Dead Days: Season 3 (Books 13-18) (36 page)

But the goons were still on him. Still fixated. Thank God Barry was a fat bloke.

Pedro looked at Tamara and Josh. Looked at them as they shook, tears streaming down their cheeks. Behind them, Elaine, Dom and Sammy made their way up the wall as the zombies stalked behind them. They were gonna have to move soon. All of them were gonna have to move.

“You two just run as fast as you can, okay?” Pedro said. He scuffled Josh’s curls. Rested a hand on Tamara’s shoulder. “You just run as fast as you can. I’ll…‌I’ll be right beside you.”

Tamara blinked fast. She was shaking all over. But then she nodded. She nodded, twitched a slight smile, and brought her son tightly to her chest.

She lowered her legs over the wall. Pedro lowered his, too. He was going to be right behind them when he fell. A wall between the zombies and them. And then he was going to grab Tamara’s hand and they were going to run.

He didn’t want to die. Not after seeing the undignified death Barry had suffered for the dignified act he’d committed.

But Pedro wasn’t gonna let another kid down. Not a kid this special.

He inhaled a deep breath of the rotten-smelling air. Gulped down a vomity bubble of phlegm.

“You ready?” he asked.

Tamara sniffed up. Kissed her boy on the head. Nodded.

Pedro looked at the ground below, the zombies still paying no attention to him. He held his breath.

“Three, two, one…‌”

He slipped down onto the hard ground below, Tamara and Josh falling beside him.

He grabbed Tamara’s hand. He didn’t turn to look at the goons as he ran down the concrete path. He could hear them close behind, could feel their dead eyes burning into his back, but he didn’t look at them. He’d done looking at them.

He just ran down the alleyway holding Tamara’s hand as tightly as he could, pulling her and Josh along.

The exit to the alleyway got closer. The walls widened out. Behind, he heard a few thumps‌—‌the others hitting the concrete. They could do this. They were so close.

Just a few metres. A few more metres…‌

As he got to the end of the alleyway, he noticed the open gate again. A gate that could be closed. A gate that could keep the goons away. He had to try and close it. Least then they wouldn’t have to run down the street‌—‌

Fuck, stop thinking about the street, Pedro. Focus on the now.

He heard a scream from behind. A high pitched scream, followed by something hard hitting the ground, then nothing.

But still, he didn’t look. He didn’t want to know who’d fallen. He’d heard a woman’s scream. So it was Sammy or Elaine. Probably Elaine.

Just five steps to go.

Four steps. The exit getting closer. Freedom getting closer. Safety getting closer…‌

Three steps.

Two steps.

He didn’t feel the next step because something solid hit his right foot.

He tripped. Tripped up, felt himself tumbling out of the alleyway, flying towards the ground with his hand still tightly wrapped around Tamara’s, dragging her along with him.

He hit the road face first. His ears buzzed with the collision, and he tasted copper in his mouth mixed with the vomit.

He rolled over. Rolled onto his back. Someone else had to shut the gate. He wouldn’t have time. He wouldn’t…‌

When he looked up, he saw Dom skip out of the gate. He saw Elaine behind him, still glassy-eyed, as quiet as ever. And just behind her, the mass of paceys, getting closer to her, closer to another Christmas treat.

She stopped when she saw Pedro, Josh and Tamara on the ground.

“Close the gate, Dom!” Pedro shouted. “Close the fucking‌—‌”

“Thank you,” Elaine mouthed to Pedro, then to Tamara. “You…‌you keep your boy safe. You keep him‌—‌”

“No!” Pedro shouted, yanking himself from the road.

But it was too late.

Elaine grabbed the metal gate and slid it across with all the power in her slight body. She slid it right across, still behind it, the echoing footsteps of the goons bouncing off the walls around her.

She slammed it shut. Nodded at Pedro once more. Then closed her eyes. “I’ll see you soon, John,” she said, taking in a shaky breath. “I’ll see you‌—‌”

Pedro closed his eyes when he heard the crashing at the gate. The familiar sound of flesh being chewed, like a watermelon being sliced.

He didn’t want to see another death.

He couldn’t bear it.

Chapter Eight: Pedro

Nobody spoke a word when they left the alleyway.

Pedro, Tamara, Josh and Dom walked down the middle of the main road. Pedro looked around at the buildings he used to walk past whenever he was in Manchester. Looked at the smashed windows of the shops, the shopping trolleys spread out over the road. Looked at the cars that had crashed into one another, windows shattered. He could smell death in the air. The sour stench of drains and sick that was so synonymous with these times. The smell of a million lives‌—‌shit,
more
than a million‌—‌just drifting away.

He felt Josh’s hand squeeze his, and he squeezed back. Poor kid, wearing his green army helmet, had been through Hell. And he hadn’t stopped sneezing either. Suffering a cold, or whatever it was. And the things he’d seen, the people he’d seen die. It wasn’t right for a kid to experience these things. But what was right anymore? This was a different world now. A world that children were no doubt still being born into. What was the right way to raise them? Hide them from the truth? Or warn them of the reality? Train them to adapt?

Could grown-ups protect the young from the horrors of this world? Or did kids have to toughen themselves now? Animal kingdom, survival of the fittest, all that.

His shoes crunching against broken glass, the cold air brushing against him, Pedro thought back to when he was a kid. His old Dad sat in that brown leather chair of his, watching Pedro as he moved his fingers towards the fire. Watching him, almost daring him to do it with those bulging eyes. And he had done it. He had done it and Pedro had cried and screamed and begged for a hug from his dad. But his dad said he needed to learn. Needed to learn what was dangerous through his own experiences.

He’d never forgotten those words, not his entire life.

“Long to go?” Pedro asked. His throat was sore and dry. He had a bottle of water in his rucksack, but he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep it down him.

Dom shook his head. The man looked completely different since losing Sammy and Jason. His eyes were constantly staring at the ground, his entire demeanour slouched. He didn’t look like the aggressive nutjob he had when they’d been in the terraced house garden.

Pedro scratched his neck with his free hand. “Bruv, I…‌I’m sorry for‌—‌”

“It’s okay,” Dom said. He raised a hand to stop Pedro speaking. “You…‌You have a boy to protect. I get that. I just…‌I wish I coulda done something more for them.”

Pedro nodded. Stared ahead at the rows of shops coming to an end, the ugly abomination that was Hilton Hotel towering over in the distance. “Don’t we all.”

Of all the horrible things that had happened these last few days‌—‌of all the near-death moments, of sanity challenges‌—‌it was the image of Elaine Pedro couldn’t get out of his mind. The image of her standing at those gates and closing her eyes as the pacey goons got closer to her. She’d lost her boy, so she’d lost everything. Lost her will to live.

She’d given herself up to save someone else, just like Barry had.

And still Pedro wasn’t sure if he’d be able to do the same if he had to.

“I wish we’d got to know Elaine,” Tamara said, speaking her first words in ages. “And…‌and the others, too. She…‌they all seemed like good people.”

“I dunno about Elaine, but Jason and Sammy were shits when they wanted to be,” Dom said.

“We have to be shits,” Pedro said. “Wouldn’t have made it this far if we weren’t.”

There was another moment of silence as the group reached the end of the street. For a moment, Pedro couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Up ahead, Pedro could see the glass entrance to Piccadilly train station, a place he’d visited so many times on trips to gigs in Manchester when he was younger. The street beside it was piled up with a tall, metal wall. The road was completely blocked off, barbed wire wrapped around the top of this wall. Pedro swore he’d never seen anything like that in Manchester before. Never remembered it that way.

“Welcome to the Living Zone,” Dom said. He pointed his empty assault rifle over at Piccadilly Station, at this huge metal wall.

Pedro slowed down, and so too did Josh and Tamara.

“That’s…‌How big is it? Just the station?”

Dom snorted. “If only. We’ve got the whole area from Piccadilly to the Printworks cordoned off. See the guys with guns on the roof over there?” He pointed over to the left of the blocked road.

Pedro squinted. Couldn’t see a thing. “I‌—‌”

“Good. Me neither. But they’ll see you coming a mile away. Just be thankful you’re with me. I’m quite recognisable.”

They started slowly walking towards Piccadilly station. “The whole area up to the Printworks? That’s…‌that’s a lot of ground.”

“Four square miles of ground,” Dom said. “Whole of the Northern Quarter. Got people watching every wall, people watching the inside, making sure everything’s ticking along.”

Pedro couldn’t believe this place. Heathwaite’s was something, and that was just a caravan site. But an actual town. An actual
living zone
, just ahead. He’d made it. They’d all made it.

“How does a place like this get built up?” Tamara asked. “I mean…‌It can’t be easy. Keeping order. Things like that.”

Dom half-smiled at Tamara. “Not everyone’s a power-crazy nutter out there,” he said. “Problem with imposing old government systems onto the new world is that they don’t work. It creates uprising. It’s flimsy. Saw it all over the Arab world before our world turned to shit.”

“And what sort of system do you run?” Pedro asked. His head was spinning with questions now. “How…‌how many people are living there? Do you…‌Are there doctors? Police? Systems like that?”

Dom’s half-smile raised a little as they reached a crossroads. “I think you’re gonna be pleasantly surprised. But it’d be better if you saw it with your own eyes than through my mouth. It’s…‌” He stopped. Cleared his throat and turned away. “It can be a fair lot to take in, at first especially. You might need a lie down after‌—‌shit, to the left!”

They all stopped walking. Pedro had become so compelled by the mystery of the Living Zone that he’d forgotten he was still on the outside, still in the dangerous world.

“Can you see ‘em?” Dom said. “To the left, by the Land Rover just there.”

Pedro looked down the road to his left. He saw two figures. One was a dark-haired woman, covered head to toe in blood, stumbling up the road. The other one was a kid. Teenage girl. Pale-faced, a little underweight.

“Should be no problem,” Dom said. “Only two of ‘em. Come on. Let’s get away. We’ve…‌”

But Dom’s words blurred away as Pedro stared at these two figures.

Or more specifically, as he stared at the girl.

Her light brown hair. Those big eyes.

His stomach tensed up. His heart raced.

He squeezed his eyes shut. Squeezed and blinked. Was this another haunting? Another repeat of the Afghan kid? Another kid he’d let down?

But when he opened his eyes, she was still there. She was still with this blood-soaked, greasy-haired woman.

And now, she was looking right at him. Her mouth opened wide. She came to a halt.

The pair of them just stared at one another for what felt like forever. Pedro could hear words being uttered around him, but none of them made sense. Not as he stared at the girl, not as she stared back at him, recognition in her face.

This was impossible. Impossible, insane, unbelievable.

It was Chloë.

“I…‌I know her,” he said.

He let go of Josh’s hand. Let go and started walking down the middle of the road towards Chloë, picking up his pace.

She let go of this bloody woman’s hand too. She let go and started coming towards him.

He couldn’t believe it. He’d found Chloë. Chloë had found him. She was alive. She was‌—‌

He heard the blast behind him. Heard a crack, and a thump, and then another blast.

And then he saw Chloë stop like a pigeon in the crosshairs. Saw the woman behind her cover her mouth, her eyes widening.

Pedro didn’t understand. He didn’t understand why they looked so upset, why they looked so shocked. Their faces had turned with the blast. They’d turned with the crack, the thump.

And then there was a scream.

It was the scream that made Pedro’s hairs stand up on his arms. He didn’t want to look around. It was a scream he’d had nightmares about. A scream he’d imagined time and time again when he imagined what failure looked like.

He didn’t want to look. He couldn’t look. If he didn’t look, it didn’t have to be real.

But he had to look.

He bit into his lip. Already he could taste salt on his lips, as the screaming continued, like he knew what he was going to see before he saw it.

He turned around.

Turned around slowly.

When he saw Tamara kneeling in the road, screaming at the top of her voice, tears rolling down her cheeks, his whole world crumbled apart.

Josh lay in her arms, two little bullet holes in his flimsy green army helmet.

His frail body was completely still.

EPISODE EIGHTEEN

(SIXTH EPISODE OF SEASON THREE)

Prologue

He opened his eyes.

When he saw the light beaming down from above him, he knew he wasn’t dead yet.

But if he wasn’t dead, what was he?

Chapter One

Pedro couldn’t hear a thing, couldn’t process a thing, as he stood there in the middle of the road staring down at Josh’s limp body.

Staring down at the blood trickling out of the two holes in his flimsy helmet.

He knew Tamara was screaming. He knew she was crying, and that footsteps were approaching from behind, but he couldn’t
hear
them. Not properly. Not beyond the buzzing in his head, running through his mind and his body.