Last One To Die: Short Story

By James Loscombe

Beware The Hand of Friendship In an Unfriendly World

Tim has spent most of his life in servitude to a cruel master, but what is the alternative? Even his master's viscious hand is better than starving to death in the wilderness. When he meets two men from New Haven, who are willing to help him, Tim is eager to accept. But he finds out too late that the cost might be more than he is willing to pay.

Last One To Die is a story about survival in a harsh post-apocalyptic world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Loscombe
• Release date: Jan 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9781540100078

James Loscombe

James Loscombe has been publishing under various pen names for the last five years. He lives in England with his wife Tamzin and their sons Jude and Oscar.

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The floor shook with the sound of music and raised voices from below. He pulled the covers back and looked at the door as if he expected someone to come in. There was no one there. He could relax, for now.

There was no light coming through the thin curtains pulled across the tiny window. It was the middle of the night but sleep didn’t seem possible. Tim pulled the remains of his bed sheets off and stood up. The floor was warm on his bare feet, his stripy pyjamas were too small and hung half way up his calves. He walked to the window and opened the curtains enough to see the orange lights from the cigarettes which men were smoking out front.

A familiar creak behind him and his heart seemed to jump into his throat. He turned around as the door swung open and for a moment he thought they had come back for him.

‘You awake kiddo?’ Margaret said. When she closed the door behind her he breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Couldn’t sleep huh?’

He shook his head.

‘Me neither.’ She walked across the room in three small steps and joined him by the window. ‘Whatcha looking at?’

‘Nothing,’ Tim said. There was nothing outside to look at. The mumbled conversations of the men with cigarettes was just noise. Even when it was light there was nothing to see except the dusty plains stretching into the distance and the small clump of trees where he was sometimes allowed to play.

He turned away from the window to face Margaret. Despite only being twelve, and her being somewhere nearer thirty, he was taller than her. When it was light he could see the patch of grey hair that had taken root on top of her head.

She sucked in a sharp breath through her teeth when she looked at him and tenderly raised a hand to his face. ‘Does it still hurt?’ she said.

Tim shook his head. It was a lie but he didn’t want her to know that the pain, as much as the noise, was what kept him awake. He turned away from her hand and it fell back to her side.

They stood in silence for a moment and listened to the mumble of conversation from below. The music changed to something more upbeat and was joined by drunken voices attempting to sing. Tim looked over her shoulder to the door, partly because he was worried it might open again, but mostly because looking at Margaret in her revealing clothes made him feel strange. She didn’t seem to realise the effect she had on him and was as comfortable walking around in her underwear as she had ever been.

‘You know you can talk to me about it if you want,’ she said.

He shook his head, the bruises on his cheeks ached. ‘It’s fine.’

Margaret looked at him for a moment longer and then nodded, respecting his wishes