Endurance Read online

  Should I follow the rats? It could be a survival mechanism.

  ‘Hello?’ Tom shouted.

  He decided to continue moving forward until he was startled by a roar from behind. He turned to look behind him and tripped over his own feet, and fell. He leaned forward to see what appeared to be a human figure standing in front of him. He quickly jumped up and sprinted to the light. As he ran, he heard his footsteps and the steps of someone else right behind him. With no time to look to see who or what it was, he concentrated on getting to the next stop. He ran and ran but heard the steps getting closer and closer behind him, the breath of whatever pursued him louder and louder in his ears. He made it to the next stop. He climbed onto the platform and turned around. No one was there and nothing exited the tunnel behind him. Nothing at all.

  Tom quickly looked around the new stop for a weapon of some sort. He found an iron bar and picked it up. As he turned to walk toward the tunnel, a fist slammed into the left side of his chin. The lower portion of his face shifted violently to the right. Having had no warning at all, he was completely unprepared for the hit. He staggered as he became dizzy and off-balance. He rushed to regain his balance and looked about to see who attacked him and was punched again, this time on the bridge of his nose; he was blinded by the immediate spray of blood and the pain. As he bent to cover his face, he was kicked in the stomach and punched repeatedly in the head. He lost his footing and fell onto the floor, dropping the iron bar. As he tried to catch his breath, he was kicked in the stomach a second time. His attacker gave him no time to mount an offense; Tom was grabbed by the scruff of his neck, punched in the face again, held down, and was stamped on. Tom took a massive beating until a gunshot interrupted the sounds of the one-sided fight. The sound of the shot rippled through the station. He heard a heavy ‘flop’; it reminded Tom of the sound Anna made when she hit the ground after being hit by the car.

  Tom looked to his right and saw a scruffy, old man a few feet away from him with several bullet holes in his chest and stomach.

  Tom wiped his severely bruised and swollen face and looked at his hands. They were covered in blood. He sighed deeply and pulled himself up so he could take a good look at his saviour. Before him stood a woman with a dark complexion, leaning casually on her shotgun. She was about five foot eight, with her black hair tied in a ponytail. She wore dark green army trousers with a white vest covered in spots of blood. She looked no older than twenty-five.

  ‘Hey there. How long you bin’ down ‘ere?’

  Tom didn’t answer immediately. He continued to stare timidly at her gun. He rolled over and pushed himself up onto his feet.

  ‘I don’t really know, about two days.’

  ‘Ahh right, we didn’t hear you or anything. If we knew you were there, buddy, we would have tried to come help you out. You look a mess, no offence.’

  ‘None taken. I don’t look much better than this normally anyway.’ Tom laughed and so did the woman. ‘I’m Tom. Thanks for saving my life.’ Tom reached his hand out to shake her hand. She firmly clutched his hand.

  ‘Danni, nice to meet you.’

  ‘Do you know what’s going on up above?’

  ‘To be honest with ya, I don’t. We weren’t up there for long, we knew something was wrong and came down here. All that I can tell you is that people seem to be getting infected by something.’

  Tom tried to fold his arms together and felt pain across his pectoral muscles and his ribs. He put his arms by his sides.

  ‘What makes you say that?’ asked Tom.

  ‘Well, there was a group of about eight of us. One of them was a doctor. He spotted that we were all having a reaction to something but we can’t work out what. We thought it was something down here from the rats but it can’t be because people from above were coming down here with some of the symptoms already and…’

  ‘What symptoms?’ Tom interrupted

  ‘Well, like midnight sweats, having nightmares, enlarged veins, blood shot eyes, losing senses, becoming aggressive and eventually becoming deadly predators.’

  ‘But I have all those symptoms; does that mean I’m infected?’ Tom said, with a note of challenge in his voice.

  ‘Yes. We all are…’ Danni said confidently.

  There was silence at the stop. Tom looked at his arms and pinched one of them till it bled. He looked up at Danni. She had bloodshot eyes. They looked sore.

  ‘This can’t be right, how can you be sure?’

  ‘The doctor did experiments on himself and others. We had to go to quite a length to be sure.’

  ‘Where is he now then? Let me talk to him.’

  ‘You’ll have a job; he’s dead.’

  Tom looked to the ground in distress, scratching his head.

  ‘How can you be so sure about this?’

  ‘Basically, the doc started becoming aggressive, so I tied him up to a bench with a dog chain. In time he became worse, his skin became disgusting. His eyes turned red and actually bled and he was bleeding elsewhere too; he choked on his own blood at times. His teeth turned yellow. We kept him like that for awhile but he gained some strength. He broke out of the chains and killed five of our group. He was about to kill me, but my dad shot him in the head. It took more than one shot. It took a whole round. That tramp would have killed you, if it wasn’t for me, and he only had the early signs, but he still would have killed you. The doc said the disease affects the brain. Something has gone airborne, most likely worldwide too. That’s all I can tell you. What do you know?’

  ‘How many are left in your group now?’

  ‘There’s me and my dad. What do you know?’

  ‘I don’t know anything. All I know is that one minute I was fine and about to propose to my girlfriend, and then all of a sudden the electricity and everything just stopped working, including the cars on the road. There was darkness.’ Tom began to sob slightly. ‘Then my girlfriend was killed just as I was about to propose to her.’

  ‘Oh my god… I’m so sorry to hear that.’ Danni sounded truly sad for him. She walked up to Tom and held his shoulders, forcing him to wince at the pain of her touch. ‘I’m really sorry.’ There was a moment of silence with Tom sniffing every so often. Danni continued to speak. ‘Don’t you think it sounds like an EMP?’

  ‘Electric magnetic pulse? Like the ones on action films?’ Tom asked, and Danni confirmed with a nod. Tom continued to speak. ‘I suppose it could be. I never thought of that. But I was above here for a long time and I was attacked by some hovercraft machine that was shooting everything above ground. I can’t think what it could be, a spaceship or an alien attack?’

  ‘To be honest Tom, I couldn’t tell you. It doesn’t sound like human activity. You cannot trust anyone these days and if we’re dealing with an alien invasion or some sort of attack from space. It would be best to stay down here.’

  Tom looked disappointed and replied.

  ‘I had a plan to go up there and go to my house. It might sound mad, but I have this old cassette player that has radio frequency on it that allows you to speak and communicate on other frequencies. I wanted to get to it and see if I could get any contact from anyone. Then we could try to see if we could get together with them to try to figure out what is going on and then try and stop this thing. Tom heard footsteps behind him and a bullet being jacked into a gun chamber.

  ‘Me and my daughter are not going anywhere with you.’ The gravelly voice of a man standing behind Tom bellowed, ‘Turn around!’ His voice echoed through the tunnel.

  Tom turned around slowly, with his hands up, hoping not to startle this clearly crazy man. In front of him stood a huge, black man, holding an AK47. He was about 6 feet tall, wearing a red jumper and black trousers. His skin looked blotchy and his eyes were bloodshot

  ‘Dad. Come on, now, he’s fine.’

  ‘I don’t trust anyone.’

  ‘Tom, this is my dad. You can call him Graham.’

  ‘He won’t be calling me anything.’

 
; ‘Dad, we are going above. We have a good plan that could work. He has information about above.’

  ‘I heard what he said. An alien invasion? Come on Danni. I thought you were more intelligent than that.’

  ‘Dad, how can you be so sure? We don’t know what’s going on. We’re going up above now; if you want to come, then please help us.’

  Danni grabbed Tom by the arm and dragged him along with her. They walked toward the exit and up the steps. They reached the top and looked at the destruction above. Danni was on Tom’s left and Graham was on his right. Graham gave Tom a handgun.

  ‘You’re probably gonna need this.’

  ‘Cheers.’ Tom put the gun behind his back in between his trousers and belt. He looked back at Graham. His eyes were filled with blood. Blood began to dribble slightly out of his right eye. Graham quickly wiped it away and began to cough.

  Tom chose to ignore Graham’s worsening symptoms. ‘This is near Jubilee Park. I’ve already been here. Luckily, my house wasn’t far from here; it’s about a two minute walk. It might be quicker now that there’s nowhere to walk around to get there.’ Tom said.

  Tom led while Danni and Graham followed, all of them on guard against any of the infected.

  8

  They reached the street where Tom’s house once was. Now there was nothing but open land with rocks and debris strewn all around. They walked down what was once the middle of the road, gazing at the remains of the houses. Tom tried to remember how things once looked. They continued onward until they reached Tom’s old house. Tom stood where the pavement and his pathway to the door once were. He mentally compared what once was to this wasteland. He sighed and began worrying about how best to organize his search. The downstairs was visible. They could see where the sitting room led to the dining room, as well as the corridor that led to the kitchen and the back garden. The upstairs was completely obliterated. Tom stared hopelessly at the wreckage.

  ‘I don’t think we’re gonna find the cassette player. We need to leave.’ Graham said grouchily.

  Tom ignored him and continued to stare at his former home. Graham looked at Danni forcefully. She moved to Tom to try to console him, but he gently pushed her away. He ran into the ruins.

  ‘Tom!’ Graham shouted, but Danni hushed him softly. They kept guard while Tom searched. First, he walked into the remains of the sitting room. Turning and shuffling in a circle, he searched the area. At first sight he saw only piled up rubble, but after relaxing his eyes, he began to make out some personal possessions, such as picture frames, Lucy’s hairdryer, and Stewart’s CD collection.

  Tom spotted the box he kept in the attic filled with his father’s belongings. He stumbled across the mounds of debris to get to the box; it was empty and badly burnt.

  He continued to search through the remains of his home. He knelt down next to the box to see part of a newspaper clipping about his father’s death. Part of the headline was still visible, reading ‘Murder.’ He looked to the right of the clipping and was astonished to see what he had found. He can’t believe his luck; it was the cassette player. Even though it was covered in trash and debris, and was badly scratched and slightly burnt, he had found it.

  ‘I’ve got it,’ Tom shouted.

  ‘Really?’ said Graham, shocked.

  Tom brushed the dust and rubble off the top of it.

  ‘We need power to work it Tom.’ Danni approached Tom. ‘And there isn’t any.’

  ‘No there is! The underground had lights on and the corner shop I went to had some electricity.’

  Tom picked up the cassette player and walked around holding it in between his arms and his thighs, giving him a hunchbacked appearance. He searched for an outlet. He looked in the dining room and spotted one in part of a wall left standing; it was the corner of the dining room. Part of the creamy wallpaper was still visible.

  With joy and excitement, Tom ran as well as he could while clumsily holding the recorder to the plug socket. He set the cassette player down gently. He plugged it into the wall and hoped for the best. Nothing happened. He stared at the lifeless player. Graham and Danni began to sympathize with him until the screen sprang to life. He picked up the microphone attached to the side and began to search the frequencies.

  For a few minutes, Tom pressed buttons and looked obsessed with finding somebody, anybody. Graham and Danni waited in anticipation.

  After five minutes, Danni and Graham began to lose hope.

  ‘Danni, you know as well as I do. This is a worldwide thing. No one is going to answer. If it wasn’t, people would have come and helped us.’ Graham looked stubborn. ‘Come on, let’s go, we’re in danger standing in the open like this.’

  ‘No, Dad, we can’t leave Tom here.’

  ‘You don’t even know the guy. He’s wasting our time. Let’s go.’ Graham reached out to grab Danni’s hand. Danni pulled her hand away and moved slightly to her right.

  ‘Let’s go now!’ Graham barked.

  Graham grabbed her arm tightly and squeezed. Danni screamed in pain.

  ‘Get off me, you idiot.’ She slapped and punched him on the arm. Graham grabbed her by the neck and pushed her to the ground. Danni got back up and tried to run, but Graham stamped on her ankle and she fell to the ground in agony. He then grabbed her hair, punched her in the face and tossed her to the ground. She grabbed a brick and hit Graham on the head but it didn’t even faze him. He snatched the brick from Danni and casually tossed it aside. He bent over, clutched Danni by the neck and squeezed. Tom looked around to see Graham strangling Danni. Danni felt herself passing out, her throat tightened, no airflow able to get through, she saw black spots. Her vision was receding. She tried to get air but it was impossible. Tom calmly placed the headphones on top of the cassette player and threw himself at Graham. He launched into Graham’s waist in a rugby style tackle and continued to run. The force of his blow knocked Graham off his feet. Graham released Danni from his grip. She fell on her side and gasped for air. Graham was on his back.

  ‘This isn’t the fucking time to turn on each other.’

  Tom stared at Graham’s face. There were now red veins on his face. His skin was grey and his teeth yellow. The inside of his mouth was a nasty black; his lips were covered in blood. Graham didn’t speak; instead he snarled loudly and shoved Tom off him. Graham stood. Tom charged at Graham, but Graham shifted to his side, turning his AK47 and hitting Tom in the face with the butt of the rifle. Tom hit the ground hard, fighting unconsciousness. Tom was able to quickly force himself onto his back; he kicked Graham as hard as he could in the kneecap. Graham’s kneecap snapped under the force, the sound echoing through the air. Graham screamed in pain and fell onto the dusty ground, creating a cloud of dust around him. He clutched his shattered knee cap, moaning. Tom got off the ground and stood over Graham. Graham had changed dramatically; even his facial expressions had changed. He clearly was now a man after revenge. Tom pulled the gun from his trousers and aimed at Graham’s head. Tom was stunned when he heard Danni pump a round into the chamber of her shotgun. He paused and looked at Danni. In shock, he was forced to look straight down the shotgun barrel.

  ‘What are you doing Danni? He’s changed. We need to kill him now before he kills us.’

  ‘That’s my dad. He hasn’t changed, if he had changed he wouldn’t be in pain now with his knee, You lose feeling.’ Danni continued to point the gun at Tom, her finger hovered above the trigger. She slowly moved her finger onto the trigger and pondered the shot.

  ‘Danni, don’t do this. Look at him. He’s changed, his skin, his teeth, he’s aggressive. He just beat you up; he might have even killed you if it weren’t for me.’

  Graham appeared to be in less pain by the second. He laughed and pushed himself off the ground.

  ‘Move,’ Danni yelled at Tom.

  Danni knocked Tom out of the way and shot Graham in the head. Blood spurted behind him and down his body. The blood hit Danni and even reached Tom. Danni continued to aim at Graham. Her shotg
un began shaking wildly. Her eyes filled with tears, and she sobbed even as she continued to aim the shotgun. Tom pushed the shotgun down and pulled her to him in a tight hug. She dropped the weapon so she could hug him back. Tom moved his hands onto Danni’s bruised cheeks and stared into her eyes; they looked bloodshot and full of tears, making her eyes shiny. Tom could see himself reflected in her eyes. Danni stared back at Tom’s swollen, black and blue eyes. His eyes were also bloodshot, but less so than Danni’s.

  ‘That was so brave, Danni; I know that wasn’t easy for you.’

  Danni began to sob and cry in agony. Tom moved his hand behind her head and moved her head to rest on his shoulder and felt water, not just from her tears, but also from the sky as it began to rain.

  It rained heavily while Tom and Danni stood in the open. Danni tried to regain her composure. She let go of Tom and tried to walk away.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it for a while.’ Tom let go of Danni and she wandered away slowly.

  Tom went back to the cassette player and, to his shock, he heard a muffled voice through the speaker.

  ‘Hello is anyone there? What is your location?’

  Tom rushed to the cassette player, held the microphone to his mouth and exhaled slowly. ‘This is Thomas Williams. I am currently located in London. London is unrecognizable; there has been a massive crisis. I’m in need of support.’

  ‘Hi Williams. We are aware of the problem in London and it will be sorted in no time.’

  ‘What do you mean? Are you aware of this alien invasion?’

  The line went quiet for what felt a lifetime for Tom.

  ‘I don’t know who you are, but all that has happened is the government has stopped people entering London because of the refurbishment that will be happening throughout the city. The whole area is being cleaned and refurbished.’

  Tom paused in astonishment.

  Do people really believe that? This can’t be an alien attack. The government is involved in this.