by Ryan Casey
“No,” Riley said. A weight lifted from his shoulders. “No. We’re happy with this. You… We’re grateful for what you did. Getting us out of that situation. And I don’t think we’ll find anywhere else as safe as this outside.”
Ivan nodded in agreement as the vehicle moved through the first set of gates. “You’re probably right. Well, say goodbye to the outside for now.”
Riley turned around. Watched as the outside grew more distant and less visible through the small tunnel leading into the barracks. The dead creatures on the grass. The plea for help on the houses. The outside world — the dangerous outside world — behind them.
The gates slammed shut. Anna flinched.
“And welcome to your new home,” Ivan said.
After the vehicle pulled in to the parking area, the group climbed out. They shook hands with the two guards that had let them in, faceless and void of identity as they wore the same glasses that Ivan and Pedro had worn upon their arrival. Another couple sprinted over — a shorter, chubbier man called Chef, and an older gentleman with a twirly moustache. They exchanged pleasantries and were escorted through the courtyard and into the building on the left.
Ivan took Elizabeth’s body from Claudia before they entered. Claudia was reluctant to give her up, but eventually, she saw sense. She did what she had to do. Made the tough call, like they’d all had to do.
Riley rested a hand on her shoulder as Ivan handed Elizabeth’s body to ‘Stocky’, who pushed her away on a trolley.
“You’ve been tough. Real tough.”
Tears trickled down Claudia’s face. She sniffed and watched her daughter disappear further and further away from her. “I… I’ve been awful.”
“You’re grieving. We all are. She… Elizabeth. She was a lovely little girl.” He looked at the door. Chloë stared at her sister being wheeled away. Her bottom lip quivered. Her eyes were welling up. The first flicker of emotion she’d shown in hours. “But you have to stay tough. You have another beautiful girl to look after who’s hurting and who’s very confused about… about this new world. And she needs her mother there for her. She’s seen things no kid should have to see. You need to keep her grounded. She’s a tough kid. But she’s still a kid.”
Claudia huffed out a nervous breath. “A passer-by would think you’re a father or something.”
A nervous tingling sensation ran through Riley’s chest. Heat began to cover his face. “No. No, I’m not.”
“You’d make a good one.”
She hadn’t noticed. Thank God she hadn’t noticed. “Yeah. Well, it wasn’t for me. And I guess I don’t have much choice now.”
Claudia smiled at Riley. “I don’t know. You and Anna seem to have a good bit of chemistry going on.”
The heat that had cooled down from his cheeks fast returned. And this time, Claudia did notice.
“Never underestimate the power of a blush to reveal a thousand emotions.” Claudia moved away from Riley and stepped over to Chloë. “You okay, darling?”
Chloë had her head down, focused on the ground. She nodded, but her chin was shaking and her bottom lip kept on revealing itself.
“Come here, angel. Come here.” Claudia wrapped her arms around her daughter.
Tears streamed down Chloë’s face. “I shouldn’t… I shouldn’t cry. We should be tough. We should be strong.”
“I know, my sweet. I know.”
Chloë continued to cry into her mother’s arms as the pair of them watched Elizabeth disappear inside the opposite building of the barracks.
Ivan led the group up the stairs and towards the room at the end of a long corridor. The wooden walls were lined with medals and images of war heroes past and present.
“Always fancied myself on these walls one day,” Ivan said. “Might get a shot if those walking corpses find a way inside here. As in, I’ll actually be spread across the walls.” He stopped and hesitated, noticing Chloë. “Sorry, I didn’t—”
“It’s okay,” Chloë said. She walked hand in hand with her mother. “I killed one. I know how it is.”
Ivan raised his forehead and carried on walking. He looked taken aback by Chloë’s words. “Anyway, your bed’s are up here on the left. Bunk beds, I’m afraid, but plenty of them. And we’ll give you a living quarter to yourselves. We respect your privacy.”
Riley stopped and looked in the room. Stacks of bunk beds with perfectly made bed sheets. None of them recently occupied. “Where is everyone?”
“Like I said. Not everybody chose to stay. But I guess that means more for you. Right?” He held his arm out towards the room.
Claudia and her daughter entered first. “Thank you. I’d just about stopped believing in miracles after… Yeah. But at least we have some hope.”
Ivan shook his head. “It’s the least we can do. Really.”
Ted, Anna and Riley followed. Anna was still quiet, but she managed to offer a half-smile at Ivan as she walked into the bedroom. Ted winced as he pulled his training shoe from his foot. A small patch of blood poked from his bandage.
“Need any help with that foot?”
Ted grimaced as he untied the bandage. “It’s… it’s just…”
“We can have our medic take a look at it later. For now, you people should get some rest. There’s a shower room two doors down the corridor. And we’ll be serving up a nice hot lunch in an hour or so. Sandwiches. Chicken. Anyone hungry?”
Ted’s tender foot dropped and he didn’t even flinch. “Yes. Yes, we are.”
Ivan smiled and turned away. “Well, make yourselves comfortable. I’ll be downstairs if you need me. Oh, and um. Your daughter’s ashes. They… We should be able to get them to you in about an hour. That okay?”
Claudia gripped Chloë’s hand, took a deep breath and smiled. “Yes. That would be lovely of you.”
“Right,” Ivan said. He raised his hand and waved as he walked away. “I’ll leave you guys to whatever it is you do. See you soon.”
Ivan’s footsteps echoed down the corridor and down the stairs. Riley faced the group. Ted rubbed his rumbling stomach in anticipation of their meal. Claudia and Chloë snuggled up to one another on a bed, pulling each another through their loss. Anna was at the back of the room. She peered out of the bolted windows at the courtyard.
“You okay with this?” Riley sat on the bed opposite hers.
“I’d rather take top bunk but I fell out of one once, so this will do.”
Riley edged back. “I don’t mean the bunks. I mean—”
“—Being here. Yeah. I… I wasn’t sure. But for what it’s worth, I think you’ve made the right call.”
Riley rested against the pillows. They felt plump and soft, especially compared to the cold frostiness of last night’s stay at the railway shelter. “I’m sorry. About… about the fallout at the Chinese restaurant.”
“It’s okay. We were all at each other’s necks. Just a shame we don’t all get the chance to have a go at one another again.”
Riley closed his eyes. Remembered Trevor as he stepped back into the flaming Chinese restaurant, luring the creatures inside. A selfless act. A truly selfless act that hopefully none of them would have to do again.
“You’re a good guy, Riley. Thank you.”
Riley thought about replying but when he opened his eyes, Anna already had the quilt pulled up to her neck and her eyes closed. The sunlight peeked over the tops of the barracks, bathing her in a thin film of light.
Riley took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Despite everything they’d lost, everything they’d had to go through, at least they still had each other. At least they’d made it through. They were safe for now. They were safe for now, at last.
Ivan whistled as he walked into the canteen. He rubbed the grime from his hands onto his uniform. Hated clammy palms. Never could stand them. No matter how many greasy-as-fuck rifles he’d had to carry, he always washed his hands at every opportunity. Germs, they spread. Spread like flies around shit. Nobody needed germs, not
in a time like this.
“Chef — you got the girl?”
Chef closed his copy of FHM and raised himself from the canteen table. He shook the small black urn. ‘Remembering You…’ was etched across it in chipped, tacky gold lettering. Sentimental. Perfect.
“Good.” Ivan grabbed the urn and slipped it in his top pocket. “Good indeed. Where did you find it?”
“Oh, lying around. Like a needle in a haystack full of needles.” Chef sniggered through his buckteeth.
Ivan cringed. “Don’t fuck around. In fact, don’t make jokes. They don’t suit you. Have you got the girl?”
Chef scooted off to the other side of the canteen and pulled out the trolley. He pushed it towards Ivan, being sure to adjust it so the girl’s body wasn’t visible.
Ivan grabbed the trolley and started to push it towards the canteen exit. “Make sure you cook our guests an absolute feast this afternoon, right? We need to make them feel at home. They deserve it after everything they’ve been through.”
Chef bobbed his head and crouched back down. Stupid fat little rodent. Fortunate to make the cut. But he was a good cook, and that worked in his favour. Needed something to keep their spirits up in here.
Ivan pushed the trolley out of the canteen and down the corridor. He started whistling again. Always had been a good whistler. If he hadn’t gone into the army, he’d have become a pro whistler. If there even was such a thing. If there wasn’t, there should be.
He stopped at the door at the end of the corridor. Checked to see all was clear. When he saw it was, he slipped the key in the door and pushed it open.
“Alright, Ivan?”
Ivan’s heart sank. He pulled the door back and turned around.
“Don’t worry. Just me.” Pedro stepped towards him.
“Thank fuck,” Ivan said. His heartbeat slowed down, back to normal pace, whatever normal pace was. “Shouldn’t do that lurking around thing, though. It’ll get you killed some day.”
Pedro shrugged. “Served me well so far. That the… the girl?”
Ivan gulped. “Yeah. Might as well get her dealt with.”
“You’re doing the right thing,” Pedro said. “I know you might not think so at times, but you are. I’ve got your back.”
Ivan half-smiled at Pedro. “Thanks, Pedro. Thanks.”
“Just quit that bloody whistling. Now that will get you killed someday.” He scooted off down the corridor in the direction of the canteen.
Ivan took a few deep breaths. The corridor was completely silent. Completely dead. ‘You’re doing the right thing.’ Easier said than believed.
But he had to believe it. It was his decision, after all.
He opened the door and the cold air engulfed him.
He pushed the trolley inside. The freezing cold air of the freezer room was a bitch. Stung right at the back of his throat and tickled his lungs. He reached for the switch on the wall and flicked it on.
He saw them stacked up at the back of the room. Remembered them in their camouflaged uniform. Familiar faces. Weak faces. Plump faces. He’d made the right call. He had to.
He turned away and lifted the girl’s body from the trolley. He avoided looking at her. “Just… just pop you over here. Over here with… Yep.” He placed her on the floor and rushed back to the door. His heart raced. His palms were clammy despite the sub-zero temperatures of the room. Keep calm. Deep breaths. Get out.
He slammed shut the door of the freezer room. Tried not to picture their faces. Tried not to picture them as humans. Because they weren’t humans anymore. They were dead. They couldn’t view them as humans, not if they were going to survive. Like a piece of beef on a plate. Disassociation with the cow.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the urn. ‘Remembering You…’ He shook it and heard the pieces of ash rustle from side to side. The mother wouldn’t know. She’d have no idea. He’d tell her they’d only been able to put a part of her daughter in there, and that’s why the urn was so small. Some accident happened. She was enamoured by them, after all. Thankful for their ‘heroic actions.’ And grieving, too. That helped.
He placed the urn back into his pocket. She’d have no idea it contained nothing more than dust.
Then, he grabbed the trolley, and he started whistling.
EPISODE FIVE
Sunlight bathed the grounds of the barracks. Frost coated each individual blade of grass. Birds swooped down from the blue late autumn sky, winter growing ever closer. They sang songs jovially, like they always had before the Dead Days. Before the fall. And they’d keep on singing those songs, no matter what happened to humanity.
The road was as quiet as ever. The hand-made banner, the words ‘Please Save Us’ written across it in thick red lettering, was starting to slide off the roofing of the terraced houses. They hadn’t seen any sign of life across there. They’d watched and they’d waited from a distance, but they hadn’t seen anything worth investigating. No movements. No twitching of the curtains. Nothing worth venturing outside the walls for.
Riley held the gun tightly as he lay on his stomach. Kept his breathing deep and rhythmic. At first, it had been hard to get the hang of. There was much more to pulling a trigger than wrapping your finger around the metal and firing into the distance. There was the aim. The careful, steady aim. The deep breaths. The check and the double checks and the double-double checks to see that the target is definitely in sight.
“On the right.”
Riley adjusted his aim. Titled to the gun slightly to the right and squinted out of the lens. “Where am I looking?”
Pedro was still. Focused. A bead of sweat dribbled down the side of his bald head. “By the old milk van. Your call, soldier.”
Riley turned the gun to the milk van and he saw it. A lone creature staggering from side to side. No groans. No real sense of direction to its movement. Lost in a world without end goals. Without purpose.
Riley took a deep breath. “There’s just the one. We can leave it to walk, or we can… Ah.”
As Riley adjusted his vision, he saw the other creatures behind the loner in front. They, too, looked lost but there seemed to be a method to their movement. A strange sense of group logic, like a pack of birds migrating overseas for the winter. They stumbled into one another, disregarding each other like ghosts.
“How many do you reckon?” Pedro asked.
Riley focused on the mass of creatures. “Forty. Fifty. Too many to deal with.”
Pedro sighed. “And I was looking forward to a shootout. This seems to be happenin’ every week now.”
“But at least we know what to do,” Riley said. He lowered his gun. Pedro kept focused on the oncoming group of death. A sight they’d grown so accustomed to over the last two weeks. “We can’t risk firing at them. We don’t want a repeat of last Thursday.”
Pedro tutted and dropped his gun. “Lance and Stu were good soldiers. They died out there doing what they had to do.”
Riley stood up. He looked over the wall. The creatures were like specks in the distance. He wasn’t sure what their field of vision was like, but it seemed like they reacted more to sound than anything else. ‘When you hear them coming, you know it’s already too late to do anything about them.’ Stellar advice that would forever stay with him.
“Shall we alert the others?” Pedro asked.
Riley nodded and climbed onto the ladder leading down to the entrance area of the barracks. “I’ll mention it. Just keep an eye on them. We’ll get a couple of people on rota. Just stay cautious for now. If they get too close, we’ll have to talk about going into lockdown.”
Pedro shrugged. “Worked well enough last time.”
“Right. And if they get too, too, close, well…”
“We won’t let that happen.”
“Indeed,” Riley said. “Let’s hope not. Laters.” He stepped down the ladder.
“Oh, Riley?” Pedro called.
Riley climbed back up the ladder and poked his head over the side.
“Yeah?”
Pedro smiled. “Glad you guys made it here, y’know? Safety in numbers, all that. Been nice mixing with the civvies.”
“We didn’t ‘make it here.’ You and your people saved us. We owe a lot to you. Thanks for giving us that opportunity. See you at lunch?”
Pedro’s smile faltered slightly. “Yeah. Yeah, I will. Catch you later.”
Riley descended the ladder and hopped onto the ground. He looked ahead at the sun-soaked barracks courtyard. Claudia and Chloë were hitting a tennis ball to one another with wooden beach bats. Ted was still figuring out the controls of the lawnmower. Anna was chatting with a few of the soldiers. Riley breathed in deeply. The last two weeks had been better than anybody could imagine. Things hadn’t been easy, but they’d improved. They’d had warm beds to sleep in. Warm showers. Warm food on the table. And sure — there had been a couple of security breaches — but they’d managed it. They were all pulling their weight. There was a niggling sense of normalcy about it. New normal, anyway. Every day when Riley woke, the dread in his stomach grew smaller and smaller. The guilt over the people he’d left behind and the hard choices he’d made also shrank.
He stepped across the grass and towards Ted, who wobbled from side to side on the ride-on lawnmower.
They were holding on to their humanity. They were pulling through the darkness. There was hope for them yet.
Ivan rubbed his fingertips against his temples. His heartbeat pulsated in his neck. He stared down at the empty freezer and his throat welled up. The inevitability of what they’d have to do. The decisions he’d have to make to keep them alive.
“And you’re sure this is all the food we had?”
Chef nodded and slammed the portable freezer lid shut. He dabbed a speck of ice from his index finger with his tongue. It melted on contact. “All out. Which means… we might have to think about backup. Another food source.”
Ivan turned to look down the corridor outside of the canteen. The secrets he’d been hiding in that freezer. The truth that only a couple of his most trusted were aware. The soldiers who had agreed with him. The tough call he’d made. Everybody had to make tough calls. “I just don’t want to rumble the ship. After how far we’ve come with the new people. I don’t want to risk losing that.”
