The Bitter End

by James Loscombe

  Anthony, who was improving quickly now, had not received permission from Mrs Thresher, to leave his sick bed. He was the only one missing.

  Joel turned to the three of them. He had a determined look in his eyes and Ben knew that he was serious now. "You follow me," he said. "You do as I say when I say it. Understood?"

  They all agreed that they understood.

  "I aim to come back to my family in one piece so if you get some foolish notion into your head keep it there until you’re not a part of my team."

  No one said anything but Ben wondered what sort of foolish notion he was talking about. They were going for food and fuel and sure, it would be dangerous, what wasn't when you had monsters in the world, but they all knew that. He looked out at the place, a nondescript town, buildings that looked fifty years old and could have been houses or offices. The plants were overgrown but it could have been anywhere on the river.

  The time for speculation ended. Joel climbed down the side of the boat and onto dry land. The others followed.

  "Follow me," whispered Joel, "and keep your mouths shut."

  They did as they were told. The ground was cracked and plants had begun to erupt from it. In places he could see thick blobs of white paint. In silence they followed Joel and stopped beside a car.

  Joel ducked down and they did the same. The rusted metal was cool. It felt dead to Ben. He had been in a car before but not for more than twenty years and then only rarely. They had lived in London and his parents hadn't thought there was any need for a car. Occasionally he had gone somewhere with his friends's parents but mostly the only time he got to go in a car was the two or three times a year his parents hired one to go and visit grandparents.

  Joel opened the drivers side door and got in. A moment later the engine was running. Daniel got in the front passenger seat, Aaron got in behind him leaving Ben behind the driver. They closed their doors and then they were moving.

  It was warm in the car and the air was stuffy. Once they were on the road Joel opened his window and the others did the same.

  "The roads aren't good," said Joel, "but it's still quicker than walking."

  It was as well. Ben sat staring out the window as the world flashed by impossibly quickly. It was bumpy and he felt his stomach lurch uncomfortably.

  Office buildings gave way to shops gave way to residential flats gave way to houses and then shops again. They were not alone. People were everywhere.

  Joel turned off the engine and they drifted to a stop at the curb. Ben was vaguely aware that you weren't supposed to drive like that but he was too occupied by the people to give it much thought.

  There was a clunk and when Scott tried to open the door it wouldn't. "Don't talk to them," said Joel, "and don't get too close."

  "Are they dangerous?" said Ben.

  "Not if you do what I tell you," said Joel.

  Ben nodded, there was another clunk and he found that he could open his door.

  The air was warm and moist. There was no breeze. Outside of the car he could hear a low pitched moaning that seemed to come from the direction of the people. He watched them while he waited for the others to get out of the car and join him.

  Their faces were green beneath the pale surface, their skin pulled so tightly it looked as if it might snap. Their limbs were warped and twisted at odd angles that surely meant broken arms. Some of them had festering wounds that had turned black. Tiny black flies buzzed around them.

  "What's wrong with them?" he said, to himself as much as to anyone else.

  "Come on," said Joel and led them away down the pavement.

  Ben took a final look back. One of them had fallen over and at first he thought the others were helping him up but they weren't. Black blood squirted lazily up at them as they tore into the flesh of the one who could no longer stand. Ben felt bile rise in his throat as he realised they were eating him.

  "Ben!" said Aaron sharply and he turned away from the gruesome scene. The others were a few metres ahead of him and he jogged to catch up.

  Ahead there was a petrol station. There were cars around it but they appeared to have crashed there rather than parked. Joel led them towards it.

  They stopped around the corner and Joel held a finger to his mouth. Ben waited and watched. The shop was dark and he could detect no movement inside, the cars didn't move. He could hear insects. It started to rain.

  "Lets go," said Joel and one by one they followed him across the road to the garage.

  Red plastic petrol cans were piled up across the forecourt. Joel grabbed one and threw it to Aaron.

  "Diesel," he said.

  Aaron nodded and went to the nearest pump.

  Joel threw the next can at Ben, "Petrol, unleaded," he said.

  Ben nodded and set to work but he kept an eye on Joel and Daniel. They walked away together and at first he thought they were going into the little shop but they walked past it. They were supposed to be getting food but the Thresher's had been coming here for years and had probably long exhausted the little stores supplies.

  A few minutes passed, he filled up the first bottle and was working on the second. A shadow passed across his vision and he looked up thinking it was Aaron come to give him a hand or Joel and Daniel back from wherever they had been. But it wasn't. It was one of the people. A woman.

  Close up she looked, on the verge of death sick. Her skin was coming off her cheeks in clumps, revealing a black and green infection beneath. Her eyes bulged from her sockets, the pupils large and vacant. When she opened her mouth he saw rotten teeth stumps. Remembering what he had seen happen to the man who had fallen down he stepped back and almost suffered a similar fate when he stumbled over an empty petrol bottle.

  He held up his hands. He didn't want her to get to close, the idea of her diseased hands touching him brought the bile back up his throat.

  Ben waited for her to do something but she just looked at him with those big vacant eyes. He wasn't even sure if she could really see him. Then she opened her mouth and a big purple tongue fell out and rested on her chin spilling blood red drool down her already ruined top.

  He took another step back and wondered where Aaron was, shouldn't he have come over and offered to help him. Or was he in a similar position. Maybe he just hadn't noticed. Ben didn't know if he should be scared or not. He took another step back.

  This was stupid, he realised, there was nothing to be scared of. She was a sick, and probably weak, woman. She could't hurt him, she probably just wanted him to help her.

  "I'm sorry," he said, holding his hands in the air as if she was pointing a gun at him. "I can't do anything for you."

  She growled. A low sound that started in her throat and came out of her mouth as a sticky wet moan. Then she lunged towards him, wobbling like she was drunk but with her mouth open baring her fractured blackened tooth stumps. She put out her arms as if to grab him and he took another step back. He hit something soft and wet that gave like a patch of damp grass.

  He tried to push himself away but fat hands wrapped themselves around his arms and held him tight.

  "Let go," he said through gritted teeth and tried to force his way free but whatever had hold of him didn't budge.

  Now the woman was on top of him, her mouth open wide so that he could see her black insides and smell her rancid breath. Her hair hung in clumps from her head between red bald patches that seeped and oozed white puss. She lowered her head towards him and he tried to kick her away but missed.

  They didn't move quickly but they didn't need speed. She came towards him slowly and purposefully, a wild hunger in her otherwise vacant eyes. The hand behind him held as tightly as stone. Ben realised that he was in serious trouble.

  He kicked at the woman again and this time struck her knee. It buckled out backwards and must have been agonising. She limped a little after that but otherwise didn't seem to notice.

  Ben looked around but couldn't see Aaron. It was a dangerous world and there was no shame in calling for he
lp. "Aaron," he shouted at the top of his voice.

  "Bit busy at them moment Ben," came the reply from somewhere to his left.

  Ben managed to crane his neck around and see that Aaron was in a similar situation to him. If the person holding him down was as big as the one holding Aaron then there wasn't a lot he was going to be able to do. He was as big as a house.

  He struggled some more but the mountain behind him didn't budge. He kicked at the grotesque woman to keep her away but she kept coming and he was running out of strength, energy and will. He glanced over at Aaron and he didn't seem to be having any better luck.

  If he could just get to his gun, he thought, he could shoot her and as big as he was the guy behind him would still back off if he had a gun pointed at his head. Not that he could get to his gun. He couldn't even move his arms.

  The woman came at him again preceded by her vile stink and trailing chunks of skin that fell from her every time she moved. Her mouth opened, she lunged forwards and he leveraged the giants grip to pull both his feet into the air and strike her with both feet hard in the chest.

  Her skin gave and for a moment he thought his feet were stuck. She staggered back, his feet came free and her head exploded. For a long time he just stood there looking at her.

  He turned and saw Joel across the street, rifle in hand. Another explosion of sound followed explosion of head and Ben was pulled to the ground along with the now headless mountain. He still hadn't released his grip.

  Ben managed to pull himself free and stood up in time to see the two attacking Aaron disappear in a cloud of bile, blood and other bodily fluids. He walked over and offered Aaron a hand up.

  He was breathless and terrified. He looked around convinced there were more coming. He took out his gun and aimed it wildly at bushes and trees and lamp posts, anything that could be mistaken for a human being.

  "Put that down, you bloody idiot," said Joel crossing the street and shouldering his own gun. "

  "What the fuck!" said Ben, while putting his gun away as instructed.

  "Petrol," said Joel. Ben looked over at Aaron and saw that he was back at the pump, although he looked up scanning the area while he worked. Joel stood guard while Ben and Aaron finished doing their jobs.

  "What are they?" said Ben, as he put a full can on the pile. His heart had stopped racing but he was still having trouble processing what had just happened.

  Joel shrugged. "Vamps gone wrong I reckon."

  "Gone wrong how?"

  "Go out in the day, don't they. Maybe it turns them mad or something. They don't just want your blood either, they'll eat you down to the bone. Good job they aren't quick. You keep your eyes and ears open and they're easy enough to avoid."

  It was only when they were walking that Ben realised Daniel was gone. He asked Joel about it and Joel told him he'd gone to get food and would meet them back on the boat. They arrived on foot and found him there with the car, throwing bundles and bags up to Mrs Thresher.

  When she saw them coming she stopped, stood up and waved happily at them. Half an hour later they were moving.

  11

  They made it to London without having to stop again.

  Ben spent the long days helping out around the boat, resting his ankle and thinking about what his world was like now. He missed Sanctuary but it didn't really feel like it was his home anymore; he had seen the ugly underside of the place and even if they went back and armed everyone there they wouldn't be welcome. Nicholas would need to be dealt with and, even if he had rigged the last election, he still had his supporters.

  Then he thought about Mary and about the twins and he started to worry. Nicholas would have worked out by now that he was gone. Previously he wouldn't have put anything like it past him, but it turned out he didn't know Nicholas as well as he thought he did.

  The days passed and his concern for Mary and the boys grew to the point where he considered abandoning ship, finding some way, any way, he could to get back to Sanctuary and be with them. He knew he was creating most of the drama, that he didn't know if anything had happened, but once he'd had a thought he found it impossible to shake it. He imagined them imprisoned somewhere, badly treated, or worse yet; dead. It would be made to look like an accident, Nicholas had a public image to preserve, but they would still be dead.

  Then he wondered if Cora's death had really been an accident. What if she had discovered something about her husband and he’d ‘dealt with her’. Anything seemed possible now.

  So it was that, by the time they arrived in London, he found it difficult to think about anything else. They were having increasingly frequent meetings about what they were going to do when they got there but he barely took anything in. It was almost a surprise to see the once familiar buildings loom on the horizon.

  They arrived at night. The skyline was crowded with giant glass tombstones, dark and lifeless but still standing, despite decades without care. Ben sat on deck with the others taking it all in. He managed to escape from his fears for his family long enough to remember a time when he had been ten years old and fleeing from the city.

  It was all such a long time ago now. He could remember shouting and fires and being bundled into a boat with Cora by his mum. It had been his first time on a boat. He remembered hearing the motor start and it seemed that it hadn't stopped since.

  They drank whiskey as they drifted lazily down the river. There were no other boats in sight and the city appeared dead. But it wasn't. Lurking in the long shadow of night, he knew, there were the creatures of nightmares, vampires. He knocked back a mouthful of whiskey and enjoyed the way it burned his throat and made it easier to forget the longing for his family.

  Anthony was back on his feet again, if shakily. Daniel had refused to let him join them the following day. He stood against the side railings with his head tilted up, perhaps remembering his own flight from the capital city. Kris would also be staying aboard, she was standing close to Martin with his arm draped over her shoulder. Mr and Mrs Thresher stood beside one another and the others were scattered around.

  It was a beautiful clear night and they got to enjoy it for nearly an hour before the sounds started. Like fighting cats the screeches echoed across the water becoming menacing and unwelcome. They looked uncomfortably at one another.

  "I think we'll call it a night," said Joel and led Mrs Thresher back inside. The others followed but Ben remained on deck beside Aaron who was on shift at the tiller.

  "You ready for this?" said Aaron.

  Ben nodded but he wasn't really sure. They had been over the details of the plan but they swum around in his head and he couldn't pin them down into any sensible order. "I guess so."

  They stood in silence. The unasked question hung from Ben's lips. Aaron didn't seem to notice. He thought again about Mary but pushed the thought away.

  "What's the plan when we get back?" he said.

  "To Sanctuary?"

  Ben nodded.

  Aaron took a long deep breath, paused and then shook his head. "I don't know Ben, I'm sorry but it's the truth. I don't know what Nicholas has told people about where we've been. He won't have been able to keep it quiet."

  "Why not?"

  "They tried to kill us. They did kill Sandra and Sol. And he knows that we know it was them. So I guess he'll tell people we opened fire first, that we lured them into a trap or something, I don't know. Whatever it is we won't come out of it as the good guys."

  Ben wondered what Mary would make of it. Would she have faith in him or would she believe whatever the General said? He called it a night shortly after that, took himself inside and lay on his bed staring at the ceiling. He was confused and he couldn't shake it.

  12

  Morning came too soon.

  Ben was woken by a thump that seemed to reverberate around the whole boat. He felt it as much as heard it. There was no ignoring it and so he rolled out of his bunk, grabbed his jacket and padded across the cabin to find out what was going on. He could hear people s
noring and Kris muttered in her sleep, a part of him hoped it would turn out to have been a dream.

  There was a gun on the kitchen counter but repeated warnings from Mrs Thresher had made him reluctant to touch anything in the vicinity of the kitchen. He paused by it and decided that on this occasion he could break the taboo. He checked it was loaded and then made his way up the stairs to the deck.

  It was still dark out. Wispy clouds scattered the sky and glowed in the light of the moon. Daniel was at the tiller.

  "What's going on?" he said, closing the door behind him and walking across. Aaron was there too, pulling on a rope that hung over the side.

  "We're mooring up," said Daniel.

  "Already? What time is it?"

  "An hour before," said Daniel. "You got a gun?"

  Ben held up the pistol he had picked up in the kitchen.

  "Good. You can keep watch with us."

  He nodded and stood at the side to watch the riverside approach. A complicated pier stood above them in the water, its grey metal corroded by the air and water, it had turned brown in most places. The struts that held it up were bowed and sagging. Ben was relieved when they passed it.

  The muddy bank reminded him of the Back Field where so much of his life had changed over the last few years. There was a patch of trees beyond it that had grown and reached the water in places. He scanned the area for movement but didn't see anything. It was hardly surprising, vamps had an innate fear of the water and would usually do anything to avoid getting close to large bodies of it. It was a terrible miracle that they had managed to build a dam.

  There was a clearing of about one-hundred metres between the first patch of trees and the second. On the other side of it he could see the tower, grey and ancient, reaching for the sky. Between them they got the boat up close and Daniel killed the engine. Everything became silent.

  Further along the river a giant bridge jutted out from the land only to end abruptly a couple of hundred metres later. In the twilight Ben could see the metal sagging and wondered how long it would be before the rest of it crumbled and fell into the river. Everything he could see was decaying and falling apart. In no time at all the old world had become senile and wasted.