Dead Days: Season 3 (Books 13-18) (39 page)

“What’s this?” Pedro asked.

Jim Hall turned around. Smiled at Pedro, fiddling with his blue tie. “Outside the wall. You were fighting with someone, no?”

Pedro frowned. “I…‌I thought that was your people. The same people who poked that scanner at Josh when he was on the ground.”

“That wasn’t our people,” Jim said. His smile dropped, like he was actually disappointed at Pedro for thinking he was capable of something like that. “We wouldn’t engage in combat with anyone unprovoked. Not how we work. So you have any idea who it might’ve been? Because it’s important, believe me. If you know who it might be and you say you don’t, you’ll be the one we come looking for at the first sign of trouble.”

Pedro couldn’t think properly. His mind spun with all sorts of thoughts and theories. Who would be shooting at him if it wasn’t the Living Zone people, and why was it such a big deal? The helmeted men watched him closely through their goggles, as Tamara held her son, back in that little dreamworld with him. “I…‌No. I don’t know. I don’t think so‌—‌”

“Several of my people are out there. Jason, Dom, Sammy. They’re good people. Put a lot into this place. My men saw you with Dom. Do you know what happened to the others?”

Pedro gulped. He looked around at all the figures staring at him, trying to work out whether the truth was the right answer in this situation. “I…‌They picked us up. Picked us up in a helicopter. But then…‌there were some accidents on the way here‌—‌”

“Accidents?”

“Zombies. Infecteds. Whatever. They…‌the fast ones. They took them. Dom, I…‌I don’t know about.”

Jim Hall sighed. He nodded, like Pedro’s answer was enough. “I’m sorry for the inquisition, I really am. But we have to be careful who we let into this place. We have to know a person’s history. Know they aren’t bringing any baggage along with them. And…‌with all due respect, Miss, a dead boy at the hands of a human bullet is baggage enough to get us twitchy.”

Tamara didn’t even react to Jim Hall’s comment. It skipped over her head like she was in another world completely.

“There’s a lot of important people behind these walls. A lot of important people and a lot of important information. Information worth more than mine and yours and your pet dog’s lives combined. Information that can’t be compromised.”

Pedro scratched at the bridge of his nose. He wasn’t sure what to say. What did this guy want him to do? He had no fucking clue who’d shot at Josh or why they’d done it. He wished he did so he could know who to take his revenge out on.

“I don’t know who killed Josh,” Pedro said. “I‌—‌I don’t know. We’ve been on the road for days now. Travelling down a motorway. We’ve lost people on the way. And…‌and the only people I can think of were a group of guys with black hats over their faces. They…‌We dealt with them. And there weren’t many of them.”

Jim Hall’s dropped smile curled up a bit again. Everyone seemed to be ignoring the actual matter at hand here‌—‌that Tamara was cradling her bloody dead son. A bit of sympathy and respect wouldn’t go amiss.

“Look,” Jim said. “I’m going to do something I don’t do a lot, but we’re in a new world anyway so I guess we’ve got to try new things. Troops, all but Steve, leave us be.”

The helmeted figures looked at one another. “Sir?”

“Jesus bloody Christ,” Jim said. He rolled his eyes. “Have you forgotten how to take orders today or something? Bugger off!”

Five of the six men scuttled down the stairs they’d come from. Quite amusing to see six troops stacked with all kinds of firepower run away after a few harsh words from a lanky man with a dodgy tie. Pedro kind of liked this new world already.

Jim looked at Tamara first. He placed a hand against the helmet on Josh’s head. She flinched back initially, but then she allowed him to rest it there.

“I’m so, so sorry for your boy. Really. And I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure you get the justice you deserve. But I want your boy to get the…‌the send-off he deserves, too. If you hand him to Steve here, he’ll take him somewhere really safe where we can…‌we can decide on the next step.”

Tamara held Josh even closer. “You‌—‌they tried to burn him. They‌—‌they tried to‌—‌”

“No pressure,” Jim said. He backed away, his hands raised. “I just don’t want you to think you have to trail around with him in your hands. I promise you, we’ll look after him. I had a son of my own. I…‌I understand.”

He stared into Tamara’s eyes. She stared back at him, the pair of them completely still.

And then slowly but surely, Tamara placed Josh into Steve’s arms.

She cried as Steve stepped away‌—‌Steve, whose face they still hadn’t seen. Her bottom lip shook as he turned and walked carefully down the steps, doing all she could to listen to every single echo.

Pedro thought he felt a twinge in his eyes too, as Steve got further and further away, Josh’s little green helmet drifting out of sight.

Jim Hall wiped the bridge of his nose. His bulbous eyes were bloodshot. He sniffed up. “Come on. We’d better get moving.”

Pedro held an arm around Tamara as they stepped up the final stairs and towards the doorway with the blue hue behind it. He felt her warmth drifting into him. Felt her blonde hair tickling the side of his neck. He was here for her. He’d failed Josh, but he hadn’t failed her.

He was never going to let himself fail her. He couldn’t.

Jim stopped when they reached the door. He looked back at Pedro and at Tamara, stone-faced and hard to read.

“Take a few deep breaths, please. What you’re about to see might not be easy to understand.”

Pedro didn’t take a few deep breaths.

His stomach tingled as he stepped through the door, into the blue light.

When he saw what was inside, he wished he had taken those breaths after all.

Chapter Four

Chloë ran until she couldn’t hear them anymore and she felt okay again.

She tasted sweat, like she always did when she ran too fast. Jordanna panted beside her. This new man‌—‌the man that Pedro had called Dom, who smelled like a sewer‌—‌looked over his shoulder at the road they’d just come down. The monsters turned the corner, but they were too far away to get them now. And they’d turned left, anyway.

Turned Pedro’s direction.

“So where the fuck do we go now?” Jordanna asked. Her cheeks were flushed, more colour in them than Chloë had seen since meeting her.

Dom looked around. Looked at this weird big wall thing to their right. Chloë wondered where it came from. It was like the wall of a castle, only this place didn’t look like the place where there’d be a castle as there were cars and Pound shops around.

Dom looked at Jordanna. He looked at Chloë, then back at Jordanna again. “You…‌You know Pedro?”

Jordanna turned to Chloë without saying anything.

Chloë nodded.

She still couldn’t believe she’d seen Pedro in the middle of this place. Pedro must have found directions to the Living Zone too. It had been such a bad day before this, nearly losing Jordanna, getting chased by the monsters in the woods. But now it was turning out a great day.

Now it was turning out the best Christmas ever.

“Look, we aren’t going that way,” Dom said, pointing at the mass of monsters crowding around the place where the castle wall stopped. “We’ll have to walk on a little. There’s another entrance point just further down on the left.”

Dom started walking, not looking at Jordanna or Chloë again.

“Wait,” Jordanna said. “You…‌”

Dom looked at her, and she stalled. It reminded Chloë of how she stalled whenever she had to do presentations in front of the class at school. She felt bad for Jordanna because it always made her feel horrible.

But it was usually funny when someone else stalled. Not Jordanna.

“This place. Is it…‌is it really‌—‌?”

“Safe?” Dom interrupted. “It’s safer than it is out here, yeah. But it’s…‌it’s different. And there’s a few things you’re gonna have to learn to adjust to if you want to come inside.”

“Like the faster monsters?” Chloë cut in, just as he started to walk ahead again.

He looked at Chloë. Half-smiled. “There’s a lot for you to take in. I promise we’ll give you the answers you want soon. But we’ve gotta get inside first.”

Dom started to move again. Jordanna looked at Chloë and shrugged.

Chloë watched as Dom got further away. She wanted to go with him. Her gut told her he was good because he’d been with Pedro. But then Pedro had been with Ivan before she met him, so she wasn’t sure. Maybe Pedro always went bad when he didn’t have other good people around him.

A series of blasts rattled behind Chloë.

Dom swung around. Spun around and stared over Chloe’s shoulder.

When Chloë looked, she could see where the blasts were coming from. There were people on top of the wall and they were firing down at the monsters. She could hear these people shouting, but she couldn’t tell what they were saying because they were too far away.

“Shit. Bad timing. Bad…‌Come on. If you want to get inside here, you’d better hurry up and follow me. You don’t want those infected deciding they want an easier meal when they realise they don’t have to get shot at to get one.”

Chloë looked at the shots firing down. Looked at the faster monsters all piling on top of one another, wondered if this was how all the monsters were going to be now‌—‌scarier, faster.

And then she turned and followed Dom, with Jordanna by her side.

They jogged down this road, which looked like every other road around here. Little shops. A sweet shop called Refreshment Village, which Chloë thought might be quite good if it wasn’t all smashed up and the sweets weren’t all over the dusty floor. On the road, there were splotches of red. Chunks of stuff that looked like beef with flies buzzing around them, the smell almost as bad as the monsters. Chloë knew it wasn’t beef. She knew it was parts of people. She thought it was sad that a person could end up like that‌—‌scraps on the middle of a boring road for flies to feed on.

“We should be able to take a left just round here. But…‌I have to ask you if…‌”

He didn’t carry on because he saw what Chloë saw too.

The three monsters emerging from the smashed windows of a Next shop, wandering in their direction, so quiet, so quick compared to normal.

“Fuck,” Dom said.

He looked around the road. Looked for something to pick up. Chloë looked too, as the monsters got closer. Three on three. They could do this if they found something. She shouldn’t be scared. Mum was with her. Mum was around her neck.

“Got them,” Jordanna said.

She moved forward with a piece of smashed glass from the front of the shops in hand. Dom latched on to her idea and picked up a long, sharp piece of glass too, as did Chloë.

And then she took deep breaths into her tummy as she walked closer to the monsters. Walked towards the bald one in the middle with the maggots eating at the space where his right eye was.

Keep calm. Walk towards them. Keep steady.

She heard Dom’s piece of glass slice its way into the monster’s face, heard blood patter down onto the road.

And then she heard Jordanna struggle with her monster.

Just yours now, Chloë. Just yours.

She brought back her arm, waiting until the creature opened its mouth, and then when it did she swung it forward as hard as she could, like she was throwing javelin at school sports day, even though she was never any good at that.

The glass sliced into the monster’s mouth. Cut the sides of its lips, cold blood oozing out onto Chloë’s hand as she pushed it further inside.

She was dangerously close to the monster’s teeth. So close that if it nudged forward a bit, those black, sharp stubs would stick into her hand.

She couldn’t let that happen.

She pulled back.

But even though it had a shard of glass in its mouth, the monster didn’t fall.

Instead, it came back with Chloë. Pushed her down, brought its awful smelling mouth closer to her face, crunching down on the glass and cracking it into sharp pieces which stuck through its cheeks and into the roof of its mouth.

“Please!” Chloë shouted. She struggled. Tried to wriggle away, but she was trapped. She tried to look at Dom and Jordanna, but they were busy with their own monsters.

“Mum, please!” Chloë shouted.

The creature drooled blood all over her face.

Its teeth snapped just above her cheeks.

And then she heard a blast and felt a huge splatter of cold fluid all over her skin.

She closed her eyes when the fluid hit her. Closed them because it made her eyes sting.

But then she remembered the monster on top of her and jumped as she felt its body fall limply down onto her.

She wiped her eyes. Everything was red and blurry, and her ears were stinging from the blast. She could hear voices. Muffled voices. And now she could just about see Dom raising his hands. Shouting things.

She wiped her eyes some more and realised what had happened. The monster had been shot. Someone had shot its head off. The people‌—‌the good people at the Living Zone. They were here to help her. Here to help them and save them all and give them the Christmas they deserved.

She pushed the monster aside, which was harder than she thought it would be. It oozed out more blood onto her.

And then she stood up, still not able to make out these people properly.

She saw that they were holding guns. Three of them, all dressed in black and wearing black hats over their head like bank robbers did.

And they were all pointing their guns at Chloë, Jordanna and Dom.

They didn’t look like friendly Living Zone people.

“We can sort this out,” Chloë heard Dom saying, as he raised his hands and took a step towards these men. He didn’t sound pleased to see them. He sounded scared. And that made the bees buzz around Chloë’s tummy. “We can‌—‌we can go inside and we can‌—‌”

“Where’s the bald cunt?” one of the men said.

“And his blonde bitch,” another added.

Chloë tried to work out who they were on about. Someone Dom knew who was bald and someone who was blonde. The only bald person Chloë knew now was Pedro. Either Pedro or Mr Atkins, her old Geography teacher. But they wouldn’t be bothered about Mr Atkins.