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

stepped back as she turned my way, her face devoid of emotion and clutching the chair leg dripping with blood I hadn’t noticed her pull from the fatal wound.

“Are you okay?” I asked. Her vacant nod sent a chill along my spine and I couldn’t help but question what the hell had happened to her since she’d woken this morning. I’d only known her for a few days, but still we’d gone through so much in such a brief time. We’d grown so close, but now she seemed like a different person.

Mandy stood, moving to the furthest corner of the room and, sliding her back down the glass, she sat on the carpet.

“Take a breath,” I said to Cassie as she gazed at the creatures staring from the other side of the windows, clawing at the glass, their hands smearing blood and who knows what else over its surface.

“We need to move the bodies,” Cassie said, her tone flat. I nodded in agreement.

Somehow keeping the contents of my stomach in place, I took one arm of the blonde as Cassie took the other and with Alex holding the doors open, together we dragged it along the carpet whilst I looked anywhere but its skin, or the dark blood oozing from the wounds to mark out our route. After doing the same with the guy in the tuxedo, I hoped I wasn’t getting used to a new normal.

I couldn’t stop my mind wandering to the moment the creature burst through the skylight. Had it smashed the glass or had something else sealed their fate? Was the dining room full when the creature jumped from the roof and were the remains those that hadn’t got away?

With no way to know the answers and back in the other dining room, now clear of anything dead, I pulled a fallen chair upright and sat with Shadow resting his head on my knee.

Stroking along the length of his back, I felt as if I could calm if it weren’t for Cassie not able to keep still, continually walking the perimeter of the room with the chair leg she’d at least wiped of blood. I couldn’t watch her any longer and I moved around to behind the bar, finding Alex sitting up against the wall with the rucksack still on her back. Shadow didn’t follow.

No one spoke for what seemed like an age as if we each took the time to process what had just happened.

After a while, the quiet, punctuated with Cassie’s steps and the slow drum of hands at the windows, became too oppressive.

Cassie’s steps. The crunch of glass. The percussion at the glass in an irregular beat.

“Where did Jess go last night?” Despite my whisper, I felt Alex pull herself up straight and pause her breath.

“To the offices. Like I said. She brought back the cameras.” She couldn’t hide her high, defensive tone, and I paused to diffuse the moment.

“I thought I saw her early this morning.” When Alex didn’t reply I spoke again. “But the light was bad.”

I held my breath at the sound of the door opening, but relaxed at the thought of Cassie extending her patrol.

“What happened to Cassie?” Alex asked, and it was my turn to be surprised at the question, jolting me back to what seemed like a lifetime ago. About to remind her I’d already told them everything in the church, I remembered she was the only one not in the small room when I’d poured my heart out.

“We were in a car heading back to that hospital. There was a soldier with us. He’d been bitten, but we stopped the bleeding. We thought he’d be okay. That’s what she said we had to do. But...” I held my breath as I tried to force away from the direction my mind was taking. “But he wasn’t.”

“Who told you about the bleeding?”

“Doctor Lytham. He turned as I drove. I lost so many.” A dull thud banged at the glass in my pause.

“I’m sorry,” Alex said, her voice low.

“Everyone’s lost someone now. I’m sorry for everyone.” I stared at the row of glasses behind the bar, reminding me of a time long ago when the world had been straightforward.

“My people were already dead,” Alex said.

I nodded. “I’m sorry for that too.”

“I’m not. They didn’t have to go through this.”

“I guess,” I replied, and shook my head as my thoughts veered towards my parents and the image of them watching the TV cuddled up on the sofa.

“So this doctor fixed her up?” Alex asked, catching my look.

“There were seven of us left, and Shadow. He saved our lives. Well, some of us.”

“It helps to talk about it,” she said, and I guessed she was right.

“Andrew was my best friend.” I paused on the words. “Bitten, but he was too far gone.” I stopped talking as I heard the gunshot in my head, biting down on my bottom lip. I still hadn’t decided whether Doctor Lytham had been his saviour for putting him out before he turned or if she should have tried harder, tried anything to help him. “Lane. Commander Lane. A pilot from the helicopter.”

Alex frowned back.

“A story for another time.”

Her cheeks bunched and she raised an eyebrow. “Was he infected too?”

“No. But he’s dead. They’re all heroes. They’ve all done something selfless to get us where we are today.”

She gave another slow nod.

“I don’t know what that makes me,” I said. I didn’t need to turn to see her shaking her head.

“You’ve helped Cassie and us.”

I tried to hold my thoughts from racing off. “They gave Cassie medicine. A drink. It stopped her from dying.”

“What was it?”

I shrugged. “We had little choice and no time to ask. She was going downhill quickly. She drank it and fell asleep. She’d