Dead Days: The Complete Season Two Collection (6 page)

“Daddy?”

The voice made Riley’s skin crawl. It was too high-pitched for Pedro. And it was too human for a creature. Riley frowned. Looked to his left. He must’ve imagined it. He must’ve been imagining things, all along.

But the look on Pedro’s face. The wide eyes. The open mouth.

Somebody was behind him.

In the corridor, past the kitchen area where Pedro stood, there was a little boy. Dark hair. Looked about ten. Wearing blue Spiderman pyjamas and holding an Angry Birds teddy under his arm. He looked thin. Too thin. Pale. His nostrils were chapped, and his mouth was covered in warts.

But it wasn’t the warts that held Riley’s attention.

It was the bleeding, gaping wound on the boy’s shoulder.

The bite mark.

Chapter Six

Riley stared at the boy. Pedro stared at the boy. Both of them‌—‌all three of them, including the kid‌—‌were speechless.

The kid with the bite on his shoulder.

“What…‌” Riley started. The fact that the caravan was surrounded by fifty-odd creatures drifted to the back of his mind when he considered his and Pedro’s immediate predicament. “What are…‌‌Are you…‌”

“I thought you were Daddy,” the boy said.

Riley’s stomach sank. Pedro stepped back a few steps. Riley hadn’t been imagining things. The boy was alive. He was alive and he was in the same caravan they were in and he was…‌

He was bitten.

Riley blinked his watery eyes and cleared his throat. “What’s…‌‌I’m Riley. And…‌‌and this is Pedro. What’s your name?”

The boy clutched tighter hold of his Angry Bird teddy. Riley thought it was the red bird at first, but it was actually the yellow one.

The redness was from the blood on his neck.

“Thomas,” the boy said, avoiding eye contact with Riley and Pedro. “Do you…‌‌Do you know when it’s time to wake my daddy?”

“Wake your…‌‌wake your daddy. What do you mean?” The situation seemed dreamlike to Riley. This couldn’t be happening.

“What happened to your neck?” Pedro asked. His voice was stern. Sharp. Not how an adult usually spoke to a child.

The kid, Thomas, looked at the floor of the caravan again.

“I asked you a‌—‌”

“Wait,” Riley said, stepping up beside Pedro and resting an arm on his shoulder. Riley could see that Pedro’s eyes were bloodshot. His jaw was tensed. He couldn’t read his emotions. He looked elsewhere. Transported to another world completely.

Riley crouched down opposite Thomas and pointed at the Angry Bird. “You good at that game?”

Thomas looked him in the eye for the first time. His eyes were chapped and red in the corners. Sleep had built up at the edges, dribbling and crusting down the bridge of his nose. “I’ve completed all the levels on…‌‌on Daddy’s phone.”

Riley raised his eyebrows, going along with the situation. “All the levels! Wow. I only managed like, the first five.”

Silence. Thomas stared at him.

“Anyway,” Riley said. He realised he had to get somewhere with this conversation. He had to figure out what the fuck was going on and what the fuck they were going to do about it. The wound on the kid’s shoulder, it wasn’t necessarily a bite mark. He could’ve just hurt it. Hurt it like Riley had hurt his leg. He could’ve slipped, or something. “Your daddy. Where is he?”

Thomas raised his shaking arm and pointed at a door right at the end of the corridor.

Tension welled up inside Riley’s stomach.

“He said he needed a lie-in. He said he never got a lie-in anymore with…‌‌with me around and that he wanted a lie-in. He told me not to wake him up.”

Riley looked up at Pedro and nodded. Pedro nodded back at him. They got what must’ve been going on here. Thomas’s dad had turned. Thomas had gone in to see his dad. His dad had lashed out at him and bitten him.

“Do you think your dad would mind if I went in to see him?”

Thomas’s eyes drifted away again. They drifted towards the shadows of the creatures outside, thumping against the windows, thumping against the door. “Are they mad at us outside?”

Riley gulped. Jesus, this kid didn’t know a thing. It must’ve been hard for kids, though. Developing in a world like this. How did you tell a child that the world had gone to shit, and all that mattered was survival?

“They won’t be mad at us. Not if we can see your…‌‌your dad. He’s through the door at the end, did you say?”

Thomas shrugged, then ran into the lounge and behind Pedro. He clearly didn’t want to see his dad.

Or rather, he clearly didn’t want his dad seeing him.

Riley tilted his head at Pedro to follow. Pedro, whose eyes were still bloodshot and watery, nodded and followed.

They crept down the hallway to the room at the end. Riley tried his best to listen for a sound inside the room; tried to distinguish between the creatures scraping away outside the caravan and the inevitable groans of Thomas’s dad on the inside. Shit, no wonder the creatures knew where they were. Thomas’s dad must’ve been groaning away inside there. Groaning away, and they didn’t have a clue in the world.

Riley placed his hand against the door handle. He held his breath. Lifted the boat debris. Counted to three.

One.

Two.

Three.

He pulled the door open and raised his weapon, ready to crash it into whatever was inside.

Turned out, the only assault from this room was the smell.

Riley covered his nose. His eyes stung. The smell was strong and pungent, like shit stirred together with rotten eggs, only a million times worse. He looked around the room, on the verge of retching. It was dark. The air was damp.

There was no creature in the room.

However, on the bed, there was somebody.

It was a man. He was tall and thin. He was lying down on the bed in his boxer shorts. His skin had turned a pale, greenish-grey.

At the corners of his mouth, sick had wedged to his skin. It looked so solid that it looked fake, like a waxwork model at Madame Tussauds. In the man’s right hand, he clutched on to a bottle of pills. There were no bite marks on his flesh.

Riley thought he understood what had happened here before he’d entered the room, but now he got a completely different picture of the scene. Thomas’s dad had opted out. He’d told Thomas he was having a lie-in and then he’d killed himself, leaving his son on his own. Fuck. What a desperate world. What a horrible, cruel, desperate world.

Riley stepped back and closed the door. He looked at Pedro. Pedro had gone pale. His eyes were even more bloodshot and watery. Probably the closest Riley had seen him to crying. No‌—‌
easily
the closest.

“How long ago did your dad go for his lie-in?” Riley asked Thomas as he returned to the living room.

Thomas stood in the middle of the room plucking the blood from the Angry Bird toy. “Erm. A few sleeps ago. I’ve…‌‌I’ve had eight boxes of Coco Pops since. And that’s why…‌‌that’s why I went out today to find some more and then they got angry and this happened.” He pointed at the bloody wound on his shoulder.

Riley’s legs weakened. So Thomas had been bitten. Poor little Thomas had left his dad to have a “lie-in,” completely unaware that his dad was dead. Poor little Thomas, who had been living alone for about a week, had gone out to try to find some food after running out of Coco Pops.

Poor little Thomas had been bitten.

“Why don’t you…‌‌Why don’t you head to your room and, I dunno. Bring out some of your coolest toys. Let the adults talk for a few minutes. That okay?”

Thomas stared at Riley. He gripped the Angry Bird tighter to his chest. “You won’t go away like Mummy, will you? You won’t leave me?”

Riley gulped down the lump in his throat. He wiped away a tear from his eye. He crouched down opposite Thomas and held out a hand. “No. No, I won’t. We won’t. We friends?”

Thomas stared at Riley inquisitively, then looked at his fist for a few seconds.

Then, with his bloody hand, he shook Riley’s.

“Friends,” Thomas said.

He walked up to Pedro, a smile on his face. He held out a hand to him. Pedro just stared back at him. Stared back at him with wide eyes, in a trance-like state.

“Pedro?” Riley said.

Pedro blinked and snapped out of his trance. He cleared his throat. “Yeah, um.” He gave Thomas the smallest handshake he could, avoiding all eye contact. “Yeah. Friends.”

Thomas skipped back to his room, smile on his face, despite the blood on his neck, and despite the creatures that continued to claw at the sides of the caravan walls. That must’ve been why the door was unlocked. Thomas must’ve forgotten to lock it when he made his way back to his caravan. Riley still hadn’t decided yet whether that was a blessing or a curse for any of them.

“You know what we’re going to have to do, don’t you?” Pedro said.

Tears flowed down Riley’s cheeks now. He knew what Pedro was suggesting. The boy, Thomas, he was bitten. He was bitten and he was going to turn into a creature and he was going to come back as a creature. One way or another, Thomas was not making his way out of this one alive.

Riley nodded. Just a single nod. Nothing too decisive. “I know. I know. It’s just…‌‌I’m not sure I can. I’m not sure I‌—‌”

“I’ll do it,” Pedro said. His eyes had gone glassy again. The red, bloodshot streams had returned.

“Are you sure?” Riley asked. He couldn’t believe he was asking this. He couldn’t believe any of this was happening, sat in this caravan, surrounded by creatures; creatures who eventually, would get inside.

Who were already inside. Technically.

Pedro rose to his feet. He opened up a drawer and pulled out a bandage. He shook it and raised his eyebrows, the scale of victory of redressing Riley’s leg so overshadowed by the little boy and the knowledge of what was going to happen to him in minutes, hours, whenever.

Pedro lifted Riley’s leg up and started to untie the makeshift bandage. Riley closed his eyes and tried to focus on something other than the pain, but it was impossible.

“Are you sure you’re okay with…‌‌Thomas. The kid. Are you sur‌—‌”

“I’ve had to do it before,” Pedro said.

Riley’s eyes opened. He watched Pedro as he untied the dirty bandage from around his leg.

Tears were dripping from Pedro’s bloodshot, glassy eyes.

“It was before this whole thing started,” Pedro said. He had Riley’s leg propped up on a miniature coffee table. He’d removed the bloody makeshift bandage, and the wound was exposed again. It was an angry shade of red, and although it had partly scabbed over, any slight movement sent blood oozing back out of the shrapnel-filled hole.

“What happened?” Riley asked. He winced as Pedro dabbed the searing wound with an alcohol-laced cloth. The creatures outside continued to brush against the walls of the caravan, but they weren’t attacking as strongly now. Pedro and he might be able to lie low in here for a good few hours, yet.

But Thomas. The little, bitten boy in his bedroom, collecting his toys to show them.

What did they do with him?

“Sorry,” Pedro said, sponging the wound with sizzling alcohol once again. “But anyway. Yeah. I…‌‌It was my boy. My son. He was nine. Around…‌‌around Thomas’s age. But anyway. One day he’s playing out the front, like he always did. Such a…‌‌a cheeky little thing he was, my Sam. Always doing daft stuff. Balancing on the kerb. Climbing on top of bins and pretending he was a king.” Pedro laughed. His eyes were watery.

“Anyway. One day…‌‌real sunny day actually. June 11
^th
. Me and my…‌‌my ex-wife, Corrine, we’re sitting in our living room, and Sam is outside. And he’s playing, you know. Standing on the kerb. Climbing bins. Climbing walls. And then we hear this…‌‌this thud. I can only describe it as a thud. Echoed right through to the house it did. Kind of like when you jump up and down on concrete tiles. But yeah. Corrine and I both got pretty worried right away. The horns honking outside our house. The traffic jam in the road. And I…‌” He paused, his voice shaky. “The one thing I’ll never forget is that feeling when I opened my front door and saw him there in the middle of the road. Saw his…‌‌his little body, all still. And just thinking how much…‌‌how much blood for a little person. I turned to Corrine, and I nodded. She understood. She understood right away.”

Riley was speechless. The pain in his leg had been overshadowed by the honesty of Pedro’s story. Pedro, the soldier who was seemingly…‌‌well, invincible. He never knew any of this about him. He hadn’t had a clue.

“I’m…‌‌I’m so sorry,” Riley said. That was all he could manage.

Pedro wiped his eye and cringed, realising he’d had alcohol on that finger. “It’s okay,” he said, patting his eye down. He returned to Riley’s leg and started rolling out the fresh dressing and bandage. “But yeah. Sam made it. Tough kid, they said. He made it, but he was‌—‌he was asleep, to put it kindly. And they figured he’d be asleep for a‌—‌a very long time. The nurses and the doctors were talking about the ‘kindest option’ for our boy. But Corrine wasn’t having any of it. Weeks, she waited. Weeks, months. On and on and on it went. A visit to the hospital, no new news. You know, I almost wanted some
bad
news, because at least it would be a sign that something was changing in my little boy. I dunno. Wasn’t really thinking straight at the time.

But in the end, after twenty-nine weeks, I believe, I made the call. I made it alone. I watched them take my boy away. The waiting was over, I knew it. And I…‌‌I knew my relationship with Corrine was over too, for making that decision independent of her. And I was right. Wow. Fourteen years ago, that was, and it still gets me to this day. Joined the army soon after. Reinvented myself. But the things we’ve done in the past…‌‌they stay with us. Whether we like it or not.”

The room went silent again. Pedro tied the bandage around Riley’s leg. What did he say to a man who’d been through such a trauma? Did he open up about his past? Did he tell the truth about…‌‌about everything?

“I lost a kid too,” Riley said. Saying it out loud seemed strange considering he’d never admitted it to anyone before. “Not…‌‌not like you, though. But I was seeing this girl a few years back. Alison. Seemed to be going well. She got pregnant, and for the first time in my life, I could actually envision our future. Anyway, she…‌‌she went away. Never heard from her again. Never saw her again. Not until I found her on Facebook under an alias. Alice. And there she was in Australia with this blond hunk and this…‌‌this beautiful little boy.”