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

“And if they know it’s me, then we’re done for,” Jess said, her voice flat, but her words seemed to have the opposite of the intended effect. Mandy’s eyes grew wider as she pumped the handle back and forth.

“I need to get out. Let me,” she shouted, so loud I worried they’d be able to hear her above the din of the helicopter whose pressure felt as if it would dent the metal and crack the glass at any minute.

“I’ll smash the window,” said Mandy, her fist thumping to the glass.

I looked across to Jess, then behind her to Alex with Cassie staring at Mandy, still in a daze.

I turned away as the light from the sun blotted out, seeing the underbelly of the long Chinook with its back door sealed up. Along each side, an Apache gunship flew, all three helicopters so impossibly close to the ground.

Mandy’s fists at the window added to the shake, and I snapped around, pulling my handle to release the locks. Her door opened, and she gave no time to pause on its movement, rushing out through the gaps in the cars toward the helicopters as they headed to the horizon.

Checking to make sure Shadow had stayed put and sliding down the window, I leaned out wide, closing the door she’d left open and joined the others as we watched her run. The helicopters were soon dots in the sky and Mandy had slowed as her breath seemed to let go and she bent over with her hands on her knees.

Starting the engine, I expected at any moment for a horde to rush out at her sides; the group consuming her in more than one way. I expected to have to jam the gear into reverse and race away.

I took comfort when they didn’t materialise and rolled along the road, squeezing down the line of traffic and the grass verge as she stood bent over, looking to where she’d last seen what she thought were her saviours.

Pulling alongside her, I stopped and waited, but she wouldn’t get in. Only as I pulled away did she move, and I stopped to let her in.

None of us spoke as we rolled away, scraping between the cars as the bustle of Exeter’s buildings came in to focus.

“So where are we heading?” I said into the silence.

43

JESSICA

“Edmund Street,” I said, watching Logan wince with the pickup’s bodywork scratching against the Armco barrier and to the thump of the wing mirror as regular as a pendulum. By now, the light had almost gone and it was plain to see from the skyline there was no power in the city.

Logan leaned forward, squinting in the night as he guided us as best as he could with ours the only lights, aside for the orange glow pocketing the horizon. I had to look away and out to the view, staring to the smoke and dust hanging in the air to distract every other scent growing the want in my stomach.

As buildings rose on the horizon, the volume of cars squeezed into our path thinned, but our speed slowed with the road cursed with rubble spat from buildings reduced from their former glory. Still, I took comfort in those that remained, those the bombs had missed as I pulled in air through the wide-open window, searching for faint pockets of flavour.

Logan’s voice startled me from my concentration.

“Are you sure we should stay here?” he asked, looking across the view. “There’s no power and what if they start bombing again?”

“We shouldn’t travel at night. That way. The building looks intact,” I said, and pointed over to a bridge on the right over the fast-flowing River Exe.

He didn’t move off straight away, instead his gaze lingered my way. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said, hurrying out the words.

I forced my lips closed, my senses near overwhelmed with flavour of survivors.

Lit only by the eerie moonlight, an army truck stood on the wide bridge with the engine cover raised up. As we turned to give it more light, we saw the bridge split in sections with row after row of sandbags across each half of the road. Stacks to the right had collapsed, with darkness splashed over the coverings. But with no bodies lying to the road, Logan twisted us left and right through the checkpoints. It looked as if it had been the last stand when the jets roared close to bomb the city.

I pointed towards the tall building ahead, one of only a few left intact over the river and standing beside a hotel of the same height. He didn’t need any further direction when the headlights illuminated the tall white letters high to its front.

Itching to leave the confines, we were nearly across the bridge when on the last turn the pickup fell forward, lurching to a stop with the floor scraping the road as if the wheels had fallen off. Logan stared back wide-eyed as if he hadn’t seen the great crater I’d only just spotted but too late to shout out and stop the front wheels vanishing into it.

I couldn’t wait any longer, pulling my door wide, each of the others doing the same and staring down at the great section of missing road.

Shadow skirted around the hole and I waited unseen as the rest guided each other around the debris, staying put as they ushered Cassie and Mandy through the revolving glass doors of the hotel.

Looking on, Alex turned, the last to go through, and seemingly with no surprise that I hadn’t followed, she gave a nod before pushing through as my thoughts turned to the prey I tasted on the air.

44

LOGAN

With curled bread and dried vegetables sitting on plates and crockery smashed to the