In The End Box Set | Books 1-3 Stevens, GJ (story books to read TXT) 📖

released and I slowed. A weight pulled at my chest as if I’d lost my gravity. She didn’t slow and continued to race past the garden gate, shoulder first, not stopping to test the front door handle.

I could hardly believe it when the door gave with a dull thud. As her shoulder connected, the wood sprung wide, the frame splitting at her side as she took the barrage in her stride. Not stumbling. Not faltering. Her only pause was to make sure I’d followed.

Alex ignored me as I stepped over the threshold while she pushed what remained of someone else’s front door back into its hole, then rushing back past me to the living room to grab at the straight-back chair and heft it in front of the door. She barely took note as I climbed the stairs.

With sweat beading at my forehead, I toured each of the rooms, making sure they were clear, the view from the front bedroom doing nothing to calm the heat building as I slowly recovered my breath.

Pulling off my jacket, I turned away from the view to let the cooling relief take effect.

Alex joined me after a moment to the sound of the furniture she’d pushed at the front door slowly scraping along the wooden floor. In her hand she held a packet of digestive biscuits.

“I found these,” she said, but the rest of the words didn’t come. “Your arm,” she added, and I tensed at the sound of concern in her voice, following her gaze down to my right arm and the pink new skin of the bite mark. “When were you bitten?”

“I’m not going to die,” I said, after waiting for a moment to let my adrenaline relax after hearing her voice, then watched as her brow furrowed and her head moved to the side.

Now was not a time to be coy. She deserved to know the truth for staying at my side; still, panic flushed through my chest, spiking my heart rate and sending the hairs on my body to stand tall as I thought of the words I would use.

“The tests?” she finally said as her hand went out to touch the pink scar from the wound that started this all off.

I nodded, raising my eyebrows.

“What did they do to you?”

I paused, speaking to stop the words rolling around in my head.

“They gave me medicine.”

Her eyes went wide.

“So it works?” Her voice came out high, words coming quick; her face alive, animated and lit bright, but shrank away at my reluctance to reply with anything but a shake of my head.

“No. It’s a vaccine,” I said, looking away despite the stiffness in my neck. I didn’t want to see the thoughts running through her brain, the twitch of her brow as she tried to figure out my words.

“You were bitten after they gave you the medicine?”

I turned back to see her eyes widening and I nodded.

“They were testing the vaccine,” I said.

“That’s horrible, but,” she said, pausing, “good at the same time, right?”

“It wasn’t ready.”

She shook her head, her features bunching.

“We need to move,” I said on hearing the furniture scrape again.

“It’ll hold for a little while longer,” she replied.

We both paused our words and listened to the thud of bodies slapping against the front door.

“Eat,” she said, holding out the open packet in her hand.

“No,” I said. “We need to get to the van. I need the cameras.”

“Don’t be in such a hurry,” she said, taking bites from a digestive.

“I’m on a course of treatment. The last dose is in the van too. I need it before nightfall.”

She didn’t speak at first. Instead she watched as I relented and ate, head shaking from side to side.

“And if you don’t get it? Sorry, stupid question.”

I knew what I should say. I knew what I wanted to say would be too much. The words should be too much for anyone to take and so I watched as she raised her eyebrows in our silence.

Still her expression told me she expected an answer. She deserved an answer.

“Do you turn into a werewolf?” she said. I could tell she’d forced the laughter that came after.

Part of me was glad when I heard the front door collapse under the continued assault, but I soon changed my mind when she dropped the packet to the floor, taking my hand and pulling me out of the room, giving me no time to protest.

Her pace hurried as the scrape and moan rose from the stairwell. We were soon out the other side and in another light room. The windows were wide open and after handing her the gun I balanced on the window ledge, daylight bright in my face. Cold air stole what remained in my lungs as I stared out at the view of the drop that swam beneath me to my left and right.

“Give me your hands,” she said.

I turned, looking down to the flat roof.

“Give me your hands,” she repeated.

I could do nothing else but what she told. With a firm grip, she lowered me down, relief coming as my feet touched the cushion of the roof and her hands released.

Wobbling to the bitumen roof, I leant against the brick to slow the vertigo. The flat roof felt as if it gave way for a moment as Alex let it catch her weight. Relief let me breathe when it held.

With my head settling as I pulled at the fresher air, I took in the view and the sight of the van glistening in the bright morning light.

It was in one piece, but may as well have been on another continent. Several gardens stood in our way, each teeming with a writhing mass of dead bodies whose stench filled my nostrils anew.