by Ryan Casey
“How far to go, chief?” Riley asked, doing his best to break the ice.
James glanced over at him. A fearful glance? No. More one of trepidation. Of uncertainty. A realisation that the people he was driving weren’t the people he’d expected.
They were the kind of people who butchered a group of bikers who may or may not be innocent.
The kind of people who left two kids to find their own way in the world.
“Should be there in about—about half an hour,” James said. His voice was shaky and rough. Another giveaway sign that he hadn’t had much sleep.
Riley took in a deep breath, his stomach tingling with nerves and anticipation. He hadn’t had much sleep himself. The memories of what had happened to Pedro didn’t help. Nor did the manner in which Chloë and Tiffany departed the group.
Yesterday had been a long day. A confusing day. Ivan. The mass of creatures. And then what had happened with the sound Riley had heard. The sound that had exploded the heads of tonnes of creatures.
The creature with long, sharp teeth that was covered in a tar-like substance.
Riley didn’t have the answers to the things he’d seen. He figured he never would.
“So what happens?” James asked.
“What happens when?”
“When… when we get there. When you get there. What do you say? ‘Hey, all. I’m the cure.’ How does it work, like?”
Riley pondered James’ words. Truth be told, he hadn’t had all that much time to think about it. They’d not been on the road for long, but it felt like forever ago that they were fighting off the masses of creatures at the Manchester Living Zone.
That he was hunting deer with Pedro.
Shit. How things had changed.
“I guess I just tell them about Jim Hall. About Dr Wellingborough.”
“The guys who run your old place?” James asked.
Riley nodded. He kept on forgetting James was new to the group. Another symptom of a delayed interpretation of time. Another consequence of all the shit that had happened to them on the road.
“And how do you know they’ll, like, believe you?” James asked.
Riley hadn’t even thought that far ahead. With all they’d lost on the road, he was still taking things one small step at a time. “Let me worry about that.”
“No,” James said. “I’m worried about it. ‘Cause I’m escorting you there.”
“You can leave if that’s what you want. You can take your chances on the road.”
“Is that what you say to everyone you don’t agree with? They can take their chances on the road and see how they swim?”
Riley caught James glancing at him. That frown came across his face again. And then he looked away. Shook his head. His greasy blond hair waved from side to side. “Sorry. Just … just tired.”
Riley adjusted his back in the uncomfy-as-hell chair. “Aren’t we all.”
He looked in the rear mirror that gave him a good view of the back of the armoured vehicle. Tamara and Jordanna were the only two people in there. Tamara was sitting beside Jordanna sipping at some water. Jordanna was still flat out. She’d been unconscious all night. She was barely living, not anymore. They’d run into a toppled pharmaceutical truck a few miles back. Tamara had found some Carbatrol, forced them down Jordanna’s throat. Helped with the seizures, apparently.
But there was no telling when Jordanna was going to wake. No telling whether she would wake up at all.
“I hope you’ll give as much a shit about me if I topple over like her,” James said.
Riley glanced at him. “Well I barely even know you. I’ve known Jordanna since day one.”
“Course. It’s all ‘cause you’ve known her since day one. Nothin’ to do with you two being all lovey-dovey.”
“Be careful,” Riley said. “Don’t want anyone thinking you’re jealous.”
James laughed. “Well I swing both ways, y’know? So it’d be no problem to me.”
Riley felt his cheeks redden as James looked at him. He turned away and stared out at the road. “Sorry. I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t have a clue I was just a little bit queer?” James asked.
“I … I guess the hair … and …”
“I’m just fuckin’ with you. I’m straight as a post. But thanks for the fucking hair comments. I’ll take them on board.”
Riley blushed even more, felt like even more of a moron.
“So what’s your story, anyway?” Riley asked.
James puffed his lips out. “Where do I start? Preston born and raised. Mum worked at a grocery.”
“I mean how did you wind up where you were?”
James glanced at him. Smiled. “What you’re really asking is, ‘have you lost anyone? and if so, who?’ ‘Cause that’s the only thing we all got in common now, right?”
Riley nodded. “I suppose so.”
“Well I was one of the lucky ones,” James said. “Didn’t have no family who gave much of a shit about me. Something to do with me seeking a career in music over a well-paying job. Didn’t have many friends I gave a shit about. No kids. No wife. Pretty boring guy, really.”
“People who haven’t lost a thing are a rare breed.”
“I didn’t say I hadn’t lost a thing. Had a little border terrier called Ollie. Fourteen years old he was. Loved him to bits. Had him as long as I’ve lived on my own. Anyway, problem with Ollie is he’s way too trustin’. Do anything for a scratch behind those velvety ears of his. Like running up to one of the dead ones. Jumping up at them. And …” James’ face went pale, as the memory of losing his poor dog replayed through his mind. “Yeah. You get the picture.”
“All too clearly,” Riley said. He wasn’t sure if he sounded too insensitive right off the bat. Truth be told, he didn’t mean to sound sarcastic or anything. Just hearing of all the loss of people, of friends, of family—experiencing the loss of people he’d learned to trust … well, it was interesting to hear from someone who’d only lost a dog.
“You made a bad call,” James said. “With those girls.”
Riley felt himself tense up inside. “What makes you say that?”
James shook his head. “You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone. My dad used to always say that. Though, thinkin’ of it that was usually about booze. But he had a point, my old man.”
“You didn’t know Chloë. You don’t know what she’s—”
“We’ve all done things, Riley. None of the good ones are left. All the good ones were too good to survive. All that’s left is the bad people, and the very bad people. We just gotta learn to stay bad and not go very bad.”
The way he glimpsed at Riley told Riley what he needed to know: James was worried Riley was slipping over the edge into “very badness.”
“I never said I was good,” Riley said.
“No, you didn’t. And I wouldn’t have believed you if you had. In fact, they’re the ones we can’t trust these days. The people who say they’re good. They’re the ones we should worry about the—”
James didn’t finish what he started saying.
He didn’t finish because something clattered down on the windscreen.
Smashed right through.
Landed on top of Riley.
As the vehicle careened from side to side and James shouted out, all Riley could focus on was the thick black tarlike skin of the thing on top of him.
The thick, tarlike skin and the teeth, long and sharp, wrapping around his neck.
CHAPTER TWO
Chloë’s head felt like it had been hit very hard.
She opened her eyes, but that was hard work. She just wanted to keep them closed. She was so tired. Her legs were so weak, as were her arms and her whole body. She felt nice, except for her head. Like a warm blanket was wrapped around her body keeping the bad feeling in her head from spreading around the rest of her body.
She could feel like this forever.
If only that headache would go.
She could taste something. Saltiness. Something she’d tasted when she’d been captured by Moustache Man. And before that, too, a few times. Her first memory of that salty taste was when she’d been running down the street in a race with Elizabeth’s friends and one of them—Nasty Nina—had tripped her up. She’d gone flying to the road, tasted that saltiness all in her mouth.
The taste of blood.
She wasn’t sure where she was. She couldn’t remember what had happened for her to get here. Something to do with Riley. Something on the motorway. Something …
Her stomach tightened up.
She remembered the argument with Riley. Confessing to her part in the fall of the MLZ.
And then she remembered walking away with Tiffany. Hearing footsteps in the sloshy mud. She’d been so cold, so wet and damp. But now she was dry. Her throat and head were a bit sore, but she was dry and she was safe and …
She struggled to open her eyes. Looked around her at the blurry room she was in.
It was like a hospital. Lots of silver tables to her left and her right. She was on one of these silver metal tables herself. She wasn’t wearing the clothes she’d been wearing when she’d been captured by whoever these people were. She was wearing a white gown that had a hole in the back—a hole that felt cold, Chloë realised, as she lay against the metal surface.
She’d seen dressing gowns like this before. When her Granny had an operation, she’d worn one of these weird gowns. Chloë couldn’t understand at the time why they couldn’t just button up the back of the gown too. If they had all the money to be able to cure people, then why didn’t they find a few extra pounds to finish making a proper gown?
In front of her was a big mirror. She could see herself in it. Her face looked skinnier than the Chloë she had in her own head. Her scars made her feel uneasy like they always did. She always forgot just how bad they were. Why anyone would like her, she had no idea. Why Tiffany would …
A spark inside her belly.
Tiffany.
Tiffany had been beside her before she’d been taken. And then she’d just gone. Vanished. Which meant something happened to her. Something bad. It usually was something bad that happened to people. Good things didn’t happen much anymore.
Chloë pulled herself to the edge of the metal bed. Her legs were so tired and they felt like jelly. Looking over the side of the bed, the white tiles on the floor seemed so far away. She felt like if she tumbled off the edge, she’d never get back up again. She remembered hearing about a girl in school who used to sleepwalk. She went up to her bedroom window and fell out of it in the night. But because she was all floppy, she was fine, and didn’t break a bone.
But the floor seemed too far down. She didn’t want to fall. She didn’t want to hurt herself.
She just wanted to know where she was. Where Tiffany was. She just wanted to—
She heard a noise somewhere to her right. The sound of a heavy door screeching against the tiles.
She looked over and she saw a woman staring at her.
The woman had dark hair tied back in a little bun like one of Chloë’s teachers, Miss. Bates, always used to have. She had a freckly face—nice, but freckly—and she was wearing a white coat like a doctor or a scientist wore.
Her eyes widened when she saw Chloë. She looked down at the black notepad in her hands, then back up at Chloë. “You … you’re supposed to be …”
Chloë noticed right away that this woman had an American accent. Chloë found that pretty cool. She didn’t know many Americans. In fact, she hadn’t known any at all. It seemed weird that an American woman was speaking to her, though. Was she in America? Was everything okay in America and that’s where she’d been taken to?
The Americans fixed everything on the TV shows and in the films. So they’d fix this too, right?
“Sweetie, I think it’d be better if you lay back on the … on the bed. You’re not in a very strong state right now.”
The American woman walked towards her, her notepad tucked under her arm. She was smiling, but Chloë could see it was a shaky smile. And the speed she was coming at Chloë, it was like she was in a rush. Like she was desperate for Chloë not to go anywhere.
Chloë got that strange feeling. The feeling that something wasn’t right about this. That something wasn’t right about her being here at all.
She slid to the other side of the metal bed. “Tiffany. My … my friend. Where is she?”
The American lady slowed down, wandered a little side to side, like she was surprised to hear Chloë speaking. Her eyes clouded over. Her freckled face had turned a pasty pale. “She … Your friend is fine. And you’re going to be fine too if you just lie back and rest.”
But there was no way Chloë was lying back and resting.
Not with what she’d seen in the American’s lady’s right hand.
There was an injection needle there. The lady had clearly been trying to hide it, but Chloë had just got a little look at it. And a little look was all she needed. She hated injections. One of her biggest fears about going to high school was the TB injection they give you in Year 10. Six needles, Mary-Anne called it. The six needles of death.
And then there was the time before Chloë went on holiday to Tunisia. She’d cried and screamed when they were going to get injected. Elizabeth had laughed at her. Told her she was going to tell everyone at school. And Chloë said she could tell her anything and do anything just as long as she didn’t have to have an injection.
Funny thing happened. Elizabeth passed out when the needle injected her.
That shut her up.
Chloë kept her eyes on the injection in the right hand of the smiley nurse coming towards her. She assumed she was a nurse—the white jacket and the injection had to belong to a nurse. And Dad once said something about too many foreigners coming over here and taking all the jobs of the English people, especially doctors, so that made sense for this woman to be American, too.
“Just lie back, sweetie,” the woman said. “You’re going to be fine. You’re going to be so, so relaxed.”
Chloë backed away to the edge of the metal bed. She had to wait for the right moment. The exact right moment to back away and …
The woman moved fast towards Chloë. Faster than Chloë had been expecting.
She threw her left hand at Chloë.
Unveiled the needle.
Chloë moved her hand out of the way and slid back off the metal slab and onto the floor.
The pain from hitting the cold tiles stung Chloë’s butt and all down the bottom of her back. She tried to pull herself up, but her knees were like jelly and her back was weak. She could see the nurse stepping around the bottom of the metal bed. She could see the needle in her right hand.
She had to get away.
She had to run.
This wasn’t right.
She tried to wriggle under the metal bed when the woman appeared at her feet. She crouched down and pulled the needle right back. Her cheeks were red and puffy, and she looked liked Mum did when she was cleaning—stressed out.
“Just … please,” the nurse said. “Please keep still.”
She made a lunge for Chloë’s right leg.
Chloë kicked back as hard as she could, which wasn’t very hard with how jelly-like her leg felt.
But it was hard enough to smack the bitch across the face and send her onto her arse.
Chloë heard the woman yelp upon contact. But she didn’t have time to stick around.
She crawled around the top of the metal bed. Forced her knees in front of her. Took a few deep breaths and battled through her aching head and sore throat.
She put weight on her right leg. Gripped the side of the metal bed. Pulled herself up.
When she finally stood, she felt like a baby deer that’d just been born. She was on her feet, but walking was another matter completely. She felt like glass ready to shatter with every step she took towards the big metal door at the other side of this room of meta
l beds.
And the American lady was on her feet now. Her footsteps were getting closer. “You can’t go through there, honey. P—please. Just come back here.”
Chloë kept her focus on that open door.
Kept putting one heavy foot in front of the other, getting closer and closer, but getting just as close to losing her balance.
She felt the woman’s hand grab her right shoulder and she knew she couldn’t run anymore.
So she swung around and jumped on top of the woman.
She felt the rage inside her.
The rage at her mum dying. Her sister dying.
The rage at Cameron who’d sliced her face and Annabelle for bullying her and Riley for letting her go.
She pushed down the woman’s hands as hard as she could into the floor. The syringe was out of her reach now.
She looked up at Chloë and for the first time, there was a glimmer of fear in her eyes.
“Please don’t—”
Chloë opened her mouth, wrapped her teeth around the woman’s neck and bit as hard as she could.
She heard the woman scream. Felt the woman starting to struggle as her teeth clamped down on the skin like it was rubber.
And then she felt the skin split.
Tasted that salty blood again, only there was a different saltiness to this blood. The saltiness of another person. She never realised everyone’s blood tasted different.
She bit even harder, right through some chewy stuff that must’ve been muscle. The warm salty blood splattered up from the screaming, thrashing woman’s neck, but Chloë just kept on gripping, kept on biting, until her teeth met and there was no skin or muscle between them.
She pulled her mouth away and spat the meat from the woman’s neck on the floor.
The woman was even paler than before. Or maybe that’s just because she was spluttering bubbles of blood, her eyes wide and shocked. There was a massive chunk the size of Chloë’s mouth out of her neck. Blood ran out of it and over the tiled floor. A part of Chloë felt bad for the lady. She seemed nice enough. Pretty enough, too.