by Ryan Casey
Kesha mumbled some gibberish about going home and playing with toys.
“No,” Riley said. “Didn’t think so.”
He walked over to Anna then. He could tell she was upset with him. And he knew he’d been reckless. He knew he’d put himself in danger. But this wasn’t the time to not take risks. Now was the time to do whatever they could in order to survive.
He’d resisted the idea that this island—this world—was changing for too long.
At least now he was facing it head on, accepting the world for what it was.
Fighting.
“Hey,” he muttered, putting his head to Anna’s. “I’m okay. We’re all okay.”
“I just…”
“What? What is it?”
“It’s nothing.”
“No, Anna. Talk to me. Please. What is it?”
She looked up into Riley’s eyes, and he saw pure pain, pure sadness.
“I just don’t want our child to grow up without a dad.”
When she said those words, he felt his insides turning. Because sure, he’d worried about his unborn child. But he hadn’t taken the time to really wonder what it might be like for Anna to raise that child on her own.
His ex, Alison. She’d had the same problem, for a while. She’d gone away. Left for Australia without him—his own damned fault for letting her slip through his fingers, of course.
But he’d lost one child. He’d missed out on their life. And that was criminal. Because a father should be there for their child, no matter what.
And maybe that’s what this was. Maybe this reckless behaviour of his was actually fear. Fear that he couldn’t be a dad. Fear that he couldn’t step up. All of it, all of this fear, all manifesting all over again.
He took Anna’s hands and tightened his grip around them. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “I promise you that.”
“You shouldn’t make promises you can’t—”
“I promise you.”
He leaned in. Kissed her. Then he put a hand on her belly. When she looked up at him, tearful eyes, she smiled, and he smiled back at her.
Kesha let out a loud noise. He turned, looked at her.
“Hey,” he said, lifting her up. “Don’t you get jealous. You’re going to have to look after your little brother or sister, aren’t you?”
He smiled at Kesha as she giggled with him. And then he looked at Anna, too. And he realised they already had a child. Kesha was their child. Not biologically, perhaps. But they’d gone to the ends of the earth to protect her, to look out for her. He’d seen he was capable of that responsibility. He’d seen he was capable of stepping up.
And he was going to be able to step up again.
Nothing was going to stop him.
He lifted Kesha up, spun her around. Then he put her into Anna’s arms, where she could be carried for a while. Then together, they looked around at the district before them. People were turning, left, right, and centre. But the troops and the Orion… they seemed like they were managing it. Seemed like they were containing it.
So the best way of fighting right now for Riley and Anna was by waiting.
Waiting for the conflict to unfold.
Waiting for everything to conclude.
And then clearing up the mess.
“I feel bad about this,” Anna said.
“About what?”
“About… about leaving this place to fall. Our friends. Ricky. Carly. Everyone out there–”
“Ssh,” Riley said. “They’ll be okay. They’ll… they’ll find a way to be okay.”
He wasn’t sure how certain he was when he said those words. And undoubtedly, he wanted to go out there and fight in order to make sure they were okay.
But going out there was dangerous. Especially when they had no clue where they actually were.
Right here, they could defend themselves against the creatures, against the Orion, against the troops.
Right here, they could do the best fighting they possibly could.
For their future.
Riley took Anna’s hand.
Anna squeezed it.
They sat together and watched as the conflict unfolded.
As their home fell.
As things fell into place, piece by violent piece…
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Carly held her rifle up high and sprayed bullets at the infected racing her way.
She didn’t want to call them undead. Mostly because these ones didn’t seem like they were undead at all. They seemed more like they were just angry. And the way they were running at them, it made them look like they were alive.
Maybe that was how the airborne virus worked. Maybe it didn’t totally kill people before turning them into monsters.
But then… the old virus didn’t do that either. People who were bitten, who fell, they were still partially alive, apparently.
Carly thought about how horrible it would be to be locked into one of those bodies, and she fired the trigger at more of them. Mostly because she just wanted to put them out of their misery.
She looked to her side. Saw Ricky standing there, fighting alongside her. She liked Ricky. He’d always been kind to her, even if he did come from the bad group—the one led by Mattius, the ones who killed the girl called Chloe.
Sometimes she wondered whether Ricky missed being with Mattius’ people. Because sometimes he said things like he was talking about good times with old friends, then he’d realise he was on about his time before he was with her group, her people, on this island.
And his face would drop then. He looked like he was sad. Like he missed those people or maybe those times.
But Carly had been through enough to know not to judge someone for something like that.
Everyone had their reasons for feeling happy.
Everyone had their reasons for feeling sad.
Her gun stopped firing. She reloaded, focused ahead.
The infected were growing smaller. It seemed like most of them had been dealt with. And even though that excited her, she was sad too. Because it meant that the troops would be free to hunt them down.
She just had to hope that there were plenty more people like her and Ricky out there, fighting back, just like them.
Because this was their home.
No matter what anyone tried to tell them, no matter what they tried to do, this was their home.
Carly saw the last of the infected running towards her.
She fired at it. Put it down.
And then they were alone.
She looked at Ricky, smile on her face, hidden behind her mask.
But Ricky wasn’t looking back at her.
He stumbled down. Fell to his knees. Held his stomach tightly. Pulled off his mask.
“Ricky?” she said.
But when she got closer to him, she saw why he was on his knees.
She saw why he’d pulled off his mask.
He was bleeding.
Bleeding from his eyes.
Bleeding from his ears.
And blood was dripping from his chin.
He looked up at Carly with defeat in his eyes. And she wanted to believe he was in this state because of his showdown with the Orion. She wanted to believe he’d just taken a punch too many, but that he could be okay. He could pull through. They just needed to get him out of here. Get him somewhere safe.
She walked towards him.
“No,” Ricky said.
He lifted his hand. Held it up to stop Carly progressing. And as she was closer to him, she could see the greyness to his face now. The paleness of his cheeks. People always commented on how rosy his cheeks were, how healthy he looked. Right now, he didn’t. He looked far from healthy.
“Ricky. You—you have to—”
“I know what this is,” he said. “And you know what it is too. Carly, you… you need to get out of this alleyway, you understand? You need to get out of it, and you need to get yourself somewhere safe. Somewhere far away from other people,
from the infected. And you need to wait. Wait until this ends. Because it will. It will.”
Carly felt the tears building up, the lump swelling in her throat. “But you came back for me. When I—When I thought I was done for. You came back for me.”
“The difference is, you’re okay. You’re alive. You’re not infected.”
“You might not be inf—”
She stopped.
Because she looked up and saw three more infected racing down the alleyway towards them.
“Go, Carly.”
But she didn’t listen.
She lifted her rifle. Took them down, one by one. “I’m not leaving you.”
“You can’t hold them off forever.”
“And neither can you.”
And it was the way Ricky’s face turned, then. The way he looked at her. Right then, she knew what he was saying. She knew that he’d come to terms with it. That he’d accepted it.
And there was no other way this was going to happen.
“I can’t be responsible for your death,” he said. “I’ll kill myself before I have a chance to kill you. But… But I’d rather take a bunch of these fuckers out with me. So if you’re not here when I do that, even better.”
She heard more infected snarling, at the other end of the alleyway this time. Their noise, it must be attracting attention, which was bad news for both of them.
“Get out while you can.”
Carly shook her head. She shot down more of the oncoming infected. But she was starting to hear Ricky’s words. She was starting to believe.
“You’ve got a whole life ahead of you,” he said, blood spewing out of his mouth, dark circles forming under his eyes. “Go live it. Go.”
She shook her head again. Closed her eyes. Cried.
But this time she knew there was no other way out.
This time, she knew what she had to do.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Don’t be sorry for choosing life,” Ricky said.
“I’ll come back for you.”
He smiled. Tears, infused with blood, were rolling down his face now too. “I don’t expect there’ll be much of me to find when you get back here.”
He spun around then. And Carly did too.
Because at the top of the alleyway, another bout of infected.
A bigger group than ever.
“Go!” Ricky shouted.
And as much as Carly wanted to stay, as much as Carly wanted to fight, she found herself running.
And as she listened to the snarls, listened to the gunfire, she tried to tell herself she was just a kid again, that she was a kid who was running along, playing a game, back in a world where everything was okay.
She didn’t turn around.
She didn’t look back.
She just kept going and waited for the sound…
CHAPTER TWELVE
Ricky watched the mass of the undead get closer to him and held his rifle in hand.
He just had to wait for the perfect moment.
The mass of angry bodies raced further towards him. Blood pooled down their faces, out of their orifices. And he wondered how long it would be before he was like them, a part of their angry mob, a cog in their attack.
He wasn’t going to let that happen.
He wasn’t going to let things get to that stage.
He looked over to his right. Over at the highly explosive barrel of fuel by the side of the road. It was remarkable that it hadn’t been hit already in the fight with the Orion or the other infected, in truth. But sometimes miracles like that happened.
And right now, on the verge of his last stand, Ricky needed a miracle. He goddamned deserved one.
He lifted the rifle as the infected raced closer, and he thought of Melissa. He thought of the first time he’d laid eyes on her, the way she’d made him feel. He thought about their dancing in the woods. He thought about the first time they spent the night together; the countless times after that.
But mostly he thought of the quiet moments where they just sat together in each other's company, grateful for how things were, grateful that they had what they had, that they had each other.
He looked over at the barrel, the sound of the infected getting closer echoing louder, and he let out a sob.
A cry because he remembered his mum. The way she’d been locked up back at Mattius’. The way Mattius had killed her, not even giving her a chance to live outside his walls.
At least she wasn’t confused anymore. At least she was at peace now.
But it was wrong.
It was so wrong because he thought of all the circumstances he’d wanted to happen.
He wanted his mum to meet Melissa.
They’d love each other. Laugh together. They’d have Christmas dinners together and go on stupid family holidays together and…
The sound of the infected, just metres away, getting closer.
His ideal life. His ideal future. It wasn’t going to happen.
But at least he’d had his moments.
At least he had his memories.
At least he had his happiness.
“I’ll see you soon,” he said.
He went to pull the trigger of the rifle, in hope of exploding the barrel.
But it didn’t trigger.
The rifle was jammed.
He tried again.
Went to fire.
Nothing.
Horror swept over him. His eyes widened.
He looked around at the infected powering towards him.
He didn’t even have the chance to scream.
The infected reached his body, and the first thing he felt was sheer, unfocused agony.
Then the agony became more focused.
Hands tearing his chest apart.
Teeth sinking into his flesh.
Piece by piece of his body being ripped away.
But in that agony, he found comfort.
In that agony, he knew he didn’t have long left.
In that agony, he saw his mum smiling at him, and he saw Melissa waving at him, and he knew he was going to be okay, he knew—
A blast.
A blast, and then nothing.
CARLY STOOD at the edge of the alleyway, tears rolling down her cheeks.
She saw the undead throw themselves at Ricky.
She saw them tearing him apart.
And she knew she had to do something.
She held her breath, and as much as she didn’t want to say goodbye, she did the kindest thing—the only thing.
She pulled the trigger.
The blast filled the alleyway.
Threw her back.
RICKY’S MUM reached out a hand to him.
“It’s okay now, son.”
He took it.
And then he disappeared into the warmth of the flames.
EPISODE FIFTY-FIVE
HOW IT IS NOW / THE LIGHT
(FIFTH EPISODE OF SEASON TEN)
Riley pointed his gun at the man kneeling before him and felt guilt creeping through his body.
It was first thing in the morning. First thing in the morning should be a time for groaning at the sound of the alarm. It should be a time for moaning about a day ahead at work. It should be a time for coffee and working out, breakfast with the family.
But today was different.
And every day that followed was going to be different.
“Please,” the man said, shaking as he crouched there on his knees. His cheeks were pale. His shirt was creased. But he looked… well, he looked well-presented enough. Well-presented, except for the bloodstain on the floor beneath him.
The bloodstain that had Riley paranoid.
The bloodstain that had him holding this gun in the first place.
“I—I have a wife. I have two children. You don’t have to do this. Please.”
You don’t have to do this. Please.
Riley listened to this man’s begging, and he couldn’t deny the guilt he felt abou
t this whole situation. Because it was wrong. He shouldn’t have to kill this man. He shouldn’t have to be forced into a situation—into a position—like the one he was in.
But the fact of the matter?
This was the situation he was in.
And this was the duty he had to fulfil. The task he had to carry out.
Whether he liked it or not, he was the living, and this man was the dead.
Even if he didn’t know it yet.
Even if he hadn’t come to terms with it yet.
The man was called Simon. Tears rolled down his weathered, cracked skin that looked like it’d seen a few too many summers in Benidorm. He had greying hair, thick and full. All things considered, he looked like a healthy man. Like someone who had his life in order. He didn’t look like a man on the brink of turning into a monster.
But Riley knew better now than to go off just lack of bites alone.
“I’m not infected,” Simon said.
“The blood,” Riley said as he stood there in this man’s doorway—the doorway to his home. Behind, he swore he heard movement. And he hoped to God his family wasn’t watching.
“I—I cut my finger, okay?”
“Let me see the cut.”
“I…” Simon winced, tears rolling down his cheeks. “Don’t do this to me, Riley. You’re a good man. I know you are. Please.”
Riley felt his stomach sink when he heard those words. Because he wanted to believe he was a good man, too. He wanted to believe that his morals were in the right place. Even after all this time, he wanted to buy into the idea—the truth—that he always did the right thing, no matter what, no matter how hard he was pressed.
But that was starting to fall apart all over again. It was something he’d found easier to convince himself of over this last year, when everything was in order, when everything was right.
But now he was one of the ones left standing after the collapse of their district and the wider crumbling of the whole of Island 47.
He was one of the ones who wasn’t infected, so he was one of the ones in charge.
One of the ones who’d helped clear out the infected.
One of the ones who’d fought back against the soldiers hunting him down.
So that gave him a duty.
A duty to make this place clean again.