In The End | Book 3 | After The End

by Stevens, GJ

  For the first time since the world had turned upside down, I wondered what could have happened to Leo and the others we’d last seen when we hit the first roadblock. Frustration had taken them off and out of our lives ever since.

  Could they still have been alive? Could they have found the lucky route out of the madness? Were they at home watching the TV open-mouthed?

  Despite setting our aim via the quickest course, it surprised no one when we had to divert, racing along the single-track roads we feared the most, enclosed by tree canopies hanging over our heads with stone walls either side. Passing open fields with gates left wide and empty of life.

  Houses loomed in the distance, a picture postcard scene if it wasn’t for the terror we knew could stalk our every move, or the columns of smoke ruining every angle of the view.

  We passed the occasional vehicle abandoned to the road, usually with its engine exposed, or its blackened remains still smoking.

  The road twisted and turned, tracked either side by thick hedges or tall, solid walls blocking our view, forcing me to monitor our speed, ready to brake at a moment’s notice, mindful of what could wait unseen.

  Arriving at a village, Sheffield according to the sign, I couldn’t help but think of its namesake in the north. The great industrial city.

  Had the worst got that far?

  I thought of Manchester, Birmingham, London. My home in the capital was only five hours away. We had to hope we were getting close to where normality waited with soldiers, guns and rockets to fight for our survival. We had to hope we were getting close to where humans were winning the battle and were on our side.

  The city of Exeter would tell us so much.

  As a handful of buildings shrank in the mirror, I slowed, catching sight of a lone white van facing us on the road ahead. For a moment I thought I saw a flash of colour, but concentrating as I slowed, I couldn’t make out any more of what I thought I’d seen.

  Fighting the urge to surge past, I slowed to a crawl, ready for something to leap. Before we would pass, the road widened to two lanes and edging forward, the double doors at the back were closed and no one sat in either of the front seats, but I caught the low rumble of the engine running and I cracked the window further, much to Mandy’s complaint.

  Her surprised call rose high behind me when, coming alongside, a plump figure walked from around the other side of the van with his fingers at his trouser’s fly.

  36

  The smile spanning the width of the stranger’s round face caused me to ignore Mandy’s command and I pushed my foot at the brakes and not the accelerator. Tensing against the seatbelt as we lurched to a stop, I peered his way with my interest piqued at the great rucksack on his back, laden with equipment hanging on the outside.

  The red bobble on top of his woollen hat rocked back and forth as he nodded and raised his palm to wave.

  “Hey,” I said, pushing open the door much to Mandy’s continued complaint, but I paused half-way through the arc when I saw what looked like a small pick with a bright yellow handle tucked in his belt.

  “Howdy,” he replied in a classic English accent, either Kent or somewhere similar, with no hint of an American twang, despite the greeting.

  Keeping my gaze fixed in his direction and to the sound of the van’s stuttering engine, I pushed the door the rest of the way open and stepped to the road.

  The guy’s smile faltered for a moment, but as Shadow pushed past me through the opening and raced off to explore, his eyes lit again.

  The van’s engine stuttered and didn’t recover, leaving just the low rumble of the pickup.

  “Car trouble?” I said, nodding to the van.

  The guy nodded back with his smile so wide as if pulled with hooks. Looking past him to the sound of running water, Shadow cocked his leg against the front wheel.

  “Sorry,” I said, shaking my head, but the guy turned, laughing when he saw the dog finishing up and rushing to explore the side of the road.

  Copying my gesture, he turned around as I spoke again. “Where you headed?”

  Instead of replying, the guy’s smile dropped as he peered through the pickup’s windows. Following his look, I watched as all, even Cassie, leaned toward the glass, staring at the stranger.

  “Is that...?” the stranger said; looking back I saw it was Jess he stared at. “Jessica Carmichael. You’re alive!”

  Hefting his bag from his shoulders, he settled it to the road as Jess opened her door, looking across the horizon as she stepped out. Alex came around from the other side.

  Wiping his chubby hands on his combat trousers, he licked his lips and stood to his tiptoes.

  I turned to Jess, raising an eyebrow, watching as she nodded in his direction, seemingly used to this kind of reaction.

  “Have we met?” she said, but he spoke before she’d finished, shaking his head.

  “No, but I’m your biggest fan. Well, since the broadcast. But they said...”

  Glancing between Jess and the guy, I shook my head.

  “I saw the news this morning,” he said, then his gaze stopped on my face. He took half a step back as he studied me. He then looked to Cassie in the car and then found Shadow with his nose in the grass and looked back. “Are you the guys from the roof?”

  But before I could answer, he peered past Jess to the back seats of the pickup, looking to Mandy and then Cassie with her eyes closed.

  He nodded and looked back to Jess. “You broke the story. You broke the story of my life. I’ve been preparing for this forever.”

  “Wait,” I said, holding my palms out and glancing between Jess gazing at the stranger. “Where’ve you come from? How far have you travelled? What’s it like out there?” I stopped myself as he nodded at each question.

  He took a deep breath as I leaned forward, eager for the answers.

  “Chertsey, in Surrey,” he said with a wide smile.

  I held back the questions continuing to form in my head, like how he’d got here in such a brief time.

  “Everything’s fine until you hit Somerset.”

  “Fine? What do you mean fine?” Jess cut in before I could.

  “Other than some Foot and Mouth epidemic in the South West, you’d have no idea any of this was going on.”

  “What?” Jess said, her brow lowering as she turned to Alex then back to him. “But you saw my broadcast? There’s no Foot and Mouth.”

  The bobble on his hat nodded as he replied. “I know. That’s why I’m here.”

  The questions kept coming as he spoke, but I held myself back.

  “They didn’t show everything. The footage was so disjointed, badly edited, and the feed cut before it seemed like it had finished. We saw you on the roof, but they blurred out most of the rest.”

  “What happened after they showed it?” Alex cut in with the same question on my lips.

  “The government discredited the report, calling it an act of domestic terrorism to spread mass panic. They said the BBC had been hacked, and they arrested some editor.”

  Jess pulled in a sharp breath, her brow bunching with anger at the edge of my vision.

  “No one believed me?” she said after a moment.

  “Some people did. I did.”

  “Why didn’t they believe me?” Jess said, stepping back to let the pickup take her weight.

  “They pixilated most of the footage and said you weren’t well. You’d had a breakdown. But the energy, the emotion in your words, it was obvious you believed what you were saying.”

  “A breakdown,” Jess said, looking to Alex with a furrowed brow.

  “I don’t get why they’re trying to completely cover this up,” Alex said, turning to the guy.

  “It’s obvious, isn’t it?” he said, glancing to Alex then Jess when she shook her head. “Over the last ten years the government has been slowly taken over by the Chinese and now they’re deliberately being slow to react. Yes they’ve cut the power along with the Internet and phone services, and yes they’ve
made passing comments about a big outbreak of Foot and Mouth, but other than that…”

  “Wait,” I said, stepping in. “I find this very difficult to believe. What would they hope to achieve?”

  “Annihilation of our country,” he said, his tone matter of fact.

  I turned to Jess, hoping she wasn’t going to back up his theory and was pleased to see her shaking her head with her eyes narrowed.

  “Or it could be that they don’t know their arse from their elbow and are just fucking this whole thing up,” she added.

  “Or anywhere in between the two,” I added. Alex and Jess nodded as the guy looked back with his eyebrows raised in disbelief.

  “The point is,” Jess said, “the people don’t know. They didn’t believe me and they’re going to die.” It was my turn to agree.

  I looked to the guy who still had his brow raised.

  “Why did you believe the story?” I added.

  “I found the full version.”

  I watched as Jess’s expression lifted, and she stood up from leaning against the metal.

  “I found it on the Internet.”

  “Stan,” Jess breathed.

  “It was so intense. It looked like CGI, like some film promo. In fact, it was so real looking, I thought for a moment you made it up and I checked the listings to see if you had a film coming out.”

  “But surely mine hasn’t been the only report coming out. There must be others telling this story now? There must be millions of people displaced. Thousands missing. Hundreds dead?”

  The guy shook his head. “Nothing. Have you seen the roadblocks? They go all the way back to Somerset.”

  Jess, Alex and I swapped glances.

  “When the commentary started, people questioned what you said and the government’s response. The authorities started talking about something going on, bigging up the Foot and Mouth thing and talking about putting the area in quarantine, using that as a reason why the power had been lost, because essential supplies can’t get in. They’ve been very vague. The news is so sparse and no radio since Yeovil.”

  “But they’re telling people to get away at least? To stay indoors? Please tell me that’s what they’re saying? Are they telling people what to do if they come across the... the creatures…?”

  “No. Nothing like that,” he said, slowly shaking his head.

  Jess turned back to Alex with her mouth slack and gaze unfocused.

  “All for nothing,” she said in barely a whisper.

  “No. Not for nothing,” the guy said, stepping forward. “There are people that get this. There are people that understand and took notice. They know what’s going on.”

  “But not enough people,” Alex said, turning away to look at the horizon.

  The guy slowed his nod for the first time.

  “I think you might be right.”

  Taking a step forward and tilting my head to the side, I spoke again. “So what do you think is happening here?”

  He didn’t pause. “It’s the end of civilisation as we know it. It’s the fucking zombie apocalypse.”

  Dumbfounded at his words, I stared back. He’d got it. Simple. He knew the truth we’d experienced for the last week, or however long it had been. But why the hell was he grinning from ear to ear?

  “The funny thing is,” he said, as he moved to look back to Jess. “If they hadn’t tried to discredit you, fewer people would have believed you. Then when they said you’d died...”

  “Died?” Jess stepped back, her mouth wide.

  “They said you’d died in an accident. That you were reckless.”

  I turned to Jess, watching as the blood seemed to drain from her face.

  “Now that was a big mistake,” she said, with the first hint of a smile rising in the corner of her mouth. “They’ve just made it easy to prove they’re lying. But Stan...”

  “Stan Fraser?” the guy said, and Jess nodded, her eyes widening. “They arrested him.”

  Jess turned as a thought seemed to come to mind. She stared with a great intent, first to me and then to Alex. “The helicopters over the ruins of the hospital.”

  My eyes widened when I realised what she was thinking. The guy spoke before I could give my thoughts voice.

  “They showed the wreckage of the hospital. They showed a destroyed and burnt out news van.”

  “How did they explain that?” I said.

  “The whole thing was filmed in a demolition site and she got crushed when a building collapsed.”

  “No. That’s not right,” Alex added, shaking her head. “They bombed that place to get rid of the evidence of the tests.”

  I watched Jess’s eyes narrow and teeth grit together.

  “They wanted to make sure I’d died and I think we all know what they’d do if they found me alive.”

  37

  “We’ve got to do this,” Jess shouted, the words echoing out to send each of us scouring the horizon.

  “What?” I said, seeing her eyes wide with the excitement.

  “I need to get in front of the camera again. I need to show them I’m not dead. I need to show the country I’m alive and more of what we’ve seen. Then they’ll have to believe what’s going on.”

  Alex turned to face Jess, putting her hand on her shoulder.

  “Even if somehow we can get more footage, if Stan’s not there to show it...” Alex said. “And won’t they come looking for you if they find out you’re alive?”

  We all turned to Mandy coming around the side of the car.

  “Filming? Are you mad? We need to find somewhere safe. We need to get out of here and find the authorities,” she said, looking at each of us in turn as her voice rose.

  We turned away from her, much to her annoyance.

  “They’ll probably figure out where you are from the footage,” I added.

  Jess nodded, her excitement still rising as she spoke.

  “So we need to get to Exeter. We have an office there with all the kit I need. Cameras and generators and batteries,” she said, turning to the guy. “I don’t care who knows where I am. They have to see I’m still alive, then the people will have no choice but to believe and it won’t matter what the government says. They can protect themselves by keeping their doors locked.”

  I swapped a glance with Alex who hadn’t reacted in the same way, her brow fixed low.

  “We can’t stay here,” she said, breaking the look.

  I turned away, peering through the window to Cassie, watching her sitting up but with her head tilted back and mouth open as if asleep.

  I nodded. “Alex is right. We have to get going. Jump in the back,” I said, turning to the guy. “No room up front.”

  He shook his head as I was about to pull open the pickup door.

  “No thanks,” he said with his smile fixed.

  I looked at the van again, reminding myself it faced the opposite way to where we headed.

  “Where are you going?” I asked, furrowing my brow. “Why did you come here?” I added, when at first all I got was a widening of his smile.

  Pulling the pick from his belt, I took a step back as he did the same, raising it over his head with the pointed end in my general direction. “I’m going hunting.”

  “Have you seen any of these things?” I said, dumbfounded and flashing a look at Alex and then Jess still at my side.

  Nodding, somehow his smile had grown even wider. “There were loads heading the way you’re going. It’s like they’re lining up for dinner. The slow ones and the crazy motherfuckers, too. My guess is going south will be the best place to wait this thing out. Once I clear out the last of them, I get to do my own I am Legend thing on the Lizard Peninsula. Cool or what?”

  I ignored the question and the flash of his eyebrows, forcing down the feelings of anger at the flippancy of the words, but the anger soon drained as I realised he didn’t know who we’d lost since this started. Instead, raising an eyebrow, I shook my head.

  About to turn away and wi
sh him luck, I stopped.

  “How did you get in? Isn’t there a front line?”

  Alex leaned forward.

  The guy nodded as he pulled his pack from the road, shuffling his shoulders to settle its weight on his back.

  “There’re loads of soldiers moving around, but no real restrictions, until you get to Salisbury. But it’s only the roads that are closed.”

  “How did you get through?”

  “I just moved the cones to the side and drove in. It wasn’t until a few miles out of Yeovil that I had to leave the car. I couldn’t have gone much further even if it wasn’t for the blocks of concrete. I’ve done a bit of walking. This thing’s only got me twenty miles,” he said, tapping the roof of the van, then thinking better of the bass report.

  “So you’ve walked most of the way from Yeovil?”

  He laughed, and I remembered Jess only made the broadcast this morning. How early had it been when we’d seen her from the roof of the hospital?

  “No. I borrowed cars from the back of the roadblocks. Most still had keys in the ignition.”

  “You should head north,” Jess said. As she spoke, I heard less of an edge to her voice. “Get as far away as possible.”

  “Many people in the community did just that, but no. I’m true to my convictions. The others were full of shit. Posting memes on Facebook from their comfy armchairs, telling everyone how great they’d be when the shit hit the fan. But when it came to it, they just ran away like little children.”

  “There’s a community?” I said, unable to turn myself away, despite knowing we should run too.

  He grinned.

  “Hell yeah. All over the world there are people who love this shit. Or say they do, at least.”

  I looked at Jess, raising my brow, but she shrugged back, showing no surprise.

  “Sorry. I can’t stand around gassing all day,” the guy said. Raising his hand to his forehead, he nodded then walked in the opposite direction.