Dead Days: Season Four (Dead Days Zombie Apocalypse Series Book 4)

by Ryan Casey

  “Riley?” Jordanna shouted. “What the fuck was that?”

  Riley ignored her.

  He rushed over to the armoured vehicle. Pedro and Tiffany. He had to check on them. He’d heard a gunshot. And he hadn’t seen or heard from either of them since.

  He climbed up the steps at the side of the vehicle. Poked his head inside.

  Pedro was lying across the floor. He had a gunshot on his left shoulder, which blood pooled out of. His eyes were closed.

  In the corner of the vehicle over by the bunks, Tiffany was curled into a ball, head in her knees and hands over her ears.

  Jordanna dropped down into the main section of the vehicle. “Is … Shit. Is he—”

  “Check his pulse,” Riley said. “There’s medical equipment under the beds. Make sure Tiffany’s okay, too. Tell her we’re going to pull through this.”

  He stepped out of the side of the vehicle.

  “And where the fuck do you think you’re scooting off to?” Jordanna asked. That scowl she always reserved especially for Riley was at new, extreme levels of scowliness right now.

  Riley opened the driver’s door to the vehicle. Pulled out Jamal, let his body drop to the motorway. Felt pretty bad about leaving him here like this. But there was no room for sentimentality anymore. Not when time was running out.

  He climbed in the driver’s seat. Wiped some of Jamal’s blood away with his sleeve. Started up the engine.

  Jordanna banged on the grating between the driver’s and the bunk section. “I asked you a—”

  “The bikes,” Riley said, swinging round to look at Jordanna. “Didn’t you see the registrations? And the clothes the bikers were wearing?”

  Jordanna frowned. “I was busy trying to shoot the fuckers, not assess their fashion sense.”

  Riley put the vehicle into reverse. Did a three-point turn so they were pointing in the direction the bikes had disappeared, back north up the M56.

  “Worthington’s Bike Emporium,” Riley said. “PR registrations. Get the picture yet?”

  Jordanna’s eyes narrowed. “I … That place does ring a bell.”

  “It rings a bell because it’s in Preston,” Riley said.

  He put his foot on the accelerator, held it right down so the vehicle went as fast as it could.

  “Looks like we’re going on a sort of homecoming,” he said.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “How’s he doing?” Riley called.

  Jordanna had been quiet for a while. He’d heard her whispering things to Pedro as she saw to the wound on his shoulder. Telling him he’d be okay, then moving on to Tiffany and reassuring her that they’d find Chloë, get her back.

  “He’ll live, I think,” Jordanna said. She wiped the blood off her hands and onto her already-scruffy black turtle neck jumper. “Lost a fair bit of blood but I think I’ve sealed the wound.”

  “You think?” Riley asked, gripping hold of the steering wheel and powering north up the M56 towards Preston.

  “Yeah,” Jordanna said. “I think. That’s about as good as I can give right now. We nearly home?”

  The word “home” brought a strange sensation through Riley’s body. An anticipation. Like he was going back to a world where everything was normal again. Not MLZ normal or faux normal. But actual normal.

  It’d been three months since he’d left Preston. Three months since he’d sailed away with Pedro, Claudia, Chloë.

  With Anna.

  It’d been three months since he’d poured Ted’s ashes out in the docklands water and said goodbye forever.

  Home had a funny way of dragging you back when you least expected it.

  “We should be there in half an hour or so.”

  “And what makes you so certain these bikers are actually heading back to Preston? I mean, sure, they had the Worthington’s kit. But who’s to say they didn’t just raid that a while back?”

  Riley kept on driving up the M56. Right through the middle of the abandoned, overturned cars. He smacked into lone straggler creatures every now and then, the heavily reinforced front of the vehicle bashing through everything in its path like some kind of monster truck.

  “I don’t. But we don’t have any other choice.”

  “We did have another choice,” Jordanna said. “Killing those fuckers before they shot off with Tamara and Chloë.”

  “And risk killing Tamara and Chloë in the process? No thanks. We … They’re on bikes. They won’t get too far. We’ll find them.”

  “And if we don’t? What about this fucking virus running through your system? We need to get you to Birmingham. I didn’t come along to—”

  “Don’t bullshit me, Jordanna. I know how much you care about Chloë. And I care too. We’re not leaving them behind. We’ll find them.”

  A pause from Jordanna as the vehicle rumbled over the debris laden tarmac. “And what if … what if something happens to you? What then?”

  Riley took in a deep breath. The air in the front of the vehicle smelled of sweat and blood. Jamal’s sweat and blood. “You came with me. You had my back. Chloë and Tamara, they had my back. If I … If I fail trying to save the people who had my back, then so be it. There’s—there’s always the documents and the samples. Dr Wellingborough’s research in that rucksack. And you’ve always got my blood. I’m sure you’ll find much pleasure in draining my body.”

  He caught a glance of Jordanna through the rearview mirror.

  Saw her smiling a little.

  “That is a thought,” she said.

  Riley drove up the motorway some more. Saw a sign for Preston—six miles away. They’d be there in less than half an hour.

  Something niggled away inside him. He saw an opportunity to make the most of the moment. To exorcise the demons that had chipped away at him for months.

  “Jordanna, I …”

  “Don’t fucking apologise for leaving me behind again,” she said.

  “I just … what I did. I … after everything that’s happened. All the things I’ve done, good and bad. It’s that moment that comes back to me. Looking in the rearview and … and seeing you surrounded by creatures by that tanker. Seeing the—the shock on your face.”

  “Yeah, well,” Jordanna said. “I wasn’t best pleased, as you can probably imagine. But y’know. You thought on your toes. Did what you had to, to survive. I’d probably have done the same.”

  Riley looked in the rearview again. Saw Jordanna perched on the end of a bed. Tiffany was wrapped beneath the sheets. “Really?” he asked.

  “No,” Jordanna said, her eyes bolting up and looking up at Riley through the mirror. “It was a fucking dick move. But hey. It’s a long time ago. Besides, we’re going back there now. I’ve got a chance to get some revenge on you.”

  Even though she was smiling, Riley couldn’t be too sure whether she was joking or not.

  “Hel … what …”

  The voice wasn’t Jordanna’s.

  “Shit,” Jordanna said. She rushed off the bed. Crouched down beside Pedro. “Pedro. You stay calm. Take some deep breaths—”

  “Fuckin’ shoulder …” He reached for his left shoulder with his shaking hand.

  “I know, I know,” Jordanna said. “Just … just keep yourself relaxed down there. Wanted to put you on the bed but you’re heavier than you look. So just take it easy. You’ll be okay.”

  “Tamara,” Pedro said. “Where’s …”

  Jordanna gulped. Looked up at Riley.

  “She’ll be right here soon,” Riley said, powering further and further down the motorway, getting closer to Preston. “She’ll be right here.”

  “Tamara …” Pedro said again.

  He squeezed Jordanna’s hand.

  Smiled at her.

  His eyes closed.

  They arrived in Preston twenty minutes later.

  At first, it didn’t look too dissimilar to how Riley remembered it. The shitty little bunch of high-rise flats in the city centre looming in the distance. The pothole-filled roa
ds making every move juddery.

  But there was something abnormal about it. Something … unreal. Like he was visiting Preston in a dream.

  A feeling like he wasn’t coming home at all. Just looking at a distorted photograph from his past. Like the black and white photos his parents used to show him of his grandparents when they were younger, and of his grandparents’ parents.

  Abstract. Unreal.

  “Do we just go straight in or what?”

  Jordanna leaned on the grating between the driver’s cabin and the living space. Riley drove slower through Preston. He didn’t like the narrow streets and how quiet they were. The mass of new housing developments around Longsands. The smashed glass and blood that covered the concrete. The area was totally quiet. Totally silent.

  But for how long?

  “Worthington’s is down by the docklands. We could go through town or we could go the scenic route through the country lanes. My guess is the scenic route will be clearer, but harder to get this beast of a vehicle down.”

  “And the route to town?”

  “Packed with abandoned cars. Filled with creatures. The usual.”

  “So it’s a no-brainer.”

  Riley turned out of Longsands Lane. Took a left down the narrow country road.

  “We drive around the country way and then we leave this vehicle somewhere nobody will find it. We ambush Worthington’s through its weakest point.”

  “Which is?”

  “That’s what we figure out when we get there.”

  He drove further down this road. Still silent. Still empty.

  “You’re still assuming these guys are gonna be at Worthington’s,” Jordanna said. “And that the two of us can take ‘um on. What if there’s more of them? More than two?”

  Riley drove the armoured vehicle right over the roundabout. Headed straight ahead, where the trees grew out of control, clawed and scratched at the vehicle. “I expect there to be more than two. Which is why we’ll have to be really good.”

  Jordanna peered at Riley through the rearview mirror. “‘Be really good’? That’s your plan?”

  “Got a better one?”

  She started to say something then her eyelids widened. “Shit.”

  Riley glanced at the road.

  Put his foot on the brakes.

  Up ahead, there was a man on a motorbike. He wore a black biker’s jacket, just like the people they’d encountered on the motorway were wearing. This guy definitely wasn’t one of the two they’d let go, though. He was chubby. Had a mullet.

  A rifle rested across his lap.

  Riley held his breath, as if breathing would alert the biker to his presence.

  He kept his foot on the brake. Didn’t want to budge it.

  And then, carefully, he unclipped his seatbelt.

  Made sure he had his machete and his gun.

  “Riley?” Jordanna gasped. “What the fuck do you—”

  “Our way in,” he said. He grabbed the handle of the door. Nodded at the guy on the motorbike, who gradually drifted further and further away. “He’s right there.”

  Riley crept out of the armoured vehicle, gun tightly in his right hand.

  He dropped down from the driver’s door, being extra careful not to make any noise as his feet hit the concrete. Jordanna watched from the passenger seat, gun in hand, just in case the mulleted, chubby biker going the opposite direction just so happened to turn around.

  But he hadn’t turned around yet. Not yet.

  So Riley held his gun in his right hand, had his machete sticking underneath his belt, and he crept as slow as he could towards the mulleted biker who drifted along at no speed at all.

  As Riley walked, the cool air of Preston brushed against his face. Funny, really. His hometown had a definite smell. A smell he never even noticed when he’d lived here, but now he was back, he knew it right away. Kind of like when you leave your home to go on holiday, get back and smell just how shitty it really is—how everyone else must smell it.

  He crept further along the concrete of the middle of the road. Did all he could to avoid stepping through cracked glass, through fallen leaves. It looked like the driveway of an old woman’s he used to live down the road from. She used to always sweep the leaves off her drive religiously, until she broke her leg and ended up housebound for the rest of her miserable little existence.

  The leaves stacked up. Fast.

  Kind of like now. Autumn leaves from months ago, unbrushed and never to be brushed away.

  Riley picked up the pace as he got closer to the biker. He realised all of a sudden just how exposed he was. The old shops at the top of the road. The way this road opened up to a grassy area either side.

  There could be somebody out there. Watching. Waiting for an opportunity.

  This could be a trap.

  As he got even closer to the guy on the motorbike, the fumes started to irritate his chest. Doing all he could not to breathe too deeply, Riley noticed the wing mirrors of the bike had been smashed. No wonder the guy couldn’t see. But still, not turning around once? What sort of an idiot was he?

  Riley lifted his gun. Pointed it at the biker. Thought about what he was going to say, how he was going to say it. He needed to take this guy hostage. Take him hostage, make him take Riley and Jordanna to wherever his base was, then let them leave with Tamara and Chloe.

  And if they didn’t, well. Riley and Jordanna would find another way to bargain.

  There were plenty of ways to bargain in the Dead Days.

  Riley pointed his gun at the back of the biker’s head. Readied himself to say the words.

  And then he saw movement up ahead to the right.

  His stomach sank.

  A creature wandered its way around the edge of the tree-laden area. A bloke with a bald head. Skin greying, crumbling to bits. Looked like whoever it was had turned a long, long time ago. Smelled like it, too.

  Riley turned. Looked at the trees to his left. He couldn’t risk the creature coming towards him, drawing attention to him. He had to let the biker deal with it. He couldn’t start swinging his machete and firing his pistol. He’d been lucky to get this frigging far as it was.

  He drifted off to the left as the creature stumbled closer to the biker. The biker barely looked at it, barely acknowledged it, as Riley made his way to the left. He’d have to hide behind a tree. He’d have to—

  Movement in the trees to the left.

  Another creature staggered out.

  And then another.

  Two of them, both heading in Riley’s direction.

  Groaning as they waddled towards him.

  Riley’s heart picked up. He looked over at the biker. The creature from the right was getting closer to him. Almost within touching distance.

  But the creatures on the left. They weren’t even looking at the biker. Weren’t even paying any attention to him.

  In a flash, Riley saw two ways of going about this. He could either use the machete on the two creatures coming his way, or he could use the gun and alert the biker to his position.

  Or he could do fucking nothing and stand here like a damp squib and ruin the whole rescue mission completely.

  He heard a blast. A blast from his right.

  The biker had shot the creature approaching him in its face. Sent it tumbling back onto the road, headless, its brain in fragments all over the ground.

  Shit. A shotgun. He didn’t want to risk getting on the wrong end of one of those any time soon.

  He lifted his machete as the two creatures from the left got closer to him. There was a bit of distance between him and the biker now. Enough to deal with the creatures quietly? Fuck it. He had to live. Living was a priority.

  He waited for the first of the creatures to be about a metre away and he swung the machete at its head.

  Split the skull and silenced the creature in one clean swoop.

  He tried to pull the blade away so he could deal with the second creature.

  Fuck.
/>
  He pulled the blade. No movement. Stuck in the creature’s fucking skull.

  The second creature grabbed his arm. Opened its over-stretched jaws and went to take a bite out of him.

  Riley saw it happening. Saw it clamping down on him. Saw the teeth sinking into his skin unless he could just …

  A blast from his left.

  And then two more blasts.

  The first blast splattered into the creature’s head and sent it crashing onto the concrete.

  The second two blasts … what were they?

  Riley looked over at the biker.

  The biker was completely still. The engine on his bike was still rumbling away, but he’d stopped. The tires were flattening and steaming.

  And he was looking right at Riley.

  No.

  Behind Riley.

  “Drop your weapon and put your hands above your head.”

  Riley turned and saw Jordanna at the side of the armoured vehicle. She was pointing her rifle at the mulleted biker.

  The biker’s eyes streamed. He looked like he was genuinely fearful of this situation, this predicament. “Please, I—I can—”

  “If you want to keep your fucking kneecaps, you’ll drop that gun and put your hands on your head.”

  Riley rose to his feet. Pointed his pistol at the biker. This was a Plan B—a messy, risky plan B— but one they needed right now. So fair play, Jordanna. Fair play.

  The biker gulped as the bike descended to the floor. He lifted his shotgun in his right hand. Hovered it over the side of the bike.

  And then he reloaded and fired a blast in Riley’s direction.

  The shell whooshed past Riley’s ear. Made it ring. Fuck. Inches. Inches from having his head blown off.

  He heard another few muffled blasts. Went to aim at the mulleted biker. Saw he was sprinting down the middle of the road, leaving his bike behind. Jordanna was firing stray shots at him, not quite hitting.

  “Fire, Riley! Help me out here!”

  The words were still unclear to Riley. Like he’d got water in his ear after taking a lengthy bath.

  He lifted his gun with his shaking hand.

  Aimed at the back of the legs of the fleeing biker.