by JE Gurley
“You and your people find a cure for this damn plague,” he said. “There are people out there who aren’t immune. Eventually, they’ll catch it. We’ll keep you safe.”
“From the military?” she asked, doubtful.
“They’ve got bigger fish to fry for now. We’ll stay under their radar as long as we can. The Hunters won’t rest though. The Gray Man will find us eventually.”
“And then?”
He smiled. “By then, you’ll have the cure, won’t you?”
He and Renda walked away, clinging to each other. She noticed Samuels staring at her from across the room. Maybe, it was time she opened up and allowed someone inside her icy walls. He had proven himself, and he had erased all the doubts she had about him. How was what he had done any different from what she and her team had done? She owed him an apology and more. She went to him. He smiled as he saw her coming.
“Can we talk?”
He clasped her hand in his and steered her outside where the sun was rising on a new day, a different day, a day for making fresh starts.
The End
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Read on for a free sample of WHEN THERE’S NO MORE ROOM IN HELL
Mankind is on the brink of extinction. A deadly plague sweeps the globe like a tsunami causing the dead to rise and prey on the living. When there’s no more room in Hell is a horror/action story set in a post-apocalyptic world filled with suspense, drama, humour, grief and action.
While one brother fights his way home through the horrors and confusion of a savage landscape from the ‘Meat Grinder’ that is Iraq, the other finds himself as the leader of a rag-tag band of survivors striving to survive against the onslaught of the dead.
1
A noise to his front snapped his head away from his binoculars and his hand instinctively reached for the weapon across his lap. Down the hill, about fifty metres away, a shadowy figure shambled, struggling to negotiate the steep and slippery grass bank. Steve remained seated and watched as the figure slipped, its feet falling away from under it and causing it to fall face first in to the grass and slide back down the hill before regaining its balance and trying again.
It looked like a man, though from this distance, Steve couldn’t be certain. A quick glance left and right again and Steve was happy in his security. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, he thumbed the top open and placed one between his lips. As he lit it, he could taste the smoke draw into his mouth, musty, and not as fresh as they used to be twelve years ago, but there were very few vices now, and as long as he could still find them, Steve would continue to enjoy a smoke now and then.
He zoomed in with the binoculars again to get a better view of the figure below him. He adjusted the focus and saw that what he was looking at, had once been a man.
It had seen him too, and was doing its damndest to climb the hill.
Steve continued puffing away on the cigarette as he studied the man.
Its skin was mottled grey and brown and stretched tight over its face, as thin as paper and dry as match wood. The corners of its jaw and cheek bones were visible, the skin having rotted and weathered away. What had been weeping, puss dripping sores were now dark holes in its face leaving the teeth and bone structure visible in places below the skin.
Eyes that had once read books, the Sunday papers, gazed at beautiful scenery and watched movies, now lay shrivelled and dry in their sockets. They could distinguish between light and dark, and movement and large shapes could be seen, but small details were now hard to focus on, and it was only a matter of time until the figure would be completely blind.
Wisps of dried, sun-bleached hair blew in the breeze, revealing much of the bare scalp underneath. To a large degree, it was nothing more than a skull with a thin layer of leathery skin covering the surface. Where there had once been a nose, now a dark hole in the middle of its face, almost like a cave in a grey mountain side.
The figure emitted a low moan as it struggled to reach Steve, the vocal cords rasping in its dried out throat. The sound was more of longing, of needing than an attempt at communication. Its jaw flexed and gnashed out of instinct rather than hunger or frustration as it clawed at the grass with its bony rake like hands.
Its tattered, ripped, and battered clothes that had once fit a living human frame, now hung in ruins from its emaciated shoulders and back. Years of exposure to the elements, dirt and grime had discoloured them to become the same colour as the figure itself. Where its jacket hung open, or was torn away, Steve couldn’t tell; its ribs and sternum jutted out from its grey skin, a large cavity, where it had once had liver, stomach and intestines, now a black and empty cavern.
The figure never gave up, it never tired and it never lost interest, and never would, not as long as Steve stayed in plain sight. It would continue to try and climb the hill for the rest of eternity, so long as something kept its attention focused on reaching the summit.
Steve watched in wonder. After all these years, he still found that he couldn’t help but study them. Their behaviour never seemed to change when they saw him. It was true that he had witnessed occasional differences in their behaviour, but he had found that it was always when they were unaware of him that they acted differently.
There had been times when he had witnessed them show interest or even curiosity in inanimate objects. A fleeting memory maybe pushing its way to the surface and for a moment, reminding them of the things they had known before. A car or a book, even something as irrelevant as a cup, Steve had watched them clumsily try to manipulate items in their uncoordinated hands as though trying to cling to a former existence. Or maybe it was just a spark of the old human nature coming through, to study and to learn?
But in general, their existence was basic and single minded. He knew that he couldn’t reason with it, that no matter how much he tried, he would not be able to convince it to do anything other than come for him. He had been up close and personal with thousands of them over the years, and yet, he still watched.
The same questions always formed in his head. Who was the man he was watching? What did he do for a living? Did he have a family, where are they now? Did he like simple things, movies, good food and pretty women?
Then other questions inevitably came to him; does he remember anything? Does he feel emotion of any sort? Is he aware of himself and what has happened to him? Questions that Steve could never answer, but nevertheless, questions he always pondered.
He could see a couple more figures staggering along the road. Slowly they made their way along the tarmac, occasionally bumping into vehicles, debris and sometimes, each other. Using his binoculars, he did a quick scan to check for any sign that they were likely to be coming his way. They weren’t. He was either too far away for their bad eyesight, or they just hadn’t yet noticed him.
He knew that on their own, they’re easy to out-manoeuvre and deal with as long as you're careful, but in groups, then you're likely to have a lousy afternoon. However, for the moment, Steve was safe. He had the high ground, good range of visibility and mobility on his side. At the first sign of trouble, he could just walk away.
Without realising, a sigh escaped his lips with the last of his cigarette smoke. He looked down at his feet and then back up at the skyline of the city. Though he had never really been a people person, he sometimes missed the hustle and bustle of the past. It had been easy back then. If you needed something, you went shopping. If you were hungry, you went to the fridge, or even a restaurant. If you were bored, you did whatever it was that you found entertaining. Even the basics such as running a tap and having instant clean water, or flicking a switch and the room being lit from the light above was a thing he no longer took for granted.
But it wasn’t just the amenities that he found himself sometimes longing for. He had hated all the Reality T.V., Chat Shows, and Soap Operas, as well as advertisements for crap he didn’t need. The modern culture of everything being disposable, including people and marriage
, everyone being too interested in what was happening with their favourite celebrity at the time, politicians screwing over the people they were supposed to be striving to make a better future for; it had boiled his blood.
But that was just it, it was all life. It was everyday, mundane, run of the mill, life.
“Actually, Mankind and civilisation was fucking shit!” Steve didn’t realise he had said it aloud until the figure at the bottom of the hill stopped still and stared in his direction, a couple of seconds later, it doubled its efforts to climb. The ones on the road hadn’t heard him.
He looked down again and let out a silent laugh, “Aye, I always did prefer dolphins and gorillas to people.”
2
“A career, what the fuck is that?” Steve scowled at his older brother Marcus. “To you, it’s a chance at a future, to lay building blocks to make your life and your future children's lives better, to contribute to the world, to make a difference to yourself and the people around you.”
“To me, it’s a life of subliminal slavery, working my whole life so that the taxman can squeeze my nutsack and then demand more. All the time, those fat wankers in the government offices get richer by the day. Shove it up your arse Marcus!”
Marcus shook his head in frustration, “Steve, you seriously need to grow up. Last month, you were stacking supermarket shelves. The month before that, you were laying bricks. Right now, well you're doing fuck all except being a ‘rebel without a clue’. Where’s that gonna get you?”
“Better off than you anyway. Don’t tell me; since you joined the Army, all you’ve done is water ski and abseil for a laugh? Where were you this week? On a sandy beach somewhere, strolling along with Frank from the recruitment ads and a couple of pretty girls?”
“Actually no, I was on guard duty all week because Smudge didn’t wanna do his stint while he was off shagging some chick. He paid me for it though, so it’s all good.” Marcus tried to lighten the mood with a smile.
Steve didn’t see the upside. He was still feeling like a captive audience while his brother; the hard man Paratrooper, gave him another lecture on how to run his life. Sitting against his bedroom wall, with his hands folded tight around his knees, he grumbled, “I can’t be arsed with this Marcus, get off my back.”
“Are you just gonna sit on your arse thinking the world owes you?”
Steve sneered, “Yeah, I just might actually.”
“Like I said bro, grow up!” And with that, Marcus picked up his bag and walked out the door.
Steve loved his brother, though he could never show it, he just didn’t know how. He had always looked up to Marcus and though he wouldn’t admit it, Marcus was his hero.
Two years older than Steve; he had joined the army at the age of eighteen and had never looked back. Even as kids, Marcus had always been the tougher and more focused one. And Steve always felt as though he had been abandoned by him when he went off to join the army, though deep down, he knew his feelings were unfounded. Marcus had hounded him for years to join him, to make him proud and at the same time, to give himself a goal in life. But Steve had always seen it differently. To him, joining the army was throwing himself as a pawn at the feet of the very government that he hated and despised.
Steve continued his life of rebellion. Working dead end jobs until he was bored of them, or he had enough money to see him through a couple of weeks of partying, then he would quit. Once the money had run out, he would be back to looking for work, or a way of making an easy earner.
At one point he found himself in a packing factory. For some reason, it got so hot in there, everyone just worked in their underpants. After a while, the fantasy of women joining the work force became just that, a fantasy, and he soon moved on.
He was always known as a rogue, and he never professed to be an angel. If there was a way of making money that wasn’t completely legitimate, or even down right against the law, he would take the chance if he thought he could get away with it.
Even going to the extremes of trying to be a cocaine dealer; risking being arrested and sent to prison, Steve had delusions of grandeur. Imagining himself driving around in a fancy car, wearing tailor-made suits and handmade shoes while living in a huge mansion style house with a swimming pool. One week later, after tallying up his profits, he realised he had risked ten years behind bars for an extremely small return. Thus, his days of being a drugs baron were over and it was on to the next idea.
For years, he lived the life of a man who had no idea what to do with himself. That all changed when, at twenty one, he met Claire. For a while things were great and Steve began thinking of pinning down a steady job, so that they could live together. Then their relationship was blessed when Claire became pregnant. Steve was at a loss. All of a sudden, responsibility and maturity were hanging over him, and he felt cornered.
At first he found it hard to cope with, but then he began to realise that he owed this baby a future, to be a good father and give it a chance in life. When Sarah was born, he instantly fell in love with her. There and then, she became his entire world, and he adored every minute he spent with her.
Soon, the relationship between Steve and Claire deteriorated and they went their separate ways, but that never deterred him. Though he was pretty much a weekend dad, he cherished his role as a father.
He never missed a school play, kept track of all the teeth grown and lost and never had to rearrange a weekend to have her. She always came first. And if it meant him missing out on an event with the guys or workmates, then he was always more than happy to do so.
When she stayed with him, at his rented flat on weekends, they would sometimes stay up late, watching kid’s movies and joking with each other. Some days they would go on adventures in the countryside, or spend the day making cakes from a cookbook, then grimacing at their efforts afterwards while trying to eat them. When the time came that Sarah could no longer keep her eyes open, he would carry her to bed and sometimes just sit and watch her sleep for awhile.
Sarah had an amazingly sharp and sometimes dark sense of humour. Other times, it was completely off the wall and random. Steve once woke up and saw in the mirror as he brushed his teeth, that his little angel had drawn a moustache on him in black marker pen while he slumbered in bed, too long for her liking. After scrubbing at it for an hour, while Sarah stood giggling, he resigned himself to the fact that he was to go through the next week with a faded grey moustache.
Conversations between Father and Daughter were always spoken in a language that was neither adult nor childlike. It was their way of communicating. Steve never spoke to her in a childish or patronising way, and in his eyes, that helped with her development and self confidence, and the fact that he was still a child himself at heart, it all came natural anyway.
“Dad, who do you think would win in a fight between Shrek and Spiderman?” Steve looked at his daughter, bewildered about where the question had suddenly sprung from as they both sat on the floor of the living room, building a house from Legos.
“I reckon Spiderman sweetheart, because he’s faster and can tie him up in his web. Plus, he’s wearing tight Lycra and it would make him slicker than snot on a doorknob when Shrek tries to catch him.”
Sarah considered this, “Ah, but what about Shrek being so strong though? Oh and he can kill fish with just a fart. So I think Shrek.”
By the time that Sarah was ten, Steve began to feel redundant. She was more interested in spending time with friends, experimenting with makeup and playing on computers. He sometimes found himself having to bribe her with days out, just to spend time with her. Regardless, he would always be there for her.
Around that time, the world went to shit. After the terrorist attacks at the 2012 Olympics in London which had killed thousands, war seemed to break out on every continent.
Steve could only look on as the world seemed to fall apart. He continued to go to work every day at the warehouse as he had done for the last five years. He was a foreman now, and on pretty go
od money. He had accepted his lot in life and felt content, but he was starting to grow concerned with the way the world was going, more for Sarah’s sake than his own.
All the while, he kept an interested ear to the radio while at work, buying the day’s paper on his way in, then watching the news once he was home again in the evening to catch up.
Very little information was coming out of Africa and South America, most of the news seemed to be centred round the numerous wars throughout the world and particularly, the events unfolding in the Middle and Far East. But still, it was strange that a virus that had the ability to kill hundreds of thousands was being kept on the sidelines. His old rebellious, anti-government feelings began to rise up inside him again. He knew all there was to know about the fighting in Iran, Iraq and the rest of the Middle East as well as Russia and Korea, so he started to scour the internet for more details on Africa.
No news websites were giving any more information than what he already knew. A flu virus had broken out, spread by contact with infected people, similar to the Swine Flu pandemic of the year before when it re-emerged after the initial outbreak in 2009, but the African virus was even more aggressive. Whole villages and towns had died and many cities were becoming huge tombs.
But there was nothing about treatment, suspected origin or what the world was doing about it. Was there any plan to contain it, other than blowing people out of the water as they fled? Who, if anyone, was studying it and breaking down its genetic code in order to find a cure?
He spent a whole evening searching, but to no avail. It wasn’t until the next day at work, during a break as he sat chatting to one of his shift bosses, he brought the subject up.
“Nah mate, you should look on the likes of ‘youtube’ instead. I’ve seen loads of mobile phone camera footage and personal blogs and reports from eye witnesses, and people are going apeshit over it.”
