled Cassie to rest on the grass verge. “I’ll get a car,” I added, as I knelt to Cassie who looked up. I felt a sudden flash of guilt that I hadn’t yet told her what I knew of the danger the kids could be in.

  Reasoning that now wasn’t the time or the place, I put my hand to her forehead. The second lot of painkillers were doing their job to keep her temperature down, but she was still so weak.

  “I should go.” Jess’s voice took me by surprise and Alex too by her wide eyes as I peered up towards her. “You stay and look after Cassie,” she said, but I lingered on Alex’s face, wondering what the concern in her furrowed brow could mean.

  “Alex. Can you?” I asked.

  “I don’t need watching over,” Cassie added in a weak voice, not looking up from the grass.

  Alex nodded and looked to Cassie.

  “It’s fine,” Jess eventually said. “We can both go.”

  I turned, scanning over the cars and pickups neatly lined up, but not pristine, each covered with a thin layer of dust, or perhaps ash. I glanced back to see Shadow had stayed behind to prowl up and down the wall.

  Jess sped, hopping over the wall with ease.

  “Slow down. We don’t want to scare them,” I said when her walk became a jog. She slowed without glancing back.

  The front half of the showroom consisted mostly of glass, the back half formed of tall white walls surrounded by a slatted metal fence to create a compound. As we got closer, there were no lights on, but the wide inside space gleamed with sun shining through skylights to glance off the car’s paintwork.

  Jess tried the glass front doors, but when they didn’t move, she headed around the side and out of sight as I leaned up against them, shielding each side of my face to get a better look. Old food containers, tins and packets littered around the desks at the back, but I couldn’t make out any movement and no sign of any disturbance.

  To the sound of a door slapping closed where Jess had walked, I headed around the corner to an open door in the white metal siding with Jess out of sight.

  Glancing around, nothing but the road ran this side of the building; beyond, fields headed off to the horizon lined with distant columns of smoke.

  Mindful someone could lie in wait, I pushed past the fear and headed through the door, half expecting someone in a suit to call out, ‘Welcome to Parklands Toyota. Can I get you a coffee?’

  No one stood on the other side. There was no sign of Jess and nothing but stale air greeted me.

  Jogging forward, looking left and right, I called out, “Jess,” I said in a stage whisper, but only my echo replied until a muffled scream called out to my right and I ran.

  Without thought, I grabbed the metal handle of the first door, pushing it wide, ready to pounce on whoever had taken Jess.

  41

  JESSICA

  The door burst open at my back and I sensed Logan rushing through before he spoke. I stopped whatever I was about to do, biting at my bottom lip as I pulled back away from the three cowering in the corner.

  “Shit,” Logan exclaimed, his words muffled despite the volume I’d expected. “What’s going on?”

  He peered around, searching for threats in the office, not hiding his lowered brow when all he could see were the man, woman and kid.

  “You’re bleeding,” he said as I flashed a look his way. I could already taste the copper, wiping my lip across the back of my hand.

  “Are these it?” I asked, the first words coming to mind.

  “Are what?” Logan hurried out.

  “All the people here?” I added, shaking my head. He spoke, but I didn’t understand what he was saying. Something about the door.

  He didn’t wait for an answer, instead turning to face the family. “Are you okay?” he said, holding his palms up. “We just need a car.”

  “Or a place to stay the night?” I said, wiping at my mouth a second time.

  Logan turned back my way, his gaze lingering as his brow furrowed.

  “Let’s keep on the road,” he said slowly, his voice clearer as the pounding in my ears seemed to slow.

  He was right. We had to keep towards Exeter and no one should leave me alone with these people. Or anyone. There was enough of me left to understand.

  When I’d seen the person on the roof, the surge of hunger had taken me by surprise. A blood lust. The only way I could describe it, growing with every step towards the building, blinkering me from anything else but finding them. My senses enhanced. I could smell where they hid, and I knew what I would have done if Logan hadn’t burst in.

  I had no idea why, but with his arrival it had been like the hunger shattered, or someone had pulled the plug and it washed away. I soon felt as if I was nearly back to myself, or the parts of myself I could at least get back to.

  Could it be that I had some level of control over my new feelings?

  “There’s a safe where I think they keep the keys. But it’s locked.” The guy spoke with a quiver in his voice as he ran his hand over his tight wavy hair.

  His words stirred me from my contemplation. I couldn’t look him in the eye. He wouldn’t look in my direction.

  “In the office next door,” he added, when neither of us had moved.

  Rushing out faster than Logan could follow, I used the last of my draining energy to pull the thin metal cabinet open, the lock popping as if made of plastic.

  Handing bunches of keys to Logan, I led him outside and away from the damage and his questions.

  Back in the frigid air, I thought of staying behind, but as I saw Alex walking down from the road with her arm around Cassie and carrying the baskets, the thought vanished and I took a seat in the white pickup as the engine came to life.

  42

  LOGAN

  With a tank full of syphoned fuel and the light not yet fading, we made steady progress along the A30, despite having to make our way around roadblocks, or back-tracking to find another route. Cassie slept, alternating her lean between Alex and Mandy’s shoulders whilst they stared, searching out of the windows.

  Jess sat quietly in the passenger seat as if asleep, with her face to the steady stream of wind from the gap in the lowered window. Shadow sat next to Alex with his nose at the same crack.

  Jess moved for the first time, shuffling in her seat as we passed the sign for Bodmin, growing more animated as we diverted from the A30 to pass The Jamaica Inn, a famous smuggler’s museum my friends had pointed out as we made the drive down here. A growing guilt nagged at my thoughts when I couldn’t remember who had said the words. Was I already forgetting my friends?

  Jess dropped the window further, leaning closer to the gap as her hand went to her face, nodding when I asked if she was okay.

  Soon after, the roadblocks were shorter and easier to skirt around with walls and hedges already badly damaged.

  On the journey, my mind would drift back to the day the New Year’s celebrations had ended. The last day the whole
group were together and we’d tried to sleep on the supermarket floor before we had to run again; the group growing smaller so quickly. I thought of how Andrew, his name catching, had saved us later that day.

  As the fuel gauge dropped, I expected to see fewer signs of the chaos, but each mile continued to mirror the debris of before, the rising columns of smoke, the decay and destruction wrought across the land. But the one thing we didn’t see, at least up close, were people, those who were still human and those who were arguably not any more.

  I felt the tension in the car lower when we saw the first signs for the M5 motorway ahead and the road to the left leading to Exeter.

  “Exeter,” Jess said, pointing to the sign, speaking for the first time since we’d left the car lot.

  “Do you think it’s safe?” Alex asked from the back.

  I listened out for a reply because I was in no place to make any guesses.

  Jess didn’t reply either. Our silence must have been enough of an answer because no one repeated the question; it was only when we saw the first of a long line of cars blocking the road to the motorway that we knew we might have little choice in the direction we took.

  I made the turn to Exeter at speed, aiming alongside the cars facing our way filling the slip road, when without warning Jess turned to me.

  “Stop,” she said, and I slammed on the brakes, staring forward, scouring to see what I’d missed in our path.

  “What is it?” I asked when I couldn’t see any reason for the call, but she didn’t speak, letting the heavy thump of the twin rotor blades over the idling engine do the talking.

  Twisting the ignition off, I looked to the dashboard to make sure the headlights were off.

  “Oh my god,” Mandy called out, and wide-eyed I turned to the passenger door behind me before slamming my hand to the central locking. The locks clicked at each door just in time for her to pull at the lever.

  “Are you nuts?” I said, raising my voice. “They’re not here to save us.” By now I was shouting, fighting with the din of the rotors so close.

  Cassie woke, lurching forward with her eyes wide and bloodshot as if shocked with a defibrillator. She turned, stopping as she stared at Mandy pulling the handle back and forward.

  “Let me out,” Mandy said, her voice rising.

  “They’re not here to save us,” I called out. “You heard what I said back in the church. Did you see the roads? It was soldiers in helicopters like this one that tried to kill us. They don’t care if we’re not infected.”

  “And if they know it’s me, then we’re done for,” Jess said, her voice flat, but her words seemed to have the opposite of the intended effect. Mandy’s eyes grew wider as she pumped the handle back and forth.

  “I need to get out. Let me,” she shouted, so loud I worried they’d be able to hear her above the din of the helicopter whose pressure felt as if it would dent the metal and crack the glass at any minute.

  “I’ll smash the window,” said Mandy, her fist thumping to the glass.

  I looked across to Jess, then behind her to Alex with Cassie staring at Mandy, still in a daze.

  I turned away as the light from the sun blotted out, seeing the underbelly of the long Chinook with its back door sealed up. Along each side, an Apache gunship flew, all three helicopters so impossibly close to the ground.

  Mandy’s fists at the window added to the shake, and I snapped around, pulling my handle to release the locks. Her door opened, and she gave no time to pause on its movement, rushing out through the gaps in the cars toward the helicopters as they headed to the horizon.

  Checking to make sure Shadow had stayed put and sliding down the window, I leaned out wide, closing the door she’d left open and joined the others as we watched her run. The helicopters were soon dots in the sky and Mandy had slowed as her breath seemed to let go and she bent over with her hands on her knees.

  Starting the engine, I expected at any moment for a horde to rush out at her sides; the group consuming her in more than one way. I expected to have to jam the gear into reverse and race away.

  I took comfort when they didn’t materialise and rolled along the road, squeezing down the line of traffic and the grass verge as she stood bent over, looking to where she’d last seen what she thought were her saviours.

  Pulling alongside her, I stopped and waited, but she wouldn’t get in. Only as I pulled away did she move, and I stopped to let her in.

  None of us spoke as we rolled away, scraping between the cars as the bustle of Exeter’s buildings came in to focus.

  “So where are we heading?” I said into the silence.

  43

  JESSICA

  “Edmund Street,” I said, watching Logan wince with the pickup’s bodywork scratching against the Armco barrier and to the thump of the wing mirror as regular as a pendulum. By now, the light had almost gone and it was plain to see from the skyline there was no power in the city.

  Logan leaned forward, squinting in the night as he guided us as best as he could with ours the only lights, aside for the orange glow pocketing the horizon. I had to look away and out to the view, staring to the smoke and dust hanging in the air to distract every other scent growing the want in my stomach.

  As buildings rose on the horizon, the volume of cars squeezed into our path thinned, but our speed slowed with the road cursed with rubble spat from buildings reduced from their former glory. Still, I took comfort in those that remained, those the bombs had missed as I pulled in air through the wide-open window, searching for faint pockets of flavour.

  Logan’s voice startled me from my concentration.

  “Are you sure we should stay here?” he asked, looking across the view. “There’s no power and what if they start bombing again?”

  “We shouldn’t travel at night. That way. The building looks intact,” I said, and pointed over to a bridge on the right over the fast-flowing River Exe.

  He didn’t move off straight away, instead his gaze lingered my way. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I said, hurrying out the words.

  I forced my lips closed, my senses near overwhelmed with flavour of survivors.

  Lit only by the eerie moonlight, an army truck stood on the wide bridge with the engine cover raised up. As we turned to give it more light, we saw the bridge split in sections with row after row of sandbags across each half of the road. Stacks to the right had collapsed, with darkness splashed over the coverings. But with no bodies lying to the road, Logan twisted us left and right through the checkpoints. It looked as if it had been the last stand when the jets roared close to bomb the city.

  I pointed towards the tall building ahead, one of only a few left intact over the river and standing beside a hotel of the same height. He didn’t need any further direction when the headlights illuminated the tall white letters high to its front.

  Itching to leave the confines, we were nearly across the bridge when on the last turn the pickup fell forward, lurching to a stop with the floor scraping the road as if the wheels had fallen off. Logan stared back wide-eyed as if he hadn’t seen the great crater I’d only just spotted but too late to shout out and stop the front wheels vanishing into it.

  I couldn’t wait any longer, pulling my door wide, each of the others doing the same and staring down at the great section of missing road.

  Shadow skirted around the hole and I waited unseen as the rest guided each other around the debris, staying put as they ushered Cassie and Mandy through the revolving glass doors of the hotel.

  Looking on, Alex turned, the last to go through, and seemingly with no surprise that I hadn’t followed, she gave a nod before pushing through as my thoughts turned to the prey I tasted on the air.

  44

  LOGAN

  With curled bread and dried vegetables sat on plates and crockery smashed to the kitchen floor, it was like seeing into the past; the moment frozen when the staff dropped everything to run for their lives.

  Following Shadow with his
nose high in the air, then to the floor and back up again, I stepped with caution through the rooms on the ground floor, reassuring myself with every lungful of stale air.

  Anxiety rose as Shadow raced away, only to calm as his feet padded against the tiles to return to my view. Back in the wide reception, Mandy stood to the tall glass, staring out across the darkened ruined city whilst Cassie lay on the sofa where we’d left her. I guessed Alex and Jess must have been on their own exploration.

  After pushing the reception chairs between the revolving glass doors, checking twice they would no longer move and the single glass door to its left remained locked, we made ourselves comfortable in the kitchen, digging out the last of the fresh ingredients at the back of the cupboards and the cuts of meat not too warm in the silent fridge.

  It hadn’t been long since they’d run from this place. Two days, I could only guess.

  We ate in the restaurant amongst tables littered with half-eaten meals, glasses smeared with lipstick and wine to hint at the timing. Even Cassie perked up enough to take a few mouthfuls between sips of water.

  With the meal complete, I stared out of the wide windows and into the darkness of the night, whose glow seemed alive.

  Alex appeared once we’d eaten, a frown hanging heavy on her face. Following her to the kitchen, I left Cassie and Mandy with their feet up in the lounge and Shadow sleeping off his meal. Finding Alex raiding the cupboards, she pulled what she could from the stores, but most were catering packs too large for the road.

  “Is she okay?” I asked. Alex knew who I meant, peering back, not able to hide her concern.

  “She’s gone next door. To the offices.”

  “Alone?” I replied. “We need to stick together.”

  “I didn’t get a say. We’ll make another broadcast at first light,” she said, turning back to her search.