by Ryan Casey
Pedro looked at the MLZ as he climbed higher and higher up the steps. Looked over to the left, over at the tops of the buildings. Got a whiff of hundreds of Christmas dinners, which just made his stomach cry out for food … but more for sleep.
And then he looked to the right. Looked through two sets of windows and saw the wall. Saw the goons all gathered up outside it. Saw the shooters at the top of the wall keeping their eyes and their scopes on them, just in case this impenetrable fortress got penetrated.
They leaned against the railings at the top of the steps.
“We need to get Dom back, Pedro,” Jim Hall said. “And we need to eliminate Cameron. Eliminate any threat from the outside. We don’t know how many people he has. How many he might have in a week. A month. A year. We can’t risk a war. Not now.”
Pedro stared at Jim Hall. Looked at his breath clouding out of his mouth.
He wanted to ask Jim why he was so damned worried about Cameron when he had this fortress right here—a fortress where life restarted, where everything got fixed.
But then he remembered seeing little Josh tumble to the ground.
Blood dripping out of the hole in that helmet he’d been given.
The grief in Tamara’s face.
The failure inside him.
He turned around. Headed to the door to the room he’d been in earlier with Tamara, Jordanna, the others.
“Best get started then,” he said.
Jim raised his hand. Saluted Pedro.
“Thank you, soldier.”
“So how’re we gonna do this?”
Pedro grabbed the M16 assault rifle. Frothed at the mouth over the damned gorgeous sound of it as he loaded it up, thinking back to his Yank friends over in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Before everything went to shit.
Harry, the blond-haired MLZ resident who’d been a part of the group that pulled Pedro and Tamara off the streets, loaded up his gun and zipped up his jet black bulletproof gear. “We follow them to Trafford. There’s—there’s a shelter there. Food shelter, like the one you—the one you were in with Jason.”
Pedro nodded. Looked around the room. Tamara had her arms wrapped around her waist, her chestnut brown eyes distant, like they had been ever since Josh had died. Chloë was lying on the bed, her face covered in bloodied bandages, the nurse beside her whispering words of reassurance into her ear while Jordanna held her hand.
“That’s where we go, then. How many we takin’?”
Harry walked over to Pedro. Zipped up the back of his body armour. Handed him one of those dodgy goggle sets these people always seemed to wear. Binocular and telescopic zoom built right inside them. Perks of living in a damned haven at the end of the world. “We’ll take eight. Two cars, in case one of us gets caught out. Approach the—the Trafford shelter from east and west. They won’t know what hit ‘em.”
By the squeaking and stuttering of this kid’s voice, barely in his twenties, Pedro wasn’t sure he totally believed his own words.
“We’ll get him back,” Pedro said as he put the goggles over his head. Enjoyed the warmth they brought to his cheeks. “Dom. We’ll get him back.”
Harry nodded. Smiled, shakily. Pulled the goggles over his head, too. “I … Yeah. I hope so.”
“We will. And we’ll deal with that Cameron thug. I promise you that.”
He held out a hand.
Harry took it.
Limp. Weak.
Just a kid. Just a poor kid thrown in the middle of this shitty world.
“Good man.”
“I want to come with you.”
The voice came from the other side of the room. It was Tamara.
Pedro took in a deep breath. Shook his head. Walked over to her. “You can’t—”
“This man killed my son,” Tamara said. She looked right at Pedro. Her jaw shook, with despair? Probably. With anger? Fury? Definitely. “I want… I want to be there when … when you end his life. When you end all of their lives. I want to be there. I need to be there.”
Pedro looked around the room. Harry’s eyes drifted, and he scratched the back of his neck. Jordanna looked on with a half-smile, as she kept on holding Chloë’s hand.
He got closer to Tamara. Crouched right opposite her. So close that he could feel her warmth, just like he had when he’d opened up to her about his past. Opened up about what he’d done to the innocent family on duty in the Gulf War. The bullet he’d fired.
“Tamara, I … I’m sorry. For your son. I … I failed him. I told him and I told you I’d get you both here safely but … but I failed you both.”
He looked her in her tearful eyes. Held on to her freezing cold hands.
“But I can’t let you die too. I can’t—”
“This isn’t about you. It isn’t about—about your personal mission. About you exorcising your demons. My son died, Pedro. He—he’s been shot dead. He’s … he’s gone. And I’m …”
She sniffed up. Wiped away her tears.
“I’m his mother. And I should get a say in what I do. In how I … I deal with my son’s death. So please. Let me come with you. I’ve survived this long.”
Pedro wasn’t sure where the protectiveness over Tamara came from. Only that it was there. She made him feel good. Good, like no woman had made him feel since his ex-wife, Corrine.
Good, like his life had been before it’d slid away when that car smacked into his son over fifteen years ago.
He didn’t want to lose her.
He didn’t want to fail her. Not again.
“Would that be okay?” Pedro asked Harry.
Harry, whose face was covered with the goggles now, nodded. “Any help will do. You almost ready? We can’t let them slip away too far. And—and that gunshot. In Dom’s leg. It’s—”
“We’re ready,” Pedro said.
“I’ll stay put,” Jordanna said. “Much as I want to shove a screwdriver through that big-eyed cunt’s temple, someone needs to be here. For Chloë.”
Pedro nodded at her. Looked back at Tamara.
As Harry suited Tamara up, Pedro wanted to tell her to stay put. He wanted to tell her that vengeance did nothing. That grief had to be dealt with in its own way. Getting revenge, taking out anger, all that bullshit, it never worked.
But she was right.
Josh was her son.
It was her call.
They stepped outside. Joined the six suited, goggle-wearing men outside the door. Headed down the metal steps, down into the Christmas-celebrating model city, over through the many layers of metal gates and towards an area with armoured, gun-mounted vehicles.
Pedro looked up. Up at the wall. Up at the snipers watching the streets outside.
He felt someone squeeze his hand.
Looked, saw it was Tamara, the goggle-mask still not quite pulled over her head yet.
She didn’t look at him, as she stepped ahead of him and climbed into the back of the first of the two camo-covered vehicles.
And Pedro knew why.
He’d failed her. Failed to protect her. Failed to get her boy to safety.
He lowered his head and got into the back of the same vehicle as Tamara.
Together, they rolled out of the MLZ.
But Pedro felt the distance between them.
The distance that would never go away.
CHAPTER TWO
Riley tried to understand what was happening to him, but everything was just a distant, out of focus blur.
He’d seen Pedro. He was sure of that. He’d got up out of this … well, this bed he was in, in this bright white room, and he’d seen Pedro at the other side of the glass. Standing there, looking in at him from that darkness on the outside.
Pedro and two other people. A tall man with big ears. Another one in … was he in a doctor’s coat?
Was the world back to normal again?
He looked around the room. Felt dizzy as he scanned left to right, up and down. White tiles on the floor. White tiles on the wall. Like he w
as restrained in some kind of … some kind of mental asylum.
Was he crazy? Had he imagined the entire apocalypse?
He remembered a television show where that was a theory. That the whole thing was just a figment of the main character’s imagination. Was that possible in his life? That he’d actually imagined everything? Dreamed it up?
Think think think.
As he tried to move across the room, his legs ached. Ached and stung and … shit. They were wrapped in bandages. Had something happened to him? Where was he before he’d ended up in this … well, whatever it was?
He sat on the cold tiles of the floor. Leaned back against the wall. Rested his head against it, its solid form, and tried to think.
The Fulwood barracks.
Ted’s death at the hands of Ivan.
Escaping Preston.
Heathwaite’s Caravan Park.
Anna’s death …
Then the tunnel with … with Alan …
And …
His stomach felt like it’d been punched.
He felt stinging in his legs. Both of his thighs.
He’d been bitten. Bitten twice, by two different creatures. He was going to turn. He’d already turned. Maybe that’s what this was. Maybe this white, blank room was what people who’d turned saw. How they experienced the world. A prison inside their own minds.
Only …
No. He’d gone outside the bunker in Lancaster. Gone outside on that motorised wheelchair.
He’d seen creatures coming. Seen a group of people … armed people, on his left.
And then … blackness.
And now this.
He rubbed his eyes. Stared up at the stinging light. Looked at his hands—the contours in his palms, the patterns on his fingertips.
Was this real? Was he actually alive?
He bit down on his tongue hard. Realised a few of his teeth were missing, and that the inside of his mouth was sore.
Shit. He’d done that back at the Lancaster bunker, too. Knocked some teeth out. He really was worse for wear.
He opened his mouth to cry out, but it was so dry, so raw. He needed water. He couldn’t remember the last time fluid had entered his mouth. He could drink an entire ocean of tap water … bathe in it …
Soothe his stinging legs …
A noise to his left. A sudden bang, and then a section of the white-tiled wall started to open up, and a man stepped through.
The tall man. The tall man with the big ears, the dark hair, the smile on his face.
“Riley?” he said. He smiled at him. Smiled like he knew who he was. Like Riley himself should know who he was.
Riley’s muscles were tight. He looked up at this man in his black uniform, not army exactly but … official. There was a faint smell of body odour to him. Like he’d got a little over-excited and sweated at the pits.
“Who … What …”
The man crouched down opposite Riley, leaving the door slightly ajar. He looked right into Riley’s eyes with those steely greys of his own. Held out a hand. “I’m Councillor Jim Hall. It’s a great pleasure to meet you.”
Riley just stared at this Jim Hall’s spider-like, skeletal hand. He didn’t want to take another hand of a person he didn’t know. Not after what happened with Ivan, and then Rodrigo.
Not after everything that had happened.
Jim Hall exhaled and pulled his hand away. “I expect you’ll be confused. Disoriented. But I just want to assure you that you’re safe here.”
“Where’s here?”
Jim opened his mouth to speak and then stopped. “I … Somehow, I think it’d be better if I were to show you where here is. But first I need you to understand. Understand who you are now. The importance of your situation. Your predicament.”
All this bullshit about importance. It’s the exact same stuff as he’d been told by Alan when they were on their two-man mission to save the world.
But the truth was, he was just a normal person. He was just a normal man trying to survive the end of the world like everyone else.
He looked down at his legs. Looked at the thick white bandages. “I … I was bitten.”
Jim Hall smiled a twitchy smile. “Yes you were.”
Riley looked over at the opening at the side of this … this afterlife-esque room. It was like the blank white space that the Architect resided in on one of the crappy Matrix sequels.
Except … no. That would make him fucking Neo. Enough with the delusions of grandeur.
“Riley, I don’t know how much you remember about how you got here. But you weren’t in a good shape when we found you.”
“Knocking me unconscious probably didn’t help.”
Jim Hall smiled again. Backed away. “We had to do what we thought was right.”
He walked around the middle of the room. Backwards and forwards, like an agitated child eager to go outside and play or an impatient parent waiting for them to tie their shoelaces.
“If I’m going to turn then … then maybe you should get out of here.”
“You aren’t going to turn, Riley.”
Riley shook his head. He wasn’t buying it. He couldn’t have been immune. He and Alan both conveniently being immune? That wasn’t possible. He’d been bitten. He’d almost died.
He’d let Alan put a gun to his head and almost shoot him.
“I … I am going to turn. Everyone who … everyone but a one in a million turns.”
Jim Hall scratched at his face. A nervous, excited twitch. “Riley, you aren’t even one of the million. You’re, hopefully, the first of a new million. Or billion.” His eyes lit up. “Or even nine billion, one day in the distant future.”
All the grand themes were giving Riley a headache. He covered his eyes with his hands. Returned to the softness of the darkness. “I … I don’t understand what you … what you mean.”
Jim Hall didn’t respond. Not until Riley took his hands away, looked right at him again.
And then: “We cured you, Riley. You were infected, you passed away, and we cured you.”
The words didn’t hit Riley quite as hard as they perhaps should’ve done. Not as hard as he dreamed they would, the few times he had good dreams since the world went to shit. No. Instead, he felt doubt at first. But then a guilt. A guilt for all the people who had turned.
A guilt that he was one man on his own again.
A guilt for everyone who had fallen before him.
“What … How is that even possible?”
More smiles from Jim Hall. “It’s possible because of … well, many men and women. But two men, really. One of those men isn’t with us today. But another, I think you know this other man very well.”
Riley noticed Jim was looking through the gap in the doorway.
And then he heard the squeaking of wheels spinning around.
He looked over to his left. Saw the grey hair, the manic eyes of Alan, who sat in his wheelchair, bandage around his own bitten leg.
“Hello, sport,” Alan said, massive smile on his face. “Sleep well?”
Alan told Riley everything about how they’d got here.
He pulled himself off his wheelchair and sat at the foot of Riley’s bed while he spoke. Told him about Riley getting knocked out by the people they’d mistaken as troops when trying to flee the tunnel system. Told him about discovering who the group really were—the people from the Manchester Living Zone. The very people he’d been trying to re-connect with all along.
“And then along comes the answer to everything,” Alan said. He tapped a sore lump on Riley’s forearm. “There’s me trying to get you to take me to Manchester to save the world, and it’s you that goes and turns out the one with the important blood after all.”
“The walking cure,” Riley said.
Alan nodded. “The walking cure indeed. As soon as they figure out how to milk you for all you’re worth, anyway. Still struggling to replicate what they did inside you, I’m hearing.”
“What about you?�
� Riley asked. “You didn’t turn. Have I … have I cured you?”
Alan chuckled and shook his head. “I’ve been vaccinated against my strain of the virus. But I haven’t been cured. It’ll catch up with me eventually. I was just slow to turn. You, on the other hand, well. You’re something different. You died. You turned. And then you were reborn. That’s never happened before. That makes you special.”
Riley leaned back on his bed. Although he’d been drifting in and out of consciousness for days—technically dead at one point—he felt exhausted. He’d heard something about this place. This Living Zone. There were people here, apparently. There was life outside the walls. Humanity. Happiness. Hope.
“What does it mean?”
Alan frowned as he scratched at his freshly growing stubble. “What does ‘what’ mean?”
Riley opened his mouth to speak. Truth be told, he wasn’t totally sure. Him being cured? The meaning of the cure? The meaning of this place? “Everything. I guess.”
Alan smiled. Shook his head.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Alan said. “Just thinking. In the short time we’ve known one another, you’ve asked me more questions than my kid did about, well, anything and everything. When he was aged four.”
Riley arched his back further up the pillow. “Yeah, well. I guess that’s what a new world does to you. Turns you into a naive kid again.”
The door to the left creaked open. Jim Hall was there again, ever-present smile still etched on his face. Behind him, there were two other people. The man with the dark, reddish hair and the glasses who was wearing a lab coat, and another man dressed all in black with some kind of goggles perched atop his head.
“Is he ready?” Jim Hall asked, looking at Alan.
A glimmer of uncertainty sparked up inside Riley. He looked at Alan too. “Ready for what?”
Alan narrowed his eyes. Tilted his head from side to side. Smiled. “You know, Jim, I think he is.”
Alan slipped back into his wheelchair. Jim Hall approached Riley. Held his monstrous hand out to him.
More uncertainty, suspicion, rumbled through Riley’s body. He didn’t budge. “Where … Ready for what?”
