Dead Days: Season 3 (Books 13-18) (31 page)

The sides of Jordanna’s mouth twitched, but she didn’t make a cocky comment this time. “Your mum sounds like a very special lady to you. That’s…‌that’s a nice thing to have. A nice person to have in your life.”

Chloë nodded. Pictured her mum lying beside her, stroking her hair as she drifted off to sleep in the warm comfort of her bed. “She was nice,” Chloë said. “The best.”

There was another pause between the two of them as they got further into the woods. Chloë didn’t really feel like talking anymore, not after the talk of her mum. She was still getting over it. It had only been three sleeps ago that it had happened. Or was it four sleeps? She couldn’t remember properly. Everything was blurring together in a cold, hungry mess.

“Where I’m from,” Jordanna said. “I…‌it doesn’t matter anymore. Doesn’t matter for any of us. But for what it’s worth, I kind of prefer it now.”

Chloë frowned at Jordanna. “You prefer this?”

“Believe it or not, there’s worse things than wading through a frosty woods on a Christmas morning.”

“But‌—‌but the monsters. The monsters and‌—‌and the bad people. And having to eat‌—‌having to eat
rabbits
.” Chloë could barely spill out everything bad about how things were now. She couldn’t believe Jordanna actually thought this world was better than anything. The world that had taken away Chloë’s sister, Chloë’s mum.

“There’s always been monsters in the world,” Jordanna said, stopping to take a look around the woods. “They just come in different forms nowadays.”

Another slight pause. The pair of them stood there, listened to the breeze rustling against the leafless tree branches. Chloë tried to hear a moaning monster, or hear footsteps, but she couldn’t and that was a good thing.

“And hey,” Jordanna said, patting Chloë on her shoulder. “Rabbit’s not so bad. Better than some of the things I was eating before, anyway.”

Chloë looked at the mangled, smelly mess that was the rabbit and wondered how anything could possibly be worse. Maybe hotpot. She’d had hotpot at her nan’s once and it had made her sick seven times in the night, so maybe that.

“When you’ve been through hell, you just learn to appreciate what you’ve got,” Jordanna said. “And not to sound the martyr, but I’ve been through hell long before the apocalypse started.” She snorted on the word ‘apocalypse’ as if it just wasn’t a big deal to her. Chloë didn’t know what a martyr was, but she kind of got that Jordanna was saying that things were no worse now than they were in the past.

Weird lady.

“Hey‌—‌look over there,” Jordanna said. She pointed up ahead. Squinted at something in the distance.

Chloë looked right away. Was it a monster? No. If it was a monster she’d have heard it, smelled it, but she couldn’t hear anything but the tree branches in the breeze and she couldn’t smell anything but that fresh winter smell.

She couldn’t see anything either.

“What is it?” Chloë asked.

“There, look. Just past the branch reaching over the top up ahead. Fourth tree along. You see it?”

Chloë could see this tree, which looked like it had a hand sticking out of its side, but she didn’t know what Jordanna was talking about. There was nothing there. Nothing and no-one. “I don’t…‌”

And then she saw that nothing being there was exactly the point.

“A path,” Chloë said.

The pair of them stepped forward in the woods. Chloë could see it, only faintly, but it was definitely there. A patch of land where the trees just stopped then started again, a wide trail of dirt in between them. A footpath, no doubt about it.

“Where do you think it goes?” Chloë asked. She reached the edge of the path. Got tingly in her belly when she reached it. She was in the open again. No protection from the trees. Like being in the middle of a main road in a city. She looked to her left, looked as the path sunk down a hill, rising up again. Then to her right, the path just went on, cutting through trees and out of sight.

“Only one way to find out,” Jordanna said, stepping onto the path and walking towards the sloping side on the left.

She stopped. Stopped and looked at Chloë. “Your call actually. Left or right?”

As Chloë weighed it up in her mind, she kind of wished she’d never said all that about wanting to make the decisions. She was just getting used to having an adult around again.

“We’ll go your way,” Chloë said, walking slightly ahead of Jordanna and down the soily hill.

“Call it
your
way, please,” Jordanna said. “I don’t wanna be another name on your list.”

“What list?” Chloë asked.

Jordanna opened her mouth. Blushed a little at the cheeks. Closed it again. “Nothing,” she said. “Let’s just see what’s down this path before I eat this bloody rabbit raw.”

Chapter Two: Pedro

“Can you see anything? What’s it like out there?”

Pedro peeked through the white curtain, tried to get a good look outside the tent they’d been put in. But he couldn’t see a thing. He could hear stuff‌—‌hear the people from the helicopter talking‌—‌but couldn’t see a thing.

It’d been the same since they landed here in the early hours, wherever
here
was.

Pedro turned around. Shrugged at Barry, who was perched on the edge of a stained double mattress. Tamara and Josh were at the other side, while Elaine sat on her own on a wooden chair in the corner of the room. None of them had got much sleep.

“This place
can’t
be the famous Living Zone,” Barry said. Face looked like a bruised banana after Pedro’s work on it in the early hours. Yet weirdly, they were talking again. Back on talking terms. All had been forgotten after the beating. Like a reset button had been hit the moment that helicopter came back for them, since Jason, Dom and Sammy plucked them from the road and into the sky.

“You heard what they said,” Tamara said. She was brushing her hair. That was a perk of this tent‌—‌it did have a few supplies. It was like one of those tents that are set up in the middle of a country fair‌—‌a circus tent but without the pomp. It was empty but for a few mattresses plonked down, and a few supplies like toothbrushes and hairbrushes. But like shit could Pedro do much with a hairbrush. Give his bald scalp a good scratch, maybe.

“This is just a stopgap,” Tamara continued, recalling what the helicopter people had said.

“Well I didn’t sign up for a bloody stopgap,” Barry said. He lifted himself off the mattress, but winced and clutched his right side. His eyes met Pedro’s for a moment then flickered away. He didn’t want to be seen to be giving Pedro any satisfaction, that was for sure.

“It’s probably just best we wait and see what happens,” Pedro said. That said, he was as desperate as the others‌—‌probably more damn desperate‌—‌to see what this place was, how far from the Manchester Living Zone they were. “We’ve only been here a couple of hours.”

“Longest two hours of my life,” Barry said. He shook his head, but that made him wince too.

Pedro looked over at Elaine. Looked at her, shaking, eyes wide. Her bare arms were stained with blood. The blood of her son. Her son, who Barry had shot.

No. He’d shot the zombie of her son. Big distinction.

Pedro didn’t know what to say to this woman. She hadn’t uttered a word since the incident, and barely uttered one before then. She let her boy go‌—‌let him rest on the motorway, which was a bold move. Seemed so detached when she did it. And to think of it, the only things she’d really talked about were that she’d had some kind of run-in with the same dicks Pedro and the others had on the motorway.

That said,
nobody
had really said anything on the helicopter. A few geeky helicopter comments from former Mr Air Ambulance Barry, but otherwise they were in too much awe to start the small talk. Looking down at the pitch black below, wondering‌—‌knowing‌—‌the horrors that were down there.

The people who’d saved them had been tight-lipped, too. Something from the Hollywood-faced Jason about the “end of a nightmare,” but maybe that was just a cheesy line in itself. After that, a few words on stopping temporarily, on communicating. He hoped to shit he hadn’t gone and brought the group into even worse danger than they were in before. If he had, he’d have taken the pissing road.

There was something else bothering Pedro too. Something that he didn’t want to talk about, because he didn’t want to comment ‘til he was absolutely sure.

It was Josh.

He’d gone so quiet since last night. And sure as shit, any kid would go quiet after the crap he’d seen. But he looked pale, too. Pale, and kept on sneezing.

Pedro kept a close eye on him. He could tell from the way Tamara held him tightly that she was showing some extra concern, too.

“Merry Christmas, all!”

The voice behind the curtain made Pedro jump and spin around. When he peeked through this time, he saw Jason walking towards them holding some plastic containers.

And then Pedro smelled it. Hot, delicious food.

His stomach churned. Shit. When was the last time he’d eaten a bloody Ready Meal?

Jason edged open the curtain, smiling away. He had slicked-back dark hair, wore a dark blue shirt and black trousers with a brown belt. Today, he looked more like a football manager than a Hollywood star. More Joachim Löw than Tom Cruise.

“Breakfast…‌and dinner, is served.”

He placed the plastic containers onto the concrete floor, being careful not to drop any. Pedro couldn’t get over the smells, couldn’t get over the tastes already swirling through his mouth, making it water.

Bangers and mash.

Chicken Tikka with rice.

Spaghetti carbonara.

“And this is for the young man,” Jason said. He tossed a present wrapped in red Christmas wrapping over to Josh, which landed on the bed beside him. “Santa didn’t have time to leave us adults any presents. Too busy being nipped at by infected.”

Josh’s eyes lit up. He grabbed the square box, opened it up, but Pedro was too fixated on the food to give a damn what it was. And hey‌—‌did someone say
Christmas
? Shit. He’d stopped keeping track of the days weeks ago.

He lurched down into the food, as too did Tamara and Barry. He got handfuls of bangers and mash, not caring that the thick gravy was spilling down his fingers, not giving a shit how much he dribbled on the floor.

“Woah, an
army
helmet!” Josh shouted. He plonked an old green metal helmet over his head. It was way too big for him, but it put the first smile on his face Pedro had seen all morning, so that was something.

Jason stood quiet, smiling as they all ate their food. Josh came to join them now, showing off his army helmet, asking Pedro if it was like his used to be, and if it was his helmet that made him bald.

And then Pedro noticed that Elaine wasn’t eating anything. She was still sat on her own, still shaking, still wide-eyed.

He thought about offering her some food. Thought about offering her the final sausage from the bangers and mash. But then he remembered how Corrine used to act when he asked her if she was okay after little Sam died. He remembered the sickness even the
smell
of food used to give him.

He ate the final banger. There’d be plenty of food at the Living Zone. If this was a stopgap and they were being served hot microwaved food like this, then shit. The Living Zone was gonna be something.

“Hope you enjoyed your food,” Jason said, like a waiter at a very uncivilised restaurant. He reached down and picked up the plastic containers, as Tamara and Barry leaned back, both licking their lips. Josh crunched down on a Yorkshire pudding, and tapped on his new helmet.

“Thanks so much, bruv,” Pedro said, cleaning the gravy from his teeth with his tongue. “No idea how much we wanted that.”

“I can imagine,” Jason said. “It’s especially rough out there, and walking down a motorway, well. Can’t imagine it’s ripe ground for hunting. Unless you’re an infected, of course.”

“Well worth it after this little treat,” Pedro said. Tamara smiled and nodded in agreement. Barry looked around the floor trying to find any scrap he could to fill his flabby belly. “When we moving on to Manchester?”

Jason’s smile dropped. Just for a split second, that perfection in his smile crumbled away.

He placed the plastic containers down and folded his arms.

“We have outposts like this all around the city. All in decent locations. Not safe, but decent for a stopgap, like I said. It’s also pretty standard procedure when we’re out on a helicopter run to stop at one of these places and pick up some supplies. If the world latched on to all our supplies being in one place in the main LZ, then you can imagine stocks would dwindle pretty fast.”

“Sounds like rationing to me,” Barry said.

Jason shrugged. “Whatever you want to call it, it works.”

Another pause. Another slight twitch of Jason’s smile.

“Anyhow, we were hoping to pick up a few bits and bobs and head back to the Living Zone in an hour or so. Shouldn’t take us long to get there by helicopter. Twenty minutes at the very most.”

“Another twenty minutes in the air sounds good to me,” Pedro said. He was looking forward to seeing the world below in the daylight. Getting a real perspective on things, like how astronauts had those crazy episodes when they saw the earth from space.

Another pause from Jason. He scratched the back of his neck, cleared his throat.

“We won’t be going by helicopter,” Jason said. “It’s malfunctioned.”

The sinking feeling that was growing all so familiar hit Pedro again, although it felt even worse now he had a full stomach. “What the fuck you mean it’s‌—‌”

“These things happen,” Jason said, holding up his hands. His expensive-looking black-strapped watch slid down his narrow wrist. “But don’t worry. It’s okay. We have an alternative route.”

Slight diminishing on the sinking feeling.

Barry puffed out his lips. “Jesus, I thought for a moment there we were gonna have to get walking again.”

Jason’s facial expression didn’t change. He stood there, arms folded, half-smile on his difficult-as-shit-to-read face.

“Wait,” Barry said. His face, already purple from the nine shades of shit he’d had beaten out of him, went even purpler. “Walking? You have to be joking, don’t you?”