by Ryan Casey
“It’s best if we head down the back of the Dumping Ground,” Aaron said. “We can enter through the fields. The generator should be at the foot of the tower, and the tower ain’t too far from the fields. We should be able to do this.”
“Better bloody hope we should,” Pedro muttered. He might not have been talking, but he’d been grumbling most of the way.
“This generator,” Riley said. “It’s just a case of flipping a switch and it working?”
“Not been around much generators, have you mate?” Dave muttered from the back of the line. “Tug and activate. Tug and activate. All there is to it.”
Riley raised his eyebrows then continued leading the group across the field.
As the group got further across the fields, the echoing groans but a distant hum in the back of their minds now, a clear pathway between them and the tower formed in front of them.
“Looks clear,” Riley said.
“Clear from goons, maybe,” Pedro said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Anna asked.
“He’s worrying about our little dog skinner, ain’t he?” Dave butted in. “Worried they’re gonna be out there waitin’ to slice his big neck.”
Pedro didn’t react to Dave. Well, other than his cheeks going a deep shade of purple.
“What happened with that dog anyway, man?” Aaron asked. “It—it looked sick. Whoever did that…just sick.”
“Tactics of war, pal,” Dave said. “Tactics of war.”
“And what would you know about war?” Pedro asked.
Dave shrugged as they approached the loudspeaker tower. “Just a hunch.”
“Let’s just get this done with,” Anna said, crouching down by the side of the wooden fence at the edge of the field and staring across the road at the metal tower. “See anything suspicious?”
Riley examined the street. A few empty caravans, no movement inside or outside. He squinted and listened for groans, but nothing. He listened even harder for footsteps and shuffling, but still, nothing but the wind.
“I think we’re clear,” Riley said. He examined the metal tower that the loudspeaker was propped on top of. It was surrounded by a tall metal fence. “How are we going to do this?”
“One of us climbs over,” Dave said. “Climbs over, get the generator running, then gets the hell out of ‘ere.”
“And who do you suggest does that?” Riley asked.
Dave puffed out his chunky cheeks. “Safer if two of us go over. Like I said, I want to pull me weight around here. So I’ll volunteer.”
“Me too,” Anna said, stepping forward. “I’m getting bored of sitting around and doing nothing. I should help with this.”
Riley, Aaron and Pedro all looked at one another. None of them protested.
“Sounds good to us,” Riley said. “Dave—you sound like you have experience with machinery and stuff, so that makes sense. We’ll watch your backs.”
Dave saluted. “Wouldn’t expect anything less.”
They all crept over the rickety wooden fence and descended the hill that led to the metallic tower. Riley scanned the street as they dropped down onto it. No creatures to the left, no creatures to the right. “All clear.”
Anna and Dave jogged ahead, staying low and looking around them constantly just in case. When they reached the metal fence surrounding the tower, Dave lowered himself onto one knee and held out his hands. Anna stared at him in confusion.
“As much as I’d love to, I ain’t proposin’,” Dave said, with a bemused grin. “Hop on over.”
Anna wiped her shoe on the grass and placed her foot into Dave’s hand. He lifted her up, and she peeked over the edge of the fence.
“All okay over there?” Dave asked, tensing as he held Anna up.
“Erm…yeah. Yeah. Drop me down.”
Dave lifted Anna a little higher so she could grab hold of the fence properly. Then, she lifted herself over and dropped down onto the other side with a clunk.
Riley looked to either side. No creatures on the left. No creatures on the right. For now.
“See you back on this side,” Dave said as he leaped up and clung onto the metal fence. He pulled himself up and swung himself over. More upper body strength than Riley would’ve given him credit for.
“All of a sudden, I can see that guy outrunning bears after all.”
“Beating them, more like,” Riley said.
“Or that.”
Riley, Pedro and Aaron raised the guns that Rodrigo had provided them with and studied every area of the road intently. Still no signs of any creatures. Strange considering they were right in the Dumping Ground. But then the creatures more often than not seemed to prefer clumping in one area rather than scattering around. One of their strange habits that they’d neither had the time or motivation to research.
“All okay over there?” Pedro whispered.
A few seconds pause.
“All’s looking good to me,” Dave said. “Just give us a minute.”
Riley’s jaw tensed. He started seeing things—imagining things—coming towards him. People. Creatures.
The skinned dog, Luther.
The castrated men.
We’re Coming.
“How much longer?” Riley whispered. He hadn’t heard any generator starting up, or anything like that. Generators made a noise when they kicked in, right?
“Anna? Dave?”
No response.
Riley looked at Pedro and Aaron. They too were frozen to silence at the realisation that Anna and Dave weren’t responding.
“Fuck,” Riley mumbled.
He rushed over to the metal fence. Jumped up, but his grip slipped the first time, and he fell back down.
“Anna? Dave?”
Again, no response.
He threw himself up again, this time getting a hold of the fence. He pulled himself up with all the body strength he had, his muscles stinging like mad in the process. Aaron and Pedro scanned the area for creatures. Something was wrong. Very wrong.
Riley looked around the ground beneath him. There was nobody there. No creatures, sure.
But also no Anna or Dave.
“Where the fuck are you?” Riley called as he clambered over the fence and dropped down into the middle of the fence at the side of the metal tower.
“I said, where the fuck are—”
He didn’t get to finish his sentence because something sharp and sudden smacked him in the side of his face, and he felt himself drifting into the fluffy clouds as the back of his head cracked against the metal…
It was the stinging on the right-hand side of his face that woke Riley up. It felt like somebody had pressed a huge bag of ice cubes against him and just wasn’t letting go. In fact, they were pressing even harder. Harder and harder until eventually, his face would freeze and crack and crumble to nothing.
He felt wind on his face. A cool breeze, much like the one when he’d woken up on the pebbles. So he was outside. But why was he outside? Where was his heater? Where was he?
He opened his eyes, and when he saw Dave’s blurry silhouette looming over him, he remembered. He’d jumped over the fence of the loudspeaker tower. Jumped over to find Anna and Dave, who had gone missing.
Then something had smacked his face.
Someone.
And that someone was standing over him.
Dave lowered himself down to a crouch. Riley realised he was still inside the metallic perimeter of the loudspeaker tower. Only his hands were tied to the fence, sticking out into the open.
In fact, looking around, the only one who wasn’t tied was Dave. Anna, Pedro and Aaron were beside Riley, gags around their mouths, all tied to those fences.
Dave pointed over at the generator, which was chugging away nicely now. “Well, the good thing is, we got the generator up and runnin’. That’s what we came for, ey?” Riley saw a twinkle in Dave’s eye. A triumphant, victorious twinkle.
Riley opened h
is mouth to shout out whatever he could at Dave when he realised his mouth was gagged too. The edge of the gag dug right into the corners of his mouth. He could feel his mouth stinging as saliva and blood built up inside it. The pressure from the gun in his pocket had gone. Dave must’ve disposed of them.
“I mean, come on,” Dave said. “You musta known the dog was skinned by someone inside the site. But I guess panic does weird stuff to people, ey?”
Riley gulped as well as he could down his dry throat. Pedro mumbled and tugged against the gate.
“I’m sorry about this. You seem like genuinely alright people. But when I heard about Stevie, well. Let’s just say Mike’s not the most understanding man. But who would be when they’d lost their son?”
Thoughts and realisations spun around Riley’s head as he stared at Dave, looming over them. He’d skinned Luther. Fuck, they should’ve seen that one. He was a hunter of some kind. He’d practically dangled and teased the information right in front of them. He was working for Mike, somehow. And it sounded very much like Mike knew that Stevie was dead.
“‘Ere’s how this is gonna work,” Dave said. “I’m gonna bash me-self up a bit. Then I’m gonna go running back to my friends at Heathwaite’s—old, understanding Rodrigo. I’m gonna go runnin’ back, tell them that somethin’ terrible happened to you four when we were out. And when they come out to find you—if they come out to find you—they’re gonna find you four here. But I can’t guarantee you’ll be in one piece, you know? Them hands on the outside of the fence. Awful attractive to a zombie.”
Anna struggled against the fence. So too did Aaron. Riley’s heart raced and his chest tightened. He tried to curl his hands inside the fence, but it was no use. He was stuck. Trapped.
“Hush now,” Dave said, stepping closer to Aaron. “Hush now. I’d hate to want to ‘ave to take something precious away from you.” His psychotic brown eyes wandered down Aaron’s body to the middle of his legs. A smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. He pulled out a large, sharp knife.
Aaron mumbled and tried to curl himself back. Tears streamed down his gaunt face.
Dave let out a laugh and smacked Aaron across the cheek. “I’m not gonna chop yer cock off you idiot.” He looked at Riley and Pedro for support in his laughter. “Them other sickos of Mike’s might be into that sorta thing, but no. I can think of other uses for you lot.”
Riley mumbled as loudly as he could. Shouted out at the top of his voice.
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that, pal,” Dave said, pointing out at the road. “Don’t want them zombies to get here just yet, do we?”
But that was exactly what Riley was going to do. It was all he could think of. He was trapped—they were all trapped. All he could do was shout. If the fence got surrounded by creatures, then they had to take things as they came. But right now, they were dead. They had no other option.
As Riley shouted and screamed louder and louder, so too did Anna. She’d clearly caught on to what he was doing. She screamed louder. Just like Riley, she knew Dave couldn’t torture them. The fear in his face at their screams. Torturing would only make the screaming louder and worse. Fuck. This was crazy, but it was all they had. It had to be tried.
Pedro joined in the screaming, although his was more of a deep howl. The only one of them who wasn’t screaming was Aaron, who still looked petrified as Dave’s knife hovered in front of him.
“What do you want?” Riley tried to shout, but it came out more as, “Mmmhm, mmrer, mrou, mron?” He tried again. “Mmmhm, mmrer, mrou, mron?”
The way Dave looked at him, he understood. That twinkle in his eyes, it was there again, as Anna and Pedro continued their screaming.
“Long-term, what we want is to take everything away from Rodrigo, piece by piece. Expose him for who he is. Then, when he’s the last man standing, Heathwaite’s is gonna get some new residents, and the ‘good soldier’s’ head is going to be stuck on a spike for everybody to see.”
More screaming and shouting from Anna. More from Pedro. Even Aaron was letting out a bit of a whimper now.
“But short term?” Dave said. He looked at the sharp knife in his hand. “What I want is for you three to shut the fuck up.”
Then, he pulled his knife back and rammed it into Aaron’s throat.
Anna came to a silence. So too did Pedro. Riley could only stare.
Dave pushed the knife as far back into Aaron’s neck as he could. Aaron tried to cough and splutter as blood oozed out of his neck and reddened his gag. His eyes bulged and vibrated. He stared at Dave in shock, letting out gargling, drowning sounds as Dave lowered the knife further and further.
“And if you don’t shut up,” Dave said, bringing the knife further down Aaron’s neck, sending more blood pooling down his front and staining his white hoodie, “I’m not afraid to shut you up.”
He pulled the knife away. Aaron spilled out more blood.
“Sorry about that, pal,” Dave said, wiping his bloodstained knife on Anna’s trousers. “Seemed a decent enough lad.”
Aaron’s eyelids shook, and closed, and opened again and closed again as he floated in and out of consciousness, gargling, choking, spluttering.
Then, they closed one final time, his head bobbed forward and spilled out a load more blood, and he was silent.
“Anyone else want to have a little scream?” Dave asked.
Chapter Five
Riley was completely still. Aaron had folded over completely, blood flowing from his neck. His skin was pale, like all of the colour had drained out of his cheeks along with the blood.
Dave wiped the knife against Anna’s leg once more. Anna flinched and gasped, but Dave simply smiled and kept on wiping.
Dave stood up and looked up the tower where the loudspeaker was. “Shame. What happened to him. Real shame, I tell you. Don’t like ‘avin to do stuff like that. But you saw it yourselves. The boy was causing a fuss and I needed to get me point across. You all know that, don’t you?”
Riley stared up at Dave. The gag around his mouth felt like it was getting tighter. He thought about shouting out again, but what use was that? Shouting out had gone and got Aaron killed in the first place. They were stuck. Tied to the fences until Dave had his fun with them, then kept tied on the fences until Dave was finished.
What did he want? Why was he sticking around with them? What was he waiting for?
“Need to stick around with you people for a short while longer. Safe enough behind these fences. Give it…I dunno. Ten, fifteen minutes. Reasonable enough amount of time to be away for Rodrigo to start gettin’ worried. And then I’ll turn up right on cue. Tell him ‘ow sorry I am about you three—well, four—going missing. Tell him summat terrible happened to all of us at the hands of the ‘bad men.’ Anyway. Dunno why I’m talking to you fuckers anyway.”
Riley tried to edge the gag away from his mouth. If he could just talk with Dave. If he could just make him understand that they could work this out—that his and Mike’s problem wasn’t with them but was with Rodrigo—maybe they’d be able to get themselves free. Just maybe.
“Somethin’ to say, chief?” Dave asked, looking right at Riley. He lowered himself down right in front of him. Held the knife up to his face. It was still dripping with Aaron’s blood and flesh. “Remember what ‘appens to people who have stuff to say.”
Riley held Dave’s glassy-eyed stare. He could feel hot tears dripping down his cheeks. He hadn’t asked for this. He’d just been trying to help. Trying to help Heathwaite’s. Trying to help the community.
Dave pressed the cold, wet knife against Riley’s cheek. Riley’s face flushed. He closed his eyes. This was it. All this time outrunning the dead and it was the living that was about to end it all.
He felt a nip at his cheek, then his mouth was free.
He gasped for air. Felt the wind blow against his chapped skin. Dave stepped back with the cut-away gag in his hand. He looked at it, disgusted as it dr
ipped with saliva and blood.
“Well, I’ll give you a minute. A minute to talk. Still got a minute to kill before I head on back to camp. Before the zombies walk right your way and have a little nibble on those skinny fingers of yours.”
“Please,” Riley said, his throat dry. “We aren’t—we aren’t—”
Dave brought his foot against Riley’s temple.
“Don’t fucking beg,” he said.
Riley’s head stung. It had cracked right against the metal fence beside him. Anna and Pedro looked at him with fear in their eyes. The same fear they’d looked at Aaron with when Dave had squared right up to him.
Riley turned back to Dave and spat away some blood-laced saliva. “We—we don’t have to be—be separate. Rodrigo. Mike. They don’t have to be—”
Another crack to the right hand side of his face. This time, he heard something break. Felt it, too. A tooth. One of his front teeth.
“I told you not to fucking beg, pal,” Dave said. He wiped his offending shoe in a mound of dirt beside him. “Rodrigo and Mike is not going to work. You’d be a fool to think it will.”
Riley’s vision was wandering. He could see something up the road. Something blurry. But a figure, no doubt. A figure heading in their direction. In his direction.
It wasn’t groaning.
Not yet.
“I wish I could finish you off right here,” Dave said. “Beat the fuck out of you myself. But I don’t think you’d suffer enough. I want you to feel the turn. Like Rodrigo forced my people to feel. Like he put them through.”
Riley stared at the oncoming figure. It was definitely a creature. Just one. It would go for the warmest meat, no doubt. Maybe it’d sink its teeth into his back. Failing that, it’d go for his fingers, tearing the skin and flesh away from the bone.
