by Casey, Ryan
He ran further on when he felt himself slip and fall face flat through some kind of doorway.
Light hit his eyes. Rhubi was by his side, as was Peter.
Rhubi scrambled to her feet. Rushed over to the large metal door. Started to push it shut, the creatures not quite as close but still racing towards them.
Rhubi half pushed it. But the gap was still wide and gaping. They were still running out of time.
So Riley went over to it and pushed against it.
Watched it narrowing, narrowing. The creatures getting even closer.
He saw them just inches away.
Almost breaking through.
And then he felt the door slam shut and the creatures disappear into silence.
He stood there. Heart racing. Shaking. Sweating from head to toe. Because Ted would’ve been one of those creatures. He would’ve been one of them.
And Riley wasn’t sure he could have resisted him had he closed in.
“I’m sorry, Riley,” Peter said. “For what… for what happened.”
He looked at Peter as he stood there in the new, bright light. And then at Rhubi. Dark circles under her eyes. Flakiness to her skin that spoke of years underground.
He looked around at them both, totally in a haze, and he knew there wasn’t time to grieve.
“It’s… We need to keep going,” Riley said. “To finish this.”
Peter opened his mouth like he was going to say something.
Then he closed his mouth and nodded. “We’re close,” he said. “Almost there. We take you there, we get Kesha, and then we extract your blood, and we’ll have it. The cure. In its earliest form, sure. But enough to get things started. To really get the ball rolling.”
He saw Peter smile.
And Riley smiled in turn. It was a struggle. But he had to put on a brave face, as traumatic and as dizzying as all this had been.
The time for grief would come.
But that time wasn’t right now.
He followed Peter now, who seemed to know where they were going. And he found himself walking alongside Rhubi. She wasn’t saying much. Just kept on looking at him like she wanted him to break the silence. Then looking away whenever he glanced back at her.
“We went back a long time,” Riley said. “It’s… it’s a long story.”
Rhubi cleared her throat. Like she wasn’t totally comfortable talking. “I know it’s no consolation.”
“No. It probably won’t be.”
“I know it’s no consolation,” Rhubi continued, “but he went out heroically. He went out fighting. That’s more than so many can say. Certainly hope I’ll be able to say that.”
Riley nodded as they walked towards the rear of the Main Building, the door they’d come through what felt like forever ago. Even though he knew it himself, it felt reassuring hearing someone else say it. Like someone else recognised his logic, his way of viewing the situation.
They reached the doorway to the Main Building. And Riley was expecting something to go wrong. Expecting Peter to struggle with the keypad, or something like that.
But he didn’t.
The door opened, and they stepped into the Main Building.
He followed. And again, tension rose. His trepidation grew. Because he knew there was an Orion on the loose in here somewhere. He knew it’d be just their luck for it to close down on them now, out of nowhere.
It didn’t.
They rushed across the main reception area of the Main Building. Riley saw Rhubi looking around this place. Scanning it like she couldn’t quite get her head around it.
“I know,” Riley said. “I had the same reaction first time I was here, too.”
She looked at him like he was some kind of alien.
They reached the door, and Riley watched as Peter hit the keypad. The door opened.
And he paused as they made their way out into the open.
Because something wasn’t right.
Peter stopped. Looked over his shoulder. “Riley? Come on. Time’s running out. We need to get out of here. Fast. Time’s of the essence. We need to get to Kesha.”
But Riley wasn’t moving.
Because he’d seen something.
He’d seen something, and he knew it wasn’t good.
“The door,” Riley said. “You just… you just keyed yourself out of it.”
Peter narrowed his eyes. “What?”
“You said there was no way out. That there was no escape. But you just…”
Before Riley could say another word, he felt something.
Something to his back.
He looked around.
Saw someone standing behind him.
Armed.
And someone behind Rhubi, too.
Then he looked back at Peter and saw a half-smile on his face.
“I’m sorry, Riley. Really, I am. But you’ll understand. In time, you’ll understand.”
Riley felt the pain of what had happened to Ted, and he couldn’t restrain himself. “You bastard.”
He tried to throw himself at Peter, but it was too late.
The people behind him dragged him back.
But still he kicked. Still he pushed. Still he tried to get to Peter.
But Peter just stood there.
A glimmer of regret in his eyes.
“You killed Ted,” Riley said.
“A sacrifice,” Peter said. “And a necessary one. You’ll see that when you see what we’re capable of. Or rather, what you’re capable of.”
He looked at Rhubi. Looked at the way she stared back at him, tears in her red eyes. “You bastard,” she said. “You brought me here. You bastard.”
Riley couldn’t even apologise. He couldn’t say a thing.
He could only let the man behind him push him forward towards whatever fate lay ahead.
He walked through the grounds of the Main Building. Then out and through the streets, towards the coast.
And the closer he got to the helicopters, the more the realisation began to set in.
Peter.
He’d been using Riley.
He’d been using him all along.
And now he had Rhubi.
He had Riley.
And then there was Kesha.
“This cure,” Riley said, as they got closer to the helicopters, which Riley could see were getting ready to depart now. “It’s not a cure at all, is it?”
Peter looked at him, and he smiled. “Quite the opposite,” he said. “But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s a way to help Narcissus flourish. A way to bring about the progression of humanity. The logical next step.”
“And how’s that going to look?”
Peter smiled. “Why don’t I let my friend demonstrate?”
Riley looked ahead, and he saw them.
First, Anna.
On her knees.
Crying.
And then he saw something else.
Something that filled him with fear.
Melissa was standing there.
Wound on her neck.
Missing an arm.
But alive.
Undeniably alive and smiling.
And then there was a woman.
She was holding Kesha close.
Looking at Riley and at Rhubi like dogs looked at treats.
“What’s happening here?” Riley asked. It was all he could say. All he had the energy to say.
And then he looked into Anna’s eye, and from the way she looked back at him, he knew it was already too late.
“Yourself,” Peter said. “Rhubi. And Kesha, here. You are important. Really important. But you’re not the kind of cure you thought you were. You’re a cure to the disease that is the human condition. When taken together, your blood is strong enough to turn people into wonderful beings like Xanthe over here. And it won’t take a moment for the switch to happen. It won’t require a bite like it currently does. Narcissus in its current form, once your blood and DNA are combined in the right host bo
dy… it’ll do all the hard work itself.”
“A domino effect,” Riley said, defeat to his voice.
“Exactly,” Peter said. “This is what I’ve studied. This is the way it happens. This is the way it spreads. This is the way the world starts again. Because it needs a reset, Riley. It needs a chance to begin again. I’ve seen it in all its glory. There’s a chance, now. A chance to fix things, once and for all.”
Riley looked into his eyes and shook his head. He couldn’t understand. “You’re—you’re insane.”
“He’s telling the truth, Riley,” Melissa said. She stepped forward now. Looked at Riley with those friendly eyes—even though she’d quite clearly been bitten. She smiled. “This is how it happens. This is how we make it easy. This is how we make the dead walk again. But also how we remove emotion from the living. How we remove pain. How we make the world better again.”
He looked into Melissa’s eyes. Tried to see her in there. And that was the scariest part.
She was everywhere.
The virus. It had changed.
And it was more terrifying than ever.
All it needed now was him.
Kesha.
Rhubi.
“I respect you,” Peter said. “Really, I do. You didn’t have to volunteer to help me. But now you have… well. We’ve got everything we need. All we need now is to get to the open plains of Britain and begin the transition. Because that’s all it’ll take. Country by country. Once we have enough in our ranks… there’s really no stopping us.”
Riley shook his head. “Us? You their self-appointed leader or something?”
Peter smiled. “I’m just a man trying to do the right thing for the world. I’ll turn, too. I’ll have my moment. But right now… I’m right where I need to be. Right who I need to be.”
Riley felt his heartbeat picking up. Dread intensifying. “You won’t get away with this. You won’t—”
Peter put a hand on his shoulder.
Then, he smiled.
“I’m afraid, my friend, we already have.”
He looked into Riley’s eyes.
And then he nodded.
Melissa stepped forward and rammed a needle into Rhubi’s throat.
Then Xanthe lifted Kesha into the air and stuck one into hers.
Riley threw himself forward. “No!”
But it was already too late.
Because Peter tightened his grip on Riley’s shoulder.
He pulled back a needle.
And he jabbed it deep into Riley’s stomach.
He looked into his eyes as he dug it deeper and deeper.
Then Riley found himself looking over Peter’s shoulder, over towards Anna, who kneeled on the ground, gun to her head.
“We take these three with us,” Peter said. “For the next step.”
Xanthe nodded. “And the rest?”
Peter looked deep into Riley’s eyes. “They don’t deserve a second chance in the new world. Kill them.”
Riley watched the guns fire.
He watched the people fall.
His people.
He looked into Anna’s eye as she kneeled there, tearful.
And he went to say something.
“I love you,” he said. “I love—”
The gunshot echoed around the island.
Episode Fifty-Nine
Hamartia
(THIRD EPISODE OF SEASON ELEVEN)
Prologue
Alison held her breath as she plunged over the cliff edge and tumbled towards the water below.
She knew what was coming next. The fall from this height, it was too much to take. Her body would implode. Her bones would break. She’d fall to the pit of the sea and drown, her last moments nothing more than a whimper.
And yet…
She opened her eyes as she fell through the air, and she felt something. Something different deep within. A sense as she plummeted towards the sea that she was stronger than before. That something had happened since she’d got here. Something had happened to her. Something had changed her.
She couldn’t stop thinking about the bite.
And how ever since it had happened, she could feel her threshold for pain growing.
Feel her reactions increasing.
But at the same time… she could feel her hunger growing.
She saw the water just inches away from her face now and braced herself for impact.
She hit the water with a body-shaking smack.
But she swam.
She didn’t hear any bones break.
And the pain. It was momentary but didn’t last long.
She held her breath as she swam underwater and tried to wrap her head around everything that had happened; around everything that was happening.
She waited a while. Holding her breath far longer than she thought she was capable of. And as she floated there, waiting for Xanthe and the others to move on, Alison thought about her escape from Xanthe. She thought about the way she’d resisted the virus so far. She thought about everyone that had turned, and wondered why she should be any different.
And more importantly, she wondered just how long she had left. Just how much control remained.
She waited for longer and longer, the morning sun simmering through the water.
And when she was absolutely certain she’d waited long enough, she resurfaced.
She coughed a little. Took a few deep breaths. Didn’t feel too bad, considering she’d been underwater for quite some time. Unusual.
But not as unusual as the fact that before today, she never used to be able to swim.
She thought back to her childhood. Swimming lessons. Pretending she could swim in the junior pool by bobbing her feet up and down on the pool floor.
Only it backfired. The swimming teachers told her she’d reached a good enough level to move on to the adult pool.
They threw her in the deep end and waited for her to resurface.
But she didn’t resurface.
She struggled as she slipped further and further to the bottom of the pool.
Only this time, walking on the pool floor wasn’t enough to help her.
They’d pulled her out eventually—and probably a lot sooner than it felt like, in all truth. But she hadn’t set foot in water since then. Hadn’t wanted to face that fear again.
And yet here she was.
Swimming like an adept.
Like something had changed inside her.
Like something…
A flash, then.
A stronger flash than before.
A hunger.
Her lip. She’d bitten it.
She could taste blood on it.
And it sparked a kind of primal urge.
An unshakable desire.
And it terrified her.
She reached the side of the water and stopped when she got to the cliff.
She sat there. Listened to the noises above. The shouts. The cries. The screams. She listened as they were all attacked, one by one.
And she knew she had to go up there.
But the realisation was beginning to hit her, as she stared across the water at the simmering sunlight.
The realisation of what had happened.
Of what she was.
It was sinking in now.
Sinking in, well and truly.
She was infected.
And there was nothing she could do to change that.
But there was something she could do right now.
Something that could help, while she still had agency. While she still had control.
She turned around. Looked up at the cliff, right to the top of it. Not totally vertical, but enough distance to know better than to try to climb it. And she felt another urge growing within. An urge that convinced her she was batshit crazy. Totally insane.
But an urge she wanted to follow.
That she really wanted to follow.
Because a voice in her head told her she could do it.
&nbs
p; A voice in her head screamed at her to try.
Because she’d swam. A whole life of not being able to swim, and then she’d done it, just now.
So who said she couldn’t climb?
She put a hand on to the rocks, and she tightened her grip.
Her heart raced. She felt the same question circling her mind, again and again.
What are you doing?
What in the name of fuck are you doing?
But it wasn’t enough to stop her.
Wasn’t enough to hold her back.
She took a deep breath, and she began to climb.
As she climbed the rocks, she began to laugh. To cry. Because she could see what Melissa was talking about now. This virus, it was something else. It was beautiful. And Alison felt an unwavering urge to spread it. To show everyone else just what they were capable of if they only let it in.
But she pushed back. She resisted.
She gritted her teeth and kept on climbing. She could hear something going on up there. Some kind of altercation. She wanted to reach it. Stop it. Stop it before it got too far.
Because there was something else deep within.
An understanding.
There was something inside her still. A craving. A craving that went beyond the hunger for blood.
A craving for something that was right here.
That would help her make the next step.
She observed it. Watched it. Stayed as mindful of it as she could without indulging it.
She reached the top of the cliff, and she saw the scene in front of her.
Xanthe standing there.
Riley standing there, Peter holding a syringe to his neck.
Anna kneeling there.
Rifle to her head.
She saw the man Riley called Peter standing there, and she saw the command he gave.
“Kill them.”
She saw Xanthe’s soldier tighten her grip around the trigger.
But she was already moving.
Already racing towards them.
Already throwing herself at that rifle as the man went to pull that trigger and…
Chapter One
Riley watched Xanthe’s man tighten his grip around the trigger.
The gun pointed at Anna’s head.
He knew there wasn’t any getting lucky twice. There wasn’t going to be any dramatic comeback; any sudden re-sparking of life.
