The End of Us

by D, Hannah

  “Well then, today is your lucky day” The woman said with a smile to Zoe.

  Zoe had no idea if that meant they would be set free as per the woman’s promises or if she was just lying to them and was going to keep them trapped here.

  Zoe had already had a bad enough experience with another group of humans to expect a positive outcome.

  “So what now?” Zoe asked the woman.

  The woman turned and smiled at Zoe.

  ‘God I hope that’s a positive smile’ Zoe thought.

  “Now, we see what you’re really made of” The woman laughed.

  Chapter 16

  Zoe and Jeff had been cut loose, Zoe rubbing her sore wrist, trying to get a bit of feeling into it. Her wrists were now bright red and marked from where the rope had tied them together, that wouldn’t go away anytime soon. Jeff also was rubbing his wrists, glaring at Jack and the woman, probably wanting an answer and an apology for having tied he and Zoe up.

  “We have to be careful with anyone we bring in here” The woman explained.

  “Maybe throw us into a room without tying our hands together would be a better option” Jeff huffed.

  “We’ll keep that in mind” The woman said.

  “What is your name?” Zoe asked the woman.

  “Ah, yes, my name is Sylvia” She told them.

  “Wish I could say it was nice to meet you but so far it hasn’t been exactly nice” Zoe said.

  “Yes well, now we can try and start anew. I’ll let you and your group come in and get yourselves sorted, I’ll grab our group so that we can all meet properly” Sylvia said.

  Sylvia walked off with Jack whilst Zoe and Jeff helped everyone into the costco. Alec had come flying into Jeff’s arms, he had been so scared he wouldn’t see Jeff again.

  “Hey now bud, I would never leave you” Zoe heard Jeff saying to Alex.

  John had moved the campervan to sit in front of the main doors to the costco, right behind where Mark had parked the car. It was easier access for them if they needed it plus it helped keep the skin eaters away from the main doors.

  Sue came and hugged Zoe, telling her how worried she had been for Zoe and Jeff, how worried everyone had been for them. Zoe patted her on the back and said she was fine. Zoe didn’t bring up just how painful her wrist actually was, she didn’t want Michael to feel even more guilty than he already did.

  “So what now? We stay with this bunch of crazies?” Arthur asked.

  “I don’t know Arthur. We could stay here a few nights until we find somewhere else to go” Zoe said.

  “It is a roof over our head, a very big roof” Mandy said as she walked past.

  “It can do the now, we’ll just keep our eyes open and on them” Zoe said.

  “Sure, sounds good. Plus, nothing gets past me without me noticing!” Arthur grinned.

  “Yeah, you’re a right watchman. Hey Zoe, glad you’re okay” Sophia said to her.

  “Thanks. Lets get inside” Zoe smiled.

  After everyone was inside Zoe turned and locked the door and straight after the shutters began closing.

  ‘There has got to be someone sitting staring at the CCTV camera’s, watching everything’ Zoe thought.

  “Wow! This is amazing! Come look at this!” Alex yelled, pulling on Jeff’s hand.

  Alex was running around, very excited over all the gadgets in here. Everything was still up and running electricity wise which meant that the power grid hadn’t completely given out yet which was a bonus. Zoe wondered if this place had functioning showers and water still. She could do with a shower.

  Everyone else was looking around the place in awe. Nobody had stepped foot in a costco before it seemed. Zoe spotted Mandy and Lewis running off towards were the sweets and chocolates were, excitement clear on their faces, ready to tear into one of the chocolate bars.

  Mike and Sue looked like a couple just out doing some regular Friday afternoon shopping, walking together, hand in hand, gazing at things on the shelves and picking things up to look closer at them.

  Michael and Mark were huddled together, planning out a possible escape plan if things decided to take a turn for the worst in here and this group tried to kill them like Brian and his group did.

  Simone and Sarah were over looking at the clothes and began gushing over the baby clothes that were there. Zoe swore she saw a tear streak down Sarah’s face before she wiped it away quickly with her sleeve.

  Alice and John were looking lovingly at all the kitchen supplies that costco had to offer. They really were proper chefs and loved cooking, they had obviously never just thought of their work as a meaningful job and just a job to earn the money to pay their bills, they actually enjoyed doing it.

  Jeff, Sophia and Arthur were all playing about with Alex, whether that was pulling funny faces on the camera on a laptop that was sitting out or jumping on a trampoline that had apparently been on offer before people wanted to kill or eat each other.

  Zoe started to wander amongst the aisles and look properly this time since before she was too busy running and looking for her what turned out to be captives.

  Zoe spotted quite a few things they could use as weapons, the more weapons the better for them. They had decided to stash away their guns in the campervan, hidden from suspecting eyes Michael had told her. They had moved the fridge out in the campervan and had managed to store the guns in a gap between the fridge and the wall of the campervan, putting the fridge back into place.

  “It’s foolproof, no one will be able to tell they’re there!” Michael had said to her.

  Zoe did hope so, they couldn’t afford to lose those guns, they had been a lucky find really.

  Zoe was enjoying looking around all the shelves in this costco before a voice interrupted her wandering and looking.

  “Good set up this place, we’re lucky we managed to keep the skin eaters out and get the doors locked” Sylvia had told her.

  “Was there many inside? Skin eaters I mean” Zoe asked her.

  “Skin eaters? You mean zombies?” Sylvia asked her.

  “We prefer to call them skin eaters” Zoe told her.

  “Well whatever, there were quite a few that managed to get in but we managed to get the shutters down before the whole lot got in. We had employees who’d been bitten in here to kill. It wasn’t pretty” Sylvia told her.

  “Employees? You worked here?”

  “We all did, apart from the doctor and his scientist wife, they were just shopping in here. You see, when the outbreak started and by the time the zombies, sorry, skin eaters, got here it was night, we were about to close. Only employees and the doctor and scientist were here but not a lot of us survived that night” Sylvia said sadly.

  “I’m sorry. It seems that you must’ve gotten quite a lot of the skin eaters though. Not a lot were outside when we got here” Zoe told her.

  “We took out so many, that’s why so many of the others got bitten, turned and died. However, the rest of us here aren’t letting their lives be taken in vain.”

  “How many of you are there here?”

  “There’s seven of us left. Me, Jack, Claire, Liam, Ben, Tom who is the doctor and Eve who is the scientist.”

  “Well, I look forward to meeting them all” Zoe told her.

  “Yes well the doctor and Eve are currently busy so their introductions will have to wait until later. But go gather the rest of your group and I’ll introduce you to everyone else. We’ll meet you all down at the tills” Sylvia said.

  “Sure, no problem” Zoe said.

  Zoe went and grabbed everyone and got them gathered at the tills.

  “What do you think of them?” Jef whispered into Zoe’s ear.

  “I think they’ve been through a lot like us and were just trying to keep everyone safe” Zoe whispered back.

  Jeff grunted and Zoe knew that he still wasn’t very keen on this new group and didn’t trust them yet. Zoe didn’t even know if they would be staying here full time yet or even joining forces
with this group. For now, their stay here was only temporary, until the heat from Brian and his group trying to find them died down.

  Sylvia appeared back with everyone from her group, minus the doctor and his wife. It was clear that she was the leader of them, the one in charge of making all their decisions. She did seem like a strong leader. She was probably the manager of this place or something Zoe had been thinking.

  “Well, we would like to welcome everyone here on better terms than we did before now that we’ve gotten to know you lot aren’t liars and thieves. We have had bad experiences of trying to help others, those others near enough got us killed so we are extra careful nowadays. We do apologise for keeping your people hostage and tying them up and hope you’ll forgive us” Sylvia said.

  “It’s fine” Zoe told her.

  Zoe was trying to keep the peace between everyone but she realised that she was the only one who thought it was fine that she and Jeff had b even held captive.

  Sylvia made the introductions to everyone in her group and Zoe took it upon herself to introduce everyone in her group, feeling that she was the least angry to speak and wouldn’t come off rude.

  “Pretty big group you have” Jack announced.

  “Yeah well, Zoe, Jeff and Sophia came looking for us lot to come join her group and help them fight against Brian and his lot” Michael said as he gestured to Mark, Mandy and Lewis.

  “That other group that fought you? Sounds shite” Jack said.

  “It was shite. We never asked for that fight to happen and we lost someone to that bastard who just shot her clean in the head” Michael growled.

  “Humanity has just disappeared it seems now” Sylvia said shaking her head.

  “Long gone in that group which is why we fled and came here. We didn’t know if anyone would be here, just thought it was a good idea to come to costco since it’s a big place” Zoe said.

  “Well you can all stay here as long as you like, we’re no threats to you I promise” Sylvia said.

  “Thank you” Zoe said.

  “Yeah, thanks I guess” Jeff said.

  “You can all make yourselves at home and have more of a look around” Sylvia said.

  “Is there anywhere we can cook and can we use the food here?” Alice asked.

  “Why yes of course, follow me and I’ll show you where you can cook” Sylvia said.

  Zoe heard Alice and John talk excitedly about what they could cook with all of the food here. Zoe heard Sylvia tell them that they managed to keep all the food stored here eatable due to them having a massive freezer to place all the food into which was one of the first things they done when the epidemic started and how the food they had kept out in the fridges and the cakes was the food they were going to eat in the next few days. Zoe also heard Alice say how excited she was to use a proper cooker again, John was also excited by that.

  Zoe started to wander around to see if she could find anything that they could fashion into beds so they could get a good nights sleep. She spotted boxed of blow up beds and started taking them out. Sarah and Simone appeared beside her and started to help Zoe carry them and find somewhere to store them. They decided to try and keep the group close together in case they had to make an escape or fight then at least they would know everyone was there and safe.

  “I’m interested to meet this doctor. I have some medical questions I need answers to” Simone said.

  “It’s good that they have a doctor here and now there is also a nurse!” Sarah said.

  “Well I’m not as good as a doctor and I don’t have as much knowledge as they do over certain things but thanks for the compliment” Simone smiled.

  “You done great looking after Chris Simone, really you did” Sarah said genuinely.

  “It was all I could do. Wish I could’ve done more” Simone said sadly.

  They went silent after that, no one really knew what to say.

  “How about we make this area here ours? Move they stands to block the main doorway in case skin eaters or humans manage to break their way through and at least if we block it we give ourselves an extra few minutes” Zoe suggested.

  “Sounds good to me” Sarah said.

  Sarah and Simone got to work moving the stands to block the doorway a little whilst Zoe started to blow up the beds. She was going to run out f breath fast doing this.

  “So I guess we’re staying here then?” Jeff asked as he sat down next to Zoe.

  “Only for a little bit at least until we manage to think of somewhere else to go. They seem nice enough plus I could maybe see that doctor about my wrist” Zoe said.

  “Hmm true. I’ll still be sleeping with one eye open at night though” Jeff said.

  “We’ll keep doing watches overnight don’t you worry. Now how about you help me blow up these beds huh?” Zoe smiled to him.

  “Oh I don’t know, seems too tough for little old me” Jeff winked.

  “Oh weesht, you need to do a bit of hard graft. You’ve done nothing these past few weeks!:” Zoe joked.

  “I’ll show you nothing!” Jeff said as he started to tickle her.

  “Jeff! Stop!” Zoe said laughing.

  “Not until you take it back!” Jeff said to her.

  “Alright I’ll take it back!” Zoe laughed.

  “That’s what I thought” Jeff said triumphantly.

  Zoe pushed him away before picking up a box of one of the blow up beds and throwing it at him. That was probably the most fun she had had in days and boy did it feel good to laugh! Zoe felt normal for those few minutes.

  Zoe and Jeff managed to blow up all the blow beds they needed. There were only single ones which Jeff pouted at that but later said it was easy enough to push them together wiggling his eyes at Zoe. Zoe laughed at him but she knew that they wouldn’t manage to get any real alone time to even think about taking their relationship to the next step. There were too many prying eyes in here and who knew where the CCTV camera’s actually were hidden in here.

  “Seems cosy enough” Sue said as she sat down on one of the blow up beds.

  “Takes us back to our hiking days” Mike said.

  “The good old days” Sue smiled sadly.

  Everyone had picked up their blow up beds and moved it off into their own little spaces. They had pretty much managed to give each other a bit of space between the other to try and make it somewhat private. It was no five star hotel anyway but it would do them.

  “Our own little love corner” Jeff winked to Zoe.

  “Oh how cheesy!” Zoe fake gagged.

  Jeff laughed as he pulled her down onto their mattresses that they had managed to stick together with tape they had found.

  “Ugh, get a room!” Michael joked.

  Zoe laughed but Jeff didn’t. Jeff was still in a sour mood with Michael over hurting Zoe.

  ‘Men, They could be pettier than woman sometimes’ Zoe thought as she rolled her eyes.

  Alice and John came back, Alice was pretty much skipping with joy whilst John just had a massive grin on his face. They were keeping what they were preparing for dinner a surprise for everyone. Apparently it was something they’d made in one of their old jobs when they worked in a big fancy restaurant.

  “You’ll all love it!” Alice had grinned at them.

  Zoe began to wonder what Sylvia and the others done for dinner or were they had all gotten away to. Zoe hadn’t seen any of them pottering absolutely the place. It was like they had evaporated into thin air or like they had all imagined that they were here, that Zoe and everyone must be going crazy.

  “I’m going to go explore this place a little more. Want to join me?” Zoe asked Jeff.

  “Sure” Jeff said as he stood up to follow her.

  They made their way into the little alcove of offices that were beside the tills at the front of the store. There was a massive wall filled with boxes and boxes of cigarettes. Zoe had stopped smoking a week before this epidemic started and she could feel herself itching for a cigarette.

 
‘I must be strong. I must resist!’ Zoe thought to herself.

  The offices here were pretty much just standard offices. A work schedule pinned on the wall to say who was working on what day. Filing cabinets and a pretty old schooled computer sitting on a desk. You’d think a big corporation like costco would have more up to date computers.

  Jeff was having a nose through the files sitting in one of the drawers of the desks.

  “Wow, they don’t half turn a profit” Jeff whistled.

  Zoe looked over his shoulder and nearly fainted at the massive amount of money this costco had made at the end of last year. She could’ve only dreamed of even earning that close to an amount of money. At least now money was no longer an issue.

  “There’s nothing too interesting here. Lets go look and see what’s at the back of the building beside that old bakers room they locked us in” Zoe said to Jeff.

  “Are you looking for something?” Jeff asked her.

  “Well, yeah. I’m wondering where Sylvia and the others all ran off to. I haven’t seem them wandering around here. They seemed to have just evaporated. I’m curious and feeling a little off about it if I’m honest” Zoe told him.

  “Okay, lets go scope it out” Jeff agreed.

  Zoe and Jeff made their way to the back of the building. They had told a little white lie to the group about where they were going, they said they were going to look at what juice there was here. They didn’t want the whole group to follow them on scoping out the back of the building to find where the others had disappeared to. They were trying to be as sly as possible and to make it to the back of the building undetected.

  “Think they’ll see us coming on CCTV?” Jeff asked.

  “I hope not. So long as we pretend we’re looking at the food in those freezers before that back door and then just make a run for it” Zoe said.

  “Sounds as good a plan as any I suppose” Jeff said.

  Zoe didn’t know if it would work or if they did get caught sneaking through those back doors if Sylvia or whoever was watching the CCTV would send alarm signals off in the building to alert her group. Zoe didn’t know if they had more people hidden than they said they had here and Zoe and everyone could end up surrounded by enemies. Zoe didn’t even know if this other group probably had nuclear weapons stored here. Anything was possible nowadays.