“I want to see you do it,” Robyn said, climbing onto the desk so she could see her sister beyond the barricade. “I want to see you make the jump.”
“I can’t. There’s not enough room. When I come in, I’ll be going at full pelt; I’ll already have momentum. I can’t go from standing still to doing the jump.”
“I really don’t like this. I don’t like this at all.”
“It is what it is, Bobbi. It will be fine.”
“If anything happens to you, Wren, I’ll…”
Wren walked back towards her sister. “You’ll what?”
“I’ll never forgive myself. It should be me heading out there, not you. It should be me taking the risks.”
“Bobbi. I can do the two hundred in twenty-five flat. I can jump six metres; this is only half that distance,” she said, pointing back to the filing cabinet. “It will be fine. Trust me.” Wren placed her hands on top of the filing cabinets and pulled herself up. Robyn offered a hand and helped her to her feet. The two sisters looked down the hall and into the foyer, visualising how it was all going to unfold, before climbing down onto the desks, then to the floor. They went back into their room and without saying a word, prepared their rucksacks. As requested, Wren had thinned out the contents so they would no longer be carrying the holdall around too.
They fastened each of them and carried them out to the rear of the hall, placing them by the back door, ready for a quick escape.
“Right then. This is it, I suppose,” Wren said.
Robyn threw her arms around her sister. “Promise me you’ll be careful. I don’t want to face this alone. I want it to be you and me.”
“Just be ready to run like hell when I get back.” She was just about to head out, then she stopped. “Oh man, nearly forgot one of the most important pieces of the puzzle.”
“What?”
“Won’t be a minute,” Wren said climbing back over the barricade. She returned a moment later with a glass bottle that once contained lemonade, and walked back into their room. Robyn followed her and watched as she filled the bottle with surgical alcohol before stuffing some cotton wool in the top. She checked that the lighter was still in her pocket, and the straight-edged screwdriver was tucked into her belt. “Okay. Time to have some fun,” she said, heading out and opening the back door.
Robyn handed her the javelin. “Don’t forget this,” she said.
“I can’t take that, Bobbi.”
“What do you mean? Why?”
“I won’t be able to make the jump with the javelin. I’ve got the screwdriver if I run into trouble.”
“Oh god! This just gets worse and worse,” Robyn said.
“Just don’t worry.”
Wren climbed back onto the desk, onto the top of the filing cabinets, and sat down before sliding off the edge onto the other side. She walked down the hall and into the foyer. She looked at the staircase and up to the tall ceiling. “It’s a shame. This would have been a beautiful house once. We could have settled here, if it wasn’t for those things.”
“We’ll find somewhere better.”
Wren smiled. “Yeah,” she said, looking out of the side window to make sure the car park was clear. When she determined it was, she opened the front door and placed a wedge underneath it to make sure it did not swing shut. “Smell you later,” she said, forcing a smile.
“Yeah. Smell ya later, sis.”
chapter 22
Despite the car park being clear, Wren instinctively stayed quiet and low as she ran across, holding the bottle firmly in her right hand. She leapfrogged the small verge of bushes that separated the car park from the pavement and headed down the narrow alley towards the main street. As she reached the end, she stopped and crouched down lower, pressing her back hard against the wall to the right, and edging out as far as she could without being seen. The route out of the village was all clear. She let out a sigh. Maybe she was overthinking this. Maybe she and Robyn could just slip out without any theatrics.
She moved over to the other side of the alleyway and did the same thing. A breath caught in her throat as she saw one of the creatures with its back to her, not more than ten metres away. Others were meandering around, sniffing at the air, trying to pick up the scent of prey. She shuffled back a little, knowing that if the thing turned around, it would see her. She only had one chance at this. She moved a little further down the alley and pulled the lighter from her pocket.
The flame made the cotton wool wick smoulder for a moment before it began to burn. Wren knew she could not afford the luxury of just throwing the homemade incendiary device across the street; she would be too easy to spot. She wanted to be spotted, but only when the time was right. She edged back down to the end of the ginnel, took a deep breath and launched the bottle as high as she could into the air, leaving all the creatures in the near vicinity oblivious to its origin. She was only a few centimetres back from the main street as she watched the bottle arc diagonally across the street. It smashed on the roof of a building three units up. Flames dripped over the side, and burning alcohol collected in the plastic guttering.
The sun was shining and the effect of the flames was a little camouflaged by its brightness, but within a few seconds, black smoke began to rise into the air. The sound alone had attracted all the creatures within earshot, and their growling chorus rose in excitement. They did not understand how the flames started. They did not understand what the flames were, but their animal instinct told them it was not something they could produce. It was something alien.
They stood looking up at the roof as the fire caught a greater hold. Wren pulled back from the edge of the alley and headed back into the car park, nestling behind some bushes. The first part of the plan had been executed. The fire was taking hold. Now she just had to wait a few minutes until it really caught, and every single one of the creatures in the village had assembled to see it. Then it was time for phase two.
Wren remained crouched for a few more minutes, but as the loud crackle of the flames began to drown out the creatures’ growls, she stood up. It was nearly time. She began to loosen up, bending and stretching, making sure nothing twanged when she needed to rely on her body for the most important race of her life. When she was content that she was as limber as she could get, she headed back down the ginnel. Wren looked up to the sky and saw that it was filling with dark grey smoke. “God, I hope this works.”
She reached the end of the alley and stepped out onto the main street. The roof of the building was fully ablaze and the fire had spread to the one next door. The guttering was melting, sending acrid black smoke into the afternoon air. Wren looked at the creatures; they were transfixed by the display, searching between the flames and the smoke for any sign of something edible.
Wren took another step out into the street. The nearest beast was just ten feet away with its back to her.
All the cocksureness and bravado she had displayed to her sister suddenly left her and she felt her legs start shaking. She ducked back into the ginnel. Oh God, she thought, I’m not going to be able to go through with it. Her breathing got faster and her nostrils began to coat with the residue of the smoke. If she was going to do this, she would need to do it now. If she started coughing and spluttering, it was all over.
Wren stood up straight and took a deep breath while she still could. She stepped out into the street once more.
“Aaarrrggghhh!” she screamed at the top of her voice. As if they were a flock of birds, all the creatures turned their heads and started towards her in one fluid movement. The sheer scale and speed of the advance took Wren by surprise and she lost a valuable second as her body tried to catch up with her mind. She turned and started running as fast as she could. Just in those first few metres, her ears could no longer hear the fire. Everything was drowned out by the sound of thundering feet and excited growls. As she sprinted down the alleyway, she could hear the creatures pounding behind her, she could hear their terrifying chorus, she could hear them jostling
for position. Then as she leapt over the dividing verge she heard some of them trip over the bushes and go sprawling on the tarmac, but she could not allow herself the luxury of a glance. This race would come down to the wire and the hardest stretch was still ahead.
Wren powered across the car park, certain that she was making better time than she ever had on the track. She leapt up the three wide steps leading to the entrance and hurtled through the door, seeing the waiting room chair standing there, looking so flimsy now it was time to put her plan into action. As the first creatures followed her in, barging through the doorway, the growls filled the foyer and hall. In the confines of the building, everything became a lot more real. The next few seconds would be the difference between life and death.
Wren could almost feel the outstretched fingers of the predators grasping the air behind her as she ran. Timing, positioning, strength, balance—they all counted now, more than ever. She launched, and her breathing paused. Wren’s left foot landed firmly on the smaller cabinet; in that microsecond, she felt the top of it give a little under her weight, but it did not crumble and she pushed off harder, flying even higher now. Her right foot hit the top of the cabinet in the middle of the hallway hard, and now she put every grain of her strength into the final part of the jump. Her eyes focussed on the gap between the two tall metal cabinets, then beyond them to Robyn. She had never seen her sister look so fretful, so scared; not even when they were little girls. But now, as Wren soared higher still like she had indeed sprouted wings, she looked down at Robyn and she saw not her older sister, but the girl from their childhood. Wren’s arms swung and waved, making sure she kept steady, making sure she kept on course. She brought her feet down on top of one of the filing cabinets with a deafening metallic clunk; she felt the metal cave a little with the sheer force. This was not like jumping into a sandpit. She extended her right leg as her body jolted forward with the momentum; her foot banged down on the solid wooden desk, slowing her a little further, and sending a shock through her whole body.
“Argh!” she grunted, but was unable to come to a stop. Then she saw her sister had laid the pads and cushions from the examination tables in front of the desk, anticipating this very problem. Wren brought both her feet up as she aimed for a soft landing on the double thickness of the pads. Her heels dug into the top layer and even though it slipped off the bottom one, the speed and force had dissipated substantially. Wren slid across the carpet on the pad for a few feet as the creatures smashed into the barrier with an almighty crunch.
She swung round to see arms still desperately grasping and grabbing the air in front of them, but with no chance of reaching either her or her sister. Robyn offered her hand to Wren, who gratefully took it as she climbed to her feet.
“I love you,” Robyn said.
“You don’t have to constantly say it y’know,” she said as the two of them hugged tightly.
“Smart arse.”
The noise got louder as the rest of the creatures crowded into the foyer and down the hall in a desperate attempt to reach the two girls. “I’m big on hugs, but I think we’d better make tracks, don’t you?”
The two girls remained in their embrace as they looked at the horde of malevolent beasts reaching out towards them.
“Probably a good call.”
Wren and Robyn headed to the back door, picked up their rucksacks and javelins, took one last look in the direction of the barricade, and left.
They shut the door behind them, then scurried around the front of the building. Wren peeked around the corner, but there was no sign of anything. If creatures had indeed fallen, as she had suspected, they had gathered themselves and followed their brethren into the building in search of fresh flesh.
Wren crept up to the front door and looked around the corner. All the beasts were still desperate to break through the barricade, sure that wherever the two girls had fled, they could still reach them. Wren quietly closed the door until she heard that latch slide into place. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
They jogged across the car park, vaulted the small verge, ran down the alley, and paused for a moment to see the spectacle unfolding across the street. The fire had taken hold of more of the rooftops and spread to the upper floors of one of the units.
“Is that your handy work?” Robyn asked.
“It got the job done.”
“So basically, you burnt down the whole village to make sure we could escape?”
“Like I say, it got the job done.”
The black smoke billowed and the fire showed no sign of slowing down. “C’mon, we’ve got some ground to cover before we can rest again.”
The pair of them began to jog down the street, leaving the burning buildings behind them. They reached the turn for Norman’s house but carried straight on. It was a country lane, surrounded by hedges and trees. Farmer’s fields sat on either side and within a few minutes, the air was fresh, the sun was shining, and the hellish inferno was behind them. They remained quiet as they put distance between themselves and the catastrophe. After several minutes they slowed down to take a breath and looked back to the direction they’d come from. Thick black smoke continued to spiral into the sky.
“We should climb over the fence. It doesn’t make sense to be on the road,” Wren said.
“Why? They’re trapped in the surgery, they can’t come after us.”
“I’m not thinking about them. If there are any others in sight of that smoke, they’re going to be heading towards it.”
“Oh god—I didn’t even think of that. Real little Miss Sunshine you are.”
Wren and Robyn carried on walking until they reached a large gate. They climbed over and moved across to the wall on the opposite side of the field before carrying on their journey.
After an hour, when the heat of the sun became too much for them to walk in, they sat down under a tree and ate. There was very little gas left in the small camp stove, so they decided to save that for an evening meal. Wren tugged at the ring pull on a tin of spaghetti hoops and offered it to her sister.
“Yum, cold spaghetti,” she said.
“Better than cold nothing,” Wren replied, grabbing a bottle from her rucksack and taking a long drink of water.
“I suppose,” Robyn replied, digging her fork into the orange sauce.
“I hope we find somewhere soon,” Wren said.
“What’s the matter? We’ve still got plenty of daylight left.”
Wren lifted up her t-shirt to reveal her wound had opened up again. “I think it will be okay, but I could feel that last jump really pulled on it.”
Robyn’s shoulders sagged, and she handed the tin of spaghetti to Wren. “I suppose that was only to be expected under the circumstances.”
“Okay, we’ll finish lunch and set off again, straight away.”
They sat, ate, and drank for fifteen minutes before getting to their feet again. The sun got hotter and they took t-shirts out of their rucksacks, fashioning makeshift headscarves out of them to protect their heads. After an hour, they saw a white house in the distance, surrounded by some smaller buildings.
“What do you think?” Wren said.
“Too difficult to say from this distance. Looks like a farmhouse.”
“We should go check it out. It might be empty. Might be just what we’re looking for. A nice isolated place stuck in the middle of nowhere.”
“We still need to be careful. There’s nothing to say there aren’t infected there.”
They slowly headed towards the white buildings, partly excited, partly nervous. Could they really face more of these creatures today after what they had just been through?
When they got closer, they took a seat on a dry-stone wall under a tree and watched the house and buildings, scanning for movement, scanning for anything out of the ordinary. There was a Land Rover parked in front of the house, but there was no sign of anyone or anything. After half an hour just watching, Robyn and Wren climbed down from the wall and more cau
tiously than ever, began to make their way towards the property.
They ducked down as they approached the perimeter and unhitched their rucksacks, placing them behind one of the outbuildings, before scurrying round to the side and crouching even lower. They were becoming adept at field manoeuvring after just a short time on the road. They looked out from the corner across towards the farmhouse. There was still no sign of anything, and an eerie quiet befell the yard as the sunlight shone brightly on the small white stone chips.
They ran across to the house and ducked low once again, skirting along the wall, ducking underneath the windows, eventually reaching the front door. Wren crossed to the other side of it and both girls just stood there for a few seconds.
Robyn mouthed, “one, two, three,” and turned the handle. They both burst through the door with their javelins raised, and that’s when they saw the two shotguns pointing straight at them.
chapter 23
“Drop them now,” shouted the hulking, bearded figure in front of them, as two collie dogs with wild eyes barked and snarled at their masters’ side.
Robyn and Wren, out of shock more than anything, dropped the two javelins and instinctively put their hands into the air like they were on some cable tv cop show.
“Who the hell do you think you are bursting into my house?” shouted the man, whose piercing blue eyes burned holes through the two girls.
They were stuck in a stunned silence, until Robyn broke it. “I’m sorry,” she said in a broken voice. She looked towards the other shotgun to see it was being held by an attractive young woman in drainpipe jeans and boots. Her black t-shirt said: “I UNDERSTAND, I JUST DON’T CARE.”
The End of Everything Box Set, Vol. 1 [Books 1-3] Page 17
