Thrown Away by Glynn James

Thrown Away

Digital Edition
    Glynn James
     

First published 2014 by Glynn
    Copyright © Glynn
    The right of Glynn to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
    This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
    All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any other means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

About the Author
     
    GLYNN JAMES , born in Wellingborough, England in 1972, is a bestselling author of dark sci-fi novels.
    He has an obsession with anything to do with zombies, Cthulhu mythos, and post-apocalyptic and dystopian fiction and films, all of which began when he started reading HP Lovecraft and Richard Matheson’s   I Am Legend  back when he was eight years old.
    In addition to co-authoring the bestselling ARISEN books (over 100,000 copies sold), he is the author of the bestselling  DIARY OF THE DISPLACED series. More info on his writing and projects can be found at www.glynnjames.co.uk .

THROWN AWAY
    In a fallen world
    He sensed them in the darkness, all around, moving quickly through the building, room by room as they searched. Every few minutes the silence was broken by loud crashing sounds as they broke into another area, the clatter of broken wood scattering across rotten floorboards and cracked concrete, or the terrible, grief-stricken and desperate cries of those who had been found, their hiding places uncovered. He could hear the thud of boots sometimes, echoing through the corridors, or the creaking of the building's very structure as it protested against the abuse.
    Centuries old and given to spontaneous collapse, the tenement buildings of the outer zone had ceased to be safe long before any of their current residents had been born, but the crumbling ruins were the only real shelter for many of the inhabitants of the zone, the only place to hide from the danger on the streets or the often unforgiving weather.
    Most of the dangers lay outside of the crumbling walls - things that wandered the streets at night that were far from human, but the hunting squads from the city travelled deep into the darkness of the buildings, seeking those who would avoid capture. Finally, the noise that everyone dreaded could be heard in the distance - the rising hum and the sharp crackling buzz as a stun rifle was fired.
    Jack sat in silence, listening, willing his nerves to calm and his heart rate to slow. T he sounds were getting closer now, and he knew they were in a nearby corridor, possibly just a few rooms away. He heard boots shuffling along the floor, and the crash of rubbish as it was kicked aside - the barrier that he had built outside provided no protection, was merely an inconvenience for the heavily armoured troopers whose faces had never been seen, at least by anyone who remained to tell of them.
    Jack had never known where the raiding parties took the captured, for no one ever returned. There were always tales, and rumours of course, but no one that he had ever met had confirmed any of them.
    The corridors of the sprawling, old building were littered with the junk and debris of decades, most of it useless and left there because there was nowhere else for it to go. But the trash also acted as a territorial marker, a sign of neighbouring borders, of marked out claims. Often it was piled up to waist height, to act as a makeshift defensive barrier, and a way to slow intruders down or ward them away.