by Ryan Casey
Jordanna disappeared into a shop on the left, but she stayed etched in Riley’s mind. Opened up an old scar inside his mind and sent the blood trickling out.
Reminded him of the monster he really was.
Pedro didn’t have a fucking clue where Cameron’s goons were taking him.
He stared into the darkness. They’d wrapped some crappy fabric bag over his head as soon as he and Tamara had kneeled on the road just before. The fabric tasted … metallic. Like someone had bled in here already.
He panted against the breath-restraining bag and wondered when his turn to have some blood spilled would come.
Someone was pushing him along. He wasn’t down at the shelter, he knew that much. They hadn’t taken him far enough. But he knew he was inside. He could tell from the smoothness of the hard floor beneath his feet. The way his footsteps, everyone’s footsteps, echoed around this room, wherever it was.
He tried speaking, but to no avail. They wrapped some tape around his mouth just before bagging him.
He had no idea whether Tamara was with him. No idea whether he was with the four MLZ troops who’d come in the other car.
No idea whether Dom was even alive anymore.
Someone stopped. Pressed down hard on his shoulders, sent him tumbling to his knees. Pain wracked through them, the sudden impact of hitting the solid floor making them crack.
Someone messed around behind his back. Tightened the ties around his wrists. Smacked him on the back of his head when they walked back past him.
He squeezed his eyes shut when the footsteps stopped. Braced himself for them to beat him to a pulp, or slice his skin. He’d seen what these pricks were capable of. Blasting Josh’s head open, then slicing up Chloë’s face. Then turning Harry’s head into a bloody pulp right in front of his eyes.
He could still taste Harry’s blood lingering on his tongue and he didn’t want to swallow for fear it’d never go away.
Someone pulled at the top of his head and then there was light.
Well, there was a little bit of light anyway. His vision was blurry, but he could see he was in a greyish room of some kind. Crappy, shit-stained walls and cracked black and white tiles.
Also in the room were four men. All dressed in black. All with balaclavas over their heads, just like the pricks he’d dealt with back on the motorway were dressed.
He could smell something strong in the air. Piss. And a bit of shit, too. Crap, and body odour. These wankers needed to get a toilet. A shower. Learn to wash.
And then he looked to his right and he saw the source of the smells.
Lined up next to him were six people. Both genders, all of them kneeling, all of them wearing black fabric bags over their heads like the one Pedro had been wearing just moments ago.
Some of them sat in pools of their own piss. Some of them winced with pain.
The guy on the end had a nasty looking gunshot wound in his leg …
Wait.
Was that Dom?
Someone yanked the tape from Pedro’s mouth, giving him a damned bout of whiplash in the process.
He turned. Looked at his captors.
Standing over him was the familiar big-eyed freak that he’d shot at on the road outside the MLZ.
The crew-cut, fat-faced cunt who’d sliced up Chloë’s face.
Killed Josh.
Cameron.
He examined Pedro with those bulbous eyes of his. Looked into his eyes, then at his face, then down his chest and his body and back up to his eyes again. Pedro didn’t like the way this creep was looking at him. Didn’t like to think about what these sickos had planned or had in mind.
“Enjoying yourself there?” Pedro asked.
A smile twitched at the corners of Cameron’s mouth. “You thirsty?”
Strange request. Not what Pedro expected. “I … No.”
“You look thirsty. Holly, get the man a drink.”
The third of the black-clad people grabbed a silver coffee container from a desk on the side and poured a dingy looking cup with even dingier looking water. She stepped over to Cameron. Handed him the cup. Cameron pressed the cup up to Pedro’s lips. “Drink.”
Pedro didn’t want to. Like hell did he want to accept a drink from these people. He tried to shuffle away but his hands were tied behind his back, and Cameron tilted the cup.
He wasn’t in a position to bargain.
So he let the water, just a little of it, dribble into his mouth and down his dry throat. It tasted soily, like it’d been boiled in a rusty kettle a billion times.
Cameron pulled the cup away. Handed it back to the woman called Holly. And then he examined Pedro some more. “I want to apologise,” he said. “For what happened back outside the walls. But you gotta see it from my perspective. You killed good people of ours out on the motorway. So we killed back. Just how we operate now in this world, eh? How the survivors survive.”
“You killed a kid,” Pedro said.
Cameron shrugged. “Kid, pensioner. People all the same nowadays. You killed my people. Those people had sperm inside them. Potential for more kids for when a new world gets up and runnin’. So don’t patronise me about the moral hoo-ha of killin’ one kid.”
Pedro looked back into this prick’s eyes. He didn’t hear a flicker of remorse in his voice. Only justification. Excuses for what he’d done.
But then, wasn’t everyone just full of excuses nowadays? Wasn’t everyone just trying their damnedest to justify the sins they’d committed?
“And the girl, well …” Cameron tilted his head side to side. His eyes drifted like he was replaying what had happened with Chloë in his mind and trying not to enjoy it too much. “Leverage, like I said. You coulda just let us beyond those walls. Let us inside. We’d’ve treated you alright. Ain’t that right, troops?”
The three people behind Cameron all nodded. A couple of them mumbled in agreement.
“But, well. Sometimes things don’t work out the way you planned. Not a lot of times in this new world, really. Sometimes you just gotta roll with the deck the gods hand you. No matter how shitty or how different from what you really want, you just gotta go with it. Don’t tell me you haven’t done bad things.”
Pedro couldn’t deny that. He’d done bad things all his life. “Don’t try and use someone else to justify your own bullshit moral standpoints, you sick fuck.”
Cameron shook his head. Smiled. “Y’know, I clung to my morals a long time. Clung to ‘em longer than most did. Built up a nice little group of people. People who respected each other. Fought for each other. And y’know what happened? Course you do. You know what always happens. The zombies. They came and they took everything good away from us and then we realised what we had to be to survive. What we had to become. Don’t tell me you haven’t lost too. Don’t tell me you haven’t sunk, mate. Because we’ve all sunk.”
Pedro just watched Cameron. Didn’t say a word. Held his tongue, as much as he wanted to lambast this nob-jockey some more.
“Guys, un-hood his bird.”
Two of the covered people walked over to the fourth person to the right of Pedro. They grabbed the material. Pulled it from her head while the others quivered and mumbled beneath their bags.
Tamara’s blonde hair appeared from underneath the bag. It was greasy, gangly. Pedro expected her to have tears rolling down her cheeks, but she didn’t.
She just looked at Cameron with those eyes of hers. Stared right at him like she was trying to get all her hate across in one telepathic brain-fuck.
“Tamara, I … We’re okay. We’ll be okay. I promise.”
She didn’t even look at Pedro.
Cameron stepped up from in front of Pedro. Walked over to Tamara. Crouched opposite her. The closer he got to her, the more Pedro tightened up inside.
“Please. Don’t … don’t hurt her. We’ll give you what you want.”
Cameron studied Tamara. Brought his big, beefy thumb to her cheek and wiped her skin, making Pedro’s guts churn.
>
Tamara didn’t even flinch. She just stared back into Cameron’s eyes with hate. With detestation.
“I’ll tell you what we want,” Cameron said, keeping his eyes on Tamara. “We want you to go back to those walls of yours. Take a few of your friends back with you, the ones you trust. And we want you to kill whoever’s in charge. Start a bit of an uproar. Then bring us right in through the front gates. New people in charge.”
Pedro shook his head. Couldn’t help but laugh, pitifully. “They outnumber and out-organise you like mad. You don’t stand a chance, not even if I did take out the guy in charge. You’re cornered. Like a little rat. You’re nothing to them.”
Cameron looked at Pedro now. His eyes narrowed. “Hmm,” he said. “Perhaps not.”
And then he reached into his black coat and pulled out a long machete.
“But I know this woman right here is something to you.”
Fear surrounded Pedro. He breathed in sharply. “No!”
Two of the men unlocked Tamara’s hands, held her left arm out in front of her while she tried to scratch and scrape at Cameron with her right.
Pedro’s heart raced. “Please. Not Tamara. Tamara, don’t … this’ll be okay. We’ll—”
Cameron smiled. “I can see it. How much she means to you. And that’s exactly why you’re gonna get us behind those walls. Why you’re gonna get yourself nice and close to the people or the person in charge, and then you’re gonna give ‘um a nice little gift in time for the new year.”
Nausea overwhelmed Pedro. He tried to yank himself towards Cameron and Tamara but he was stuck, no use. “Please. Just … Don’t hurt her. Don’t hurt her.”
Cameron pulled her arm out even further. “Will you try to get us inside?”
Pedro nodded. Salty tears dripped down his cheeks. “I … I’ll try. I’ll try.”
Cameron’s smile widened. “Good,” he said.
He lowered the machete. Moved his grip down to Tamara’s hand. Looked right in her eyes.
“Then take this as a sign that we mean business.”
He lifted the machete.
Pedro’s body froze.
Cameron brought the blade crashing down on the fingers of Tamara’s left hand.
Blood dribbled out. She shouted out in pain underneath the tape on her mouth. Behind Cameron, all of his companions flinched.
“No!”
But it was too late because Cameron brought the blade down again.
Dented two of Tamara’s fingers even further.
Made her cry even louder.
Pedro watched as Cameron lifted the bloodied machete again.
As he looked Pedro right in his eyes.
Pedro knew he was screaming. Shouting. Begging.
But nothing could stop the final blow.
The blow that cracked the bone of Tamara’s little finger and her ring finger.
The blow that sliced the muscle.
The blow that sent her fingers tumbling to the ground in a bloody pool below.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Riley walked around the Manchester Living Zone for another half an hour before Jim Hall told him it was time for him to head back.
The reality—the beautiful reality—of the new world he lived in was staggering. The people with smiles on their faces and Christmas cheer. The buildings laden with little coloured lights, Christmas decorations. It was heartwarming. Brought tears to Riley’s eyes.
But the knowledge that Jordanna was here—that his demons had followed him to this place … that dulled his elation somewhat.
He headed back down the road he recognised as the one he’d first been on as he stepped out of the white lab room he was in. Jim Hall, Alan, the white labbie and the goggle-wearing guard all surrounded him. He felt like some kind of celebrity, with bodyguards of his own.
Or some kind of prisoner.
“I want to see Chloë,” Riley said.
Jim Hall tilted his head from side to side. Looked at the labbie, who shrugged back at him. “I’m not sure that’s a great idea.”
“You told me I could see her. When we left the lab room. You told me I could pay her a visit.”
Riley could sense a look of sympathy in Jim Hall’s glassy eyes. “That was before the confrontation with Jordanna. And Jordanna came here with Chloë. She’s looking after her. Besides, I don’t think she needs any commotion right now. She needs to rest, more than anything. She has a lot of … a lot of things to understand.”
Riley didn’t like the cryptic way they were talking about Chloë. “How bad did … did she get hurt?”
“Bloke called Cameron pinned her down on the concrete and sliced her face up,” the goggle-wearing guard said. First words he’d spoken for the duration of the journey. “Cut under her eyes, chopped a bit of her nose off.”
Riley felt sick. His head spun. “Shit …”
“Shit indeed,” Jim Hall said, as they approached the lab opening once again. “Look, I appreciate your concern for Chloë. We all do. But it’s best to let her rest. You can see her some other time.”
Riley didn’t like to admit it, but Jim Hall was probably right. He wanted to ask Chloë about Anna. Ask whether she’d meant to shoot her.
Instead, he nodded. Looked back around the street. Saw some boys cycling along on shiny new bicycles in the distance, doing their best not to slip on the icy concrete.
“Lucky for you, we have a few tests to run, anyway.”
Riley looked at Jim Hall. “Tests?”
Jim turned to the labbie.
The labbie went red, then started stuttering. “We—we need to consistently monitor your vitals. Take blood samples hourly. Track the regression or—or progression of the Influenza B/H3N4 virus. See how your body is … is adapting. To the changes inside it. Research a way to use your blood samples to potentially cure others.”
Riley looked at his black shoes. Then at his shaking hands. He wondered how he’d got here. Why it was him—him, of all people, who’d found himself in this bizarrely unique predicament. “So I’m a lab rat.”
Alan reached over from his wheelchair and smacked Riley on his ass. “I’m the one on the wheel,” he said. “At least you’re walking okay.”
Riley stared down the street at the shops, the bakeries, the cafes. “I’m guessing I don’t get free roam of this place.”
Jim Hall nodded. “Not just yet. We need to … to know you’re not a threat first.”
Not a threat.
Shit. What had his life become?
He took in a deep breath of the cold, fresh air. Looked up at the birds in the sky. Saw the wall towering above them, keeping them inside, keeping them safe. The creatures, they seemed a whole world away. A whole dimension away.
“It’s just until we know,” Jim Hall said. “And then we can work on distributing the cure.”
“A test run?”
Jim smirked. “You are the test run.”
Riley stared into the sky and he thought about Ted. About Anna. About all the people he cared about that he’d lost along the way.
And then he thought about Stan. About Aaron. About Trevor. The people he’d left behind. The people who had died all because of him.
At the time, he wondered for what purpose? Why had they died and he lived? Why had he made those calls?
But here he was. Alive. Some embodiment of a cure that seemed ambitious to say the least.
He was alive because he was supposed to be alive.
Not that he believed in any of that supernatural or “life path” bullshit.
Thinking that way just made him sleep easier at night.
“Are you ready?” Jim Hall asked.
Riley turned around. Looked at the open door in the red-bricked building leading into darkness. Nothingness.
His new home.
He took a final breath, caught a whiff of the pastries from around the corner.
Savoured that smell.
And then he lowered his head and stepped into the darkness.
> ***
Pedro stared at the bloody mess on the floor.
At Tamara’s two severed fingers.
Cameron stepped away. Wiped the machete on his black coat, slipped it back inside his pocket. The hooded people who were with him stared on, Pedro stuck in shock, in disgust.
Tamara whimpered with agony underneath the tape around her mouth.
“Take her out of my sight,” Cameron said. He pointed to Tamara. Two of his colleagues bumbled over towards her, lifted her up. “And get her wound cleaned and sorted.”
“Tamara,” Pedro mumbled.
He tried to get her attention as she left. Tried to make eye contact with her once more.
But before he knew it she was behind the chipped wooden door and Pedro was alone with Cameron, one of his thugs, the five hooded figures beside him and Tamara’s severed fingers.
Sweat dripped down Cameron’s head. He appeared to be catching his breath. Rubbing the back of his neck, like he’d just run a mile. “I had to do that,” he muttered to Pedro.
“You … you fucking prick—”
“I had to do it to show you I mean business.” He stepped over to Pedro. Crouched down opposite, right in his face.
Pedro resisted the intense urge to headbutt this prick right in the face.
“You’re gonna go back to those walls of yours. You’re gonna take back two people—two of these people right here. And you’re gonna take out the leader behind the walls. If you don’t do that, Tamara will suffer some more. I promise you, I’ll put her through so much pain that she’ll be begging me to kill her.”
Pedro lunged at Cameron. Cracked his head against his nose. Couldn’t help it, the urge inside him was so strong, so intense. “You evil prick! You fucking evil prick!”
Cameron rubbed at his nose. Blood trickled out of it. He backed away. Held his sleeve to it. “I probably deserved that. I’ll take it. Now make your choice.”
Pedro’s heart raced. He couldn’t keep up with the situation he was in. He had to pick two of the hooded people to go back to the MLZ with him. And then he had to kill Jim Hall. Kill whoever else was in charge.
And then he had to let Cameron and his thugs walk into the MLZ, take control of it, or Tamara would die.
