by Casey, Ryan
But on the other hand… the very fact he’d made her open up. It felt like they’d connected in some way. Like he’d awoken something in her she didn’t even know was in there.
Like he’d made her feel comfortable being Sarah, all over again.
For the first time in a long time.
The lock snapped away.
The knife fell to the floor.
A noisy clang filled the shipping container.
She stood there. Froze. Kept her eyes closed. Listened for movement outside. Listened for any kind of sound.
When she was confident she didn’t hear anything, she reached down, picked the knife back up, and waited a few seconds before opening that door as quietly as she could.
It was pitch black outside. Good start. At least she hadn’t miscalculated her timing. Just stepping outside, though, feeling the air on her skin, it made her feel vulnerable. Trapped, somehow. Even more trapped than she felt inside her “home”, as Curtis liked to call it.
She looked to the left and immediately froze. A couple of guards, standing there, chatting. She thought for a moment they looked right around and saw her, but she was good.
She looked beyond them, over at where she knew Curtis’ home was. She wanted to get there first. Needed to get there, somehow. She’d have to worm her way between the containers. Make sure she took the route that gave her the best chance of reaching him. But she knew it wasn’t going to be easy. It wasn’t going to be straightforward.
And what if she got caught? What then?
What was the point of any of this?
Fuck it.
She took a breath, tightened her grip on the knife, and went to take a step.
Then out of nowhere, she felt somebody grab her arm and drag her off in the opposite direction.
She swung out her knife. Pressed it to the neck of this person.
“Whoa, Zelda. Zelda. Please. It’s me. Just me.”
She kept the knife there a few seconds as she realised who it was. “Michael?”
“You can’t go off that way,” he said. “You’ll get yourself caught and killed. Or worse.”
“If Curtis and the others are that way, that’s the way I need to go.”
Michael shook his head. “Shit. I shouldn’t even be here right now, but I’m goddamned glad I am. Listen to me. Curtis’ time to fall will come. Believe me. He’s far less secure than he thinks he is. Plenty of people here ain’t keen with the direction things are going. But this is your moment to get away. This is your opportunity.”
“I don’t want to get away,” Zelda said.
“What?”
“I… I don’t want to get away. I want to make the people who hurt me pay. I want to make the people who hurt my friends pay. I want… I want to help Noah. If Noah’s even fucking alive still. Do you understand? I don’t want to be on my own anymore. I want to… I want to go down fighting. I’m tired of running away. I’m tired of following. I’m tired of kneeling.”
And right then, Michael did something Zelda wasn’t expecting.
He put a hand on her shoulder.
Squeezed it. Gently.
“Noah is going to be okay. That’s my promise to you. And I… I feel he will be okay for quite some time. I’m going to help. I’m going to do everything I can.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You just have to take my word on this, okay?”
Zelda shook her head. “Why should I trust you?”
“Hmm?”
“I could kill you right now. Part of me wants to. Why are you helping me? Why are you risking everything?”
Michael smiled then. “I’m helping you because contrary to what you may think, not all of us here are psychopathic lunatics. We’re complicit, sure. And we will carry the guilt on our shoulders for the rest of our lives. But forces are at work. Things are changing. And when they do… this place will be better. We have to believe that. Truly. Now go.”
Zelda stood and looked into Michael’s eyes. She thought about stabbing him. If they found out he’d helped her, they’d probably do worse to him, anyway.
But instead, she found herself lowering her head.
She found herself looking at his feet.
Found that vulnerability creeping into her once again.
“Finn,” she said. “The kid. Is he—”
“Too far gone.”
Those three words. Three words that filled Zelda with fear. Filled her with pain.
She looked up into Michael’s eyes and saw the bloodshot regret. But also that admiration. That desire. That lust.
“Go,” he said. “Before somebody notices. Go, and do not ever turn back here. And if you are lucky… if you are very, very lucky… you will find a new home out there. And you won’t have to think about this place again.”
She gritted her teeth. Looked back between the containers, back in the direction of Curtis’ cabin.
“Promise me one thing,” she said.
Michael nodded.
“If you get a chance to torture Eddie for what he did to Jane… you make him suffer. You make him pay. Just as much as you make Curtis pay.”
Michael sighed. Swallowed a lump in his throat. “Eddie will get what’s coming to him very, very soon. Far sooner than you realise.”
“What’s that supposed to—”
She stopped because she heard a voice.
“Michael? That you over there?”
Fear in Michael’s eyes.
“Go,” he said. “Now. Yes, Fred! It’s me. I’ll be over in a second.” Then he looked back at Zelda. “Now!”
Zelda wanted to stay here.
She wanted to stand her ground.
She wanted to help.
But then she shook her head and ran around Michael’s side.
Ran between the containers.
And as much as she wanted to stay, as much as she wanted to fight… Zelda didn’t look back.
Chapter Fourteen
You never know for certain when it’s your last day on Earth.
Sunil pummelled down the road on the motorbike, Paula at one side, Steve on the other. The warm morning air brushed against his face. Riding like this, along a motorway, was a risky challenge, especially at this speed. They’d cleared the bulk of this stretch. But who was to say he wouldn’t make a wrong turn? A slight shift in his direction? One moment’s misjudgement and bam—splattered across the road. Maybe lost. Maybe abandoned. Maybe left to die in the heat of the sun, in the cold of night, bones smashed to pieces. Sitting food for the wolves.
He shuddered at the thought. Slowed down a little. He had an uncle who’d died in a car accident before all this. Mum was always cautious about him driving at all, the event scarring her so much. Death machines, Sunil, she used to say. Never know when it’s your last day when you’re in one of those.
But that fact his mum pointed out. That fact was unusual because it was true for every day.
You never really knew when you were going to meet your demise.
You never knew when your last day was going to arrive.
He kept on riding. It’d been a pretty unsuccessful trip, in all truth. Three days. No new survivors. The only people they’d come across had been camping and didn’t seem that fussed about joining. They were content. They were happy. They didn’t want to join.
And there was something else, too. The number of dead bodies Sunil had found back at Longsnape. Women, mostly. Dumped.
He could still smell the rot in his nostrils, clinging on. He could taste it in his mouth. Their dried skin. Their terrified but distant eyes. Like they’d been through all kinds of hell. Unknown hell.
And there were kids, too.
Sunil looked at that mound of the dead, flies buzzing around so loudly they were deafening, and he tasted vomit in his mouth. Something bad had happened. Something really bad. This wasn’t just an accident. It was a dumping ground.
Somebody out there was responsible for this.
Somebody ou
t there was capable of this.
Paula patted him on the shoulder. Steve puked up somewhere in the corner. “Come on,” Paula said. “Let’s get the hell out of here. Gives me the creeps.”
And Sunil wasn’t exactly in a position to disagree. He felt bad about it. Real icky.
He set off on his bike, and he couldn’t get one of those women out of his mind. Blonde woman. Dirty blonde. The one with the maggots eating out the spaces where her eyes had once sat. There was something about her. Something familiar. Something Sunil recognised—
A car up ahead.
He swung.
Almost lost control of his bike.
Gasped. Cursed under his breath as Steve and Paula zoomed on ahead, towards the setting sun. Fuck. Close. Far too fucking close. He needed to be careful. Needed to watch himself. Had to keep his mind on the road. Didn’t want to become roadkill for the crows.
He picked up his speed again. But he went a bit slower, this time. He was on his way home anyway, so he wouldn’t have to rush. Besides, they were racing. They’d be okay. They were better on their bikes than him anyway.
But that was just him all over, wasn’t it?
Always trying to prove himself. Always trying to prove he wasn’t inferior. That he was better than those around him. That he was good enough.
And the same applied to Kelly, too. He knew he was crazy. He knew she was happy on her own. He knew she was still in love with Eddie, deep down. He knew she wanted to just raise her child and get on with life.
But he couldn’t deny how he felt about her.
He couldn’t deny that he wanted to be with her.
Or at the very least, be there for her.
Maybe that was enough.
Maybe that—
He saw something.
Something on the right, in a flash.
Eyes.
Someone there.
Someone watching.
He came to a sudden halt. He wasn’t sure what stopped him.
And at the same time, he was absolutely certain.
There was somebody out there.
Somebody beside the road.
Somebody watching.
He looked up the road. Heard Steve and Paula disappearing into the distance.
They’d be okay. He’d catch them up.
He wanted to investigate this.
He wanted to see.
He climbed off his bike. Walked over to where he’d seen those eyes.
And he did something he didn’t usually do.
Because he was uncertain. Uncertainty flooded him.
He reached into his pocket for his knife.
There was something to those eyes.
Something familiar about them.
Something that made a chill run up his spine.
He walked along the road. Past the abandoned cars they’d moved. Past the broken glass. Past the rats scurrying around. And he wondered why he felt so afraid. He wondered what it was about those eyes that sparked such fear in him. Such uncertainty in him.
He kept on walking until he reached the area where he swore he’d seen those eyes, and he stopped.
A smile stretched across his face.
A dog sat there. A springer spaniel. Wagging its tail. Staring up at him. Tongue dangling out.
Sniffing the air.
Like it was curious.
“Hey, boy,” Sunil said. A dog. Of course it was just a dog. Dunno why it freaked him so much. His mind playing tricks, no doubt. “You okay? On your own out here?”
The dog tilted its head again.
Sunil wanted to take it back. But it looked healthy. It looked kind of happy.
But there was just something about it still.
A feeling.
A sense.
Sunil turned around, and suddenly, he realised where he’d recognised those eyes.
The eyes in the dark.
Staring over at him.
Jealous.
Enraged.
“Eddie?” he muttered under his breath.
The next thing he knew, he heard shuffling behind him and felt a crack across his skull.
You never know for certain when it’s your last day on Earth.
Chapter Fifteen
Noah sat back in the familiar surroundings of his shipping container and wondered this time when the end was going to arrive for real.
The container was dark, suffocating, imposing. He couldn’t hear a thing outside, just the occasional muffled sounds of laughter, of people walking by. His mouth was dry, and he smelled nothing but piss and vomit, clinging to the insides of his nostrils. His eyes felt burned and tainted by the amount of time he’d spent outside earlier in the light. Then in Curtis’ cabin.
And Eddie.
Eddie was imprinted in his mind.
Eddie’s guilt-struck, weasel features stared right back at him and made him want to vomit.
He tensed his jaw when he thought of Eddie. Especially with Jane’s severed head staring back at him from the other side of the room. He thought of the mission Curtis said Eddie had been given. A mission to spy on some group. To come back here with some useful information. And if he did… what then? Noah would be set free? He’d be allowed to just join Curtis and Eddie and live a normal life, happily ever after? That’s what Curtis expected Noah to believe? And that’s what Eddie was dumb enough to believe? No. Bullshit. Not a fucking chance.
No chance was he standing beside Curtis.
And no chance was he allowing Eddie to get away with what he’d done.
And yet there was a contrary pull, too. A voice in his head telling him that Eddie could be just as trapped as he was here. Just as caught up in an impossible situation as him. Only difference was, Eddie was on the outside, and he was on the inside.
He’d shot Jane. And Noah hated him for that.
But maybe he’d shot Jane because he simply couldn’t bring himself to shoot Noah.
Maybe he’d shot Jane because he didn’t want to lose his best friend.
Noah squeezed his heavy eyes shut. He was tired. His brief trip outside had exhausted him. He soon drifted off to a weird dream of walking through that place, of seeing the broken skull of that guy buried in the stand staring back up at him, only it was his brother, Kyle’s skull now.
And Kyle looked at him, laughing. Blood dribbling down his face. He laughed at the top of his weak, leukaemia-ridden lungs and gargled away at that fluid.
“You’re trapped,” he said. “You’re just like me. There’s no way out. No way out and you—”
A bang woke Noah up.
Footsteps moving across the container.
Before he had time to react, time to think, heavy hands grabbed his arms, dragged him to his feet.
“Come on,” a voice said. “It’s time.”
Noah frowned. Time for what? He felt groggy. He wanted to go back to sleep, back to his nightmares, back to that hellscape that was still somehow infinitely better.
But he couldn’t push back. He couldn’t resist.
“Come on, Noah. We can’t fuck around here. We need to get you out of here right this second.”
His head split with agony, with pain. He could see darkness up ahead. Suffocating darkness. Which was weird. It didn’t feel like that long had passed at all. He’d lost all sense of time, of space, of how long he’d been in here. He’d lost all sense of everything.
Only that someone was taking him outside.
His first instinct, as he staggered over the threshold, out of that container, was that they were taking him to die. He drifted in and out of consciousness as they dragged him along, step by step. Curtis had double-crossed him. Eddie was out of the way now, so he could do whatever the hell he wanted to Noah.
And more fool Eddie for ever believing anything that came out of that psychopath’s mouth.
“Come on, Noah. We don’t have long here, mate. We need to get you as far away from here as…”
Drifting. Forcing one heavy foot in front of the other.
Then being lifted. Being carried.
It felt like the arms of his mother. The caring arms of his mother. Or the arms of Jasmine. Or…
And then he was moving. Driving somewhere. Shaking from side to side. He felt sick. Desperately sick. Far sicker than he’d first thought.
He opened his chapped, sore eyes. Looked around. He was in some kind of car. The guy driving, he didn’t recognise him. Or maybe he did. Maybe he’d fed him once or twice.
He looked back at Noah with that hunched expression and shook his head. “I don’t know why I’m doing this. I don’t know why I’m helping you all. But… Shit, man. Shit. I needed to do something.”
Noah didn’t understand. Not until the man stopped the car, lifted him out, then rested him down gently beside the road.
He looked down at Noah. Put a hand on his shoulder.
He recognised this man.
Couldn’t remember his name, but recognised him.
The one who’d taken him to Curtis’ cabin.
“I helped Zelda escape last night,” he said. “She… she shouldn’t be much further ahead. I don’t know where she’s heading. I don’t know. But—but I hope you find her. Wherever you are going, I hope you find her.”
Noah frowned. He didn’t fully understand, couldn’t make sense. “Zelda? But…”
“Look,” the man said. “I’m kind of breaking the law by doing this. And if I had any sense about me, I’d drive off myself right now. But—but I’m lucky. I’m lucky ’cause I might be able to help others like you, just as long as he trusts me.”
“Help me? You… I don’t understand.”
“Look. Things ain’t as rosy as Curtis thinks. In time, I think we’re heading into revolution territory. But for now… you need to be out of the way. You need to go find that group Eddie’s headed towards. Westfield, it’s called. He’s with Marky. I dunno what you think of Eddie, but I worry about him. Really, I do. You’ve got to stop him. You’ve got to alert that place before it’s too late. I’m worried Curtis is gonna get spooked and jump the gun.
“But for now, there’s water here. There’s food in the rucksack. And there’s meds, too. You need to take them. You need to feed yourself. You need to keep a low profile. You need to build your strength up. But most importantly… you need to walk, and you need to keep walking. He has plans for you, Noah. Real grim plans. Whatever he’s promised you… don’t buy it. Not for one moment. Okay?”
