In The End Box Set | Books 1-3

by Stevens, GJ

  My legs wheeled in circles as I struggled to my feet, Alex’s arms in the same frenzy, her words shouting disbelief.

  Scrabbling to her feet with her hand on my arm, at my side I saw her twitch her view between me and any sight of the creature who’d jumped right over us but was now out of view.

  Gaping to each other, then to the window empty of glass, we turned to the back garden. My feet weren’t willing to take the steps needed to peer over the edge.

  With my brain frozen, locked up, I had no idea what would come next, my head still reeling from the sight which disappeared as quick as it arrived.

  The shrill call had relented, but how long ago wasn’t clear. The echo continuing to ring true in my ears. Alex’s head seemed in the same state, her feet unmoving at my side.

  After what seemed like an age, but was more than likely just a fleeting second, I found clarity and fumbled at my feet for the ladder. Alex grabbed the other side when she saw me moving, but just as she took a firm grip a shadow cast on the brickwork and the flat roof bounced under the extra weight.

  We turned, swapping the ladder between our hands and saw the creature standing before us, its bloodshot eyes wide and chest heaving for air. This was a living creature, despite the outward appearance.

  With a smooth scalp and the remains of a once white shirt around his shoulders, a dark soaked tie loose around its neck, he looked as if he’d just stepped away from a grotesque table after digging into a banquet with his bare hands.

  Behind the bloody covering across his face, some of which still oozed from the lesions in his cheeks, I watched veins pulsing just under the skin as he glared and bared his teeth.

  At first I couldn’t believe the pause. Could this be because I had been infected by the virus and it couldn’t quite decide if I would make a decent meal?

  Looking to Alex I remembered when I saw her ashen face that this was her first view of these creatures.

  I’d seen many already. Enough for a lifetime. I’d shot one over and again and watched it stay upright, charging onward with a fury that would be at home in a horror film. Now this stood before me, its blood-drenched belly sagging heavy out in front. With each of its shallow breaths, long streams of vapour plumed into the cold air; for the first time I came to understand what I would become if Toni’s vaccine wasn’t up to the challenge.

  Competing against the realisation, I still had the wherewithal to marvel at its pause. Watching its slowness to react as if tired and lethargic from a full stomach.

  Instinct came back and I didn’t wait more than another a blink of its eye before surging forward. With Alex still holding the other end of the ladder, gripping tight, she took no time in reacting to my plan.

  The creature could have jumped. It could have charged forward, but instead just watched and issued a dulled call. The weak scream cost it more time and precious breath.

  Unable to hold us back, its feet fell from the edge of the roof and it dropped to the ground.

  We didn’t look over. Instincts told us it shouldn’t be this easy; instead, our insides screamed for us to run and act, knowing we’d soon be dead if we didn’t take full advantage of the gift.

  Alex let go of the ladder so I could take hold and I hopped with wide steps across the roof, planting the feet of the ladder as I pulled apart each half. Running, I clambered up the rungs, jumping in through the window as I reached the final step, somehow missing the glass still left around the framed edge.

  As I landed, I didn’t look down. I already knew the reason the floor was sticky and wet; instead, I fixed my concentration on the door I needed to put between us and the creature when it followed.

  Through the open door my gaze flitted back to the bedroom and latched on to the two bodies side by side laying on the bed, their faces thick with a mask of blood.

  Alex’s landing to the floor pulled my stare from their death and to her curled lip and wrinkled nose as she crouched in the mess, trying to wipe the sticky blood from her hands.

  “Come on,” I said, trying to keep my voice low. I knew I should just go. I should run. I knew it was her choice to hesitate. She wasn’t my responsibility. Mine was the bigger mission. Mine the higher cause.

  Still, I waited, willing her on and shouting for her to stand.

  Eventually she jumped up as if she’d only just heard my voice, her feet slipping as she struggled for traction in the slick.

  Bursting through the doorway, she pulled the door closed before settling back against it to join with my pressure.

  With our lungs pumping the surrounding air, I was desperate to slow the pull and the whistle of wind. I knew full well the creature would follow and we wouldn’t get another chance like this again.

  But we weren’t followed, the house silent. The building empty, if we believed our ears.

  The low rumble of breath over dormant vocal cords had become the norm. With its absence it felt like something was missing. Something wasn’t right. At least when you could hear their low hum you knew where they were and could prepare.

  In the silence I felt blind. My mind questioned if they were around but just being quiet. I’d grown to prefer open spaces.

  A drip of sweat drifted down my forehead as I looked along the hallway, trying to will my vision to peer down the stairs, the top of which was at the end of the passage.

  I looked through the window at the opposite end. I watched the village; the roofs of the houses at least.

  Staring out across the view, I knew it would have been the same days ago when all people had to worry about were trivial things.

  With an already clammy hand, I swatted the droplet away as I shook my head with breath still refusing to slow. I pulled at Alex’s arm, pointing to the stairs.

  She looked, her head darting in the direction, but she didn’t move from the door and turned back as my breath continued to race.

  The room spun and I could feel my hold at the door lessening each time I failed to fill my lungs.

  Raising my hand to my face, I saw Alex’s raised brow as she grabbed my wrist and pulled my hand away.

  I lifted my left to take its place and she grabbed that too. For a moment my breath held back from clawing at the air. My lungs stopped altogether as I reacted to my wrists being gripped against my will, again.

  I should have been angry. I should have felt the need to lash out and I felt bile rising as I headed that way.

  Somehow the warmth of her hold had the opposite effect, my breath back; even and controlled.

  She released. The sense of loss took me by surprise until a thump landed heavy on the other side of the door, sending a solid vibration through my back to evaporate my thoughts.

  74

  As the vibration dissipated to fear, adrenaline exploded upward to send a surge of energy, clearing the vision I hadn’t realised had blurred.

  Alex released my wrist as she snatched a look to the door and by the time she turned back, I’d leapt away in a desperate search for our escape.

  Ignoring the pound of my feet on the floor, I raced into the next room at our right.

  Thump came a heavy weight at the door I’d just left. Energy surged as the vibrations rattled the house.

  Shaking my head, I looked around the bedroom I found, but I couldn’t see anything to wedge at the door where Alex stood. I couldn’t find a way to bind it closed.

  Thump came the same call again and I shouted for Alex, no longer with any use for being quiet.

  She followed, eager to slam the bedroom door closed and add her weight to push the chest of drawers across the opening.

  Thump came the call for the fourth time and I thought I could see our door bow inwards, even though it still hadn’t breached the first.

  With the chest of drawers barring the way, I took in the room and the window with the single pane looking out over the extension roof from where we’d come, looking out on to the roof next door where we wanted to be and down at the sea of dead which hadn’t thinned since we’d been
inside.

  Thump. The sound seemed to change. I had to hope it wasn’t the door already weakening.

  I pulled out the drawers of the chest we’d shoved across the door, raking out clothes despite not knowing what I looked for.

  Moving my attention to the wardrobe and pushing aside its hanging contents, I jabbed at the buttons on the small electronic safe without thought to what help it would bear, all to the vibration of the continued assault.

  When it didn’t open with a random series of numbers poked at in desperation, I looked up and with a flash of clarity, my smile gleamed at the sight of a long leather gun case and a baseball bat resting on the top of the metal in the corner of the dark wardrobe.

  With both in hand, I passed the case to Alex. She soon had it unzipped with her head twisting to the door each time the thud came.

  When her expression didn’t light with glee, I snapped a question.

  “What?”

  “It’s an air rifle,” she said, shaking her head.

  Fighting back the disappointment, I drew a deep breath.

  “Better than nothing. Any bullets?”

  “Pellets,” she said, as upending the case over the bed I watched a bag of tiny metal balls fall to the covers.

  Running to the window with a plan quickly forming, I cursed the poor view through the glass showing only gardens edged on the vast space of the moor. The not-so-distant thump against the wood rattled the glass and I ran to the chest of drawers.

  Without dropping the bat, I struggled to pull the drawers from across the door. Alex’s help came a moment later and we stood, wide-eyed, staring at each other when the wood out in the hallway gave an ear-splitting crack.

  “No,” Alex said as my hand went for the handle. She didn’t hold me back and the handle twisted. I wasted no time pulling the door wide, leaving Alex fumbling with the plastic bag.

  Stepping into the corridor I saw the great crack running through the wooden door we’d first come through and I ran to the right when with the next thump I saw the shadow of movement in the widening gap that I knew couldn’t hold it back for much longer.

  With the bat leading the way high over my head, I stormed into the third and last room on this floor. Finding the front bedroom and after a quick scan left and right, I raked the curtains to the side and saw the road teeming with dead soldiers and residents, some of which I recognised from our last visit.

  I didn’t linger on their faces for fear of what my mind would project. Instead, I fixed on the cars parked outside each house, most of them only a few years old; most of them perfect for my plan.

  I turned to Alex when I heard the door slam into place.

  “You any good?” I said, nodding to the rifle gripped hard in her hand.

  She looked down at the gun as if she’d forgotten she held it, shrugging her shoulders as if it was a stupid question.

  “I can give it a go,” she said, flinching back, her head still concentrating on the battering at the door across the hall. Still concentrating on the sound which seemed less bass with each successive hit, with each the wood opening wider in the countdown for it to give.

  I turned away, quickly scanning the view again. Soon I pointed the bat’s length to the furthest away car; a Freelander in a dark red, but the details didn’t matter.

  She didn’t ask questions. She didn’t look confused, but I had to make sure she understood.

  “The windows, right?”

  I saw the realisation ping on her features and she nodded quickly, the silence from the hallway speeding her hurry to the window.

  Covering our faces as best we could with our arms, I jabbed the baseball bat at the glass. It gave so much easier than I thought it would and I soon had the edge cleared of shards as I circled the wood around the metal frame.

  As the musical shower stopped on the pavement below, the corridor came alive with another heavy thud, followed by what could only be the door slapping to the carpet as it finally gave way.

  “Do it,” I shouted, holding back the full force of my voice.

  I turned around the room, cursing for not blocking the doorway before and searched, frantically trying to find the large piece of furniture I needed to block the door.

  There was nothing, the room just filled with a lightweight divan bed. A cheap wooden frame surrounded in thick cardboard.

  “Do it,” I said as I turned my back to Alex and raised the bat high over my head, ready if the creature finally realised all it had to do was turn the handle.

  I heard the puff of air from the rifle and waited, forcing myself to take a breath whilst urging the car’s alarm to scream.

  75

  The wail of the alarm didn’t come. Only silence screamed from the gaping window, its lull peppered with the slow fall of feet and what I hoped wasn’t the enquiring intake of breath, searching out what I knew first-hand would be our provocative scent.

  “Again,” I shouted, regretting the volume. I couldn’t take my gaze from the door to check Alex was doing as I urged.

  I heard the rustle of the plastic bag, the patter of metal pellets forming a pile, but still I couldn’t look away; I could only listen to the silence as the feet stopped moving the other side of the door.

  Air rushed from the barrel a second time.

  Nothing other than Alex’s curse replied.

  I shot her a look, eager to take her place whilst listening for any sign of movement.

  Alex twisted, resetting her aim to a different target. An easier option, I hoped. As she snapped the air rifle in two, pushed the pellet in and cracked it closed, I held my breath and turned back to the door.

  “I can’t become them,” I said under my breath, regretting the words as the shot didn’t come.

  About to turn to question the pause, I watched the bar of the door handle move. Stepping closer, I leant out my trainer to push against the base of the door whilst trying to keep the bat high over my head.

  Air rushed from the barrel as the handle twisted and a scream replied, a shout of fury from behind the door whilst Alex congratulated herself.

  It was when the scream faded, the piercing volume receding, I heard the call of the alarm outside.

  She’d done it.

  “Another,” I shouted. There was no need to hide now. I heard foot falls heavy on the other side of the door; then glass shattering somewhere in the house turned my expression wide.

  “Another,” I said as she looked toward me with a question set on her features.

  “Another,” I repeated, until she backed away from the window, snapping the rifle in two to push another pellet home.

  The second call of an alarm added to the chorus and her smile. She didn’t need to be told again and reloaded.

  Three alarms sang out into the street, echoing off the buildings, the cycling klaxons pulling at my senses.

  Grabbing the door handle, I let my toes relax from the door and waited to feel a response from the other side. When none came, I took a step back, letting my grip loosen but ready with the bat over my head should I have been wrong to think the creature had left the building.

  When the door didn’t burst wide, I turned towards the window and Alex, my view flinching back to the door then out to see the lumbering crowd of creatures drawn like steel to the magnet of screaming cars.

  I’d been right and let a smile pull at my mouth as I lightly tapped Alex on her upper arm. She’d done it, but breath paused and the corners of my mouth dropped as I saw the beast, his engorged, blood-soaked belly swinging side to side as he climbed to the roof of the closest car with his head raised to the air, sniffing in search of the source of the electronic call.

  Creature after creature kept up their slow pace. I watched Alex set her aim again.

  “Don’t bother,” I said, placing my hand on the warmth of her upper arm. “Even if it works, there’s a hundred to take its place.”

  She took a moment to lower the gun, watching as I collected up the pile of pellets from the bed and follow
ed, wordless, as I dragged the door wide and peered through the gap with the bat raised.

  The coast was clear, the floor not. Red patches in the beige carpet recorded each of our journeys from the first doorway to this opening and the lone pair carrying on to the window which once kept out the cold at the end of the hallway.

  I placed my trainers around the marks and moved toward the second room at the back. I turned away before I crossed in, bile rising in my stomach at the thought of the mess ready to greet us. We had little choice but to climb out the ladder we’d left behind.

  The mess was no greater, no worse. The picked-clean bones no brighter, no duller. The red of the carpet no more vibrant. The metallic cloud no thicker, no thinner.

  With a glance to my left I saw the two bodies and an unformed question pulled me from my course to the window. Finding myself standing at the foot of the bed I looked at the couple whose ages were obscured by the thin mask of red. More questions raised themselves and pulled me around to the side of the bed, closer to where they lay as I tried to answer why they’d been killed but not eaten.

  The answers didn’t come. Only more questions and Alex’s voice calling me in the background, but I couldn’t turn away to check her words. I couldn’t take my eyes from their chests when I saw movement. Only when their crystal-clear eyes opened together, pulling apart from the clasp of the dried blood and rearing towards me did I realise they weren’t dead, but weren’t human anymore either.

  Instinct took control and brought the bat down heavy on their skulls, sending dried blood cracking into the air. Two solid thumps each and they were out of their misery.

  The questions fighting for attention kept me removed from the deed, the loudest of which was why the creature who’d sat on the bed and attacked us, hadn’t ripped these two apart? Had I witnessed something Toni had said was impossible? Had I witnessed one of her creations making more of itself? Had I just witnessed a double birth of these terrible creatures?