In The End Box Set | Books 1-3

by Stevens, GJ

  Rushing to the driver’s side, I stared to Alex, crumpled face down, but she was at least raising slowly to her hands and knees. With the door wide and with no other choice, no emergency services on the way with cutting equipment and spinal boards, I ducked low, grabbing at Cassie’s foot, relieved at her pained calls as I dragged her outside to settle on the grass at what I hoped would be a safe distance from any explosion.

  Stopping to grab a small green first aid box half buried in the mess, I did the same with Alex, only needing to guide her in the right direction.

  Bounding back to the minibus for a third time, I peered in, pausing when I couldn’t see Jess, my gaze instead latching on another body shivering and struggling for breath. It took me a moment to realise it was Mandy as the rush of water had cleared away the worst of the scarlet from her face.

  With a gust of wind, the van filled with choking smoke.

  Gritting my teeth, I grabbed her by the legs, pulling her to safety. As I let her feet down to the grass, a blast of heat shot across my back, followed by the boom of pressure knocking me down as the fuel tank released its energy in a great fireball.

  Alex was the first to rise after the blast, calling out Jess’s name as I wracked my brain trying to figure out if I could have missed her as I searched inside.

  34

  JESSICA

  I never lost consciousness. I just couldn’t move. With my eyes wide and fixed on the sea of unending branches and leaves, I lay facing upward.

  Hearing the great rush of water, I settled back with the fading memory of my flesh tearing and bones breaking as I fell through the thorns.

  I never closed my eyes for more than a moment, despite the pain. Despite the fear for Alex. And the others, of course.

  I tried to turn, twisting to my side, but when my shoulder burst with feeling I couldn’t hold back the vicious call.

  As the pain died, I looked along the length of my arm and just before the wrist, a bone pressed, tight against the skin.

  I heard my name called close by. The gentleness of the voice took me by surprise despite the panic rising in her tone.

  Rolling to the opposite side, and fighting to regain breath stolen at the effort, light greeted me as hot knives seared in and out of my shoulder and I knew the scrape and jab of thorns had been nothing in comparison as I rolled from the bush’s clutches, tumbling down the bank.

  Footsteps raced in my direction as I slowed. Someone called my name with excitement, then again with more care, as if remembering the danger all around.

  Her visage came into view as I lay on my back, settling in an unknown place. I glanced to the busted bone and with surprise I saw the roll had straightened out the limb and I could barely make out the damage. The pain, as I tried to lift, made it clear it hadn’t been a vision.

  Alex grasped me by the shoulders, hurrying me to my feet as she checked I was okay.

  “My arm,” I said through heavy breath, and she looked back with a thin smile as if trying to hide her own pain from the bruises to her face.

  Logan stepped to my side, reached out to help me steady as I gritted my teeth.

  “Beth?” I said, remembering how she’d been plucked out through the window with such ease as the campervan swung left and right in Alex’s attempts to shake the creatures off the roof.

  He shook his head and with a furrowed brow, he spoke. “We have to get away,” he said, already looking back along the trail of destruction from the road.

  The surroundings were a mess. Great gouges in the muddy bank. The VW billowing black smoke with flames engulfing what hadn’t already fallen off.

  After checking I could hold myself up, Logan rushed to where Cassie still lay on the grass and helped her to her feet as Alex snapped open a first aid kit, rifling through its contents to pull out a fabric sling.

  The pain eased with my arm held up, wrapped in bandages and splinted with a broken branch. Mandy climbed the steep incline, her movement slow and cautious, followed by Logan, Cassie and Shadow.

  Alex guided me by the arm, with each step jarring through my broken bone.

  Soon back to the road and with glances all around, we continued along the road we’d planned to take away from the roadblocks, but with footsteps instead, and in silence.

  Hope rose as after a while we came to a cottage nestled to the side of the road. In the driveway, a four by four BMW rested with its passenger window open, but moving closer we saw the clear cubes on the road and that no glass remained in the car or cottage’s ground-floor windows.

  “It’s no good,” Logan said.

  Leaving the car and the cottage behind, and with the pain in my arm easing with each step, the emptiness of my stomach soon became the pressing need.

  Within a scant distance, a dirt side road split off where we walked, marked out by a sign showing the way to ‘Home Farm’. With barely a glance in each other’s direction, we diverted on the new route.

  After a five-minute walk and with the pain in my arm barely there, I felt the need to release it from the bandages to test if it was just a trick or if it had really healed in the short time since the slightest of movement put me on the verge of passing out.

  But did I dare do anything to raise Logan’s suspicions?

  35

  LOGAN

  Five minutes after passing the sign, a ramshackle patchwork of corrugated roofs came into view with a treasure trove of useful supplies promised behind their battered doors. The ache in my joints seemed to ease and Cassie’s weight at my shoulder reduced when, between us and the first of the weathered agricultural sheds, I saw a stout cottage with its front door shut.

  Letting Cassie down to sit on a vast stone marking the fork to the cottage and the farm, then checking she hadn’t worsened, I turned to the others only a few steps behind as Shadow trotted off towards the farm buildings. Some colour had returned to Jess’s cheeks and gone was the effort I’d seen in her face as her injured arm caught with each step.

  Alex held close by her side and Mandy walked with Alex’s coat zipped up to her neck, her face highlighted with a darkness the water hadn’t washed away.

  “How’s the arm?” I said to Jess as they caught up. She barely acknowledged the question, instead taking more interest in the cottage and the buildings beyond. “Can you watch Cass while I check out over there?”

  “I’m okay,” Cassie said with her head bowed.

  Jess nodded anyway.

  “Alex. Can you take the house?” I said, and she glanced at her side, looking to Jess’s arm in the sling. When Jess waved away her concern, Alex turned back, already stepping towards the front door.

  “Look for shotguns. Car keys, or any other keys in case the sheds are locked. Food.” I paused, collecting my thoughts as I took the first steps in the opposite direction of the fork. “Mandy. Go with her. Find some clothes for everyone.”

  “Yes. All right. We’re not children,” she said, then she followed after Alex.

  “Grab painkillers or something to bring down Cassie’s fever. Get as much of everything as you can carry,” I added, before turning and striding after Shadow as I ignored Mandy’s sarcastic reply.

  “Yes, daddy.”

  Speeding to a jog, I turned back as I heard breaking glass, but when the distance between us was already so great, I thought again about calling out my advice, convinced they should already be well aware they might not be alone.

  With his nose buried deep in the gap between two double doors, Shadow waited at the first of the tall sheds on the right of the hard-packed dirt road. As he sniffed at the edge with his tail raised, I peered along the shed’s window-less corrugated skin.

  Stepping to his side, I went to usher him away when I caught the first hint, quickly turning to a stench coming from beyond the door.

  It wasn’t the same foul odour I’d grown to expect. It was more like the decay hanging in the air at the school’s bungalow. It told of true death; of rot and decomposition. Not the danger of the dead risen.
>
  I looked along and over the road to the next tall building, much the same height but with a wide double sliding door and wheel ruts leading away. A noise from where I’d come made me look backwards to Cassie still sitting on the large stone, staring at the ground. Jess looked to the cottage out of view.

  I knew I shouldn’t open the doors. The smell alone told me I should have left the building alone, instead stepping across the road to where the evidence showed my search would be more fruitful.

  Despite my common sense, I pulled the doors open, twisting away as the wall of thick stench and a warmth that took me by surprise lodged in my throat as I took a step forward into the cattle shed.

  Shadow stayed at the threshold as I looked high, not finding anyone hanging from the rafters. Holding back a deep breath of relief, I gazed through the bars to the rotting flesh of the herd of cattle laying the other side.

  Through emaciated flesh, thin skin contoured the great round of cow’s ribs as I looked to each. How long had it taken for these animals we’d bred to depend on us so wholly to lose their battle for life?

  It must have only been three or four days since we’d left the holiday home and we’d found the world changed, but these poor animals had been left alone for a lot longer, casting doubt on when the world had started to go wrong.

  Desperation hit when I caught a movement in the corner of my vision, the flicker of a great lid and its sullen eyes staring right at me.

  Racked with guilt, I turned away whilst trying not to think of how many of the beasts were on the edge of death, knowing there was little I could do to ease their situation without inflicting further cruelty. Instead, I hung all hope on Alex finding a shotgun and a bountiful supply of shells so we wouldn’t miss just a few.

  Feeling such a coward as I sealed the doors, I took no relief from the cold air so much fresher than it had seemed for such a while.

  I travelled without thought to slide the door of the opposite shed, taking less delight than I should have when I saw the pickup truck, a Ford of some sort.

  With a double-cab and a short bed at the back, it would be perfect as long as Alex could find the keys. I tried the handle, then turned away, not able to glance to the shed opposite.

  As I headed outside, the pickup’s lights flashed at my back and I saw Alex with a set of keys in her hand, her head swinging from side to side as she searched me out. Cupping my hands, I caught the keys mid-air.

  To the bass sound of the engine, I drove to the front of the cottage, watching as Jess loaded supplies into the back. My despair at the lack of a shotgun faded when I saw Jess’s sling hanging loose around her neck as she used the bandaged arm.

  ***

  Despite the cold, Shadow kept his nose to the crack in the window as Alex directed each of my turns of the wheel with her finger tracing the map taken from the cottage. They’d found no shotgun, but plenty of supplies. As I drove, most of us ate from tins, Cassie only accepting the painkillers and a blanket as she sat between Jess and Mandy. Jess turned down any offers.

  To my surprise, a stern look in Mandy’s direction was enough to stop her kicking off when she saw she had to sit next to Cassie. Even after washing her face at the house, blood lingered in her creases, but with fresh clothes, Mandy looked less like one of those creatures.

  I didn’t tell them what I’d found. I didn’t tell them what I’d left behind in the barn. Too eager to get moving, I didn’t raise a question when Jess nodded, catching me staring at her use of both hands to load the back of the pickup as if the pain we’d all witnessed had been a false memory.

  It was Mandy who raised the subject after a few short miles.

  “So your arm is okay now?” she asked, keeping her voice even.

  I looked to Jess in the rear-view mirror as she glanced Mandy's way, giving a shallow tip of her head.

  “It sounded like it was broken back there,” she said.

  Jess didn’t reply for a moment, still looking in her direction as Mandy stared out of the window, stroking down Shadow’s back.

  “I guess I’m lucky. It’s just bruised,” Jess said. I saw Alex looking to Jess when she spoke.

  Dismissing the conversation, I was too eager to enjoy the sensation of putting distance between us and the challenges we’d left behind, soaking up every minute on the journey towards the A30 and the wide sweeping road we’d travelled down a few days before New Year’s Eve.

  We were heading out of the South West and it would take a great deal to crush my optimism.

  Despite my elation, I remembered the signs for the Foot and Mouth outbreak, having forgotten them until our journey. I remembered the fun we’d had in the car. The games in the convoy of three, calling out at every yellow car across the phone lines, and the childish names we gave to the towed caravans.

  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, despi
te 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.