by Ryan Casey
He dreaded the day when the creatures became a threat again.
A real threat.
Because that day would come. It had to come.
Or at least, something did.
“Ladies first,” Pedro said.
Riley looked at him as he stood beside him. Held up his gun, the smile on Pedro’s face showing how much he was enjoying the sport, clearly.
“Very mature.”
“Well, you know me.”
“I do. Unfortunately.”
“You don’t mean that, bruv.”
“I dunno. Can you imagine us striking up a spontaneous friendship before the world went to shit?”
Pedro stuck his bottom lip out like he was contemplating. “Respected army veteran and lowlife film journalist—”
“Music journalist.”
Pedro nodded. “Music. I rest my case.”
Riley shook his head and turned around the side-street to take a look.
The street was narrow. Ancient black bin bags that reeked of shit had spilled out over the alleyway. Awful looking things like old banana peels, used tampons, all splayed out over the floor.
“Deer’ll get infested with shit if we drag it back through here,” Pedro said.
Riley took a step down the alleyway. “Won’t be anything if we don’t get a move on.”
He stepped down the alleyway. Kept on looking through his scope, then above his scope, above and below, in front and behind. The smashed windows on the building beside them were cobwebbed, inside, nothing but darkness. Below his feet, the usual crunch of litter or glass or whatever else this world deemed fit to tip all over the place.
But it made him feel real. Reminded him of the reality of the outside, as opposed to the smooth surfaces and cleanliness of the MLZ.
He stepped a little further. Just before the end of the alleyway, which culminated in a tattered metal fence, there was a turning on the left. A partially raised garage roof.
And inside the garage, a noise.
Something rattling.
Riley looked at Pedro. Nodded.
Pedro nodded back.
Riley held his breath tight and held his gun even tighter as he took one step, two steps, three steps to the garage opening.
He crouched down. Pushed his back up against the wall.
Three …
Two …
One…
He swung around, pointed his gun into the garage area and focused.
The deer was right in the middle of this dusty, dark room. It stared right at Riley as he aimed his gun at it. As he held his breath. Made sure he had his focus right.
He went to pull the trigger when the deer’s cute head popped and the animal fell to the floor.
He heard Pedro laughing and he knew what had happened. “Fucking hell,” Riley said, pulling his gun away, smacking Pedro as hard as he could in his arm.
Pedro’s gun was propped up on one of the smashed-open windows. He grinned and chuckled. “Finder’s keepers, bruv, like you said. I’ll let you ‘ave a piece though. Arse-end.”
Riley’s cheeks burned. He shook his head. Reached for the garage door to lift it so their exit would be easier. “I had that. I had it in my sights.”
Pedro smacked Riley’s back. “Come on, bruv. Just a ‘game.’”
“Yeah yeah. There’s cheating a game, too. And that always comes back to bite you.”
“Woo, hoooo,” Pedro said, mockingly. “Riley’s got his bitch on.”
Riley stepped into the garage entrance. “I’ll have more than—”
He saw the movement towards the deer and he knew exactly what it was.
Knew the smell. Knew the shuffling.
Knew the sound of flesh being torn.
He stood still. Watched as the creatures—four of them—tucked into the remnants of the deer’s mashed brains, as they dug their teeth into its side, tore off its hide.
His stomach sank at the thought of Pot Noodle.
He stepped away, slowly.
The creatures kept focused on the deer, snacking away on their treat.
“Now that’s cheating the game,” Pedro whispered.
The pair of them didn’t stick around for dessert.
CHAPTER ONE
“Ah well. An almost-deer is better than a no-deer, bruv.”
Riley sat on the barstool cushion. He leaned against the bar, a half pint of MLZ brew beside him. Ghastly stuff, really. Never in a million years would he have willingly drunk a beer that gassy before the end of the world.
He lifted the glass. Swilled the strong, bubbly beer around his mouth.
This was the end of the world, so beggars couldn’t be choosers.
Pedro was beside him. He’d already gone through about six half-pints, but he never seemed to get pissed. He stared over the bar at the empty display bottles—Jaegermeister, Southern Comfort, Jack Daniels—probably wishing the same thing as Riley: for a proper drink.
But hey. It was better than nothing.
“I mean, hey,” Pedro said. “Pot Noodles and frozen food is okay, really. We should be grateful. Right?”
Riley nodded. Licked the beer off his lips. From the wooden tables over to his right, which were gathered around an imitation log fireplace, he could smell one of those frozen meals. A lasagne. Reminded him of the kind of slop he’d eat when he was in his flat with Ted before the end. Kind of thing you’d only touch when you were starving.
“I think the end of the world’s making me ungrateful,” Riley said.
Pedro shook his head. Smiled. “It ain’t the end of the world that’s making us ungrateful. It’s this place.”
“The pub?”
Pedro tutted. “Not the pub. The MLZ.”
He raised a hand and flagged the bartender, a pretty woman with shoulder-length jet black hair. She wore a black shirt that flattered her chest, blue jeans that did the same to her legs.
“Same again, Pedro?” she asked, smile on her face.
Pedro winked at her. “Half-pint of your finest, Janey.”
She took his glass and topped it up with some of the piss-coloured beer from the cooling machine. Half-pint of your finest. Like anyone really had a choice of what they drank.
She handed the glass of beer back to Pedro and he took a sip of the top quarter right away.
“You were saying?”
Pedro nodded. Gulped down his drink. “The MLZ. Makes us ungrateful because it’s the new normal for us now. We’ve been here two months. Y’know, I remember when I was back at college and I used to get one day off a week.”
“You actually went to college?”
Pedro ignored Riley. “I got a Wednesday off. When I found out, I was over the fucking moon. Enjoyed that first Wednesday. Enjoyed the next. And then the more Wednesdays went on, I wanted another day a week off too. And I know damned well if I’d got another day a week off, I’d want a third day, and a fourth day, and then every day of the week until I wanted some other damn stimulus to entertain me, make me feel special.” He took another large gulp of his beer. Looked at Riley. “The new normal.”
Riley forced a smile. Pedro had a point. He remembered first arriving at the MLZ. First seeing the smiling faces on that Christmas day. Hearing the happy cheers. Smelling the turkey, so fresh, even if it was just pre-frozen garbage.
And that illusion, that novelty of perfection lasted a little while. Seeing the wall, it always brought awe at first.
Only now, it was just a part of everyday life. The wall was just like the little lady in the blue box who used to flog newspapers on the street outside Riley and Ted’s old flat.
The wall was a part of the “new normal.”
“Another beer for you?” Pedro asked.
Riley felt a tingle of dread within. Shook his head. “Nah. Gotta shoot.”
Pedro scrunched his eyebrows. “‘Shoot’? Shoot where?”
Riley just looked at him.
His eyes widened. “Oh. Oh, I—”
“It’s alright. Does
n’t matter.”
“I just forget, that’s all. And that ain’t a bad thing. If I had the goon-infection running through my body, I wouldn’t want a load of people looking at me like I was some kind of monster.”
Riley smiled. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
He got off his bar stool. Felt a little lightheaded when his feet hit the creaky wooden floor. “You going to the show tonight?”
Pedro nodded. Signalled the bartender for another drink. “You bet. Eightieth damned showing of The Lion King since I got here. Spot something new every time. Honest.”
Riley smiled. Patted Pedro on the shoulder. Walked through the bar towards the frosted glass window.
“Oh, Riley?” Pedro called.
Riley stopped. Turned around.
Pedro looked at him with that concern in his eyes. A concern that had once been so familiar, but Riley didn’t see all that often anymore. “Good luck,” he said.
Riley shook his head. Forced a wider smile. “It’s just a checkup. They’re always fine.”
He turned away and pushed open the door, felt the cool breeze brush against his cheeks and smelled the familiar mix of microwaved cooking and disinfectant in the air.
It was just a checkup. And the checkups were always fine.
But that didn’t stop the fear in his gut that one day, just one day, he’d find out that the Apocalypsis infection running through his body had taken a turn for the worst.
Walking down Main Central Street, Riley found it easy to forget that the end of the world was outside the walls.
Main Central Street was lined with shops of all different kinds. Clothing shops, grocery stores, tanning salons. Out on the street, there were little market stalls that sold memorabilia—souvenir metalwork of the wall, the kind much like the Eiffel Tower fakes you’d see littering the streets of Paris. People lined up to buy them—a woman with a little boy begging for a Pikachu balloon. All this normality, all this illusion of safety …
But it was a good illusion.
The wool was well and truly over every citizen’s eyes.
Riley kept his head down as he walked past the market stalls. The sounds of shouting that always filled Main Central Street at twelve p.m. on a weekday were as loud as ever. He’d made a bad decision arranging his appointment with Dr Wellingborough at this time of day, but hey. He had the virus inside himself. He had a cure battling away with it. A cure that still hadn’t worked on anyone else. Beggars couldn’t be choosers.
“Hey, Riley.”
He looked to his left. Samantha, a skinny woman with ginger hair and doe-eyes, smiled at him.
“Hey, Samantha. Beautiful day.”
She looked up at the blue sky. Smiled some more. “Perfect. Heaven sent.”
Riley nodded and walked on.
In the early days of living here, the residents of the MLZ looked at him differently. They were cautious of him. Gave him side glances, turned around and walked away whenever they saw him approaching. He couldn’t blame them. If he knew someone potentially infected was wandering in his direction, he’d have freaked too.
But now, people smiled. People nodded. People said “hi” and “bye” and “look at the lovely blue sky.”
The new normal.
Riley was just a part of the new normal.
He walked past the Premier Theatre and saw a line of people queueing up to watch tonight’s showing of The Lion King. Or every night’s showing of The Lion King. But like Pedro said, it was different every time. Sometimes it went tits up. Sometimes elderly people played the parts, other times kid actors saw it descend into chaos.
But they never refunded. Ten chips, it cost, no bargaining. And people always needed entertaining, so it was a damned good business model.
He walked out of the chaos of Main Central Street and towards the green medical sign propped on the side of a rather innocuous looking terraced house. He felt his insides churn as he stepped closer to its green door. His hands got clammy. But he had to go in. See how the cure and the infection were battling along inside him.
He had no choice. Nothing to worry about.
It would be okay.
He told himself everything would be okay as he climbed the concrete steps, pressed on the buzzer and pushed open the black door. He’d been here, to Dr Wellingborough’s clinic, a thousand times since he’d been “cured” of Apocalypsis. Well, maybe twenty or so to be more accurate.
Every time, the cure made a little more progress inside Riley.
Every time, the Influenza B/H3N4 virus slipped a little further out of his system.
Every time, Dr Wellingborough got closer to finalising the cure for use on other people.
He walked through to the waiting room, which was pretty quiet but for an old man with a bald head that Riley didn’t recognise, and a blonde woman with a young boy whose breathing sounded heavy.
The woman smiled at Riley.
Riley smiled back.
Ever the courtesy of the doctor’s waiting room.
Ever the courtesy in a situation that everyone hated.
He didn’t have to wait long for Dr Wellingborough to call him through. Well, not looking at the clock—just five minutes, apparently. But the wait felt like forever.
He got that tingling feeling in his stomach as he stepped through the wooden door attached to the waiting room.
Took in a deep breath of the medicinal air.
Tried his best to take a piece of the calming waiting room music with him.
Dr Wellingborough sat at his desk in the middle of the office. He was wearing his glasses on the end of his red nose—almost as red as his hair at this point. His trademark white lab coat was wrapped around him. He hunched over his desk, which was littered with papers—not photographs of family or anything like that, just papers—and sketched into a pad.
Riley stood at the opposite side of his desk. The doctor glanced up at him briefly.
“Riley,” he said.
Riley nodded. “Doctor. How’s things looking?”
Dr Wellingborough didn’t answer straight away. He jotted away on his pad a little more. Whistled and hummed, muttered under his breath. Testing Riley’s patience, as always.
He leaned back. His thick leather chair creaked under his weight. He held a hand out. “Take a seat.”
Riley stood there, nerves turning his legs to jelly. He slid the green plastic seat across the solid floor, perched on the end of it like doing so would get him away in a hurry.
Dr Wellingborough held his hands together on the table and stared at Riley.
“So,” Riley said, scratching his arm. “How’s things looking?”
Dr Wellingborough licked his top lip. “Riley, you know how many times you’ve visited this office now? For blood sample results?”
Riley shrugged. “Twenty zillion?”
“Twenty-seven,” Dr Wellingborough said, not detecting the sarcasm in Riley’s voice. “Twenty-seven blood samples over an eight week period since your arrival. Twenty-six instances of the B/H3N4 influenza regressing.”
Riley’s thoughts froze. His heart picked up. “Wait, you—”
“I’m sorry, Riley,” Dr Wellingborough said. He pulled the glasses off his face. Leaned over the desk and looked right at him. “The latest blood sample, I mean, it might just be an anomaly.”
Anomaly. Regression. All the words muddled around Riley’s head, incomprehensible and jumbled. “What … tell me what’s happening.”
Dr Wellingborough let out a sigh. Looked down at his desk. “The B/H3N4 virus seems to be … well. Think of it like an egg timer inside your body. For the last two months, the egg timer has been flipped in favour of the cure we concocted from a mixture of your blood and several other experimental samples. Only now the egg timer has flipped. The B/H3N4 is growing in momentum.”
Riley’s neck got hot. “I … How much? What does … what does this mean?”
Dr Wellingborough stared right at Riley. Curled some of his papers between his
fingers. “I … I’m sorry, Riley. But the B/H3N4 isn’t just growing in momentum. It’s winning the battle.”
“Winning the battle? Just … just be fucking straight with me.” He realised he’d raised his voice. Heart raced.
Dr Wellingborough put his glasses back on. Gulped heavily. “I’m sorry, but it means you’re dying, Riley.”
The words hit him like a bullet in the sternum. His entire body went cold. The shuffling of feet outside the office, the flight of birds outside the window behind the doctor, all of them came into sharp focus, sudden and jarring.
“How … How long?” Riley asked.
Another pause from Dr Wellingborough. Another glance down at his papers. “We can’t make an accurate estimate—”
“How long?” Riley shouted.
Dr Wellingborough gulped again. His eyes turned bloodshot. “I … You’ve got two weeks, Riley. Two weeks, and then you become one of the infected.”
CHAPTER TWO
“Last one to the wall entrance is a big smelly turd!”
Chloë ran as fast as she could down the side-street. Puddles splashed up on her blue jeans which Jordanna always told her to keep clean. Pigeons flew up in her face as she ran up to them, scared like people were scared when the monsters nearly got them. She twiddled the ring Jordanna had given her a few weeks ago around her middle finger. It was so loose that it always felt like it was going to fall off.
She could hear Annabelle and Tiffany behind her, panting away. She knew she could run faster than them. She always beat them in every race. Maybe that’s why they hated her so much. Why they did things without her, didn’t invite her to The Lion King shows, things like that.
Or maybe it was because of her scarred face.
Chloë kept on going, smelled the nasty things coming from the toilets and the sewers near them. She knew they’d probably stop running and say they said the first person to the wall entrance was the smelly turd, like they always did when they lost, but Chloë still wanted to prove she could run.
Prove she was faster than them. Stronger than them.
A concrete wall appeared up ahead, beside it, a right turn. Chloë knew the right route to the main wall was around this way, but she never liked going the way everyone else did. She liked her own adventures. Being outside on her own and with Jordanna; that taught her that.