by T. J. Blake
I regret putting Danni through this but I couldn’t cope with it all.
I’m floating further and further away. My vision blurs, my surroundings are white and glowing. I’m not in the world anymore. I’m free.
19
Miller sat in his sitting room in his four bedroom house. He held The Guardian newspaper reading the article on Thomas Williams committing suicide.
The story was out that Tom was the main subject of the Endurance experiment and Miller was fully exposed by Danni. She gave them the book from Tom, who wrote down everything that happened to him in detail and titled the book ‘Endurance’. The book was published and the papers released stories about it.
Miller was interrupted by a knock at the door. He threw the papers to his left onto the floor and walked towards the door. He walked across his sitting room, through the dining room and into the hallway to the door. As he does, he saw Danni standing there.
‘What are you doing here?’ Miller asked.
‘Get in now.’ Danni screamed at him and pulled out a handgun with a silencer attached to it.
She pushed him into the house and shut the door behind her. She stood in front of the door and pointed the gun at him. He put his hands up.
‘What the fuck are you doing?’
‘Shut up. Tom’s dead.’
‘Yes. He killed himself.’
‘You don’t even care? It was your fault.’ Danni snarled.
She shot his ankle; he screamed in pain, collapsing to the ground and holding his leg.
‘You silly bitch, if you kill me, everyone will die. Tom even made the plea to everyone in his book. You need me.’
‘We don’t need you. They have everything they need to stop it from becoming a global problem. Don’t be so full of yourself. You are a lonely man, no one will even care if you die and you’re a waste of space. You killed Tom you arsehole.’
‘I didn’t kill him; his parents did that. Get out of my house.’
Danni looked at Miller’s smug face. She lifted her gun, aiming at Miller; she shot him twice in the chest. His white shirt soaked up the blood; it spread across his shirt and stuck to his black tie. He fell to the ground and lay on his back. He looked at his chest and covered the bullet wounds. Danni walked up to him and pointed her gun to one of the bullet holes, he squealed.
‘We don’t need you.’ Danni whispered.
She pulled out a syringe from her pocket and injected it into his neck.
‘What’s that?’ Miller asked warily.
‘Just some of the virus to keep you alive a bit longer, you won’t change or anything but you’ll be alive for a few hours.’
Danni stood and walked to the door; she looked back at Miller, who began to crawl to the phone on the table side. Danni shot the phone and it smashed across the floor. She then shot Miller’s other ankle.
‘Goodbye, Doctor.’
‘No, no, no… you don’t understand what will happen to me.’
Danni put her gun into her trousers and opened the door. As she does, Miller began to scream at her.
‘You stupid bitch, I will kill you and everyone else. This is your fault.’
Danni looked back at him and shut the door. She calmly walked down his steps and began the walk home.
20
Danni stood at the empty Leicester Square Underground stop. She listened to the screeching trains and felt the cooling breeze that made the rubbish crawl and the paper of the newspapers on the dirty tiled flooring throb. As she stared down the gaping black hole of the tunnel, she heard a high pitched sound come closer to her left ear. As she looks to her left, she saw a small fly flying next to her ear. It was miniscule. She stared at it and blew it away.
She looked to her right and a tramp stood directly in front of her. Danni jumped at the shock and shivered. She shuffled away from him. He held out his hand.
‘I don’t have any money, go away.’
Danni pushed past him; as she does, the train pulled into the stop. The empty train screeched as it came to a stop. The doors clanked open and Danni stepped into a carriage with a flickering light. She sat down and waited for the train to pull away.
A high pitched sound was created and the train began to move. The tramp stared through the window, revealing his severely bloodshot eyes.
Danni brought out her turquoise iPod and headphones. She folded her right leg over her left and moved her right leg to the beat of the song.
As she looked around at the carriage’s line map and posters, two of the posters stood out to her.
The first poster was a picture of Miller titled “Missing, Michael Miller.” with a picture of him underneath the title.
The next poster grabbed Danni’s attention more. Danni stood from her seat and held onto the yellow bars throughout the carriage to pull herself towards the poster on the rickety train.
Standing in front of the poster and leaning on the yellow metal bar above the double doors, she looked at the poster “A message from Sarah Williams. Hello everybody, due to unforeseen circumstances, I will be taking over as the leader for the virus case. My aim is to keep everyone in London safe and to stop the virus from spreading or getting into the wrong hands.”
Danni laughed as she looked at the poster, but was distracted as she saw somebody in the next carriage. Danni stepped into the middle of her carriage and looked straight through the glass of the door into the next carriage, and saw a female walk toward the door. She took out her headphones and continued to stare.
Danni paused as she heard a growl behind her and a shuffling of feet. She turned around to see Miller staring at Danni, with Smith behind him.
‘Shit!’ Danni shouted.
Smith growled louder and Miller stared at Danni. His eyes were a dark red, his skin was blotchy and blood covered his entire body. He wore the same shirt he had on when Danni shot him. His feet were crooked and his ankles looked shattered.
Miller growled.
‘Hello.’ Miller snarled.
‘You can talk?’
‘Yes.’ Miller laughed; his laugh was deep and occasionally cut out. He coughed and spat out black liquid; and blood dribbled from his mouth.
Suddenly the train began to brake, throwing Danni down the length of the carriage. She slid past Smith and Miller who stood on the seats holding the metal bars. Danni smashed headfirst into the end of the carriage which left her feeling faint.
Danni looked to the opposite end of the carriage and saw that the person who was in the other carriage had entered the same carriage as her. The lights flickered and the part of the carriage that the female stood in turned dark.
Miller and Smith jumped off the seats and Smith bolted to Danni. She stayed down, on her back and kicked Smith’s ankle, which broke. She kicked both his legs as hard as she could. He collapsed. Danni rose and kicked him in the stomach. She then put her right arm across his chest, grabbed his chin and cheek with her left hand and turned both her arms opposite ways until his neck snapped. His body went limp and she dropped him to the ground.
Miller unfolded his arms and began to clap slowly. Danni walked up to him with her guard up.
‘He’ll be alive soon.’ Miller said.
‘How can you talk?’
Miller began to laugh. ‘I’ve been infected all this time.’ Miller tried to continue speaking but struggled as he continued to cough up blood. ‘My eyes have always been dark; I’m surprised you didn’t notice my pupils. The cure didn’t work for me; it just held the virus off.’ Miller began to laugh and choke. ‘I have to inject the cure every two hours otherwise I’d change. You injected me in my house with the virus to make it even stronger and now.’ Miller coughed, smiled, as he does, blood poured out of his mouth, revealing his blood-stained teeth. ‘Now I’m unstoppable. You left me, I couldn’t get to the cure to try and stop it.’
Miller grabbed Danni’s arm and he threw her along the carriage. She slid down the plastic flooring and stopped at a woman’s feet.
As she loo
ked up, past the woman’s black heels and skirt and past her white blouse, she saw Sarah’s face looking down at her.
Miller began to laugh; Smith was standing again.
‘They’ve always said that the government is corrupt.’ Miller laughed as he finished his sentence.
Sarah walked past Danni and stood next to Miller.
‘Smith, kill this interfering bitch.’ Sarah said.
Smith growled. His eyes bled and he chewed his sore lips.
‘Sarah, why are you doing this? You’ve stopped the experiment and you killed the infected.’
‘Who said I stopped the experiment?’ Sarah laughed and Miller smirked. ‘The experiment is still going and the infected people are still alive, waiting to be released into London to infect everyone.’
Miller opened the double doors, allowing Sarah to step out of the carriage. Danni made a run for the door but Miller punched her in the stomach and pushed her back into the carriage. She fell onto her back and held her stomach. Miller stepped onto the tracks and forced the double doors shut.
Sarah and Miller began to run through the tunnel.
Danni stood and faced Smith. He snarled and roared. With his eyes red and his face full of anger and torment, he charged at Danni.
The End
ENDURANCE: APOCALYPSE
COMING SOON
Acknowledgments
I would firstly like to thank you, the reader, for buying a copy of this book. I hope you enjoyed it.
I would also like to thank the support I have had from my family and friends, especially my girlfriend April. Without her this book may not have been released, due to her belief in me and her encouragement throughout.
I would also like to thank Michelle Willms for her great proof reading support and Anna Finch for her illustrations of the eye on the front cover, which we both worked on.
Thank you also to the services of CreateSpace and Amazon. Thank you everyone.
- T. J. Blake