Dead Days: Season 3 (Books 13-18) (13 page)

She could taste something in her mouth, too. Like copper, as if she had a penny in her mouth. She opened her eyes some more, wondering what the nasty smell and the horrible taste were, trying to see in the darkness.

It was dark. Very dark. And she was cold now, she realised that. This wasn’t her bed. She wasn’t under a blanket, either.

Where was she?

She looked around. Looked around for a light. She’d had a dream like this before. A dream where she’d woke up in the pitch black and tried to find a light switch but couldn’t. So she’d screamed and screamed in the dream until she woke up screaming in real life. She didn’t sleep for days after that. She went to bed terrified every night, too scared to fall asleep. She wondered if that’s what the people felt like before they became monsters…‌

And then it clicked. The monsters. Her mum, her sister, all of them gone.

Her heart raced. Her breathing did, too.

She’d been in the woods. She’d followed some people. Some people with a deer. A man and a woman. And then…‌

She felt sick as the copper taste got stronger in her mouth.

She remembered the people. Remembered the man in the blue shirt with the black moustache, and the dirty looking woman. Remembered all the people tied up in that horrible room‌—‌the old man who looked like he was sleeping, the woman with the blue hair…‌

Wait. She wasn’t, was she? She couldn’t be…‌

She looked to her side and noticed someone twitching. She tried to move her hands, but it hurt to do so as they were tied to something behind her, tied so tight. Her feet were stuck, too. She couldn’t open her mouth to shout because there was something wrapped around it, something digging right into the corners of it.

She tried to move. She tried to shuffle away.

She was in the room. She was one of the poor people who were trapped in there.

She shook some more, but she knew there was no point. She was sick and dizzy and she wanted her mum so bad. Warm tears crawled down her cheeks. This was her fault. She should never have hurt Peter and Angela. She should never have hurt Anna, even though that was by accident. She should have stayed with Mike and maybe her mum would have lived. She should have stayed on the boat. They all should.

“Psst. Kid. You’re gonna have to keep quiet. Keep quiet or they’ll be in for you sooner than you think.”

The voice was a woman’s. It came from Chloë’s left. She couldn’t properly see the woman yet because her eyes were still getting used to the dark, as well as stinging from the tears. She could just see that she had long hair. And she had a soft voice. Like she was calm.

Chloë blabbered and whimpered some more. She couldn’t help it. She just wanted a nice Christmas. A nice Christmas with nice people, and this is what she got.

“Kid, seriously,” the woman whispered. “I’m not so keen on them finding me with my gag off. Just…‌” The woman looked over her shoulder at the other tied up people, then back at Chloë. “These‌—‌these gags, they aren’t as tough as they seem. You’ve just gotta push them up your face instead of down. Push them up over your top lip with your tongue. But‌—‌but be quiet when you do. I think they meant for us to slip ‘em so it gives ‘em an excuse to take us for our turn quicker.”

Chloë squeezed her eyes shut. She squeezed her eyes shut and pushed at the gag with her little tongue. Pushed with everything she had until it made her throat sting, the sweaty taste of the gag making her feel sicker. But she couldn’t do it. She just wanted to breathe properly again. That’s all she wanted.

“Come on, kid. You…‌You’ve got to have strength if you want to make it. Most of these others, they don’t have strength. But I‌—‌I saw what you did earlier. The way you hid in here, then went sneaking out. You did good. Not great, but better than most. So come on. Try again.”

Chloë could see this woman better now. She had long, greasy dark hair and a little scar just peeked out beneath her gag. She was thin and had big cheekbones, but she was quite pretty if she was a bit cleaner.

Chloë looked ahead again. Stared into the darkness.

And then she yanked her tongue into the material of the gag and did all she could to lift it.

At first, she didn’t think she was getting anywhere, and her jaw was getting sore.

But slowly, bit by bit, the gag started to lift. It started to creep up her face, up towards her top lip, and then before she knew it, it was just wrapped above her top lip and her sore, chapped mouth was free.

She gasped. Gasped and let out a little shriek.

“Sssh!” the woman said. “Ssh. You did good. Very good. But you need to be quiet. What’s…‌How did you end up here, anyway?”

Chloë’s mind raced with thoughts. All she wanted to do was cry, not talk. “To‌—‌to Manchester. I was‌—‌I was going to this Living Zone and then…‌And then I was okay and then bad things happened and I…‌”

She let the tears pour out. She couldn’t hold them in anymore.

“It’s okay,” the woman whispered, leaning closer to Chloë. “It’s okay. You don’t have to talk. For what it’s worth, I had a shitty time getting here myself. But this…‌this Living Zone. You wanna drop that fantasy right away. Because there’s no such‌—‌”

“I saw it on a map!” Chloë shouted. She realised the error of her ways immediately as the other gagged people around the room shuffled, moaned, grumbled. “I…‌On the map the bad people had. That’s where they were going.”

The pretty woman smiled. “I saw gold at the bottom of a rainbow once. Doesn’t mean I ever found it.”

Chloë wasn’t sure what rainbows had to do with anything, but she thought she got what the woman was saying.

“Anyway, now you’re in this fine four-star establishment, you might as well tell me your name,” the woman said. Her voice was lighter. Friendlier.

Chloë gulped away a lump of copper-tasting snot in her throat. “Chl‌—‌Chloë,” she said.

“Chloë. Nice name.” The woman smiled. “I’d offer a handshake, but, erm…‌” She shook at the cuffs tied to the pipe behind her.

Chloë waited a few seconds. Waited, the pair of them in silence.

“What’s‌—‌what’s your name?” Chloë asked.

The woman smiled some more. “Thought you’d never ask. My name’s Jordanna.” She tilted her head in Chloë’s direction, her greasy brown hair almost touching Chloë’s face. “Pleasure to meet you, Chloë.”

Chapter Nine: Riley

“Get the hell back, Riley! Get the hell back!”

Riley stumbled back, Alan’s wheelchair in hand. The creatures‌—‌hundreds of them, all blocking the way through the darkness of the tunnel, all blocking the route to Lancaster.

All looking at Riley and Alan.

And all heading in their direction.

Riley pulled Alan back but he was finding it hard. His arms had turned to jelly, as had his legs. He dared not look over his shoulder. He knew there was nowhere to hide, anyway. Nothing to do but run.

But pulling Alan meant running was out of the question.

They were fucked.

“Get‌—‌get back so we can get a clear shot,” Alan shouted, trying his best to wheel himself away from the oncoming horde of creatures as fast as he could. They were so silent. That was the scariest thing about them. A part of Riley wondered whether he and Alan had taken them by as much surprise as they had he and Alan, but no. The creatures were never surprised. Besides, they should be groaning now.

They should, but they weren’t.

“You haven’t even glimpsed what hides under the iceberg yet, Riley.”

Riley pulled Alan back, the sounds of his wheels screeching against the metal of the walkway. He had a gun wrapped around his shoulder, and a heavy one at that, but the creatures were too close. Stopping now would be disastrous. Alan would die. Riley would soon follow.

Locked in a smelly, damp crypt under the earth trying to take a nutty scientist to save the world. He couldn’t have made this crap up.

Riley shuffled further back, his heart racing, his head spinning. Alan was messing around in the rucksack, the creatures still just a stone’s throw away, all of them following. And now they’d reached the last of the dim lights of the tunnel again, it just made Riley feel even worse. Now he could properly see the sheer number of them, all in the light.

Fuck. They had no chance. Not a chance whatsoever.

“Riley, I need you to do something,” Alan shouted, as he pulled out the biggest metal gun from the rucksack. Shit‌—‌no wonder the wheelchair was hard to push with that thing secretly hiding away.

“Do something?” Riley said, taking a look over his shoulder, down the endless, corner-less tunnel. “I’m fucking trying‌—‌”

“I need you to run the next fifty steps as fast as you can. And…‌and then I need you to stay behind me while I try something.”

“Run faster?” Riley said, his voice high and shaky. “I‌—‌I’m going as fast as I fucking can‌—‌”

“We need this!” Alan shouted. He fumbled around with the gun on his lap. The creatures were close, now. So close that Riley got that familiar whiff of death, of rotting. A smell he recognised instantly as the smell outside the tunnel. He cursed himself for even
thinking
he’d missed the “fresh” air outside.

He gulped. Got a tight grip of the wheelchair.

“Turn around. Run me in the direction we’ve come from for fifty steps. That’ll‌—‌that’ll give me enough time. Enough range.”

“Turn around?” Riley said. “But‌—‌”

“Just bloody well do as you’re told for once,” Alan said, in a tone reminiscent to how Riley’s granddad used to speak to him.

He bit into his lip. Bit into his lip, muttered swear words under his breath. Turned around, stared in the direction opposite, the footsteps of the army of creatures clanging at the metal so close behind.

“Okay. Okay. I’m going!”

Riley launched himself as fast as he could in the direction they’d come from. He pulled Alan’s wheelchair along behind him. The speed he was trying to go was so quick that the weight of Alan’s wheelchair felt like it was going to pull Riley’s arms out of their sockets.

Eight, nine, ten, eleven…‌

He kept on going. Kept going, trying his best to keep on a straight route, trying his best not to let go of Alan, trying his best not to pass out with his shallow breathing.

Twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven…‌

He tasted metal in his mouth. Realised he’d been biting down so hard that he’d pierced his lips.

He’d be tasting more blood soon. Tasting more blood, when the creatures sunk their teeth into his flesh, pulled the guts out of his body.

Tasting more blood, when he came back as one of them. Feasted on whatever he could find down in this wasteland of a tunnel.

Forty-one, forty-two, forty-three…‌

He was lagging, now. Going so slow that he was practically walking. He didn’t have anything left in the tank. He was all used up. Completely running on empty. He hoped to God that whatever the hell kind of gun Alan had was good enough. He hoped that this plan of his to get in “range” was going to work. He didn’t want to die a tired man.

Forty-nine, fifty…‌

He stopped. Spun around. Saw that the creatures were a good thirty metres or so away now, but gaining ground fast. Alan was still messing with his gun. Messing, cursing.

“Are you ready?”

“Damn thing’s not bloody unlocking. Drat it. Drat it.” Alan glanced up at the creatures, seemingly relaxed compared to Riley. “I need you to hold them off until I get it working.”

The words hit Riley square in the chest. “Hold them‌—‌”

“Stand in-bloody-front of me and use your gun to hold them off!” Alan barked. “Quick, while we still have range.”

Every instinct in Riley’s body told him to run the fuck away. The Riley of old would’ve run away. The Riley of old would’ve left Alan here to distract the creatures. Found a place to hide, waited until the creatures passed, then sneaked out of the bunker to find another new place to hide and cower away.

But he wasn’t the Riley of old anymore.

As much as it annoyed him, he wasn’t.

He took a deep breath and threw himself in front of Alan’s wheelchair. Lifted the heavy rifle-type gun, unlocked the safety, and pointed at the creatures, twenty-five metres away now.

Here goes,
he thought.
Here goes nothing.

He pulled the trigger.

The first bullet blasted a bald creature in its chest, sending it toppling back into a few of the others. The gunshot was loud, so loud that it made Riley’s head ring. Even louder because they were stuck in a tunnel.

But shit. He’d sacrifice his hearing if it meant he lived. Didn’t even seem like the creatures were groaning anymore‌—‌what good was hearing anyway?

He steadied himself as the creatures got closer, blasted another shot at the front of the pack, sending this one flying backwards in a spray of blood and flesh.

He was doing okay. Doing okay, even though his hands were shaking, his ears ringing.

Doing okay, but single shots into a crowd of a hundred wasn’t going to be enough.

“Are you nearly ready‌—‌”

“I’ll tell you when I’m bloody ready!” Alan shouted. He was still fiddling away with this gun thing of his.

Riley turned back around. Let out a huge groan. God, this gun better be worth it. This nutty fucking professor better be worth it.

He fired another three shots at creatures at the front of the pack. One of the shots went wayward and rattled against the metal wall of the tunnel, but the other two hit their targets. The creatures didn’t fall though. The shots weren’t good enough.

They were screwed.

This was game over.

Riley fired, fired some more as the creatures reached twenty metres away, and then fifteen. He knocked creatures down, but the ones he didn’t get in the head just got up again, all of them moving towards him, their stenches clouding his thoughts, suffocating his mind…‌

“Now, Riley! Get the flip behind me, now!”

Alan’s voice took Riley by surprise somewhat, but he wasn’t in a position to argue. He threw himself behind the back of the wheelchair. Kept on pointing at the creatures with his rifle, but his hands were so shaky and the rifle so heavy that there’s no way he was getting another clean shot.