by Ryan Casey
Tamara stepped over him as he gripped hold of his knee. Walked over to Pedro. Crouched opposite him and sliced at the plastic ties around his wrists.
He tried to make eye contact with her in the way he always did. Those admiring eyes. “You okay?”
Tamara just handed him the knife.
Turned away.
Walked back over to Cameron and crouched down beside him, his machete poking from underneath his black coat.
“Please,” he said, wriggling on the floor. “I don’t … Please. I didn’t mean to—”
“Pedro, take the others outside and get them ready to leave.”
Tamara reached inside Cameron’s coat. Pulled out the machete before he had a chance to stop her.
Pedro winced as he rose to his feet. “Are you sure—”
“There’s something I need to do. I’ll meet you outside.”
Pedro grumbled like he was going to protest, but he must’ve realised it was useless because he moved on to the prisoners and cut them free of their ties.
Tamara gripped tight hold of the sharp, blood-smeared machete. She placed it on Cameron’s neck. Heard a little quiver of breath escape his lungs as he realised what was happening to him. The position he was in right now.
“I had—I had a son too. Before all this—”
“It’s better if you don’t talk,” Tamara said.
She pressed the machete so hard into his neck that it started to bleed.
“P—please. We can—we can work this out. I just lost so much. I lost my way. You can … behind your walls. I just want what’s there. Even if I’m—I’m prisoner there. Please.”
Tamara held the machete onto his neck. She’d cut through a few layers of skin now. Watched as the blood trickled to the floor.
Stared into his tearful, begging eyes. His blabbering mouth.
As Pedro and the prisoners left the room, Tamara smiled at Cameron.
Moved the blade away from his neck.
“You didn’t give my Josh a chance to beg for his life.”
She lifted the blade and swung it down against his left shoulder.
Cameron let out a cry. A loud cry, like a pig’s squeal, as Tamara brought the blade crunching down through his bone, left his arm hanging on by a thread.
She brought the blade over his right shoulder. “You didn’t show that poor girl any mercy when you sliced her face up on the street.”
“Please—please—agh!”
Tamara swung the machete at Cameron’s right shoulder, once, twice, a third time, detaching it completely.
Cameron was completely pale now. Blood oozed out of the holes in his shoulders where his arms were once connected.
Tamara held the machete over his upper left leg. “Don’t pass out just yet. Still got a job for you.”
She hacked at his left leg to more screams, more cries, more squeals.
And then she did the same to his right leg until he was nothing but a body and a head.
She tasted blood on her lips. Felt it covering her skin, smelled it in the air. And yet she felt free. She felt something that must’ve been justice for what happened to Josh.
She felt avenged.
She stepped back up and walked to the other side of Cameron. Kicked and pushed what was left of his body over towards the large bay window of a balcony that looked out over the street below. She stepped outside, felt cool air against her face.
Heard groans below.
She looked up the road, over to the left. Saw a group of infected gathered around some old bin bags, Pedro and the other prisoners fighting with them as they tried to get out of the building.
“Ple … please …” Cameron blubbered. He was close to death. Close to unconsciousness.
“Don’t die on me just yet,” Tamara said.
She booted him right up to the edge of the balcony where the stone wall had crumbled away.
She whistled.
The infected looked up. Groaned and grumbled some more.
Cameron choked out some blood. “Pl … please …”
“Now your arms and legs are gone, you’ll be utterly pointless when you come back as one of them, too. Pity I didn’t have time to work on your teeth.”
She booted Cameron hard in his side and watched as his dismembered body went tumbling down into the small group of infected below.
She listened to his ribs crack against the concrete.
Then she watched as they tore him to pieces. As they chewed at his neck, gnawed at his stomach, ripped out his guts.
And then she saw Pedro. Looking up at her from the side of a Land Rover.
He nodded at her. Didn’t smile, just nodded.
She took a deep breath of the cool winter air.
Nodded back.
“I love you, Josh,” she said, as the sound of the zombies cracking Cameron’s skull with their teeth echoed through the street. “I love you.”
CHAPTER NINE
The labbie in the white coat woke Riley up with beaming bright lights and told him there was something really important he needed to attend to.
Riley followed the labbie out of the lab room—or his cell. Followed him out through the dark, damp corridor, head spinning from crappy sleep. He wasn’t sure where he was going. What the labbie was taking him to see. Shit—Riley didn’t even know the guy’s name.
But still, he followed, because any excuse to stretch his legs outside the four walls of that cell was good enough for him.
The labbie opened the door and led the way outside. The first thing that hit Riley was that it was dark. Well, dark, but not uncomfortably so. Little white lights hung from outside the houses. Coloured lights flashed on Christmas trees in the living rooms of the flats. Down the road, Riley could hear the footsteps of a few tipsy looking blokes crunching through the light falling of snow.
“Come on,” the labbie said. “We don’t have all night.”
Riley followed him to the right. “Where are we going?”
The labbie didn’t turn around. Just kept on walking, hunched forward. “You’ll see.”
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this new world it’s that I don’t really like surprises anymore.”
“I have a feeling you’ll like this one.”
The labbie climbed a few metal steps that led up the side of the tall buildings. The sort of stairs that would’ve been useful as a fire escape once upon a time, when the world was normal …
Only it was normal in here.
The world was how it should be.
Fixed.
His heart pounded as he followed the labbie higher and higher up the steps. His chest got tight. His legs were weak. Still hadn’t got used to walking, especially after being gnawed on twice down in that tunnel with Alan. Still hadn’t got a bloody good sleep of his own accord.
The labbie stopped just before a black doorway with lit windows beyond it. He turned around. Looked right into Riley’s eyes through his rectangular glasses. “Just don’t, well, turn on us. Okay?”
Riley frowned. What was all this about? “Who’s ‘us’?”
The labbie half-smiled. Held his arm out. “Through there, Riley. There’s something I think you’ll very much like to see.”
Riley looked at the black door. Behind it, he could hear voices. A cure? Some evidence of progress?
He stepped past the labbie. Put his hand on the metal handle.
Looked back at the labbie. “You aren’t screwing with me, are you?”
The labbie chuckled. Took off his glasses. His eyes looked much smaller that way. “Happy Christmas, Riley. Enjoy yourself.”
Shit was getting weirder and weirder by the second.
Riley held his breath. Lowered the handle.
Opened the door.
When he saw what was behind it—who was behind it—his jaw dropped.
Pedro was sitting beside a hospital bed with a whisky in hand. He looked like he’d lost some weight in his face since Riley last properly saw him, and the blue coa
t he had on looked way too big for him.
On the hospital bed was a little girl. A little girl with bandages on her face. With hazelnut brown hair.
Chloë.
Riley stepped into the room. It went silent as he did. Or at least, it seemed to. His heart picked up in pace. Just seeing these people again—people he’d fought with, survived with—awoke something inside him.
A realisation that these people were his friends, and he’d missed them so much.
There were other people in the room too. Alan sat in his wheelchair at the other side of Chloë’s bed, a Coca-Cola in hand. He was dressed in a nifty black suit and looked like he’d had a bit of a hair trim. There was another woman, too. A blonde woman with a tartan blanket around her shoulders who barely looked at Riley, stared into the distance, a bandage wrapped tightly around her left hand.
And then, in the corner of the room, Jordanna.
Pedro stood up. Walked over towards Riley. Tried to smile, but Riley could see he was welling up. And he could feel the pressure behind his own eyes, too.
They hadn’t properly seen one another since the Heathwaite’s battle.
None of them had been together since then.
The survivors.
Pedro held out a hand. “Riley.”
Riley’s throat swelled up. He felt a tear drip down his cheek. Took Pedro’s hand, shook it. “Pedro.”
Then he walked over to Chloë. Walked over to the poor girl with the bandages on her face. She looked scared. Worried. Rolled the white bed sheets between her fingers.
Riley stopped beside her bed. Remembered the last time he’d seen her. Firing that shot in Anna’s direction after her mum was shot dead in the battle of Heathwaite’s.
She looked down the bed. Bottom lip twitched. “I … I’m sorry for—”
“Ssh,” Riley said.
He wrapped his arms around her.
Felt her warmth radiate through him.
Together, they all cried.
Together, they felt the radiance of reunion.
Together.
***
Jim Hall and Dr. Michael Wellingborough looked in through the window outside the room of reunion.
Jim couldn’t help but feel his own emotional compass twang when he saw Riley holding the girl, when he saw the tears dripping down Pedro’s cheeks. When he saw them all, reunited, together.
“When are we going to tell them?” Michael asked.
Jim felt a weight building in his chest. He swallowed down an acidic lump in his throat. “Soon.”
“We don’t know how long we have before—”
Jim turned on Michael. Squared up to him. Smelled the sweat coming from him the instant he did, heard his breathing get shallower.
“We give them a Christmas. A new year. A chance to rest. A chance to feel normal again.”
Michael gulped. His beady eyes twitched around Jim’s face. “But—”
“There are no buts,” Jim said. He planted a hand on Michael’s shoulder. Turned back around to look through the glass. Saw Riley being introduced to Tamara, who’d lost two fingers in the assault on Cameron’s people. “This is how it has to be. Now smile and look happy for them.”
Jim Hall forced a smile. Caught Michael doing the same.
But inside him, he felt a guilt.
A strong, strong guilt about the truth.
“Give them a week to feel normal. A week, at least. And then we tell them the truth. Tell him the truth.”
He watched Riley’s rake-thin figure take a seat in Pedro’s chair with a water in hand and he wished things could be different.
EPISODE TWENTY
THE NEW NORMAL
(SECOND EPISODE OF SEASON FOUR)
Prologue
Jim Hall and Dr. Michael Wellingborough looked in through the window outside the room of reunion. Looked at Riley, at Pedro, at Chloë and Tamara and Jordanna and Alan.
Inside him, he felt a guilt.
A strong, strong guilt about the truth.
“Give them a week to feel normal,” Jim said to Dr Michael Wellingborough. “A week, at least. And then we tell them the truth. Tell him the truth.”
Two months later …
Riley held his breath and kept his gun’s focus on the turning in the crossroads.
It was a bright early March day, the best kind of day to hunt. Streets seemed quiet, too. The sound of birds chirping on top of nearby derelict high-rise buildings. The murmur of chatter from behind the walls, inside the Manchester Living Zone. His heart beating against his chest underneath his black coat and white shirt.
“See anything, bruv?” Pedro asked. He crept beside Riley, dressed in the same way, except for the addition of some old blank dog tags he’d taken quite a liking to. Novelty effect, he said.
Riley kept his focus. Held his gun, pointed it at the right turn beyond the weed-cracked concrete, past the smashed-up old Toyota Yaris that’d collided into the wonky traffic light pole some time ago. “I saw it. Keep watching that right side.”
Pedro grumbled. Stepped a little further towards Riley. “I don’t get why we even have to hunt with all the food stocked up back there. Infinite supply, all that.”
“Then you keep on eating those Pot Noodles for eternity. I’ll have a deer for myself.”
“Touché.”
Riley crept along the long road towards the crossroads. Every footstep he took, he felt something uneven under his New Balance trainers, the familiar cracking of glass or crumbling of rock.
Squelching of limbs.
He’d seen a deer from the viewing bay at the southern edge of the MLZ. He liked to go out there and watch the world outside. As idyllic as the MLZ was—a place he’d enjoyed a normal life in for the last two months since being told he’d been cured of the Apocalypsis virus and had the potential to cure other victims—he liked to sit on the edge of the wall and stare out into the distance at least once a week. Look out at the abandoned high rise flats. Stare down into the fog for signs of life, human life.
At night, he liked to go up to the top of the wall sometimes and look through the night vision goggles at the creatures as they wandered aimlessly, directionless.
From time to time, he’d see someone. Someone living. And sometimes, they’d reach the MLZ. Find their way inside.
But more often than not, the creatures would get them before they had a chance.
He often watched the people die.
Not for morbid reasons. But just to remind himself how lucky he had it. How lucky everyone—every one of the thousand—behind the MLZ walls had it.
What their life could’ve been if they hadn’t been lucky.
“Up ahead!”
A slight movement across the road of the turning outside the old Flash Bar. Dust rising from the ground—a sure sign that something had moved over there.
“Chase it?” Pedro asked.
Riley lowered his gun. Looked at Pedro, goggles propped atop his bald head like some kind of fashion accessory. “If you want deer for dinner, you bet.”
Pedro licked his chapped lips. “I bet.”
Riley moved as swiftly as he could through the street without making a sound. Kept on sniffing up, just in case he smelled rotting or decomposing that would be a definite sign of a nearby creature group.
Although the creatures were adapting, apparently. They didn’t groan as much anymore. Some of the lucky ones who’d kept their limbs could power-walk a bit. Shit, maybe they’d figure out how to wash the stench off them soon.
Riley and Pedro reached the corner of the crossroads. Riley pressed up against the side of the building before the turning. Held his gun tightly. Looked at Pedro, nodded, then pulled the scope of his gun to his right eye.
He held his breath as he turned the corner.
This had to be quick. The second he saw the deer, he had to fire. His stomach was already rumbling at the prospect of tender, juicy deer meat. Venison was his favourite before the apocalypse, let alone after it.
&nb
sp; Only it was a shitload cheaper if you knew how to work a gun now.
He moved slowly around the corner.
Edged his gun out.
Peeked through his scope.
He saw it right away. The deer, standing there right in the middle of the road. Sniffing around the typically mashed concrete for scraps of something, anything. Its ribs were on show. Poor thing was lucky to have made it this long.
But then again, so were they.
He tilted his rifle and went to fire when the deer skipped off down a side-street.
“Fucker,” Pedro muttered.
Riley’s sympathy for the deer stopped about there. He lowered his gun. Got a real sense of the distance to the side-street. A few hundred metres. Not too far from the MLZ. Take about a minute or two to get there and back. “Let’s go get it.”
Something tugged at Riley’s arm. He swung around, saw it was Pedro. “You sure about that?”
“Why?” Riley asked. “Worried about not being able to get back for Tamara?”
Riley knew he’d hit a tender spot from the blushing that spread across Pedro’s face. “No. It’s just…”
“Like I said. Finder’s keepers. You want deer, you help me catch deer. Gonna need a pair of hands to help me drag it back anyway. You game?”
A little glimmer of a smile worked its way up the corners of Pedro’s mouth. “‘Game,’ bruv? Really?”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
Riley ran a little faster down the next street, Pedro not far behind. The cool late winter air brushed against his face. Riley had to admit he kind of enjoyed this world at times. The safety of the walls balanced with the danger of the outside. It was only like the old times, when people would go to football matches or do boxing to let out a bit of tension, experience a bit of vicarious fear.
Only now, there was the very real threat of creatures outside the MLZ walls. Just the lack of contact with them, the lack of interaction in the last two months, it made them seem … abstract, somewhat. Like they weren’t really a threat.
Riley stopped by the turning of the side-street that the deer had gone down. Listened to the silence. Smelled … well, nothing. Just freshness. Freshness and stale petrol.
