by Casey, Ryan
One of them pulled itself away from the meat’s body, warm blood and flesh in its chipped down teeth, and looked up at the sounds of footsteps, the sounds of squeaking, the sound of laughter and talking and all those sounds that were so Them.
This one let out a small moan. A small chesty moan from the pit of its throat.
But then it stopped.
It stopped when the other ones stood up from the other fallen men and women of Bunker 749 and then they all started moving, all started shuffling away from the fresh kill, already tainted but already full.
And then, soundless, they walked.
And soon after, the fallen men and women of Bunker 749 followed.
Out into the tunnel.
Into the darkness.
Silent.
Chapter Eleven: Chloë
The cottage was even nicer inside than outside.
The first room the man called Peter took Chloë was the lounge. There was a nice log fire burning, which was so warm that Chloë felt like she’d warmed up instantly as she sat with her toes curled in front of it. She sat and stared at the logs crackling away, listening to the sounds of them, doing everything she could to get the sounds of the gunshots at the caravan park out of her head.
She was really full. When she’d come in, the man called Peter who’d saved her, and his wife gave her some really nice stew. The lady was called Angela, and she was really friendly and always smiley, with dark greasy hair. But she was quite fat and red-faced, and Mum always used to say fat people were always friendly when they were being fed, so maybe she wasn’t a nice person really. She’d have to wait and see. But the squirrel stew was nice. The taste of it was so rich and tangy, like nothing she’d ever had. But it had warmed her up completely. She felt good. Relaxed.
Chloë flinched when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She looked up and saw that Peter was standing over her. Peter was much thinner than his wife, and now he’d taken his wooly hat off, Chloë could see that he had really thin ginger hair. Chloë didn’t understand how one man could be so thin and his wife so fat. Maybe she’d eaten all of him up somehow so all he had left was bones and skin.
He was holding her gun out to her. She’d dropped it when she was outside.
“Figure it’s yours, kid. Just pray you haven’t had to use it. Two bullets left. Use them wisely.”
Chloë didn’t say a word as she took the gun from Peter. She didn’t think he’d give her the gun back because sometimes adults were funny with kids having certain toys, let alone guns. But he did, and she took it away and put it in her front pocket, smiling to thank him.
Peter went back and sat beside his wife on their leather sofa. It was dark outside now, which made Chloë sad because it meant she wouldn’t be getting to Manchester without sleeping. But she could get up early, as early as Mum got up to take her to school, and set off then.
“How’s a girl like you find yourself out here all on your own?” Angela asked. She always sounded sad when she spoke, like Chloë had been bullied and she felt sorry for her or something.
Chloë shrugged. She didn’t really know what to say to these people. She didn’t want to go through what had happened. She’d done that in her head enough and it was making her feel sick. “I was—I was with good people. And then we…Something bad happened so I was on my own.”
Angela sighed at this. Sighed and shook her head. She wiped her eye with the sleeve of her bright red cardigan. Peter sighed too. “Poor girl. Poor, poor girl.”
Chloë felt a bit hot in the cheeks at this. She didn’t think of herself as a poor girl. She thought of herself as the one who’d survived. The one that had got away. Why did they feel so sorry for her? If they felt sorry for anyone, it should be Mum, or Elizabeth, or Anna or Mike or Riley or any of the other people.
“Not nice times,” Peter said. And then he looked away, like all sad people did when they really wanted to talk about something but felt they couldn’t.
Angela grabbed his hand. Grabbed his skinny, bony hand with her chubby hand and squeezed tight. “Our Sally would’ve got on just nicely with you,” she said. Her voice was shaky, upset.
Chloë felt even hotter in the face at this. She didn’t know what to say about Sally, but she guessed that Sally was their daughter because they were talking about her and she guessed Sally was dead because they looked sad. “Was Sally twelve?” Chloë asked, the only thing she could think of.
“Fourteen,” Peter cut in. A little smile appeared on his face now. The wood from the fire crackled away as a whistling breeze came down the chimney. “Beautiful girl, she was. So full of life, always smiling.”
Another awkward moment for Chloë. Her throat had locked on her. “Did…did the monsters—”
“We were out at the shops when it happened,” Peter said. His eyes were glistening in the orange glow. “She…She wanted some new bubble bath, something like that. And—and then the news came. But quicker than the news was the ‘monsters’ themselves. The things we saw in that shop. The things we…”
He covered his eyes with his hand. Leaned forward, taking a few shaky breaths as Angela patted his back.
He moved his hands away again; wiped them on his grey fleece. “She was there one minute and gone the next. Just like that. I saw how quickly life could flicker away in that instant. It just…It wasn’t fair. It’s not a fair world we live in. I’d have taken her place any day.”
Chloë thought this was strange, as she plucked at the rough green carpet. She was sad for the people she’d seen die, but she definitely didn’t want to be a monster. She’d rather it were them than her, because if she wasn’t here then there’d be nothing to be happy or sad about.
Chloë took a deep breath of the firewood-smelling air. She stood up, walked over to this man she barely knew, and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Maybe if the doctors come up with a cure, you’ll get your Sally back again.”
Peter laughed at this. Grinned and laughed, and so too did Angela.
Angela patted her on the arm. “Our own little godsend, you are. Our own little godsend.”
Chloë stared into Angela’s warm, brown eyes. Looked at her smile. She was fat, but maybe she could be her new Mum. Maybe she could look after her, tuck her in, make her nice food.
A sudden crack at the door.
Chloë jumped out of her trance. Peter’s eyes widened, and the smile dropped from Angela’s face.
“What was—” Peter started. But he didn’t get to finish because there was another crack at the door, and then another, and then—
“Upstairs!” Peter whispered, shooting up from the leather sofa and moving towards the doorway that led to the stairs.
Chloë could tell that Peter and Angela were panicking, especially Angela because she was making little whimpering noises, as the cracking carried on and the door rattled.
As the groans, so many groans, ate up the house.
They ran away from the warm, fiery room and out into the hallway. Chloë was in front, Peter made sure of that. She started to jog up the hard, concrete stairs. She’d be okay up there. She’d be able to hide up there, close her eyes and—
Another loud crack, and the door rattled open, the sound of monsters crying and the smell of their rotting skin instantly filling the house.
Chloë turned around. She spun around and looked down the stairs. Peter and Angela were both at the bottom, both staring at the monsters, stunned, terrified. Lots of them were at the door, and Chloë thought she recognised one from the road earlier, old with grey hair, so maybe they’d finally caught up.
“Chloë, let’s move!” Peter shouted. He started to climb the stairs. “The room on the left!”
But Chloë didn’t move.
Instead, she stared down the stairs as the monsters clawed their way into the hall, eight of them, nine of them, ten of them, all of them looking so sad, all of them looking so hungry.
“Chloë, quick!” Angela s
houted. She was on the bottom step now, her fat legs shaking, but she was getting away from the monsters. She’d be okay. She’d be fine.
But would Chloë be fine?
“Two bullets left. Use them wisely.”
Chloë raised her gun. Raised the heavy gun and pointed it at Peter’s chest, who was right opposite her.
He looked at her with sheer shock in his piercing eyes. Like he didn’t get what was happening, like he didn’t have time to react.
And he didn’t, because Chloë squeezed the trigger as hard as she could right into his chest.
The blast made her feel dizzy, made her fall backwards. She felt warm liquid that tasted like metal splash over her face, her ears ringing, her finger sore from pulling the trigger.
She wiped her eyes. Wiped her crying, sobbing eyes and looked down the stairs.
Peter had tumbled right down. He’d tumbled nearly to the bottom of the stairs, only Angela stopping him from falling into the monsters.
She looked back at Chloë with wide, tearful, puzzled eyes.
“Our own little godsend, you are. Our own little godsend.”
“You’re my—my own godsend,” Chloë said, sobbing away.
And then she pulled the heavy trigger again, heard the bang again.
She took deep breaths. Tried to cool herself. Calm herself.
And then she heard the scream.
She tried her best not to look as she turned up the top of the stairs, shaking, her legs and arms like jelly, but she couldn’t help it.
The monsters were tearing Angela’s fat stomach into shreds. They dug their teeth into it, pulled out bits of raw meat and orangey parts that must’ve been her guts. She was screaming. Screaming, covered in blood, which meant she must be alive. They were chewing at Peter’s neck too, but they didn’t like him as much because he didn’t have as much meat on him.
Angela gave Chloë one final, begging look as another two monsters bit into her flabby thighs, stretched and tore the muscles away.
And then there was nothing. No more screaming. Just blankness.
Chloë turned around and cried as she crept away from the feast on the stairway and moved into the darkness of the landing corridor. She ran to the window at the end of the corridor, tensed with all she had, lifted it up so a wind of cold air covered her.
She climbed out of the window, away from the sounds of tearing, of chewing. She dropped herself to the ground outside, which hurt her knees a bit, but she was okay.
And then she ran.
She’d had two bullets. She’d used them wisely.
She’d done what she had to do to survive.
She was alone again.
Alone in the darkness.
EPISODE FOURTEEN
(SECOND EPISODE OF SEASON THREE)
Prologue
David Heller had only been underground for four weeks and already he was getting serious cabin fever.
He leaned back in the hard plastic chair and looked around the bunker he was in. Dark, dingy lighting. Constant smell of microwaved food. No air conditioning, nothing like that, so it wasn’t the freshest of places. Bunker 749 wasn’t one of the lucky ones, not like over in Grange, or nearer to Manchester. No, course he’d drawn the shitting short straw.
But at least he’d been drawn with Attalia.
He tapped at the greasy keyboard of the computer to see if anything of interest was showing. He was running some blood scans—infected blood, trying to work out what made them tick, what might stop them ticking away. He’d been researching since the world went to shit, and still found nothing too productive. Well, there were discoveries, of course. But they weren’t the discoveries the world wanted to hear.
So he kept on researching.
He tugged at the collar of his white shirt, the black tie wrapped loosely around it. Wasn’t sure why he had to dress smart for the end of the world. But he figured if he’d be telling the world about their survival chances, he’d at least have to look the part.
But there was little a shirt and tie could do for a fat old bald bastard like him.
He heard a clang up ahead to his left—heard the creaky metal door swinging open, a toilet flushing. And out stepped Attalia. Oh, Attalia. He’d been damn lucky getting put with her. He fantasised about wrapping that chocolate-brown hair of hers around his cock at night, slipping his dick between those pouty lips. And that body—corr. The black blazer, the white shirt with the top button undone, and the ass-hugging black trousers, just smart enough not to be casual. Office role-play would be very easy where she was concerned. Just a pity she seemed numb to what he wanted.
She shuffled that ass over to the roller chair opposite David and sat down, pulling herself up to her desk. The desks weren’t anything special—tacky, falling to pieces. The sorts of desks you sit at in school. But of course, this was Bunker 749. Nobody really cared about Bunker 749. As long as the pair of them could hear the infected coming, they were fine, apparently. Quality service.
“I’ve decided,” Attalia said. She reached into a silver packet and pulled out some small, mini cheddar biscuits, popping them into her mouth. “When all this is over, I want a title. Like, a knighthood.”
“You mean a ‘dame’,” David said.
Attalia crunched on a few more mini cheddars. She narrowed her brown eyes as if carefully working out whether that’s what she actually wanted. “Dame Attalia Winterford. Yeah. I like that.”
David laughed. Shook his head. Leaned in towards his computer and tapped on the keyboard again. Stupid thing was taking forever to load. All he wanted was to see Bree Leanna’s perky pornstar titties on his desktop. Now, he couldn’t even get those.
“What’s so funny?” Attalia asked. She stared right across the desk at David.
David sighed. Sighed, as the computer started to spring to life. “You know what’s funny,” he said. Truth was, they didn’t talk much about what had happened—the spread of the infection. How it had happened. Because speaking about it made it real, somehow. And the last thing you needed when you were in an old war bunker trying to figure out how to fix things was to realise how fucked you really were.
“I know you don’t think we’re cleaning up this mess,” Attalia said. She crunched on another cheddar. Kept her luscious eyes on David. “But I do. I think…I think we’ve made it through the worst, so we’ll be a part of the—the new society.”
David couldn’t help but laugh again at this. Bless her and her “New Society.” He kinda knew why it was really, though—she had a daughter out there somewhere. She had to believe she was gonna be okay, otherwise what hope was there? She had to hold on to that naive little belief that she had to stay strong for her retarded little kid, when in fact the retard was probably less numb-headed as an infected than it was a human.
“We’re getting closer,” Attalia said, looking stern all of a sudden. “The setup at Manchester. You know as well as I do what they—”
“Just ‘cause we know what caused this shit doesn’t mean we know how to fix it.” David could feel his face heating up. No wonder they never talked about their feelings on the end of the world—it brought out the worst in them.
“What about the children?” Attalia asked.
“What about them?”
Attalia’s eyes lowered. She gulped. Tugged slightly at that collar of hers, showing off more of that olive skin. Fuck, pull the whole thing down. Come over here and let me kiss the perfume off you…
“They can’t be a coincidence. The research, it shows—”
“It shows something. Right. And yet here we are, still sitting here looking at infected blood. What does that show you?”
Attalia tutted. She shook her head and sighed.
David leaned forward onto his desk, smile on his face again. He tapped at the keyboard and on popped Bree Leanna, perky nips on display and all. He’d gone for a panty-shot, respect for the women in the workplace, all that. But dam
n was he pleased to see her.
“I get where you’re coming from, Attalia. I know you’re only…”
His speech trailed off when he saw the blinking red light in the bottom right corner of the screen.
“Only what?” Attalia started.
“Ssh!” David said. He stood up from his roller chair. Stood up and listened to the perfect silence around the bunker, Attalia staring back at him with confusion on her face. No. That red light couldn’t be right. Like fuck was it right. If they were here, they’d hear them. That’s how they worked. That’s how they…
And then it came to him. Came to him, like a thump in the stomach.
Maybe it was how they worked. But maybe it wasn’t how they worked anymore.
He gulped away this taste of sick in his mouth and took a shaky step across the hard, cold floor.
“David, what’s wrong?”
He raised his hand. He could barely even speak out about his stupidity. God, why the hell had he allowed himself to get complacent with the red light? He’d have seen it go amber if he’d have kept an eye on it. Fuck. Fuck, fuck fuck.
He stepped closer to the large metal door and pressed an ear against it. Attalia was muttering things behind him, but he couldn’t make out the words.
He closed his eyes. Listened for the sounds. Listened for footsteps, anything. Anything that might give up their position.
Nothing. Nothing but the wind.
He let out a shaky breath. Shit. He was being paranoid. The red light was probably just a system error, some shit like that. Wouldn’t surprise him in this craphole of a bunker.
“Are you going to tell me what the hell’s wrong now?” Attalia shouted.
David shrugged. He shrugged and he walked away from the metal door, back past Attalia, back past the desk and onto his blue roller chair.
“Just the wind,” David said, mocking the way horror movie characters always said it was just the wind.
‘Cept it never was just the wind in horror movies.
He opened up his browser again. Saw that red light, still flick-flick-flicking away. Made him feel uneasy inside, all tense.
