by Casey, Ryan
“I don’t give a fuck who you—”
“What’s your name?”
“What?”
“Your name. What is it?”
“Why does it matter?”
“Humour me.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed. She shook her head. Puffed out her lips. “Tracey.”
“Tracey. Lovely to meet you.”
“Don’t give me that shit—”
Shelley tightened her grip around Tracey’s hair. Pulled it so tight it felt on the verge of tearing out.
“There’s one thing I don’t understand, Tracey.”
Tracey tried to back away. Winced as Shelley’s grip grew tighter.
Shelley leaned right into her ear.
“How do a man, a child, and a dog just disappear in plain sight?”
Tracey’s hot breath covered her ear.
She waited for an answer. Waited for any kind of response.
And then she heard Tracey laugh.
“Go to hell, you fucking scumbag bitch,” she said.
And then Tracey spat at her again, this time right in her ear.
Shelley backed away slightly. Wiped the phlegm from her ear.
She looked into Tracey’s eyes, and she shook her head.
“That was a really bad idea,” she said.
And then she cracked Tracey over the side of the head.
Sent her pummelling into the dirt.
She crouched over her.
Pressed down on her.
Stopped her twitching or moving.
And then she moved her thumbs up to her eyes and pushed down.
Gently at first.
But then harder.
Harder.
“You’re going to talk to me,” Shelley said.
Tracey writhing around underneath her.
Kicking out as the pressure on her eyeballs grew firmer.
More resistant.
Like water balloons ready to burst.
“You’re going to tell me where they went.”
“No,” Tracey said. “Go to hell. Go to—”
“You’re going to tell me exactly where they went, or this will only be the goddamned beginning,” Shelley said.
She pushed down harder.
Heart racing.
An urge inside.
An urge for blood.
To make this woman suffer.
To put her through hell.
“Never,” Tracey said. “Never!”
Shelley smiled. “If that’s how it is…”
She went to push the knuckles of her thumbs right into her eyeballs when she felt a hand on her shoulder.
She spun around. Loosened her grip. Saw Carter staring down at her, clearly a little alarmed.
“Bit busy here, Carter. Can’t it wait?”
Carter shook his head. “Um, it’s about the kid and the fella. Think we’ve found exactly where they went.”
Shelley frowned. Watched Carter step back around her, over to that collapsed tent.
He lifted it, and Shelley saw.
A manhole.
The cover shielded with turf.
A rotten smell rising from below.
Shelley looked at that cover and smiled. That explained why the tracker they had on the kid had gone all fuzzy. Didn’t work so well underground. “The sewers. Of course. Why wouldn’t I know exactly where a rat would crawl off to?”
She looked down at Tracey. Looked into her eyes. They were bloodshot. Blood vessels totally burst.
But she still had this look of defiance on her face.
This look of resistance.
“Well,” Shelley said. “Change of plan. Looks like I won’t be needing you after all.”
She patted Tracey on the shoulder.
Went to get off her.
And then she stopped.
“But that isn’t good news for you.”
She saw it in Tracey’s eyes.
A momentary fear.
And that was enough to spur her on.
Tracey went to writhe away.
Shelley punched her across the face. Heard teeth crack.
And then she pressed her thumbs down into her eyeballs, and this time she didn’t hold back.
Not as Tracey kicked.
Not as she writhed around.
Not as she screamed out.
Not as warm fluid splattered out, all over her hands.
She kept on pressing until she was absolutely sure Tracey’s twitching body was finally dead.
And then she stood. Wiped her hands on her jacket. Looked ahead at this manhole cover. At the six guards standing around it.
“Well?” Shelley said. “What are we waiting for?”
She lifted her rifle and looked down into the darkness.
“Let’s go hunt the bitch,” she said. “And let’s make this Noah cunt suffer more than he’s ever suffered in his goddamned life.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Noah waded through the darkness of the sewers and wondered when this fucking hellish path was going to end.
It was pitch black down here. All around, he could hear water dripping, echoing around this tight passageway. The smell was worst. It smelled like death itself had fucking died, which was impossible to explain but easy enough to imagine. Every now and then, the smell shifted, and it made Noah’s stomach turn. Made him want to throw up all over the place.
It didn’t fucking help that Bruno kept on diving in that filthy water and shaking it all over the place, either.
He looked over his shoulder. Saw nothing but darkness that way, too. Which was a good sign. It meant taking this pathway had been a good move. He had no doubt the Society thugs would find it eventually. But it was damned echoey down here too, so he knew he was safe for now at least.
Besides, there were no lights. No sign of life at all.
He waded along the slippery concrete. Every now and then, he’d lose track of his path, slip a little bit, almost fall into the water. Didn’t want to go anywhere near that water. Just being beside it felt enough to see him come down with some kind of nasty infection.
He just had to focus on the path ahead. The sewer would come to an end eventually. Whether it took him out nearer to Blackpool or further away, he couldn’t be sure.
Just that there was only one goal now.
Getting Iqrah there. Getting her to her family—or as close to her family as she once was.
And then he began to realise something else, too.
He couldn’t just abandon this kid. He couldn’t just walk away from her. Not just because she was valuable from an infection perspective—one day, when they found the right people, maybe they could use Iqrah’s abilities to their own advantage. But not the savages of Society. Not today.
But there was another reason he kept on going, too. And that reason was he felt a bond growing. A connection. A sense of duty and responsibility that terrified him. But one he was beginning to face up to.
Iqrah hadn’t spoken much. He still had her over his shoulder. She seemed weak. Tired. An hour or so back, she’d collapsed by the side of the sewer and had a nasty nosebleed Noah was pretty sure hadn’t even stopped yet. He didn’t know what was going on with her. Didn’t know whether it was related to the virus. Didn’t know if he’d pushed her too far. She’d said she was tired earlier. Too tired to infect the Society goons. Too exhausted to do a thing about it.
He could relate. Even though his infection communicating abilities weren’t anywhere near as sharp as hers, he’d felt that exhaustion, too. That tiredness. That sense of fatigue overriding everything else.
He took another step when he felt the slimy water cover his boot completely.
“Shit,” he said. Cold water covered his right leg. His socks were soaked. He tried to step back on the pathway when he realised something.
The water.
It was everywhere.
He squinted ahead into the darkness. It was pointless, but he tried it anyway, desperate to find some kind of pathwa
y, to map this sewer in his mind.
But the more he stood there, the more his heart started racing. The more his sense of urgency started to grow.
“You okay, kiddo?”
He felt Iqrah shake a little on his shoulder. Mumbled something. Something he took as assurance.
“I’m… I’m not sure how much further we can go down here,” he said. “Might have to track back. Try and find another way out.”
“Be careful,” Iqrah said.
“What?”
But she didn’t say anything else. She didn’t elaborate. And that unsettled Noah even more.
He turned back. Started to head back into the darkness, back the way they’d come from. If only he could find some doorway or a ladder. Sure, climbing a ladder wasn’t gonna be fucking easy, not in his armless state, and Iqrah being in the state she was in. Tracey definitely mentioned something about an exit along here. Some ground level destroyed section of the sewer walls that was supposed to be his way out.
He went to take another step back when he saw lights up ahead.
He froze.
Lights.
Voices.
Footsteps.
Far away. Could be as far as a mile away.
But they were coming.
They were here.
“Shit,” Noah said.
He turned back around. Walked to the edge of that rancid water again. Stared down at it, wanting to heave with its shitty, off-milk stench.
“Well,” he said. “Here goes nothing.”
He took a step into the water. Prayed it didn’t go too deep. Prayed it was just a little splash-over covering the pathway.
But the further he walked, the deeper he got in this shitty slush.
And the more he began to realise there was no backing out of this.
He walked into the water. It was so high it was up to his waist now. Large, solid objects nudged into him, disintegrating on contact. He heard screeching. Heard splashing. Rats. Wading around a rat-infested sewer when he should be back at the caravan, preparing to move into whatever new life they were edging him towards.
He looked back. Saw those lights getting closer.
“No going back now,” he muttered.
He walked further along. The water kept on going for a while, then thankfully seemed to stop right at his neck. He kept Iqrah above it, knowing full well she was in deep shit with that neck wound of hers. Bruno didn’t seem to mind. Looked like he was having a hell of a lot of fun splashing around.
Noah walked further along. And the further he got, he started to notice something else. Small at first. Barely visible.
But the closer he got, the more sense it made.
Light.
But not the kind of light from behind.
Moonlight.
He smiled. The exit. The way out of this place. If he could get back outside, he could lay low. He could lose the Society thugs. He could crack on.
He went to take another step towards safety when he saw movement up ahead.
He thought it was in his head at first. Thought he was just imagining things. Or maybe he’d just got some water in his eyes.
But then he saw more movement.
Then another.
And then he saw them appear in the moonlight.
Four of them stood there.
Stared down at him in the water.
Infected.
They stared at him standing there with Iqrah over his shoulder, Bruno by his side.
Behind, he heard the footsteps getting closer. Saw the lights flickering over him. Definitely closer than a mile.
He stood there and tried to weigh up the best of the bad options right now.
That’s when the infected raced towards the water and dove right in.
Disappeared.
Silence for a moment. Total silence. One question circling Noah’s mind.
“Don’t say they can swim. Please, please God don’t say they can suddenly—”
It all happened so fast.
A large tug against his leg.
A sharp pain in his ankle.
And then the next thing he knew, he was dragged down into the depths of the rancid, shitty sewer water…
Chapter Thirty-Three
Noah held his breath as the teeth sank into his ankle, and he knew he was fucked.
He was underwater. Something dragging him down into that dirty sewage waste. All he could taste was rotten death. He wanted to keep his mouth shut, but he could feel the slimy, rancid water seeping into his nostrils and down the back of his throat, which just made him open his mouth and make the whole damned thing worse.
He kicked out. Tried to splash around and scream, no regard for the footsteps approaching, for the people on the other side.
Just wanting to get out of this.
And wanting to get…
Iqrah.
Where was she?
She was on his shoulder just moments ago as he traversed his way through this water.
But now she was gone. He didn’t remember dropping her. One second, she was there. The next, gone.
But she was gone.
He couldn’t see her for the darkness. Couldn’t focus on a thing.
He just knew he had to get out of this mess, and then he could focus on finding her.
A task that was beginning to feel progressively more impossible by the second.
He kicked out. The grip around his ankle grew tighter. That biting sensation, too. The tearing of his flesh. It wasn’t good. He knew what it was. He knew being submerged in this rotten water was only going to make things worse.
And then there was Iqrah, too.
She had her neck wound. That was going to get infected. Shit was going to hit the fan—and fast.
And he hadn’t even begun to think about where Bruno might be yet.
He looked down. Tried to get a sense of where this figure was latching on in the darkness. What he could do about it. How he could fight it.
But all he could do was kick out.
Punch out.
No leverage.
And running out of oxygen by the minute.
He went to swing at the infected again when he felt another tight grip around his right arm.
A dark figure in front of him. First, holding his arm. Then wrapping its arms around his neck. Tightening its hands around his throat.
And that face in the darkness. Those teeth, snapping away in the water, so close to his face, scratching at his face, gnawing at his nostrils.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
He felt this array of bodies surrounding him and dragging him down into the awful, dark depths, and then he felt a voice within.
Don’t give up.
You’ve got this.
Don’t fucking give up.
He opened his eyes.
Gritted his teeth.
He reached up for the hands of the infected gripping onto his neck.
Then he butted his head into its face, right under the water.
Its grip loosened.
He kicked out again. Harder, this time. More targeted. Less crazy. Even though he was losing his breath. Even though he wasn’t sure how much he had left in his lungs.
And even though he knew Iqrah could be anywhere in here—and losing oxygen, fast.
He kicked again. Punched again. And he felt this mind drifting. He felt himself honing in on that space within himself. That centre within himself. The place where he could fight them. The place where he could resist them. The place where he could speak from, too.
He closed his eyes, close to passing out. Close to death, no doubt about it.
And then he felt that strength within.
That strength that terrified him.
That strength he pushed back against. Resisted.
That utter responsibility.
He opened his eyes again, and he saw them in the darkness.
Three of them. Infected.
And lying there in the water, close to opening his mo
uth and letting that water pour into his lungs, he felt himself opening his lips.
“No,” he said.
The infected froze.
Their eyes widened.
Bloodshot eyes.
Faces stretching.
Heads bloating.
And then—
Pop.
All three of them, popping there in the water, a faint sound filling his ears like bubble wrap being stepped on.
Almost immediately, he felt the centre caving in. Exhaustion filling his lungs. He clambered up to the surface of the water. Desperate to get to the surface. Unsure if he could keep his mouth closed much longer. Unsure if…
He swam to the top of the water. Gasped. Kicked around. His head ached. He could taste more than just shit now. He could taste blood, too.
He flapped around in the darkness, desperate to find the surface, desperate to find a way out, desperate to…
And then he realised something.
He wasn’t in the darkness.
Not anymore.
All around him, he saw light.
He looked over his shoulder and saw them standing there.
Those figures. Silhouettes in the darkness.
Leading the way, that woman.
The one who’d hunted him down back at Tracey’s camp.
She stood there. Looked at him. Mask over her face.
Smiling eyes.
She had Iqrah in her arms.
A needle sticking into her neck.
Iqrah’s limp little body lying there, sleeping, gone.
Noah went to paddle forward. “No—”
“Too late, buddy,” the woman said. “Game over.”
She lifted her pistol.
“But really. Good work getting this far. All this work to die in a pool of shit. I hope it was worth it.”
Noah launched himself forward. “Iqrah!”
A blast.
Pain in his chest.
Another blast.
Pain splitting through his shoulder.
Light filling the sewers.
Gunfire ringing in Noah’s ears.
And pain splitting through his chest.
He looked down at his body.
Looked at the blood dripping from his chest.
Covering his fingers.
And then he looked up at the woman as she turned around and walked with Iqrah.
“Goodbye, Noah,” she said. “Thanks for the hunt. It’s been fun.”
She turned around, and she walked.