by Casey, Ryan
He knew there was only one possible outcome.
Anna was dead.
She was finished.
After all this time, all those years apart, and then all those years together again, this was how it ended for real.
Just like the first time.
On her knees.
Gun to the head.
Only this time, there was a child inside her, too.
Their child.
He closed his eyes, and he saw it already. He heard the rifle, and he felt his body go numb. Even though the injection that had buried itself into his body was still hurting, still aching… he didn’t feel it. Not so much.
He just felt the pain of loss.
An all too familiar pain of loss.
And the shame of failure, once again.
Because he’d been the one to go after Peter Hillson. He’d been the one to believe his stories about the cure that required him, Rhubi, and Kesha. He’d been the one to go into District 63, get Rhubi. And Ted. Ted had died holding off the creatures in there. He’d died in what seemed like such an act of heroism; such an act of sacrifice.
He’d died pointlessly.
Just like before.
Because all the stuff about the cure. It was shit. Peter had found a way to make the current strain of the virus—Narcissus—airborne. And that required the combination of his, Rhubi’s and Kesha’s blood on the mainland.
He didn’t understand the logistics. Didn’t know how it worked.
But he could see that Peter was a megalomaniac, and he was a fool for ever trusting him.
He heard something else, then. Commotion up ahead. Shouting.
And he didn’t want to open his eyes. He didn’t want to look ahead. He didn’t want to see what he knew he was going to find.
But he had to.
He opened his eyes, and he saw something unexpected.
Anna was on the ground.
But there was no blood.
The bullet hadn’t hit her skull.
And the man who’d had the rifle to her head. He was on the ground too. Flat on his back.
Someone was perched atop her.
“Alison?” Riley said.
There was something different about her. Something had changed since he’d last seen her. She looked stronger. And there was something in her eyes.
Something that filled Riley with dread.
A dread that increased when he saw the blood trickling from her forearm.
And when Riley saw what followed, he could barely believe it.
She lurched down and ripped the screaming man’s throat from his neck with one swift bite.
Blood spattered everywhere.
He shook a little. Kicked out. Wailed.
But Alison didn’t let up.
She just kept biting down as he kicked and screamed, everyone standing there, looking on.
And then he went still.
She lifted her head. Looked satisfied. Satiated.
She looked at Riley, then. And then she looked at Peter.
Peter looked back at her. Horror in his eyes.
“What—” he started.
But he didn’t finish.
Because Riley head-butted him and knocked him to the ground.
Gunshots followed. More shouts. More struggling.
He saw Melissa standing there too, looking on. Like she was caught in two minds. He saw the bullets flying everywhere. The chaos unfolding.
And Riley knew he had to be careful, but he only had one destination in mind.
He only had one person in mind right now.
Kesha.
He rushed over to Xanthe, who was holding Kesha. And he could see something in her eyes now, too. Something that looked like fear.
“Riley!”
He looked around. Saw Alison was holding a rifle.
She threw it over to him.
He grabbed it, and then he turned it on Xanthe.
But there was a problem.
Xanthe was holding Kesha in the air.
The syringe to her neck.
Right to her jugular.
That spark had returned to her face now. That malicious smile.
“Don’t try a thing,” she said.
And Riley wanted to pull the trigger.
He wanted to put her down, right here, right now.
But then it was just too dangerous with Kesha dangling there.
It was just too much of a risk.
“Lower it,” Xanthe said. “Right this second.”
Riley swore under his breath. Then, he lowered the rifle, gritted his teeth together.
“Good,” Xanthe said. “That’s what I like to see. That’s what—”
She stopped.
Because something slammed against her side.
Knocked her to the ground.
It took Riley a few seconds to realise what it was.
But then it struck him.
It was Alison.
She perched over Xanthe. Hands around her neck.
Xanthe tried to swing that needle at her, but Alison just batted it away, snapping her arm in the process.
She held her down, Kesha by her side.
And that’s when Riley walked over.
That’s when he lifted Kesha.
When he held her crying body close.
He looked around. Saw Melissa on her knees.
Saw Xanthe’s allies all fallen.
Peter was nowhere to be seen.
He looked down at Alison holding Xanthe.
Then looked around at Anna lying there.
Lying there but open-eyed.
Lying there but alive.
He heard a laugh, then. Looked around, saw Xanthe staring up at him, smiling.
“You think you can reverse it, but you can’t,” she said. “You think you can change the course of nature, but you can’t.”
He gritted his teeth. Held a crying Kesha close.
Xanthe looked around at these people standing over her. She didn’t look alarmed. She looked totally at ease with this situation. Like she was a necessary sacrifice.
And then she looked right back up at Alison.
“You couldn’t stop it even if you wanted to. No matter how much you fight. How much you resist. Not now you’re one of—”
“Shut up,” Alison said.
She tightened her grip around Xanthe’s throat.
Tightened and tightened until she went blue.
Until saliva drooled out the corner of her smiling mouth.
Until she started to kick. Started to punch the air.
Started to get weaker and weaker and—
A pop.
Xanthe’s neck exploded.
Her spine snapped.
Her malicious smile stared up from her blood-splattered, decapitated head.
There was silence, then. Silence as Riley tried to understand what had just happened. Silence as Riley tried to interpret everything that had just gone down.
Silence as he reeled over what he’d come so close to losing.
He took a deep breath, then. Turned around. Walked over towards Anna.
He put a hand on her arm. Then held her, close.
“It’s okay,” she said.
“I thought you—”
“It’s okay. I’m here. I’m here.”
He held her, and he felt like the world around him disappeared. Like it faded into a void.
And then he heard shuffling to his right.
He looked over. Looked past Melissa, who Alison was watching over, now. He saw Peter Hillson worming himself towards the helicopters, dragging himself along the ground, bleeding from a gunshot wound on his leg.
Alison stepped forward—even though he still didn’t get it, still didn’t understand.
But he put a hand in front of her, stopping her in her tracks.
He tightened his fists. Thought of Ted.
Then he took a deep breath.
“This one’s mine,” he said.
He walked
towards Peter.
Rifle in hand.
Chapter Two
Riley looked through the bars of the cell at Peter Hillson.
He was sitting back against the wall, hands on his knees, bandage around his gunshot leg. A look of acceptance across his face more than anything. Like he knew what his fate was going to be. He knew how this was going to go.
That there was only one possible ending for him.
“I want to hear it all,” Riley said. “Your motives. Your reasons for doing what you’ve done. All of it. And I want it from the start.”
Peter sighed. Didn’t look all that opposed to talking with Riley. Didn’t look hateful, vengeful, anything like that.
He just looked like he accepted his fate.
“I’ve been in communication with Xanthe for a long time,” Peter said. “She was… one of the first we gifted with the advanced form of the virus. A form that eradicated the old forms. That acted as both a cure, initially. But then it changed. It changed into something… stronger.
“And my first instinct was to banish those who had it. But there was something about this strain of the virus. Something… something about Xanthe in particular. She seemed to want something. To crave something that went beyond mere flesh and blood. She had this urge to convert people. To make them see her way. And that’s when I saw it. The people she was turning. The ones she was infecting. It was the virus itself. Personified. Narcissus.
“I kept in contact with her. Monitored her, closely. And it was only when I stumbled upon the answer almost by accident that I realised what it was she had a hunger for. What it was she needed.”
Riley sighed. “I’m guessing that’s where I come in?”
“Yourself,” Peter said. “Rhubi. Kesha. Your DNA and blood types, as well as other strands and characteristics that we were studying right here… they combine, create a kind of beacon. All that beacon needs is to be absorbed by someone with the Narcissus form. As long as they are around plenty of other people and creatures… a chain reaction will begin almost immediately. It’s almost like a silent nuclear bomb in viral form. So that’s the plan. That’s the goal. And Narcissus. It won’t stop for anyone. Nothing will stand in its way.”
Riley felt unease creep through him with those words. What they implied. “And if Narcissus doesn’t get what it wants?”
Peter just smiled. “It will. And you’ll see the beauty of it, in time. You’ll wonder why you ever resisted it. Why you ever even tried to fight it. Just like I did.”
Riley shook his head. Brushed a hand through his hair. “Ted,” he said. “My friend. He died. He died because you wanted to see this virus spread.”
“And he died for a noble cause.”
Riley opened the gate, and he lunged at Peter. Held the rifle right up to his chin. “Don’t you dare even make that suggestion.”
“Think about it, Riley. No more pain. No more suffering. Everyone acting in the best interests of the world we’re on. Humanity’s next step. Evolution. That’s what it is. The end of suffering. That’s what the Buddha talked about 2,500 years ago. That’s what neuroscientists were starting to investigate before the world went to shit. And it’s the way the world was going long before this virus started to spread, anyway. But that’s all it takes. The blood. The beacon. After that… it’ll move from country to country. It’ll be too strong to stop. And the world will be beautiful. It will be happy. It will be perfect.”
“You want to turn us into robots,” Riley said.
“We are already robots to something,” he said. “Free will is an illusion anyway. So why not submit to the controller? Why not submit to a higher power? One who can make things better?”
“Not my idea of better,” Riley said.
“In what sense?”
He swallowed a lump in his throat. “Humanity. Our flaws. Our struggles. Our suffering. It might be harsh. It might be painful. But it’s what makes us us. Take that away and… and what are you left with, really?”
“You’re left with bliss.”
“You’re left with the end of humanity.”
“But the beginning of something much greater.”
Riley shook his head. “That’s… that’s admirable. Really. And hey. The compassionate, human side of me might be able to say I kind of understand where you’re coming from. But it’s not the world I want.”
Peter shrugged. “Then we’ll have to agree to disagree. But the fact stands. Melissa. And your friend, Alison.”
Riley’s stomach sank when he said her name. “What about them?”
“Melissa has fallen right in line. Submitted to Narcissus, and that’s wonderful to see. Alison… she might be fighting now. She might be resisting. But it will keep growing stronger and stronger. There are only so many times she can satiate her hunger before her resistance wanes completely.”
Riley thought about Alison. The way she’d torn the neck from the man who’d pointed a gun to Anna. The way she’d brutalised Xanthe right before him.
He saw the violence in her, and he wondered just how safe they were having her wander around outside right now.
But there was something else getting to him.
“There is no cure,” Riley said. “There’s no way of reversing it. Is there?”
Peter smiled. “Took you long enough to figure that one out.”
Riley leaned back. Let the reality sink in. There was no cure. There were only new forms of the virus.
Which meant there were some very important questions to be answered.
“I think the question you have, Riley,” Peter said, as if reading his mind, “is whether you can afford to lose someone like me when there’s still so, so much you don’t understand?”
Riley looked at Peter.
And then he looked at the rifle in his hand.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” he said.
He lifted his rifle and pulled the trigger.
Peter went flying back against the wall.
Blood splattered everywhere.
He lowered his rifle. He knew the virus might’ve wiped that vengeance from his body. It might have stripped him of his very real, very human reactivity. His painful grief over Ted.
But vengeance felt good.
He wasn’t going to deny himself of that.
He stepped out of the cell, and he took a deep breath as he looked around at the island.
He saw Alison in the distance. Sitting alone. Looking right back at him.
He swallowed a lump in his throat.
He knew he had some decisions to make.
And they weren’t going to be easy.
Chapter Three
Riley walked to the cliff edge where Alison was sat and braced for whatever was next.
“You mind if I sit?” he said.
Alison looked at him. Half-smiled. “You’re going to sit anyway.”
Riley shrugged, and then sat beside her. He looked out to sea. Looked at the sun beaming down. At the light shimmering on the surface of the water. He looked at the vast void of ocean, and how close they’d come to being dragged back to Britain. How close they’d come to losing everything they’d worked for.
How close they’d come to losing the world to this brutal manifestation of the virus.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Alison said.
Riley looked at her. Slightly concerned by her words, in all truth. “What? Like, literally?”
Alison snorted. “No. Not literally. I mean, sorry. I can see how you might’ve thought that after everything. But… no. I mean me. You’re thinking about the right step for me.”
Riley looked at her. Looked into her eyes. Eyes he still couldn’t believe he was looking into, in all truth.
Because he thought he’d lost her. Lost her, like so many others.
And yet here she was.
The mother of his child.
Here.
And… different.
“I mean, you saved Anna’s life,” Riley said. “And you sure ga
ve Xanthe what she deserved.”
“I’m sensing a ‘but’.”
“Well. If we’re going to stay here with you, how can we be sure we can trust you? With your…”
Alison tilted her head and covered her bitten arm. There was nothing different about her actions. Not in the same way as Melissa, who had clearly grown subservient to the new form of the virus. But for how long? Nobody could know.
“I feel those urges,” she said. “That… that lust for blood. But I’m in control of it. And… and something tells me I can go without it. I can keep on going, and I can stay strong. That’s what’s different about me. I have control of this thing inside me.”
“And you’re sure you can keep control of it?”
Alison shrugged. “That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?”
Riley looked away, then. Back over the sea. He stared for a long time. There were so many things he wanted to say, so many things he could say… but he felt lost in them all. Trapped.
“I’m going to have to feed eventually,” Alison said.
Riley looked at her, a shiver creeping up the back of his neck. “Feed?”
“That’s just… just how it is, Riley. It’s the only way. How do you feel about that?”
Riley looked away, back over the sea. “I’m thinking I might shuffle a bit further away from you.”
Alison laughed again. “Probably wise.”
They sat there a little while longer, in silence now. Riley thought of Riley Junior. He thought of Stuart. The world out there and how important it was to make sure Narcissus didn’t get out there.
But that meant taking everyone with that strain out of the equation.
Melissa.
Alison.
And in a way… himself.
Rhubi.
Kesha.
“What’s on your mind?” Alison asked.
Riley didn’t want to go into his thoughts. “Ted,” he lied.
Alison sighed, then. “I’m sorry. After… after everything that happened. After all you went through. That can’t have been easy.”
He bit his bottom lip, pushing the pain of the memory away. “Peter might’ve used me. He might’ve used us both. But—but Ted was doing the right thing. He saved Rhubi’s life. Died a hero.”
Alison nodded. “You’re right. Of course he did. And he’d do it again. He’d do it over and over.”
