In The End | Novella | Beginning of the End

by Stevens, GJ

  Perhaps they’d all drunk the water or breathed in the gas. What about Mum? Or me? How could I be the only one not affected?

  Maybe I’d just seen what I’d wanted to. Maybe I’d been playing too many video games and this was what Mum meant when she said they were no good for me. Had I crossed out of the actual world and into some other? Perhaps locked away in a reality just in my head?

  Opening my palm, I slapped myself on the cheek, but it barely stung. With a second shot, harder this time, I could only just hold back the yelp as the pain radiated across my cheek. I was awake. I couldn’t be surer.

  The heat inside the cupboard had built and the walls seemed to close in. My elbow banged against something to the right, as if to emphasise my point. I couldn’t stay in there forever, but I had no idea what I would see the other side of the door, or what crazed lunatic would see me first.

  And what would I do when I left the place?

  I’d run. I’d head out of the village. I’d leave the newsagent, checking through the windows first. If the coast was clear I’d run left, out of the door, past the pub and leg it to the main road around two miles away. It would take half an hour if I could keep a good pace. After running across the fields, I’d flag someone down from the road and I could find the police and tell them everything. I’d tell them to prepare.

  I tried not to think they’d already know. I tried not to think since arriving in Cowithick the dispatchers wouldn’t have heard from their officers. They’d send more help. They’d keep sending more people until they’d dealt with the mess. They’d send in the army if they had to.

  Perhaps it was already okay. Perhaps I’d walk out to police officers searching for survivors. But why couldn’t I hear them calling out?

  Pushing out my hand and wrapping my fingers around the cold handle, a vision of Steve’s arm jumped into my head. I remembered the way he’d held it when he came home, and in the morning too. But when we saw him outside, it was as if nothing had happened to it. He’d used both to hit and claw out at the guy on the ground.

  Had he fallen at work or burnt himself on something caustic?

  A dog barked in the distance. Perhaps something had bitten him? But what?

  Whatever it was, I had to get away from this place. Light flooded in as I twisted the handle and pushed, peering past the shelves and out to the street, focusing on the police car with the driver’s door open and the blue lights strobing across the view.

  4

  Grabbing Snickers and other chocolates from the shelf as I passed, I stepped slowly through the aisles with the chill air from outside raising goosebumps on my arms. Not able to look away from the police car since I’d emerged, I realised the danger of staring and pulled myself from the trance to look left and right through the large window in search for who had driven the car.

  There was no sign.

  I looked further to the right and caught sight of a coat around the back of the chair at the till. I leaned over the counter, grabbing the black jacket. It smelt of old smoke. It smelt of Dan Spence and his thin, hand-rolled cigarettes. His short beard hairs scattered across the front, but it was warmer than my thin top and gave me a place to stash more chocolate and crisps.

  Peering past the door, I looked to the left. Searching along the curve of the street, it was empty of people, either normal looking or deranged. Some driveways still had cars. Was that normal? It had been a few years since I’d been out this early in the holidays.

  Front doors stood open. Every other one, at least. But there were no people around. No one rushing to my aid or calling out that everything had turned out okay.

  To the right was much the same, although the curve was shallower. That way was the route to our house and somewhere I knew I’d regret going.

  I didn’t know where I should head, but I knew I had to get away and find help.

  Stepping back from leaning out, I peered to the police car. Its lights distracted me with their strobing blue, but a thought came to mind; could the keys be inside? Could I figure out how to drive from what I’d seen Mum do so many times? It was only a year before I’d be doing it for real.

  No. It was just an easier way to get killed or injured. I rushed from the doorway, heading over the road and back down the alley, out along the street made up of two rows of houses facing each other in a ring around the village.

  I didn’t look to either side, my quick pace turning to a flat-out run. Soon I arrived to where our street met the road running right through the village and cutting the ring of houses in two.

  Something made me slow before I came to the new tarmac; before I passed the houses to expose myself to whatever could be on either side.

  I’d been right to slow.

  Standing in the middle of the road, just back from the junction whilst leaving the houses on either side as a shield, I looked along the road heading out of the village to my left. A small group of soldiers in gas masks stood with long rifles looking across the view. Behind them were two Land Rovers parked at angles to block the road.

  Despite the elation of seeing the saviours in green and brown camouflage, I didn’t run towards them waving my arms. Behind the soldiers and their four by fours, green army trucks with small robot-like arms mounted behind the cab headed our way, the line snaking down from the hill in a long convoy I couldn’t see the end of.

  I watched as the first arrived at the roadblock, diverting off to the grass, bouncing up and down as they ignored the hedges, smashing through undergrowth to move around the side of the village.

  The truck behind split off, heading the opposite way. The one behind did the same, each taking it in turns to go the opposite way to the one in front. On the bed of the trucks were large flat loads stacked up high on most, but every so often the cargo would be different, instead carrying large grey boxes.

  As I watched, entranced at the flowing line, I saw a pair of trucks rock to a stop on either side of the roadblock. Two soldiers jumped out of each cab, then used the stowed arm to lift what looked like sheets of metal from the flatbed at the back. The one behind did the same, unloading the concrete cubes as more soldiers with rifles slung over their shoulders guided the loads to the grass.

  They weren’t acting strange or erratic. Perhaps the gas masks protected them from a toxic cloud or they hadn’t drunk the contaminated water.

  About to rush over, waving my arms, out of the corner of my eye I saw movement, then heard a call. A woman; for a moment she was Mum. Same height, with a plump belly, but when I looked to the blonde hair down to her shoulders, the illusion vanished. She was someone else’s mum running towards the soldiers, waving her hands and calling out with such joy in her voice.

  I let out a breath, relaxing from the initial disappointment, and raised my hands, about to call out so they could save me as well. But as I did, I turned, watching one of soldiers walking forward with his gun aimed in her direction. After a few steps, I heard a deep but muffled command.

  I lowered my hands and something in my head made me take a step back to the cover of the brickwork. The rest of the soldiers stopped what they were doing, instead swinging their rifles from their shoulders to aim at the woman.

  If they’d seen what I had, they were right to take care. They were right to slow her down and check her out before getting her to safety.

  A loud crack shocked my ears, then a second, third and countless more rang out as I lurched backward to the shadow of the houses to my left for cover.

  Leaning into the brick whilst I edged forward, I watched puffs of blood pop into the air as the woman reeled back with each shot until she collapsed to the road.

  But how could this have happened? Was I still in England?

  It had always been a place of democracy. Of policing by consent, according to my social studies class.

  We weren’t in some third-world nation run by despots who hired mercenaries to do their evil deeds.

  I felt my blood chill as I stared at the body.

  Could t
he infection be bad enough that the only option was to kill us all rather than risk the rest of the country? Could it be bad enough not to look for survivors like me?

  Staggering a step back along the house to make sure I was out of view, I felt as if I couldn’t breathe, panting too hard to get the oxygen from the air. My head felt so light.

  With runaway breath, I stared to the woman; just a pile of clothes I could barely see.

  She didn’t move as I strained to look whilst peering past the stars raining down my vision as the darkness crept in from the edges. I felt as if I would die if I couldn’t control my breathing, despite what I already knew from the textbooks.

  There was nothing I could do to stop my vision shrinking.

  With the little control I had left, I dropped to my knees, falling most of the way before the darkness fell to leave me with what I hoped wasn’t my final thought.

  Would they see me?

  5

  With a sharp breath, light poured in, the wall’s brick pattern coming into view as the brightness settled after a few moments.

  I sat up, leaning to the front of the house. For a second I wondered where I was and how I got there. Then came the sound of the truck and racket of thin metal resounding with hits and the high whir of power tools.

  As the memories flooded back, I tried to calm my breath from racing away for a second time.

  I decided not to look around the corner or to the body. I tried not to think of her name. I tried not to remember when I’d seen her around Cowithick so many times before. Outside the school. In the newsagents talking to Dan.

  Mrs Finch. Madeline Finch. I tried not to remember her gossiping with Mum.

  Screwing up my eyes, somehow I held back the scream as her face loomed in my mind with her smile looking back from around the shelves in the newsagent.

  No, I told myself in silence and pressed my palms against the brick, leaning against the wall to steady myself as I rose to my feet. I held still as I let go of the wall.

  Looking back in the direction of my hideout in the shop, I turned, for a fleeting moment considering peering back around the corner to see if it had really happened.

  Despite knowing what I’d see, I couldn’t stop myself from taking those few steps to look, pausing only when I spotted the heap on the road. But it wasn’t a heap. She was a person. She was Madeline Finch.

  About to turn away, a soldier at the checkpoint stepped away from the main group, rushing toward the one who’d issued the command. I heard him trying to talk but all I made out was dull noise. Nearly at his colleague, he pulled the gas mask from his face. The soldier he ran to shook his head.

  Sweat poured down his bright red face as he looked between the other soldier and the woman’s body. I heard everything he shouted.

  “Why? We don’t know if she was infected. We have to check first, then send them to quarantine. We can’t just kill everyone.”

  The other soldier stepped toward him, slinging his rifle over his shoulder by the strap and pushed his hands out to stop the other man getting any closer. When the one without the mask continued to shake his head, the other soldier pulled off his mask, revealing his red sweating face.

  “Those are not our orders, Private. Now get back to the line or I’m having your rifle.”

  The private pushed out his weapon for the other to take. “I’m not killing our people without a very fucking good reason.”

  “There’s no fucking cure. If we let any one of them live, we’re all fucked. You,” he said, jabbing his finger at the other’s chest. “Your wife and your unborn kid.”

  I watched, unable to turn away from the exchange as the words slowly digested in my head. As I tried to think about what he was saying, both of them turned in my direction.

  Ducking out of sight, I had no idea if they’d seen me and I ran, knowing I had no other choice but to get out of the village.

  With the cold road felt through the thin soles of my slippers, thoughts of escape cycled in my head. There were two ways out by car, both using the single road cutting the village in half. The blocked north entrance was where I’d run from and I could only guess the southern entrance would be the same.

  But Cowithick wasn’t some suburban housing estate. A handful of houses had plenty of space between them and there were many ways to get out of its circle and past the ring of meadow to the surrounding fields tall with corn in the summer.

  This time of year they’d be fallow, not providing any cover if the army were patrolling. But in an area to the east, a little way from my house, an evergreen wood led out to the main road.

  I knew the woods well, having played there since I could walk. We’d spent most of my childhood with friends, playing hide and seek and scaring ourselves half to death when we thought we’d got lost.

  I once spent a night out there with my best friend Paul, but it was too creepy at night. Although we would never tell our parents the reason, it was the one and only time we had the courage to do so.

  Noises kept us wide awake and we didn’t sleep a wink.

  After that we played there less and less; our enthusiasm for the place had waned and we started taking school more seriously. When we discovered games consoles, we never visited again. But through the woods you could easily get to the junction of the main road whilst staying in perfect cover.

  I thought of Paul as the echo of his name died in my head, thankful he was away with his parents seeing his grandad somewhere up north for Christmas.

  The woods were the place to head to, but taking the direct route meant going past my house and reliving the nightmare that started this all off.

  Still running in the opposite direction of the roadblock, my nerves pulsed as a loud gunshot flashed into the air, as if I’d been shot. Tripping over my slippers, I picked up my feet when I felt no pain and the echo fell away.

  Soon I regained a rhythm and with the corner of the street opening out, I saw movement, a dark figure in my path. I didn’t linger to see if it was a crazed maniac or trigger-happy soldier.

  Instead, diving to the left, I rushed past the short garden gate, glaring at the handle of the front door in hope it would open if I slapped it down.

  Tripping up the steps I’d only just seen, my palms grazed on the rough concrete as I held my face from the impact. I scrabbled back to my feet, still staring to the metal bar that could mean the difference between life and death. Lunging to the cold metal, the door opened as I pushed down, my foot catching on the threshold and tipping me forward, sending my knees into the rough hair and faded black letters of the coconut mat.

  Ignoring the pain in my toes and the sting at my legs, I scrabbled forward. Only partway through the door, I half stood up and half crawled, tripping again as my feet left the mat, landing on the soft carpet.

  With no time to savour the warmth of the thick pile, I turned, crawling on my hands and knees in hope I wouldn’t be as easy to spot. Only then did I look out of the door and the direction of where I’d seen movement.

  A dark figure, a man with a stilted walk, moved along the path, his gaze roving across the view as if in search of something.

  I pushed the front door, forgetting how easy it had opened, tensing as it slammed hard against the frame, the noise reverberating around the house.

  “Shit,” I said, unable to unsay the word, immediately regretting the volume I added to my first mistake.

  There would be no chance he hadn’t heard. There was no chance he wasn’t heading this way. I had to run. I had to get back out into the open.

  As I reached up to pull on a side table beside the front door, it tipped. Spilling the phone and vase of flowers, it sent cloudy water across the carpet. When the glass didn’t smash, I paused, knowing it could have been so much worse.

  I rose to my feet, taking more care, then looked to the door in search of a chain, but when I saw nothing that could help, I ran along the short hallway and regretted the delay. Pushing open a door at the far end, light spilled out from the
kitchen windows and glass panels of the back door.

  I glanced back, catching a shadow moving across the diffused glass in the top half of the front door. I didn’t want to linger, but peering across the kitchen, I looked to half-full cereal bowls sitting on the side counters and plates spread out across the surface. Toasted bread rested upright in the toaster and two mugs stood by the kettle. When I saw the long knife beside the uncut loaf on the chopping board, I stared for longer than I should.

  I was afraid to give the question too much thought. Should I take the few extra steps and lean out to grab the knife? I remembered the special assemblies in school. To carry a knife was so much more dangerous than not to. But the policeman on the stage was talking about the inner cities, or the suburbs at least. Could they really have thought of this circumstance, when self-defence could mean the difference between life and death?

  A dull thud along the corridor drained my enthusiasm for staying in the house any longer and I left the knife sitting on the wooden block, hoping I wouldn’t regret the decision moments later.

  Dropping my hand to the back door handle, I pushed down, guiding the door to swing open. Cold air rushed over me, chilling the sweat in my armpits as I ran with the short grass pushing through a hole in the sole of my slippers.

  I didn’t linger. A smile rose as I peered along the length of the garden, looking to the fence standing at waist height and the strip of grass stretching out beyond, meeting the turned dirt.

  A low, bass call killed my rising mood as I recognised the heavy engines of the trucks I’d seen on either side of the roadblock. Without looking, not needing to see to know what I had to do, I changed course, turning left and bounding the short fence to the garden next door.

  Tripping as I landed, I then rushed to my feet and with the next fence already coming close, I regained my balance. Panting for breath, I regretted the hours on the Xbox.

  I slowed, taking more care to climb over the next fence and so not to knock over the ceramic pots full of dirt, ready for planting when the weather turned. The engine noise grew to the background of the metal clatter.