Aftermath The Beginning: Part 3

January 18th 2015:


We woke up this morning and looked outside, the landscape is white, it must have been a snow storm during the night, all we know is that we are freezing cold, Crystal told us that she had found a food place that actually wasn't too bad, at least the freezer had power via its own generator, so the food still tasted good.

After we had eaten we found a way onto the roof, and sat watching the sun rise, Skyler had been watching something in the distance for quite a while before she said "there seems to be someone over there" with that she pointed into the distance, we all looked over to where she was pointing, and then we saw it, someone was moving though the snow.

Turns out it was a lot of someones, all we could really see was the furrows in the snow, slowly lengthening, heading towards the Thames, we counted about fifteen lines in all, so that means fifteen others that are heading the same direction as us, we began shouting to them, our voices easily echoing through the city, the lines stopped and after Wes managed to find some binoculars we managed to see them.

We took turns looking at the people heading back towards were we were, after that we started a fire with a barbecue so they could follow the smoke to us, Myself and Skyler went out to meet them, we always carry our weapons with us in case, mainly because of all the things we had heard from films and books about the end of the world.

So leaden down by two bats, aswel as our other gear we headed out into the snow, it took us almost an hour to find them as just after we left a snowstorm kicked up, the wind blew us this way and that, the visibility was virtually none and we kept walking into things like lamp posts and bollards, after about forty five minutes the storm began to die down and that's when we found them.

Out of no where these guys appeared out of the snow, twenty people in all, all cold and miserable, two people shouted our names from the back of the group, Rushing forwards to meet us, We couldn't believe our eyes when we saw Matt and Tara! after we shared hugs and words of relief we began leading them back to the shopping center.

Amazingly it didn't take as long as we had expected, though there were some really weird noises carrying on the wind, like a moaning and the sound of cracking, in the end though we got everyone inside and sat around a large campfire that the others had got running, Crystal and Lilla were ecstatic to see Matt and Tara again and asked them all about what had happened on there journey and where they were heading.

After a little once everyone was fed and had a fresh change of warm clothes, we settled back around the fire, i counted five children, three girls and two boys, and out of the adults there were six women and nine men, Matt and Tara had found them all and lead them south, in the hopes of finding warmer weather, all anyone cared about was that others had been found and that we weren't alone.

After we settled the new comers down Tara and Matt sat with us and told us what had happened to them:

December 21st 2014.

NORTHAMPTON: Tara and Matt had left two hours earlier, heading into the cold in the hopes of finding some place with more people, they headed towards Cambridge, their path taking them almost a day to get there, it was there that they found some more survivors, four to be exact, Katie, Eric, Nathan and Elliot, who soon joined them as they then began to head towards London.

As they moved down for town to town more people joined them, Abby and Carrie, John and Jaime, both Ben's, Bethany, Terry, Kath and Sarah, The kids were all found with Kath and Sarah in a nursery, they had found the children there on the second day and hidden from the rioting.

They had eventually gotten to twenty four people but four had left to go back to their home towns, in the hopes of finding family and friends, so far everyone else had decided to stay, as a tight knit group they moved their way down south.

And so they were slowly picking up survivors along the way, they explained how they found their way into London by pure luck as the storm began to hit, and how they thought they would die in the cold because they couldn't access the buildings, until they heard our shouting, they didn't realise it was us until they got here...

As Matt and Tara filled us in Lilla and Crystal were listening in rapt silence, leaning forward and eagerly awaiting more, Wes and Roy nodded and asked the occasional questions while looking over our ration supply, Skyler and Myself were writing, i about what they said and Skyler about our future plans, without realising it we had all started to follow her, She is the smartest and bravest out of all of us, so it was natural that she would take the rains, no one had a problem with it, well.... not that they voiced.

So here we are, it's something like four in the morning and we are all resting around the fire, Lilla and Skyler started drawing on a huge blank wall earlier to brighten the place up, we've decided to stay here until after the winter so tomorrow Crystal, Roy, John, Both Ben's, Wes and myself are going out to look for more supplies and things to help make some comfort for us all, it's like we are building a community in a three story shopping center, so it's best we get some rest....

END OF PART 3.....


For this entry i wanted to open it up to slightly longer entries while still building the characters, i'm trying to do it in a way that you won't find boring, i've always felt that you feel more for the characters if you leave the story to build into what it will become, to build on the human factor before introducing anything that will not allow that to build in such a way! i hope you are enjoying the series so far as i will be doing one more part before the new year and then two every month after that, as i have other projects that i wish to work on aswel as this, i'd love to hear your feedback on the story so far below, feel free to drop a comment and contact me via my Facebook page! Thanks guys, it means a lot that you've been following it! - Alex Tiltman...