by Ryan Casey
“We need to get her inside,” James said.
“We need to keep her still and keep her warm,” Riley said, pushing James away as he approached. He didn’t know what to do. Couldn’t figure out what steps to take. Chloë and Tiffany appeared at the door. Tamara pushed them away when she saw what was happening to Jordanna.
She rushed outside and crouched beside Jordanna. “When did it start?”
Riley’s thoughts were blurry, unfocused. “Er … just now. Just … just now. As we were walking away. She fell and … she just started fitting.”
“Tiffany, Chloë—throw me a pillow.”
James shook his head and backed away. “A pillow? We need to get her the fuck inside the vehicle or get the fuck gone.”
“She’s having a seizure,” Tamara snapped. “Any sudden movements could be fatal to her. We have to keep her comfortable.”
James shook his head again. “It’s getting too dark to be out here. We need to go. Soon.”
Tiffany threw a plump white pillow out and Tamara stuffed it under Jordanna’s head.
Riley stared at Jordanna. All his other senses were dulled. Her body kept on shaking. More blood spurted out of her nose. He couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t understand. He’d just been talking to her. Walking with her. Holding her hand. And now …
A shriek up the motorway.
Riley jolted his head up. Looked into the darkness in the direction they’d come from.
It was too dark to see what was coming, but there was definitely something heading in their direction. The first shriek was followed by another. Between the shrieks, the pattering of footsteps.
Creature footsteps.
James rubbed his arms and stepped back to the vehicle door. “We need to get the fuck inside and get away right now.”
Tamara kept on holding the pillow at either side of Jordanna’s head as she continued to shake. She didn’t seem fazed by the sounds of the creatures, more interested in Jordanna and her safety.
“Riley, snap the fuck out of this,” James shouted. “We need to go. You know we do. There’s something coming, we can’t stay here.”
Riley looked into the darkness again. The heat of the flames from Jamal’s body warmed his back, but he couldn’t stop shivering. In the distance, he could just about make out specks of movement.
Creatures coming their way.
“James is right,” Riley said. “We need to get her inside. We can’t stay out here.”
Tamara shook her head. “This isn’t good. We—we could do her damage. We could—”
“I’ll tell you what’ll do her damage,” James said, hanging out of the vehicle’s side door. “Leaving her out here to—”
He didn’t finish his sentence because a creature raced at him and knocked him to the ground.
A creature unlike any he’d ever seen.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Get her inside. Quick!”
Riley turned away from the fitting Jordanna and ran at the creature that pinned James down. James was struggling and shouting. The creature on top of him was covered in a thick, black substance that smelled like tar. It was unlike any creature Riley had seen.
He threw himself at it. Barged into it so that James was free.
He held it down against the motorway.
It snapped its teeth at him. Tried to get to his neck. It was faster than the usual creatures. Seemed more animalistic. Its teeth were thinner and sharper than any human Riley ever knew.
“Shoot it!” Riley said.
He tried to keep on pinning it down but he was struggling with its weight. Any second now and the beast would throw him away, send him flying onto his back, sink those piercing sharp teeth into his neck.
He kept on holding, tensing as hard as he could. Heard the sound of more footsteps approaching. Hoped to God Jordanna was okay.
And then he slipped back and landed on his back.
The creature pulled itself up.
Leaned over Riley.
Opened its mouth and dribbled down some of that rotting-smelling tar all over his face.
Riley looked across the tarmac. Saw Tamara, Tiffany and Chloë dragging Jordanna back inside the vehicle. Further ahead, he saw more creatures coming his way.
He closed his eyes. Readied himself for the bite.
And then he heard a blast and felt the creature tumble from his body, a blast of the thick goo splattering over his chest.
He opened his eyes. James was standing over him, gun in his shaking hand. His eyes were firmly focused on the creature on the road. Wide and terrified.
“Took long enough,” Riley said, pulling himself up and standing beside James. “Now let’s get to the van before we …”
Riley didn’t get to finish his sentence.
The door to the armoured vehicle was blocked by several creatures. First six, then seven, then double that in the space of a few seconds. Not the tar-like ones that’d pinned him down just moments ago, but enough of them to cause a problem.
“The fuck do we do now?” James asked.
Riley stepped back as the creatures got closer. “We run. Fast.”
James started to say something in response to Riley but Riley was already running.
He sprinted to the right of the armoured vehicle as the creatures got closer. He heard James’ footsteps behind him. They had to get in through the driver’s door. Find their way inside. Get the hell out of here.
Riley reached the driver’s door just before the creatures turned around the front of the vehicle. He pulled the handle.
It didn’t budge.
He looked back at James, who stood there pointing his pistol at the creatures with his shaking hand. “I—I tried to tell you. Door’s jammed.”
“Oh for fuck’s …”
Riley heard groans and footsteps to his right. More creatures walking around the back of the vehicle.
“What the hell do we do now?” James shouted. He kept on pointing his gun, waiting for Riley’s word before firing. “Riley, what do we do?”
Riley listened to the footsteps coming from the left and the right, smelled the decomposing flesh closing in …
And then he looked up.
The hatch on the top of the motorhome.
“We climb,” Riley said.
He grabbed the wing-mirror, which twisted under his weight. Climbed up the side of the slippery metal exterior of the armoured vehicle. Below, he could hear the creatures closing in on James, and then closing in on his ankles.
But he just had to keep his cool.
Just had to keep on breathing.
Keep on climbing.
He grabbed the roof of the vehicle. Saw the metal hatch right in front of him. So close. So close to safety. So close to …
And then he felt something grab his ankle tightly and yank him back down.
He swung around. Got ready to boot the head off the creature that was holding him.
But when he looked around, he saw James gripping on to the wing mirror with a little petrified grin. “Sorry,” he said. “Couldn’t resist.”
Riley had to bite his lip to resist kicking James back down for the creatures to feast on.
He climbed onto the roof of the armoured vehicle. Turned over and grabbed James’ hand, helped him up onto the roof just before the creatures got to him.
Only he didn’t quite make it in time.
A creature clutched James’ ankle. Dragged him back down the side of the vehicle, James almost pulling Riley’s arm out of its socket with the force.
Riley held onto James’ hand.
“Please,” James shouted. “Please hold on. Please.”
Riley saw a flash in his eyes of James falling to the road, the creatures swarming on top of him and tearing the flesh from his bones.
He held on tightly. Tried to pull James up, as James shook and kicked out at the creature that held onto him.
The creature opened its mouth.
Went for James’ leg.
A blas
t.
The blast was so loud it made Riley’s ears sting. Only it wasn’t the blast of a gun, like he first thought. It was a blast of static. A blast of white noise, only turned up so loud it made his eardrums reach bursting point.
He wanted to cover his ears but he couldn’t because he was still holding on to James.
He squeezed his eyes together. Tensed his jaw. The screeching, buzzing noise just got louder, more intense, more pronounced, more painful.
And then it stopped.
Just as quickly as it started, it stopped.
Riley opened his eyes. He looked around. The sky seemed a little darker, but that was probably just the sunset. There was an odd smell in the air, though. Like the creatures had rotted a whole lot more since that sound had been emitted.
The creatures.
He looked down the side of the vehicle where he realised he’d dropped James and braced himself to be faced with a bloodbath.
He got one. Of sorts.
James was lying on the road. All around him, blood. Guts. Pieces of flesh.
But James wasn’t dead. In fact, he didn’t even look bitten. He looked okay. Covered in blood, but okay.
The blood came from the burst heads of the creatures lying around him.
Riley heard the door of the armoured vehicle swing open. Tamara rushed out. “What the hell just happened?”
James lay there on his back staring up at Riley and gasping. He was shaking all over. His tan coat was completely red, drenched with blood.
“Holy shit,” Tamara said. She covered her mouth, started heaving, obviously getting a whiff of the smell.
“What … what was it?” Riley mumbled, but not really to anyone but himself.
James sat up. Pulled a piece of flesh from the arm of his coat. His face was growing paler by the second.
“The sound,” Riley said, still not comprehending what the hell was going on. “The sound. What … Did the sound cause this? It had to be the sound.”
“What sound?” Tamara asked, helping a blood-drenched James to his feet.
Riley frowned. “The sound. The—the screeching. The white noise. You heard it. Right? James?”
James stared into Riley’s eyes. There was something like fear in James’ expression. The same fear Riley imagined was in his eyes right now.
“I didn’t hear anythin’,” James stuttered. “Just—just you let go. And then their heads—their heads burst.”
Upon saying the words, James’ face went completely pale. He turned away and barfed what little was in his stomach all over the road.
Riley rose and stared down the motorway into the darkness. Looked over the piles of creatures with exploded heads. Something had happened. Some kind of signal. Something had blown their brains to pieces.
The hatch on the roof of the vehicle opened. Tamara offered a hand to help Riley down.
Riley turned away from the road and looked back down the other side of the vehicle. The creature with the sharp teeth and the black, tar-like skin. There was something decidedly monstrous about it. Something … beyond human.
There’d been a few times in the Dead Days where Riley had felt completely lacking in answers and understanding, but all along, a degree of familiarity had remained. A sense that the world was what it appeared on the surface: a virus had spread, people had turned into walking creatures, everyone found their own ways to survive.
But right now, with the signal and the sharp-toothed creature he’d seen on the motorway … there was a distinct degree of unfamiliarity about the world. A sense that this wasn’t his world anymore. That he’d landed in a land where things didn’t make as much sense, like humans landing on a distant planet and learning the ways.
“Riley? You coming?”
Tamara’s voice. She looked up at him through the hatch.
“Yeah,” Riley said. He walked over to the hatch and lowered himself down it.
The screeching in his ears.
The head-splitting sound he’d heard.
“You definitely didn’t hear anything?” Riley asked.
Tamara looked at James, who was smothered in blood. They both shrugged and shook their heads. “Sorry. What did you hear?”
Riley gulped. Shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”
He dropped down into the armoured vehicle.
It doesn’t matter.
He didn’t believe that for one minute.
***
Ivan saw a light above him and he realised he was awake.
He tried to move but he was stuck. Stuck to some kind of cold metal table that made him shiver all over. He tried to shout out and scream but he couldn’t. His vocal chords failed him. He tried to look around the room, edge his neck to scan it, but he couldn’t.
He was completely stuck.
His heart raced and he felt a pure, cold fear overcome him. When he was younger, he used to suffer from bouts of sleep paralysis. Some nights he’d wake up with his eyes still shut unable to move a muscle. He’d tried to scream. Tried to shake. Try to wriggle himself awake, but he could do absolutely nothing about it.
Sometimes, he saw black silhouettes at the foot of his bed, too.
He didn’t see any silhouettes this time, though. Just the light above him. A bright, circular light that made his eyes sting and stream. He wanted to blink, but of course he couldn’t do that either.
He wondered for a moment whether perhaps he was on an operating table and he’d woken up mid-operation. Maybe all the horrible things that’d happened—the zombies, the barracks, all that misery—was just some kind of twisted dream. Something that’d he’d been so afraid of under general anaesthetic that he’d woken up from prematurely.
He held on to that hope.
Held on to that hope, tried to blink, tried to wriggle his little finger and his little toe.
Still nothing.
He tried to think back to his last memory but his thoughts were unclear. Something about lots of bodies. Yes—a pile of zombie bodies, all of them in tatters. The bodies of the horde of zombies he’d seen just minutes earlier? Probably.
And then Pedro. Pedro as a zombie.
Putting Pedro down with the wrench.
Standing up.
Turning around …
But then his thoughts trickled away. He couldn’t grasp the memory. All he knew was that he’d turned around to head back to the Range Rover and he’d seen something horrifying. Something that filled him with fear.
Something that made him want to catch up, warn Riley, and …
A noise. The sound of a door creaking open on his right. A trolley wheeling across a hard tiled floor.
He wanted to look.
He wanted so much to just turn his neck—or even just edge his pupil—and look.
He didn’t have to move at all though.
A woman stepped into his eye-line. He couldn’t work out her facial features because of the light shining down from behind her. Just that she had dark hair. Wearing a white lab coat.
And holding a huge syringe above him.
Ivan tried to shout out. Tried to scream. But he knew it was pointless. He knew he was screwed, as the woman brought the needle down to his neck, pierced the thin flap of skin just below his Adam’s apple, kept on pushing and making Ivan want to scream and cry and fight.
She pushed the needle further into Ivan’s neck. The strange thing about it was he couldn’t feel a thing. But just seeing it was bad enough. Just seeing someone stick a needle into his neck couldn’t be good, not at all.
As the woman held the needle in his neck, humming the theme song to Friends, Ivan wondered where Nick and Abigail were right now. Whether they were okay. He prayed they were. He couldn’t cope if they weren’t. Couldn’t handle it. He’d fought so hard to keep them alive. Done so much to protect them. And they’d done so much for him, too.
He prayed to his atheist god that they were okay.
He didn’t hold out much hope.
“He’s alive, if that’s what
you’re wondering.”
The woman. She spoke. Spoke to someone. But her voice was muffled. And he couldn’t work out who it was she was speaking to. Only there was someone else in the room. He could feel their presence. Feel them so close.
But there was something about the woman’s voice. Something interesting. She sounded … American. Which wasn’t totally weird. Just Ivan hadn’t heard many Americans since the start of the fall.
“Make sure he’s stable,” a man said, in a posh British accent. “We don’t want another ‘Harry.’”
Ivan heard footsteps. Footsteps of heavy boots walking away. He wanted to scream at the man to come back. He tried to shout again. Tried to tense his knuckles. Tried to wiggle his toes and cry—anything so the woman would know he’s awake.
She appeared in his eye-line again.
She was holding something—some pliers.
And there was something strange about her this time.
She was looking right into his eyes.
“I know you can probably hear these words now, Mister,” she said.
Ivan’s heart raced. He could feel tears forming at the corners of his eyes—or maybe that was just his imagination.
The woman brought the pliers closer to his mouth.
He tried to shut it. Tried to bite her hand. Tried everything he could to free himself from this table.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “This might be a little weird. But it’s all for a good cause.”
And then she gripped Ivan’s lower central incisor with her pliers, cracked it free and pulled.
CHAPTER SIX
Jordanna didn’t wake up after the seizure.
Riley sat beside her while Tamara took the wheel of the armoured vehicle. James was too shook up to drive, apparently. Certainly made sense after what’d happened further back.
The creatures’ heads exploding around him.
Seconds away from death, and then … poof.
One of the weirdest things Riley had ever experienced, and he hadn’t even been an eyewitness.
He held Jordanna’s hand. It was warm, which was a good thing because as long as it stayed warm, it meant she was alive. Her eyes were closed. Completely still. There was a red stain on her upper lip next to her scar where the blood had drooled from her nostrils during the seizure. Riley had tried his best to wipe it away, but it was still there, still prominent, still a reminder of how violently she’d started fitting after seeming okay.