Dead Days: The Complete Season Two Collection (22 page)

Riley nodded. “That’s how it is.”

“Indeed. Now we’d better go try this loudspeaker before the gates come crumbling down completely. Seems like you’ve brought a problem back with you.” His eyes looked out at the creatures wandering in their direction.

“We brought back a few dozen problems,” Pedro said. “And all of them are very fucking hungry.”

Riley followed Rodrigo through to the main road of Heathwaite’s Caravan Park. Even though it was never bustling with life at this lower end, it was particularly silent today. Faces watched on from the large, glass windows of the leisure centre as the front gate creaked and creaked. The gate guards had all moved around to the front gate, doubling the numbers, stepping back and waiting for the inevitable fall of the gates.

“Did you activate the generator?” Rodrigo asked.

Riley nodded. Activating the generator had seemed like a moderate achievement when compared to all the other things they’d managed to do when they were out in the Dumping Ground. Surviving, for one. That was a fucking a-grade achievement, right there.

“We’ve got Dean Hutchins over in the control room working on splitting the loudspeaker signals. Hit and miss, he says, but that’s the best we’ve got.”

“It better bloody be worth it,” Pedro said as the trio followed Rodrigo towards the small control room to the right of the reception area. The sound of metal screeching against metal reminded Riley of Scar’s claws against the concrete in The Lion King. He hated the sound, all his life, and he blamed that bastard Scar for all of it.

“Are there enough people to watch all the gates?” Anna asked. “Just with the creatures coming from the‌—‌”

“No. No, there aren’t,” Rodrigo said. “Which is why we have to hope to God this thing works.”

Riley entered the control room. Dean Hutchins, a short man with a belly that was out of proportion with the rest of his slim body, bit his nails as he clicked around on the screen in front of him.

“How’s it looking, Dean?” Rodrigo asked.

Dean sighed and tilted his head from side to side. “Loudspeaker down at the Dumping Ground ain’t showin’ up just yet,” he said, in his thick Lancashire twang. “Could be a delay, or summat like that. S’hunt take too long.”

“We don’t have too long,” Riley said.

“He’s right,” Rodrigo added. “Those fences are screeching with the weight of the creatures on the outside. We’ve got more creatures coming from the Dumping Ground. We’ve got one shot at this. One shot at making it work. You ready?”

Dean sighed and scratched at his stubble. “I’ll give it a shot,” he said. “Best get prayin’, I say.”

“Hasn’t got me anywhere in the past,” Pedro said.

Riley stepped over to the open window at the side of the control room as Dean hit a button. He held his breath. Waited for the faint sound of a loudspeaker in the distance. Waited for it to cut through the landscape. Waited for it to catch the attention of the creatures‌—‌if that even fucking happened, which judging by their luck today wasn’t likely. Waited for the creatures to drift off away from the fences.

Instead, Riley heard nothing.

He looked around at Dean. Dean stared back at him. Everyone in the room either had their fingernails between their teeth or their heads in their hands. The nerves were tangible.

“Have you activated it?” Riley started.

Dean waited a few seconds, his stubbly cheeks flushing, then nodded. “Activated just the one down by…‌‌Oh fuck.”

Dean’s words echoed Riley’s thoughts. Riley heard an alarm siren sound from the loudspeaker, but it was too close‌—‌too clear‌—‌to be the speaker at the Dumping Ground. In fact, it sounded like it was all around them, from different directions.

“Don’t tell me that’s the loudspeakers in the caravan park you just activated,” Rodrigo said.

Dean fumbled around the control system, his cheeks getting redder and redder. “I swear that’s not right. Shunt be doin’ that. No reason fer it.”

“Well it’s doing it,” Pedro said, walking up to the window. “And no creatures are gonna go wandering away from here when they can hear that.”

After a few seconds, Dean managed to turn the loudspeaker off. The second the alarm sound cut out, Riley heard the creaking of the fences and gates getting louder. Groans were coming from the side of the site too, where they’d sneaked out to the Dumping Ground. A distant sound of fingernails scratching the metal in unison wormed its way into Riley’s head.

“What now?” Anna asked. “We…‌‌we have to go out there, don’t we? Damage limitation?”

“There’s always the contingency plan,” Riley said. He looked directly at Rodrigo.

Rodrigo’s head dropped. He turned back to Dean. “Try again. Try again, and if it fails, we prepare to defend this place.”

Pedro scoffed and smacked his hand against the desk. “Defend this fucking place? Are you madder than I‌—‌”

“You’re welcome to walk,” Rodrigo said, raising his voice. “I’ve always made that perfectly clear to everybody.”

Pedro looked like he was going to say something else. Instead, he closed his mouth and shut up, tilting his head in Dean’s direction. “Go on then. Give it another shot.”

Dean rubbed his hands together, let out a loud exhale, then hovered his hand over the button again. “Wish us luck.”

He brought his finger down on the button.

Riley held his breath as butterflies‌—‌savage butterflies‌—‌swarmed around his stomach. He listened for the sound of the loudspeaker in the distance, beyond the noise of the creaking gates and fences. He listened. Hoped. This had to work. It had to.

But still, nothing.

Dean stepped back and shook his head. “We tried,” he said. “We tried.”

He didn’t have to say anymore.

Riley stepped to the right of the open window and moved out onto the balcony area. Out here, where the chilly wind bit at his face, the groans and the struggling was louder. The nervous faces behind the glass of the Leisure Centre area were growing even more twitchy, even more anxious.

“So we defend this place?” Riley said, staring out at the gate guards, who raised the guns and pointed them at the fences.

No response from Rodrigo. Just sighs. Sighs of frustration. Exhaustion. Of, “why the fuck did this have to go and happen to us?”

Anna held one hand over her face. The other hand fiddled with the silver heart shaped locket at the end of her necklace now around her neck, still smudged with blood from when Riley had found it.

“Time to pull the plug,” Pedro said. “I know for a fact when it’s too late to start defendin’ a place. And I’ve seen what happens when somebody goes too far.”

Riley gulped as he stared out at the creaking gates. They might fall in minutes. Or maybe hours. But without a distraction from the loudspeaker, this place was as good as breached.

“The contingency plan,” Rodrigo said. His voice sounded shakier. His eyes were watery and bloodshot. “Maybe…‌‌maybe you’re right. Maybe we…‌”

He stopped. At first, Riley thought he’d heard it in his own mind, but Rodrigo stopping talking made him think otherwise. Anna moved her hands away from her face. Pedro frowned. A smile twitched at the corners of Dean’s mouth.

“Is…‌‌is that it?” Anna asked.

In the distance, Riley could hear it. A siren. Not from the main caravan park‌—‌not close enough‌—‌but loud enough to be heard from here, right ahead of them.

The four of them shuffled out of the control room and ran outside.

The gates were still creaking. The groans were still audible. The gate guards, although they’d lowered their guns slightly, didn’t seem totally convinced.

“Is it working?” Anna whispered as Riley and her got close to the gate. “Is it…‌‌I can still hear them. Is it‌—‌”

“It’s working,” Pedro said. A smile was on his face. A rare smile. Didn’t look right, actually.

Riley wasn’t sure what Pedro meant at first, but then he heard it, ever so gradually.

The groans were lowering in volume.

The fences weren’t creaking, scratching against one another as forcibly.

Riley kept still. Silent. So too did Rodrigo, Pedro, Anna, Dean, the guards.

The faces from the Leisure Centre window looked more questioning. More hopeful.

Riley stared at Anna. He dared not twitch, like a game of musical chairs. But Pedro was right. The groans weren’t as strong. The pushing against the fences had been drowned out by a shuffling.

A shuffling in the direction of the loudspeaker siren, ringing and ringing in the distance.

Riley lifted a thumb, being careful not to so much as crack a joint in the process.

Rodrigo smiled. Pedro smiled. Anna smiled. Everyone smiled.

“It’s working,” Anna mimed, beaming smile on her face.

Riley nodded. It was working. Heathwaite’s Caravan Park would be theirs, at least for a little while longer.

Chapter Seven

Riley looked out at the road that led up to the front gate. It was hard to believe that just an hour earlier, creatures had been pushing themselves up against those fences, swarming around the sides and surrounding Heathwaite’s Caravan Park in an inescapable wall.

But now, the creatures had drifted off towards the Dumping Ground with the sound of the siren from the loudspeaker. At first, it had been just enough to capture the attention of the creatures. But once Dean had figured out a way to speak through this one loudspeaker, the creatures were all staggering and groaning in the direction of his voice in unison.

Now, bar a few lone stragglers on the road outside, which Donald and a few other volunteers were dealing with, the creatures were gone. Heathwaite’s was safe.

“Never doubted this place for a minute,” Rodrigo said, leaning against the balcony with a smile on his bearded face.

“Wish I shared your optimism,” Riley said.

“What happened,” Rodrigo said. “With Dave. It was an anomaly. Nothin’ like that will happen again.”

“You can’t promise that,” Riley said. He watched as a few more volunteers‌—‌men, women, whoever wanted to be involved‌—‌pulled up some heavy panels towards the main fence. No better time than now to increase the defences.

“This was a wake-up call,” Rodrigo said. “Nothing more. We handled it. We‌—‌”

“We handled it, yes. But not all of us made it.” Riley thought back to Aaron’s shocked, confused face as Dave rammed the knife in his neck. “How many more people are we going to lose ‘handling’ these situations?”

Rodrigo didn’t answer Riley this time. He just stared out into the distance as the sun peeked through the fluffy winter clouds.

“Dave…‌‌before he…‌‌before we dealt with him. He said something. Something about you‌—‌you not being who you say you are. Exposing you, or something. I…‌‌I have to ask. You have to understand my preference for honesty, with everything that’s happened.”

Rodrigo looked at Riley. His eyes lowered to the ground. He bit his lip. Riley hadn’t seen him like this before, and it was even more stark because he’d looked so triumphant moments ago.

“I…‌‌I’m not who I say I am,” Rodrigo said. His voice had transformed from its peculiar American drawl to something decidedly more British. “I‌—‌when I say I was in the army. I was. A long, long time ago though. Just a volunteer. But I…‌” He paused. Hesitated. Looked at Riley again.

“You don’t have to continue. Just it might help. I know.”

Rodrigo took in a deep breath. “I was kicked out. British Army. Booted out for ‘civilian mistreatment’ in Afghan. But it wasn’t true. The men under my command, maybe one or two of them, but not me. But someone’s gotta take the blame.”

“British Army? What about‌—‌”

“I went to stay with family in America for quite some time. Boston. Not for long, but just for a bit of a break. My sister, she helped get me back on my feet. I…‌‌I was wanted back in Britain for what had happened. Nothing major‌—‌just an official removal of my badges. But I couldn’t face my honour being stripped away. I just…‌‌I wasn’t ready for it yet. Anyway, one thing led to another and I ended up back home in the end after a good couple years away. Took a break here in Heathwaite’s beforehand, where y’know, I could just chill and enjoy the scenery. And yeah. Then all this happened.”

Riley was stunned to silence by Rodrigo’s words.

“Rodrigo, I‌—‌”

“It’s Roger. It really is just Roger.”

Riley’s gut had been right, then. Rodrigo wasn’t his real name. But his reasons behind the name change‌—‌a comical Americanising of himself, somewhat‌—‌they hadn’t been what he was expecting. He was just another human being with demons in his closet.

“Don’t tell them. Please.” Rodrigo’s eyes were puppy-dog-esque now. Begging. “They‌—‌they need someone. Stability. I can give that to them. I do give that to them. And I…‌‌I need it, too. I need to know I can serve the best interests of people again. Look out for them. Keep them together. I…‌‌I suppose I need it as much as everyone else.”

Riley smiled and nodded. “I’ve no business telling anybody anything. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve proven your place as a leader. That’s worth a shitload more than any badge or rank.”

Rodrigo tried something that resembled a smile. “You’re a decent man, Riley. Wasn’t sure at first, but you’re…‌‌you’ve a clearer head than I have. What do you think our next step should be?”

Riley looked back at Heathwaite’s Caravan Park. People were beginning to come back out of their caravans. Voices that were previously so panicked were more gossipy and relieved now.

“20
^th
December,” Riley said. “Five days til Christmas.”

“God help me,” Pedro said. “Could never stand that fake festival. Now I’m gonna have to put on a smile for a whole day. Give me a whisky and some quality television over all that fakery any day.”

Riley laughed. “I’d drink to that, if I had one.”

Rodrigo smacked Riley on the back. “Maybe you’ve earned one, kid. Maybe you’ve earned one.”

“Count me in on that.”

Riley looked around. It was Anna. She was smiling. Still bruised around her eye and red around her neck from the confrontation with Dave, but smiling nonetheless.

“Well we’ve whisky, beer, smokes‌—‌whatever. It’s your call,” Rodrigo said.