72 Days

PROLOGUE

It was Tom's 18th, and Rachel had planned a romantic day out in London, first a small lunch in a small cafe, with a small present for him to open there, then she had booked for the two of them to go onto the London eye, which Tom had always said he wanted to do, after that, two tickets in the electric cinema to see the new Marvel movie that came out, Tom always talked about how he wanted to go to the electric cinema, he'd just never got round to it, it was just like a normal cinema, but instead of the usual chairs, there are sofas and beds, for you to sit and lie on whilst watching a film on the big screen, very cool! And finally a dinner at his favourite restaurant. It was all so well planned, and she had it in her head as the perfect day for the both of them.

Rachel had played through all possible scenarios in her head, and all of them were good. She was in love with him, and he with her, she knew that. She could've done something small and he would have loved her the same, but she wanted to make it special, make it memorable.

Rachel and Tom were enjoying their lunch together, it was Saturday, March 15th, and London was buzzing. They were at their favourite cafe, on the corner of Central and Lever Street in the city centre, and although they were having a nice time, Rachel couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right, and then Tom smiled at her across the table, and all her worries vanished, he was so amazing, with his sparkling blue eyes, and scruffy dark hair. He was eating a panini, ham and cheese, he loved his food, could devour a full sized large pizza in five minutes, easy. But he never seemed to put on weight, lucky bastard. She looked over his shoulder into the mass of people walking up and down the road, thinking about how lucky she was to be living in a place that wasn't currently being affected by Xinoth.

“What you thinking about?” Tom said, over the buzz of London she barely heard him but it snapped her back to reality, as she realised she had been staring into space.

“Sorry”, she smiled at him, “I was in another world there, how's your panini?” Rachel skirted the question, she didn't like thinking about Xinoth, let alone talk about it, but it was always there in the back of her mind.

“Ah, it's alright, could do with a touch of salt, but nonetheless, a decent attempt.” He smiled again, nothing ever seemed to get him down, although she could tell he knew exactly what she was thinking, the way he smiled, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. Tom knew she hated talking about Xinoth, and he also knew it was personal, today it seemed he had decided to avoid the subject as well. He took another few huge bites out of his panini, finishing it just minutes after it had arrived in front of him, and looked over at Rachel's plate.

“You gunna eat that?” Rachel knew if she didn't give him some of her tuna sandwich, he'd be constantly complaining about how hungry he was during the day. So she cut it in two, and gave him the bigger half, and whilst she finished her half, she thought about what he would do for her 18th, it was still another four months away, but she couldn't help thinking about it, July 21st. She loved having her birthday then, basically the middle of the year, most of the time it's sunny, but you know England, England loves a good rain in the Summer.

She watched him scoff the rest of her sandwich down and smiled, and thought about 4 years ago when they first met here. She was washing the dishes as a summer job just to get some money for savings, and he stumbled in through the back door looking for food to steal. He had a nice family, he had just got in with the wrong crowd, like a lot of teenage boys in and around London. He managed to stammer out something really smart like; “where’s ya food at gurl?”, and it was clear he was drunk out of his mind, but Rachel took pity, he looked around the same age, so she pulled up a chair and gave him a glass of water, took a loaf of leftover bread and gave it to him. He looked up at her and squinted, like he was trying really hard to see anything, and then scoffed the loaf of bread so quickly. She filled up the glass of water, and continued with her pots and pans, then she cleared and cleaned the surfaces, and finally swept and mopped the floors. She shouted through the kitchen door, “I'm finished Fabio, I'll see you tomorrow!” and before she heard a reply she took this drunk mess outside, put his arm over her shoulder and half carried, half dragged him back to her house. Her parents wouldn't have cared, even if they had been home, but she dropped him on the sofa, and went to bed herself. She could figure out what to do with him in the morning.

Morning came round and as she was making herself a cup of tea, she heard the boy groan from the sofa. Hangover, she thought, and put a couple of slices of bacon on, then thought back to how quickly he had eaten that loaf of bread, she smiled, and put the rest of the packet in, 8 slices of bacon cooking on the stove. He seemed to stop groaning when he smelled the food, and stumbled through into the kitchen.

“Morning!” Rachel said happily, he winced and put both hands on his ears.

“Don't, don't do that, it's hard enough to walk straight at the moment, I don't need someone to tell me what time of day it is.” There are two types of people in this world, the ones that say something like that and it would come out as rude and arrogant, and the ones that say something like that and it would come out as some kind of a funny joke, and everything that they say is taken lightly. This boy was the latter, Rachel laughed and he winced some more, and then he seemed to realise that he wasn't in his own house, he looked around like he was lost, and then took a closer look at Rachel.

“Who the hell are you? Where the hell am I? Is that bacon?” He looked confused, intrigued and mischievous all at the same time, Rachel imagined it was a look that got him into a lot of trouble at school, but he was also handsome, a good looking boy, he had a scar above is right eye, it was quite white and faded, but it cut a line in his eyebrow, so was quite visible. She later learned he managed to get that particular scar when he was four, and chasing his cat around his house he'd tripped over and smacked his head against the skirting board on the wall.

“My name's Rachel, you're in my house, and yes this is bacon.” She smiled at him nicely and asked his name,

“Tom.”

“Well, Tom..” and as she put all the bacon onto one plate, he started to eat them before they were all on the plate, she explained to him the events that had landed him on the sofa in her house.

“My mum is going to kill me.” Was his first reaction, followed shortly by, “Oh god, my mum is literally going to murder me, she told me to be back by ten.” Rachel laughed and told him he'd better get going then, he tried to call but his phone was out of charge, and Rachel's landline hadn't been working since they had moved in 2 years previous. So he started to run out of the house, and then turned back, grabbed a pen, and wrote his number on a notepad on the table.

“Thanks for the bacon.” He kissed her on the cheek, and ran outside and down the road, halfway down he stopped, looked around, did a 180, and ran the other way, back past the front door. He waved as he came closer, with a stupid grin on his face. Rachel smiled and waved back, and she knew then that, that wasn't the last time she would see strange Tom.

“Earth to Rachel!” She was brought back to reality again, Tom was looking at her like she was an alien, “You were gone again weren't you, what's up with you today, you okay?”

“Fine, sorry, just tired, didn't get a great night's sleep.” Rachel wasn't very good at lying, but she knew Tom wouldn't press, he knew she wouldn't ever be unfaithful to him, which means that she just doesn't want to talk about whatever she's thinking about. He pursed his lips, in a way she knew all too well, it meant; if you don't talk to me, how am I supposed to help. But she knew he wouldn't press the subject.

He looked round to where she was staring, just over his right shoulder, wondering if there was something or someone that she was looking at in particular. She smiled at the motion, and said “There's nothing there Tom, come on, let's settle the bill and move on.” He was still staring behind him, and Rachel's smile started to fade, “Tom?”. She noticed his hand on the table, usually a colour so full of life, it was changing colour in front of her eyes, from a healthy pink, to pale white, to a mouldy lime green. “Tom, are you okay?” Panic in her voice now, and he started to turn round, and she realised something was wrong, by how his neck was moving, it was almost fluid, she started to scream as he looked at her. It was still his face, but it was mouldy, and a pale greenish white. His teeth were yellow and black, he had red eyes, and he lunged at her over the table, aiming for the throat, a quick kill.

CHAPTER I

RACHEL

Rachel woke up, in her room, shook off the nightmare, and looked out the window, to see it was daytime, and scratched a line into the wall next to the others with her pocket knife, she never went to bed without it. 54 days had gone since the apocalypse started. She looked around her room, it was more of a cell; metal door, near impossible to open from the outside if locked from the inside, concrete walls, an old stained, ripped mattress on the floor in the corner opposite the door, with a window above the mattress directly opposite the door, a dresser in the other corner on the same wall as the window, with barely any clothes in, and in the corner opposite that a cupboard, Then a couple of items she called hers, a torch on top of the cupboard, she had managed to grab that before leaving her apartment, a photo of her and Tom, always kept in her pocket, in case she wasn't able to get back into her cell. On top of the dresser was a bowl with a handful of chalk she had found when she decided to loot a primary school, thought it could come in handy some day. Leaning against her dresser was her weapon of choice, a handmade club, a nasty looking thing, a baseball bat, with large nails sticking out all over the top, apart from, she had left one side flat, and had a strap attached to the handle, so that she could strap it to her belt loop, and when she walked the flat edge was banging against her leg, as opposed to the nailed edge.

“Home” she said aloud, what a wonderful place to call home, she thought sarcastically.

In her old life, before the Reapers took over London she wouldn't have been caught dead in a place like this, it was the sort of place druggies or alcoholic teens would hang out, as it happened she had cleaned this place out of syringes, needles, broken bottles and cans of beer when she had moved in, she got a nasty cut on the palm of her left hand having miscalculated how sharp a bit of glass bottle was. It would scar nicely, she thought as she looked at her hand wrapped in homemade bandage - a ripped t-shirt, which she had found in a store a few days after she got cut. Rachel walked over to the cupboard, and opened it up.

“Shit.” there were two tins in there, one of beans and the other chopped tomatoes and one bottle of water.

“Need to go shopping.” She said aloud to herself, and then laughed at the concept of shopping, it was a dry laugh, not a humorous one, humour seemed to have evaporated from the world and survival was all that mattered from now on, until the inevitable end. She knew it was coming, so she had a plan, if she ever got into a situation she knew was impossible to escape from, to avoid turning into a Reaper out there, that spiked club seemed to be very effective in the head. She didn't like the plan, but seeing as how this part of the world currently is, there's not much else to fill the mind in spare time. Memories of how it used to be? No, that just hurts, a lot.

Right now, instead of shopping, it was more scavenging for food. The majority of the supermarkets had been looted, or were deemed too dangerous to go near, but some of the smaller shops still had food tins and drinks in, and weren't completely surrounded by the Reapers. Other places to get food from were apartments or houses, most of the bigger places had been looted of everything, as soon as the apocalypse had started, the people that give teenagers a bad name decided they would take it upon themselves to take any luxuries they wanted, ignoring the fact that if they kept going out, in a short amount of time, they would be attacked and either turned into a Reaper, or get killed. Idiots. The lot of them. Rachel had mostly kept herself to herself, only a few friends, but they were good friends, the best she could've asked for. She hadn't heard anything from any of them since before the 17th of March, which could mean anything, but she had decided not to get her hopes up.

She picked up her handmade club from the side of her dresser, something she would never leave the room without, took the handful of chalk and stuffed it into her pocket, and grabbed the torch from on top of the cupboard, and moved over to the door. She undid the latch and slowly opened the door, turned the torch on and shone it up and down the tunnel. Nothing, fortunately. She hadn't been so lucky other times, across the tunnel opposite the door was a constant reminder, a body and blood spatters behind it from where she had to fight her way out of her room one time. A couple of other bodies littered the tunnel where she had to kill to survive, unfortunately, this world had turned into kill or be killed. She closed the door behind her, and looked at the door, seven more scratches around the keyhole. Rachel wished there was some kind of smell proof door, that's 153 scratches on the door now, it's getting more consistent, more of the Reapers are going to start working out that she is living there, and they're going to return there every night, it's only a matter of time before they wait outside for her to come out. I’m going to have to move soon. She thought, she looked at the door again, then put her hood up and walked away, holding her club in her right hand, her torch in her left, and keeping her left hand on the left wall at all times. It was time to find some food.

..............................................................................

She almost made it out of the tunnel without incident, a tunnel was a nice way of putting it, it was a sewer to be exact, fortunately it didn't smell anymore. It did when she had first found the place, but since then most of the smell had been filtered out, and none had replaced it. There aren't many people using toilets nowadays. Using her torch and her left hand on the wall, she counted and turned left on the third corner. She knew better than to go down the first left turn, it smelt horrible down there, which usually meant the Reapers were about. The second turning she had been down and covered most of that area and so had crossed it off with the chalk, no need to go down there anymore. The third turn she had barely been down, and walking down it now, she slowed down to snail pace, as she didn't know the layout as well as the other two routes. She had no idea how long these sewers ran for, but she imagined it all linked to everywhere in London, so if someone was able to map it all out, they'd be able to go anywhere in London. What an amazing thing that would be, she barely knew a mile of tunnels.

She found the nearest ladder on the left hand side of the wall, an old trick she had learned, if you stay attached to the left wall, you can never get lost, just turn around and head back the other way and stay attached to the right wall, you'll get back to where you started. That method combined with the chalk she used to mark the walls with small arrows, telling her the ways to go, she was confident she wasn't going to get lost, provided she didn't do something stupid. Rachel marked an arrow pointing left on the wall to the left of the ladder, just to make doubly sure she wouldn't turn the wrong way when she came back down. She strapped the club to her belt loop, turned the torch off and put it in her mouth and started climbing the ladder.

That's when she heard the moaning, it was close, too close, she'd never make it to the top of the ladder before it smelt her, grabbed her legs and pulled her to the ground. It was like the Reaper had waited until she was at her most vulnerable before making itself known, waited until she had holstered her weapon and lost sight. She was only a few rungs up the ladder, so she dropped to the ground, now facing away from the ladder with her back to the wall, she undid her club, and turned the torch on, but left it in her mouth so she could use both hands for fighting, she looked in the general direction of the noise. And there it was, ten metres to Rachel's left, moving slowly towards her, dragging its right leg behind it as it moved. She might have felt sorry for it had she not known exactly what it was and what it wanted. It looked like it had previously been a guy, but she couldn't tell the age, anywhere between 18 and 40. As she was studying it, it lunged and started to run towards her at alarming pace, Rachel didn't panic, but noticed that as it charged it had lowered its head, she stepped silently to her right out of the way of the charge and away from the ladder, it hadn't realised she had moved, its head was too low. As it neared where Rachel had been, she swung her club with both hands, horizontally, at about her shoulder height, which for the charging Reaper was exactly head height. The nails on the end of the club smashed the Reapers skull as they entered it's head, Rachel hadn't used a lot of force in her swing, but had timed it perfectly so that she combined the momentum of the Reapers speed, and her swing, to smash its head into one of the rungs on the ladder, splitting its skull there as well as where the nails on her club had entered. It was messy, she admitted to herself, but using her foot on the Reapers face, she pulled her club out of its head, and then holding onto one of the rungs and using it as leverage, she pushed the Reaper off of the rung, so she had a clear climb up the ladder. She paused for a few seconds, she knew it was dead, but she was listening for any others out there. She forced herself to count to 20 slowly, and when she reached it, she breathed a sigh of relief and re-strapped the club to her belt loop, this time kept the torch on, and climbed the ladder.