by Ryan Casey
“So what are your proposing?”
Jim shook his whisky glass. The brown fluid almost trickled over the sides. “Truth is, and … Riley, I’ve been meaning to tell you this for a long time. But then the cure … you started getting better. Showing signs of progression. And—”
“Jim. You’re dancing around the point again.”
Jim sighed. Shook his head. “The MLZ. We don’t have the infrastructure to widely distribute any sort of cure.”
Riley’s eyes narrowed. “But I thought Dr—”
“He lied to give you hope.” He leaned back against his sofa and sipped some more whisky. “The MLZ, it was always the short straw of the Living Zones. Yes, we have some excellent medical professionals here, yes, we have everything everyone could ever need to survive the Apocalypsis pandemic for many, many years. But we don’t have what Birmingham has.”
“And what does Birmingham have?”
Jim leaned forward. “A Systematic Airborne Distributor. Or SAD, for short. But trust me. It’s anything but sad.”
Riley’s head was aching with jargon-overload once more. He scratched the back of his neck. “And what is this SAD?”
Jim Hall broke into a genuine smile. “It’s how we get the cure into the atmosphere without distributing it in injection or medicinal form. A highly complex way of releasing the cure into the atmosphere, whereby it goes on to spread over the rest of the country’s atmosphere through the weather systems. Wind, rain, even sunlight’s interaction through the ozone layer.”
Riley had to admit he was impressed. “Another one of your Iraq war toys?’
“Work on the SAD was completed in 2011. Just in time, in other words. Just in time for you to go down to Birmingham. To distribute the cure.”
Go down to Birmingham. Riley could see where this was going now. “Why didn’t you just send me down there when the Apocalypsis first showed signs of regression? We could’ve stopped this virus weeks ago. We could’ve … saved people’s lives.”
Jim’s lips shook. “Your people arrived and I saw it in your faces. The need for hope. For … for a little normality, just for a while. And I planned on telling you. Maybe after a week or two weeks. But then … then I saw the virus was getting better. Your condition was improving. And … I dunno. I just thought maybe I didn’t need to tell you. Maybe we could—we could fight through this thing on our own. Defy the odds of the ‘short straw’ of the Manchester Living Zone.”
Riley couldn’t figure out the feelings inside him. A mixture of relief and anger, of awe and dread. He shook his head. “So you’re just another self-interested politician, at the end of the day.”
“The interests of the people of the MLZ come first to me. And you fall under that umbrella. I saw you were improving. I didn’t want to tear you away from where you’re happy. Is that really so wrong?”
Riley looked out of the window. Out at the flickering lights of the MLZ. The market and shops on Main Central Street were closed, but the lights of the pub further up the road were bright. A drunk man wobbled around outside, smile on his face. That’s all this place was—smiles. Happiness.
A little bit of hope at the end of the world.
“What do I have to do?” Riley asked.
Jim Hall took in a deep breath. Went for a sip of whisky, but he was all out. “That’s the hard part,” Jim said. “You’re going to have to leave. Leave the MLZ. Go back outside.”
Riley nodded. Accepted the inevitable even more now he heard it aloud. “You have, what, twenty troops who can guard me? Escort me like I’m royalty, or something.”
Jim half-smiled. “We’ll give you all the support we can. A convoy of ten, or so. I’m sorry. For tearing you away from this place. I just …”
Riley shook his head. “It’s a choice between dying and living and potentially saving loads of lives. You don’t have to apologise. Just make sure I get there in one piece and we’re cool.”
Jim Hall smiled. “That’s in all our interests, believe me. You’re a good man, Riley.”
Riley looked back out of the window at the night sky.
“Yeah. I think I’m starting to finally believe that.”
***
“Are you sure we’re allowed round here, Chloë?”
Chloë crept around the dark, derelict side-streets. She tried her best to remember which way she’d gone earlier when she’d found the monsters in the doctor’s office. She just wanted to show them to Annabelle and Tiffany. Show them to them, so they’d accept her.
Frighten Annabelle a little too, maybe.
“When were you last scared of being allowed somewhere?” she asked Annabelle.
She turned around. Saw Annabelle with her blue coat zipped up to her neck. Tiffany loomed beside her, a small smile on her face. Chloë felt warm inside at seeing that. She’d made a joke. Tiffany had liked it. Soon, she’d like Chloë even more.
Be her friend, not Annabelle’s.
Chloë turned back around. Walked a little further. The sides of the buildings were tall, barely lit up in the moonlight. But she knew she had to be close. Close to the doctor’s.
Close to the room with the monsters.
She wasn’t sure how she was going to show the monsters to the other girls. She hadn’t really thought that far ahead. She just knew that if she could let them in on this secret—that monsters were living inside the Living Zone with them—then they’d wonder what other secrets she had. Annabelle might not be as mean if Chloë pretended she knew more.
It’d be the start of something.
“We should go back,” Annabelle said, after the three of them had walked down more alleyways, more side-streets, all of them looking the same. “She’s being stupid. She doesn’t know where she’s going.”
Chloë spun around. Annabelle and Tiffany had stopped. It was Tiffany Chloë paid the most attention to. The glances she made between Chloë and Annabelle, caught in uncertainty.
“No, please. I—”
“Come on, Tiff,” Annabelle said. She turned away. Grabbed Tiffany’s arm. Walked off.
Tiffany dug her feet into the ground. Looked back at Chloë.
“Please don’t …” Chloë said.
And then Chloë saw it. Just ahead on the right, where Annabelle and Tiffany were heading.
The big black bin Chloë had sat beside.
Cried beside.
“Wait!” Chloë called.
Annabelle huffed and puffed and eventually, stopped. She looked back at Chloë. Rolled her eyes. “We’re out way too late. We’re gonna get in trouble. All because of you.”
“The door there,” Chloë said, panting. She pointed at the big black padlocked garage-style door just beyond the bin. “They … there’s something in there. Something behind there.”
Chloë pushed past Annabelle. Walked up to that dusty window on her right. Peeked through.
It was empty inside the doctor’s office. Empty and dark.
“She’s making it up as she goes along. Always said she was weird, didn’t we, Tiff?”
A fire burned inside Chloë at Annabelle’s words. Her attempts to involve Tiffany in her bullying. She lifted her fists. Banged on the black garage door, which was much bigger than her. “Is this what you call making it up?”
Chloë waited for the groans. Waited for the footsteps to echo towards the door. Waited for the monsters to push themselves up against it.
But nothing happened.
Annabelle stared on. Her fiery red hair glowed in the dark. She shook her head. “Such a liar. No wonder she got her face cut. No wonder nobody likes her.”
Chloë felt the pressure building up behind her eyes again but she begged herself not to cry. Not to show herself up. “I’m not … I’m not lying.”
Annabelle shook her head. Grabbed Tiffany’s arm again. “Come on. Leave her to play with her pretend friends.”
Chloë’s heart raced. Why weren’t the monsters coming? Surely they’d heard her. They were definitely behind this door. She k
new what she’d seen. “Please.”
Annabelle and Tiffany walked on.
Backs turned to Chloë.
Chloë watched Tiffany get further and further away.
And then a thump.
It was so loud and strong that it made Chloë jump.
She looked to her left.
Looked at the door.
Another thump.
“What … what is that?”
Annabelle. Her footsteps were getting closer. So too were Tiffany’s.
Chloë stood. Stared at the doors.
Heard the groaning.
Annabelle stopped right beside her. “Chloë, what … what is that?”
Chloë’s heart pounded as the monsters pushed themselves up against the large doors. She heard the curiosity in Annabelle’s voice. Saw the fear in her face.
But mostly, she saw the amazement in Tiffany’s big, pretty eyes.
Annabelle shuffled her feet. “I … I really think we should—”
“Do you want to see them?” Chloë asked. “Or are you too scared?”
A smile on Tiffany’s face.
Wide-eyed fear on Annabelle’s.
Annabelle looked at Tiffany for approval. Then at the ground. Then flinched when the door rattled again. “I … I …”
“We can get through that window,” Chloë said, searching the ground for a brick, something that could smash them inside. “And I’ve seen them. They all have bite guards around their mouths and chains on their arms and legs. They can’t hurt us.”
“Are … are you sure this is—”
Chloë lifted a brick, heart racing, tingling feeling getting stronger in her body as Tiffany’s smile got wider. “Got one.”
She aimed at the window. Hoped the ginger doctor wasn’t in there because he was a nice man, really. Bit angry-looking and strange, but he always gave Chloë some sweets whenever she’d been to see him.
The monsters continued to groan behind the doors.
“Chloë, please don’t—”
She held her breath, swung her arm, let the brick fly at the window as hard as she could.
The glass shattered right away. At first, Chloë expected an alarm to go off, or lights to flicker on in the surrounding buildings. The police sometimes walked around this time of night, and they didn’t like it when kids were wandering about.
But no alarm went off.
No lights came on.
No police.
Just an open window to the ginger doctor’s office and a room full of monsters next door.
“Well, might as well get on with it,” Chloë said.
She climbed up onto the bin, wiped the loose glass away from the window and lifted herself up.
“Chloë!” Annabelle shouted. “Come back here. Stop being stupid.”
Chloë was about to tease her as she pulled herself in through the window when she saw Tiffany climbing the bin.
“Come on, Ann,” Tiffany said. “It’ll be fun! We can just run away if anything happens.”
Chloë watched Annabelle’s cheeks get redder and redder.
She hadn’t been this happy for weeks.
Eventually, Annabelle sighed, looked either side and climbed up onto the bin.
Chloë dropped down into the doctor’s office. Tiffany followed shortly after. And after her, Annabelle.
The three of them stood in the darkness of the room. All of them stared at the big metal door that led to the place where the monsters were being kept. Their groans sounded so close, like they were in the room with them.
Just had to open the door.
Have a little look.
Chloë walked up to it, tingling sensations running right through her body now.
“We don’t have to look inside, Chlo,” Annabelle said. She hung back. Scratched her arms.
Chloë smiled. Reached for the handle. “Just a little look. To show you what I saw.”
She held her breath as she lowered the tough metal handle, felt it shift underneath all of her weight, all of her force.
The door clicked open with a loud bang that echoed right through the office.
Swung open, just slightly.
A bright, piercing light came from the crack in the door as it edged open.
Chloë stepped forward. Waved at Annabelle and Tiffany to come have a look, come see what she’d seen, what she knew.
And then she felt something smack into her and she tumbled to the floor.
She heard Annabelle scream. There was a monster above Chloë. It wriggled about on top of her, wrists cuffed around its back, feet tied together.
She heard Tiffany giggle as a few more monsters all stumbled out through the door, all with their hands tied behind their backs, all tumbling to the floor upon seeing them, mouths covered with metal bars. No danger.
Even Annabelle forced a smile too, as Chloë pulled herself away from the monster on top of her, backed off towards Annabelle and Tiff, watched as the monsters all wriggled around on the floor like little worms.
“We should … we should go now,” Chloë said. “Before anyone—”
“No way!” Annabelle said. She stepped forward. Clearly eager to get in Chloë’s limelight. She poked her foot at one of the monsters—a grey-skinned man with an eye and some of his face missing. Kicked it in its head a bit harder, a bit harder, laughing and giggling with every kick. “Look at me!” she said.
Chloë backed away to the window, Tiffany too. There were four monsters in the room now, all of them still on the floor, wriggling around, groaning and struggling and shaking.
Annabelle kicked another of the monsters in its side. Laughed louder.
And when Chloë looked at Tiffany, she could see that she was smiling at Annabelle. Watching her with adoring eyes.
She’d stolen Chloë’s show.
“Look at me!” Annabelle shouted, as she hopped on the back of a monster, ran off it, then hopped on the back of it again.
Chloë did look at Annabelle.
In fact, she was watching very closely.
Watching the monster underneath her.
The one that didn’t have a metal bite guard between its teeth.
An urge inside Chloë told her to run over there and help Annabelle, get her away from that monster.
But then she remembered all the names and the teasing and all the ways Annabelle got Tiffany on her side, for days and weeks and months.
Chloë gripped Tiffany’s hand. Stepped back. “We—we have to go.”
“Don’t go anywhere, you wuss!” Annabelle shouted, laughing hysterically as she crouched down by the monster, pulled its dark hair. “You brought us here. Don’t chicken out now-argh!”
What happened next flashed by in a blur.
The monster flipped over.
Knocked Annabelle onto her back.
Her head cracked against the tiled floor and the monster was on top of her.
Tiffany tried to throw herself at Annabelle to help her. “Annabelle!”
But Chloë gripped Tiffany’s hand.
Gripped it, as the monster snapped its teeth at Annabelle.
Gripped it, as Annabelle screamed.
Gripped it, as it sunk its teeth into Annabelle’s neck and tore the skin from the flesh, the flesh from the bone.
Annabelle’s eyes stared back at Tiffany, at Chloë, her face getting paler as blood oozed out of her gnawed neck and all over the doctor’s floor.
The monster chewed at her chin as she tried to struggle.
At her mouth.
At her cheeks.
Tiffany cried even louder. Tried to move towards Annabelle.
Chloë tightened her grip around her hand again.
“No,” she said. She shook her head. Looked on, as the life trickled out of Annabelle, the blood dripping from her body. “We … we weren’t here. No one can know we were here.”
She pulled an inconsolable Tiffany away to the window. Helped her up, then climbed up herself.
When Tiffany dropped down to t
he ground outside, Chloë looked back at Annabelle’s lifeless body as the monster feasted on her flesh.
She saw her face.
A part of her cheek missing.
Her head cracked, the beauty gone.
And she felt something inside.
Something like warmth.
Something like revenge.
CHAPTER FOUR
If Dr Michael Wellingborough had a bad habit, it was that he couldn’t let his work drop, no matter what time of night it was.
He walked down the chilly street towards his surgery. He’d taken samples from a few infected earlier today. One that was quick, another that didn’t groan, and another that had no visible bite marks and yet somehow was infected.
He wanted to compare the blood samples. Study them. See what was different. But of course, that meant giving them samples time to settle.
Until the middle of the night. Three a.m., to be precise.
Like he said. Couldn’t let work drop.
He hopped up the steps towards his office. Always missed out the third one. He’d had this thing about bad luck being associated with the number three right since being a kid. And it’d served him well in later life. He was alive, for one. That was lucky in itself in the world he lived in now.
He was alive and he was studying a potential cure for the infection.
That was a dream.
He heard some laughter down the street where the pub’s lights were still on. A trio standing around a table. All speaking loudly, all waddling from side to side. Pissed out of their minds.
He unlocked the front door to his surgery and tried his best not to capture the attention of the drunkards.
If it were up to him, he wouldn’t have a pub serving alcohol in the Manchester Living Zone. Because it led to negligence. People doing stupid things. They’d already had two people jump over the side of the wall to their death at ridiculous-o-clock. Either they couldn’t handle the goldfish bowl effect or they’d simply had too much to drink.
Most likely the latter.
But really, the thing that bothered him most was his CCTV. It’d been faulty recently. So anyone could break inside his office, snatch some medicine.