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

added, pointing to Alex as he handed the rifle to Gibson. “Take the shotgun as a last defence. Don’t fire unless they directly attack the boat. Everyone understand?”

Only Jess’s head remained static.

I watched as Thompson looked her way and raising his head, he spoke. “You do what you need to, if it comes to it.”

None of us needed to ask what that might be; each of us had seen what she could do when our lives were in danger.

I don’t know how I expected her to react, but she nodded with a frown, the thin creases in her skin still darkened with dried blood, despite the scrubbing. I was in no doubt she was clear what she had to do, whether or not she’d reconciled her new role.

Blowing out a breath, I’d resigned myself to the part I had to play. Despite the building looming beside the lock, at least I could get off the boat and away from the risk of falling in. I had no desire to end up in the freezing water again.

“How long?” I asked, turning to Cassie.

“Normally fifteen to twenty minutes,” she said, still looking ahead as she nudged the throttle up. “You know what to do?”

I shook my head and waited for her to frown back, but keeping her voice level, she explained how to work the mechanism and let the water rise. She stopped talking, turning in tandem to stare at the brick building where anyone or anything could wait for someone to trap themselves in the lock and be a sitting duck.

At that moment, a dull thud resounded out from that direction.

I looked back to Cassie but she’d moved her concentration to the lock ahead.

Drifting forward past the empty wooden pontoons lining the entrance to the lock, I stared at the white letters coming into focus on the tall brick. The Turf Hotel stood three storeys high and seemed like it had once been a wonderful place to visit on a Sunday afternoon at the end of a stroll. I imagined the surrounding garden filled with tipsy day-trippers, some making their way over the thin lock to sit on the manicured lawn stretching out to meet a small copse of trees before fields and open land took over again.

Cassie’s sigh pulled me away from the wide-open double doors leading out to white plastic chairs strewn across the garden. Following her gaze, I caught sight of the second set of lock gates pushed to the side as we drifted closer.

Nudging to the pontoon on the bank opposite the hotel, we didn’t linger, our feet soon echoing on the wooden walkway.

“Wait in the middle,” Thompson said.

I glanced back as Cassie gave the throttle a gentle touch and the boat drifted forward to settle in the middle of the canal. Shadow stood at the edge of the boat and peered out across the water with his snout raised high in the air.

Sherlock ran forward with his pistol unholstered, staring at the hotel as he crossed the water at the first set of gates. I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d heard something other than the flurry of our footsteps.

Running along the concrete edge of the lock and with the echo of our feet against wood silenced, I listened, imagining the last boat heading through the channel and abandoning all etiquette of the waterway as they rushed to join the flotilla making haste down the estuary.

At the open gates I paused, noticing the desperately low water level in the lock and beyond, so far below the salted white line high up the concrete bank. Tracing the flow, I peered to the river and the stony bed through the clear water, not able to stop thinking how there could ever be enough for our boat to float.

Glancing back, Cassie stood on its bow, peering forward and down to the water, frowning and shaking her head, showing more concern than I thought possible, in recent times at least.

As I mirrored Sherlock’s push against the heavy wood, she nodded, still staring to the water.

With the gates soon closed, locking into place with a thud, Sherlock rushed to grab the chunky metal key from the green cabinet standing proud canal-side. As the echo of closing gates died, I froze at the sound of a heavy thud from the direction of the hotel, the noise growing in volume as I stared on, not hidden as water flowed into the lock with Sherlock winding the mechanism.

Thompson had heard the noises too, as had Cassie. No one could have missed the sound and I felt my chest tightening, panic rising that whatever made the noise in the hotel would call creatures from all around and bring them to where we had to wait for the lock to fill. The water level had hardly risen as I glanced down.

Looking between the level and the open doors, I turned to Cassie who stood in the wheelhouse, then to Thompson with his rifle raised and taking steps towards the hotel. Was he mad?

Sherlock called out, his voice low. “Sir? Whatever’s there, don’t you think we should leave it alone?”

Thompson stopped, giving a curt nod, then stepped backwards towards the edge of the canal.

I imagined bodies rushing a blockage, banging bloodied fists against whatever had been used to keep them from piling out. With the sound of rushing water silencing and with renewed optimism, I glanced to the water, but it had only risen over the level of the inlet sluice with a long way to go before we could open the gates and the boat could glide in.

Waiting for what seemed like an age with the hollow boom from the hotel like the tick of a metronome, I realised the sky was empty of birdsong.

“Oi,” Sherlock called, and I turned, expecting to see the undead racing my way.