by Casey, Ryan
He wondered just how far that went.
How deep it went.
How far the experimentation went.
But they were safe—for now.
Except there was a different kind of threat, now.
A different kind of drama rearing its head.
And that was down to the woman sitting opposite him.
“So you fly helicopters now?” he asked.
It was a ridiculous question, really. He knew it was. Of all the questions he could ask, it was the most typically… well. British. All these years. All this pain. All this loss. And all the past baggage that had unfolded between him and Alison, too.
It all came to a head with that one simple question.
But shit. What the hell else was he supposed to ask? Besides. He was genuinely surprised to see her piloting a helicopter. Never imagined she had it in her.
The response from Alison was equally absurd, too.
She laughed.
“You never were good at breaking the ice, were you?”
Riley smiled, then. Looked down. Shook his head. Alison had walked away from him all those years ago. She’d turned her back on him and taken his child away to Australia.
And he’d let her go.
He’d turned his back on her by not fighting for her.
That was his fatal flaw.
Malaise.
Alison rubbed her hands together. She looked different, in a way. Her blonde hair was shorter. She was more… well built. Like she worked out a lot. Looked younger than he remembered. Healthy.
But it was still clearly her.
“Okay,” she said. “Go on. I’ll humour you. Yeah, I fly.”
“How the hell does that even happen?”
“The world out there,” Alison said. “It’s… well. It’s very different.”
“The virus—”
“Didn’t reach Australia,” she said. “We were one of the lucky ones. But we know of plenty of places that were affected. In a sense, they were black-zones, though. Most of Europe. We didn’t know a lot about them. Just that we had an opportunity to help with the clean-up operation. But being in Britain… yeah. Shit really is different when you see it for yourself. The virus. The way it… manifests.”
Riley nodded. “I can imagine that was quite a shock.”
“You hear stories, you know? Rumours. Rumours of people eating one another. Of zombie-like people. Of the dead walking. But you don’t believe it. Not until you see that shit for yourself. But yeah. We didn’t have to worry about that in Australia. A whole world away from us.”
Riley tried to get his head around what he was hearing. Imagining there was a world out there just going on while he and so many others had been suffering for so long… it was a tough pill to swallow.
“And you?” Riley asked.
“Me what?”
“Your… your life. How is it?”
Alison sighed. “You know, I find it hard to believe you’re still here.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You can’t even be direct with me. You can’t even look me in the eye.”
Riley looked up then. And he realised Alison was right. Even now, four years on, when he’d been through so much—but perversely grown so much too—it were the demons of the past which haunted him.
Reminded him of his responsibilities.
His terrifying responsibilities.
“You can ask how Riley Junior is doing, you know.”
Riley gritted his teeth. Tried to push that question away. Because it was too painful. Too raw.
“If not… well. He’s doing well. Goes to school. Top of the class. Great at maths, so clearly doesn’t take after his dad.”
“I was always alright at maths.”
“I’m talking about his dad, Riley.”
That’s when Riley realised what Alison was talking about. Of course. He wasn’t his dad. He hadn’t been there for him. He hadn’t helped him grow.
And yet there was still a strange sense of defensiveness—of protectiveness—over a kid he didn’t know.
“How is the dad with him?”
“Stuart is brilliant. He’s loving. Caring. I mean… he’s everything you weren’t.”
“Charming.”
“No point beating around the bush, Riley. I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you’ve grown into. I only know the Riley I know.”
“Well that Riley’s come a long way,” he said, barely able to contain his frustration. “That Riley’s done a lot. A lot of good. A lot of bad too, sure. But… but mostly good. He’s still here. People he cares about are still here.”
“And he speaks in the third person now.”
He half-smiled. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
She smiled back at him. Looked away. “Congratulations, anyway. I hear you’re having a kid. Anna seems nice.”
Riley gulped. Nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, she is.”
“Do you love her?”
“More than I ever loved you.”
“Ouch,” Alison said, laughing in turn. “Now look who’s wearing the gloves.”
He smiled back at her then. Got the sense that the ice had been well and truly broken.
“So why are you here?” Riley asked. “If your life’s so sorted. Why are you here?”
He knew he had her, then. Saw the slight blush to her cheeks when he used to catch her out. When she used to get embarrassed. He saw that look in her eyes. The way they twinkled. And he knew she was still there, underneath.
That the affection was still there.
“I guess I was curious,” she said.
“Curious?”
“I mean, I was on a mission. A chance to return home. A chance to see how… well. My parents. You know.”
“And then you ended up here.”
“Island 47 is something of a place of mystery,” she said. “Held in rather high esteem. I guess it’s a shame to see what kind of a state it’s in now. Clearly timed things badly.”
“So what’s the plan now?” he asked.
She smiled. “The plan?”
“I mean, you have a helicopter. You seem to know how to bloody fly one. And there’s a whole world out there. So is this how it ends? You come in, save the day, take us out of here?”
Alison’s face dropped, then. “Riley, you know damn well I can’t just do that.”
The inevitability hit him, then. He couldn’t react in any other way than a sigh. “Enlighten me.”
“The virus,” she said. “Everything you thought about it is true.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She leaned forward and put her hands on the table between them. “I’m on a clean-up mission. Not a rescue mission. Not anymore.”
Riley stared at her. Tried to wrap his head around what she was saying. Tried to understand. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She sighed. “It’s not just one thing anymore, Riley. Not just one virus. There are loads of viruses. Loads of forms. And it’s adapting. It’s changing. All the time. And it means…”
She stopped. Looked away.
“What?” Riley asked.
“It means there’s no future for you in the outside world. You’ve been with the virus for too long. There’s no going back for you, Riley. There’s no going back for anyone. Not anymore.”
Chapter Three
Melissa sat by the crosses in the thick of night, and she put a hand to her belly.
It was late. She had no idea what time. And she knew she should probably get some sleep. It’d been a long time since she’d slept, after all. She couldn’t remember the last time. Maybe five minutes here and there on the helicopter over.
But now she was back here… she wasn’t sure she was going to be getting any sleep for a long time.
As much as she wanted to.
And as much as, deep down, she knew she needed to.
Because sleep was going to be crucial to the health of her baby.
; It was going to be crucial to her pregnancy.
But how was she ever going to sleep with the knowledge of what she’d left behind?
And the knowledge of what had happened to Ricky?
She felt a twinge of sheer dread every time she thought of his name. Because she thought she was the one putting herself in danger. She thought she was the one who Ricky had to worry about. Not the other way round.
But she’d come back to chaos.
She’d come back to loss.
And she felt so alone.
She looked at Ricky’s cross and put a hand on it. And if she closed her eyes enough, she could convince herself that he was there. That it was his hand she was making contact with.
But then the illusion collapsed and caved in on itself, and she was back to normal in no time.
Back to the realisation that yes, he was gone.
Yes, she was alone.
And everything else seemed to be shifting around her.
She thought about Riley. About his reunions. Ted. Alison. Hell, even Anna all that time back.
She thought about the way he’d thought he’d suffered loss so many times and the way he’d been proven wrong, and she couldn’t get over how lucky he was, really. How fortunate he was. She couldn’t shake her envy.
Because all she’d known was loss.
She hadn’t had the fortune of losing someone only for them to come back again.
She remembered something. Back when she’d lost people in the past. Something that had helped her, for a while. Even though it seemed weird, even though it was absurd, praying. Maybe not praying in the conventional sense, but just talking. Putting her thoughts out there. Trying to converse, in a sense.
But knowing she wouldn’t get an answer, absolutely.
Just a way of processing her thoughts.
A way of vocalising her emotions.
Seeing if they made any more sense when they were out in the open.
And as a tear rolled down her cheek, she knew she was going to have to try it with Ricky.
She knew she was going to have to try.
“Hey,” she said.
But that first word. It was enough to make her cry even harder. She hadn’t even started talking properly, putting her words out there, and already she knew this was going to be a struggle. It was going to be nigh on impossible.
But she was going to have to keep on trying.
“I made it back,” she said, eyes still closed, trying to sound like she was happy. Like she was pleased. “Just… just I told you to wait for me. I told you to stay here. Because… because I have something to tell you. Something I should’ve told you.”
She put her hand against her belly again, and she felt the pain but also the joy. Also the hope.
“I’m pregnant,” she said. “We’re having a baby, Ricky. You’re… you’re going to be a dad.”
When she said the words, she felt a weight lift from her shoulders, of a sort. Finally having it out there. Finally vocalising it, even if it was painful to admit especially now Ricky wasn’t here anymore.
It made it real.
And that meant it made it so she could really think about how things were going to go from here.
“There’s someone I’m with, too,” Melissa said. “Someone… someone called Alison. She knows Riley. It’s a long story. But she’s going to find a way to get us off this island. She’s going to find a way to make things better for us. All over again.”
No response. Just the sound of silence. The sound of the breeze brushing through the empty streets. The sound of a group of survivors gripped by terror.
“Why did you have to do it, Ricky?” she said. “Why did you have to sacrifice yourself? Why did you have to give up everything? Why couldn’t you wait for me?”
Again, there was no response. And talking didn’t seem to be having its intended effect. It didn’t feel like it was making anything better.
But she kept her hand on the side of that cross and felt a link. Felt a connection.
And she hoped, in time, that things would be better.
That they would improve.
That she’d make sense of this whole sorry mess.
“I found someone else out there,” she said. “A man. Ted. He… he used to know Riley, too. Riley thought he was gone. For years, he thought he was dead—certainly dead. But he wasn’t. He was still out there. So maybe… maybe it’s time I had some luck of my own. Maybe it’s time we had some luck. Right, Ricky? Right?”
More silence followed.
She pulled her hand away, then. Wiped her tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. She realised she was wasting her time here.
It was time to stand up.
Time to face the world.
Time to move ahead with whatever.
She stood; turned around, hand still on her belly.
That’s when she saw someone.
A silhouette.
A silhouette watching in the distance.
She didn’t have to see his face to know.
She didn’t have to see anything to realise the truth.
“Ricky?” she said.
She went to take a step towards him, not believing, not accepting.
And when she looked again, she saw he was gone.
“Ricky?”
No response.
Nothing but silence.
She looked around. Back at the grave.
Then back at the spot where she’d seen him.
She took a deep breath. And through the pain, through all of it, she felt something.
A weird sense of contentment.
A weird sense of ease.
Like he was looking over her.
Watching out for her.
She went to turn around when she felt a movement in her belly.
And then something like an arm around her body making her feel so comfortable, so at ease.
And she forced herself to smile.
He was still here.
He was still watching.
And he would live on. No matter what.
Chapter Four
Riley lay next to Anna and tried to comprehend the day’s events.
One thing was for sure. Sleep wasn’t going to come easy.
Sunrise was rapidly approaching. The sky wasn’t jet black anymore, more a deep blue that teased the day to follow. He could hear the birds singing out there already. The seagulls swooping down, reminding him of the days before, of times at the seaside.
He wished he could lose himself in those thoughts. Wished he could disappear into those memories, sink into their sheer innocence. It kind of reminded him of the difference between childhood problems and adulthood problems. Back in childhood, you could lose a toy or fall out with a friend for half an hour and it was the end of the world. But it all seemed so trivial when you looked back under the cloud of mortgage issues and job pressures and relationship dramas.
But now Riley looked back at them, they seemed so trivial. When it was life and death, pretty much everything did.
And now Riley knew the truth about the virus and the outside world, it felt like things had shifted all over again.
“So we’re not leaving this place?” Anna said.
Riley took a deep breath, sighed. “It appears that way.”
“And you believe her?”
Riley shrugged. “I don’t see any reason not to believe her. If anything, it’s the most believable thing anyone’s ever said. We’ve been living surrounded by this virus for years. We’ve been exposed to it for way too long. And we’ve seen it work in weird ways. Seen people turn under different circumstances. Seen people not turn when we think they should. So it stands to reason that the world out there is gonna be afraid of us. All we know is that this virus is changing. It’s changing all the time. We just don’t know how it’s going to change next. Where it’s going to go from here.”
Anna was silent, other than her heavy breathing. He knew it meant she was stressed, that she was mullin
g everything over.
And he knew which question was coming before it even arrived.
“So what does it mean for us?”
He looked at her. Saw the way her hand rested on her belly. And he felt a combination of emotions. Sadness. And also pride, too. Pride that they’d beaten the odds to make it here. Pride that they’d fought so much to make it this far.
And there was something else, too. A weight lifting off his shoulders. Because he knew they were going to turn now. He knew there was no way out. Even though Kesha had shown the ability to cure a particular strain of the virus, she wasn’t a cure for everything. She might be different, but everyone had their limits. Especially when this virus was always changing. Always adapting.
Always duplicating and recreating itself, over and over again.
But then Riley remembered something.
Something that made him start to wonder.
“Kesha,” he said. “She… she turned. I saw it. She started to turn. Saw the blood running down her mouth. I saw her show all the traits of the virus. But she’s still living. She’s still here. She’s still okay.”
Anna turned around. Looked into Riley’s eyes. “Where are you going with this?”
Riley’s heart raced. He could see the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle tumbling down in front of him. He just needed to arrange them properly; fix them into place. “I don’t know. I just… I just know that she should’ve turned. She should’ve turned, but she’s still here. We need to look out for her. To protect her. No matter what. Because she’s important.”
He felt something, then. Anna’s hand. Her fingers intertwining with his.
She looked at him, and she half-smiled.
“We don’t know what the future holds,” she said. “That’s the problem. We’re dealing in ‘maybes’. At the end of the day, there’s only one certainty in front of us. And that’s that we’re stuck here, and the new world isn’t exactly going to roll out the welcome mat for us. There’s no changing that. So we… we do what we can to live the best life we can. To give our child the best life we can. To give everyone we care about the best life we can. And when our time comes… our time comes. Because that’s how it’s always been, really. That’s the way life’s always gone. Only the cycle is just a little more unpredictable now, right?”