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

by Artinian, Christopher

  “I don’t know what to say,” TJ blurted.

  “What do you mean by that?” Fry stood up, his tall, wide frame blocking a good portion of the daylight bleeding in from outside.

  “I mean, I don’t know what answer you want to hear. I’ve worked with you a long time, and I know when you’re like this, even the right answer can be the wrong one,” TJ said, looking away from his boss and down at the carpet.

  Fry’s eyes flared for a moment and the muscles in his body tensed as if he was going to strike, but then he let out a booming laugh and flopped back down on the bar stool. He poured himself another glass, and grabbed one for TJ. It was way too early in the day for TJ’s constitution to take a hit of hard liquor, but he knew that if he refused, he risked incurring Fry’s wrath once again. “Good answer,” Fry said, raising his glass. TJ raised his. “Sláinte!”

  “Sláinte!” TJ replied, and they both downed their drinks. Fry poured them another. TJ let his rest on the bar in front of him, while Fry picked his up and slowly swilled it around the tumbler, letting the amber liquid slosh against the sides.

  “They stay here because we can offer them something that they can’t get outside by themselves. They get food. They get security, they get a roof over their heads, they get drink, they get women…in a time when the world has gone to shit, a lot of these men have got it better now than they ever had it. They are kings in their own minds. They know it’s because of me, they know who I am, they know my methods. They know what happens if they disappoint me.”

  TJ edged uncomfortably on his stool, still not understanding fully where the conversation was going. “You do a great job, boss.” He felt like a sycophant as soon as the words left his mouth, and he knew Fry hated crawlers; his heart sank at the sound of his own stupidity.

  “If anything were to happen here to upset the balance, then everything would change. If all of a sudden there wasn’t enough food to go around, or we weren’t safe from the infected, or there weren’t enough women for the men to blow off some steam….” Fry put emphasis on the word women, and his eyes narrowed again.

  That’s when TJ knew something had happened, but what? The previous night he had done his rounds, everything was fine. There had been no breaches, the food inventory was healthy, he had checked in at the Fun House before turning in, and there hadn’t been any issues. What could have happened in between two a.m. and now?

  “Y’see,” Fry continued, “if things start going wrong, if these men get an incline that they’d be better off on their own, then the whole thing starts crumbling around us. That’s why there can be no mistakes,” Fry said, reaching around to the back of his belt, and retrieving his Glock Seventeen pistol. He placed it down on the mahogany bar with a thud.

  TJ’s throat turned dry in an instant and he grabbed his glass and took a drink. “You’re right. Of course you are.”

  Fry nodded, “of course I am.”

  The two of them sat there at the bar for a while. They sipped their drinks, and TJ cast more than the odd glance towards the gun. He felt himself physically jump as the doors to the bar burst open. He jerked around in his chair quickly, and hoped that he was able to disguise his alarm as curiosity.

  Three armed guards escorted three unarmed men whose hands were cable tied, into the small open area in front of where TJ and Fry were sitting. TJ immediately recognised them as the three men who were on duty at the Fun House the previous evening.

  “Leave us,” Fry said, looking towards the armed escorts. The three guards disappeared as quickly as they had entered, leaving Fry with TJ and the prisoners.

  “It’s not true what they’re saying, Fry. We didn’t—”

  Fry shot to his feet and grabbed hold of a clump of the man’s hair. “You don’t speak until I say,” he said.

  The craggy faced man, a career criminal who had never feared anyone in his life, suddenly fell silent as Fry’s whisky-soaked breath engulfed him. TJ watched and butterflies started flapping wildly in his own stomach, too.

  “Shall I go?” TJ asked.

  “You’re my right-hand man. Why would I possibly want you to go?” Fry asked with a maniacal glint in his eye. His thick accent, made richer by the amber fluid gave each word a sinister timbre. “So, we are assembled here today to answer questions,” he said, beginning to walk up and down the row of men. “You!” he pointed to the youngest looking one on the left. “Do you think I am a religious leader and this is some kind of cult?” The young man’s mouth opened, but no words came out. “C’mon, boy…don’t be nervous! We’re all friends here. Do you think I am a cult leader?”

  “N...no,” blurted the young man.

  “N...no,” Fry mocked, smiling broadly. “Well said, and well observed. No, I am not a cult leader. Okay, next question. Do you mean to disappoint me?”

  “No. No, sir,” the young man said with a little more confidence this time.

  “What’s your name, son?”

  “Bright, sir.”

  Fry let out a belly laugh. “God was having a joke that day, wasn’t he? This is good. We’ll be through this in no time. You’re doing well, son. So, I am not a cult leader. You do not want to disappoint me. Last question; think hard. Why would you assume letting twenty whores commit suicide on your watch is acceptable?”

  There was a long pause, and an icy silence chilled the very bones of the room. The three, bound men just stood there, still unbelieving that this horror was being visited upon them. Eventually Bright spoke. “It...it isn’t, sir.”

  Fry stopped pacing and looked at the young man again. “Y’see, that’s the conclusion I came to as well. If I was the leader of some Doomsday cult, then I might be over the fucking moon that twenty women had offed themselves. But that’s just not the case here. Twenty women who we have fed and clothed and depend on to keep the morale of the lads up, killed themselves. TWENTY WOMEN. Now, as we’ve already established, I’m not a cult leader,” he continued walking up and down as he summed up like a barrister in court, “and you made it very clear that you did not want to disappoint me, in addition you have agreed that this unfortunate outcome is entirely unacceptable. So, what are we going to do about it?”

  “Erm...we’ll go out. We’ll find more. We won’t rest until we’ve found twenty, and more besides,” Bright said, his face turning red, his voice quivering.

  Fry nodded slowly. “That is one option. You could make recompense for your mistake in that way, but, and this is a big but, what would that show the rest of the men? It would show them that if they screw up, if they let me down, if they fail, it’s okay, all will be forgiven. How long do you think I’ll be running things if I allow that?” The young man was about to open his mouth, but Fry put a finger up to silence him. The big Glaswegian walked over to the bar and topped up his drink. He stood there with his back to the three prisoners. He took another long drink from his glass and placed his hands palms down on the bar. “Not long, not long at all,” he answered himself, before picking up the Glock Seventeen and firing three shots. The men collapsed to the floor. Two of them were dead before they reached the carpet, but Bright coughed and wheezed as his hands covered the wound in his abdomen.

  “Please,” he rasped, “Please.”

  Fry placed the pistol back down on the bar. The smell of cordite burnt TJ’s nostrils as he remained frozen on the stool, unsure as to whether he would receive the same treatment or not. Fry walked across and knelt down on one knee next to the quivering body. A tear ran down Bright’s face. “How old are you?” Fry asked, as he gently brushed a hair from the younger man’s forehead.

  “Nineteen,” he whispered painfully.

  “Well, that’s not much of a life; maybe we should see about getting you patched up.”

  “Thank you, thank you…I’ll make it up to you...thank you, sir,” he rasped.

  “Christ, you’re as dumb as they come.” Fry grasped the young man’s neck between his thumb and forefinger. “I’m guessing you’ve failed at everything you’ve ever
done in life,” he said, squeezing. His victim started choking and more tears came to his eyes as he realised he was going to die, that Fry had simply been toying with him. “Well, I’m doing you a big favour. You’re going to die most successfully. I can hear the life leaving you,” Fry said, his eyes smiling as much as his mouth. The young man choked and wheezed and cried, all the time, his hands pressed the bullet wound. “See, you’re finally doing something right. You’re dying the perfect death, a crying, pleading, coward’s death. It’s just so...you!”

  Fry gritted his nicotine stained teeth as he applied even more pressure. A drop of whisky flavoured spittle dripped onto the young man’s face as the horror of what was happening gave way to acceptance. He was being punished for all that he had done wrong in life, and now the devil was here to collect him. The young man slowly began to lose focus of the demonic creature squeezing the life out of him, the struggle for air finally ended and his eyes lost focus as everything turned to black. Fry continued squeezing until something gave way in the young man’s throat. He stayed there for a moment longer, as did his smile.

  Eventually Fry stood and let out a long breath. He returned to the bar stool and sat down next to TJ once again, giving him a long hard stare. A layer of sweat clung to Fry’s forehead and he wreaked of whisky and body odour.

  “So…” TJ said, without having anything to follow it up with.

  “So.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  Fry wiped his brow with his sleeve, then wiped his nose before taking another drink of whisky. “Make sure everybody knows what happened to them. Make sure everybody knows what happens if they don’t do their job.”

  “That it?”

  Fry’s eyes narrowed, “That not enough for now? You think there should be more punishment doled out?”

  TJ cast a nervous glance to the bodies lying motionless on the floor, and then looked back to Fry. “No. I’ll get on it straight away.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  At just after ten a.m. the next morning, Jeb rolled the van into the drive. He had taken his medication, eaten breakfast, and it was another warm and breezy day, but inside he felt ill. His sleep had been disturbed, and now he was about to drive two young girls straight into Hell.

  Robyn and Wren came out of the house to greet him, as the van came to a stop. Wren walked straight to the back of the van and opened the rear doors before Jeb had time to cut the engine. She climbed inside to find it was a tall roof. There was more than enough room for her sister and her to stand without crouching down. The cab of the van was separated by a large piece of wood, so there was no way for anyone in the back to see what was going on in the front and vice versa.

  Wren jumped back down and greeted Jeb as he climbed out of the driver side. “Are you sure you girls want to go ahead with this?”

  “We’re sure,” Robyn said. “Now let’s get loaded up.”

  She walked back into the house and emerged a few seconds later carrying her bow and several quivers of arrows.

  “You know how to use that?” Jeb said, nodding towards the bow.

  Robyn smirked and put the quivers down, pulling out a single arrow. She brought the bow up, aimed at the furthest fence post they had erected the previous day, and fired. The arrow whistled then entered the thick wood with a satisfying crack. Without looking, she bent down, picked the quivers back up and went to put the equipment in the back of the van.

  Jeb’s eyebrows raised, and Wren smiled at him. “Yeah, I’m thinking we had different fathers, and she’s actually half elf.”

  “So it would seem.”

  Wren went back into the house to collect the javelin and closed the door behind her. “I’m more the stabby-stabby type,” she said with a smile.

  “Hmmm, I’m not sure whether to be impressed or unnerved.”

  “Wait until we’re back safe and sound, then you can decide.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “C’mon then,” Robyn said, returning to the front of the van. “Let’s get going.”

  The van zipped through the countryside, making good time until a mile before reaching Tolsta. Jeb applied the brakes and just looked at the thing that ran towards them. “They’ve got no sense,” Wren said. “It won’t jump out of the way if you drive towards it.”

  Jeb looked at Wren, and then looked back towards the creature. He moved the gear stick into first, and began to accelerate. The engine was revving hard by the time the van hit the sprinting monstrosity. It flew through the air in a flailing mass, toppling over and over until it came to hard rest in a ditch.

  Jeb pulled up again and sat there with the engine idling as he watched it in the wing mirror. The thing was still not dead. Its broken body tried to turn over, but instead, it just windmilled its arms in a loop, making no headway.

  “Dear Jesus,” he said.

  “Yep,” replied Wren. “Pull up before the last bend in the road. I’ve brought Thomas’s binoculars with us. We’ll check to make sure the coast is clear.

  Jeb took a final long look in the mirror and set off. “I’m beginning to have serious doubts about this,” he said, moving up into second gear.

  “I would have thought that incident would have put you more at ease than anything,” Wren replied.

  “How do you figure that?”

  “Well, they don’t seem to have any reasoning capability. They just keep coming, no matter what the risk to themselves. They’re relentless, yes, but it’s not difficult to outsmart them.”

  “Something doesn’t need to be smart to hurt you, Wren. It just needs will and a little luck. That thing...did you see its eyes? It was…”

  “Evil?” Robyn asked.

  “I know it’s stupid to talk like that. Whatever this is, evil is a creation of man and man alone, but there was something sinister in that glare.”

  “Well, yeah, but I’ve seen plenty of those things up close now. Pretty they ain’t, but they die just like anything else. The first time I came into contact with one it freaked me out too, but it’s like with anything, Jeb. the more you do something the more you get used to it,” Wren said.

  “I’m begging you...please...not another athletics or training anecdote,” Robyn said.

  “Eat far—” Wren suddenly remembered where she was. “Ha ha. Very funny. Look, don’t worry. Robyn and I can do this.”

  Jeb brought the van to a stop once again and Wren climbed down from the cab, taking her javelin with her. She walked along the road until the bend, then ducked down, edging around a clump of bushes on the verge to get a clear look at the main street in the village. She brought the binoculars up to her eyes to see the main street, panning up and down, left to right. There was nothing to suggest anything—living or dead—was lurking in wait.

  Wren climbed to her feet and motioned for Jeb to move forward before getting back into the van. “All looks clear to me.” They moved off again, but this time, Jeb did not take the van out of third gear. They advanced slowly into Tolsta and their eyes began to dart around, looking and expecting movement from every corner, from behind every bush, tree, or wall, but none came.

  Jeb turned the van onto the dead-end road that led to the surgery. Shifting the wheel again, they headed into the patients’ car park at the front of the building. “What now?” he asked.

  “We need to be parked with the back doors facing the entrance,” Wren said.

  “Okay,” Jeb said, manoeuvring the vehicle into position.

  “Right then,” Wren said, opening the door and climbing out. Robyn joined her, but Jeb stayed in the driver’s seat a moment longer. He looked into the rearview mirror towards the doors of the surgery and let out a long sigh. Eventually he got out too, joining the two girls at the back of the van.

  “You two guys, get in and leave one door open. When I’m through, close it behind me straight away,” Wren said.

  “Roger,” Jeb said, climbing into the van and pulling shutting the passenger door.

  Robyn and Wren looked at each
other. They had been in this situation before just a few days earlier, but now it seemed like a lifetime ago. “You know what I’m going to say to you, don’t you?” Robyn said.

  Wren smiled. “I promise I’ll be careful.” The two of them flung their arms around each other. “Love you, sis.”

  “Love you too,” Robyn said, kissing Wren on the forehead.

  “Smell ya later.”

  “Smell ya later.”

  Wren turned her back, but heard her sister climb into the van. This was it; she was alone now. She started walking towards the doors.

  “She’s forgotten her javelin,” Jeb said, picking it up. He was about to get down and go after her when Robyn stopped him.

  “No, she can’t,” Robyn said.

  “What do you mean?” Jeb said with a look of panic on his face.

  “She’ll be sprinting as fast as she can when she heads back this way; a javelin would just get in her way. This is all about getting back here as fast as possible. If she doesn’t do that, the game’s over before it even starts.”

  “Oh dear god,” Jeb said, “I didn’t realise that.”

  “Yeah. Now y’know how I felt the first time she did this.”

  “Oh dear god,” he said again.

  They watched as Wren moved closer to the front door; Robyn brought her bow up. In a fraction of a second, a terrifying realisation hit her. Although she could aim and fire the bow freely while one door was open, when they were closed, the aperture was too high for her to manoeuvre and aim properly.

  “Oh shit!” Robyn said, as Wren reached the bottom of the steps that led up to the front door of the surgery. She turned to Jeb. “I need to get onto the roof.”

  “What?!”

  “Give me a hand onto the roof,” Robyn said. Jeb just stood there, completely overwhelmed by what was happening, and for the first time since the girls had met him, he actually looked like a frail old man. “Now, Jeb!”

  He glanced towards the doorway to see Wren climbing the steps, then he looked back to Robyn, who was frantically gesturing towards the roof. It felt like he had cotton wool in his ears and in his head as he tried to get to grips with what was happening. Robyn shook him by the arms and he finally jolted into action, taking hold of her waist and lifting her like she weighed no more than a sack of sheep feed. Even she was surprised as her head rose over the roof of the van. She shot her arms out and threw her leg up to clamber on. No sooner had she turned around than the bow and arrows appeared in the air in front of her, as Jeb passed them up. Before she could reach for them, her eyes were drawn to a flurry of activity beyond them.