In The End | Book 3 | After The End

by Stevens, GJ

  Out of view no sooner than it appeared, we could only hope those on board hadn’t seen us as they glanced between the buildings.

  Picking up the pace when the sky became clear, we dived left to a narrow road between two tall concrete buildings. Relieved as everyone followed, I beckoned them further between the high concrete either side as I leaned to a handleless steel door whilst looking to where the space opened out and the sun shone on a private space empty of cars.

  Dismissing the option of somehow getting through the bulky fire exit and into the building, I listened to the receding sound of the rotors, trying to decide if they were turning around.

  “Is it coming back?” I said, staring wide at Cassie who wouldn’t turn my way. She’d already recovered from the rush and instead of replying, she edged out from the safety of the building’s shadow to look to the sky with the dog panting at her side.

  Alex doubled over to catch her breath and Mandy looked at me red faced and with her hand to her chest. Jess appeared as if she’d just stepped from a cab.

  Cassie walked past, looking to the air in the direction we’d arrived and when I thought she’d stepped too far from the cover, I rested my hand on her shoulder and went to draw her in, but she shrugged my hand away as if my touch was acid. Without catching my eye, she moved back to the opposite opening.

  A cloud of guilt came over me as I reminded myself she’d almost died and was separated from her only living relative who she’d just found out wasn’t as safe as she’d thought. Maybe that was it; maybe she regretted letting me decide. Perhaps she thought she was in no fit state to have agreed with my decision and she blamed me for all that could happen to her sister now.

  The pound of the rotors were back as if amplified and I had no choice but to accept they were looking for us. Perhaps Jess’s failed transmission had singled us out without getting the story to the masses. By their expressions glaring in my direction, it seemed as if Jess and Alex agreed with me.

  Still listening to the rise and fall of the beating blades in the air, Jess and Alex came over. Cassie stayed staring out to the car park with Shadow by her side. Mandy sat on the cold tarmac with her hands over her ears, leaning to the concrete wall.

  As Jess stepped close, my first thought was to step back, but I somehow rallied against my instinct and held my ground.

  “We should leave,” she said, and looking to Alex I knew she was right, but before we could take the first move, I turned to footsteps and Cassie, with Shadow, running from under the cover in the direction opposite to where we’d entered.

  What else could we do but follow?

  We were out into the car park with the sound of the helicopters seemingly further away, or perhaps it was the echo caused by the concrete walls which had made them seem closer. Taking a tentative look up to the sky, I followed Cassie’s lead again.

  As I ran, my gaze turned to a dot in the sky. It could have been a helicopter, but the sound of another, higher pitched this time, rose to obscure each of my senses. I froze to the spot as the others kept up their pace, rushing past.

  Relieved with the helicopter disappearing from view, I sprinted, catching up to Alex dragging Mandy as Cassie jumped, side by side with Shadow, over a low metal fence at the end of the car park.

  Taking Mandy’s arm, Alex guided her over and I took the other hand, ignoring her complaint, pulling her toward the others already back to the main road. I expected at any moment the helicopters would appear to strafe us with its guns and end the cat and mouse. And our misery, perhaps.

  Seeing a short path to the right, I called out, pointing the way with my free hand.

  “This way.”

  Jess and Cassie turned in unison, their late decision allowing us to catch up as they doubled back. Together, now with me in the lead, we ran between tall blocks of flats as I looked to the doors, running on when none were open.

  An old Victorian-looking building, a Salvation Army hall, looked so inviting with its thick walls and solid front door, but as I bounded up, using all my weight and turning the handle, the door held firm.

  I carried on past as each of us slowed, looking left and right to the locked-up buildings. Panic rose until I caught a stench mixing with the drone of the helicopters and I forced down any thoughts of giving up.

  Still running, I turned away from the noise, heading past a sign pointing out a dead end. It was then I saw what I’d sought; a door wide open at the base of another set of tall flats and I changed direction towards it.

  “No,” came a call, and another unfamiliar voice added to the volume.

  “This way,” Alex said, but I carried on, ignoring the disgusting but familiar smell. I was more interested in getting away from the guns I expected to spray bullets in our direction.

  Running, my gaze held firm to the horizon and across the river, watching black ropes dangling below the body of the Chinook hovering in the air with soldier after soldier rappelling to the ground as if they had no grip.

  Shadow barked and at the same time I spotted movement through the building’s open door ahead; a new instinct took over and pulled me to slow. Then came the scream. Not a terrifying call of the monsters, but an animalistic determination of someone still living; someone who wanted to stay that way.

  A woman in a flowing orange patterned dress ran from a dark corner beyond the door, wielding a blood-stained kitchen knife the length of her arm. I paused at the sight of a child’s doll in her other hand, stopping in my tracks with my gaze fixed on her alarm, as if I’d caught her by surprise.

  New movement, this time at her back, made me look beyond and, only a few arm lengths away, the ragged, black and blue face of a figure locking its milky white eyes my way. And another at its back. Then so many more I had no time to count.

  46

  JESSICA

  I saw it in her expression. I could taste in the air as we ran, clear as day that something new hung behind Cassie’s eyes.

  I wondered if I smelt the same way to the others. She didn’t smell human, but not disgusting like the creatures I felt all around us.

  The guy with the backpack, the apocalypse junky, he’d said they were all gone from here. He said they were massing towards the border. It would make sense; like any creature, they would head to an abundant food source. But from the smell in the background, I knew it was only partly true.

  With Shadow’s bark, I looked up to Alex shouting to Logan with such an urgency as he ran toward an open door.

  He looked up just in time, pushing his arms out and stopping at the doorway.

  I felt as if removed from the action, a little dazed, perhaps on a high from the last night. Did I feel the same way yesterday morning?

  Reality rushed back, forced by the chaos of calls and Shadow’s bark, and I watched as a woman ran towards Logan from the doorway with a knife raised high, but the real danger lay behind her.

  The woman stopped running, seeming to realise where the true enemy lay, and turned toward the creatures. But Logan grabbed her around the shoulders, pulling her away, nearly getting stabbed in the arm for his efforts.

  Alex joined, grabbing at the woman, and suddenly fearful at what might happen, I added my weight to the pull, stepping between those living and those not; the new order of things to come.

  I called for them to run as I turned, pushing at the creature to send it stumbling back, then another as it rounded the corner. Then another as I stepped into the house.

  “Go,” I shouted again, but they’d already taken heed, the knife clattering to the path as they did.

  I ran after, watching the woman so much slower than the others, my companions, and it wasn’t just because she kept looking over her shoulder to see when she would get caught.

  “Just run,” I called again.

  Logan, Alex and Shadow were making good their escape, heading to the squat building where Mandy and Cassie were already, but this unknown woman was running too slow. She had an injury easy to see, blood coming through a bandage a
t the hem of her billowing dress.

  Bitten. Perhaps. I couldn’t take the chance of her being around Alex. Or the others.

  I grabbed around her waist, diverting her left as the rest ran ahead. She took my direction, slow with her injury, but turned, then peering back with a question, asking why the creatures were running at my side and not attacking me.

  Pushing on harder as they launched to feed on her, I knocked each of them to the side, paying no attention as they stumbled. Pulling her up by the shoulder from where she tripped, I dragged her to her feet, heading the way we’d come whilst watching the other three pursued towards the building by the river, hoping at least one door would let them past as creatures seemed to come out of everywhere as if drawn by the helicopters noise.

  47

  LOGAN

  “Quick,” I called, catching up with Mandy as she leaned to the dark varnish of the first of many doors, her hands tangled in the handle. About to kick out to the lower of the long panes of glass, I pushed her away, dragging her by the arm until she joined my rush to catch up with Cassie running to the next.

  When the second door didn’t move at Cassie’s shove, I ran with Shadow at my side, not needing to glance back to know what still raced from behind.

  Reaching the third of seven doors, my heart sank, finding it locked, the door not moving despite my grip twisting with as much force as I could muster. Regretting a look back, Cassie rushed to the next door to tell us if we’d have to take our chances in the rushing river. Despite the urgency of Cassie’s task, I couldn’t draw my attention from the surging crowd of undead closing on us from so many directions as I wondered where they’d all come from.

  Alex shoved me with her shoulder, dragging Mandy along, her hit distracting my search along the brickwork as Cassie disappeared into the building.

  With a rush of energy and hope, I pushed Mandy’s back, hurrying them along and watching Shadow head in through the opening and barking as if calling us to join. As I reached the threshold, I couldn’t help but check for Jess or that woman I hadn’t seen since the block of flats.

  Pushing the door closed and leaning my weight to hold it shut, I saw another door just along the darkness of the short corridor as Shadow’s excited bark electrified the small space.

  Turning back and scanning up and down the wood for a lock, something to keep us safe, I tried to ignore the bloodied mess of creatures through the glass, almost at the other side. Looking down to the small metal lever, the lock turned as I pinched it between my fingers, but it hadn’t slid across before bodies the other side pushed the door open enough so it wouldn’t catch.

  Blocking the light, blood smeared across the glass as hit after hit added weight to force the door open. Alex landed at my side, straining her shoulder at the wood enough to stop it flying wider.

  Regaining my footing, somehow we stopped their advance as thud after thud from the other side added to the assault. Only as Cassie lurched in at Alex’s side did the door move the way to keep us safe. It was like she alone forced them back, but the metal of the lock’s bolt hit against the jamb, holding the door open.

  I scrabbled for the small lever, twisting it left, then right when the wood hit the jamb.

  Wary of the lock’s ability to hold the door in place against the massing creatures, we each released our pressure, testing one by one as we stepped away, but ready to pounce back at the first sign of movement. When it held, we stepped to the darkness, looking up to the light coming from the top of the door’s upper window.

  Alex turned my way and we shared a glance at Cassie, perhaps with the same question in mind, but I gave voice to another.

  “Did you see the soldiers?”

  No one replied; instead, we all looked to the other door with Shadow’s call reverberating in the small space.

  Taking tentative steps, I looked through the side glass. Peering to the darkness, I could just about make out a pair of fire extinguishers beyond. Pushing against the wood, I braced, ready to pull back, but I couldn’t see any sign of danger in the small anti-room. Just four more doors.

  Sniffing the air, I couldn’t tell if the stench was stronger than at the door, but what choice did I have but to hope for safety deeper in the building? Stepping forward, movement at my leg jolted me from my concentration, but breathing a sigh of relief, I saw Shadow rushing past with heavy breath only to lose him to the darkness.

  Turning back, I ignored the slathering, squashed features at the glass and ushered the others in as I wedged the inner door wide with a fire extinguisher to keep what little light remained.

  “Did you see the soldiers?” I whispered the question again, but when no one replied I carried on my exploration.

  There were six doors, not four, as I stepped in. Three toilets, based on the round signs on each, and another marked staff only. The two remaining doors, one to the left and one to the right, were solid with no glass to show what waited on the other side.

  “Yes,” Alex whispered at my back. “That fucking helicopter must have drawn the creatures from everywhere. Do you think the soldiers saw us?”

  I shrugged an answer, listening to what I hoped wasn’t something moving behind the door to the left whilst wishing I had a weapon.

  Alex must have heard it too and didn’t press the question. With Cassie joining at my side, the three of us moved to the left-hand door.

  Light spilled out as Cassie pushed the door wide. We followed Shadow squeezing past our line to the chaos of a narrow restaurant with its tables and chairs scattered to their sides as if caught in a whirlwind. A short bar stood to the right as we entered.

  Feeling a chill in the air, I looked up to the ceiling; scanning the skylights, I soon found one in the centre of the room with its glass missing.

  “No,” I snapped as I looked down, calling Shadow back from one of three bodies lying amongst the broken furniture and scattered glass. He pulled back at my voice, changing course as I took in the rest of the view, hoping any movement, any threat would be easy to catch in the disorder.

  Nothing showed itself and I scanned the room again, taking more time for the detail.

  Glass walls overlooked the rushing river to the right and the empty car park to the left, but as I looked across the scene, the left-hand view filled with the creatures moving along, but rather than break the glass with their slaps, they merely smeared sticky decay across its surface.

  I couldn’t help but imagine the place in better times and how the view would have looked when the water was calm, the city wasn’t in ruins and the bridge wasn’t crumbling into the river.

  Glass crunched under my feet as I turned. Peering over my shoulder to Alex, I saw they weren’t bodies on the floor but husks, the remains of a meal with skin, jewellery and glasses discarded to the side. We’d seen this before and I couldn’t help but think how much time it would have taken to separate out the meal. Whatever had done this must have felt safe. Whatever had done this must have been shut in with their feast.

  And could still be somewhere in the building.

  Taking a step closer, my foot knocked against a lump of wood, one side varnished, the other side raw and jagged. As it landed close to the remains, a swarm of flies took to the air and I pushed my mouth to the crook of my elbow at the wave of decay rising after.

  Stepping back, I tried to hold my gag with Alex mirroring my motion as I stumbled to the door. My gaze caught on Cassie, who seemed content to ignore the mess as she walked to the bar and rifled through its contents out of sight.

  Retracing her route out from behind the wooden bar, she held a long knife tight in her grip. Alex and I moved out of her way as she strode past us, heading back to the anti-room.

  We followed with slow steps into the darkness, watching as Cassie’s pace picked up, not able to grasp why she charged through to the opposite door, sending a flash of light as she jumped forward.

  The realisation hit and I rushed to catch up. She’d had the same thought, and I watched helpless to the
sight of a figure crouching in a dining room so similar to the one we’d left.

  Glass crunched under Cassie’s feet and the figure lifted its head, its eyes not glazed white and mouth turning to a sneer as it stood, issuing a piercing scream.

  48

  I wanted to turn, to run and hide and slam a heavy locked door in its path and push my hands against my ears to stop the penetrating scream. I knew I couldn’t just stare, transfixed on Cassie’s back as she rushed without flinching away from the figure standing at the other end of the room. With the knife high in her fist, she charged, her battle cry barely heard from under the figure’s unnatural shriek.

  Glancing left and right, Mandy stayed fixed to the spot in the anti-room and was half in a turn to the main door, frozen between leaving our side and rushing away alone. Alex stood poised at my side, her head turning left and right in what I could only imagine was a desperate search for a weapon.

  Shadow’s leap forward with bared teeth spurred me on, and I grabbed a discarded chair, with Alex mirroring my movement. Rushing at Cassie’s back with the legs of the chairs facing out, I watched Cassie closing up, adding my feral call to the cacophony.

  Thrusting the knife down as she arrived, the high-pitched squeal of the creature halted as its arm rose and fell, sweeping Cassie off her feet to clatter sideways into tables and chairs, sending crockery and glass into the air.

  The room darkened and at the edge of my vision I caught dark shapes filling the window with the weight of their gaze and their hunger upon us.

  With Cassie crumpled to the side, I got my first look at the naked woman, its skin covered in a multi-hued red blanket from head to foot. The depth of the blood covering its body created false shadows to hide the detail of the breasts, but accentuated the slight curve of its belly ridden with deep claw marks. For a fleeting moment I imagined it before. Her beauty when she was alive. Her dreams and aspirations for the future. But they were all gone now, reduced to an animal we had no choice but to put out of its misery before it did the same to us.