The End of Everything Box Set, Vol. 1 [Books 1-3]

by Artinian, Christopher

  “Can’t figure out why that is,” Robyn replied under her breath. “Where is your sister? Does she know you’re doing this?”

  “My sister’s not herself at the moment. She’s not well.”

  “I’m sorry, Norman,” she said, desperately trying to appeal to the side of him that was not barking mad. “What’s wrong with her?”

  “She’s just sick.”

  “And what is it you think meeting me and Wren will do to help her?”

  “She just needs time, that’s all. She needs time to heal. I love my sister; she’s the only one who has been kind to me. When no one else would give me a job, she begged the doctors at the practice, and they gave me the caretaker’s job. That’s a very responsible position, you know. She worked in the office there and…. My sister always helped me, always. When I got into trouble, she was always there for me. So now she needs help. Isn’t it only right that I try and help her?”

  “Yes. Of course. But not by hurting people, not by kidnapping them.”

  “I won’t be long,” he said, heading back out of the door.

  “Norman! Norman!” she shouted, but he was gone. Robyn sat there in the candlelit room, looking around to see if she could figure out an escape. The cable ties around her wrists and ankles were tight; there was not a hope she could wriggle out of them or break free. Whatever he had planned, she had to find a way to save Wren. Then she remembered that she’d seen something in a film once where a man was tied to a chair and he toppled it over, managing to break it and get free. Robyn tensed her muscles and shifted her body weight as hard and as fast as she could to the right. The chair banged down hard, and excruciating pain shot up her arm from the elbow, but nothing broke, and the cable ties stayed in place. Now she was stuck there like a fish on the deck of a boat, floundering away, but unable to escape.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Wren caught sight of a torchlight heading down the street. She ducked into a doorway and stayed low as it crossed over to the other pavement. She stayed down, crouched in the shadows. The steady beam passed her and she could make out Norman’s silhouette as he went by and disappeared around the corner towards the doctor’s surgery. Wren ran to the other side of the road and started off in the direction of the church, keeping her eyes firmly on the buildings, looking for some clue of where Norman had taken her sister. Then she saw it. A dim glow from a curtained window above one of the shops. She looked towards the steeple of the church. Yes, standing in that window, Norman would have been able to see them heading to the church.

  Wren began to run towards the building, her head danced from side to side, trying to determine where the entrance to the upstairs flat would be. She flicked on her torch and saw a wooden door that did not belong to any of the storefronts. She tried the handle and pushed it open, leaping up the stairs, two at a time. Wren burst into the room to see her sister lying there on the floor, tied to a chair, but most definitely alive.

  “Thank God!” she cried.

  “Wren?”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll cut you free,” Wren said, putting down her javelin and pulling out her penknife.

  “Hurry, he won’t be long.”

  “I know,” she said, cutting through the cable ties one at a time. She sliced through the last one, and Robyn jumped to her feet. The two sisters embraced tightly then both headed for the door. “I saw him going to the—” The living room door slammed shut and a key turned in the lock.

  “What the f—”

  “At least I’ve got you both here now,” Norman shouted through the door. “It won’t be long, then you can meet my sister.”

  “Let us out...now!” demanded Wren, banging on the dirty paint of the door.

  “Soon. Soon,” he said.

  The girls heard another door unlock and creak open. “Who has locks on internal doors?” Wren asked.

  “It’s not that uncommon in older places; you won’t remember Gran’s house. But actually using them...that’s something else,” Robyn replied.

  Wren took a tight hold of her javelin and aimed it towards the door, ready to strike. In the absence of anything else that could be used as a weapon, Robyn picked up an old looking vase and held it ready to throw. They heard the door unlock and held their breaths, expecting Norman to come bursting in, but instead, the door stayed closed.

  Wren and Robyn looked towards each other, but remained in battle pose, ready to strike. After a full minute, when the door had still not opened, Robyn went towards it. “Okay,” she whispered, “I’ll swing it open. If he’s there, stick him.”

  “What?”

  “Stab him with the javelin.”

  “But...I...he’s a human being.”

  “Yeah, a human being who was about to do god knows what to you and me.” Robyn marched towards her sister and took the javelin from her, handing her the vase instead. “Go open the door.”

  Wren stood behind the door for a moment, psyching herself up before flinging it open, revealing...nothing, other than a very small, very empty landing. She turned on her torch and looked back towards her sister.

  “Run. Now!” Robyn said, and Wren began to thunder down the stairs. Robyn took hold of the bannister with one hand, kept the javelin in the other, and backed down the stairs, slowly, ready for Norman to leap out of the darkness towards her.

  “It’s locked!” cried Wren as she desperately tried to open the door. “There’s no key.”

  “Out of the way,” Robyn said, trying the doorknob herself. “Crap! Okay. We’ll look for another way out. God knows where he’s gone I’ve no doubt he’ll be back soon.”

  The two sisters started heading back up the stairs when a sound made them freeze, in more ways than one. Wren shone the torch up to the landing, and there, stood at the top was Norman, holding a woman in an old-fashioned pink, flowery summer dress. Her hands were bound in front of her, and her grey-brown curly locks fell over her shoulders from beneath the cloth bag that covered her head.

  Wren and Robyn stood in silence, neither able to breathe, both dreading what Norman would do next with the poor soul he had bound at the top of the stairs. Finally, he made his move, pulling the bag from over the woman’s head and taking off the gag, all while keeping a tight hold on the dog collar he had around her neck. A growl started at the back of the woman’s throat, and Wren panned the torch beam to her face. The familiar grey eyes of a creature glared back at her, the pupils nearly taking up the whole of the eyes in the darkness of the stairwell.

  It tugged against the restraints of the cable tie at the sight of fresh prey, almost oblivious to the fact it was being held in place. It struggled and writhed, trying to reach the two girls, but couldn’t. Then Norman released it. And the beast flew, literally, as it lost its footing at the top of the stairs due to its raging hunger. It cartwheeled in the torch spotlight and there was a stomach-churning crack as a bone broke, echoing up and down the stairwell, “Nooo!” cried Norman, charging down the stairs after it.

  The two girls jumped to either side as the tumbling creature landed hard against the front door with another deafening thud. Wren’s hand shook, but the rest of her was paralyzed with fear. When they were both stuck in the living room, Robyn had been ready to do what she needed to, to protect her sister. But now, she too was numbed at the horrific sight, as the creature lay battered against the door, its neck nearly at a right angle to its shoulders. Its hands were still bound together in front, almost as if it was praying, which, subconsciously, the girls were doing at that very moment.

  “Lizzie…. No, Lizzie,” cried Norman as he reached the bottom of the stairs. Robyn suddenly raised the javelin, ready to stab if he made a move towards either her or Wren, but now his madness had a different focus as he knelt down and clutched the broken figure. “No!” he said again with tears beginning to roll down his face. Let’s get you back upstairs. A good night’s rest and you’ll be as right as rain.”

  “Stop!” shouted, Robyn. “Let us out! Let us out of here.”

  Norma
n stopped in his tracks. He looked towards Robyn in the torchlight. The tears glistened in his eyes. He held his sister close to him with one hand, while reaching into his pocket and pulling out the keys. Robyn stepped over to Wren’s side as he unlocked and opened the door. “A good night’s sleep that’s all you need,” he said again.

  The two girls backed out of the doorway. Robyn kept the javelin raised, ready to strike if Norman made a move, but his insane grief had consumed him, taking his entire focus. Wren kept the torchlight on him, though, just in case.

  The door closed, and the two girls stood there, in a state of shock.

  “What the hell just happened?” Wren asked.

  “That was his sister, I think,” Robyn replied.

  “His sister?”

  “When he had me tied up there, he kept talking about how he wanted you and me to meet his sister.”

  “He was completely crazy. Did you see the look in his eyes?”

  “I don’t want to think about it.”

  Wren looked around her. It was beginning to get light. “Well, that felt like the longest night of my life.”

  Robyn looked up to the sky, then back towards her sister. “How are you feeling?”

  “Oh, I feel great. Having a brilliant time.”

  “No, I mean, how’s your wound?”

  Wren placed her hand on it gently. “It doesn’t feel too bad. A lot better than it did.” Wren looked down at Robyn’s bare feet. “How are your feet?”

  “Agony. Cut to ribbons. But we can sort them out when we get back to the surgery. Then, I think we need to get out of here. Do you feel up to getting back on the road? I promise, the next time we stop, it will be for longer, but we need to get the hell away from psycho-boy while he’s preoccupied with his sister.”

  They began walking back slowly in the direction of the surgery. “Would you have killed him, Bobbi?”

  “He abducted me and held a knife to my throat, tied me up and went for my little sister. He was going to feed us to zombie Lizzie, for god’s sake, Wren.”

  “You’re right, it’s just…. Killing someone. That’s different to killing these things.”

  “All that matters is you and me. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep us safe...to keep us alive.”

  “Muuummm!” shouted Norman, bursting back out of his door. “Something’s wrong with Lizzie, very wrong,” he cried, running up the street towards the church. “Muuummm! You’ve got to help.”

  “What the hell?” Robyn said as she and Wren turned around to watch Norman speed waddle up the street.

  “I thought he said his mum was dead,” Wren said.

  “He did, he said she was…oh no. Even he couldn’t be that insane, surely?”

  Robyn and Wren stood there in the middle of the street as they watched Norman. He opened the gate to the churchyard and bounded up the path. “Muuummm!” he cried again before pulling open the church doors. It was like watching a horror film that they’d seen before. They knew what was going to happen, but they were scared stiff anyway. In less than a minute, Norman was no longer visible, although his screams of agony echoed around the village. In the early morning light, all Wren and Robyn could see was a throng of movement at the entrance of the church. The creatures were free, all of them, and now, more than ever, the two sisters needed to escape this hellish place once and for all.

  They moved over to the pavement and kept low, looking back constantly to see if they had been spotted by the beasts. They finally reached the footpath that led to the surgery and ducked down it, moving as fast as they could. They climbed the surgery steps, opened the door and dived in, locking the door quietly behind them.

  They headed straight for the room they had bedded down in for the night. “We need to get your feet sorted, otherwise we won’t make it a hundred yards,” Wren said. “Get on the table.”

  Robyn did not argue, and climbed onto the examination table. Wren placed a torch down, giving her sufficient light to work with. “Are they bad?” Robyn asked.

  “Compared to what?”

  “Stop kidding around.”

  “They’re badly cut in places, Bobbi. I’m going to have to clean them and bandage them.”

  “Please be quick.”

  Wren grabbed a big wad of cotton wool from a jar and the bottle of alcohol that Robyn had used on her the day before. She poured the alcohol over the cotton wool. “Take a breath,” she said, as she dabbed the wadded wool against her sister’s wounds.

  Robyn’s fist shot up to her mouth and she bit down on it to avoid screaming at the pain. Her feet were still bleeding, but there was nothing particularly deep. Wren pulled out the antiseptic cream from her rucksack and squeezed a good dollop from the tube onto her fingers before placing it onto her sister’s feet. “Gross,” she said.

  “What’s gross?” Robyn asked.

  “Your feet. They’re like pig’s trotters.”

  “Cow!”

  “No, pig.” The two girls tried to smile, but it did not work. They knew how dire their situation was. They were both injured. They were both in pain. They had endured the most horrifying night of their life, and the day ahead did not look like it was going to be an improvement.

  Wren pulled out two bandages and two safety pins from her rucksack. She tore the first packet open and carefully began to wrap the cloth around her sister’s left foot, before securing it into place.

  “You’re really good at that,” Robyn said.

  “I had to dress plenty of my own wounds and sprains,” she said, moving straight onto the next one. She finished the second dressing and delved into her sister’s rucksack for some socks. Wren caringly placed them over Robyn’s bandages. “How does that feel?”

  “Good.”

  “Good,” Wren replied. “It’s a shame; if we had time there are so many supplies we could take from here.”

  “We’ll find other places, we’ll find other supplies. Right now, we need to get out of here as fast as we can,” Robyn replied, pulling on her boots.

  “You’re right. Just a shame, that’s all.”

  Robyn climbed down from the examination table, and Wren suddenly realised she was still wearing her sister’s jacket. She started to unzip it, but Robyn stopped her. “It looks better on you anyway,” she said, pulling a thick cotton shirt out of her bag and rolling up the sleeves. She put on her rucksack, picked up the javelin and the holdall and the two of them headed to the door.

  Wren turned off the torch. It was not particularly bright out yet, but it was light enough for them to see, and they did not want to attract attention in case any of the creatures were lurking. Almost sensing what her sister was thinking, Wren said, “Let’s hope they’re still up at the far end of the street.”

  They reached the front door and both of them looked at each other before pushing it open. They stood on the step for a few seconds, then headed down, across the car park and to the narrow alleyway that led out onto the main street. They walked slowly, Wren in front, as she was able to keep both her hands on the javelin. As they reached the end, they stopped and crouched down. Wren looked down the street first. That would be their direction of travel. It was clear. She swapped sides and looked up towards the church. The feast was over and the beasts had begun to spread out. There were still a number of them in the church grounds, but others had meandered, scouring their surroundings for fresh prey.

  She let out a small gasp as she spotted Norman. His grey tank top was now dyed purple with blood from his neck and shoulder wounds. His overweight corpse waddled with little purpose, but he and another beast were only a few metres up the street, and there was no way the sisters could make a break for it without being seen.

  Wren turned to Robyn, “We’ve got a big problem.”

  chapter 20

  Robyn and Wren sat on the examination table. The Venetian blinds were closed. They had locked the front door and made sure all the downstairs windows at least were covered one way or another.

  “This is my fault
,” Robyn said. “We should have just gone. If you hadn’t bandaged my feet, we’d have been out of here while they were all still snacking on Nutjob Norman.”

  “Don’t be stupid. You wouldn’t have got to the end of the street with your feet the way they are.”

  “So, what now?”

  “So now we need a plan.”

  “Great. All our plans have worked out so well.”

  “Okay, so, right this minute, we’re safe. Those things don’t know we’re here. They can’t see inside; we’re not in danger—provided we don’t venture outside.”

  “And?”

  “Well, we need to decide. Are we going to stay here, while we get better, while my wound heals, while your feet heal, or are we going to go?”

  “Are you honestly suggesting we stay here?”

  “It’s not as stupid as it sounds.”

  “Explain it to me, because staying in a village full of flesh-eating zombies sounds pretty stupid to me.”

  “Right, listen, we take a couple of days. My wound feels a lot better than it did, but I’m still not one hundred per cent. Your feet aren’t great. A couple of days’ care and they’ll be a lot better. We’ve got food. We’ve got water. I don’t know how long our gas canister will last, but we can have hot food while it does. And during this time, we can strip this place of supplies and come up with an idea of how the hell we’re going to get out of here unseen, which right this minute, I have no clue about.”

  Robyn turned to look at Wren, her brow was creased. “I don’t want to stay here. I want to get out.”

  “Okay, whatever decision we make, it will be a joint one. How are we going to get out?”

  “I...I don’t know.”

  “Well, until we have a plan, we’re not going anywhere, so maybe we should just rest for a little while. It’s been a long night.”

  “We’re trapped here, aren’t we? We’re going to die in this village,” Robyn said.

  “You’re tired and you’re in pain. When you feel better, you’ll see things in a different light.”