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

by Artinian, Christopher

  The two girls screamed, still unable to move, as they watched the wrist and then the forearm break through the wall. Then a thousand frantic scratching sounds started all around them. They were in the cavities of the wall in front, the wall behind. They were in the loft, they were under the floorboards. Grey, grasping hands burst through the walls; burst through the ceiling; burst up through the floor taking hold of Robyn and then Wren. The noise was deafening, but now, the scratching had been replaced by a much louder grind of gnashing teeth.

  The arms continued to shroud her, but Wren could still see her sister as she disappeared down through the broken floorboards.

  “Bobbi! Bobbbbbbiii! Bobbbbbbiii!”

  “Wren...Wren...WREN!!!” Robyn shouted, desperately trying to shake her sister awake, but to no avail. “Wren!” she called again, and this time shoved her with both hands.

  “Aaarrrggghhh!” screamed Wren as she finally broke through the barriers of her nightmare into the real world.

  Robyn flicked on the torch. “I couldn’t wake you up!”

  Wren wrapped her arms around her sister and held her tightly. “I had the worst nightmare.”

  “I kind of guessed.”

  “Those things, they were—”

  “Shhh. It was a nightmare. It’s over now; try and forget about it and go back to sleep,” Robyn said, turning the torch off and gently stroking her sister’s hair, like their mother used to do to comfort them.

  “But—”

  “Just go to sleep, Wren; I’m here.”

  Robyn continued stroking her sister’s head gently, and Wren eventually drifted.

  chapter 8

  It was late the next morning when Robyn and Wren woke up. Their night had continued to be plagued by bad dreams, and when they stirred, it was with heavy eyes and cotton wool heads. Several minutes passed before either of them spoke.

  “You’re sleeping in your own bed tonight,” Robyn said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “That first dream must have been a bad one.”

  “We were—”

  “I don’t want to know. I don’t want that shit rattling around in my head, thanks. I’ve got enough of my own.”

  They kept the curtains closed as they made breakfast. They still had half a loaf left, and they cut four thick slices and smeared them in damson jam. Robyn placed a log into the stove along with kindling and a firelighter, before striking a match to start the fire.

  “I think I’ll have a coffee as well,” Wren said.

  “We’ll both need them today.”

  “So?”

  “So what?”

  “So, what are we going to do?”

  “Jesus, Wren. I’ve just woken up from the worst night’s sleep in history. My head hurts, I’m hungry, I need a coffee. Don’t start asking me questions like that, just give me some time.”

  “There’s no need to be grumpy with me, I was just asking.”

  Robyn looked at her. “I’m sorry. Just let me wake up, okay?”

  The two of them ate and drank in relative silence. When they had finished, Robyn opened the curtains covering the patio doors. The sun was shimmering on the loch in front and it was yet another beautiful day. She could not remember the last time they’d had such a run of nice weather. Normally it would be something she could relish, but enjoyment was in short supply now. Enjoyment would mean guilt. How could she enjoy herself in a world of pain, death and suffering?

  She stood at the window, looking out, sipping her coffee. Wren came and stood beside her. “We’re down to our last half bottle of water. We’ll have to take some empties across to the farm and fill them.”

  “Okay. We’ll go soon.”

  “Have you thought any more about what we’re going to do?”

  Robyn let out a deep breath. “I know you felt it too.”

  “Felt what?”

  “Last night...when we got back here. You felt the same as me. You felt this place wasn’t safe anymore.”

  “I...I can’t explain it. I was so happy when they let us move in here. But after yesterday all that changed. Even though I knew the garden on either side led straight into the woods, it felt safe. When we were practicing with our bows, it felt safe. But last night, it just felt…different.”

  “When we reached the farm, we’d left all the trouble behind us. We thought we’d reached the end of our journey. Thomas and Isabel and Kayleigh and Brendan were nice people, just getting on with their lives and we just joined in with the illusion that everything was normal because they believed they could just carry on as normal.” She took another sip of her coffee. “But that’s all it was, an illusion. The second they needed to head out into the real world, everything came crashing down around them, and suddenly, that illusion we’d bought into began to crash down on us too.”

  “Whoa. That’s deep for you.”

  “Get lost.”

  “I wasn’t being sarcastic. I mean it. And you’re right.”

  “I was thinking about it in bed. It took me about two hours to go back to sleep after you had your screaming fit. We wanted to believe Thomas and Isabel were going to make everything right; maybe they even felt a bit like parents to us. But they didn’t have a clue.”

  “I feel really bad for them.”

  “Me too. They were good to us.”

  “So, what next?”

  “For all we know, the woods could be swimming with those things after yesterday. We need to find somewhere safer.”

  “So, we’re heading back out there?”

  “I don’t see any other option. We’ll always be looking over our shoulder here.”

  “I really love the house though. And it’s got a solid fuel stove. Can’t we…”

  “I know. Who wouldn’t want to stay, Wren? We’ve got a house, our own loch with fish in it…but it’s not secure, not by a long way.”

  “But who’s to say there is anything better out there?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never had to think like this before. I always left decisions to Mum and Dad. I’m trying my best, but I don’t have all the answers.”

  “Look. Whatever we decide, we need to plan. Better than we did last time.”

  “Duh!”

  “Whatever we do, we can’t do it if we’re dying of thirst, so we need to head over to the farm and get some fresh water.”

  “I wish we still had the other javelin,” Robyn replied.

  “Yeah, me too,” replied Wren, closing the living room curtains again.

  “What did you do that for?”

  “I...don’t know. Not seeing the outside makes it feel a little safer.”

  “You were always weird.”

  “Thanks.”

  The two sisters put on their boots, filled their holdall and rucksacks with empty plastic bottles and walked to the door. Wren picked up her javelin, while Robyn placed a quiver of arrows over her shoulder and grabbed the bow she had been practicing with. Her fingers paused on the key, and they both looked at each other. “Ready?” Robyn asked, and her sister nodded.

  The door opened and they stepped from the curtain-shielded security within, scanning the perimeter, and seeing nothing out of place. Wren kept a tight hold of the javelin while her sister opened the large metal gate. They walked through, and she closed it again behind them. On the lane, it looked just like it had the previous day. There was no sign of anything out of the ordinary; the leaves of the bushes rippled, the tall grass swayed, and the sun beat down. Robyn and Wren welcomed the warm breeze. Fortunately, the midges stayed away when there was just the slightest wind, because they’d both forgotten to apply repellent.

  It was not long before they entered the farmyard. The blood had dried on the white stone chips, turning them purple. They walked into the kitchen and removed their rucksacks, placed the holdall on the kitchen table, and got to work. The pump at the side of the sink was a little stiff to begin with, but it did not take long to prime, then the water began to flow freely through the tap.

&
nbsp; “We might have to make a couple of trips,” Robyn said. “This is going to weigh a ton.”

  “Surely they’ll have a wheelbarrow kicking around somewhere; we could use that.”

  “Good thinking. I’ll carry on filling these; you go check.”

  Wren picked up her javelin and left, making sure she closed the door. In the space of a day, paranoia had begun to cloak her, tainting every thought. She looked towards the road before walking across the yard to one of the outbuildings. She had never had cause to go into any of them, and as she opened the side door, a strong, sickly-sweet smell invaded her nose. Skylights in the corrugated metal roof allowed her to see clearly, and, though a quick look around the large interior told her that there were none of the creatures present, she was not about to take any risks. She batted the javelin against the corrugated metal frame of the building, and waited, ready to spring into action if anything came towards her. Nothing did, and the tension left her shoulders.

  She closed the door behind her, walked further in, and found the smell gradually getting stronger. It was a large building, about twelve by six metres, and fairly tall. There was a tractor tyre leaning against one of the walls, and Wren assumed that was the building’s original purpose, but now it contained racking and tools. She walked down the first row of shelving, and as she reached the second row, she found the source of the smell. Two large brown rats had been caught in traps. By the looks of it, they had been there a little while and the air was ripe with their smell.

  At the end of the row was what looked like a new wheelbarrow. Wren nudged the sprung traps to one side with the end of the javelin, and picked up the handles, steering it down the row, around the corner and to the entrance. She was about to take it back over to the house when she stopped herself.

  “I wonder what else you kept in here, Thomas.” Wren lowered the wheelbarrow onto its rests and headed back down the rows. There were sacks of fertiliser and grass seeds on the shelves, tractor parts, and car parts too. None of it was stuff that would be any use to Wren or Robyn. She reached the last but one row and was about to give it up as a bad job when a sunbeam shining down through a skylight made something glint, and the flare compelled her to look. She turned her head; she didn’t understand what she was seeing at first, but then as she peered behind the last row of racking, there it was, all neatly piled in columns along the back wall.

  “Oh...my...God!”

  Wren ran back through the large shed, sidestepped the wheelbarrow, and sprinted across the yard, coming to a skidding stop at the farmhouse. Stone chips sprayed up against the bottom of the wooden door, and as she burst through, Robyn was already looking in her direction. She immediately dropped the bottle she was filling and reached for her bow.

  “What is it!?” she screeched.

  “Nothing like that,” Wren said looking towards the bow, shaking her head.

  “You nearly gave me a heart attack! What is it then?”

  “Come. Come quickly,” she said before running back across the courtyard.

  Robyn stepped out into the fresh air and looked around, closing the door behind her, before heading across to the large shed with a lot more trepidation than her sister.

  She walked through the door. “Oh great, a wheelbarrow. That was so worth me wetting my pants for. Fantastic work, sis.”

  “No, this way,” Wren said, taking Robyn’s hand and guiding her.

  “Have you dropped one?”

  “Funny. That’s just a couple of dead rats.”

  Robyn turned her head to look down the next row of shelves and pinched her nose as the smell reached its strongest. “Eugh, gross.”

  “Never mind the rats, look at this,” Wren said, bringing them both to a stop at the far wall.

  “A shit load of barbed wire and some big wooden spikes? Wow, yeah, that’s really great, Wren. I’m so glad you brought me to see this; that’s made my day. Hey look, a pair of gloves. Oh my god! Is that a shovel? Seriously. This is the most exciting thing that’s happened to me in ages.”

  “They’re not spikes. They’re very big fence posts. And you’re missing the point; you don’t understand.”

  “No, Wren, obviously I don’t.”

  “We said it today. How much we love the house, how the loch can provide for us, how we can have hot food…”

  “I still don’t understand.”

  “Okay. What if we don’t leave. What if, rather than going back on the road to find a place that might not exist, we make our place secure. The road is dangerous. Not knowing where we’re going is dangerous. There is nothing but uncertainty out there, but here...we could have food, water, heat…. We know that for a fact. So rather than going out into the unknown, why don’t we stay here and fight? We’ll make our place secure. We’ll make it into a fortress.”

  Robyn looked at her. “But…”

  “But nothing, Bobbi. You say we should go out there and find a better place. I say, there might not be a better place. What are the chances of us finding what we have here? What are the chances of us finding somewhere without having to fight a load of those things? What I’m saying is, let’s cut down on the work. We’ve already found the place. We know we’re going to have to fight again at some point, but let’s fight on our own terms. Let’s fight them on our own ground.”

  “It’ll be dangerous and a lot of work for just two of us.”

  “Going out there will be dangerous, Bobbi. God, doing anything is dangerous now. But look at how much wire there is. We could make the house and garden secure, we could even cordon off some of the woods. We could set booby traps, we could do all sorts to make us safer,” Wren said, her eyes glimmering with excitement.

  “The cottage is still awfully close to the village. What’s to say a load of those things don’t just show up one day? I mean they could be in the woods as it is,” Robyn replied. There was no excitement in her eyes, only doubt.

  “Bobbi, once we’ve fortified our home we can start working on the surrounding area, just a section at a time. But this is the point I’m trying to make. We make the cottage like a castle, so we don’t have to worry if they do show up. We keep practicing with our bows. You’re already good, and you’ll get better all the time. We’ve got a supply of food, we can fish, we can gather and we can grow more. We can make the place somewhere we can be safe, and we’ll be able to provide for ourselves.”

  “But what do we know about growing food?”

  “Bobbi, Bobbi, Bobbi...when will you learn to trust your little sister? Come with me,” she said, and led her back out of the shed. They walked across the farmyard to the house. Wren opened the door and the two of them went through to the living room. Wren sat down on one of the sofas and gestured for her sister to join her. “I spent quite a lot of time with Isabel when you were working with Thomas. She told me about the seeds they had been given by the government. She told me how she didn’t have the first clue about growing crops, so she read up on it.”

  There was a bookcase by the side of the sofa, but most of the shelves were taken up with ornaments. The bottom row was all books, though, and she selected a large, hardback one, called: The New Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency by John Seymour.

  “I had a read through this one day when we were waiting for you lot to come home. It tells us everything we need to know,” Wren said, smiling broadly.

  Robyn took the book from her and began to leaf through it. “It’s got pictures.”

  “Yeah, I thought you’d like that.”

  “Bitch!”

  “Cow!”

  “Dog breath!”

  “Fart face!”

  Robyn spent a few minutes looking through the book. “It’s got stuff in here about how to pickle and make conserves.”

  “I know.”

  “It tells you how to rotate your crops.”

  “I know.”

  “Oh my god…it tells you how to build fencing.”

  “I know, Bobbi. So, what do you think?”

  Robyn clo
sed the book and looked at the front cover for a long time, before handing it back to Wren.

  “It’s going to be a hell of a lot of work.”

  “More than either of us have ever done in our lives.”

  “It’s going to be dangerous.”

  “It’s going to make getting away from Norman and out of Tolsta look like a walk in the park.”

  “It’s going to mean we’ll have no free time. It will be work, food, bed, seven days a week.”

  “Long, long days. We’ll be collapsing onto our mattresses on a night. So, what do you think?” Wren asked.

  “Let’s do this.”

  chapter 9

  Robyn pushed the wheelbarrow back down the lane while Wren performed bodyguard duties with a new zeal. The breeze was still blowing, and the serene beauty took on a new significance now the girls had decided they were going to make the cottage their home.

  Wren headed up the track to the gate and unlatched it. It was galvanised steel and about three metres long. On either side, there were stone pillars and a thick hedgerow that led into woodland. From the road and track, they were protected. Maybe they would wrap barbed wire around the top of the gate, but it was not easily accessible. The two of them walked through, and now, the woods looked a little less intimidating than they had the night before.

  There stood the house. The single storey, painted white cottage that had probably earned Thomas and Isabel a pretty penny in rental income. Robyn lowered the wheelbarrow down, and the two of them looked around.

  The open woods to either side of the garden were bordered by a small verge. Isabel had told Wren that they owned all the surrounding land, including the small forest area. Once, she told her, it had all been fenced or walled, but over the years, there had been breaks in it that had never been repaired.

  “Do you think we can do it?” Robyn asked.

  “We can do anything we put our minds to. Let’s get this water in and then we can get started.”

  They emptied the wheelbarrow of the water bottles and placed them in the fridge. “So how are we going to do this?” Robyn asked, placing the self-sufficiency book down on the table and turning to the section on fencing.