by Stevens, GJ
I found the warmth of his back, feeling the vibration of his call through my touch. As he twisted around, he calmed.
I listened to the continual drip coming from behind, along with the grumble of rubble settling somewhere along the corridor. There were no footsteps. No slow plod of feet other than ours.
As each moment passed, my hearing seemed to sharpen. With each moment gone I could sense the clarity in Shadow’s low rumbling growl.
“It’s Shadow,” I said, squeezing Cassie’s hand, trying to reassure us both, but her trembling didn’t slow as we stepped forward.
I swept my hand out in front in anticipation of the wall ahead and the right turn I’d seen in the flash of light.
A flurry of footsteps echoed down the corridor. A confusion of feet scraped against the concrete floor and the sound of something brushing against the littered rubble.
I stopped and gripped Cassie’s hand tight, but the noise receded again.
Leaning forward and reaching out, I felt the cold, damp brickwork just ahead and followed its coarse surface as we turned. I stopped again, holding my breath at the sound of hushed voices so clear.
Feet landed heavily to the floor, their breath no longer held back.
About to speed forward, my foot bumped against something soft, Shadow letting out a whimper as I touched at his stitched wound. Pulling away as I realised, his growl turned to a bark as voices called out.
Light burst ahead to silhouette a figure floating in the centre of my vision. Its arms swept around in circles and I couldn’t do anything but stagger back as a gunshot electrified the air.
3
JESSICA
I couldn’t help but stare as the couple peered down from the roof, my gaze lingering on the woman with her shoulders stooped, leaning against the guy holding her up.
Was she another not long for this world? Another victim of Toni and her mother?
The guy waved, his face full of optimism as he stood tall with his arm tight around her.
How could he not know what he faced? How could he not know the end of the world had come?
My focus switched to the sound at our backs and the crowd still following in our tracks; the crowd we’d led to these people who, by the destruction all around, had already been through so much and probably more if Toni and her mother were involved.
What next for these people on the roof? Heartache and pain were inevitable.
I turned to Alex, still at my side, her gaze intent on the pair.
What next for us? The same fate, no doubt.
Alex looked to me with a rising smile.
Who smiles at the end of the world? These two, apparently.
A warm glow rose inside me and I turned back to the roof where the guy continued to wave.
I tried to put myself in his shoes. What would my goal be if I were in their position?
To survive. The same as us.
Although my survival was so I could get to Toni and end her plan, then find out what she’d meant for me and if I could live this new life without the need to eat human flesh. Perhaps to find out if I’d meant anything when she’d made that call, bringing me across the country.
Did that matter anymore?
I couldn’t answer, but I knew the pair staring back had survived; were surviving, for now at least.
Like everyone else, they would want the chance at safety. For them. For their families. Hope.
But they’d just witnessed their children being led away. They couldn’t have known of Toni’s plans, or they wouldn’t have let them go so easily.
For Alex there was genuine hope. She’d been unaffected; her body at least. I should have sent Alex on her way to join the pair on the roof. Unless the woman held up by the guy had been bitten, then I needed to get Alex as far away as I could.
Despite barely knowing her, I knew Alex wouldn’t give up on me so easily.
The dog’s bark echoed through the silence, the sound seeming to draw out, holding in the air until I realised, or had I known all along, the low hum of the creatures heading our way had taken over.
The guy called out.
Once. Twice, and I willed his silence for their sake. My wish came true, but only because of the reply following; the call into the air reminding me of the previous night. Reminding me of what I’d done.
No.
It reminded me of what Toni had made me do. She’d given me no instructions. She’d not told me how I could control it.
We had to get away. I owed Alex that much. I had to get her away from here. I had to get her somewhere safe so she could have her chance of normality. I didn’t owe those on the roof anything, but I wouldn’t put them in harm’s way either. The list of people who’d died because of me was too long already. Helping these strangers out would do nothing to clear my conscience.
I could do no more for them.
Heavy engines roared in the air, the sound rising so quick I knew these were the real deal.
The pair heard it too. The look on his face across the distance told me he knew what was coming.
“We have to go,” I said, watching as Alex pulled out of her daze, losing her train of thought which I could only guess would be the opposite side of where mine led.
I watched the motion of her head tracking the jet as it raced across the view. We had no chance to react as it flew low.
“Grab the camera and let’s get you somewhere safe,” I said, lifting the camera body as Alex unlocked the catch at the top of the tripod.
I looked around. Alex did too, both of us hoping for an empty path back the way we’d brought the van. Bodies ambled towards us in every direction apart from where the building blocked the view.
“There,” Alex said, pointing past the building and to the left, where only a short section of the temporary fencing still stood like a tall island in the decimation.
With none of the creatures in that direction, I looked up to the roof, nodding to see the pair still fixed to the spot.
“We can meet them at the corner of the building,” she said.
“No,” I replied as I climbed into the back of the van, glancing up one last time before I slammed the doors from the inside.
“What? We can’t just leave them here,” Alex said, as she joined at my side, getting to the driver’s seat before I could and revving the engine to life as she peered up at the roof. The people were already gone.
“They’re better off on their own,” I said. “Let’s go. Just go. Quick.”
Alex stared back, tilting her head to the side; her concentration focusing on me.
This was the moment we would set our future. Stay or go. Me or them.
I didn’t want to find out. I saw her decide, then we looked up to the growing dots in the sky.
4
Alex remained calm as the first explosion hit. The pressure wave through the glass didn’t weigh down her foot and I marvelled at her calm as she kept a consistent pace across the debris of bodies.
A jet burst through the air, much higher than the one which had just buzzed past. I guessed its bombs would be for this place, with the pilots on orders to target the evidence left behind by the experiments. They were part of the coverup. Part of the travesty I had to reveal to the world.
Despite the turmoil of the jet’s call and the ripple of energy from the explosion, I could still hear alarms shrieking all around. For a split-second, my thoughts flashed to what the creatures would feel. The chaos of the sound, each noise rousing them to investigate its source and calling them to action.
I followed Alex's gaze fixed to the side of the building; with my hand gripping at the door handle, the other to the seat at my side, we lumbered over the fleshy mess covering our pathway.
We were halfway to our goal, still rising and falling as we covered ground, when the second explosion hit, the strike landing just beyond the building. The concrete of the hospital shielded us from the worst, but the glass shooting out from the windows peppered shards across the van’s t
hin metal, sending a blanket of dust over us.
The windscreen wipers worked at full speed, scratching debris across the glass as Alex leaned forward to gauge our slow progress.
I looked out through the smear to the roof, seeking the pair whilst telling myself they were never my concern and were just more nameless victims of someone I’d once shared a bed with.
But the thoughts didn’t sit right. They were another reminder I’d failed. Every death resulted from my delay in finishing the job I’d started.
Why had I waited until the morning when I could have been here last night? I could have got here, put the news out and given them a chance to live. Or perhaps I would never know.
Jolting forward, the thoughts disappeared as the van slammed to a stop, sending me into the dashboard and Alex into the steering wheel.
With no point searching through the smeared mess to see what we’d hit, Alex pulled open her door, filling the cab with thick smoke laced with toxic dust and the perpetual stench of rotten, cooked flesh.
They’d already responded to the dinner bell.
I watched Alex through the driver’s window as she disappeared around the door. She returned so soon, her head shaking as she peered through the opening.
“It’s not going anywhere,” she said, turning away before I could speak, her eyebrows raising as she peered out along the length of the van. I could guess what she saw.
We’d passed them on the way here. We’d mown so many down, but it hadn’t been enough to stop those spurred on by the falling bombs.
“We need to go,” Alex said, but I was already out of my seat, climbing into the back and turning to see her wide-eyed as I held out the camera.
She shook her head, but I thrust it again, leaning forward and she took its weight.
Popping open the rear doors, I found I’d been wrong; there were so many more than I’d thought and coming from all directions. A sea of undead creatures called to this place greeted me as I jumped to the ground, each turning their heads to the sky as another jet roared by and climbed out of sight.
“Is it on?” I said, moving around to the side of the van, pausing at the great chunk of concrete we’d smashed into and the long metal rebar in the side of the tyre.
Alex stared back, holding the camera at her side.
“Quickly. We’ve got very little time.”
“No. We can’t do this here,” she said, with her brow relaxing from a frown as I clambered over the great block of concrete which had been part of the hospital.
Arriving beside her, she looked at me wide-eyed as I guided the camera to her shoulder and pulled the microphone from its slot, switching on the rectangular light hovering above the lens in the hope it would help cut my image through the dust.
“You’ll get us killed,” she said, but after glancing behind, she pushed her eye to the viewfinder. As the red light brightened, and I drew in a breath, a third explosion pushed us off our feet.
Coughing in acrid dust, I wafted at the air as best I could whilst peering back in hope Alex would rise. And there she was, my heart rate spiking when I saw the cut on her forehead, a slow drip of red from her hairline.
“Shit. Are you okay?” I shouted into the microphone still in my hands. The words came out muffled with my ears feeling as if they were stuffed full of expanding foam.
Alex nodded, shaking off dust as she clambered backwards to get her footing. With surprise, she settled the camera on her shoulder as the red light continued to shine.
“No. You’re right. Let’s go,” I said, climbing slowly over the debris and stuffing down my guilt at the danger I was putting us both in. My foot slipped as I rose and I reached out to take Alex’s outstretched arm despite her burden. I turned, looking to the crowds heading our way as they stumbled over those floored by the latest explosion.
A hundred bombs wouldn’t stop that many creatures.
I turned, about to speak again when I saw a clearing in the rubble ahead. A square of tarmac edging a small, brick outbuilding like a beacon of safety in the middle of the destruction. With the rest of the hospital nearly flat, just a corner remained unaffected.
“Devastation,” I said, holding up the microphone and staring to the building whilst trying to concentrate on making it across the rubble to get to its promise of safety. I tried not to look too hard at what was under my feet, knowing there were at least two people, and a dog, who would have been right in the firing line when the first bombs had fallen.
“So many dead,” I said under my breath.
Without further words, I pointed across the view, but pushed away the need to tell Alex to angle the camera and get pictures of the bodies strewn at the outskirts of the rubble.
Grabbing a battered pistol discarded to the fallen concrete as we scrambled over the rubble, I returned my gaze to the outbuilding the size of a garden shed, small and square with a door facing towards us. Its bricks were potted with shrapnel and the sloping tiled roof dusted with crushed concrete. A thick metal chimney too large for the size of the building rose out high, jutting at a steep angle I guessed wasn’t in the original design. A bright yellow warning sign on the door told me there was more than met the eye inside.
I hoped there would be, and we had little choice but to find out.
I turned to see Alex looking in the same direction.
“This way,” I shouted, my eyes widening as I chanced a backward glance, wishing I could unsee the hoard of foul creatures still making their dogged way towards us.
The roar of engines took up again and moments later the blast pushed me off my feet with a wave of caustic heat, feeling as if it seared off my skin. As the rocky shrapnel stopped falling, I rose, helping Alex up at my side and readied to see the building we’d rushed to flattened.
As the dust settled, I peered in its direction, the air still vibrating with the thunder of aircraft engines. A sudden clarity fell across the view and with Alex pushing me along, I saw our sanctuary standing proud.
Arriving at the unlocked door first, I pulled it towards me. My gaze fell into the darkness and the descending steps. Alex raised the camera above my head, using its light to penetrate further, but all I could see were more concrete steps.
A roar rose in the air again, and the blast sent me tumbling forward, falling down as I watched as if disconnected, the darkness punctuated by flashes of light, rolling left and right until I closed my eyes, coming to a sudden stop with the sound of breaking glass ringing in my ears.
5
Alex cursed, but the sound seemed so far away until searching hands found my shoulder and her touch sparked a sensation rushing from her fingertips. Impulses fired across my body, waking every nerve as if she’d hit me with a welcome bolt of electricity.
Rising to my feet, her touch withdrew as an animalistic call echoed in the distance. I pushed my finger to my mouth, but realised despite my eyes stretching wide, I couldn’t see anything in the darkness.
Alex moved at my side, her feet scraping on the rough ground.
“Sssh,” I said, and her movement stopped as the wild sound in the background took up again. “We’re not alone,” I said, hoping she’d heard the words I’d barely formed.
The noise came again, an animalistic beat; with it followed a stench and a vision in my head of a creature hunched over with its nose high as it caught our scent. Or could they see in the dark? I tried to recall if I’d been able to, but shook away the pain of the memory.
Gritting my teeth against my body’s ache as I twisted, I laid my hands flat to the hard ground and swept the dust and damp debris either side. Our hands touched, offering a fleeting warmth. My fingers jabbed the clean edge of glass, but I pulled back just before it could embed. Metal scratched against the hard ground and Alex’s sharp breath told me she’d found something.
Just before my words formed, my fingers touched at the soft wind cover of the microphone. Taking it in my grip and about to put it to my mouth, I stopped when I realised the idiocy of the moment.
Instead, my hand went to my jacket pocket, my heart sinking with the realisation.
“The gun’s gone,” I said, my words breaking through the low growl of what sought us out in the darkness. “The light. Can you get it working?”
Without waiting for a reply, my hands returned to the ground. Rising to my knees, I sucked up the pain of the rubble digging into my skin as I swept my hands in circles again.
“Can you hear that?” Alex asked, her head close to mine, but I didn’t need to pause and listen; I hadn’t stopped hearing the low rumble which had been close at hand these past few days. “The camera’s a mess,” she added, but I’d already guessed as much from the shattered glass covering the ground.
“We need to find a way out,” I said when I heard her fingers fumbling with the camera. “Let’s go. Leave it,” I added, as my hand found her warmth.
Letting me pull her up as I stood, I kept my hand tight in hers and she followed. Leading her to the right and away from the noise, I pushed my other hand out in search of some part of the structure to use as a guide. I didn’t want to go back up the stairs knowing the many more creatures waiting above, or the jets ready to rain down their destruction. I had to hope we could find another way out before the creature with us caught up. Before it found Alex.
A breeze washed across my face, carrying with it the stench of sewers laden with a heavy growl growing nearer.
We weren’t done for yet. We had time, according to the sound at least. Still my feet hurried when I couldn’t feel anything as I reached out, racing away from the animal noise.
Alex didn’t speak, but with my hand still in hers and to the sound of her steps in time with mine, I pushed us quicker for fear of whatever followed would catch us; for fear of it sinking its teeth into her flesh. The fear much greater than of running into a wall, or the desperation of our blindness in this terrible place.
