by Perrin Briar
Liz and Bill shared a smile. Liz looked over the destroyed area that had once been their home.
“Nothing will ever grow here again, will it?” she said. “Too much of their tainted blood was spilled.”
“Something will grow here, given enough time.”
A spot of water tapped Bill on the head, then another, and all at once, a torrential rain fell out of the sky. The rain coalesced and made streams that ran downhill to the sea. The water was red, and then turned pink, then no colour at all. Eventually enough water fell that it carried the rotten corpses away. Bill smiled.
“Wiped clean like a broom to the past,” he said. “It might take some time, but life here will return to normal. There are still Lurchers out there in this jungle, and we have to be careful, but we will find them.”
“But not tonight,” Liz said.
“No, not tonight. Tonight we’ll go to the cove and sleep.”
They turned and made their way back up Sharpie. Ernest cradled his books, Fritz his chick, Jack with Nip in his arms, and Francis led Valiant with his hand on his neck, not needing to use the nose ring.
“How are we going to rebuild the Nests?” Liz said. “The Adventurer sunk months ago. You’ll never bring anything else back up.”
“Who said anything about the Adventurer?” Bill said. “How do you fancy living in the Presidential Suite of a cruise liner?”
Liz smiled.
“Sounds great,” she said.
“Let’s get some sleep,” Bill said. “We’ve got an awful lot of rebuilding to do.”
“Yes,” Liz said. “But we’ll do it together.”
THE END
Epilogue
The apes screamed at the top of their lungs, concealed behind their leafy hiding places, and peered at something in a clearing. It was another ape, lying on his back. Rain patted his upturned cheeks and dampened his fur, sticky and matted with blood, an ugly open wound on his forearm. His breaths came shallow and forced, rasping with life. He closed his eyes, breathed in a thick breath, let out a deep sigh, and fell silent. The apes screeched for another minute before following suit and falling silent themselves. The apes turned and moved away, into the darkness of the jungle beyond. The jungle returned to its normal background noise of crickets, hooting birds and something pecking at a tree trunk in the distance.
The sounds stopped, and the jungle was silent.
A black finger twitched. His eyes flashed open, white as snow. A low groan escaped his lips. The jungle erupted into screams once more.
WHAT TO READ NEXT?
The Swiss Family RobinZOM is set in the world of my epic zombie series Blood Memory. If you enjoyed this novella, why not check out Blood Memory? The first episode is available absolutely FREE!
You can get it from the following store: Smashwords.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Perrin Briar is an English author best-known for his Blood Memory series, black comedy Keeping Mum, and revenge tale Square. He was born in Huntingdon, grew up in Norfolk, graduated from Bournemouth, worked in London, and then chucked it all in to live in South Korea.
He has written for BBC radio, and worked in the production and development departments of the BBC, ITV and Channel 4.
You can email him at [email protected] or tweet at @perrinbriar. He loves corresponding with fans, so don’t hesitate to contact him if you have a question!
Copyright © 2014 Perrin Briar
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Published by Briar Patch Publishing.
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