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

doorway, something brushed against my shoulder and I turned, but without alarm, to see a tall man dressed in a suit, half his face hanging below his chin the only sign of what he’d become.

I didn’t take a deep breath. I didn’t scream and blood continued to pump at the same pace through my veins as he bounced off to his new course without noting what had sent him in that direction. I left him to walk away as Jordain’s boot landed to the tarmac.

The turn of my head was much slower than theirs. Much slower than those who’d been ambling along, waiting for the next meal to come. The creatures had no care for me; I was invisible to them, but the same could not be said for Jordain.

I heard my name on the breeze. I smelt the sweet scent unlatching my stomach, but I didn’t rush back towards Jordain, who was still only a few paces away at the open doors of the van. I didn’t speed to him, despite being shoved to the side by an eager old man with sagging, wrinkled skin who’d found new vigour in the afterlife.

I didn’t see the soldier as Jordain, the man with bright and wide blue eyes with heavy lids, despite the hold of his expression to mine as he tried to figure out if he’d woken or if this was all a dream. Soon his concentration pulled elsewhere, with his hands grasping to pull the pistol and his only chance of survival, from the holster.

Stepping forward, I didn’t waste the time on an apology. In this moment there was nothing I felt sorry for. My hands were busy pushing the door closed as the first of the mouths took hold of his flesh.

I didn’t waste time watching his reaction, watching his hands spasm to give up on the weapon, then balling to fists and striking out at the growing crowd. I no longer thought of him as Jordain as I gave in and let the last of myself be overtaken and took my place, falling to my knees as he did. I crouched to the ground, my face almost touching the tarmac as I filled like a baby sucking on a teat.

Full.

Senses dulled.

His remains on the road could have been anyone and with my last effort I rolled under the van, my stomach griping with pleasure as it gurgled, excited at the contents.

Coming to a rest in the centre I felt the van’s warmth all gone, but I had no care for the cold. I could barely sense anything but the fullness of my belly.

Water rolled to my ears as I tried to remember what he’d looked like before.

I wouldn’t let myself linger, pulling away repeatedly as the taste filled my senses and energy radiated up from my core as I turned to my side to dream of those women paying the price for what I had now become.

104

I woke feeling as if the frozen ground had drawn every degree of warmth from my body. I woke with a pressure wave of sound radiating through my brain.

Pain traced my eyelids as they opened, just like when I’d cried the entire night after coming home from a week of bliss with the woman I could no longer bear to think of.

I’d woken. I could still process information. But why?

I wasn’t cured, my actions last night were proof enough, but I was alive and felt myself again, with no hunger like I’d felt that evening.

I thought of Alex in the van above and a sudden panic rippled through me. What if I couldn’t control myself and she was next?

After a moment the panic passed and my breathing eased when I didn’t feel the hunger surging; no urgency to race to her so I could feed.

A bright new day had started, the signs obvious in the fresh chilled air. I peered around between the tarmac and the dark underside of the van, twisting my head and body together to get a full view, despite the tyres and a thin spear of something white hanging from the engine. Turning to the back end I saw a collection of bones and ragged fatigues drenched a dark shade.

I hadn’t needed the reminder. The moments were still as fresh as if they’d just happened and I turned away, feeling a rising nausea from my stomach.

My right hand went to my mouth but I pulled it away at the sight of the dried blood caked into the lines of my skin.

Feet wandered across the view, taking my attention from my disgust.

Some wore shoes, some with just their dirty brown skin padding on the ground as they scattered across the view and I remembered in the first few moments last night how I’d been ignored. The creatures had passed me by, taking no interest. Was that because I was one of them now? I shuddered at the thought.

A heavy noise still lumbered in the air. The pounding, rapid battery of pressure pulled me away from my thoughts.

“A helicopter,” came a voice. After a moment I realised it was mine and gratefully took it as another sign I hadn’t turned into one of those deplorable creatures.

A surge of optimism grew despite the view. Maybe I wasn’t going to be like them after all. I would be different.

That was it. It must have been what she’d been trying to do all along. It had been Toni’s plan all this time.

I was a host. This thing was not meant to overcome me, it was meant to live alongside me. In Toni’s plans she couldn’t have meant for me to need to eat human flesh. She must have engineered a way that I could live like a human.

The strength, the tuned senses. The hunger and drive.

She’d told me when she’d first