“Blake?” I heard her say. A tear fell from my eye, probably the last drop of water I had left in my body, as we both began to run to each other. I took a few stumbling steps as she ran.
“Oh my days,” Jake spoke, knowing it was my sister. The one he would prank and gossip with, in days gone by. She cried and launched herself into my arms. Whatever she had seen and experienced I felt through her cries, her tears, through the impact of her crashing into me, to give her big brother a hug once again. Her experience had been just as soul destroying as mine, of course it had. I carried her, spinning her around I saw out of the corner of my eye more people stepping out of the van. One old lady held the hand of a little girl I could never forget even if I tried. It was Lily, staring unaware at the strangers in front of her.
“Blake. I thought I would never see you again, I was so scared!” Jess said. A line of tears fell down her cheeks and onto my shoulder. I could hardly hear her as she burrowed her head down into me.
“I can't believe I found you,” I whispered as the sun blinded my dry eyes. I set her down as Susie collapsed again, this time more harmful than before. People from the van came forth to see if she was ok.
“Why did you leave me?” She asked, and I couldn't answer, I had no answer. I was foolish, I wanted to be with my friends, on an adventure. I had been so naive, as this had all been a terrible nightmare.
“I'm so sorry, where's Dad?” I asked her weakly.
“He's gone,” she whimpered over my shoulder. I exhaled all my hope that he was alive and held her tighter. I would never leave anyone ever again.
“This is your brother?” Asked a bearded man with glasses as I let her down.
“Yes,” said Jess, staring at me and wiping her eyes.
“Blake?” He said, extending his arm to shake my hand. Jess sniffled as tears welled in her eyes again. I took it and shook hesitantly. Who the hell were these people and why were they with Jess?
“Ian,” he said, introducing himself. “So glad to see you, I must say the face doesn't match the voice,” he added smiling.
“Is that a joke?” I said, before I burst out laughing from joy.
“The radio, I heard you, over and over again,” he nervously laughed. The driver crossed his hands and looked on with suspicion from beside the van.
“This is Fay,” said Jess pointing to the blonde girl on her knees and holding a water bottle to Susie's mouth.
“Terrence, Peter,” she said pointing to some weightlifters in tank tops behind her.
“Hello,” I said to them. “How the hell did you end up here?” I asked her. She puffed her cheeks out and sighed. “I mean I'm glad, I'm over the moon.”
“It's a long story,” she answered.
“Come, we are going back,” she then said. I saw Lily and stepped toward her. She noticed me and walked to me with a spring in her step.
“Blake!” She shouted. I hugged her and didn't let her go for about a minute. When I finally did, I turned to Jess.
“Back to where?” I asked her, the light behind her blinding me.
“The hotel,” she said, before leading me back to the van. At the van, I found one more of her little group.
“Oh, no way!” A tanned man with black hair caked in gel said from inside the van.
“No way, all this lot is coming in the van! No way! No offence,” he said with a smooth south african accent.
“Come on Romano,” Jess said to him, giving him the eyes I remembered all too well. He accepted her request and budged away, revealing to me some history there.
“Every offence taken, scoot up son,” Mason said as he jumped in.
“Fok julles naaiers,” the man, Romano, muttered as he moved up to create space. One of the bodybuilder lads came up to me as the others loaded in. He extended his hand to shake.
“Terrence,” he said, introducing himself. I didn't trust him, or the other one driving.
“BlakeLively,” I introduced myself, shaking his hand and making it firm. He had a very strong grip, but so did I. The city in the background groaned a low growl in contempt at our reunion, this wasn't how it was supposed to be, not in this new world, where light and hope had been stripped and only darkness remained. We didn't even know what this disease was, but I guessed it had been here for a long time, killing us while we slept, while we worked and slaved away under governments that ignored and hid the truth, but the truth always comes out. I scanned the van and saw happy, but scarred faces. A single cough echoed at the back of the van, where an unwell Lily sat, holding hands with Jess and Maddison. My mind wandered to all the faces I had lost around me, Hussain, Angelica, Jacob, Mom and Dad and everyone at the camp, and wondered if they could have been informed, if they could have been saved in time.
Epilogue
I am James Mckinley, of the Mercian Regiment. I abandoned my post and fled, just like every other fucker in the forces had done. There's no one left, nothing at all. What the hell was I thinking? I left my own brother alone? Jake was always a troubled child, leaving him alone, might have tipped him over the edge like me. How the hell did he feel? Was he still alive? I failed him and I failed my parents. I should have been stronger and stayed by him. Instead, I walked away, for miles. I’ve even killed. Three squirrels and a couple of fish from the local stream that is. I haven't encountered anyone but the dead. No people, no survivors. I thought I was all alone out here in the woods, well that was, until yesterday. Out in the country, in the fields and the grass I thought I was safe. I found this farm, it looked derelict, abandoned, but it was nothing of the sort. I was in the fields, walking to what I thought was my new home, a little shed out back of a lake, when I saw it. A creature in the field, with a deer's skull and black hooves, with great claws like a pitchfork grinding on the dirt. It looked at me and shrieked like a rabid animal, chasing me into the forest. But I got away, far away. I stole a bike and rode it for about a day on the country roads, passing abandoned cars, carcasses on the road, and now here I am, at a little village in the middle of nowhere.
I put the pencil down, writing about my day kept me a little sane, and gazed at the rotting corpse beside me. It was nasty and all mangled up from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. She’d used a musket, blown half her brains out poor sod. From the images on the fancy picture frames near her bed she seemed to have had a nice family, grandchildren and loving sons. Something I’ll never have. I should have never left Jake, I just had a breakdown, told him to forget it all, I told my own brother to just find a simple way to end it. How sick is that? I put the book away and placed the pencil down beside it, then walked away to gaze out at the green garden meadow and the cold woods. The window had vines coming down it, and a greenhouse full of vegetables lay outside. Perhaps, I think, this place will be my new home.
But as I looked out through the decorated woodland paradise, I could not shake the feeling of being watched. I grew concerned, and glanced to the greenhouse, where all of a sudden, subtle movement was hidden. The creature appeared, the same one from before. It raised its exposed skull from out behind the greenhouse, and stepped a thin spidery hooved black leg out to the meadow, revealing itself in its entirety. I was frozen as its dark beady eyes peered piercing into my soul. I turned around very slowly, the only thing I could do. I wasn't going to run, or flash away in fear. At this point I was done with it all, there was no way that thing was real, it was my mind playing tricks on me. I changed my mind and turned back to look at it again, but when I did it was gone. I breathed a deep sigh and rolled my eyes almost.
I wandered down the stairs of the house, to see that no monster was there in the garden near the greenhouse. It was just my mind playing tricks on me. I walked out and inspected the greenhouse, then walked along the garden wall. An eerie whirring sound, like someone breathing in while closing their throat, sounded from behind the gate. I stepped up and looked over the wall but found nothing. Then I saw in the mirror, a creature on the side of the house. Like a spider its hooves weaved away w
ithout making a sound. I ran inside the house and crouched, going prone, then crawling into the kitchen and hiding underneath the sink. I heard it click and growl. A monstrous voice then spoke, ghost like, tauntingly and slowly.
“Found you!”
“Whaaaat the fuuckkk!!!” I yelled, leaping up and running through the kitchen door, out to the living room, knocking over a dialysis machine and stepping in glass as I launched myself through the front door. In my panic, I fell over a lawn mower and smashed my foot up really badly but I kept running for fear of my life. Coming to a car in the middle of the street, I jumped in and closed the door as quick and quietly as I could, then hunched down and hid from sight under the seat. I was so scared, I could hear it, breathing outside, its presence petrified me. I closed my eyes and waited for it to go, it had to go! Why would it stay? I could have run half a mile away by now? I could be well clear, why wasn't it going after me? The hypothetical me!
It came closer, breathing against the half winded down window of the car. It obviously knew where I was, oh god. I looked up and saw it, looking down at me. This was it, I passed wind in defeat, how embarrassing. Leaning up slowly, wearing a smile that said don’t hurt me… I only went and did the window up. I felt so stupid, rolling it up as it stared into my soul. When it was done up, I smiled an awkward smile hoping it would go away. I was on the edge of losing my sanity and screaming when it did something that triggered my freak-out.
“Hello,” spoke the beast from behind the window. A sore, taunting and strangely diplomatic voice.
“Fuck that!” I screamed, breaking my nervous demeanour into a full-on rampaging retreat. Tumbling out the car on the other side, I ran, ran and ran and ran for my life. Coming to a barn with hooks and spears hanging down. I hunkered down behind a bale of hay and tried to relax, this was not real, it could not be real. A creature with the exposed skull of a deer cannot possibly exist. It just wasn't right. All I could hear was the panting of my breath.
“If you had not smashed yourself into the lawn mower, you might have survived,” spoke the voice of a demon from the centre of the barn. I braced for it to find me, as it crawled towards me and hung its head high over the hay. It was real! And it was terrifying, more terrifying than the dead that now walked the earth. I tried to get away through the back entrance, only to find a heap of bodies, some rotten and infected, others fresh. I froze and heard the creature behind me, accepting my fate at last. The creature was toying with me, well no more, I stood my ground, and braced for its claws and talons and the sweet release of death.
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