by Ryan Casey
And Jordanna’s grip on the pipe was weakening by the second.
“We—we don’t have much time to—” Dr Ottoman started.
“I’m not turning back,” Riley said. Spotted a guard pointing his rifle at him amongst the pandemonium that had erupted.
Quick draw.
Fire.
Right between the eyes.
He reloaded quickly as he jumped down the wall, approached the crater. Mr Fletch’s guards were in chaos. Some of them were fleeing, shouting and screaming like ants being stamped on. Others fired wayward shots in Riley’s direction, in Riley’s group’s direction.
Wayward shots that would eventually hit a target.
Something that Riley couldn’t allow.
He sprinted around the side of the crater. Passed Chloë, Ivan, Andy, James, Tamara. They all had cuffs around their wrists and ankles, just like Jordanna did.
Jordanna, whose grip was loosening even more.
Whose fingers were clinging on so tightly they were bleeding.
“Go over the wall,” Riley shouted as he passed his group. “Back where I came from. Run for the gate. Just leave.”
“But what about you?” Tamara said.
“I’ve got something I need to do.”
He turned to Jordanna. To the water-drenched pipe.
His heart was in his dry, raw throat.
He was about to run for the water pipe when he felt something crash into his right side. Strong. Heavy. He’d been shot. This was it. It was over. He’d been …
But no.
He was on the floor. Someone was wrestling him on the floor, pinning him down. A bulky guy with a ginger beard and a shiny bald head, a knife in his top pocket like it was a symbol of status. He had his hands around Riley’s neck. Wrapping tightly. Riley’s vision blurring, fading …
He reached out for his rifle, but the guy pushed it away.
“You ain’t turnin’ our fuckin’ home into a war-zone,” the guy barked. “I ain’t gonna let you—”
His voice was cut off in an instant.
Cut off because something was around his neck.
A chain.
Handcuff chains.
Ivan’s handcuff chains.
Riley pushed back against the guard as Ivan pulled him away. The guard gasped for air, heavy rain dripping down his face, thunder rumbling through the dark grey sky. His face turned purple as Ivan pulled tighter, so tight that the guard’s neck bruised in an instant, his mouth slavering out saliva and mucus, vomit and blood.
Riley worked his way out from underneath the guard, still struggling for air himself. He lunged for his gun. Grabbed it, ready to put the guard out of his misery, to end his life before Ivan had the chance to …
A sound, like the sudden peeling of orange skin.
A taste of copper in the air.
Riley looked back at Ivan, back at the guard.
The guard’s eyes had gone clear. His face was completely purple to the point he was unrecognisable.
Blood oozed down his black coat from his neck.
His neck, which had been torn open by the chains of the cuffs.
Split apart like meat in a butcher’s.
Ivan pulled his blood-soaked cuffs out of the guard’s neck and let him fall to the ground. As he stood there and looked at Riley covered in rain, lit up by lightning, he didn’t look like a man, not with those teeth, not with blood all over his chained-up hands. He looked like a monster.
But for now, he was a monster that Riley had on his side.
“Help!”
A scream from the left.
A scream that made Riley’s body turn cold.
He swung around just in time to see Jordanna hit the ground.
To see the creatures gather around her.
Close in for the kill.
First instinct was to jump down there with her. Jump down and fight his way through.
Second instinct felt much better.
He lifted his rifle and fired at the creatures closest to her.
Fired at each and every one of them, one by one, right in their rotting heads.
“Get to the side!” Riley shouted.
He could see the fear in Jordanna’s eyes as she scrambled across the mud, backed up to the side of the crater as Riley and Doctor Ottoman fired more and more bullets, took more and more of them down.
And then Riley’s gun stopped firing.
He looked down at it. Tried to reload but … fuck. Out of ammo. Out of fucking ammo.
He dropped his gun. Crouched down to the guard who Ivan had half-decapitated. Yanked the knife out of his top pocket.
Approached the crater.
Doctor Ottoman grabbed Riley’s arm. “The hell do you think you’re—”
“I need to do this,” Riley said, shrugging Ottoman’s hand away. “Go after my friends. Make sure they get to the gates. Ivan, you too.”
Doctor Ottoman started to protest but it was already too late.
Riley was descending the crater.
Dropping down into the pit of dead creatures.
He wasn’t leaving Jordanna behind.
He’d never leave Jordanna or anyone behind, never again.
The creatures turned and looked at Riley as he stood there in the pouring rain, knife in hand.
Lightning cracked across the sky.
The decaying creatures marched towards him.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Riley tightened his grip on the knife and swung it at the first of the creatures.
It felt weird, that sensation of cracking the soft decaying skull of an infected. Felt like ages since he’d last done it when in truth it wasn’t long ago at all. It felt like he’d been trapped inside this BLZ for so long, subject to all its horrors for an eternity.
But not any longer.
Not when he got to Jordanna.
He pulled his knife from the temple of the first creature and stabbed the next one. A woman that approached from the left. So damp and rain-soaked that a layer of mould was forming around her mouth.
He pushed his knife through the front of her skull as rain poured into the crater, drenched him completely.
Pulled back and got a clear view of Jordanna.
She was crouched against the wall, creatures still surrounding her from every direction. Some of them had turned their interest to Riley, but not enough.
She looked shellshocked. Stunned. And, in her deep brown eyes, Riley saw something. A look he’d imagined time and time again, but in reality it was even worse than he could ever have expected.
A look of terror in Jordanna’s eyes. A look of defeat.
The same look she must’ve had when he and Ted left her behind in Preston.
The same terror that must’ve entrapped her senses.
“I’m coming for you,” Riley muttered, as he stabbed an older creature in the back of its balding, flaky head. “I’m coming.”
He pushed forward through the damp, muddy ground, through the rotting stench, through the taste of spoiled meat that filled the air. And although he heard noises above, although he heard shouts and gunfire—a confirmation that there was still some kind of conflict going on up there—he still just pushed on through the crowd of creatures. Scurried over the rotting bodies of the fallen, the loose cuffs of those who hadn’t made it.
Because he had one job. One mission.
Save Jordanna.
Don’t leave her behind.
Not again.
“You—you need to keep moving around the side,” Riley said. “Draw them out so I can … Jordanna, please.”
She was still just crouching there, totally shellshocked like Riley had never seen her before. He’d always had her down as so tough, so strong. But when faced with certain death, people could act in strange, curious ways.
The way Jordanna was acting right now wasn’t the way of survival.
It was going to get her killed.
A scratch from Riley’s right. Right down his arm. He turned, saw a creature opening
its mouth, which was already split at the left side so it was like a post-apocalyptic version of The Joker. Its black teeth were closing in on Riley’s shoulder. Getting ready to bite.
He pulled back his knife and readied himself to split its skull open when the ground disappeared beneath him.
He fell onto his back. Thick mud and rancid body parts splattered all over him. The all-too-familiar pain of a bitten tongue overcame him.
But the bitten tongue was the least of Riley’s worries.
Three creatures were standing over him.
Crouching down.
Readying to bite down on his stomach.
He got his grip on the knife again and swung at the one on the left.
The knife split.
Just like that.
Crack.
It fell down beside Riley in a shard.
The creatures didn’t stop to pay any attention. They just clawed their bony fingers all over his belly, started pulling his skin, stretching it, readying to open it.
And as Riley struggled in the rain, a momentary thought split through his consciousness much like his stomach would any second.
As lightning flashed above, he saw himself leaving Jordanna behind and figured this must be a kind of poetic justice. God wasn’t forgiving him for his sins after all, ’cause God was a tough bastard who’d unleashed a plague on this world.
So all he could do now was struggle and hope for the best.
He twisted and turned, pushed away the teenage creature with dyed black hair, a pierced ear and a torn-apart chest.
Fingers pushing deeper into his belly.
Nails scratching.
Teeth closing in.
Then he felt the fingers loosen.
Something flew at the creature on the left.
Someone.
Jordanna pinned the creature down in the mud. She had the chains of her cuffs between its teeth and was holding it down, smashing its skull against the muddy ground.
Riley didn’t have time to admire.
He swung his left fist right into the face of the teenage creature. Sent it flying onto its arse.
Then he kneed the creature above him in its head, pushed it down, sat on top of it and punched it again and again and again in its soft decomposing skull until the bone split, until its brains were on show, and even then it was still writhing and struggling, even when Riley stuffed his hands inside its icy cold brains and pulled them apart like an old sponge, it twisted and turned and tried to bite.
Then it went quiet.
Riley crouched over the remains of the creature. Soaked up the silence. Silence, other than the rain pattering against the dead bodies of the creatures. Other than the occasional crackle of thunder way in the distance. Other than Jordanna’s heavy breathing.
He looked over at her. Looked at the rain pouring down her dark hair, sticking it to her cheeks. Looked at her as she stood up, yanked the weakened chain apart, the cuffs still around her chapped, sore wrists.
She looked back at Riley and the fear was gone from her face. In its place, there was trust. A forgiveness.
And despite the blood and the body parts and the rotting stench all around them, she was the most beautiful woman Riley had ever seen.
“Come on,” Riley said, raising to his feet and wiping the deep red blood onto his jeans. “Better get out of here. While we still can.”
He walked over to the side of the crater. Stood beside Jordanna. Looked around for the best escape route. “Metal pipe looks good. Probably best if you give me a leg up and then—”
He didn’t finish speaking.
Because something hit his lips.
Something froze his body in the moment, slowed his mind down to a halt.
Jordanna.
She kissed him and he kissed back and it didn’t matter that they were both covered in dead parts. It didn’t matter that they both smelled of rot. It didn’t matter that she tasted like she’d eaten a dead squirrel.
Because as they held one another, as they wrapped their arms around one another in the pouring rain, all that mattered was this moment.
This beautiful moment at the end of the world.
CHAPTER TWELVE
It took Riley and Jordanna a good ten minutes to climb their way out of the muddy crater of dead creatures.
But when they reached the top; when they resurfaced covered in blood and pieces of decaying flesh, the noise of flies still buzzing beneath them, the rain had stopped. The sky was still grey as afternoon gave way to evening, but the clouds were parting. And as Riley held Jordanna’s hand, helped her to her feet, the chain around her ankles now snapped too, he couldn’t help but feel like he was in some kind of fucking clichéd movie.
A romance, where the clouds always fucking parted when love blossomed.
The area surrounding the crater of death was quiet. Way too quiet, in truth. Another cliché, sure, but an accurate one. Because there was no way a place like the BLZ would suddenly go silent by accident. Mr Fletch didn’t want his group to escape. He didn’t want anyone to get out of here. He wasn’t exactly a man of granting free will.
So there had to be a reason for the silence.
Other than the pile of dead BLZ guards that were lying around the crater, of course.
Riley and Jordanna climbed over the bodies. The blood that Riley was drenched in was drying on his skin, turning colder. His stomach, which had churned with hunger so recently, now despised the very idea of food. He was out of practice killing creatures. Out of practice being all dirty and covered in blood.
Out of practice kissing a beautiful woman.
“Did you shoot him?”
Jordanna’s voice broke the eerie silence with a sudden jarring force. Riley turned to look her in the eyes as they approached the wall Riley and Doctor Ottoman had launched their attack from. “Who?”
Jordanna’s eyes glistened with tears, or with the blood of those she’d killed. “You know who.”
Riley looked over his shoulder. Looked at the platform on which Mr Fletch had stood. He’d fired at him. Fired at those around him. But he wasn’t sure. One moment Mr Fletch was there, that goading grin on his face as he forced Jordanna to cross the pipe. The next moment, gone.
Gone, like so many more of his people.
People who maybe weren’t bad, necessarily. Just drawn in by his grandiose vision of the future, by his poisonous words and dour threats.
“I dunno,” Riley said. “But we need to leave.”
That, Jordanna didn’t argue with.
They climbed the wall and dropped down onto the road at the other side. Riley was careful to keep an eye on the buildings around. Swore he saw movement on the fifth floor of a red-bricked apartment. Twitching of curtains.
And then more movement.
More eyes.
Watching, but only watching.
Nothing more. Nothing less.
“Sorry,” Jordanna said, limping along as blood dripped down her drenched black hair.
“For what?” Riley asked.
“For leaving you. Back in the Labyrinth. The Orion, it …”
Riley tightened his grip on Jordanna’s hand. “You don’t have to apologise for a thing.”
“But I do. I—”
“Look, I left you behind back in Preston. You left me behind today. Guess that makes us even.”
The smallest glimmer of a smile worked its way across Jordanna’s face. “You saved me from the pit. So I owe you one.”
Riley felt himself tingling down below. It’d been a while since he’d last been with anyone. Been a while since he’d last felt anything real for anyone. “I dunno. You saved me from the creature when I was on my ass down there. So I s’pose we’re even anyway.”
“You sure about that?” Jordanna asked.
Riley saw glittering flirtation in her eyes.
“Sorry,” he said. “Probably need to sharpen up a little in … in that department.”
Jordanna laughed. “Maybe we can take a sh
ower when we get out of this place. Wash all this nasty blood and shit away.”
Riley opened his mouth to speak. Something niggling inside him. Something Jordanna must’ve seen because she frowned, just for a moment.
“What is it?” she asked.
He felt his cheeks flushing. “I … I’m …”
“You’re not a virgin are you?”
“No! Hell no.”
“You just said ‘hell no’ and you’re English. You sure you’re not a virgin?”
“I’m not a virgin, okay? I … It’s just the infection. Inside me. I … Jim Hall and Doctor Wellingborough. They told me the cure’s regressing. Whole reason we came here was for the Systemic Airborne Distributor, which doesn’t even fucking exist. So what …” He swallowed a lump in his throat. Tasted like acid. “What now?”
Jordanna must’ve known what he was getting at ’cause she tightened her grip on his hand. He was worried. About his life. About how long he had left. About what the train-wreck that was the BLZ meant for his future, meant for everyone’s future.
“Whatever it is,” Jordanna said, lowering her voice to a whisper. “We’re in this together. All of us. That’s how it’s been since the start of the journey and that’s how it’s gonna be to the end.”
She squeezed his hand even tighter.
Riley squeezed back.
“You still scared?”
“Fucking terrified.”
Jordanna smiled. “And that’s what makes us human now.”
Riley was going to say something cheap and cheesy like, “I’m not as afraid with you by my side.”
But fortunately for him, he saw movement up ahead.
A familiar sensation of fear invaded him. He let go of Jordanna’s hand, instinctively reached into his pocket for some kind of weapon.
When he saw who the movement belonged to, he realised he didn’t need a weapon after all.
Over by the gate, Tamara, James, Chloë, Andy, Ivan and Doctor Ottoman were waiting.
Riley and Jordanna slowed down at first. Then when they saw the gate was wide open, when they saw the road and the buildings and the hills beyond—but mostly the creatures beyond—they started running. Running towards their friends. Running towards their family.
“Told you to get the hell out of here,” Riley said, unable to keep the smile from his face.