by David Tyne
This novel is dedicated to Brendan, Richard and Dalton, among countless others without whom this series would have died a long time ago. And not in a cool zombie way, either.
Thanks for all of your support.
Copyright © 2016, by David Tyne. All Rights Reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real persons or entities, living or dead, is completely coincidental. This work may not be reproduced or distributed without the author’s explicitly-written consent.
Only The Living
1 | Moment
2 | Outbreak
3 | Second Death
4 | Panic
5 | Evacuation
6 | Train Ride
7 | I’m Not A Killer
8 | Shelter
9 | First Night
10 | Survivors
11 | Blackout
12 | Tension
13 | Nights Like This
14 | Mysterious Visitor
15 | Safe Haven
16 | You Owe Me
17 | Parents
18 | In The Rain
19 | Three Days
20 | How We Get By
21 | The Game
22 | Rough Morning
23 | A Test Of Faith
24 | See You There
25 | Burning Rage
26 | Answers
?? | Deadly Serious
1 | Moment
Some men live each day like there's no tomorrow. Others hold onto their lives with both hands, fearing the slightest risk will put an end to them. Before it all started, I was the latter of the two — now, I'm not so sure that I fit anywhere on that scale.
Every morning is a different battle, every night the same struggle. We are forced to live with what we have done in the hours between, scrutinize those choices in the twilight hours and pray that the daylight doesn't illuminate our true, grotesque selves. Yes, life is a battle... and I'm afraid I have lost.
----
As I scanned my bright-orange ticket through the turnstile, my mind jumped from one thought to another like an overexcited toddler. Not for much longer... That day marked my transformation, from a clueless child into a man. For the very first time, my destiny was mine to control.
It was a university interview in the big city, after all. Having studied mechanical engineering since shop class in high school, I was psyched to have gotten this far in the application process.
Out of all the people in Scotland who wanted to do this course, the university in Edinburgh chose me — nothing had been decided yet, but I was feeling cautiously optimistic.
Passing through the train station, my glazed eyes lit up as hundreds of suits buzzed around the entrance, going about their busy lives. There was something so modern and exciting about the city centre; it felt like a whole other planet, compared to the dreary suburbs of Danderhall.
My smartphone lit up as the alarm vibrated a merry tune. Just in case I’d fallen asleep on the train, I set myself multiple reminders that my interview was in twenty-five, twenty, now fifteen minutes.
Postponing my compulsive need to spin around and gawk at the local sights, I plunged myself head-first into the sea of tall people and towards the biggest interview of my life.
As the yuppies yelled blindly into their bluetooth earpieces, I attempted to navigate past every single pedestrian that the rush-hour Waverley bridge could fire at me. It became something of a challenge, pretending each obnoxious pusher was a stray bullet trying to hold me back from success. Not today, I smirked.
After what felt like hours of wandering aimlessly, I finally checked my phone’s map and found the correct campus building. Not wanting to keep anyone waiting, I bolted past the bulky elevator and climbed up the isolated staircase.
"Floor 2, Room 203. Floor 2, Room 203..." I repeated to myself. Still murmuring as I hugged the wall of the second-floor corridor, I barely even realised as I burst through the door labelled 203.
About a dozen heads whipped around to observe me, the strangely-sweaty teenager, desperately panting for breath during their interview. After a split second of public humiliation, I closed the door sharply and my legs wobbled feebly to the nearest chair. I tried to act cool and sit down without wheezing, but after the marathon or two I'd just put myself through, I was a little worse for wear.
An elderly man, who could’ve been the janitor judging from his apparel, stood by a yellow cart in front of the largest window. Slowly polishing the glass to sparkling perfection from the inside, he was perhaps the only non-student in the entire room. No interviewers yet, I noted.
The lights were off, but our meeting place was naturally illuminated via an entire wall made of thick glass, letting the city below pour in with a cold, almost synthetic glare. The rest of the students sat around a conference table, nervously fidgeting in a stewed silence. I figured that the trepidation was already getting to us all.
The door opened once more, and a pint-sized guy with brown-matted hair slowly poked his head through the gap. Anxiously waddling his way in, he cleared his throat as though he was about to make an official announcement.
"U-Um... I talked to one of the lecturers, and... Our interviewer called in sick an hour ago, so, er... They say that we should wait. For a substitute to show up."
His face flushed red and he sat down immediately, right beside me. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that he was quite similar in appearance to myself; except for the fact that my hair was a darker shade of brown, and I stood almost half a foot taller.
Thinking that we had some time to kill, and that it couldn't hurt to start making friends early, I extended my sweaty palm. "Hey, I'm Daniel. I'm applying here too."
He stared at my germ-ridden hand for a brief moment, almost deciding whether or not it was worth the effort to introduce himself. After a hard swallow, he opted to shake it.
"I-I'm Ian. Hi." He didn't seem very outgoing, judging from the way he snapped back into his stiff posture and threw his attention outside the window. I imagined his type would have trouble speaking to the other applicants, but it didn't bother me.
I could empathise with starting over somewhere new, especially in a place where we didn't know anybody. Cracking my knuckles idly, I attempted to make some more small talk with him.
"You excited about the interview? Kinda sucks that we've gotta wait for some other lecturer to show up..."
He smiled feebly, and returned his face to a more solemn expression. My mind raced to pick up the conversational ball, but he’d already stomped it into a flat mush.
That was when I gave up, letting the fourteen-or-so of us fall back into hating ourselves for the next ten minutes or so... Then we all heard it. I don't think I've witnessed a more distressing sound in my entire life. It kept me awake, for many days to come.
Her voice felt shrill, infused with an indescribable level of fear, hysteria and distress... A pitch so high, it sent everyone into an immediate state of alarm. I was unsure of it then, but that scream was what signalled the end of everything.
That everyone we had ever known or loved was probably dead.
2 | Outbreak
Looks of confusion ricocheted off of every student’s face as we jolted to our feet. “W-What was that?” Ian stuttered. We'd definitely all heard it, unmistakably a woman crying out in terror. It was more than that, though. It had a dark finality, like she was just about to…
Another boy turned around to face the window. “I-I think it came from outside. Probably an accident or so—”
The sentence was cut off by an almighty crash, piercing my ears with such intensity that I had no choice but to cover them and pull my head downwards. When I plucked up the nerve to look up
again, everyone had abandoned the desk and had their faces glued to the enormous glass wall.
Each expression told a different story of what they were seeing, the horrors that were separated only by a few inches of glass. One after another, their throats closed to silence their surfacing emotions.
The janitor, mumbling to himself in a foreign language, had tears streaming down his cheek. My mind fumbled over what could possibly have happened. A terrorist attack? Here? Maybe someone has—
Once again, the thought was interrupted when an explosion from a nearby rooftop shot fiery debris directly through the window, shattering the pane with ease. The glass rained over us and blanketed the floor, narrowly slicing the students who pressed themselves up against it.
The hunk of flaming metal fused itself into place on top of the conference table... The safest place where we sat only moments ago, was now a blistering centrepiece to our ruined futures.
“What the fuck is this?!” One girl screamed at the rest of us, clutching her cheek tightly as the blood gushed down her ripped shirt.
Receiving no answer, she pushed me aside and rushed out of the door, probably looking for medical aid. I was too stunned to move, much less offer her any help.
As the corridor was briefly exposed to us, the sheer number of students shoving and kicking each other to get through the stairway was unreal. The rest of the applicants followed the bleeding girl in an attempt to escape, but I stood fixed in place.
“What... is this?” I said aloud. Walking slowly towards where the window used to be, the blazing heat of the breeze hit me directly in the face. The conference room was cracked open to the outside world... Not that it was still the dream city it had been twenty minutes ago.
Edinburgh was burning. Wrecked cars melted into each other on the Waverley Bridge, some exploding as they sent others into a chain reaction. Bystanders ran through the streets as they shrieked at one another, while others lay on the ground. Dead. People were... dying.
I took a step back from the grotesque landscape, and clasped my hand over my mouth. It wasn't an easy sight to look at. I couldn't help but wonder, what kind of attack could utterly decimate the area in such a short amount of time?
Backing away further, I almost tripped over on the heels of someone sitting crouched under the table. It was Ian, paralysed with shock — his eyes were transfixed on the widespread fires, the collapsing rubble, the corpses. The embers on the conference table began to merge with the black smoke pouring in through the window, creating a vortex of swirling ash.
“It’s Ian, isn't it? You’re fine... I can't— We can't stay here. Oh, God…!!” I stopped to cough my lungs up. Neither of us could inhale this heated mixture for much longer. “This building’s coming down, man. You need to climb out of there, and come down to the ground level. Okay?”
He didn't respond.
After much babysitting, I finally got Ian into an upright position. Inch by crawling inch, his quivering arms managed to pull himself out from under the table.
He seemed to follow my lead after that, as though I had an actual clue of where to go next… I knew nothing, except that I couldn’t be alone in this damn city. Together, we quietly left the conference room.
The second floor had been completely abandoned, with textbooks littering the hallway and unattended bags left behind. Just as I was about to open the stairway door, the unmistakable rattle of gunfire echoed from somewhere close… Just outside the campus.
Ian grabbed my shoulder. “Wait, guns? Here? Whoever could do all of that, if this is an attack... What if they're killing them downstairs?”
I thought about it for a second, trying to recall any well-known terrorist attacks that involved a post-attack sweep. It didn't seem to add up, but before I knew it, Ian was wandering off in the opposite direction.
Stopping at every room he passed, he’d poke his head inside before moving further along the tornado-struck corridor. This went on for an uncomfortable number of seconds before my nerves began to short out.
“W-What the fuck are you looking for?! You just said, people are dying in here!!” I spat hoarsely.
The centre of Edinburgh was blowing up, the streets overflowing with bullets, panicked civilians being killed — and there we were, stuck inside a university that neither of us had ever been to before.
I just wanted to head straight home, but Waverley Station was back on that bridge filled with those upside-down cars... It was a complete war zone. At a total loss, I followed Ian into one of the last rooms in the unfamiliar corridor.
As I closed the door behind us, Ian rushed up to an incredibly-old TV set, did something tech-savvy to the aerial and clicked the power button. As it slowly booted up, the pixels shook off the overlining dust and fizzled into life.
The picture was so incredibly dim, I could barely even tell what I was looking at. Once it became focused, my only choice was to reject the reality of what I was seeing. It had to be a cruel joke, at the very best.
The TV shimmered with what appeared to be a birds-eye view of every major city in the UK. All of them reduced to nothing but pillars of smoke, riots, military vehicles and... bodies.
On the news, of all things. Ian collapsed to the ground, completely mesmerized by the sheer scale of the fallout.
“...A little bigger than Edinburgh Waverley, then.”
3 | Second Death
“These attacks are spreading throughout Great Britain. London is in lock-down, it is suspected that they are dealing with a massively-organised attempt to engage the armed forces, and is, therefore, being treated as such. One can only imagine the resources required to facilitate this act of aggression, and on a national scale... It goes without saying, that recovery would demand nothing short of a miracle.
"New intelligence on the situation will be streamed live, but until the violations cease... I'm afraid that no one is certain on the exact nature of what is occurring, this dreadful day. The Prime Minister is yet to make an official statement, and as for the leaders of countries in alliance to our nation... No communication has been made, although there are reports of disturbances beyond the United Kingdom-”
The TV stuttered, and a random colour palette replaced the news anchor. I continued to stare into the screen, hoping that picture would come back and tell us that everything was suddenly fine now.
After an eternity of sitting in the dark, Ian finally stopped whimpering to himself and plucked up the courage to ask what neither of us wanted to know. “...D-Do you think... the TV stopped receiving, or...” I stopped listening before he could bring up the alternative.
Climbing to my feet, I immediately forced myself through the door and was thrown backwards by the sight of a cheap wall clock. Quarter-past twelve... If only this had been a normal morning.
The applicants would all be outside by now, and I'd probably be trying to find somewhere quiet in the city to have some lunch and maybe celebrate a successful interview. Call my mum, tell her the good news. Text my friend Millie, make her jealous about uni.
I couldn't do it. Falling backwards into the door, I was reduced to a blubbering mess after only a single moment of solitude. I told myself earlier, I couldn’t deal with this alone.
”I... I want to go home... I don't want to die here!!” I managed to choke out. My only support was removed from existence, as Ian curtly opened the door.
The anxious student lifted me up, propped me against the wall and sternly told me that I would be able to go home, treating me like a lost child at the supermarket. His red, puffy eyes weren't very convincing.
After a back-and-forth consoling, we resolved to get out of the campus quickly and find our way back to our houses. Out in the corridor, neither of us could detect any of the chaotic movement that used to be downstairs. We both took a chance, and practically flew down the staircase four steps at a time.
Hurriedly making our way through the lobby, Ian kept himself firmly behind me as I carefully scanned the empty reception. Not a soul in sigh
t…
There must’ve been some serious panic on the ground floor, only moments ago. The aftermath of some kind of struggle resulted in the trashed room we had to kick our way through. Both of us reached the main entrance at the same time; just beyond those double-doors was that terrifying street, the one we'd heard the gunshots coming from.
“Okay... I'm going to open the doors now,” I told Ian, although it was mostly for my benefit. I couldn't stop shaking. “One... Two... Three!”
I don't know how we couldn't hear it before then, but once those doors were open, there was no avoiding it. All I could see was injured people running around in every direction, crying and screaming their heads off. The rattle of gunfire echoed somewhere beyond each junction, driving civilians towards us.
“T-They're shooting at everyone!” Ian yelled, providing commentary that was not needed.
“I know! Stick with me, this way!” I grumbled back over my shoulder. I had no idea where I was going, since my only knowledge of the area was what I had seen that morning... Even then, I was too rushed to remember the exact route I'd taken.
No matter where we were headed, anywhere must have been a better option than the city centre. So much for 'eye of the storm'; it was a bloodbath worse than any news story I’d ever heard in my life.
I ultimately decided to head for Waverley Station, if I could ever find it. Not that I expected any of the trains to be running during this pandemonium, but it was somewhat underground and being closer to lanes of transport seemed safer.
We ran for what seemed like hours, even though it was barely a ten-minute walk from the university. Every single time we turned a corner, an armoured military truck roared into view and opened fire across a parallel street, alerting us to where the unknown danger zones lay.
Our feet were being steered away by the sounds of bullets pulverising the concrete, which only added to my curiosity. They were aiming for pretty much anything that moved in the area, including civilians. No one was to be trusted... not even us.
