by Casey, Ryan
Well now here he was. No way of helping his friends. Cuffed. Trapped.
And pretty damned certain there was no getting out of this mess.
He heard the shouts around the corner. Someone shouting out commands. A few claps and cheers, less noisy than earlier. More muted. Like they were waiting for something.
And then he saw two more people standing there. Armed. Guards.
They looked around at Noah. Scanned him, head to toe. Looked at his hands for a moment—hands that were plastered with the blood of one of their companions he’d hammered to oblivion.
“Watch him,” the man said, throwing Noah into the middle of this new duo. “I need to speak to Curtis.”
Noah watched the man walk past. Gaunt. Dark-haired. Miserable look across his face like he’d never smiled in his whole damned life.
He walked around the corner of the shipping containers. Into that noisy area, the area just out of sight to Noah. The area he couldn’t quite see.
And he heard it grow quieter. He heard that man shouting incomprehensible commands to stop.
He wasn’t sure how long he waited there when he saw the man from earlier return.
There was a new guy by his side.
Ginger.
Thick head.
Tall. Taller than anyone Noah had ever met.
Looked like a kind of Neanderthal.
“Well,” the man said. “Seems like we’ve got a twist to this tale.”
He stepped forward and punched Noah, right across his face. Knocked his head back against the metal walls of the shipment container.
And then he grabbed him by the hair.
Dragged him, tearing his jeans, scratching his knees.
He pulled him out so fast, with such strength, that Noah barely even recognised the scene before him.
Only there were people. A circle of people.
A circle of men.
And in the middle of that circle, there were…
He froze.
Eddie.
Eddie stood there.
He was holding a long blade.
And he was standing in front of…
“Jane,” he said. “Z—Zelda.”
Jane and Zelda were both on their knees together.
They were naked. Bruised. Battered. Covered in blood.
Two men stood behind them. Armed.
Eddie looked around at Noah, and his eyes widened. “N… Noah?”
The man who people seemed to be calling Curtis looked from Eddie to Noah and back again. Smirk on his face. “Well, shitty-mcghee! What have we here, huh? You know this man, funnyman, hmm?”
“I… I don’t—”
Curtis walked over to Eddie. Planted a hand on his shoulder. “Well, shit. You do! Yessir! You know him. You know him. Oh, my. This changes things. This complicates things, hmm? Whatcha say?”
Eddie just stared at Noah. He looked exhausted. He looked like a broken man. “I don’t…”
“Tell ya what. We’re gonna mix shit up here. Boys? Bring new guy over. Pretty man Noah, huh? How you doin?”
Before Noah could react, before he could fight, two people behind him dragged him up. Dropped him a few times, busting up his face.
And then they planted him right between Jane. Zelda.
“Jane,” Noah said. She looked awful. Her hair was greasy, plastered to her forehead. Her face was covered in tears and blood. “I’m sorry. I tried to look for you.”
“It’s okay, Noah,” she said. “I know you did. You’re—you’re a good man. I always knew you were a good man. And my dad knew it, too.”
Noah felt his throat tightening. “I’m sorry. I tried—”
A crack against his face, shutting him up right away.
The taste of blood filling his throat.
He looked around.
Curtis standing there, smiling. Silhouetted by the sun.
That crowd of people standing around. Clapping. Cheering.
And then Eddie.
Standing there.
Sword in hand.
“Tell ya what,” Curtis said, grabbing that sword from Eddie’s hands. “Let’s change things, hmm? How about… I mean, I know how it is. You know this guy. Looks like you mighta been pals once, yessir? So stabby-stabby is tough. Stabby-stabby is goddamned evil. So this is how it is.”
He opened Eddie’s palms.
Planted a pistol in the middle of them.
Lifted it. Pointed it right at Noah.
“You kill yer old pal here, hmm? You kill ’im. Clean shot to the head. Bam! And then we move on.”
Eddie shook his head. “Please. Don’t make me do this.”
“Or…” Curtis said, lifting the sword. “I put a sword to these two ladies here. I take their heads off. I make you sleep with these heads starin’ at you, remindin’ you of what you done did. Look to the left, pretty girl! Look to the right, emo girl! Huh? And then I torture your friend here. And then I make you watch, and when I’ve broken you down so much you can’t even tell funnies anymore, then I kill you. How’s that sound, huh?”
Eddie lowered his head. Shook it. Tears flowing freely now. He looked broken. Totally broken. “Please.”
“Eddie,” Noah said.
“Don’t. Don’t make me—”
“Kill me, Eddie. Kill me. Just like he says. Save the others. But kill me. You—you know it’s what you have to do.”
Eddie looked at Noah. Eyes red. Bloodshot.
Curtis stood there and laughed. “Well, boy, do we have some drama, huh?! Boy do we have some fireworks!”
Clapping from the crowd.
Cheering from the crowd.
Hell.
He looked around at Zelda, then. She was broken and bruised. But she just looked mad. Pure mad.
“Barney,” he said. Because it was all he could say. “He’s… he’s okay. I made sure of it. Okay?”
She glanced around at him. Like she was looking at a ghost.
“Thank you,” she said.
Noah looked back up at Eddie, then. Saw him standing there. Pistol raised. Shaking.
Everything else faded into the background.
Into nothingness.
“Do it, Eddie,” Noah said. Heart racing. Chest tight. Bracing himself.
“Yeah,” Curtis said, smacking his back, laughing, almost elated and intoxicated by events. “Do it, Eddie! You’re too chickenshit to take out the women. So you do it! You get it done!”
Eddie just stood there. Shaking his head. Slowly. He closed his eyes. Tears streaming down his face.
“What’s the problem, funnyman? You run outta jokes, huh? You give us a joke! You give us a goddamned joke right now!”
And then Eddie opened his eyes.
He took a few steps forward.
Right up to Noah.
So close Noah could hear his teeth chattering.
So close he could see his heart bouncing against his shirt, against the fat underneath it.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But I… I can’t. I just can’t.”
“Eddie, you have to,” Noah said. “Or we all die anyway. It—it has to be me. It has to be me, mate. You know it. You know what you have to do. Exactly what you have to do.”
He looked up at Eddie through his own tear-drenched eyes, and he smiled at him.
“You’re… you’re my best mate. And you always will be. I’ve always got your back. No matter what.”
Eddie looked down at him. Pistol shaking in his hand.
Everything else around them seemed to pause. Seemed to grind to a sudden halt.
“It has to be this way,” Noah said. “It can only be this way.”
“Maybe it doesn’t,” Eddie said.
Noah frowned. “Wh…”
“Live together; die together. Remember?”
The rest happened so quickly.
Eddie pulled the trigger.
A deafening blast filled Noah’s ears.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
He didn’t see anyth
ing.
Didn’t hear anything.
Didn’t sense anything whatsoever.
Nothing but silence emerging from the echo.
And then he heard Curtis let out a cry.
“Well, fuck! Fucking fuck!”
Noah didn’t want to, but he opened his eyes.
He didn’t know what was happening.
He didn’t understand.
He half-expected to see Eddie lying in front of him.
Pistol pointed at his chin.
Bullet through his skull.
Because that’s who he was now. That’s the hero he was now. That’s the martyr he was now. That’s the Eddie he was now.
Or the Eddie he so desperately wanted to believe in.
But when he opened his eyes, he didn’t see Eddie on the ground at all.
Eddie stood there. Pistol in hand. Pointed ahead.
But not shaking anymore.
Not crying anymore.
A blankness to his gaze.
A greyness to his face.
Something… shifted.
Something changed.
The crowd behind cheered. Whooped. Clapped.
Curtis planted a hand on Eddie’s back. Smacked it a couple of times, celebratory.
“Well, shit! You have bigger balls than I thought, funnyman! Now that’s a joke! That’s one hell of a fucking joke!”
Noah looked to his left.
Zelda sat by his side.
Mouth wide.
Tears streaming down her face.
Shock covering it.
And then he did what he didn’t want to do.
He turned to his right.
And every muscle in his body went to stone.
Jane lay there on the ground.
She was twitching.
Her eyes were wide.
She writhed around.
Tried to twitch her way free.
Blood poured out of a wound right in the middle of her neck.
A gunshot wound.
“Well, fucking Nora!” Curtis screamed. “She ain’t dead! She ain’t even dead yet! She still got the twitches! Sweet Jesus!”
Noah could only sit there on his knees. Coldness filling his body. Nausea completely engulfing him.
Jane struggling. Shaking.
In pain.
Suffering.
A girl who’d liked him.
A girl who he’d liked, too.
A girl he’d come all this way to help. To protect. To save.
Suffering.
Suffering at the hands of his best friend.
Suffering at the hands of—
Another blast.
The bullet hit Jane’s skull.
And then another.
A twitch of Jane’s body.
And then she went still.
Noah turned around to Eddie. Looked up into those wide, lost eyes again.
“Eddie… No. No. Please. No...”
And then he lowered that gun and looked right at Noah.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But she… she meant the least to me. I had to. She meant the least to me. Don’t you see?”
And then he dropped the pistol to the ground.
Noah didn’t know where to look.
He didn’t know where to hear. Where to listen. Where to anything.
The crowd, cheering.
The gasps. The claps. The cries.
Zelda trying to fight free, only to be dragged away, over towards one of those containers.
Jane’s body lying there.
Totally still.
Blood seeping from three bullet holes. One in her neck. Two in her head.
But scarier than anything, more harrowing than anything, Eddie.
Curtis’ arm around his shoulder.
His hand lifting Eddie’s pistol hand into the air.
“The funnyman!” he shouted. “To the goddamned funnyman! To the king of stand-up!”
And Eddie didn’t look back at Noah once.
He didn’t look at his friend, at Zelda, or at Jane’s poor body, not once.
In the light of the sun, Jane’s blood glistened.
Eddie felt Curtis drag his limp, shaking hand into the air.
He wanted to throw up. He wanted to disappear into the hole in the ground. He wanted to die.
But he saw this crowd cheering him.
Saw them applauding him.
He saw them loving him.
“The funnyman!” he shouted. “To the goddamned funnyman! To the king of stand-up!”
And despite everything, despite all the craziness, despite all the exhaustion, all the guilt… he felt something inside.
Something unfamiliar.
Something he liked.
Eddie felt accepted.
Eddie felt loved.
You’re not that unpopular little fat-boy anymore.
You’re not in his shadow anymore.
Eddie felt a smile tug at the corner of his lips.
END OF BOOK 4
Extermination, the fifth book in the Surviving the Virus series, is now available to buy on Amazon at
http://smarturl.it/ExterminationRC
Want More from Ryan Casey?
Extermination, the fifth book in the Surviving the Virus series, is now available to pre-order at Amazon: http://smarturl.it/ExterminationRC
If you want to be notified when Ryan Casey’s next novel is released (and receive a free book from his Dead Days post apocalyptic series), please sign up for the mailing list by going to: http://ryancaseybooks.com/fanclub Your email address will never be shared and you can unsubscribe at any time.
Word-of-mouth and reviews are crucial to any author’s success. If you enjoyed this book, please leave a review. Even just a couple of lines sharing your thoughts on the story would be a fantastic help for other readers.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. Any reference to real locations is only for atmospheric effect, and in no way truly represents those locations.
Copyright © 2020 by Ryan Casey
Cover design by MibLart
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Published by Higher Bank Books
