In The End | Book 3 | After The End

by Stevens, GJ

  A distant scream cut through the background noise and I couldn’t help but imagine it came from the church, lighting up every sense and telling me to run back.

  I glanced to Jess and her expression held firm. I turned, gripping the long brass handle of the glass door and pushed down. The door held in place.

  Peering to the window beside the door, I looked past wilting potted plants to the compact kitchen and without being asked, I stepped to the side as Paul moved forward with his bar raised.

  The single sheet of glass collapsed to the floor with a jab in the near corner; the high flurry of glass sent a rush of activity through those at the gate but I didn’t dare turn to see how many more had joined their number.

  With the worst shards smashed from the edge of the frame with the butt of the rifle, I slung it over my shoulder and boosted up to the sill, climbing through only to gag and heave as I landed on the floor the other side.

  With the stench nothing like the foul sewerage we encountered each day, I forced myself to hold back a wretch as I tasted the rotting meat in the air and attempted to breathe just through my mouth.

  Grimacing, I turned back to the window, hoping for relief from a gust of fresh air, but I held myself still whilst my fingers worked to unlock the door before rushing out to pull air deep into my lungs.

  “There’s something dead in there,” I said between breaths.

  “Dead, dead? Or, you know...?” Jess said before she stopped herself. I half expected her to raise her hands, but she just repeated herself.

  I shook my head.

  “I don’t know, but it smells fucking bad,” I said, before tipping my head towards the massing numbers at the gate raising their hands out towards us between the slats.

  Holding back, I watched Paul lean forward through the doorway, pausing for a moment before he took a step, crunching glass under his feet. The muscles in his neck strained through his tanned skin as if holding back desperation for a breath.

  Stepping backward, he took a moment before he spoke. “Whatever it is, it’s been dead a while,” he said, dropping the tip of the bar on the ground and leaning against.

  “We’ve got no choice,” Jess said, as she stepped through the doorway and out of view as if she couldn’t smell the horror.

  She was right, and filling my lungs, I followed.

  22

  JESSICA

  Although the stench of the day’s-old meat hung heavy in the air, with the rot soaking into my taste buds, I didn’t gag or wretch as I circled the kitchen in search of the key.

  Logan had followed with Paul at his back.

  Paul, lifting the bar high and with his red eyelids blinking without control, moved away and headed down the corridor, leaving Logan with me in the kitchen to look across the counters.

  By Logan’s contorted brow, burying his mouth in the crook of his elbow had done nothing to lessen the smell as he searched through the drawers.

  I took after Paul, following to the source of the smell.

  Passing a bookcase in the short hallway, Paul called out, urging me around the corner.

  “Shit,” he repeated as I looked to where he stood next to a wide section of missing roof with loose tiles and torn felt hanging from the edges.

  A jagged concrete boulder the size of a shopping trolley sat in the centre of the room with a pair of legs projecting out from under its weight. Despite the carpet littered with shattered roof tiles, the scene reminded me of the Wicked Witch’s legs, the only part of her not under Dorothy’s house.

  Plaster dust paled the wrinkled ankles, the rest of the legs covered with tartan pyjamas. Between the debris I could just about see the curl of grey hair beside dried blood, long soaked into the carpet. By the smell, she’d been here long before the bombing of the hospital, dispelling any danger she’d rise again.

  Glancing to Paul, he hadn’t moved from the middle of the room, fixed to the spot, but the shake of his head told me he was okay.

  A chill made me look to the great void above and the remains of felt flapping gently in the breeze, the blue sky beyond. Remembering our reason for being in this place, I peered around the room in search of the keys.

  The rest of the living space seemed untouched. With Christmas cards strewn around the fireplace, a tree in the corner stood tall, its branches brightened with a dusting of plaster.

  Movement scraping from behind a closed door at the opposite end to where we’d entered drew my attention.

  Paul turned in the same direction, raising his head as a vision of the dying cat’s scratch jumped into my head. I couldn’t help but wince at the thought of another injured pet left to fend for itself.

  Paul stayed firm, staring to the destruction at his feet as I stepped between the debris. Pulling at the door handle, it opened with ease. The rot of meat still prevailed as I moved toward another two doors beyond the short corridor.

  Glancing through the open door to a toilet to the right, I listened to the sound as it came again, much stronger this time.

  Pushing down the handle of the door directly ahead, I heard Logan’s excitement as he called out. He’d found the keys, but as I turned, his voice cut off and he stared past Paul to the dusty legs in the middle of the room.

  The handle ripped from my grip and I twisted back, eyes wide, to a tall figure blocking the light from the window behind. Before I reacted, it stepped forward into my path, sending me stumbling backwards as if it hadn’t seen me.

  Fighting to regain my balance, I watched as if in a silent movie, but a few moments behind the action. Pushing against the wall to steady myself, the towering figure stood with the top of his grey hair reaching just below the architrave around the door. Pale skin around his neck wobbled with his stilted walk and wearing the same tartan patterned pyjamas as the woman, he reached forward, revealing a blood-soaked bandage wrapped at his wrist.

  Regaining my footing, I staggered forward, turning to Paul as he looked away from Logan’s hand and the keys he held high.

  Logan dropped the keys, fumbling the rifle from his shoulder, but instead of looking at the creature heading toward them, Logan’s eyes locked with mine.

  Ignoring his furrowed brow, I felt rage building within me, growing exponentially from deep in my gut. As I lingered on Logan’s stare, the rising strength wilted when for a moment it was Jordain standing with a lifeless expression. The anger soon smothered with guilt and with all my remaining energy, I pushed back the feelings, clamping down with all my might.

  We both turned to Paul as he tripped backwards over the rubble, attempting to bring the metal bar up from rest on the carpet.

  Logan lifted the rifle horizontal, but it was too late.

  I watched, holding back from the rage that wanted to explode as the creature toppled to Paul with its clawed fingers outstretched and teeth bared.

  23

  LOGAN

  Looking below the pale, wrinkled face, my gaze fixed on the figure’s bandaged wrist as he stepped past Jess. Still, I expected him to shout and call, asking why the hell we were in his house. Instead, as if she were invisible, he walked straight past her with a stilted stride I knew too well.

  Looking again, for a moment I stared to the bandaged wrist spread with dark blood, before catching his blank expression, wide, milky-white eyes and lips drawn back to bared yellowed teeth.

  My gaze swung around to Jess, despite the obvious danger coming our way; I just couldn’t understand how it could stroll past her like she wasn’t there.

  Shaking off the stare, I almost fell back when I saw how close it had got in that split second. Instinct took control and with the keys we’d searched so hard for falling from my hand, I brought the rifle up to bear.

  Firing from the hip, I watched the lead thud uselessly into its stomach, not knocking the creature from its lunge at Paul heaving the bar over his head.

  Lifting the rifle higher, Paul’s anguished call wrenched at my gut as I pulled the trigger, knowing that nothing I could do would save him
as the creature’s teeth embedded in his cheek. Not the burst of red from the back of its head as the shot echoed in the small space; not the hit of the rifle’s butt as I slammed it into the creature’s eye socket, sending its lifeless form backward to be with his wife once more. Nothing I could do would change the inevitable if we didn’t have the cure.

  I looked away from Paul’s ashen face as his hand went to the wound on his cheek.

  Jess stared back open-mouthed, shaking her head.

  The bar clattered to the smashed tiles and I forced myself to turn back as Paul whimpered. Blood seeped between his fingers as he pushed against the wound and fell to his knees.

  “Get towels from the bathroom. We have to stop the bleeding,” I shouted, only turning part way to Jess, instead looking to the ever-increasing darkness flowing down Paul’s neck.

  He tried to stand. I couldn’t bring myself to hold him down.

  “Towels,” I called, as I guided him to his feet then turned to see Jess standing in the same spot, staring at the man’s body lying on the carpet.

  I called again and somehow it got through as she rushed from the room, coming back within a few seconds carrying a haphazard pile of white towels.

  I covered Paul’s hand and the side of his face as I held him steady.

  “Oh no,” Paul called, his voice low and breathy. “Oh no. Don’t let it end like this.” Fighting for breath, he pulled his hand from his face, sending a fresh wave of blood pouring down his neck before I pushed the towels to the wound.

  “Can you make it to the minibus?” I blurted out, but I couldn’t understand Paul’s slurred reply as his legs gave way.

  Jess hurried to his side, helping him to the floor as he let out a pained moan.

  “No,” he called out in a moment of clarity. “Not like this.”

  I knew what I needed to do and Jess turned away, her face pale as she nodded at the question I didn’t need to ask.

  ***

  “Are you okay?” I asked with the gunshot still ringing in my ears. But it wasn’t the question I wanted to voice as I sat in the driver’s seat of the minibus.

  Jess stared through the windscreen in the seat at my side, her gaze fixed into the distance and not the brick of the building we faced.

  I hadn’t turned the key. I hadn’t checked to make sure the engine worked and there was enough fuel to get us away from this place.

  “Are you okay?”

  Still I didn’t ask about the girl in the tunnel. I didn’t ask why Jess seemed to know all about her. I didn’t ask about the creature at the doors of the church and why it hadn’t attacked straight away. Or why the creature we’d just killed walked right past her, attacking Paul instead.

  I caught the slightest nod in the corner of my eye.

  “I’ve seen worse. I’m fine,” she replied, but her vacant expression told me otherwise.

  “We’ve got to get out of this place.”

  She nodded again, but still I didn’t turn the key for the questions running through my head. What if she was like Jack? What if she was immune to the creature’s bite? What if she too held the key to the cure?

  “Has it happened before?” I said, unable to construct the sentence I wanted.

  “What?” she replied, still looking to the wall.

  About to speak, I stopped myself to correct the words. “It was like you weren’t there. It just ignored you.”

  “We should go,” she said, nodding toward the steering wheel.

  I took a moment before turning the key, not paying attention until I realised the engine rumbled in front of me. How had she not noticed they’d ignored her?

  My distracted gaze fell to the dashboard, the gauges telling me the minibus was half full of fuel with no orange lights warning the engine could cut out at any moment and it had all been a waste of time. A waste of a life.

  We rolled backward at my command and the front wheels turned as I twisted the steering to get us moving along the narrow lane. The brakes halted our course when I saw the crowd deep at the gates, clawing out towards us.

  As we came to a stop, I made the mistake of staring at the detail of their faces, thinking of the villagers in their sleepy state as I wondered how their last moments had played out.

  When we left the hospital for the first time, the creatures were already gathering together as if they knew about the pocket of survivors. The tall fences hadn’t been tall enough. The village had no fences, leaving the residents only with their wits to defend themselves. But they wouldn’t have known the new rules.

  Dead people come back to life.

  They didn’t stand a chance and now there they were on the other side of the gates. Parents in pyjamas. People who had been enjoying the season. Would there ever be a time when we could sit back and relax again?

  My gaze settled on a short figure at the far edge of the fence. A child in the tatters of Spiderman pyjamas. His face still intact. A blessing, I guessed, but for who?

  My thoughts flashed back to Jess’s words at the church.

  The children are not as safe as you think.

  I turned to Jess, anger rising that she hadn’t answered the questions I had yet to voice. As I turned, I saw she’d been watching me with a raised brow.

  “What did you mean about the children?” I said, but she stared back, then turned to the kid in the superhero pyjamas covered in an apron of blood. “Cassie’s sister, Ellie. Jack and Tish.” I said their names, hoping to stir her to speak again.

  Jess fidgeted in her seat, hesitating as if about to look my way, then didn’t.

  Guilt rose when we hadn’t made our way back to the church, or at least figured out how we could get through the massed crowd at the gate and back to the people we’d each left behind.

  Still, I didn’t move, instead staring back to Jess.

  “She said they would be safe. Jack’s blood is the miracle we need. Was she telling the truth?”

  “Do you believe in miracles?” Jess asked, her tone flat and devoid of emotion.

  “I believe what I see,” I said, raising my brow to the crowd.

  “They’re not looking for a cure.”

  I guessed that despite Jess’s look to the gates, it wasn’t what she saw in her head.

  “But Cassie?” I said, and she nodded, serving only to build my frustration and I hurried to speak. “She’s not dead. She should be dead by now. Everyone who I’ve seen bitten is dead. The doctor gave her the cure.”

  Jess shrugged, but before I could raise my voice, she turned to look my way. “How do you know she’s cured?”

  I held back the reply I wanted to blurt out and considered the words. “She’s not dead. She’s not going to die.”

  “Okay,” Jess replied, turning back to the gate and letting her shoulders relax. “But the cure is only a side effect.”

  “What do you mean? Please be straight with me.”

  “I think they’re using this virus to make superhumans. Hybrids with exceptional strength. Is that straight enough?” she said, still with a calm voice.

  “What...?” My word spat as I twisted in my seat towards her. “What the hell? This isn’t a fucking movie, and that’s not funny.”

  Feeling my heart beating hard in my chest, I watched as the glimmer of a smirk appeared on her lips and her eyebrows raised as she stared to the baying crowd.

  Following her gaze, I took hold of the steering wheel and looked at the crowd. I peered at the dead people walking on two feet. The dead moving around in a relentless need to feed and I realised I had no idea what could have caused this unreality. This new reality.

  “It’s always the military,” she said, seeing my grip relaxing on the steering wheel.

  I let the silence hang, listening to my breath over the low hum from the crowd and rattle at the gates.

  “I don’t get it. Why the children?” I said when the quiet grew too much.

  “I can’t be sure.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  She tur
ned toward me scowling. Pulling back, Jess fixed me with her furrowed brow, anger flashing across her face. For a moment she seemed to ripple with energy, muscles tightening as if about to attack.

  With adrenaline rising, I held my ground, fighting the urge to jump from the minibus. “You know more than I do.” I let my voice soften as I continued. “You know more than most. You must,” I said, whilst trying to keep the aggression from my tone.

  I watched as she relaxed, trying to gauge what she’d do next.

  “Experiments,” she said, still looking my way.

  “To make soldiers?”

  Jess nodded.

  “How...? What...?” I blurted out, the words coming before I formed coherence. “They’ll infect them with the virus?”

  Jess gave a weak nod, but I couldn’t tell if it meant she knew for sure or if she was reluctant to tell me the truth.

  “What have I done?” I asked, but not to Jess as I replayed the events of the last few days in my mind and turned towards the gates, gripping both hands to the steering wheel. “I delivered them to her.”

  “You also saved Cassie.”

  I glanced around as she spoke. “I don’t think she’ll see it that way.”

  “You didn’t know what they’d do.”

  “But I always knew it was a risk,” I said, tightening the grip on the steering wheel.

  “What would have happened if you did nothing?”

  I didn’t reply straight away, instead trying to remember. “I don’t know. Do you think it’s too late?”

  “For what?” Jess looked up with her eyebrows raised.

  “To rescue them.”

  “I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “Are you willing to risk your life even if there’s only a slim chance?”

  I knew I should have had the answer ready. Would I give my life for Cassie, someone I’d only just met?

  Yes. That answer came without thought. Would I do the same for her sister? For the two innocents, Jack and Tish?