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

The thoughts vanished again as the house came into view. I leant forward to peer at the dark scorch marks across the front and the shattered clusters of bricks which somehow still kept the building upright.

Moving to stare at each of the trucks, I was desperate not to linger on the smouldering carcasses.

There had been a great battle, the start of which I’d seen. The soldiers hadn’t been the victors. With so many lain across the street, so many dead now walking, how could they have been?

I tried to ignore the scene, instead looking beyond the chaos to peer through the wide doorway. My gaze caught on the door which lay fallen against great collections of shattered bricks and splintered wood.

I moved, each step helping to dissipate the caution as I readied to make the run, my body preparing for the long strides I would need to get over the corpses.

My heart rate jumped as a car close by lit with sound, the alarm calling the dead again. About to take this as my starting bell, I heard footsteps behind and I couldn’t help turn in hope to fill the gap in my chest.

I turned to see Alex, but she wasn’t there. Where she should have stood, another did. Someone else walking towards me with his arms raised out. A soldier with half his face burnt beyond recognition and a bloodied, dark mess dried across his fatigues.

I dropped the bat from my hand and raised the gun. Gripping tight with both hands, I pulled the trigger and ran.

Another sound came from behind, heavy footsteps and I dared not glance back for fear of seeing the soldier gaining, but I couldn’t just wait until it caught up. I stopped, twisting as best I could and brought the gun up level, already pulling the trigger nearly all the way before I saw Alex’s face set in alarm as I hoped the gun wouldn’t go off before my finger released.

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I stumbled backwards, pulling the gun high just as the shot rang out from the chamber.

“Get up. Run,” Alex said as her hands collected me up as I twitched, checking for wounds across her chest, but reassured with her words.

With pressure under my arms, my legs were the first to take up, my lungs pumping hard before I realised I was travelling; before I realised I was being dragged. Held up. Pulled along.

My alarm didn’t hold back when I figured we were travelling away from the house. We were travelling in the wrong direction.

“No,” I shouted. The words came out dry and raw. We slowed as I tried to pull my arms out from her grip. Juddering to a stop, I leant over and gasped for breath.

Alex ignored my protests as my vision cleared. With her back facing me, her head darted along the treeline.

“Hurry,” she said.

I stood and looked up to see her still facing the direction we’d come. Eventually she turned, our eyes catching for only a moment until she twisted back away and pushed the sight of the rifle to her eye as she scanned the direction I needed to head.

Despite the car alarms still strong in the background, I drew a sharp breath at the sight of the crowd in the distance. I had no need for magnification, the crowd easy to see at the edge of the wood; the light it shut out obvious as they ambled in our direction.

Instead of speaking, I held my hand out, my finger shaking as I pointed toward the house we had to get to.

Turning back, Alex shook her head.

“Change of plan,” she said, her words hurried as she bounded toward me.

“No,” I said, pulling myself upright, but I couldn't fight as she hooked her arm around mine and pulled me deeper into the woods.

“No,” I said again as I tried to force my steps into a regular pattern.

Alex’s pace built with mine, increasing against my will until we were jogging and jumping over fallen trees. Somehow we found the energy to bound over sticking out roots and swerve left and right to avoid the undergrowth. We stopped only as the ground fell away out of sight.

Alex held me back from the edge. She held me too far away to see what waited in the dark.

I turned back, already knowing what I’d see and my lips curled into a painful smile at the light obscured from the treeline.

“Shoot them,” I said as I laughed.

Alex looked back as if I’d lost the plot. Perhaps I had.

We both knew even emptying the magazine with a perfect aim wouldn’t reduce their numbers to a survivable level.

Was this how it was going to be forever? Running for your life, never catching your breath? Were we ultimately doomed to fail? Was it really worth the constant battle? Did people really deserve to live?

Alex turned away and I watched as she surveyed around us, peering along the ground, head stuttering as she took in the tall trees. I could guess what was going through her head, but instead of joining her to look for a way out, I took in a deep breath.

My gaze came to rest on the surging crowd which had made so much progress in the last few moments. It felt as if the last of my will left me with a breath.

I glanced across the view with Alex tugging at my shoulder, but I refused to hurry back. I refused to rush to the edge of the ground falling away behind us.

I fixed my entire world on a small girl in a pale-yellow dress as she ambled at the head of the group, my only thought that the pretty dress wasn’t suitable for the harsh chill in the air.

My mother’s words caught in my head.