by Ryan Casey
Riley felt the fear, the defeat, building up as he watched Ricky disappear into that gap.
And then he was gone.
No fate confirmed.
None at all.
He looked at Anna, who was swinging her knife at a few creatures right in front.
Then he looked back at the creatures.
“We need to go inside,” Riley said.
“We can’t—”
“We have to,” he said.
He took Anna’s hand, then. And as the dead powered on, he felt a sense of defeat. Total defeat.
Because the dead were going to get inside eventually.
And this time, he wasn’t going to find a mystery hole in the ground to hide in.
“Come on,” he said.
Anna lowered her head. She looked up at the barrage of creatures, then at the people in black, who were still standing their ground, still firing their weapons.
And then she took Riley’s hand and the pair of them headed inside the shop.
They closed the door. Right away, Riley grabbed a shelf, put it in front of the door.
But just before he got it there, he heard banging against the door, screaming.
It was one of the people in black.
“Let me in!” they shouted. “Open the door. Please. Please.”
Riley looked at Anna and she looked back at him. And between them, in that look, there was an understanding. An understanding that they couldn’t open that door. An understanding that they couldn’t let what was outside in here.
“Please!” the man screamed, his shouts getting more and more desperate. “Just let me in! Let me in. Ple…aaarrgh!”
Riley winced when he heard the tearing of flesh. He closed his eyes, held his breath, then sat back against the wall of the shop as the creatures began their slaughter outside.
He thought about those people in black, their realisation that their dream world was a nightmare after all.
He thought about Melissa and Ricky, wherever they were, whatever they were doing.
Then he heard the slow patter of the creatures’ hands against the walls and the boarded up windows behind them.
“Well,” Anna said, gripping her knife tightly as the bangs of the creatures outside got louder. “Looks like it’s just the two of us again, doesn’t it?”
CHAPTER FIVE
Riley sat back against the wall of the shop, Anna by his side, and listened to the heavy footsteps of the creatures dragging themselves along outside.
The storm outside seemed to have subsided. That was no reassurance to Riley, of course. There was a very different kind of storm out there as it was; a more dangerous kind of storm. The kind of storm that could kill them.
The kind of storm that may already have killed Melissa and Ricky.
He looked around the shop. It was like most shops in the years following the day the dead started walking—the shelves had been totally raided of all food, of all essential supplies. All that remained were novelty items like toys and key rings.
But even a few of those were missing. And Riley found it quite sad, and quite touching. People were still trying to keep on going as normal in spite of such abnormal circumstances. There was something devastatingly beautiful about that.
There was mustiness to the air in this shop. Riley couldn’t identify it right away. But after a while, he noticed it as the smell of blood. Someone had died in here. Someone had taken their life, probably. He didn’t know, but he knew that suicide was almost certainly the second biggest cause of death in this world they lived in.
But as he sat there, Anna by his side, it felt like the world outside was just moving on. Like if they stayed here, totally still, totally silent, the creatures wouldn’t find their way in and they could just stay here forever.
But that wasn’t the case. Of course it wasn’t the case.
They were going to be rooted out eventually.
And when they were, they’d better be ready to shoot down everything heading their way.
“I sometimes wondered if we’d be back here someday,” Anna said.
Riley turned and looked at her. She was so close. Her dark hair, her sparkling eye… all of it just came together in a way that made his insides do somersaults. “What do you mean?”
Anna smiled, like she was distant, lost in thought. “When I was on my own I sometimes thought of you. Whether you were still out there. Who you were with. And whether…. Well. Whether you’d found someone. Someone who made you as happy as you made me.”
Riley looked away, then. He glanced down at his feet. He didn’t know whether to be totally open to Anna about Jordanna. They’d had a solid relationship. He’d go as far as saying he loved Jordanna.
“It’s okay,” Anna said. “I know there was someone. Someone who meant a lot to you. And I know you don’t like talking about what happened. To Chloë. To… to Jordanna. But you can. You can.”
Riley took a deep breath of the musty air as the pattering footsteps of the dead kept on echoing around outside. Their groans had subsided a little, but they were still clearly there. “I just… sometimes I think back and I can’t help wondering how things would’ve been if I’d not turned my back on Heathwaite’s so easily. I can’t help thinking that maybe I’d have known you were alive. That I could’ve stayed with you. That we could’ve been on that journey together.”
Anna took Riley’s hand, held it tight. “You were, Riley. You were with me. You kept me going. In the hardest times, the knowledge that you might still be out there somewhere… you’ve no idea how important that was to me.”
Riley looked into Anna’s eye and felt tears building up in his. “I do,” he said. “Believe me. I do.”
He looked away then and sighed as he leaned further back against the wall. “I loved Jordanna. Like… I really loved her. We had something special. And I wouldn’t trade that for anything. It keeps me awake every night, the thought of what Mattius did to her. The thought of what he took away from me. But finding you… that’s kept me going. That’s made me realise that sometimes good can win. Against all odds, it can win.”
Anna smiled at Riley then. She looked like she was going to lean in and kiss him, which he had to admit he wanted. But instead she just leaned on his shoulder and pulled him close. “We’ve both been through some fucked up crap. But we’re together. That’s the main thing. We’re still together.”
Riley nodded. It was a bold fantasy. It was papering over the cracks, no doubt about it. But it felt good to believe it really was them against the world.
“But we need to do something about this mess we’re in,” she said. “We need to get out of here. One way or another… we just need to.”
Riley looked over at the door. He could still see the shadows of the undead stepping across in front of it. He knew there was no way out that way.
Then he looked over at the staircase, right at the back of the store.
He smiled. “You know, I’ve done some climbing in my time.”
Anna frowned. “What’re you thinking?”
Riley felt the cogs turning in his head and he tried to come up with something. A plan. A solution. He stood up. Walked over to those stairs, rifle still in hand. “If we can find a way to distract the creatures then maybe, just maybe, we’ll find a chance to get out of here.”
“And how do you plan on distracting them?” Anna asked.
Riley searched the shelves. Then when he’d found what he wanted, he turned around, rope ladder in hand. “I’d say this would do a pretty good job, wouldn’t you?”
He smiled. And Anna smiled too.
They had a plan. A batshit plan, but a plan nonetheless.
And it was going to get them out of here.
Or it was going to get them killed.
Okay. It was probably going to get them killed.
CHAPTER SIX
Melissa felt the sharp pain in her skull and she knew that something was desperately wrong.
She opened her eyes, but h
ad to close them right away because of the searing light burning through them. Her body felt weak and woozy. Her thoughts were disjointed, disconnected. She didn’t know where she was, what was happening to her, how she’d got here. She didn’t know a thing.
She just knew that something had happened. Something had gone wrong. Something had led her to this point.
She tried to open her eyes once again, but she couldn’t see for the bright light shining down above her. At first, she thought it might be the sun… but no. It was too white for the sun. Too artificial.
She thought then that maybe she was just back home. Excitement started to build up. Maybe this whole ordeal had been a dream. Sometimes dreams seemed to stretch on longer than they actually were, right?
She luxuriated in that fantasy of this being all some kind of dream until she saw movement in the corner of her eye.
She tried to turn around, but she couldn’t budge. She realised then that she was stuck. She was pinned down, somehow. Her arms had binds around them, as did her legs.
And when she tried to open her mouth and cry out, she couldn’t.
There was something wrapped around that too. Something stopping her from screaming.
Her heart pounded. The light above her was still bright and burning. But the rest of the room was fizzing into view, all of a sudden. It was like… she was in some kind of office, at the doctor’s, or at the…
She saw the man in the corner of her eye. He stepped over her. He was wearing a blue T-shirt, which was smeared with blood. His hands were covered by some broken-up latex gloves.
And the look in his manic eyes made Melissa feel fear. Total fear.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m going to keep you safe now. I know a way to take all the pain away. You don’t have to worry anymore. Really, you don’t even have to worry slightly.”
Melissa saw something glint, then. And when it registered what it was, her body felt like it was crumbling.
It was a scalpel.
A dirty scalpel.
The man moved it nearer to her head, that absent look on his face, like this was a totally normal, totally calm procedure. “I trained as a dentist. But really, there’s very little difference between dentistry and my work today. You see, all I have to do is take the badness away. Because there is badness in you. And if I don’t take it away… well, you will die, dear.”
Melissa started kicking out and screaming underneath her gag. She pulled at the ties around her wrists, but they were just too tight. She kicked out, tried to pull herself free, but to no use.
And it was at that point that it all came flooding back. She’d been surrounded by the undead. She’d noticed a gap forming, and she’d gone through it. Ricky had followed her.
The pair of them had run. And for a while, Melissa was sure everything was going to be okay. That they were going to get away, and that Riley and Anna were going to find a way to be safe, too.
But then she’d felt a sharp pain rattle her skull.
The next thing she knew she was waking up here.
The man backed away, then. He looked alarmed by Melissa’s reactions. Maybe that would be a good thing. Maybe she could buy herself some time.
“Oh no, dear. Oh no oh no oh no. You don’t have to panic, my love. You’re going to be fine, just like the rest of them. Look around, see. Look here.”
He grabbed the back of the trolley Melissa was attached to and he spun her around.
When she saw what she was looking at, she did her best not to throw up.
There were heads. Severed heads, all sitting on the shelf opposite her.
They were in various stages of decomposition. Some of them looked fresher than others. Underneath them, there was a pool of mushy meat, which Melissa recognised as flesh.
But there was no doubt they were creatures. They had all turned.
“You see, I take the skin away from you. I take the flesh away from you. I feed it to them and keep them happy. And look! Look at them! They are so happy. They are so alive.”
Melissa looked into the eyes of these heads and she didn’t see happiness. She didn’t see anything. But she felt so bad for them, knowing that a fragment of consciousness was still there inside of them.
She wanted to put each and every one of them out of their misery.
The trolley spun, then. And at that point, Melissa was looking right back up at the man, right into his eyes. She cried. There was nothing else she could do. She was defenceless. Completely defenceless. She wanted to beg, but she couldn't even do that.
“Don’t worry, my dear,” the man said, as he moved closer towards her skull, scalpel in hand. “Everything’s going to be over soon. Everything is going to be okay. And then you will be happy and you will be well fed, just like the rest of them.”
The scalpel touched Melissa’s head.
Blood trickled down her face.
And underneath her gag, she screamed.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Are you sure about this, Riley? Like… really sure?”
Riley stared out of the window and held his breath. He looked down the side of the building, out onto the street. Looking out brought back serious memories of the time when he’d dangled out of his flat window on that rope ladder on the very first day of the outbreak. He’d tried to climb down to lure the dead towards him, Ted planning on making a break for it down the cleared route. He’d almost got to the bottom before being forced to clamber his way back up.
And when he’d got there… well, that was the first time he’d met Jordanna.
She’d been pointing a gun at him.
How times changed. How people changed.
“Can’t say I’m totally confident,” Riley said, looking to Anna. “But hey. What other choice do we have right now?”
Anna shrugged. “I dunno. Jump headfirst into the dead and put ourselves out of our misery?”
“Have a little spirit.”
“Spirit? Ugh. I’ve been living in this world far too long for spirit.”
Riley looked back out of the window. They were on the fourth floor of the shop. Outside, the streets were filled with the dead. But from a height, it didn’t seem as much as an impenetrable mass as it had felt while they’d been in the thick of it. It actually seemed like they could form some kind of a gap to escape through.
“This is all fair and well for us,” Anna said. “But what about Melissa and Ricky? What about the others?”
Riley’s stomach sank. Melissa and Ricky’s absence was of course the elephant in the room here. Riley didn’t want to leave them behind, especially in a swarm like this.
But he didn’t know where they were. None of them knew where they were. So what could they do?
Time to reach the extraction point was running out. They were going to have to get there and find out what had happened to Carly and Kesha—if they were even alive at all.
They had no more time to waste.
Riley tied the rope ladder tightly to the window ledge. He put his hands on Anna’s shoulders. “I want you to listen to me carefully, okay?”
Anna backed away. “Woah. Don’t talk down on me like that.”
“What?”
“Just then. You were talking down to me.”
“I wasn’t talking down to you.”
“You were and you know it.”
“Okay. Okay. I’m sorry. But Anna, this is serious. I just need to know I’ve got your back.”
Anna shook her head and sighed as the footsteps of the undead plodded on outside. “Riley, I’ve always got your back. And I know what I have to do.”
Riley nodded. He was reassured by Anna’s seriousness towards the situation. He trusted her completely. He just felt scared about what he was going to do. Mostly because he didn’t want to lose her again.
He climbed over the edge of the window and grabbed tight hold of the rope ladder.
Anna turned away. The plan was that Riley would get the attention of the undead and draw them towards him. That
’d open a path for Anna to escape, before Riley made his way back up the ladder and out of this village, too.
“I love you, you know?”
Riley wasn’t sure where those words had come from. Some deep place of truth within him, probably.
But he meant them, truly. Sure, he’d loved Jordanna. But Anna was special to him too. She was his closest friend. And that friendship was going to go on far beyond today.
Anna turned around. She looked at Riley and she smiled. And for a moment, Riley thought he could imagine a future with the two of them at the forefront. A better future, where they could move on from everything that had happened to them, together.
“I’ll decide how I feel about you depending on how this plan works,” Anna said.
She smiled and then before Riley could say another word, she turned away, and went running towards the stairs.
Riley took a deep breath, then swallowed the lump in his throat and looked down at the undead beneath him, only a dodgy ladder keeping him this high. “Well,” he said. “Here goes nothing.”
He climbed down it slowly. The further he got away from the window ledge, the more his nerves grew. This was madness. Total madness. But in a way, it was… hell, it was nostalgic. A weird kind of nostalgia of course, especially because when he’d done this on the first day of the outbreak, he’d been trying to escape his flat so he could go see if his grandma was okay.
But still he climbed further down. And when he was halfway down the rope ladder, the wind battering him against the side of the shop, he knew it was time to play his part.
So he took a deep breath.
And then, he shouted.
He didn’t shout out anything in particular. He just let out a barrage of noise. But the more he did it, the madder his shouts became, and before he knew it he was laughing hysterically. Because this world was mad. It was completely mad. And what good was living in it if you couldn’t see the humour in all the chaos?
The creatures noticed him right away. All of them stopped what they were doing, turned around. And as he kept on shaking and screaming, Riley wondered if maybe they were clever. Some of them were more evolved than others. Maybe they knew what he was doing. Maybe this plan wasn’t going to work at all.
