The End of Us

by D, Hannah

  “We’re still going to run into a herd of skin eaters in a supermarket” Zoe said.

  “Quite a lot of us will go to take them on” Mandy said.

  Oh I know where there’s one!” Alice jumped up.

  “Where?” Jeff asked her.

  “There’s a Tesco in Penicuik. Not far from here, only a couple of miles away. We can make it there and back in no time!” Alice said excitedly.

  “Perfect. We’ll leave today so we have time to scope the place out and get supplies” Jeff said.

  “We’ll head back to the campervan and take that since it has so much space” Zoe said.

  “God I hope it’s still there and no ones taken it” Simone worried.

  “It should still be there” Zoe said as positive as she could.

  In the end it turned out to be Zoe, Jeff, Sarah, Michael, Mark, Arthur, Simone, Mandy and John who all decided to go. Sue, Sophia, Alice, Lewis, Mike and Alex were all staying behind on the hill. Alex had protested again about going with them to help fight the skin eaters but Jeff had told him, firmly this time, that he wasn’t going. Alex was sitting in a huff when they all left to go.

  “Be careful all of you!” Sue said nervously to them.

  “We’ll be fine mum. Promise” Arthur said to her.

  Bless Sue always playing the mother figure to them all. Sue wanted to wrap them all up and keep them protected but she was becoming more able to fight the skin eaters off and refused to act like a coward.

  They all made their way back over the Pentland Hills, back they way they had come to go back to the campervan. Zoe guessed that it was about midday from the heat that they were getting off of the sun bearing down on them. There were a few more clouds in the sky than usual and a slight wind that was still warm but more wind than they were used to.

  Zoe had hoped that they would’ve managed to sneak away from their watchers and Rachael before having to fulfil any of her demands but that turned out not to be possible. Rachael was smart enough to make sure Zoe and her group gave her something within the first two days of letting them go from that road.

  As they made their way over the hills again Zoe looked out and saw that no more skin eaters had appeared from where they had taken care of the ones on their way over to their final destination. The Pentland Hills seemed eerily quiet with barely any activity around. Zoe hadn’t even seen any animals running around, no rabbits or nothing. Zoe had heard there were horses around here but she guessed that they either ran when the skin eaters came around here or the skin eaters had gotten to them and eaten them.

  Their watchers had followed them back but only two of them followed them. The other two stayed back with the rest of the group, obviously to keep an eye on them in case they had planned something out. The ones following Zoe were keeping closer to them than they had before following them through the hills. They didn’t want to risk them getting away from them. They depended on whatever supplies that Zoe and the rest managed to get for them since they didn’t bother scavenging on their own.

  As they made their way back down the last hill towards the car park Zoe could make out their campervan and breathed a sigh of relief that it was still there. If it had been stolen then Zoe had no idea what they would’ve done. They wouldn’t have managed to go on foot to this Tesco and manage to bring back all the supplies that they might find.

  Alice had began to explain where about this Tesco was before John had said he remembered exactly where it was as he’d been there to pick up food to cook in a restaurant before. That made John the designated driver again but he didn’t mind that.

  “Driving calms me” John had said.

  They made it to the car park and found it devoid of any skin eaters which Zoe wasn’t too pleased about as she had wanted to take her anger out on them again. Zoe would have to just wait until they got to the Tesco to release her anger.

  John jumped into the front of the campervan into the drivers seat and started it up and the campervan soon buzzed back to life. Again Zoe breathed a sigh of relief, happy that it hadn’t broken in the two days from when they’d left it.

  Their watchers jumped onto their motorbikes and started them up, ready to follow them wherever they went. Zoe hoped that the sound of the motorbikes wouldn’t draw too many skin eaters attention to them.

  “You’re probably better parking a little bit away from this Tesco so as not to draw to many skin eaters to us from the noise” Zoe told John as she tilted her head over to the motorbikes.

  “Good idea, I’ll park a bit away from it” John said.

  Once they were all in the campervan and the door was closed John moved them off and away back onto the roads. Mark sat up front to help John keep an eye out on the roads.

  “Do you think we’ll ever get away from Rachael and her lot?” Sarah asked.

  “We’ll think of something. Hopefully after we give her this bunch of supplies she’ll back off for at least a few days giving us time to run” Zoe said.

  “You think we’ll manage to get away?” Simone asked.

  “I can only hope so but I’m determined to get us out” Zoe told them.

  The campervan went into silence as they all thought about their situation again. Zoe started thinking about Tom, Eve, Jack, Claire and Liam and where they had managed to run off to after leaving the costco. Zoe wondered if they just ran back inside and locked themselves back in. It seemed more likely than them running off somewhere.

  “Bit of a big group ahead of skin eaters. I might be able to drive through them” John announced.

  “If it gets too much of a struggle to drive through them let us know and we’ll jump out and take care of them” Micheal said to John.

  “No worries” John said.

  There were bumps along the side of the campervan as well as under the wheels from John hitting and running over the skin eaters that had been standing on the road. Zoe hated the feeling of the campervan going over the skin eaters bodies. Even although they were skin eaters it was still horrible to feel the campervan going over them.

  “We’re through” John said.

  “Perfect” Zoe replied.

  Zoe looked through to the front window and saw John trying to clean his window from all the blood splatter from running into the skin eaters. Again the blood was black and not red.

  “Simone, do you know why the skin eater blood is black and not red?” Zoe asked her.

  “I’m not sure. I guess the only explanation I can come up with is that their bodies aren’t supposed to be moving at all because they’re dead so there must be some brain activity going on in there but the blood isn’t getting oxygen because the skin eaters don’t need to breathe. I’m guessing that that’s why their blood has turned black, no oxygen is getting to it” Simone told her.

  “That seems like a very good explanation” Zoe said.

  “It’s the best that I can come up with” Simone said to her.

  “Better than any ideas I had about it in my head” Zoe laughed.

  There was no more announcements from John about there being more than just a few skin eaters on the road, only that they had entered Penicuik. Zoe looked out of the window in the back of the campervan and saw that there were just a few skin eaters here and there shuffling around on the pavements. It was bizarre since Penicuik wasn’t that small a place and it was still in Edinburgh and Edinburgh was huge.

  “Why so few skin eaters?” Zoe asked aloud.

  “Maybe a lot got killed off in the beginning of the epidemic” Mandy offered.

  “Hmm maybe..Just seems a bit bizarre really” Zoe said.

  Zoe hoped that there were no hostile humans hiding out in Penicuik, waiting to attack Zoe and her group coming through for supplies. Zoe still heard the motorbikes from behind them which made her think that if there were dangerous humans out here then their watchers wouldn’t still be following them. Maybe this would just end being one of life’s wonders.

  “There’s a Kwik Fit that sits just opposite where the T
esco is. I’m going to park the campervan in there so we can quietly scope out the Tesco” John said.

  “Sounds good” Jeff said.

  John manoeuvred the campervan through the remaining street to take them to the Kwik Fit. Zoe could spot a small group of skin eaters around the car park but again not too many for them all to handle.

  “If we get inside the Kwik Fit we might be able to go upstairs and have more of a view about the skin eater situation is like at Tesco” John said to them.

  “We’ll do that. Everyone ready to go?” Mark asked, his hand on the door handle.

  Everyone nodded their heads with their weapons at the ready and ran out as soon as Mark had opened the door. Zoe relished in this moment as she attacked the skin eaters, her anger oozing out of her again as she smacked the skin eaters skulls open again. Zoe knew she must’ve looked like a madman but everyone was too busy taking care of the skin eaters around them to notice.

  Their watchers hadn’t even bothered to get off of their motorbikes to help them take care of the skin eaters. They were clearly enjoying themselves too much. It was their evenings entertainment apparently. Zoe bit her lip to stop herself from launching a mountain of abuse their way about how she really felt about them.

  ‘Do not cause your group anymore problems’ Zoe kept on telling herself.

  It didn’t take them very long before the skin eaters were all taken care of and lying in a pile at their feet. They were all getting good at fighting them off easily with no close calls or even worse, someone being bitten. They’d already had that happen before.

  “At least the doors been smashed open for us to go through” Sarah pointed out.

  “Means there’s probably more skin eaters in there. Everyone stay alert” Michael said.

  Michael and Jeff ended up walking through the broken door first and took out the skin eaters inside on the ground floor. Zoe made her way up the small set of stairs and was met with a skin eater at the top.

  “You’re all mine” Zoe whispered to herself.

  Zoe swung her hockey stick high up above her head and brought it smashing down through the skin eaters skull. She had managed to hit the skin eater through the head that hard that she had split it in two and could see the two halves of the brain separated.

  “That’s disgusting” Simone said from behind her.

  “You not see anything like this as a nurse?” Zoe asked her.

  “Nope. Not even close” Simone gagged.

  It was a pretty gruesome sight that Zoe might throw up thinking about it later but for now she still had pent up anger built up inside her to bother too much about it.

  “I take it it was offices up here?” Mandy said.

  “Must’ve been. The doors are all opened and a skin eater would’ve been out by now from the sounds of all of our voices” Zoe said.

  Even after Zoe had said that she still walked into the first office that was open with caution. There could be a skin eater stuck in there that might still be able to reach them walking through. Turns out there wasn’t. Michael and Jeff had joined them now and were moving over towards the window in this office.

  “I’ll watch out at the door just in case we get any surprises” Mandy said.

  Zoe was already at the window, looking out at the Tesco before them. It was a massive Tesco and they would hopefully manage to get quite a lot from it.

  “Doesn’t seem like there’s too much activity coming from the car park. Not too many skin eaters shuffling around there” Michael said.

  “I wonder what it’s like inside?” Zoe asked.

  “Hopefully won’t be too bad in there either. I think we’ll manage” Michael said.

  “We should start tomorrow. It’s getting dark now and I don’t fancy running around a supermarket car park in the dark” Zoe said.

  “Tomorrow morning sounds good enough for me” Michael agreed.

  “We’ll camp out in the campervan for the night. Even though we’ve cleared this place out I still don’t feel safe sleeping in here” Zoe said.

  “At least with the campervan we can lock the doors” Sarah said.

  “Exactly” Zoe and Simone said at the same time.

  They made their way back outside and towards the campervan, not one of them bothering to tell their watchers what they were doing. They would figure it out for themselves eventually.

  They stayed awake for a while, plotting strategies and floating ideas around about what was the best way to escape from evil Rachaels clutches. Eventually they all started drifting off one by one.

  Zoe wound up being the only one left awake. Unable to sleep with all the worries and questions floating around inside her head. Zoe just wanted tomorrow over with and to get away from Rachael as fast as she could.

  A few more days and then they all would be free.

  This is what Zoe was hoping for.

  Chapter 25

  It felt like Zoe had only been asleep for minutes before Arthur was bounding about trying to wake them all up. Zoe wished for just one day that Arthur wouldn’t be so excited over everything and just be mellow but that day would never come. Arthur was a big ball of hyper energy.

  “Right I’m up!” Mark said angrily.

  “God how long have you been up for Arthur?” Jeff asked him.

  “Hmm.. I watched the sun come up and sat around for a few hours until I thought it best to wake you all up” Arthur smiled at them.

  “Well better you waited a few hours I suppose but next time I could go without the Arthur alarm waking me up” Mark yawned.

  “I’m the best alarm you could all have” Arthur grinned.

  Everyone grunted ad mumbled out their not agreeing responses to that. Arthur didn’t really take much notice, he was proud of being their human alarm.

  Zoe stood up and stretched and walked outside the campervan and saw Jeff talking to John. Zoe didn’t want to interrupt them so she stood and done some stretches to flex herself out a little more after lying cramped in the campervan all night. It wasn’t exactly the comfiest place to lie down.

  Zoe looked over to her right to find their faithful watchers still there. They mustn’t have slept out here last night, out in the open for a skin eater to creep up on them and eat them. Or maybe they did and one stayed on watch as the other slept. They looked disgruntled and tired though.

  There hadn’t been anymore skin eaters that appeared in this Kwik Fit car park overnight. It was pretty closed off from the main road and didn’t have too many places for skin eaters to come through to it, just the one opening that John had driven them through.

  “I think we’re just about ready to go” Jeff’s voice came from behind her.

  “Good. I’ll go get my hockey stick” Zoe said as she went back to the campervan.

  Everyone was all suited and booted in no time. Michael had went and had one more look out the window in the office in the Kwik Fit to see again what they were facing. There were still the same amount of skin eaters shuffling around the car park as there were last night which was lucky enough for them.

  “Let’s get this over with shall we?” Michael asked them.

  “We shall” Zoe replied.

  John led the way as they left the Kwik Fit car park and turned to the left to make their way to the Tesco. They went in a single file, pressed up against the wall and stayed as quiet as possible. The only sounds coming from them were there soft footfalls and their mixed breathing. The skin eaters that were walking opposite them didn’t take any notice of them. It was like they were invisible.

  John stopped just at the end of the wall they were walking against and held his hand up which meant they all had to stop. Zoe saw John say something to Michael who nodded his head. Zoe had no idea what was happening up there. Michael held up one of his fingers to the rest of them and disappeared around the corner of the wall with John. Zoe had taken that hand gesture to mean that Michael was telling they that he and John would be back in one minute.

  ‘This not being able to spe
ak thing is actually really difficult’ Zoe thought.

  They hadn’t actually came up with that plan not to speak when they were sneaking past the skin eaters opposite them to get to the Tesco. They had all just decided to that. Better to remain hidden from the skin eaters for as long as possible.

  In exactly one minute Michael appeared back in front of them. The butchers knife he was carrying was covered in skin eater blood. Michael gestured for them to follow him which they did, still keeping in single file.

  As Zoe went around the corner she saw that John and Michael had taken care of a few skin eaters that were lurking around there. They had managed to kill them very quietly as Zoe hadn’t heard a sound from what was going on here.

  “If we move up slowly and hide in the trolley bays each time we pass one before taking out groups of skin eaters we should manage this fine” Michael whispered to them.

  “And if we keep as quiet as we can and sneak up on them to kill them then we shouldn’t attract the whole herd of these skin eaters towards us” John whispered.

  “Sounds good. Let’s go” Mark said.

  They made their way up together slowly, going in two’s and following one another. When they reached the first group of skin eaters it only took three of them to kill the skin eaters. Once one skin eater had noticed them it started to moan which made the other in the small group notice them but luckily they had managed to kill them before the other skin eaters in the car park took notice of them.

  They made it to the first trolley bay and managed to let our their breaths they hadn’t realised they’d been holding. Zoe noticed their watchers standing at the bottom of the car park watching as they went. To Zoe it felt like they were starring in a movie and their watchers were the cameramen, following them around everywhere, trying to get the perfect shot.

  “Let’s get moving up to the next trolley bay” John whispered.

  They nodded heads and Zoe moved out first which meant it was her turn to take on the next group of skin eaters. Zoe sneaked up behind one of the skin eaters and put her knife straight into the back of the skin eaters head making it flop to the ground. The on that was standing in front of it was now staring straight at Zoe. The skin eater stretched it’s arms out towards Zoe before Zoe plunged her knife straight into it’s skull.