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

the other, watching as I limped around the car and opened the back door to find the inside empty.

Taking the map, baseball bat and the tyre iron I found tucked under a panel at the rear, we left the safety of the car and walked along the road.

“Ten minutes,” Cassie said, her expression bunching as she looked down at my limp.

I was glad she couldn't see the pain in my chest or she might have insisted she go for help alone.

Ahead, the two cars grew in our view. The sound of an animal moving within the hedge turned us inward. I looked behind and saw the long road stretching away, knowing how perfect this place would be for an ambush; an ideal location for looters to take us at will.

We walked on, boosted by the utter silence until a twig snapped in the hedge-line at our backs. With my hand tight around the cold iron, there was nothing there as I turned.

It took a few moments as we walked again to notice the tall pillars of undergrowth which hadn't been there before; to notice the two tall towers with cold barrels open in our direction.

Only when the deep voice made me jump did I realise the camouflage had worked so well.

“Drop the weapons.”

63

I was sure we'd be dead before my iron clattered to the ground. As the ringing echo of the metal died, the beech of the bat hitting the tarmac with less of a fuss, we still stood upright as my heart felt like it would burst from my chest. I looked down the barrel of the gun as I tried to make out where the dense covering of leaves ended and the person began.

After more than a few moments of frustration and nothing else, other than our joints starting to seize, I wondered if I'd dreamt the whole situation up; if in the terror of the moment I'd missed an issued command.

It wasn't until I heard the rumble of a large engine in the distance and saw grey exhaust smoke pluming high in the air, I knew sure enough a truck would appear around the corner and was taken back to the moment we'd seen the first helicopter.

Could it have been only this morning?

With the rush of elation still fresh, the certainty we'd been saved switched off in an instant as the machine gun had rained down, doing more than breaking our hearts. I wouldn't let myself be tricked this time and pushed away the hope our nightmare would be ending.

Sure enough, only moments later, an olive-drab truck with a heavy fabric rear cover rocked on its suspension around a distant corner.

Rolling into view, it stopped just before it would have to negotiate the gap between the improvised roadblock. The driver stayed put as it ground to a stop and four soldiers in camouflage fatigues bounded from the back, their rifles trained in our direction.

“Hands on your heads,” the lead guy said in a commanding voice.

Like the others, stripes of dark paint ran down his face, his body covered in armour and thin, yellow-tinted glasses ran across his eyes.

When I raised my hands and Cassie did the same, they seemed to relax like they were testing we understood language.

I looked in her direction, raising my eyebrows, hoping she understood the sentiment. They hadn't killed us yet.

They still hadn't ten minutes later. It was only after patting us down and starting to walk to the truck at their command, did they stand back and raise their guns, screaming for me to explain how I'd hurt my leg.

The explanation seemed only to elicit more questions as one of the four stepped away, his gaze fixed on me as he mumbled something into the boom microphone swinging down from his helmet.

Despite my insistence it was by the size ten boot of a looter, they cuffed my hands tight behind my back with the plastic ties before I went any further.

Hoisting me up the back of the truck whilst paying constant attention to my leg, they sat me on the hard metal bench running along the centre. A soldier sitting opposite, his hand on his holstered sidearm.

With Cassie sitting the other end, the heavy fabric folded down to cover our view, light coming only from the dim red torches hanging overhead.

I felt the truck reversing a long way before we turned. They wouldn't talk; were silent to my questions, but I soon went quiet myself, reeling from the realisation we weren't riddled with holes and our throats hadn't been cut.

It was only when we jolted to a stop, the cover lifted and I saw the white letters against the blue sign, I realised we'd arrived where we'd been aiming for all along. St Buryan Hospital.

Squinting to the view, I watched soldiers standing guard around the two-storey building. As I was lowered, I caught more guards at each of the two entrances; groups of four walking around the perimeter, peering out along the road with binoculars, others helping to finish raising giant sheet-metal fences.

Guided side by side, we were escorted by the four soldiers through a set of doors, disinfectant clawing at our nostrils as our slow, uneven footsteps echoed in the long hallway.

We didn't travel far, stopping as commanded at two doors side by side. On each door loomed a handwritten paper sign. MALE. FEMALE.

Ushered to the respective doors, I reared back as they opened from inside. Feeling the pressure of a hand at my back, I glanced to Cassie to see her already looking in my direction with wide eyes and raised eyebrows.

I tried my best to reassure her with a thin smile, but I couldn't do the same for myself. Turning back, I saw a man in a white coat stood just inside with a wide grin on