In The End | Book 3 | After The End

by Stevens, GJ

  “She won’t be able to get back in. I’ve blocked the front door.”

  “I’ve got a feeling she won’t be back until the morning.”

  She held my gaze, her hand twisting the black watch on her wrist as she rearranged the giant tins at her feet. I left the conversation there, knowing her reluctance to say anymore, and that’s when I knew she’d seen the same signs I had.

  My thoughts turned to finding a place for us to sleep, knowing it would be a busy day tomorrow, not least of which would be to figure out where we were going.

  We didn’t have the pick of the rooms. With no power, the electronic locks held closed, but as I arrived at the top floor, the signs of panic were everywhere. Cleaners had abandoned their carts, wedging doors open; others stood wide, blocked from closing by abandoned luggage.

  Choosing the furthest down the corridor, I settled Cassie down, pulling the covers over her clothes.

  Leaving only for a moment, I told the others of the rooms, returning with Shadow at my heel, pausing as I watched Cassie’s breath already settled into a rhythm.

  ***

  Peering through the great windows, I watched as first light crept up the horizon, its glow broken only by the rising dark lines of smoke across the view.

  After laying Cassie on the bed last night, I’d torn down the net curtains and pushed the upholstered chair to the window. Wrapping a blanket around my shoulders, I’d intended to watch over her, but had fallen asleep in an instant with the relief I didn’t have to tell her about the children until the morning.

  Twisting in the seat, I watched the mound on the bed stir. Shadow laid at her feet with his paws in the air.

  Stretching out a stiffness in my neck, I wrapped myself tighter from the cold and turned to the windows. As darkness melted away, I stared to the pickup with its front wheels in the great crater I’d only seen after it was too late. Looking along the rest of the road littered with so many holes, I knew the way would be impossible for anything but a tank to navigate.

  My mind turned to where we should head and with no clue as to where the children were being held, our only option would be to go north and see how far we could get.

  My slow gaze caught on the buildings missing from the skyline and the rubble in their place with smoke rising from the remains. The scene reminded me of black and white images of the blitz, minus the people rallying to help.

  I turned to the sound of movement at my back, smiling toward Cassie who sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes as Shadow righted himself. She peered around the room as if unsure of where we she was, before looking to see she still wore the clothes she’d had on since we’d met.

  Her frown bloomed to a glorious smile, sending joy surging through my body, but about to rise and walk to the bed and take her in my arms, I knew this was the time.

  “The children aren’t safe,” I said, regretting the words as they came out.

  Cassie squinted in my direction as her smile fell away.

  “How do you know?” she said in a dry voice.

  “Jess knows the doctors. They’re not looking for a cure. I know how it sounds. I know you’re alive because of what they gave you, but they’re not safe and we have to find them.”

  “How are they not safe?” she said.

  “They’re going to be experimented on,” I said, knowing there was no easy way to put the words across.

  I watched as her breath raced, her chest pumping hard as if in the first stage of a panic attack. Before I could move to ask if she was okay, she scrambled from the bed, jumping up with such energy, then rushed to the bathroom and pulled the door behind her.

  Still nothing could push away my elation that she seemed so much better.

  Light from the fresh day had all but filled the room when the bathroom door opened and without words, Cassie moved to the dresser where I’d piled food gathered from the night before. Without looking my way, she pushed stale bread to her mouth as I marvelled, but taking a bite, she reared back at the taste and spat the contents to the bin at the side.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked, pulling myself from the blanket as she frowned in my direction.

  After taking a moment, she replied with a flat, dry voice, “Tired,” she said, shaking her head, turning away as if she couldn’t look at me.

  I stood, watching her lean against the wooden dresser as I picked up a large bottle of water from the floor and poured her a glass.

  “The bread’s a little dry.”

  “It’s not that,” she said as she gulped at the water, still staring my way.

  I turned, self-conscious of her stare.

  “When did you find out?” she said.

  “After I left the church. I wanted to tell you, but you’ve been so unwell.”

  Cassie looked away from me and I followed her stare, turning around to see the outside had brightened to a fresh dewy morning. I looked along at the bridge we’d crossed last night. The river rode high and fast, water lapping at its span because of the buildings fallen from the banks.

  About to turn back to Cassie, I saw a figure walking in the distance, but when I tried to focus on the detail, they disappeared behind a building and out of view, leaving me with the memory of her red outfit and the outline of someone I thought I knew.

  “We should go soon. Keep heading north. Take a minute if you need,” I said, not turning from the view.

  “I’m ready.”

  When I turned around, Shadow jumped from the bed and stared at me as if he had something to tell.

  Cassie walked by my side down the corridor, bearing no sign that yesterday she’d had to be carried and I couldn’t wipe the smile from my face when all she’d needed had been rest. They had cured her.

  Alex opened her door as we arrived at her room. “Are you ready?” she said, as if she’d been waiting to hear our steps. She looked to Cassie as I nodded, still beaming. “Did you see Jess?” she added, turning to me.

  I paused for a moment, thinking back to the woman in red, but shook my head.

  At Mandy’s door, Alex gave a gentle knock. Knocking harder a second time.

  As Alex stopped, I was about to lean into the door to listen when it opened to Mandy standing on the other side, pushing her long hair from her face.

  “Be ready in five minutes, please,” Alex said, and we left down the corridor.

  I hadn’t expected Jess to greet us in the reception downstairs. Dressed in a black jacket, white blouse and black skirt, I double-took to make sure it was her; she looked as if she’d been at a spa retreat; refreshed and rested. But how could that be?

  Turning to the revolving doors, I stared at the chairs neatly stacked on the other side of the glass; the chairs I’d used last night to jam them closed. I remembered checking I couldn’t make the doors move, no matter how hard I pushed.

  I turned to Alex, but she didn’t seem phased; instead she wore a grin and looked to the two bulky black cases at Jess’s feet.

  Jess stared at Cassie with her eyes pinched and Cassie looked back at her with almost the same expression. Jess was the first to turn away, glancing to Alex before peering to the cases.

  “I got batteries. There should be enough,” she said, and Alex nodded as if continuing a conversation involving no one else.

  “The roof?” Alex asked, and Jess replied the same, grabbing the handle of a case in each of their hands. “Are you coming?” she said, turning to me.

  I paused for a moment, but Alex didn’t wait for my response before following Jess to the staircase.

  The winter’s chill hung in the air and the sting of acrid smoke gusted across us as we walked to the edge of the roof.

  I turned to check for Shadow and found him waiting at the head of the stairs as they rose through the roof in the middle of the building. He wasn’t moving from that spot until we headed back down.

  Standing by Cassie, I tried not to stare as I hoped for her to talk and tell me how she felt. Instead, to her silence, I watched as Alex opened the cases,
pulling out the camera equipment and what appeared to be an upturned umbrella from the second case as Jess pointed to the buttons at its base.

  I watched with fascination as Jess switched to the professional we all knew from the TV; staring down the lens of the camera with her posture perfect and the microphone in hand as she described our journey with such eloquence.

  The bombing of the hospital. The helicopters. The creatures we’d run from but that were no longer around. As she continued to speak, Alex panned the camera on its tripod to take in the destruction across the horizon.

  I watched as the camera’s red-light darkened and Jess’s shoulders relaxed. Sharing a nod and a smile, they turned down to the satellite transmitter and Alex began pressing buttons at Jess’s instructions.

  Shadow’s bark echoed across the city and as I turned from the stairwell, I stared at Cassie stood at the edge of the roof. She’d climbed up the three bricks forming the lip of the roof and stared out in the direction where the camera pointed, her expression blank.

  About to call her name in a soft voice, hoping not to startle her, she turned around and jumped down from the wall; her look not connecting with mine as if I wasn’t there. She headed to the stairwell, apparently overtaken by a sudden need.

  I followed, rushing behind her, leaving Jess and Alex to their growing frustration at the equipment.

  I couldn’t catch up with her on the stairs. Only as she reached the glass doors of the reception did she stop, but rather than speaking, she looked out of the windows.

  “Cassie,” I said, coming to her side, following her gaze into the distance. “Did you see something?” All I could see was the chaos and distraction of the view, the gaps between the buildings, and those that seemed so badly damaged they would soon follow their neighbours to the ground.

  I turned, and she shook her head. Instead, she leant forward to open the single glass door.

  “We should wait for the others,” I added, and she let go of the handle. Her singular response.

  Mandy arrived down the steps just as Jess and Alex did, both carrying the heavy black cases.

  “They can’t fail to believe you now,” I said as I nodded to the camera equipment.

  Their sunken expressions and furrowed brows didn’t follow the joy they should have held.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Jess shook her head as she rested the case at her feet.

  “It wouldn’t go through. I think the satellite is refusing to lock. I don’t know how these things work, but whenever that kind of thing happens, I just speak with the tech at the station and within minutes it’s back up and running again.”

  “Do they know it’s your transmission?” I asked, looking between them.

  Jess nodded. “It’s my credentials.”

  “Could they have locked you out?”

  Jess turned to Alex with a frown. “Remember what the conspiracy nut told us,” Alex said.

  We each nodded.

  “Stan’s in custody,” Jess replied, and I spoke again.

  “Do you know anyone else in the newsroom, or wherever you need to get the footage to?”

  I watched as she squinted with the thought.

  “Sure, but I can’t exactly just make a call.”

  “Do they have satellite phones next door?” Alex said, looking toward the BBC building.

  Jess’s eyebrows flashed high, and she turned as if able to see through the walls. “I’ll go look.”

  We took it in turns through the revolving door back out to the icy air, but on the other side, Jess didn’t wait, veering off to the building as we followed, stopping only as she paused at the door.

  “You wait here,” she said. “I know where to look.”

  I glanced at Cassie, but she hadn’t come to the building; instead, she stayed outside the hotel doors and stared in the direction she’d been watching all this time.

  “I’ll come with you,” I said.

  “Me, too,” added Mandy, as she looked across the horizon wide-eyed.

  Jess held her ground, looking at Alex before turning back and heading through the door.

  “Cassie,” I called softly, but she didn’t turn and I followed them into the building.

  Jess strode off across the wide foyer, not flinching as Mandy gasped.

  I bumped into her back when she stopped dead in my path, Alex knocking into me.

  I stepped to the side, following Mandy’s wide gaze to a headless man, naked from the waist up in the centre of the foyer.

  45

  The contents of my stomach rose as I stared at a skull so white and clean as though left out in the sun to bleach for years, or painstakingly licked clean.

  Not able to linger on the smooth, stripped-bare bone of an arm detached from the body, I moved my focus to a haphazard string of intestines leading out from the chest ripped wide open. My thoughts turned to how this person had lost their life, but by the lack of odour, the remains had no chance to decay.

  I guided Mandy around to face the door, not able to turn my gaze until a sudden fear rose that Cassie had left. Leading Mandy by her shaking form back into the frigid air, I breathed a sigh of relief to see Cassie standing where I’d left her in the same place, with Shadow still by her side.

  Alex followed, but only a slight furrow to her brow gave any sign of what we’d just witnessed and what it could mean.

  Watching Mandy walk toward Cassie with her mouth hanging open and her hands at her face, I thought about grabbing Cassie by the shoulders and running off into the distance for fear that Jess had cleaned those bones of their flesh and harvested the organs.

  Something held me back. Something stopped the fear from multiplying. Could it have been because she’d shown no sign of this instinct to us? Or could it be that I’d already realised what she might be capable of? She’d said herself, the creatures were each different; some more human than others.

  Alex stood by my side. When I turned from the ground she was already staring back, her brow raised and eyes wide as if to reassure my unvoiced questions.

  We both knew how the body had got there, but before I could speak to voice my lingering fear, Jess strode through the door with a rucksack weighing down her shoulder and in her hand she held to her ear what looked to be a large mobile phone but with a thick antenna the size of my index finger.

  Turning to Alex, she let the phone down, looking thoughtful and wearing a grave expression as she moved her way.

  “You spoke to someone?” Alex said, the words doing nothing to temper Jess’s expression.

  “Stan. He’s out of custody but it’s worse than we thought,” she said, but without explaining she pulled the rucksack from her back and handed it over to Alex. “We’ll need this. It’s a smaller camera.”

  Without looking to the cases still resting where she’d left them at the front door of the hotel, Alex pulled on the rucksack whilst Jess peered over my shoulder, raising her brow.

  “Where are they going?” Mandy asked.

  Looking over my shoulder, my questions disappeared when I saw Cassie and Shadow striding off down the road with more energy than I’d seen even before she’d been bitten.

  “We’re heading north,” I said. “It seems as good a route as any. We’ll follow the motorway and hope we can find the front line or whatever’s there.”

  “What about the doctors and the children?” Alex said, looking to Jess and back to me again.

  “Do you know where they are? I don’t. North is our best chance.” I looked around to Cassie, already with a long head start and when neither Jess or Alex gave an answer, I jogged to catch up.

  “She’s feeling better then,” Alex said, arriving at my side with an eyebrow raised and head tilted.

  “What is it?” I asked, but Alex just shook her head, looking to Jess coming alongside with Mandy shuffling a few paces behind.

  Walking in the middle of the road, now clear of debris, the two lanes of the one-way street joined up with another double lane heading
the opposite direction. With no cars in the way or parked along the side, to our right were half-height metal railings and to our left were small shops, still with their tall windows intact.

  About to ask Alex once more, I looked up as she peered to the sky, listening with a rising dread to the faint buffeting we’d last heard just before arriving in the city.

  “Cassie,” I called ahead in a stage whisper, despite knowing the helicopter crew wouldn’t be able to hear my call even if they hovered directly above us.

  Cassie turned, her expression pinched and I raised my palm. She paused, then gave a shallow nod, cocking her head when she caught the sound of the helicopters.

  “Perhaps they’d take you to her,” Mandy said.

  I turned around, glaring her way. “Or they could shoot us where we stand,” I said as I turned back to look along the road.

  We had no way of telling where the noise came from and so quickened our pace in our original direction.

  To our left, a grassy bank rose from the road to a cluster of three-storey flats.

  “This way,” Cassie said, changing course and climbing. Without complaint, we followed up the bank and down the other side as I scoured the sky between gaps in the buildings for the source of the rising bass.

  In amongst the small development of flats, the monotonous thump of the rotors echoed, flashing across the brick in a disorienting amphitheatre of sound.

  Cassie rushed to the wide front door of the first flat, but it didn’t give as she pushed. Alex jogged past her, trying the next, but found the same.

  By now no one could deny the helicopters were close, so near I thought I could feel their downdraft.

  Not diverting to try any door handles, I led the way out of the cul-de-sac, through the car park whilst sticking close to the buildings and twisting to peer to any hiding place, searching for what could leap out.

  With the others following, I ran through a street lined with shops and run-down retail units either side, but when none of the doors gave way to our attempts, I continued rushing along the road empty of cars parked to the curb.

  The pounding in the air remained ever present, but still searching high above the buildings, all I could make out were the rising columns of smoke everywhere I looked. As the road divided, I lurched down a side street, with Cassie and the others catching up before stopping and staring at the looming shape of an Apache gunship flashing across the air space ahead.