Dead Days: The Complete Season Two Collection (43 page)

Josh’s little blue eyes stared at Pedro in amazement. “You were a
soldier
? Did you fire a tank? Did you‌—‌did you fight any baddies?”

Pedro chuckled. “More than you’d believe, kiddo. More than you’d believe. So…‌‌you people have just been living like this for the last few weeks?”

“Pretty much,” Tamara said. “We were one of the only ones to get out of our caravan site in Lancaster. So just kind of stuck together. And then we heard about Manchester, so we figured we’d give that a try.”

“Manchester,” Pedro said, wiping the rabbit juices from the corners of his mouth. “What’s in Manchester?”

Tamara looked at Chris. Chris’s eyes dropped. “You haven’t told him yet?”

Chris shrugged. “Guess I was waiting for Pedro to decide whether he wanted to join us or not first.”

Pedro looked around at Chris, Barry, Tamara and Josh. They weren’t Riley and the others, but they were something. They were company. And they seemed nice. Whether they were true survivors, well. That was another matter. But shit‌—‌they were here. So they must have something going for them.

“What’s in Manchester?” Pedro repeated.

Chris cleared his throat. “We picked up a WiFi signal a few days ago. This massive house with servers of its own. We actually managed to get the Internet. For a few minutes, the lights of the outside world flicked on again.”

Pedro licked his lips. The succulent taste of the rabbit was still fresh in his mouth. He wanted so badly to have another bite of it. “And what did you see?”

“Well, that’s the scary thing,” Chris said. “All the main websites‌—‌BBC, Sky News, The Guardian. They all just stopped reporting a few days after all this happened. Foreign ones too. The New York Times. Forbes. Huffington Post. All just stopped, just like that.”

A twinge of inevitability flared up in Pedro’s stomach. “So it’s global then.”

“But I did some digging,” Chris said, ignoring Pedro’s comment. “I found a list of safe places‌—‌Living Zones, as they’re calling them. And the nearest one is right here in the north in Manchester. Then the house, it…‌‌well. It became less safe, let’s say.” His eyes flicked to Josh, who cringed as he poked at the rabbit’s dead head. “So I guess we’ve just been heading that way since. And that’s when we bumped into you.”

Living Zones. Pedro thought back to the barracks. “What makes you so sure this place is even still around? Like, if it was reported weeks ago, then what makes you sure it’s still standing?”

Chris smiled. “I got a chance to search Wordpress for blogs relating to these Living Zones before the house got raided by zombies. Turns out this place in Manchester has some blog set up. And that blog was posting several days after everywhere else stopped‌—‌the big news sites, and the like. So that tells me this place lasted. Sure, the Internet fell, but this place survived.”

“Or it survived two extra days,” Barry muttered.

“I have to say he has a point,” Pedro said. “Dunno how you can be so sure.”

“Do you have a better suggestion?” Chris said. His smile had dropped. He cleared his throat. “Last night you told me that there were no safe places anymore. I don’t believe that. I think there’s somewhere out there looking to start things up again. Somewhere out there already starting things up again. For all we know, it could be in the next town, or the next village. We just don’t know. The fall of the Internet, cell phones, all that, it’s made the world a much bigger place. This infection could have been controlled‌—‌contained‌—‌everywhere but this very road we’re on, and we wouldn’t know. Not saying it has. Just saying.”

Pedro looked over at the street. There were a few lone creatures staggering through, one in a checkered shirt much like one he used to own, another with a big round belly, now sagging.

“You can stay out here and you can never find out,” Chris said. “And that’s fine. That’s an honest, legitimate choice. Or you can come with us. I know…‌‌I know you must’ve had bad experiences with other groups in the past. It’s written all over your face. But not everyone’s bad. Not everyone has a negative agenda.”

“No,” Pedro said. He looked Chris square in his eyes. “When you’ve been through the things I’ve been through, you realise that everyone has to be bad, bruv. Everyone has to have a negative agenda when it suits.”

Chris smiled again. Took a final piece of good meat from the rabbit and handed it to Josh. “Maybe now, that’s true. But I don’t believe it has to be that way forever. But we have to find that out for ourselves. We have to take that step.”

Pedro stared beyond the street, over the trees and towards the Arnside Knott in the distance. He wondered if Riley was out there. Or whether he was a creature, staggering around like the rest of them, aimless, directionless. And he realised that if he stayed out here, just moving from place to place whenever it suited, he was no different from the creatures, not really. He had to try and do something with purpose. He had to try. That’s what made him human, still.

“Please stay with us, Pedro,” Josh muttered. “I wanna hear your war stories!”

Pedro laughed. He took a deep breath of the crisp, winter air. He smiled at Josh. Smiled at Tamara, then at Chris. Didn’t bother with Barry.

“I guess I…‌‌Okay. Okay. I’ll come with you.”

Josh whooped and cheered. Chris leaned over and offered a slightly soily looking hand to Pedro.

“To Manchester,” he said.

Pedro grabbed his hand. Shook it firmly.

“To Manchester.”

Riley held the baseball bat in his hands. He’d kept tight hold of it all night, just in case anything else came, whether creature or human. He kept hold of it, let the blood and the flesh dry on the surface.

In front of him, the bodies of the three young adults who’d tried to attack him lay, all of them with heads caved in, all of them attracting flies in the rising morning sun.

He yawned. He hadn’t managed a wink of sleep last night. But he’d also not managed to make any further progress towards the bunker that supposedly was somewhere towards the bottom of this hill. Fuck‌—‌he didn’t even know what it was he was looking for exactly. Or whether it was penetrable. Only that there was a bunker and it might be safe.

He rubbed his tongue against his teeth. He could taste blood in the cold air. The blood of last night. The blood of what he’d done. He’d battered these young adults to death. Done exactly the sort of thing they’d have done to him, all over what? A torch?

But no. What he’d done, he’d done because he had to do. Because that’s what he had to be willing to do now if he wanted to stay alive. He remembered what Anna once said to him when they sat on that boat, laying beside one another.

“The things we’ve done. The things we’ve seen and been through. How long can we last? How long can any of this last before we all just destroy each other?”

And now Riley knew the answer. The truth was, they hadn’t lasted. Humanity was already destroying one another. That was the new world order. Join in the destruction or be destroyed. This world didn’t favour the weak, or the moral, or even rebuilding. It favoured the rapists. The homeless. The mentally challenged and the escaped prisoners. It favoured those who had spent years trying to imprint their own twisted morals onto the world, and finally, after years and decades and centuries of resistance from the world, their twisted morals had won.

Riley stood up. His legs ached a little, and he was a bit shivery. He could smell the charred sticks in front of him. He’d found a lighter on the lanky guy. Got a few twigs together and set them alight. Kept him warm enough. Just about. But now was time for moving. His stomach ached with hunger. He couldn’t stay here, not for much longer. The guys and the girl he’d finished off, they’d provided a good enough barrier for the night. Something for any stray creatures to sink their teeth into instead of him. Fortunately, that hadn’t happened.

He looked at the three young adults one final time. Looked at their caved-in heads, their faces unrecognisable. He looked at their still arms, and their emptied pockets. He’d found a lighter, a bag of crisps, cigarettes‌—‌a few other things. He’d left the money they had. It had no value anymore. And the bag of crisps he was saving for when he really needed them. He was hungry now, sure, and he always got agitated when he was hungry, but he had to save them.

Then, he walked through the tall frosty grass and descended the hill through the trees.

He gripped tight hold of the baseball bat.

He listened as he descended the hill. Listened to the birds, and the insects, and all the little echoing sounds in the distance. But mostly, he listened for the groans. Or the footsteps. He had to be on guard all the time. He looked around. Looked at the empty trees. Looked at the branches, spread across and stretched out like distorted arms. Even though it was cold, he felt sweat on his head. The sweat of 110% concentration. The sweat of being aware. The sweat of surviving.

And then he saw one. Just ahead, a few hundred feet away, its back to him. But definitely one of them. No‌—‌two of them. Wandering aimlessly. Flies buzzing around them. And yes‌—‌there was the rotting smell, from all this distance away.

He gripped his bat even tighter and descended even closer towards them. Maybe once upon a time, he’d have tried to sneak around them. Now, he knew that every one of them he could take out was potentially one less that could come back and attack him in future. He didn’t like having to think this way, but it was the only way he could think.

He lifted the bat. Held his breath as he crept into the more open area and approached the first of the creatures‌—‌there were four of them now, he could see, all still with their backs to him. He clenched the bat tightly. Clenched it as he crouched behind the first creature.

3, 2, 1…‌

Then he rose and he swung the heavy metal bat around the creature’s bald, rotting head.

It let out a tiny groan as cold blood sprayed from its skull and splatted across Riley’s face. The others started to turn around, but it was already too late for them. This time, Riley had the advantage.

He smacked the next one around its half-eaten face, then smacked it again as it hit the ground, its skull making a sound like an egg cracking.

And then he rushed over to the next one. This one flew at him, the decaying, shit-reeking, flesh-filled mouth snapping and snapping. Riley smacked this one in the mouth, heard its teeth cracking, then rammed the baseball bat further down its neck, hitting and hitting through the roof of its mouth until it went still.

He felt something on his arm. Sharp fingernails scratched at him. He looked around. The fourth creature, blonde hair filled with dried blood, half-bitten tongue dangling off, groaned in his face and got closer to his neck.

He tugged at the baseball bat but it was stuck in the other creature’s mouth. He tugged. Tugged some more as the final creature got within inches of his neck.

Deep breath. Do what you have to do. Survive.

He let go of the baseball bat and suddenly felt very defenceless.

That was until he pressed both of his thumb knuckles into the bloodshot eyes of the creature. He pushed the creature back as it snapped and snapped its teeth together. The pair of them hit the ground. Riley was on top. He pressed further into the creature’s eyes, pushing as hard as he could. The eyes felt like marbles, dry, rough, falling further back into the skull as the creature moaned and moaned with something that resembled pain.

And then the pressure of the bulging eyes gave way, and Riley’s knuckles sunk further down into the creature’s head.

He heard a popping sound as the creature’s eyeballs exploded. His thumbs were covered in a cold, gooey black-red substance. He felt like heaving as the sickly smell came from the rotting eyes. He felt like it, but instead he pushed even further, until his thumbs were completely in the eye sockets of the creature, until they were embedded in the skull of the flailing, whining beast.

He wasn’t sure how much longer he held himself like this, but eventually, the creature stopped struggling.

Riley kept his thumbs inside the creature’s burst eyeballs and pierced brain for a few extra seconds just to be on the safe side. He listened around him‌—‌listened for more footsteps, more groans‌—‌but there was nothing. The creatures had all fallen. He’d dealt with them all. Done what he had to do.

He looked away as he pulled his thumbs back from the creature’s skull. Felt the sticky gunk and pieces of eye following his thumb out of the creature. Now he really did feel like heaving. Eventually, he got his thumbs free and he wiped them on the bloodstained white shirt of the creature, bloody holes where its eyes once were.

“Sorry,” Riley said, but he didn’t feel any emotion. Nothing other than nausea, anyway.

He reached for his baseball bat with both hands and yanked it out of the skull of the other fallen creature.

Then, he turned around and continued in the direction the creatures had been blocking his route to.

And he saw it.

His knuckles loosened. His stomach tingled. Heat coated his cheeks.

He took a few more steps. Then those steps turned into a jog, and then a run.

In front of him, at the bottom of the hill, hiding in the grass like some kind of Tellietubby home, there was a rusting green bunker.

Chapter Six

Chloë was cold when she woke up. She wanted to pull her quilt cover up to her neck and snuggle under it for a bit longer. Another day without school. Another day without homework. And Christmas was coming soon. Christmas with her sister and her mummy and‌—‌

Her trail of thoughts stopped. She remembered her mum falling as the bad man shot her in the head.

And then the bad man falling.

And then Anna falling when she shot at them all, shot at them for taking her mum away from her.

She opened her eyes. The light from the open window stung them. Wind blew through into the room, tickling her head. She was damp. Damp, but…‌‌but sticky. Like something dried was stuck to her.

She looked down and remembered what the dry feeling was. She was covered in red. Blood, from the men who’d tried to hurt her.