by Ryan Casey
CHAPTER TEN
If Melissa wasn’t expecting one thing, it was that she’d end up being bailed out by Kane, of all people.
The pair of them walked through the autumn leaves, which crunched underfoot. The zombies that had been so close behind not long ago were gone, now. Kane had helped her up, and he’d dragged her away from there.
She was still pretty gobsmacked about it all, to be honest. She thought—knew—Kane wanted to kill her. She knew he wanted to see her dead.
And yet here they were, her arm around Kane’s shoulders, him carrying her as she stumbled along, her ankle knackered.
He hadn’t even come close to killing her.
But she could tell he was struggling, too.
“Why?” she asked.
Kane looked at her, narrowed his eyes. Melissa could smell his sweat, and what seemed to be vomit on his breath. “Why what?”
“You had the chance to kill me when you got out of the cell. You didn’t. And you had a chance to kill me right here. To leave me to the undead. You didn’t. Why?”
Kane smiled. He chuckled a little, like this whole situation was amusing to him.
“Something funny?”
“I guess. I don’t know. We have a different sense of humour.”
“You’re probably right about that.”
“Melissa, why on earth would I want to kill you? You saved me.”
Melissa felt uneasy about Kane’s praise. She had to stay coy. “I dropped an arrow. I didn’t mean to.”
“Don’t lie to me. I’ve seen how organised you are. How methodical you are. You meant to leave me that arrow so I could get away. The real question is, why are you out here right now, all on your own?”
Melissa thought about her current predicament. She might not be being chased by a mass of undead anymore, but she was still in pretty hot water. “I tried to draw the zombies away from camp. Someone had to do it.”
“I bet you leaped at the opportunity.”
Melissa frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Kane slowed down, took a few deep breaths. “I’ve seen you, like I said already. I’ve seen the way you are with the others. I’ve seen that… that disconnect. And I know you enjoy the outside just as much as I do.”
“You can keep on trying to flatter me,” Melissa said. “You can keep on trying to win me over with your words. But I see through them, Kane. I see right through what you’re doing.”
“And that’s what I like about you.”
There was a pause. A moment where Melissa looked into Kane’s eyes and she felt a kind of connection.
Then she blinked, looked away, and that moment was gone.
“What happened to Riley?” Melissa asked.
“You really care about Riley?”
“Of course I care about Riley. He’s—”
“Don’t say he’s ‘one of us’ because both of us know that’s not true. Riley brought chaos to your camp. He brought destruction.”
“Did you kill him?”
“What?”
“Did you kill Riley?”
Kane sighed. He let go of Melissa and lowered her against a tree, then perched up against the tree beside her.
“I wanted to,” he said. “That’s the truth. The God’s honest truth. I’ve wanted to kill Riley for a long, long time.”
“You had your chance. Then why didn’t you?”
“Waiting for the perfect circumstances, mostly.”
“Which are?”
He looked into Melissa’s eyes and she saw that his face lit up. “I wanted to take away the last real person he cares about.”
“Kesha,” Melissa said.
“Oh, you’re good.”
“So you’d kill Kesha? You’d kill the last bit of hope—the girl with the cure in her bloodstream—just to punish Riley?”
“Again. I thought so. But now, I dunno. I guess Riley is growing on me. His fight. His spirit. I dunno. Maybe imminent death is getting to my head.”
“What do you mean?”
Kane hesitated a few seconds.
Then he leaned forward and pulled his jacket away.
The back of Kane’s T-shirt was ripped apart. Underneath it, Melissa could see blood.
Lots of patches of blood.
“You’ve been bitten.”
“I’ve had a good run,” Kane said. “It had to end, eventually.”
Melissa felt mixed emotions over Kane’s state and still she couldn’t understand why.
“Well?” Kane said. “Isn’t this the part where you celebrate?”
Melissa shrugged. “People die. It’s just something that happens.”
“So you’re not happy to see me go.”
“I’m not happy to see anyone go. We’re all… we’re all people, at the end of the day. No matter what we’re like underneath, we’re all people, and we are all united. Against the monsters.”
Kane’s smile grew even further. “You don’t really believe that. Do you?”
Melissa couldn’t hide her real thoughts anymore, as her heart thumped, as her pulse raced. “No,” she said. “I think we’re the real monsters.”
Then she did something that surprised her more than anything.
She leaned over and she wrapped her lips around Kane’s.
She was on top of him, then. He gripped on to her hair, pushed his fingers through it. She could feel him getting hard underneath her and she couldn’t control her feelings, couldn’t control her emotions, couldn’t control her cravings.
Her lust.
She felt his sharp fingers ripping the jumper off her back.
She felt his cold hands against her skin, cupping her breasts.
And above anything, she felt his heartbeat. His heartbeat picking up as they got even closer, even more intimate.
She sensed Kane had never experienced feelings like this before, and that got to her more than anything. That turned her on.
She reached down the front of his jeans and grabbed his hard, throbbing cock in her hand.
Upon touching it, he went soft right away.
“Disappointing,” she said.
Then Kane grabbed her around the throat and squeezed. He looked into her eyes with a look that she’d never seen before. An animalistic lust. “Trust me,” he said, tightening his grip around her throat to the point Melissa couldn’t swallow, couldn’t breathe. “We haven’t even got started yet.”
“And we aren’t gonna be finishing anytime soon, lovebirds.”
The voice made Melissa jump, and Kane loosened his grip around her throat. She hopped off of Kane right away, looked over to her right. She lifted her knife. Scanned the trees. There was no one there. No one that she could see.
And then she felt a hand on her shoulder.
She swung around and felt something crack against the back of her head.
She fell, right towards the ground.
When she fell, she saw someone standing above her.
It was a man. He was bald, and he was smiling.
“Come on, princess. If you want to finish off, I can help—argh!”
He didn’t finish speaking because Melissa rammed the knife right up into his balls.
She dragged the knife away, feeling the warm blood splatter down her hand.
And when she’d pulled that knife away, despite how much her head was still hurting and her ankle still aching, she ran away into the trees as quickly as she could.
She looked over her shoulder. She saw there were two more people standing near where she’d been.
She saw them standing right over Kane.
And she saw Kane’s eyes. His smile.
The way he looked at her, like no one else looked at her.
She wanted to stay. That small, self-destructive part inside her body—the same self-destructive part that had almost killed herself a number of times—told her to go back and fight for Kane.
But the bigger part—the logical part—made her shake her head.
She turned around and ran.
KANE LEANED BACK against the bark of the tree, still in a euphoric state of bliss after his moment with Melissa.
Whatever that moment meant, he’d felt it. He’d felt it like he’d never felt it before.
He’d felt a connection.
An alien connection.
Two men stood over him. The third man was lying in the dirt, twitching as blood pooled out of his stabbed genitals.
The two men above him grabbed his arms.
“Come on, fella,” the one on the right said. “It’s time we introduced you to the boss man.”
But as they took him away, the pain in Kane’s back building as the infection built in his body, he still couldn’t feel bad about any of what was happening—of what was about to happen.
This was all a part of the plan.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Riley spent the rest of the day helping to clean up the camp, but it was blatantly clear that this was no longer a sustainable home in the way it used to be.
It was getting dark, and Riley was concerned about Amy. She seemed too focused on getting the place sorted out, making sure everywhere was guarded. She seemed to be burying herself in the cleanup of this place so she could avoid facing up to the reality.
The reality that this place was a lost cause.
And the reality that the bulk of her people were gone.
He stacked some debris on top of a pile of rubble regardless. It was to act as a kind of makeshift wall until they could figure out another, better way of keeping this place secure. Honestly, though, Riley wasn’t sure keeping this place secure was even possible anymore, not in the long run. It had taken too much damage as it was.
He tasted the remnants of blood on his lips. The blood of the creatures he’d fought out there in the woods. He looked over at the woods, and at the fallen bodies of the creatures around it. He remembered that mass of them that had been there just a matter of hours ago. An army of them unlike any he’d ever seen. Where had the bulk of them gone? They’d killed a few of them, sure. But they can’t have taken all of them down. That was impossible.
The thought that the crowd of undead was out there, somewhere, just passing through the country… it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand right on end.
He looked around at the rest of Amy’s people. At least, those that were still standing. He saw the exhaustion on their faces. The loss they were feeling. Because all of them had lost. And Riley knew what that loss felt like.
But this scale. This massive scale, where more of them had died than remained… that must’ve been particularly bitter to take.
He heard a groan in the distance.
When he looked up, he almost lost his grip on the rock he was placing on the makeshift wall.
There were a few creatures. Not many. Four, five. But still, a steadily growing number.
Amy was standing right in front of them.
And then she started walking towards them and taking them down.
“Shit,” Riley muttered. “You keep on working on the wall. I’ll go out there.”
He heard a few panicked whispers, but he didn’t acknowledge them, not really. Instead, he just ran outside, the rock still in his hand.
Amy was fighting the creatures. For some reason, she was outside, and she was taking these creatures down. She was being particularly violent towards them. Smacking their heads when they’d clearly already gone down. She was chopping limbs away—
Just like Chloë just like—
No, he couldn’t remember that. He couldn’t let it blur his judgement right now.
“Amy!” Riley shouted.
She didn’t turn back to look at him. She just kept on fighting against this growing crowd of creatures. Admittedly, not much of a crowd compared to what she’d taken on before, but still, big enough to worry about.
“Amy, get back here.”
“I need to go,” she said.
Riley narrowed his eyes. He saw a couple of the creatures divert their attention to him, then come staggering in his direction.
He held his breath, pulled back the rock—the only weapon he had in his hand right now—and he slammed it down against the creature’s skull.
He listened to it crack. And he expected the creature to fall.
But it didn’t.
He might’ve cracked its skull, but he hadn’t properly damaged the creature’s brain.
The creature stuck its fingers against Riley’s stomach, the filthy remnants of fingernails scratching at his skin. It opened its mouth, half of which was dangling down in a sloped angle, and it went to take a bite.
Riley could only do one thing.
He drove that rock right down against the creature’s skull once more, cracking away more pieces of bone.
And when that didn’t do anything, he pushed his fingers inside the skull and pressed as hard as he could, blood and flesh wrapping around his fingertips.
The creature opened its jaw wider.
It went to bite, its eyes wild with… with what looked like confusion. Understanding.
And then it looked right up at Riley and went totally silent.
It fell to the ground. Riley grabbed the rock again and went to take on the rest of the creatures that were surrounding him, surrounding Amy.
But all those creatures had fallen.
All of them had fallen, and Amy was gone.
“Amy!”
Riley ran into the trees. It was going dark, so Riley didn’t want to be stuck out here too long. He looked everywhere to try and find Amy. But no matter how much he squinted, no matter how much he strained to listen, she was gone. Amy was gone.
He was about to turn around and give up when he heard something just to his left.
Sobbing.
When he looked around, he saw Amy crouched up against a tree, hands covering her face.
He didn’t know how to approach Amy. He’d never seen her like this before. It was alien. Completely abnormal seeing her with her defences entirely down.
“Amy?”
She didn’t say anything as Riley approached. His footsteps crunched through fallen leaves, through snapped branches.
He crouched beside her. “Amy? I—”
“I just want to kill them all,” she sobbed.
Riley understood what she was saying then. It spoke to him on a deep level. She wanted to kill the creatures for what they’d done to her people. She wanted to get her revenge. “I understand how that feels,” he said.
“No,” she said. “You don’t.”
“Trust me,” Riley said. He put a hand on Amy’s shoulder. “I do. Better than you know.”
Amy looked up into Riley’s eyes. He couldn’t see her face properly anymore, not with the rapidly approaching darkness. But the pair of them just crouched and sat there for a while, just living in one another’s silence.
“Melissa,” Amy said. “She… she was—”
“She’s still here.”
Amy narrowed her eyes.
Riley jumped.
He’d heard the voice too.
The voice, right behind him.
He looked over his shoulder.
What he saw made his jaw drop.
“It’s time to talk,” Melissa said. She was covered in blood. “About Kane. About Mattius. About Kesha. And about what we’re going to do about them.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Mattius walked down the steps, right down to the cellar.
He’d had some good news.
It was going dark, so he held on to his torch. Even though he was safe within the confines of his camp, he still felt uneasy walking around at night. He’d much prefer to be upstairs, in bed, tucked up with a good book. He was finally making his way through War and Peace. It’d been years since he started it. Picked it up hundreds of times and struggled to make any progress.
But this time, he really was getting through it. He would finish it before he died, at least. Of that, he was determined.
> He heard the rain blowing against the windows as he made his way towards the steps of the cellar. He could hear muttering down there in the cellar, too. Chatter. He hoped the news he’d found out was true. He hoped it wasn’t just a false flag. He’d experienced enough false flags since the fall of society, and more than his fair share since moving to this place.
He thought back to Riley. He thought about the day he’d taken those he cared about most away from him. In a way, he felt an immense guilt about what he’d done. That’s part of why he carried a torch with him when he walked these corridors. Sometimes, late at night, Mattius saw those heads on those stakes all over again, and it reminded him of the monster he’d become to avenge his people. He remembered the depths he’d sunk to in order to make Riley pay.
He swore at that moment he’d never be as violent again. That he’d never, ever let himself tumble over the edge again.
But he wasn’t sure he could keep that promise.
He walked down the echoey steps into the cellar.
When he got there, he saw the cellar was lit by candlelight.
There were two of his people down here. Marion and Simon. Both of them were standing by the captive’s side.
Mattius didn’t recognise the captive. But apparently he was called Kane, and he’d blurted something out about Riley. He’d confessed he was from the camp where Riley was, and that he’d been a prisoner there too before he reached this place.
His beaming eyes, flickering in the candlelight, connected with Mattius’ the second he walked through the door.
“You’re the man in charge here, are you?” he said.
Mattius didn’t respond to him. He just walked over to him, slowly, and stood over him. And eventually, when enough time had passed, he broke the silence. “You look awful.”
Kane shrugged. Seemed like he was in some pain. “That’d be the bites on my back.”
“You’re bitten? Shame. Something tells me we could’ve got on. Never mind. Take him outside. Sharpen his teeth. He’ll make a good guard dog when he’s dead.”
“I can help you,” Kane said.
Mattius stopped and turned around. Really, he had no intention of killing this prisoner. Not while he might be useful. Not while he knew Riley.
Because that was a regret of Mattius’. Not killing Riley while he’d had the chance. Or, at least, bringing him in and keeping him prisoner.
