Endurance Page 3

  He warily stood, only to then see the building he had been in completely blown to smithereens.

  Why are they after me? What have I done to deserve this? What did Anna do to deserve to be killed? When I find out who’s responsible, I will make them suffer.

  Tom felt aggression build. Tears gathered beneath his eyelids, a hard blink forced the tears to slide down his cheeks. His fists clenched. He remembered having to kill one woman out of mercy and another woman – a mere child – had died in his hands as her body was ripped apart by the violence that had occurred all around them. He didn’t fear the thought of death or killing.

  Tom decided it was time to find shelter and a hideout, time to plan what to do next and to try mend his wounds.

  6

  Tom walked around London for hours.

  There was no method of proper communication, thus he couldn’t determine if the problem occurred only in England or if it was worldwide. All Tom could do was continue to move and search for a safe hideout. He couldn’t go home because there wasn’t a home for him to return to. His home and his father’s belongings were ash. Stewart, Lucy, Dan, and most of the human population were all most likely dead.

  Tom sat down to rest and think for a moment. He felt weak and his body felt heavy. Emotionally, he was numb; and the mental pain and exhaustion had taken their toll. Anna’s body haunted him – showing itself to him repeatedly in his mind. Her bloodshot eyes stared at him; her bloody neck and face marred her beauty, her body curved and bent in ways unimaginable. The cracking of her bones in his nightmare rang through his head nonstop while her threatening red eyes stared him down and made him fearful and uncomfortable. He tried to erase these thoughts of Anna, but he couldn’t remember any other memories of her; instead, her dead body haunted him, over and over again.

  I should have proposed earlier; then she wouldn’t have been hit by that car! Or maybe I shouldn’t have proposed at all; then we would have been home earlier and avoided the catastrophe.

  The day darkened; the temperature dropped; the clouds filled with anguish and anger. London was a ghost town and a victim of mass destruction. The streets were unrecognizable. Tom searched for two days for any sign of hope.

  His smart clothes were ruined, his white shirt was grey and filthy, his trousers and blazer covered in dust, and his tie, still tied around his leg, was soaked with blood. His hair was no longer spiked, but instead was a rubble-loaded mess stuck to his scalp. His slightly tanned skin had a grey tint and was covered in cuts and bruises.

  He continued to move to yet another part of London not as destroyed as much as other parts.

  Tom had not eaten since he was with Anna in the restaurant, he felt feeble; his throat was tight, he had a cough that made his throat sore and he was having difficulty breathing.

  He continued to walk until he tripped on some debris and fell. He rolled onto his back and stared at the grey and oppressive sky.

  He imagined what London must look like from above. He could see it: It looked dark and dreary, enclosed by smoke and decorated with patches of flames and debris. He then imagined what England must look like coming from the sea. Looking black and burnt away, with no life whatsoever and with nature burnt to a crisp, it must like so much ash. He then imagined the world. A circular ball that looked volcanic and ready to erupt, the waters grey and full of floating ash and wreckage. Tom thought to himself…

  This is the view of the aliens that are attacking.

  As Tom sat up and looked around him, he paused as he noticed a corner shop with a mass of bricks in front of it. He was astonished to see the building appeared in good condition compared to other buildings.

  Without hesitation, Tom rushed toward the building; he was suddenly full of energy and such elation that he forgot about his pain, concentrated instead on getting refreshments. As he ran, he began to seriously hope there was still some food and drink inside. Stopping outside, in front of the piled concrete pieces and mounds of bricks, Tom began to climb. Finally reaching the top, he slid into the shop.

  The shop was dark but still had plenty of food and a lot of drink. The only source of light was coming from the refrigerators around the back of the shop. That area was full of microwave food, quick snacks and drinks. The floor was covered in blood and bits of concrete, but otherwise, everything looked normal.

  ‘I could do this place up. Get some power in here, some lighting and start my own business. I would make so much money with so many people and so many aliens coming in to buy refreshments,’ Tom paused.

  I never used to talk to myself out loud, I am definitely mad.

  He walked to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water. Using all his strength to take off the cap, he poured water all over his face, leaving his mouth open to catch whatever water he could. He grabbed another water bottle and drank it down within eight seconds, followed by a Lucozade. He began to drink it while he casually walked around the shop looking for food. He found sandwiches, sausage rolls, pork pies, chocolate, biscuits, fruit and cold baked beans. He didn’t hesitate to eat the food. Once finished, he felt rejuvenated and bloated.

  There was a rucksack on the counter. Tom picked it up and emptied it by holding it upside down, shaking it around, until the objects inside fell out. Not taking any notice of what fell out, he filled the rucksack with food and drink. He packed snacks and filled his bag with Lucozade and water. Once full, he set it behind the counter for when he left, but for now, he decided would rest here for a night.

  Tom gathered plasters, needles, cotton buds and vodka. With no good quality lighting, Tom walked out the back of the shop and found two torches, one battery powered and the other a windup. He also found some fishing wire. He sat on the ground with everything around him, his back against the counter and his legs stretched out in front of him. He loosened the tie from around his leg and looked at the injury on his thigh. It was a bloody hole with purple and white pus surrounding it. He poured straight vodka onto the wound and screamed in agony as the alcohol sterilized the wound. The pain was too intense. He punched and headbutted the ground repeatedly, while holding his leg so tightly he cut off the circulation. He regained his concentration and turned on one torch and laid it on the floor facing him and put the other in his mouth.

  He picked up a needle and dipped it into the vodka for a moment. He then threaded the fishing line through it, tied it onto the needle and stabbed it into his leg, he guided the needle through the skin, over the wound and through the other side of his skin and continued to stitch the wound closed.

  ‘Not bad, Tommo, not bad,’ he mumbled to himself.

  His leg felt oddly numb. He then opened his shirt and looked at the bullet scrape on his shoulder. He poured vodka on it and squealed in pain. He couldn’t stitch it since it was in a bad place and it was a gash, so couldn’t be closed anyway. Instead, he put plasters over it and taped the cluster of plasters on.

  After being a surgeon, Tom decided to drink the vodka to help him sleep. He drank steadily for about two hours and finally fell asleep.

  7

  Tom awakened in a rush, short of breath and in a sweat. After having slept on his back, he bolted upright and began to cough. He continued to cough for a few minutes; blood spewed from his mouth with each painful bout of couphing. Choking on the blood; he crawled on all fours to the refrigerator containing the drinks. Pulling himself up, he reached for a water bottle that seemed a thousand miles away from his grasp. He finally grabbed a water bottle. He composed himself and began to sip the water, which stopped the choking, allowing him to catch his breath.

  Shaken, he looked at his arms. His veins were enflamed and his body felt numb. Tom pinched his skin and couldn’t feel the pain. He continued to pinch himself, but he couldn’t feel the pinches at all. . He sniffed the air and couldn’t smell the grime, smoke or dust. He seemed to be losing all his senses.

  He stood and stretched. As he stretched his arms and legs, he wandered to the counter and picked up the rucksack and put it on
his back. He decided he needed to move on from the shop, but might return to get more refreshments later.

  He looked around and headed to his left to see what he could find.

  As he walked, gun shots blasted in the distance. He paused and listened hard to work out which direction they were coming from. The gunshots were in front of him so he ran toward the sound.

  Tom sprinted through the streets. The gunshots became clearer the more he ran. The echoes began to disappear; he decided he must be getting close. As he turned a corner, he saw a man and two women, perhaps a man with his wife and daughter. The parents appeared to be in their fifties and the daughter looked around twenty-five.

  They were shooting into the sky. They paused as Tom appeared, when suddenly an explosion hit them and they vanished into thin air.

  Astounded, Tom halted in his footsteps and looked up into the sky. There was the bright white light on him again. He saw the side of the machine; it was dark and metallic-looking. Tom didn’t have time to identify whether it was an alien attack. He turned to run when suddenly he was blown away, literally tossed ten feet into the air, landing awkwardly on his hand. He heard something crunch and looked down to see his hand hanging at an impossible angle, with a lump poking out of his skin next to his wrist. He got up, but his rucksack had disappeared. He spotted two water bottles on the ground, unharmed. He rushed toward the bottles, grabbing them quickly before running away from the hovercraft; running in zigs and zags to make it difficult to target him. He turned a corner just as an explosion hit a building. Bricks flew past him and debris hit his back. He stumbled, but regained his balance and continued to run.

  He saw an entrance to the London Underground. There was no sign to identify which stop it was. He galloped toward it and ran down the steps into the underground. Just as he reached it, he heard explosions from above and felt vibrations under his feet. He got into the empty underground stop and the entrance collapsed behind him. Dust and smoke billowed into the stop, making it difficult for him to breathe. It affected his sight as flecks of dust drifted into his eyes.

  He was greeted by silence. Clueless about what to do next, he sat in the corner of the stop and stared at the exit.

  He heard screams, which was strange, since he hadn’t seen many people anywhere. Each scream was muted by an explosion. There was nothing Tom could do. He felt shattered; it seemed as if he hadn’t eaten for days even though he had. He pulled out one of the two water bottles he had in his pockets. He took a few sips from it and put it on the floor next to him. He pulled the other bottle from his pocket and put it next to the first bottle.

  He lay down on his side.

  Tom remembered the feeling of being close to normal human contact for the first time in days. It depressed him. He thought about Anna’s dead body. She looked better than he previously remembered. Her eyes were closed; no blood was on her body. He stared at her curves and her glossy hair. Suddenly, her red, blood-filled eyes opened wide and stared straight at Tom. She stared at him with vengeance as her skin turned dark and mouldy. Her neck snapped out of place and blood spooled out of her mouth. Her veins began to enflame and burst, the blood under her skin burst from her body. Tom purged the thoughts out of his mind. He couldn’t understand why Anna was haunting him but he struggled to control it. He couldn’t think of any positive thoughts, they were all negative and recurring.

  He felt weak and vulnerable.

  Whatever is after me could easily get down here through the tunnel or just move the rubble out of the way with an explosion. I need to make contact somehow with the world, I need to know how bad this really is and who’s affected. Wait a second, Dad’s cassette player. You can pick up radio frequencies on it. If there are other survivors, they may be on a frequency waiting for others to respond; and if it’s not worldwide, I can get help!

  Tom gained energy and confidence, he needed to get to his house and get into the attic, if either still existed.

  Tom tried to get off the ground but felt a deep, aching pain in his leg; the stitching had come loose and was causing friction on his skin. He began to pull the fishing line, trying to get the stitches out. The wound became deeper as his skin hung on the line. He eventually pulled all the line out. He looked at his shoulder wound. The cluster of plasters had fallen off at some point. Tom was back where he began. He felt vulnerable, dehydrated, famished and very, very alone.

  He sat with his back against the wall. He attempted to pop his wrist back into place. He held his hand and tried to figure out how to set the bone. The pain was unbearable. He got a firm grip and bent it in the opposite direction. He tried to block out the pain but it was simply too much. Holding it, he forced his wrist to one side and it finally reattached to the joint. The pain slowly decreased. He let go and his hand flopped to the floor.

  He stared at the last flickering light. Each time it flickered, he saw Anna’s face staring at him with those blood-red eyes full of vengeance.

  Tom stayed at the underground stop he believed to be Embankment for at least two days. He had no more water.

  The stop was a wreck; it was violated and destroyed, making it unrecognizable. He listened to the ground above and continued to hear explosions and screams. Of more concern, he heard deep roars that sounded like tigers hunting their prey.

  He decided to get up; dust fell off him and floated to the ground and into the air. Choking from the dust, he tensed each time he coughed, the coughs were sending spasms to his leg, causing it to tense and hurt. He clutched the tender leg, leaned into the wall, and slid to the ground.

  Blood ran down his leg, the cut now healing properly. Trying to shake off the pain and the lethargy of dehydration, he positioned himself into a press up, but he was much too weak to do any exercises. He got to his knees and stared straight ahead.

  Breathing heavily, he used all the strength in his legs to balance on his left foot and then his right, trying to determine if his legs were going to hold his weight. He began to limp toward the blocked exit. He attempted to move some of the debris, but it was thoroughly blocked. In frustration, Tom kicked the barricade.

  With nowhere else to go; he realised he had to walk down through the tunnel to the next stop to search for a clear exit. The thought of this sent a shiver down his spine, his palms began to sweat and the hairs on his neck stood on end.

  Tom took a cautious step toward the darkness. He was startled when he heard a scream as it echoed through the blackness. It sounded like a grown man. Tom took a step; followed by another. Then yet another step, until he stumbled over something on his left side. He knelt cautiously, trying to protect his injured leg as much as possible. He leaned forward, squinting to make the best of the feeble light. Tom saw that he had tripped over the corpse of a young man, in his early twenties. He was wearing a green polo shirt and blue jeans, soaked in blood. The clothes clung tightly to his body. His arm was bloody, with deep scratches. Tom looked closer because something was very wrong with his arm. Then he jumped back rapidly, nauseated. The arm had been gnawed upon. Something had been dining upon this young man’s arm. Tom felt the bile climb into his throat; he vomited violently and fell onto his hands and knees.

  Screams faded into the distance, but Tom tried to block them out of his mind. He stared at the filthy train tracks; the musky scent of the tracks and the smell of the rotting corpse overwhelmed his senses, making his stomach roil uneasily. Tom continued to focus on the dust-filled tracks. He watched the clumps of dust rolling from his knees, past his hands toward the tunnel, blown by a breeze that entered the stop behind him.

  He placed his palms on the grimy wall and pulled himself to his feet. Tom stepped away from the wall and stood upright, facing the tunnel. Clenching his shaking fists, he began to walk toward the tunnel. As he stumbled past the corpse, shadows wrapped around him as if they were dragging him into their gaping maw. He disappeared into the darkness…

  Tom warily began to walk through the tunnel, jumping at every little sound. After walking for a few mi
nutes, he felt a bit frightened when he heard a roar not too far from him. He paused. He listened carefully, hearing nothing. He stood there alone in the dreary darkness. Then, he heard something tap ahead of him. The tapping began to get closer to him. He tried to make himself as small and still as possible, holding his breath so he could hear everything better. He identified the noise as a large mass of rats running toward him; he heard them squeaking and their feet patting on the ground. As they surrounded him, they began to gnaw on his feet. Tom tried to stand still in order to let them pass, but the little beasts began to run up his legs. He felt them feasting on his flesh. In pain and terror, Tom ran. He ran over the moving bodies of the rats, crushing them beneath him, even as they continued to climb him and bite him mercilessly. Tom struck himself over and over as he ran, trying to dislodge the rats. At last, there was light indicating the next stop; he began to sprint. The rats fell out of his trouser legs as he raced toward the next stop. He stared at the circular light indicated the next stop. .He halted when he saw someone walking in full view of the light. Tom stood frozen to the spot. The hairs on the back of his neck stood upright. He began to run again. The person moved in front of the light again. The rats were gone. He hadn’t even noticed them leaving.

  Why were the rats running?

  Tom stopped and stared straight down the tunnel.