Love at the End of the World

help me rescue him, or you can leave me alone to do it myself,” Chloe announced before pulling out a bag from under Adam's bed and loading it with weapons from his wall.

  “I was a post woman,” Toni said.

  “What?”

  “Before I was loaded into a truck and taken to a facility to be tested on, I was just a post woman. The only things I had to fight off were dogs, I wouldn't have escaped the facility without Adam. I don't know how to fight.”

  “That makes two of us then, should make it interesting shouldn't it?” Chloe grinned at her.

  “Are you trying to get yourself killed?” Toni shook her head in disbelief.

  “If only I had someone to go with me who could heal me if I got hurt...,” Chloe looked pointedly at Toni.

  “Fine, I can't bring people back from the dead, so if you get killed, don't blame me.”

  “You know that sentence doesn't make any sense, right?” Chloe questioned as she slung the bag over her shoulder and her legs almost buckled under the weight.

  “Neither does breaking into the place I just broke out of, so we can both die...or worse but still...here we are,” she retorted, taking the bag from Chloe and trying not to show how heavy it felt as she slung it over her shoulder.

  “Just for the record, this is a really bad idea,” Toni said as she and Chloe ducked behind a wall close to the enormous building.

  “Noted, now do you know the way in?”

  “Did you even hear what I just said?”

  “Yes, bad idea, blah blah blah, now let's go.” Chloe was running towards the building before Toni had chance to argue.

  “Wait,” Toni whispered loudly.

  “I'm not changing my mind,” Chloe argued.

  “I get that, but you're going the wrong way, the best way in is through the basement.”

  “Oh.”

  “Follow me,” Toni said and ran in the opposite direction.

  Chloe raced after Toni, her feet lightly tapping the ground as they bounced off the gravel. They reached the basement and Chloe nervously looked out for any signs of security while Toni picked the locks.

  “What's the plan?” she asked hopefully once they were inside.

  “Can we get to where most of the prisoners are kept?” Chloe asked.

  “Not at this time of the night." Toni looked at her watch. “They'll all be in separate cells.

  Chloe thought for a moment before asking, “so there's a time when they're not separated?”

  “An hour a day in the main hall.”

  “What time and where is that?”

  “10am, directly above that entrance,” Toni pointed to the door at the far end of the basement. “There's a flight of stairs, there's two locks, I can pick those to get us into the hall from this side of the building but...”

  “What?”

  “There's usually at least ten armed guards supervising leisure time.”

  “Oh, I have five weapons.” Chloe said digging into the bag, “not including this.” She pulled out a pistol.

  “Do you even know how to use that thing?” Toni looked at her incredulously.

  “I've watched Adam doing target practice”

  “Just be careful. So Adam knows how to take care of himself, why wouldn't he teach you to shoot and fight?”

  “What makes you think he didn't?”

  “I've seen him fight. He didn't pass those skills onto you.”

  “I don't know, I guess you should ask him that. I never get a proper answer out of him,” Chloe admitted.

  “Okay,” Toni began, “well if we can get weapons to some of the prisoners, hopefully they’ll help us, because it helps them too. I know you're here to rescue Adam, but I think our best chance of doing that is to rescue as many of the others too.”

  “That makes sense, I guess.” Chloe sat down under the stairs. “I guess we should rest, as we have a few hours.” She fell asleep quickly as Toni spent the night pacing and watching over Chloe, wondering how anyone could sleep under the circumstances. All too soon it was morning.

  “Hey, Chloe, It's almost ten.” Toni shook her awake.

  Where am I? Chloe took a moment to remember the events of the last twenty-four hours.

  “We don't have to do this. We could wait until tonight and sneak out the same way we came in,” Toni mistook her confusion for doubt over what they're were about to do.

  “Let's go,” Chloe said with as much certainty as she could manage.

  Once they reached the top of the stairs, Toni picked the locks, as promised, then Chloe tossed the bag towards a group as prisoners, leaving them to scrabble for weapons' spilling out of the bag. She and Toni quickly dived behind a wall, leading to a corridor with a door at the end. They both knew the chances were that it would be locked, so could only press their bodies tightly against the wall to avoid the gunshots from some of the guards.

  “What now?” Toni asked.

  “I don't suppose you saw Adam?”

  “Too busy looking at the angry armed guards,” came Toni's reply, over the sounds of fighting and gunfire.

  “Duck.”

  Toni automatically followed Chloe's instruction as a guard ran towards them. Chloe fired her pistol just before the guard fired his own weapon. Blood appeared from the guard’s abdomen.

  I hit him? Dumb luck, I guess. Why does my arm hurt so much? It shouldn't hurt this much, should it?

  “Chloe,” Toni looked up at her.

  Chloe looked at the blood seeping from her arm, “how?” she asked staggering against the wall.

  Toni stood and began to heal her while Chloe held the gun with her other hand in case any more guards came at them. Fortunately, they all seemed too preoccupied with the prisoners. Those with weapons were using them and some seemed to have taken weapons from a few of the fallen guards. Those without weapons were working in small groups to overpower the guards.

  “Adam,” she gasped at the welcome sight of him appeared in front of them, holding his rifle from the bag Chloe had bought with her.

  “Nice pistol, looks familiar somehow,” Adam looked at her disapprovingly, before shaking his head at Toni.

  “I couldn't just leave you,” Chloe reasoned.

  “She was going to come, with or without me,” Toni said defensively.

  “Later, let's just get out of here alive,” Adam said in the tone that Chloe knew meant she'd be in big trouble later.

  Once Chloe, Toni, Adam and a group of surviving captives had escaped and managed to steal a mini bus, Adam turned to Chloe and Toni in the seat behind his.

  “What the hell were you thinking Chloe? You could have been killed.”

  “I was thinking about getting you out of that place, before they turned you into who knows what.” Chloe tried her best to look him in the eye.

  “She meant well and it worked," Toni began.

  “And you," Adam turned his rant towards Toni, “I trusted you to make sure she was okay, why else would I have helped you escape? You were meant to keep her safe.”

  “That's enough Adam,” Chloe intervened, ”I've had enough of you 'keeping me safe' you might not have noticed, but there is no safe anymore, you were in trouble and I wanted to help, Toni couldn't have stopped me.”

  Adam glared at them both, opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again.

  “I'm sorry,” Toni told him.

  When they reached the house, Adam was unusually quiet.

  A few of the people Chloe had inadvertently rescued spoke to her to offer their thanks. She felt slightly guilty accepting their gratitude. They weren't the ones she had set out to save, just a by-product.

  “Get some sleep,” Adam ordered. “We leave tomorrow. It's not safe here.”

  “Adam...,” Chloe stared to go after him, as he headed upstairs.

  “He needs time” Toni held onto Chloe's arm to pull her back.

  She decided to distract herself by setting up sleeping bags and pillows for the new guests, while Toni healed the injuries they had sustain
ed during the escape.

  I'm glad she's here and not only because I could have bled to death without her I know now is not the best time to get involved with some woman I just met, but if it were Toni would be exactly my type.

  “You did a good thing here,” Toni stood next to Chloe, as people started to turn in for the night, even though it's barely dark outside.

  It doesn't matter that I didn't intend to save these people, they're here and alive anyway. I don't know who is going to kill us all off first, the government or the vampires. I suspect the vampires are a product of their tests, but without people, there's nothing left to fight for.

  “What are you thinking?” Toni interrupted Chloe's inner revelation

  “We have to fight this, the government, the vampires, whatever else they throw at us, or what's the point?” She expected Toni to argue, to echo Adams words, that it wasn't safe, so her response threw Chloe off guard.

  “We will,” she promised, slipping her arm around Chloe’s shoulders.

  I should pull away now, but I need the reassurance that I feel when I'm close to her, because I don't know what's going to happen, but I know we won't all survive this.

  “I might not survive this, but that's okay,” Chloe told Toni.

  She nodded seeming to understand, while planting a kiss of Chloe’s forehead.

  The following morning Adam woke Chloe at dawn. She took her chance, before the others were awake.

  “We can't keep running, you know that right? Soon they won't be anywhere left to run.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “We stay in one place. We fight, we...”

  “We've been over this,” he replied wearily.

  “Please, teach me how to fight, it's great that I can kill a vampire by getting bitten but...”

  “I've been in one of those labs, do you have any ideas what they would do to