by Ryan Casey
Then he sighed and lowered his knife.
“I—I can’t,” he said. “I c—”
He didn’t finish what he was starting to say.
Riley would never know what this man was going to tell him.
He would never know whether he’d be a threat or not.
Because he lifted his gun, and he shot him in the head.
He looked at the blood on the wall. Looked at the fragments of the man’s skull, some of which had exploded over Kesha’s face. His ears rang as he stared at Kesha, at her startled face.
He reached over. Picked her up. Smiled. “It’s okay,” he said. “I’ve got you.”
He lifted her up. Then he looked at the man lying there, eyes open with a final look of fear.
He looked at the mounds, the flies still buzzing around them.
And then he stood up and walked over towards Anna, Kesha in his arms.
He was the monster.
He had to accept it.
He had to embrace it.
Because that was going to keep him alive.
Chapter Eleven
Ted watched as the life returned to the eyes of the creatures around him, and he felt his body freezing.
Freezing.
The freezer at the barracks.
The bodies he’d seen in there.
The look on Ivan’s face.
Food.
And then the medic’s body.
What he’d done to it. What he’d been forced to do to it.
Because everyone had to do what they had to do to survive, right?
Everyone had to do things they didn’t enjoy. Otherwise, they wouldn’t still be here.
Right?
And now he watched as they turned.
Now he watched as the light returned to their eyes.
As the man called Alec cried out, surrounded, engulfed.
As Melissa fell to the ground.
Melissa who had helped him.
Melissa who had found him.
Melissa who had saved him.
He couldn’t let Melissa fall.
He couldn’t let Melissa die.
He tightened his fists. He wanted to go in there. He wanted to fight. He wanted to help.
But that block.
That block stopping him from stepping forward. Stopping him from progressing.
That block that had been in front of him, bringing his life to a halt, for so so long now.
But he didn’t have to be a victim. He didn’t have to keep on being a victim. He could find the strength inside him to stand up. He could find the strength inside to fight back.
Because Melissa had helped him.
And if he had to die helping Melissa… then maybe it was just his time.
Maybe he’d survived for too long.
Maybe it was his turn.
His turn to join the dead.
No longer one of the living.
He lifted his rifle as more of those undead started to regain their consciousness. As their eyes began to spark to life.
He looked around at what he could do, the steps he could take, one by one.
And then he threw himself into them.
He focused on them, individually. Fired at one in the head. Then fired at the next in the head, the thickening mass of dead bodies getting more and more suffocating with every step he took.
He felt the hands reaching out for him. Felt them clawing for him. And he knew, eventually, one of them was going to grab him. If he were still fat, they’d probably have him already. Hell, they’d have a damned feast on their hands.
He chuckled a bit as he fought them back, one by one, as their groaning mass became more and more intense, more and more suffocating. He actually chuckled. Fat Ted! Oh, would these fuckers have loved Fat Ted!
And then before he knew it, as he shot more and more, as he fought more and more of them off, he was crying with laughter.
He knew he’d look mad. He knew he’d look insane.
But for the first time in a long time, Ted actually felt something. A spark inside.
He actually felt alive.
He pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
Okay. He might feel alive right now, but he wasn’t going to be alive for much longer if he didn’t act. Fast.
So he turned his rifle around.
Faced the three creatures sprawling his way.
“Come on then,” he said, imagining this was just a video game, one big video game. “Bring it on, fuckers. Bring it on!”
He slammed the rifle into the head of the first one.
Then he swung his rifle at the next.
The third one, ugly fucker as it was, looked a bit like he used to. Fair gut to it.
So he swung the rifle across its head.
Battered it repeatedly.
And when it’d fallen, he looked around, sweat pouring down his cheeks, and he saw her.
Melissa.
Still on the ground.
Still struggling.
He had to do something.
He had to help her.
He went to throw himself in her direction when he stopped.
He stopped right in his tracks.
A man. A man he recognised. He couldn’t think where from… but from somewhere in his past. That was for sure.
And then it clicked.
Trevor.
He remembered the last time he’d seen Trevor. Back at the Chinese restaurant all that time ago, right in the very first days. He’d stayed behind. Looked like he wasn’t going to make it. Engulfed by the flames.
And that’s how Ted thought it’d ended for Trevor.
That’s how everyone thought it’d ended for him.
But it must’ve ended some other way for him.
Trevor was still here. But he was a creature. No doubt about that now.
His face was saggy. His body had rotted away, burns on his flesh. He was all skin and bone. And in a way, Ted didn’t think he’d ever seen a more pitiful creature.
He looked into Trevor’s eyes, and he wondered if what Melissa told him was right. If these creatures really could see, just like they used to. If there truly was a fragment of their real selves hidden buried beneath the violence and the hunger.
If so, Ted felt guilty as he stood there, as he stared into Trevor’s eyes.
“I’m sorry, old pal,” he said. “Hell. You probably don’t even recognise me anymore. I’m Ted. I… I lost a bit of weight. Yeah. I hit my targets. Beach bod, all that.”
Then he cracked the rifle across Trevor’s head.
He kept on going. And as he did, he thought he saw that look in his eyes. He thought he saw that recognition.
But he kept on going anyway until he was certain Trevor was down.
And when he was, he stepped back covered in cold blood, and he looked over at Melissa.
She was standing now. Back on her feet. Similarly coated in blood.
There were still creatures around but not in the immediate vicinity.
“Come on,” she said, looking at him.
Further along, Harrington stood there. But the rest of her people had fallen. Sadness on her face.
They stepped away from the mass of the dead. Stepped over towards the gates.
And over the top of them, Ted saw the helicopters.
“Maybe I can stay one of the living,” he muttered.
Melissa frowned. “What?”
Ted shook his head. He smiled. He looked back at Trevor’s fallen body, remembered how strong he was, how much tougher than Ted he had seemed. “Just an old friend,” he said.
Then together with Harrington and Melissa, he walked through the gates, away from the remaining creatures, and towards the helicopters.
It was time.
Chapter Twelve
Alison looked inside the flat, and she felt coldness cover her body.
It was the flat where she knew Riley had been living. The one he’d been staying in with Ted. The living room sofa,
a dent where Ted’s weight had clearly sat for so many hours. A greasy Xbox controller on the table in front. The Xbox, a game case beside it like it had just been left there ready to be returned to.
She looked around and felt a lump swelling in her throat. Because this was the life Riley had chosen. This was the world he had turned to after she’d gone.
She didn’t blame herself for what had happened between them. It wasn’t her fault. Riley had made his choice—he decided he couldn’t join her in Australia, for whatever reason or other.
But for some reason, sometimes, she wondered if perhaps she was rash in moving. Because she’d needed a change. And she was hoping Riley would follow. She was hoping that he’d see an opportunity for a new life, for a freshness, between them.
But he’d stayed here. And this was the life he’d chosen.
That said, wherever he was now, it couldn’t be as good as this.
She walked over the fallen popcorn box. Over the DVDs, over the nacho packets. And when she opened the door, she was expecting a bedroom for some reason, but instead only found a bathroom.
Which made her feel even sadder. Riley and Ted had been sharing a bedsit. Riley on the armchair, by the looks of things. Ted on the sofa—naturally.
And Ted snored. He snored like hell. That was one thing Alison could never forget.
She thought about the life Ted lived. The weed he smoked. His slacker attitude. She never really liked him, beyond the fact that he was Riley’s best and dearest friend. She thought he was bad for Riley. That he was a slug. A parasitic slug. If that was even a thing.
And it looked like his lifestyle really had rubbed off on Riley after all. It looked like he’d slipped into something that Alison always feared he would.
And that made her feel guilty.
She couldn’t shake it. Even though she knew she shouldn’t let it get to her, she couldn’t deny the way she felt.
She just hoped he hadn’t suffered. That whatever happened, he hadn’t suffered.
It was when she got to Riley’s grandma’s house that the emotion became too much to bear.
She’d gone in through the side door, and she’d found her lying there. She’d decomposed, the smell was awful, but it was her. No doubt. Someone had shot her in the head, that much was clear.
Alison pictured Riley getting here. He loved his grandma. Cared about her so much. More than his mum and dad, even, who were always a pair of tough-love fucks.
So seeing her like this, imagining what he must’ve been feeling as he’d stood over her… it broke Alison’s heart in two.
But it was when she got upstairs that she felt the biggest punch to her gut.
There was a note. A note on the bed.
And it was addressed to her.
She flipped it over.
Saw the date.
12th October 2013.
The day everything changed.
Alison,
I don’t know why I’m writing this. I don’t know if you’ll ever read it. Probably not, seeing as you’re on the other side of the world.
But I dunno. Writing it makes me feel better. It gets the truth off my chest. And it’s the only thing I can think to do because somehow I don’t think I’ll ever be here again. I don’t think I’ll ever be anywhere near home again.
I’m with Ted. We’re going to leave this place. Try and fight our way through it one way or another. I’m glad he’s with me. Keeps me strong, believe it or not. Yeah, I know you don’t like him, but you better believe me.
I wanted to tell you something. I wanted to tell you I’m sorry. I made a mistake. I should never have let you leave. I should never have let my son leave. I should have followed you. I should have fought, just like I’m fighting now.
You won’t ever read this. But I just want you to know the truth.
The truth is that I love you.
The truth is that I always will love you.
And the truth is that one day, I’ll find you.
I’ll make everything right.
Love you.
Riley.
PS: You were always Grandma’s favourite. Don’t tell Ted I said that.
Chapter Thirteen
When you hear them coming, you know it’s already too late to do anything about them.
Riley stood on the shore, Anna by his side, Kesha in his arms, and he listened to the sound of the helicopters getting closer.
It was evening. A beautiful evening at that. The sun was setting, casting an orange hue over the sea, over the island. On any other day before today, Riley would’ve been able to appreciate it. He would even have been able to enjoy it.
But things were different now. Things were going to be different forever.
Because all Riley could think of when he saw that sunset was blood.
Red blood.
He watched the helicopters, and he wondered how they were going to break the news to those returning. He wondered how he was going to explain to Melissa—if it was her returning after all—about what had happened to Ricky. About what had happened to this whole place. About how the virus had gone airborne. How they were risking their lives simply by being here.
How they were essentially quarantined, now.
Because that’s how it was.
How it is now.
He looked over to his right, over at the three graves. Marie’s. Ricky’s. Carly’s. Good people. Fallen people.
But it was as he looked at those graves that he thought of someone else. The man. The man who had kidnapped Kesha, who had taken her as his own. He felt sympathy for him. Sympathy for what he’d lost. And sympathy for what he’d forced Riley to do.
But then Riley realised he hadn’t been forced at all. The act he’d taken, the act he’d committed, he’d taken it consciously.
Because there was no time to hide behind the mirage of what he pretended he’d become in this new world.
There was no time for playing happy families. Not anymore.
Ruthlessness had got him far.
He was going to love it and embrace it.
It was going to keep him alive.
It was going to keep Anna—who he loved—alive.
And it was going to keep their child alive.
“So you see now?” Anna said.
He turned to her. Frowned. “See what?”
She smirked at him. But it was a defeated smirk. A beaten-down smirk. “You can’t outrun your past. Just like I told you. You just have to accept it. To embrace it. To run with it, as bittersweet as it is. Because you can never prepare yourself for when it might just decide to rear its ugly head all over again.”
He nodded. And he looked back at the helicopters. Because he knew Anna was right. There was no running away from his past. His past was there for a reason. To remind him of what he’d done in order to get this far. To remind him of what he’d been through in order to stay alive.
He’d lost people. He’d made hard decisions. Decisions that he hoped never to have to make again.
But he was still here.
Peter was right.
He was a leader.
And that’s who he was going to be from now on.
The helicopters got nearer. Started to lower down onto the beach beside them. And Riley felt apprehension over whether it was going to be someone they knew. After all, who was to say someone else hadn’t got hold of the helicopters? Or that this was another military group that had been sent in to clear out the trash, so to speak?
No.
He had to hope that wasn’t the case.
He had to believe that wasn’t the case.
And if it was… then he’d be ready.
He’d be ready.
He watched the helicopter descend. Held Anna’s hand. Looked at her, then at her belly, then at Kesha, and smiled.
“We’re going to be okay,” he said. “All of us. No matter what. Nothing’s coming between us.”
He leaned over. Kissed her.
Then he watched as the rot
ors of the helicopter stopped spinning.
As the engine went silent.
There was a pause. No movement. Not for a while.
He held his breath. Heart pounding.
And he waited.
The door opened.
He saw movement inside. Got ready to lift his gun. Ready to fire.
And then he saw Melissa step out.
She looked at him with wide eyes. With surprise. She looked at him like she’d been through shit, and that she wasn’t expecting to find them at all.
And all Riley could do was look at her with sorrow.
Look at her with grief.
She could tell from the look on his and Anna’s faces that Ricky was gone.
Anna went to her side. Held her as she collapsed, tears streaming down her cheeks, cries of grief. And Riley found himself looking out to sea again. Looking up at the sky.
Where was the light?
The light was that Melissa was still here.
Pained. In grief.
But still here.
Then he turned around and looked at the helicopter.
And something happened.
He felt like he was dreaming. Because this had to be a dream. This couldn’t be reality. It wasn’t possible.
And yet here it was.
Here he was.
He was skinnier. Far, far skinnier than he remembered. And than he used to be.
He had long hair. A beard.
But those eyes.
And those clothes. Those same clothes, torn and worn down after all this time, but still there.
And the scar across his neck.
“Ted?” Riley said.
Ted looked back at him. Just as baffled. Just as shocked.
Because this wasn’t real.
It couldn’t be real.
Or was it?
Was this the light?
He started to stagger in Ted’s direction when he saw someone else climb out, land at Ted’s side.
And when he saw her, he froze completely.
His head spinning.
His mind racing.
Because this wasn’t possible.
None of it was possible.
“Riley?” the voice said.
Riley looked up. Tears streaming down his cheeks. His body shaking.
