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

Gaping to each other, then to the window empty of glass, we turned to the back garden. My feet weren’t willing to take the steps needed to peer over the edge.

With my brain frozen, locked up, I had no idea what would come next, my head still reeling from the sight which disappeared as quick as it arrived.

The shrill call had relented, but how long ago wasn’t clear. The echo continuing to ring true in my ears. Alex’s head seemed in the same state, her feet unmoving at my side.

After what seemed like an age, but was more than likely just a fleeting second, I found clarity and fumbled at my feet for the ladder. Alex grabbed the other side when she saw me moving, but just as she took a firm grip a shadow cast on the brickwork and the flat roof bounced under the extra weight.

We turned, swapping the ladder between our hands and saw the creature standing before us, its bloodshot eyes wide and chest heaving for air. This was a living creature, despite the outward appearance.

With a smooth scalp and the remains of a once white shirt around his shoulders, a dark soaked tie loose around its neck, he looked as if he’d just stepped away from a grotesque table after digging into a banquet with his bare hands.

Behind the bloody covering across his face, some of which still oozed from the lesions in his cheeks, I watched veins pulsing just under the skin as he glared and bared his teeth.

At first I couldn’t believe the pause. Could this be because I had been infected by the virus and it couldn’t quite decide if I would make a decent meal?

Looking to Alex I remembered when I saw her ashen face that this was her first view of these creatures.

I’d seen many already. Enough for a lifetime. I’d shot one over and again and watched it stay upright, charging onward with a fury that would be at home in a horror film. Now this stood before me, its blood-drenched belly sagging heavy out in front. With each of its shallow breaths, long streams of vapour plumed into the cold air; for the first time I came to understand what I would become if Toni’s vaccine wasn’t up to the challenge.

Competing against the realisation, I still had the wherewithal to marvel at its pause. Watching its slowness to react as if tired and lethargic from a full stomach.

Instinct came back and I didn’t wait more than another a blink of its eye before surging forward. With Alex still holding the other end of the ladder, gripping tight, she took no time in reacting to my plan.

The creature could have jumped. It could have charged forward, but instead just watched and issued a dulled call. The weak scream cost it more time and precious breath.

Unable to hold us back, its feet fell from the edge of the roof and it dropped to the ground.

We didn’t look over. Instincts told us it shouldn’t be this easy; instead, our insides screamed for us to run and act, knowing we’d soon be dead if we didn’t take full advantage of the gift.

Alex let go of the ladder so I could take hold and I hopped with wide steps across the roof, planting the feet of the ladder as I pulled apart each half. Running, I clambered up the rungs, jumping in through the window as I reached the final step, somehow missing the glass still left around the framed edge.

As I landed, I didn’t look down. I already knew the reason the floor was sticky and wet; instead, I fixed my concentration on the door I needed to put between us and the creature when it followed.

Through the open door my gaze flitted back to the bedroom and latched on to the two bodies side by side laying on the bed, their faces thick with a mask of blood.

Alex’s landing to the floor pulled my stare from their death and to her curled lip and wrinkled nose as she crouched in the mess, trying to wipe the sticky blood from her hands.

“Come on,” I said, trying to keep my voice low. I knew I should just go. I should run. I knew it was her choice to hesitate. She wasn’t my responsibility. Mine was the bigger mission. Mine the higher cause.

Still, I waited, willing her on and shouting for her to stand.

Eventually she jumped up as if she’d only just heard my voice, her feet slipping as she struggled for traction in the slick.

Bursting through the doorway, she pulled the door closed before settling back against it to join with my pressure.

With our lungs pumping the surrounding air, I was desperate to slow the pull and the whistle of wind. I knew full well the creature would follow and we wouldn’t get another chance like this again.

But we weren’t followed, the house silent. The building empty, if we believed our ears.

The low rumble of breath over dormant vocal cords had become the norm. With its absence it felt like something was missing. Something wasn’t right. At least when you could hear their low hum you knew where they were and could prepare.

In the silence I felt blind. My mind questioned if they were around but just being quiet. I’d grown to prefer open spaces.

A drip of sweat drifted down my forehead as I looked along the hallway, trying to will my vision to peer down the stairs, the top of which was at the end of the passage.

I looked through the window at the opposite end. I watched the village; the roofs of the houses at least.

Staring out across the view, I knew it would have been the same days ago when all people had to worry