Only The Living (Lost Survival Series Book 1) (2 page)

“These attacks are spreading throughout Great Britain. London is in lock-down, it is suspected that they are dealing with a massively-organised attempt to engage the armed forces, and is, therefore, being treated as such. One can only imagine the resources required to facilitate this act of aggression, and on a national scale... It goes without saying, that recovery would demand nothing short of a miracle.

"New intelligence on the situation will be streamed live, but until the violations cease... I'm afraid that no one is certain on the exact nature of what is occurring, this dreadful day. The Prime Minister is yet to make an official statement, and as for the leaders of countries in alliance to our nation... No communication has been made, although there are reports of disturbances beyond the United Kingdom-”

The TV stuttered, and a random colour palette replaced the news anchor. I continued to stare into the screen, hoping that picture would come back and tell us that everything was suddenly fine now.

After an eternity of sitting in the dark, Ian finally stopped whimpering to himself and plucked up the courage to ask what neither of us wanted to know. “...D-Do you think... the TV stopped receiving, or...” I stopped listening before he could bring up the alternative.

Climbing to my feet, I immediately forced myself through the door and was thrown backwards by the sight of a cheap wall clock. Quarter-past twelve... If only this had been a normal morning.

The applicants would all be outside by now, and I'd probably be trying to find somewhere quiet in the city to have some lunch and maybe celebrate a successful interview. Call my mum, tell her the good news. Text my friend Millie, make her jealous about uni.

I couldn't do it. Falling backwards into the door, I was reduced to a blubbering mess after only a single moment of solitude. I told myself earlier, I couldn’t deal with this alone.

”I... I want to go home... I don't want to
die
here!!” I managed to choke out. My only support was removed from existence, as Ian curtly opened the door.

The anxious student lifted me up, propped me against the wall and sternly told me that I would be able to go home, treating me like a lost child at the supermarket. His red, puffy eyes weren't very convincing.

After a back-and-forth consoling, we resolved to get out of the campus quickly and find our way back to our houses. Out in the corridor, neither of us could detect any of the chaotic movement that used to be downstairs. We both took a chance, and practically flew down the staircase four steps at a time.

Hurriedly making our way through the lobby, Ian kept himself firmly behind me as I carefully scanned the empty reception. Not a soul in sight…

There must’ve been some serious panic on the ground floor, only moments ago. The aftermath of some kind of struggle resulted in the trashed room we had to kick our way through. Both of us reached the main entrance at the same time; just beyond those double-doors was that terrifying street, the one we'd heard the gunshots coming from.

“Okay... I'm going to open the doors now,” I told Ian, although it was mostly for my benefit. I couldn't stop shaking. “One... Two... Three!”

I don't know how we couldn't hear it before then, but once those doors were open, there was no avoiding it. All I could see was injured people running around in every direction, crying and screaming their heads off. The rattle of gunfire echoed somewhere beyond each junction, driving civilians towards us.

“T-They're shooting at everyone!” Ian yelled, providing commentary that was not needed.

“I know! Stick with me, this way!” I grumbled back over my shoulder. I had no idea where I was going, since my only knowledge of the area was what I had seen that morning... Even then, I was too rushed to remember the exact route I'd taken.

No matter where we were headed, anywhere must have been a better option than the city centre. So much for 'eye of the storm'; it was a bloodbath worse than any news story I’d ever heard in my life.

I ultimately decided to head for Waverley Station, if I could ever find it. Not that I expected any of the trains to be running during this pandemonium, but it was somewhat underground and being closer to lanes of transport seemed safer.

We ran for what seemed like hours, even though it was barely a ten-minute walk from the university. Every single time we turned a corner, an armoured military truck roared into view and opened fire across a parallel street, alerting us to where the unknown danger zones lay.

Our feet were being steered away by the sounds of bullets pulverising the concrete, which only added to my curiosity. They were aiming for pretty much anything that moved in the area, including civilians. No one was to be trusted... not even us.

How many people do they think are involved with this so-called 'attack'?! How did the news put it, an 'act of aggression'?

I could only have assumed that those words meant one thing; we were at war. There were so many questions yanking at me from all sides, but stopping to consider any of them would only seal my fate.

Eventually we ended up on the far side of the Waverley Bridge, after being forced all the way around. Ian was panting after me, not built for running such long distances. As I turned into the junction, however, all hope of getting near the station was lost. Between us and the entrance was a stacked-up wall of melted cars, and... the bodies.

It was one thing to see them from the conference window, or on the television... but this was too much. Black-red puddles stained the ground they fell upon; unmoving strangers had their pale skin ripped apart, exposing their internal organs... and those were only the dead ones.

Some were still crawling around, gurgling on their own blood. Looking for their missing parts. My body couldn't handle the mere sight of it — I vomited all over the pavement.

As my knees went weak, I would have collapsed if Ian wasn't there to catch me, although I ended up getting sick all over him too. As my mind fluttered away from the surrounding horrors, I heard a distant yelling, someone screaming at us to 'get a move on'.

Ian apparently understood what this meant. The student rushed me through a scratched glass door only a couple of metres away, letting it magically slam shut behind him.

The familiar roar of the armoured truck penetrated my senses with a deafening screech, power-sliding onto the bridge. Bullets splattered all over the area we stood not even a second ago, and then I heard their final screams. Those helpless people I’d just witnessed... Gone.

A strange man helped Ian lay me across the ground, but the position did nothing to stop me from drifting into unconsciousness.

This is hell
, I tried to say, but couldn't manage it. The last fleeting thought I had, was about my mum. My God-fearing mum, who took me to morning mass every Sunday and loved me more than the world itself. Was she safe from all of this?

I never told her the truth, but that church really pissed me off. I hated all of those cold mornings spent worshipping her God, a being who never answered me or my prayers... But even so, I could still hear the words of the priest who damned me. Warning me, as I lay gasping for another chance to live.

“But the vile ones, the liars, the cowardly, the murderous, those who practice the magical arts, the sexually immoral and the
unbelieving
; their place exists in the fiery lake of burning sulphur. This is their second death."

When I came to, the first sound I heard was a woman sobbing. Ian’s vague shadow perched beside me, turning its head to realise I was awake.

“Daniel! You're all right...” He didn’t say anything else, or rather, couldn’t. Our chase through the city streets had left us both at the end of our ropes, wondering where to go next.

I tried to sit up, but my stomach wasn't having it. Taking in our surroundings instead, we were still resting opposite the glass door that I'd just barely noticed before blacking out. It was the entrance to a mall of sorts, standing right next to the train station.

There was no chance of making it past that bridge, not after what we’d seen.The war-torn street outside was eerily silent; almost frozen in a much darker, bullet-ridden time.

On the same side of the glass lay a middle-aged man, a blonde woman and an identical child cradled in her arms, both crying into each other. Overhearing that I was up, the shaken man came over to us and sat down with a disgruntled look on his face.

“Daniel, is that right? Name's Leo. You ain't one of those crazy fuckers, are ya?” He seemed serious, but the bluntness of the question caught me off-guard. I shook my head.

Nodding with an exhausted sigh, Leo buried his forehead into his reddened palms. “...This is fucked up, man. One minute we're on the bus tour across town, the next... I don't even know. They just attacked us. Like a bunch of fucking animals, right in front of my damn kid.”

Looking over the man’s shoulder to observe his weeping family, they did appear visibly distressed about whatever they had just escaped from. After what I'd just seen on that bridge, they had every right to be.

“Who... attacked you?” I strained, managing to stand on two feet.

The man glanced anxiously at his kid, who couldn’t have been older than 10 years old, and rolled his sleeve back discreetly. The pungent smell hit me almost immediately, as he unveiled a bloody mess of veins where his forearm should’ve been. A giant chunk of his flesh was missing, eroded by puncture marks.

“What the hell... How did
that
happen?!” I bawled at him, to which he retracted in surprise.

It wasn't anger or shock that I raised my voice with... The tension was getting to be unbearable. People had already died in front of me. Leo wasn't alone in wanting to find out why.

“...These three wankers stopped our tour bus, growling some satanic shit. One of them jumped inside to grab my wife, but I wasn't gonna let them anywhere near her. I gave him the old right hook, but he took a bite clean outta me! That's when the bus...”

He rolled his sleeve back down, obviously not wanting to worry his partner behind him. “Listen, kid. If you know anything about a way out of here, now would be a pretty fuckin' good time to say so. I got a family to look after...”

I shook my head curtly, still triggered by our proximity to those bodies outside. “We were just... Everything just happened... I've never been here before today, I was gonna go to the train station—” I paused for a second, trying to gather my thoughts. I must have sounded like a confused toddler, trying to retrace my steps. “W-Where are we, anyway?”

Leo told me about how after he was attacked, the pile-up on the bridge started attracting serious heat from the military. Soldiers showed up and opened fire on the crowd without warning, so they all ducked inside the mall’s entrance. They were the only ones who made it, and that was when he saw Ian and me about to be crushed by the truck.

Ian was starting to look worried again, so I tried to change the flow of the conversation. We had to stay cold, figure out some sort of direction without losing our minds.

“So, you don’t have any idea of what’s going on either... We both really appreciate you sticking your neck out for us back there, thanks.” Trying to rationalise everything, only minutes after waking up… This mess was starting to give me a headache.

“I think the best thing for us to do…” I folded my chin into my fist, pausing to grumble. “...Hmm. Maybe we should see if there's any trains running? You know, something to get us out of here as fast as possible. Then we can all head home and forget that today ever happened. Worth a shot?”

Leo thought about it carefully for a moment, then motioned for his wife to follow him. “We've been here on holiday before — there should be a way through to the station, directly through this mall. Even if the trains have stopped, there could still be an evacuation service... Kid, I hope you’re right about this. I can't deal with any more
freaks.
"

With a tense nod in response, all I cared about was getting some distance from those bloodied ragdolls we'd seen on the bridge. They didn't seem like ‘freaks’ to me... just regular people, desperate for help.

As we charged past the various abandoned shops, it suddenly hit me that the entire complex was completely dead.
Where did everyone go? Are they already…?

Each compartment was either left open with all the lights on, or had the shutters down in complete darkness. Perhaps the owners were still trapped inside, hiding — seemed like a better idea than sprinting across the centre and attracting all sorts of unwanted attention.

Leo crashed against the marble walls every time we turned a sharp corner; his wrecked arm was obviously holding him back, as much as he refused to admit it. The wound did look pretty nasty, but his 'tough-dad' attitude told me that he would be pissed if I asked whether I could help.

We finally made it to a widened staircase, and at the bottom I could just barely see the base of a turnstile. We'd arrived at Waverly Station, against all odds. I let out a sigh of relief, knowing that the only thing left to do was to see if any of the trains were still being operated.
Then I can just go home and forget this nightmare...

All four of us hobbled towards the only lit-up train in the station. As soon as we got to the other side of the tracks, we could see dozens of terrified people pushing and yelling as they demanded to know what was going on.

After an oblivious second or two of staring into the crowd, my heart began to sink... It was painfully clear, just by looking at the number of potential passengers.

Not everyone would be able to fit onto the train.

My gaze aligned with the very front carriage, where a concerned train conductor tried not to acknowledge the angry mob surrounding him. Leo’s wife clutched her child’s hand tighter, whispering to her husband in a  hushed tone.

“...They know that someone’s going to be left behind... Oh, this is just awful.”

The husband didn't seem to react.

“...Leo? What's wrong, honey?”

His eyes rolled until they were completely white, and he hit the station floor.

“...Help!! My husband... Someone help!!” she screamed. A handful of passengers ran over to Leo’s aid, now writhing in agonizing pain.

Blood trickled out from under his arm, and someone from the concerned group took it upon themselves to investigate. They slowly retracted the red-stained sleeve to reveal the gushing bite wound. Everyone reacted like it was fire, all of them fleeing back to the train as they smacked on the doors and desperately cried for help.

I didn't see what they thought the train conductor could do for Leo. At the time, I thought they were still trying to help us. The man had stopped breathing, his wife throwing herself to the ground and screaming his name through panicked tears.

I yelled for someone, anyone to do something... Ian ran up to the crowd, but they pushed him back with extreme paranoia. They were trying to get away... from us.

“S-Stay back!! Don't fucking touch me!” The distrust in the crowd’s eyes felt intense, like they knew something we didn't. I was confused, but it slowly became clear that it was too late to save the man.

His wife tried giving him some kind of CPR, for a full three minutes. Unfortunately, nothing was happening. His little girl begged for her daddy to wake up, but he didn’t budge. It was all too much for me to handle.

Once again, I was frozen in place by the surrounding tragedies. I had only just met the man, and without any warning, he’d simply collapsed and died... Leo was dead.

Only something truly horrific would make me wish he’d stay like that.