Dead Days Zombie Apocalypse Series (Season 5)

by Ryan Casey

  But he couldn’t understand her. Not exactly.

  Not with who was standing in the middle of the road right ahead.

  He was wearing a black coat and grey trousers, both torn in various places. A beard sprouted out from his chin, nicks and scratches covering his pale cheeks.

  But it was his eyes that Riley focused on the most.

  The look in Jim Hall’s eyes.

  Not a look of relief or of amazement. A look of fear. Of uncertainty.

  A look that confirmed Riley’s suspicions. That confirmed everything Doctor Ottoman told him. About Jim Hall’s lies. About the Apocálypsis never really returning to Riley’s system.

  About Jim Hall sending him and his friends to execution.

  Sending him and his friends to their death.

  Jordanna grabbed Riley’s arm. “Riley, just—”

  “Get off me,” Riley said.

  He walked in Jim Hall’s direction. Walked and tried to ease his breathing, to steady his heartbeat. To relax his muscles and take it easy—

  But this man killed your friends.

  He walked faster. Heard shouting from behind. People calling for him to come back. And he saw Jim Hall’s face too. Regret and guilt in his eyes. But mostly fear. Riley knew what fear looked like. He’d seen it in everyone since the world collapsed, and way before that.

  Jim Hall lied.

  He sent Riley out beyond the walls to die.

  He didn’t know why. He needed to know why—

  It doesn’t fucking matter why.

  He tensed his fists as he got closer to Jim Hall. Forced a smile. “Aren’t you gonna welcome us back?”

  A shaky smile tugged at Jim’s cheeks. Behind him, Riley saw Alan emerging in his wheelchair. And he saw Alan instantly go red. The way his eyes immediately widened.

  Again, not in relief.

  Not in delight.

  In fear.

  “Huh?” Riley shouted, as he got closer. “Aren’t you pleased to see us?”

  “Of—of course I’m—”

  “Those of us who fucking made it, anyway,” Riley said, unable to steady himself now, unable to stop. “Those of us who didn’t die out there.”

  Jim Hall’s upright stance fell somewhat. He didn’t look a man of confidence anymore. No. He looked a man who was bricking it. A traitor. A snake.

  “We’ve—we’ve all lost people,” Jim Hall said.

  Alan wheeled forward. “Riley, we—”

  “Leave it, Alan,” Riley said, just metres from Jim Hall now. “Just … just leave it. There’s things me and Jim need to talk about. Things we need to get straight. To—to understand. Isn’t that right?”

  Jim didn’t respond. His eyes just drifted to the buildings on Riley’s right. To a window. A window where a guard watched, gun raised, ready to fire. Behind Jim Hall, a small crowd had formed. Old faces that Riley recognised. Familiar faces. Tired. Exhausted. Tainted.

  “We just need a friendly chat, don’t we?” Riley said, stopping right in front of Jim Hall. His arms shook. His muscles tensed even more. He had to bite his tongue just to stop himself exploding. “About the BLZ. About Mr Fletch. About my ‘relapsing infection.’”

  Jim Hall’s face didn’t change. Not a bit. “You … you need to listen to me,” he said. “Nothing—nothing that happened was personal.”

  Riley’s heartbeat picked up some more.

  His smile lifted.

  The entire MLZ around him crumbled away until nothing was left but Jim Hall, nothing was left but this man who’d lied to him, who’d lied to all his friends, who’d murdered his people.

  “Of course it wasn’t,” Riley said. “Of—of course it wasn’t.”

  He held his smile.

  Waited for Jim Hall to smile back.

  Then he cracked Jim across the face.

  He heard the commotion pick up around him. Heard footsteps coming his way.

  But it didn’t matter.

  He pushed Jim Hall to the ground.

  Wrapped his left hand around his neck.

  Punched him with his right.

  Again.

  Again.

  Again.

  “You murdering fuck,” Riley said, as Jim’s nose cracked, as warm blood spilled out and covered Riley’s fist.

  Footsteps getting closer.

  Hands grabbing onto his back.

  Dragging him away.

  “You murdering fuck!”

  Jim Hall’s teeth cracking under Riley’s knuckles.

  More blood splattering up.

  More shouting.

  More hands grabbing hold of Riley. Trying to pull him away. Trying to split the pair of them up.

  And the worst part about it all for Riley was that Jim Hall wasn’t fighting. He wasn’t punching Riley back. Wasn’t even attempting to.

  Riley needed a reason to kill Jim Hall. A reaction.

  He just needed an excuse to murder him.

  To take his life.

  ’Cause he didn’t give a fuck why he’d sent Riley out into the open. Only that he’d lied. And that lie had cost so many lives.

  “You’ll pay for this,” Riley said, as he lifted his fist over Jim’s bloodied face, his knuckles stinging. “You’ll fucking—”

  And then Riley felt a crack over his head.

  A hard crack that knocked him off Jim Hall.

  Knocked him onto the road.

  His eyes blurred. His body went weak. But he still had to fight. He had to finish Jim Hall. He had to …

  He rolled over and tried to get to Jim Hall again.

  And then he saw Jordanna standing over him, gun in hand.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  And then she cracked the butt of the gun right into Riley’s temple.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Riley had awoken from unconsciousness so many times in his life that he didn’t feel any sense of disorientation when he opened his eyes.

  The light stung. Bright, made his head ache a little. Didn’t help that something was hurting the front of his head. Burning. Burning where he’d been hit. Where Jordanna hit him.

  He could taste blood in his mouth. His own blood, maybe. Jim Hall’s blood, maybe.

  Jim Hall. The Manchester Living Zone.

  He’d beaten Jim Hall and Jordanna had stopped him and—

  “You really are a bloody idiot, you know?”

  The voice came from Riley’s left. And it was at that point Riley realised he was sitting down in some kind of leather chair. Not pinned down to a metal slab like he had been back at the BLZ. Hands free. Legs free. He was in some sort of apartment. Paintings on the wall of ships docking. A plethora of fancy old clocks, all of them set to different times.

  Sitting to Riley’s left with a glass of water in hand was Alan Mixter.

  He looked at Riley with a smile on his face. In contrast to the fear and uncertainty when he’d first seen him.

  “You’re brave,” Riley said.

  Alan wheeled himself over. “And why am I brave?”

  Riley cleared his dry throat. “After what I did. To Jim. Brave being in a room with me. Brave keeping me cuffed. Brave—”

  Water splashed over Riley’s face. Drenched him, icy cold, made him gasp.

  “I’m brave, am I?” Alan said, still holding on to his half-empty water glass. “Why? What’re you planning on doing? Beating a poor old cripple to death? Smothering me in my chair? Hmm?”

  Riley wiped the water from his eyes. Dabbed his forehead with his jacket sleeve. The sun shone in through the tall bay window opposite, a balcony overlooking the wall right out over Manchester.

  “You were foolish,” Alan said. “Storming back in here all pumped with youthful adrenaline and doing what you did to Jim Hall. Completely foolish.”

  “He lied to me.”

  “Yes. Yes he did.”

  Alan’s starkness took Riley by surprise. “You … you’re just gonna admit that to my face?”

  “I figure it’s best we avoid any form of s
ecrecy now,” Alan said.

  “Pity you didn’t believe that when you sent me and my friends out there to die.”

  “We didn’t send you out there to die,” Alan said, frowning, shaking his head. “And for what it’s worth, I think Jim Hall’s a complete buffoon for his actions, too. For his dishonesty. But the truth is, we had to get someone out there, Riley. We had to get someone to the Birmingham Living Zone. And you just so happened to be the most driven leader we have behind these walls. You, Pedro—”

  “Don’t you dare fucking say his name.”

  Alan stopped. He closed his mouth. Cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. I really am sorry. Ped … He was tough. A strong-willed individual. It’s never easy. Losing someone you care about.”

  “What the fuck would you know about that?”

  Alan’s eyes narrowed. “You know exactly what I’d know about that.”

  Riley remembered Alan’s story about his wife. The prisoner of war who was murdered by terrorists, her snuff film leaked all over the dark corners of the internet. “I still don’t get why we had to go to the BLZ if you knew it was—”

  “We didn’t know what kind of state it was in. But I’m assuming from the look on your face and from what Jordanna and Tamara told us that Mr Fletch is just as likeable as ever.”

  “That’s one way of putting it. But I still don’t—”

  “There’s advanced technology in Birmingham. Radical ways of … of conquering the infection. We were always up front and honest with you about that.”

  Riley remembered the noises on the road. The noises that caused the seizures. And the Orions. “Certainly some interesting technology they’ve got there.”

  “The Orion Project. Our new friend James told me all about it. Told me about … about the kind of experiments Mr Fletch has been—”

  “Why did you send me to the BLZ?”

  “I—We—”

  “Don’t bullshit. I’m sick of bullshit. Don’t fucking dance around the subject. I want to know why you sent me there. I need to know why you sent me there. I need …”

  Riley held off the final words.

  He wanted to say: I need to know my friends didn’t die for nothing.

  Alan intertwined his fingers. He cleared his throat again. Turned, looked out of the window, out at the city. “We … we needed to know there was somewhere better. Somewhere better to turn to if this place falls.”

  “That’s it? That’s the only reason you sent me out there?”

  “I don’t think you’re quite understanding me, Riley. Before … before the outbreak, we were researching something in Birmingham. Cryostasis. Mass cryostasis. Do you know what that is?”

  Riley scratched his aching forehead. “Putting people to sleep for years?”

  “Exactly. Inducing a deep, sleep-like state. Freezing bodies so that humanity could literally dream its way through the infection in a very safe, secure environment. We—we needed to know how that project was progressing. Whether Mr Fletch made any more significant progress.”

  “Well I’ll tell you one fucking thing,” Riley said. “I didn’t see much in the way of peaceful experimentation.”

  “That was our worry,” Alan said. “Jim and I, we know Mr Fletch. We know how he can be. So our hope was that maybe you’d find a way.”

  “A way to what?”

  “To kill him. To overthrow the BLZ. To make it safe again.”

  Pieces of the jigsaw clicked into place. A jigsaw that Riley didn’t like, didn’t understand, but made a grim kind of sense. “So you used me. Used all of us. But I still don’t get why you lied to me about the infection,” he said.

  Alan glanced at the floor. “We’re sorry for that. Truly. But we needed a way to ensure you ventured to the BLZ. We needed someone with friends, support, influence.”

  “Why not just tell me the truth?”

  Alan smiled. “Now you know the truth about the BLZ, would you be quite so willing to pay a visit?”

  Riley didn’t respond.

  Alan wheeled over to his bay window. Opened it and let the breeze from the balcony creep inside. He looked out at the clear blue sky. “With summer comes renewed hope.”

  Riley walked beside him, a little dizzy, a little unbalanced. “You still believe that?”

  Alan turned to Riley and smiled. “I do. I really do.”

  “Just a shame Pedro and the others can’t be a part of that—”

  An explosion cracked through the sky.

  A sudden breeze whooshed to Riley’s left.

  And then a thud.

  Riley had a sense of what had happened before he looked.

  Before he turned and saw the blood seeping out of Alan’s throat.

  Before he saw his wide, bloodshot eyes.

  Heard him choking.

  A bullet hole right in the middle of his neck.

  “Alan, I …” He crouched down. Didn’t know what to do. Didn’t understand. “It’s okay,” he said, holding his weathered hands. “It’s … it’s okay.”

  Alan gargled blood.

  Gripped his throat, his skin getting paler.

  Choking.

  “It’s okay,” Riley said, as Alan’s body grew firmer, rigid. “It’s … I’m here with you. I’m here with you.”

  He held Alan’s hand.

  Then he heard the engines.

  Heard the shouting.

  The cries.

  He turned. Looked out over the balcony, still holding onto Alan’s hands.

  He didn’t see it at first. Didn’t see where the engine noises were coming from. Where the commotion was building.

  But then he saw the crowd of armed guards gathering around the wall.

  Saw them lifting their rifles, pointing out into the city.

  Saw …

  His body froze. Everything went numb. His chest tightened, his hands loosened, even though Alan clung on, begged Riley to keep on holding on.

  “Don’t move another fucking inch!” someone shouted through a loudspeaker.

  “Oh, don’t worry about us,” another voice called back, a familiar voice, also through a loudspeaker. “We’re just here to see some old friends.”

  Riley saw the tanks.

  Saw the armoured vehicles, all gun-mounted, all manned.

  He saw Mr Fletch standing right in the middle of the first tank.

  One hand behind his back.

  Loudspeaker to his mouth.

  “Where’s Jim Hall?” he called. He lowered the loudspeaker and Riley saw the smile on his face. The unshakeable smug smile. “Me and him need to talk. The last thing any of us want is for things to get messy.”

  Then Riley saw the cages.

  The cages attached to the camo-green Land Rovers.

  All twenty of them.

  “And, believe me, do not doubt our ability to make things messy.”

  The twenty cages.

  The twenty sets of eyes inside them.

  Glowing eyes.

  Tarlike skin.

  Teeth like knives.

  An Orion army.

  Outside the Manchester Living Zone gates.

  Waiting to attack.

  EPISODE THIRTY

  ABRE LOS OJOS

  (SIXTH EPISODE OF SEASON FIVE)

  He walked for day after day and still the dead kept on following.

  His eyes ached from being open for so long. He wanted nothing more than to shut them, to close his eyes and etch all the horrors of the world around him out of his conscious awareness. Wanted to rid his vision of the bodies of the fallen. Of the blood. The innards. The sights of people eating one another, feasting on one another. Sights that could send a sane man crazy.

  But he couldn’t close his eyes.

  He couldn’t close his eyes because he had to keep on walking.

  He had to keep on moving.

  He had to reach his destination.

  He couldn’t risk any sort of wrong turn.

  Sunlight shone brightly from the sky above. He could feel
its warmth on his bald head. Feel it burning him. Maybe once upon a time, he’d have put suncream on it. His wife would’ve told him to throw some factor thirty on there. To watch it didn’t turn as pink as a salmon, give him sunstroke.

  All those memories. Gone. Wasted. Replaced by this world. This horrible reality. This nightmare existence.

  Humanity in purgatory.

  Not hell, but purgatory.

  He walked down the middle of the country road. His shoes had worn away completely. His legs were so tired they felt on the verge of collapsing. Of firming up and snapping in two if he just took one more damned step.

  But he didn’t have a say in the matter.

  Because he had to keep going.

  He couldn’t stop. Not for himself. Not for anyone else.

  Because this was important.

  This was more important than anything.

  The most important thing in his life.

  It wasn’t just the sights that haunted him. It was everything. The smell of rot in the cool spring breeze. The taste of blood that constantly lingered no matter how far away from the dead you were. The taste of death.

  But it was the sounds that got to him the most. The sounds of screaming. The sounds of children whimpering as the infected closed in on them. Of little girls moaning as they clutched their teddy bears, as the infected moved in, pushed them to the ground, wrapped their brittle teeth around their smooth necks and ripped their tracheas out.

  Or the sound of an elderly man struggling as he hobbled away. Clutching the bottom of his back. Trying, trying to get away. Tears rolling down his cheeks. Wife’s necklace between his fingers.

  The sound of his legs cracking as the infected leaped on his back.

  As they knocked him onto the pavement.

  Ripped his hardened old skin away and killed off his generation.

  A generation of love and knowledge, gone.

  Just like that, gone.

  Or at least that’s what it seemed like.

  He walked up the side of the hill. Staggeringly quiet around here. Nothing but birds tweeting. Of glass cracking in the buildings either side of him. Snapping under the foot of a rodent, or a stray dog or cat, or an infected.

  Didn’t matter which it was. Not really.

  Not with what he knew.

  What all of them knew.

  He reached the top of the hill, knees clicking under the increase in pressure. Up ahead, he saw the wall. The tall structure unlike anything he’d ever seen. Sprouting out of the ground and into the sky like something out of a science-fiction movie. Yet here it was. Here it was, in all its beauty, in all its glory.