by Ryan Casey
The three of them were engulfed in perfect darkness.
“Need to sort that frigging alarm out,” Ivan said, as the fire door creaked under the zombies’ weight. “Door won’t hold long.”
He rushed over to the top of the staircase, his eyes still adjusting to the sudden darkness. The emergency exit stairwell reeked of damp. As he moved, Ivan felt cobwebs brush against his face. The zombies carried on scratching and scraping at the door, and he knew he didn’t have long.
They had to switch the alarm off.
And then they had to get out of here or they had to hide.
Whichever option kept them alive the longest, however short an amount of time that may be.
“Keep close behind me,” Ivan said. He grabbed Nick’s hand. Grabbed Abigail’s too. “Just need to get this bloody alarm off.”
“Will we be safe then?” Nick mumbled.
Ivan swallowed the lump in his throat as he descended the stairs into the darkness. “We’ll be safer,” he said.
He could only promise that much.
They made their way down the stairs. Every step creaked under their feet. When they reached the bottom, Ivan searched the dusty wall for the alarm reset keypad. His brother-in-law used to fit alarms and he told Ivan it was amazing how many big companies didn’t change their settings from the default: 2222.
Ivan searched even more for the keypad. Felt the cold metal of the box that surrounded it. Lifted the lid, hit in the digits.
The alarm stopped.
Silence descended over the stairwell.
But only for the briefest of seconds, because the emergency fire door at the top of the stairs split open and the zombies came piling in.
Light from the apartment block hall filled the stairwell. Ivan looked up at the group of oncoming zombies. Some of them were quicker than before. They were all heading towards the staircase, jostling like they were in some sort of race to the finish line.
And in a way, they were.
And him, Nick and Abigail were the prize.
He thought about shooting the zombies again, and then he remembered he was out of ammo. He thought about finding a place to hide, but it was too late—they’d seen him, seen Nick and Abigail, and they were coming.
“What do we do now?” Nick asked.
Ivan turned around. Looked at the fire escape door that led out to the front of the apartment block.
He knew what was outside. More zombies than he’d ever seen in his entire life of growing up watching fucking zombie movies. More zombies than all the ones he’d killed on Dead Rising put together.
But there was nowhere else to go. Nowhere to hide.
Nowhere but outside.
“Hold my hands, kids.”
Nick and Abigail turned around.
“But … but outside,” Abigail started. “The dead ones are—”
“We don’t have a choice,” Ivan said.
When he looked Abigail in her eyes, he could see an understanding beyond her ten years. A realisation of the shittiness of the situation they were in. A lack of trust in Ivan, sure, but an understanding that he was doing what he could to keep them alive.
Nick grabbed his hand. Pushed his head against Ivan’s arm and shook it, tears flowing down his cheeks again.
“Come on,” Ivan said, holding a hand out for Abigail. “Please.”
Abigail looked back at the zombies. They were halfway down the staircase now. Some of them had tumbled down the steps and rolled to the bottom, broken legs so that they couldn’t stand anymore.
But they just dragged themselves along, non-stop, endless.
Abigail grabbed Ivan’s hand.
Ivan turned and faced the emergency exit.
He listened to the sound of his pulse racing in his skull.
Held his breath and prepared for whatever awaited them outside.
“Stay close,” he said.
He lifted his boot, kicked the emergency exit lever and the doors swung open.
***
Chloë never wanted to kill someone as much as the man who’d pinned her down and beat her back at the bike place.
She sat against the wall at the back of the vehicle. Jordanna, Tamara and Riley were all lying down in their bunks, all with their eyes closed. Tiffany was beside her. She liked Tiffany being there. It made her feel warm inside. Made her feel special.
But every time she felt special, she remembered what the man with the long, black ponytail had done to her and she felt sick instead.
“Pedro was … he was so nice,” Tiffany whispered.
She kept on going on and on about Pedro. Everyone was moaning on about Pedro. Sure—Pedro was a good man. He’d always been kind to her.
But he was just another dead person on the long list of dead people.
“So was my mum. And my sister. But nobody moped about that for so long.”
Tiffany looked at her with her beautiful blue eyes. Her dark hair still looked so neat and tidy and shiny even after all this time in the vehicle. “Sorry,” she said. “I just don’t know what … you never want to talk about your mum—”
“Because it’s done,” Chloë said. “She’s dead. My sister’s dead. Pedro’s dead. Soon everyone in here will be dead. And then it’ll be just me. Just me on my own. Me and the monsters and … and the things I’ve done.”
She felt a lump forming in her throat and her cheeks going hot and puffy and she hoped Tiffany couldn’t see her like this.
“How do you think I feel?” Tiffany asked.
Chloë turned. Looked at her. They couldn’t hold eye contact for more than a couple of seconds. “What do you mean?”
Tiffany rubbed her hands against the knees of her black jeans. “I … I don’t know you people like you all know each other. And … and I think everyone thinks I’m weak. I think everyone thinks I’m just a weak little girl who’s slowing them all down. But they forget. I’m still here too. And that must mean something.”
Their eyes did meet for a few seconds longer than normal.
It felt nice.
“I’m sorry,” Chloë whispered.
“About what?”
“About your mum. And your dad. I don’t … I don’t think I properly said that. With everything that’s happened. I don’t think I mentioned it properly.”
Tiffany shook her head. “You don’t have to say sorry. They’re just … just more dead people. Like you said.”
Chloë felt slightly guilty about what she’d said about everyone dying now. “You don’t really mean that.”
“I have to get over them or … or I’ll stay weak. I have to be strong. Like you.”
Chloë wanted to tell her that she was strong. That she was the strongest person she ever knew.
She must’ve been strong because a part of her made Chloë feel weak.
“They might still be alive.”
Tiffany half-smiled. Nodded. “They might be. But I don’t know.”
“We’ll go back to them. When … when we’ve taken Riley to Birmingham. We’ll go back. They’ll be there waiting. Probably wonder where you’ve been running away to!”
Tiffany scratched at her jeans. “What you said, though. About getting away from the Living Zone. Before someone found out. About what we did. What we started.”
Chloë hadn’t thought about that for what felt like forever even if it was just a day. Breaking into Dr. Wellingborough’s offices. Letting the monsters loose. Starting the whole fall of the MLZ.
She didn’t feel bad about it, not anymore. She just felt scared of ever going back there.
“Maybe we don’t have to go back,” Chloë said.
The words came out without her really thinking.
“What do you mean?” Tiffany asked.
Damn. She couldn’t really get away from them now. She had to say something. “I just … this world’s big. And there will be other safe places too. And I’ve survived out in the wild. I know how to do it. I just mean … if you want. Maybe we could go somewhere
. Ourselves.”
Chloë glanced at Tiffany and expected her to look stunned and shocked.
Instead, she was smiling. Her blue eyes were wide and so pretty. They were simmering with water.
“I’d like that,” Tiffany said.
Chloë felt that warmth build up even more inside her chest. When Tiffany looked at her, she felt like she didn’t have the scars on her face anymore. Like she was the pretty angel her mum had always told her she was.
Tiffany held a hand out for Chloë.
Chloë put her fingers through it, her head roasting hot and her whole body feeling sweaty.
She intertwined her fingers with Tiffany’s.
The warmth inside her spread into an intense heat, the nicest feeling she’d ever experienced in her whole life.
“We’ll find somewhere,” Tiffany said.
“No matter what,” Chloë said. “We’ll stick together.”
They held eye contact, held hands for another few seconds that felt like forever.
Chloë’s heart raced so fast she thought it might blast out of her chest.
She couldn’t see anything but Tiffany. Anything but how pretty she was. How pretty she made her feel.
She leaned over, looked at her lips, closed her eyes and went in to kiss her.
Tiffany pulled back. She yanked her hand away. Looked at Chloë with shock. With fear.
With the same uncertainty so many people had looked at her with since she’d scarred her face.
“I’m … I’m …”
Chloë turned away. Faced the other side of the vehicle. Her cheeks and her head were on fire. Stupid, stupid, stupid. What was she thinking? Why had she been so stupid?”
“I’m just not … sure whether—”
“Just leave it,” Chloë said.
And she did.
She sighed and she went quiet.
Chloë waited until she was absolutely sure Tiffany wasn’t going to talk again before she let herself cry.
CHAPTER THREE
Light flooded inside the emergency exit shaft as Ivan kicked open the fire escape.
He let go of the kids’ hands and pulled the rifle from the strap over his shoulder, readied himself to knock some zombies down. He’d braced himself. Braced himself to be swallowed by the mass of them, the weight of them, as he charged out of the apartment building and onto the front.
He’d been ready to run for his life, for the children’s’ lives.
But something wasn’t right.
The promenade of the docklands opposite the apartment block and in front of Ivan was empty.
Completely empty, but for a trail of blood and entrails where the zombies had walked just minutes ago.
Abigail stepped a little ahead of Ivan. Looked on in confusion. “Where … where did they …”
The docks were completely silent. The water of the docklands was still. The only sound was from the zombies inside the apartment block behind them. Ivan turned around, slammed the door shut just before they could follow them out, then leaned back against it and tried to figure out what the hell was happening.
“They’ve gone,” Nick said. He had a little smile on his face. “You made them go away. You always keep us safe.”
Ivan would’ve loved to have taken the credit, but he was too stunned to do so.
He stuck the empty gun between the handles of the fire escape to buy them a bit of time. He grabbed the kids’ hands and walked slowly away from the apartment block, past the little artificial green potted plants to the left, out onto the slippery cobbles of the docklands and into the sun.
He looked down to the left of the docks where the mass horde of zombies had come from. As far as he could see, they were gone, but for the odd straggler that wouldn’t be much of a problem at this distance.
He looked to his right. Looked ahead in the direction the zombies had all been walking. That, too, was empty. If it wasn’t for the blood and body parts, nobody would’ve known they were ever here.
“Where did they all go?” Nick asked.
Ivan was still cautious, so he stepped slowly and quietly to the blue railing at the edge of the docklands. He looked down in the water. Saw a few of the fallen zombies floating in the murky abyss, doomed to thrash their arms down there for eternity—or until they rotted away.
“They can’t just disappear,” Abigail said. “That’s impossible.”
Ivan looked over the water, across to the Morrisons and to Worthington’s Bike Emporium. It felt like forever that they’d been there and raided the place. Since his reunion with Riley, and with an unconscious Pedro. “Yeah,” he said. “You’re right. It is impossible. Come on.”
Ivan took the kids’ hands and they walked up the promenade. The fallen body parts squelched beneath their shoes. It reeked in the heat of the sun, too. Absolutely reeked, like a fridge full of food that’d gone off years ago.
Multiplied by a thousand.
Apart from the zombies rattling away at the apartment block fire door, Ivan couldn’t believe how quiet it was. He couldn’t understand how the place could be filled with zombies one second—absolutely stuffed with them—and then empty.
And sure, no doubt some of the zombies had gone into the apartment block. But not all of them. Not as many as there were outside. That’d be physically impossible.
Ivan truly understood what the old cliché about somewhere being “too quiet” meant.
They found a black Range Rover with half a tank after thirty minutes of trouble-free walking.
“Shotgun!” Nick said. He jumped into the passenger seat, slammed the door shut and stuck his tongue out at Abigail.
Abigail grabbed the handle to the back door and pulled it open. She rolled her eyes and tutted. “Like I’m bothered about stupid shotgun. Being shotgun just means it’s easier for the dead ones to get you.”
The smile dropped from Nick’s face after that one.
Ivan started up the engine and rolled down the window. He stuck his head outside. Looked out at the fields around them, at the trees in the distance, at the industrial estates. They were all empty. So empty. So quiet.
It gave Ivan way more creeps than he thought it would. Maybe this is what it’d be like when the world went back to normal. Ha—what a thought. The world back to fucking normal.
There was no such thing as fixing this world. Everybody alive was way too fucked up, too traumatised, to even come close to repair.
Ivan started up the car and drove down the A6, over more scattered body parts. The tires moved smoothly over the blood that was splattered across the road. He’d never known such a bloodbath before. His main intention was just to drive away from the blood and the body parts, but he couldn’t get away from them no matter how hard he tried.
He drove further down the A6.
The evergreen trees peered down at him, watched him closely.
The forest either side got narrower and narrower, like that room on Star Wars that gave him nightmares as a kid.
“Where we off to now?” Nick asked. “Can we go to Blackpool? Maybe it won’t be so bad in Blackpool.”
Abigail rolled her eyes and sighed.
“What’s wrong with Blackpool?” Nick asked. “Just ‘cause you’re scared of roller coasters.”
“I’m not scared of roller coasters,” Abigail said. “Just Blackpool is really close. You think it’ll be any safer in Blackpool?”
Ivan left the kids to bicker as he headed down the road. It was good that they were bickering. Showed that they were comfortable, in a way. If you had the time and the strength to bicker, then something on the outside must be going right.
But that troubled Ivan.
The height of the trees blackened out the low late afternoon sun.
Everything seemed too right.
“If we go to Blackpool, we can go right to the top of the Big One,” Nick said. He lifted his hand up like it was a roller coaster carriage. “And then we can stay up there where the dead ones won’t get us.”
“We’ll eat hot dogs and burgers.”
“From where?”
“From … from the stalls. On the ground.”
“Cooked by who? How will we get down to the ground—”
“Oh can you just play for once, Ab. Please.”
The pain and the croakiness in Nick’s voice was enough to make Ivan turn and look at him. Nick stared out of the passenger window. His eyes were watery, and his cheeks blotchy.
“You okay, Nick?” Ivan asked.
Nick leaned against the window with his forehead. “I just … just once. I just want to pretend everything’s okay. Like when Mum and Dad used to take us to Blackpool. I just want to pretend.”
Ivan shot a glance at Abigail as she sat in the back seat. Her hands were on her knees and her eyes were wide. The look his boys always used to have when they knew they’d done something wrong.
Ivan tilted his head in the rearview mirror. Lifted his eyebrows and nodded towards Nick.
Abigail rubbed the top of her thighs. Cleared her throat. “Okay,” she said. “We’re going to Blackpool. We’ll get food from the candy floss stall. So much of it it’ll fill the whole roller coaster.”
Nick’s eyes were still watery, but a smile twitched at the corners of his mouth.
“And when we’re up there we’ll just eat candy floss all the time, right from the highest bit of the roller coaster.”
Nick sniffed. “And what if the dead ones do climb up?”
“Then we’ll start the roller coaster and zoom down the track and BAM!” She clapped her hands together. “We’ll splatter them to pieces.”
Nick laughed. He wiped the tears from his eyes.
It was nice to pretend everything was normal every once in a while.
It was nice to …
Ivan slammed his foot on the brakes.
He jolted forward towards the window. Heard Nick and Abigail thump against their seatbelts, too.
The car came to a halt.
He stared out of the window. Stared at what was ahead. He blinked a few times. He couldn’t quite believe what was in front of him, what he was seeing.
“My neck hurts,” Abigail said.