Dead Days: Season 3 (Books 13-18) (21 page)

“What you say?” the deep-voiced guy above Pedro said.

Pedro looked him in his brown eyes. Took in a shaky deep breath, let the shakiness into his hands, the nerves into his stomach, let the feeling of being back in that torture chamber taking whip after whip after whip to his naked flesh take over him.

He felt the anger he’d felt then. Felt the anger that’d made him pull the trigger on that family, thinking it’d relieve his demons.

“You’ll know what I mean soon,” Pedro said.

There was a pause. An absolute silence between Pedro and Deep-Voice. A silence, as they stared at one another, like a Mexican standoff between David and Goliath.

“Fuck. The kid, Dan. The kid‌—‌he’s‌—‌he’s‌—‌”

Deep-Voice, or “Dan,” looked away from Pedro for a split second.

He looked around at his companions.

But a second was all Pedro needed.

Pedro smacked his shin up right between Dan’s legs, simultaneously yanking the gun out of his hand.

He lifted himself up. Wrapped his naked arm around Dan’s mouth, being sure to apply enough pressure so he couldn’t sink his gnashers into him, pressed the gun against his head, as he tried to wriggle free.

The other masked men backed away slightly. Backed away in shock, but kept their guns pointed at Barry, Tamara, and Josh. But they looked shaky, disorganised. Looked like Pedro had the alpha in his grips, a gun to his head. Queen bee with a barrel of a gun to his head.

“I’ll tell you how this is gonna work,” Pedro said. He could feel his temples pulsating, smell the sweat of Dan’s fear, smell the blood of an impending kill. “You’re gonna hand over my three friends. You’re gonna lower your weapons and you’re gonna hand them over. Or I’m gonna blow Dan’s brains out.”

Dan kept on struggling. Kept on struggling as a naked Pedro pressed the gun so hard into his temple.

He watched as the three other men meandered, their guns drifting from person to person, muttering to themselves. Tamara, Josh and Barry all stared at Pedro. Stared with freezing cold fear, wide-eyed hope.

“By all means put a bullet into my people,” Pedro shouted, not giving these fucks much of a chance to think. “But if you do that, understand what you’re actually doing. That‌—‌that kid, he was bitten two weeks ago. Think about that‌—‌two whole fucking weeks ago. And he’s alive. He’s human.”

This caused more of a stir amongst the men. Pedro took this as an opportunity to take a few extra steps forward. Close in on them.

“So kill them. Kill all of them, and I’ll kill ol’ Daniel here. And then you’ll kill me, but I’ll take at least one of you down before you do, trust me. And what’s left for you then? Human meat ain’t so good. And you blast the kid, you blast away our hope of surviving this mess.”

Dan was still wriggling, but less so. So much for an alpha‌—‌he seemed to be warming to Pedro’s idea. Weak, that’s what this lot were. Weak and unorganised. Soft touches, amongst a bunch of shitty soft touches still living in this world.

“Hand ‘em over,” Pedro said, taking a few steps closer. “Hand ‘em over, so at least we can talk. Think about it. Just think long and hard about what you’re doing.”

The three people looked at one another some more. Kept hold tight of their guns, but muttered more inaudible stuff.

He knew he was working on them. He knew they were coming around.

“We keep our guns,” the man in the middle said. “We‌—‌we keep our fucking guns, and you don’t try anything stupid.”

Pedro nodded. Smiled. “Like I say, there’s six bags of good crisps on that concrete over there. Me and Danny boy here can share a pack.”

The men took another look at one another. Took another cautious look‌—‌another final, hesitant look.

And then they nodded.

Nodded, pushed Tamara, Josh and Barry over in Pedro’s direction, as Pedro closed in on them with his gun to Dan’s head.

“Good choice,” Pedro said, smiling as he passed his three companions. They looked at him with tears rolling down their cheeks, all of them. Tamara even muttered a silent “thank-you” as she passed.

Pedro waited until he got right opposite the three hooded folk before stopping. Kept his gun to Dan’s head.

“Y’know what the main thing I learned in Afghan was?” Pedro asked.

The men looked at him cluelessly. Looked at him through the slits in their hats with narrowed eyes.

“Never trust a geezer with a smile.”

He pushed Dan forward into the other men.

Then he lifted Dan’s gun and fired.

He hit the one on the left first. Blood spurted from his neck.

Then he got the one on the right, who was lifting his gun the quickest. Popped a bullet right through this fucker’s skull. Heard it crack on contact.

And then he fired one through the middle of the neck of the man in the middle. Listened to him choke, listened to him drown on his own blood as he fell back against the bloodstained white van.

Pedro watched Dan wriggle around on the ground. Watched him back up against his dying companions. Watched him struggle to reach for one of his friends’ guns.

He let him, too. Let him, smile on his face, gun still pointed at him.

“I was serious about those crisps, y’know,” Pedro said, as Dan grasped for a gun. “Ah well.”

Just when Dan’s hand rested on a gun, Pedro shot it. Shot it, turned the hand into a bloody stump in a flash.

Dan screamed out. Screamed out and clutched at the bloody mess that was his hand, pooling out onto the floor.

Then Pedro stepped back. Took a few steps back, his heart racing, his vision blurred, his body totally fucking tense and filled with that same anger he’d had for the people who’d done all those fucking awful things to him in that Afghan basement.

He reached down for the wrench. Wrapped his fingers around it, then walked back over to Dan.

“Puh‌—‌Please,” Dan said. His lips were shaking. Tears were dampening his black hooded mask.

“Sorry, Dan,” Pedro said. “Like you say. Can’t be too trusting nowadays.”

Dan sobbed. “I have a family. I have a‌—‌”

He didn’t finish, because Pedro plummeted the wrench into his skull.

As blood splattered against his bare skin, as Dan’s skull gave way beneath him, Pedro felt something like relief.

Something like justice.

Night fell on the group soon after. They walked away from the white van. Too risky sleeping near a bunch of dead bodies. Didn’t know whether the goons worked on smell or anything like that, but who wanted to sleep near a group of mutilated bodies anyway? Didn’t make for a peaceful sleep, that’s for sure.

Pedro sat on the bonnet of a black Toyota Celica. He stared down the darkened motorway at the pile upon pile of cars up ahead. Just ahead, there was a little bridge, directions to Manchester and Birmingham on a blue sign peppered with birdshit. Twenty-one miles to Manchester. Not so far. Manageable in a day or two, for sure.

He rubbed his hands together. They were still rough with dried blood. The dried blood from “Dan.” He’d buried a wrench into his skull. Couldn’t take any chances. And although he’d got Josh and everyone out of a shitty situation, he’d walked ahead alone, without saying anything. Barely managed to look them in the eye after the shit he’d done in front of them.

He watched the cold air spill out of his mouth. Listened to the perfect, absolute silence. The smell was okay, too. No rotting, just the smell of stagnant petrol, of tires that’d burned rubber long ago. Ghosts of a million people, all with stories of their own.

He heard a rustling behind him. Swung around immediately, lifting the gun that he’d taken from Dan. Still had three bullets in it, and the others were fully loaded. Left those with Barry and Tamara.

But as he pointed his gun into the darkness at the side of a green Mercedes van that the others were sleeping in, Pedro realised that the footsteps were from Tamara.

He lowered his gun. Looked away, turned back around.

“Made me jump,” Pedro said. Might as well break the silence.

Tamara kept on walking. She stopped right at his side; stared ahead at the cars, at the cloudy sky above. “The moon looks gorgeous tonight.”

Pedro gulped. He hadn’t even noticed the moon, really. Been more focused on the road ahead. But Tamara was right. The moon was bright and bulging its way through the clouds, like a nightlight watching over them. “Yeah,” Pedro said. He couldn’t think what else to say. He’d done some shitty things. Scared them, no doubt. Lost their trust, inevitably. Best to just walk and not even speak from now on.

Tamara, who Pedro could tell was shivering, perched herself on the front of the black Celica. In the moonlight, she looked really damn pretty.

“Pedro, I…‌” She closed her mouth. Sighed out some steamy breath. She reached for the back of her neck and scratched it. “When…‌When Steve went. Josh’s dad. When he was…‌when he was taken away by the‌—‌by the zombies. At first, I…‌I saw him. Every night. I’d see him in the‌—‌in the faces of the people I knew. I’d‌—‌I’d see him in the distance, wandering around aimlessly.” She paused. Hesitated, took a breath. “I’d see him everywhere even though I…‌even though I knew he wasn’t there. Even though, I knew he couldn’t be there.”

Her eyes connected with Pedro’s now. Her lush dark eyes that had so much kindness in them, so much love. She didn’t say anything else. She just looked at Pedro.

And weirdly, he could feel something inside. Something bubbling at his throat, threatening to surface.

“If you…‌Pedro, we’ve all lost in this. If you need to talk. I just want you to know‌—‌”

“The boy. The kid I said I saw.” The words flowed off Pedro’s tongue subconsciously, his mouth splurging them out like vomit off some badly cooked takeaway. “He…‌I served in Afghanistan six years ago. Frontline. Only me and‌—‌me and a few colleagues, few army pals, we were captured.”

He gulped. Wiped away the sweat forming on his hot forehead.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t‌—‌”

“No,” Tamara said, looking intently, unjudgmentally, at Pedro. “Carry on.”

Pedro took another deep breath of the freezing air. Stared up at the bulbous moon. “I got tortured. The scars, you’d ‘ave seen ‘em when Dan stripped me back then. Don’t pretend you didn’t. But I…‌I got hanged up. Hanged up and whipped. Still don’t know how many days it went on for. Part of me thinks it was weeks, another part thinks it was just a few hours, but I was pissin’ myself so much I lost track.”

His hands were fully shaking now. His throat was so loose. But it felt a relief to be getting these words out. A hot-faced, heart-aching mother-fucker of a relief.

“And…‌and then something went wrong. Something for the Taliban. And it was such a blur. I was‌—‌I was out and it was me and my troops in this dusty lounge and we‌—‌we were pointing our guns at the people who did it. Pointing…‌pointing our guns at the family.”

His head pulsated. His eyes filled with blurry patterns.

But he gulped. Gulped, forced himself to admit what he’d done. Forced himself to admit what he couldn’t ever admit to anyone, not in full, not even to the therapists who’d treated him for PTSD.

“And I…‌I was so angry. I was so hurt and so angry at these‌—‌at these people for what they did. What they did to my friends. For what they did to their enemies. So I…‌”

He saw the memory in his head. Saw it as clear as a film. Felt the cold metal of the gun in his shaking hand. Smelled the sweat, heard the cries and the shouts.

And then he saw the eyes of his captor’s youngest son staring back at him, begging for mercy.

“I pulled the trigger on the kid,” Pedro said. “I…‌The whole lot of us, we killed that family. Shot ‘em dead, right there.” He sniffed. Wiped away at his top lip, which tasted salty like snot and tears. “And that’s what I am, Tamara. That’s what I am. A fucking war criminal murderer who gets bullied by a vision of a kid I shot. That’s the man who’s walking around with you. Walking around with your son.”

Tamara stared at Pedro. She’d gone pale. He waited for it. Waited for a barrage of hate. Waited for her to raise her gun and fire him in the head, like he deserved. ‘Cause God knows he deserved it. God knows he’d thought about pressing a gun against his own head and killing himself in the past.

But instead, he felt Tamara’s hand. Felt her cold, soft hand press against his hand.

He flinched at first, but then he let it settle there. Let it rest there, as she leaned from the bonnet of the car towards him.

“That might be who you were, but it’s not who you are,” she said.

With that, Pedro couldn’t hold back the tears. He felt a dick for letting them flow, but fuck, they were going like a salty tap right down his face.

Tamara wrapped her arms around his neck and squeezed him tightly as he sobbed onto her shoulder.

He tried to say things, but he couldn’t. He tried, but it only brought more tears.

As they held each other in the moonlight, Pedro swore he saw that little boy dancing his way around the cars up ahead.

When he squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, he was gone.

He knew he’d be back, but it was a small price to pay. A small thing he had to live with.

“I’ll protect Josh with my life,” Pedro said.

Tamara squeezed him tighter. “I know you will.”

Pedro wasn’t sure how much longer they were holding one another, but it felt like forever.

A nice kind of forever.

“Well how fuckin’ cute.”

“Ssh, you twat. Don’t want ‘em to hear.”

“Oh they’re fuckin’
miles
away. And look at ‘em. They aren’t hearin’ a thing.”

Cameron watched the bald skinny bloke and the fit blonde holding one another from the grassy top of the motorway embankment. Fucking crying, they were. The bloke especially. Sobbing away like a fucking baby.

Not a shadow of the man who’d buried a wrench into Dan’s head.

“When shall we jump ‘em?” Rob asked. His whiney voice was getting right on Cameron’s tits. All his fucking bossing around, all his demands.

Cameron watched as pussy and blondie walked back to the green van holding hands. Watched as they took a final look outside, then slammed shut the van doors.

“We follow ‘em,” Cameron said, as he leaned into the cold-as-shit grass. “We keep an eye on them and we follow ‘em.”