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

to the side of the road. In the driveway, a four by four BMW rested with its passenger window open, but moving closer we saw the clear cubes on the road and that no glass remained in the car or cottage’s ground-floor windows.

“It’s no good,” Logan said.

Leaving the car and the cottage behind, and with the pain in my arm easing with each step, the emptiness of my stomach soon became the pressing need.

Within a scant distance, a dirt side road split off where we walked, marked out by a sign showing the way to ‘Home Farm’. With barely a glance in each other’s direction, we diverted on the new route.

After a five-minute walk and with the pain in my arm barely there, I felt the need to release it from the bandages to test if it was just a trick or if it had really healed in the short time since the slightest of movement put me on the verge of passing out.

But did I dare do anything to raise Logan’s suspicions?

35

LOGAN

Five minutes after passing the sign, a ramshackle patchwork of corrugated roofs came into view with a treasure trove of useful supplies promised behind their battered doors. The ache in my joints seemed to ease and Cassie’s weight at my shoulder reduced when, between us and the first of the weathered agricultural sheds, I saw a stout cottage with its front door shut.

Letting Cassie down to sit on a vast stone marking the fork to the cottage and the farm, then checking she hadn’t worsened, I turned to the others only a few steps behind as Shadow trotted off towards the farm buildings. Some colour had returned to Jess’s cheeks and gone was the effort I’d seen in her face as her injured arm caught with each step.

Alex held close by her side and Mandy walked with Alex’s coat zipped up to her neck, her face highlighted with a darkness the water hadn’t washed away.

“How’s the arm?” I said to Jess as they caught up. She barely acknowledged the question, instead taking more interest in the cottage and the buildings beyond. “Can you watch Cass while I check out over there?”

“I’m okay,” Cassie said with her head bowed.

Jess nodded anyway.

“Alex. Can you take the house?” I said, and she glanced at her side, looking to Jess’s arm in the sling. When Jess waved away her concern, Alex turned back, already stepping towards the front door.

“Look for shotguns. Car keys, or any other keys in case the sheds are locked. Food.” I paused, collecting my thoughts as I took the first steps in the opposite direction of the fork. “Mandy. Go with her. Find some clothes for everyone.”

“Yes. All right. We’re not children,” she said, then she followed after Alex.

“Grab painkillers or something to bring down Cassie’s fever. Get as much of everything as you can carry,” I added, before turning and striding after Shadow as I ignored Mandy’s sarcastic reply.

“Yes, daddy.”

Speeding to a jog, I turned back as I heard breaking glass, but when the distance between us was already so great, I thought again about calling out my advice, convinced they should already be well aware they might not be alone.

With his nose buried deep in the gap between two double doors, Shadow waited at the first of the tall sheds on the right of the hard-packed dirt road. As he sniffed at the edge with his tail raised, I peered along the shed’s window-less corrugated skin.

Stepping to his side, I went to usher him away when I caught the first hint, quickly turning to a stench coming from beyond the door.

It wasn’t the same foul odour I’d grown to expect. It was more like the decay hanging in the air at the school’s bungalow. It told of true death; of rot and decomposition. Not the danger of the dead risen.

I looked along and over the road to the next tall building, much the same height but with a wide double sliding door and wheel ruts leading away. A noise from where I’d come made me look backwards to Cassie still sitting on the large stone, staring at the ground. Jess looked to the cottage out of view.

I knew I shouldn’t open the doors. The smell alone told me I should have left the building alone, instead stepping across the road to where the evidence showed my search would be more fruitful.

Despite my common sense, I pulled the doors open, twisting away as the wall of thick stench and a warmth that took me by surprise lodged in my throat as I took a step forward into the cattle shed.

Shadow stayed at the threshold as I looked high, not finding anyone hanging from the rafters. Holding back a deep breath of relief, I gazed through the bars to the rotting flesh of the herd of cattle laying the other side.

Through emaciated flesh, thin skin contoured the great round of cow’s ribs as I looked to each. How long had it taken for these animals we’d bred to depend on us so wholly to lose their battle for life?

It must have only been three or four days since we’d left the holiday home and we’d found the world changed, but these poor animals had been left alone for a lot longer, casting doubt on when the world had started to go wrong.

Desperation hit when I caught a movement in the corner of my vision, the flicker of a great lid and its sullen eyes staring right at me.

Racked with guilt, I turned away whilst trying not to think of how many of the beasts were on the edge of death, knowing there was little I could do to ease their situation without inflicting further cruelty. Instead, I hung all hope on Alex finding a shotgun and a bountiful