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

I answered; I owed this once sweet girl that and much more.

“Thank you,” I said. “This is fucked up.”

She gave a slow, dazed nod.

“We’d better go,” I said, looking to the sky, hoping the new dot on the horizon wasn’t another jet.

I looked to the woods, knowing the blackened, smoking creatures walking towards us were what I knew them to be.

She nodded again after following my view, slamming the door behind her as she climbed in alongside me and slid the bolt, following me to the passenger seat.

I would have spoken. Alex would have, too, but neither of us could pull our hands from our noses as we tried to hold back the stench of death left behind.

The engine started and I almost gagged as the breath of relief came, but turned to the window. I knew I couldn’t give them even a crack to get their clawed fingers into. I sucked down the bile and heaved the steering wheel to avoid the car pushed up against the bumper.

Swapping glances with Alex, I could see her knuckles white on the armrest and door handle either side.

I closed my eyes as the engine pushed the van backwards and tried not to think of the crushing bones the suspension couldn’t mask as it pitched us one way and then the next.

Bumping to the fence, we slammed to a stop, the echo resounding like a bass drum.

Moving forward, I couldn’t pretend it was just a bumpy road, despite my attempts. We could see the bodies, those of dead soldiers and residents. Those who had died and stayed dead and those who had not.

The great tyres rolled over in vain of my best efforts to avoid. I guessed there were at least half of the creatures left alive by the blast as they swarmed towards us. I checked I’d locked my door more times than I could have counted while we rolled along, watching the horizon for an opening in the fence whilst keeping an equal look to the skyline, searching for the dot in the centre growing bigger with every moment.

It was then I realised I hadn’t thought this through.

Yes, we were safe in the van, despite the surrounding crowd, but we had nowhere to go. We had no chance to get away from the next missile surely on its way.

I stopped with the bonnet of the van almost at the fence, then let it creep forward until nudging contact with the metal.

The metal complained as the bumper touched, but it stayed firm. I thought of the great concrete blocks on the other side. I thought of the huge square containers of water pushing down the uprights.

The dot grew and blackened hands slapped at the windows. Neither of us jumped. Neither of us panicked.

I turned and asked her down-turned face a question. “Is this how it ends?”

84

She didn’t reply to my fear-filled question; instead, turning to the hands slapping at the window, fixing for a moment before her head tilted high.

Her move soon stopped with eyes spreading wide.

Mine followed, coming to rest on the growing dot just above the fence line.

“No,” she said. The words were much louder than I’d expected. “The gardens.”

I twisted in my seat to meet her puzzled gaze.

“Their fences,” she added, but still I shook my head.

As her face screwed up, the frustration grew clear, but still I didn’t understand what she meant.

She leant towards me. “That’s how we get out,” she said, the words in a near whisper.

I paused for a moment, her voice catching in my mind as the electrical pulses traced across my synapses, sparking the first trace of understanding. I followed the route appearing in my head, tracking backward through the journey as the crowd scratched at the paintwork.

We turned the corner down the short street, the road turning to gravel and veered right before reaching the metal fence to see the rolling hills over the two sets of short wooden fences.

“Yes,” I said, with eyes electrified wide with energy.

The dot had grown even in my moment of pause. It was too slow to be a plane. It wasn’t a jet racing towards us to fire another salvo.

I pushed it out of my mind, releasing the accelerator to calm the engine and selected reverse.

Heavy on the accelerator once again, the van moved backwards as I hurried my view to the left mirror, mindful of the cars strewn in our path.

“Holy shit,” came Alex’s voice. It wasn’t the response I’d expected and snapped a look to her. “It’s heading towards us.”

I looked up to see she was right. The aircraft was larger in the windscreen and pointed in our direction.

Alex’s voice hurried. “Can’t they see we’re moving? Don’t they know the dead can’t drive?” Her breath ran hard as she spoke.

I turned back to concentrate on our best chance of escape, cataloguing the sight to remember when I spoke to the camera. Or if.

I concentrated on turning the van, on trying to avoid the creatures and the great trunks of trees littering the road whilst maintaining momentum.

With each turn of the wheel, each crunch of the tyres, each time I couldn’t avoid a great splinter, a great chunk of concrete, I thought we’d grind to a halt. I knew I had to keep the momentum up. I knew I had to keep our speed as I followed the journey I’d taken in my mind only moments before.

The layout of the road was the same as I’d seen in my head. I don’t know why I expected any different. The van was harder to control, the sideways shift of our weight greater as its bulk listed in the turn, the tyres slipping against the litter in the road.

We leant against the list