Dead Days [Season 11]

by Casey, Ryan

  “What the hell is that?” Anna asked.

  She looked at Rhubi and saw the look of dread in her eyes.

  “Oh no,” Rhubi said.

  “Rhubi? What is it?”

  She looked at Anna, wide-eyed, dazed. “It’s my district. It’s where I came from. It’s—”

  “Anna,” a voice said.

  She turned and saw Melissa standing right opposite.

  Out of nowhere.

  Anna tried to step back. Tried to pull Kesha away.

  But someone grabbed her shoulders.

  Tightened their grip.

  And grabbed Rhubi, too.

  Anna shook. Tried to break free.

  Melissa edged closer. Smile on her face. Vial of blood in her hand.

  Behind her, those colours inched closer. Hallucinogenic. Almost inviting.

  “We gave you a chance to co-operate,” she said, sounding more like Xanthe than ever. “We gave you a chance to do things our way. The easy way. But you forced us into this. This was your doing.”

  Anna tried to pull back. “You leave Kesha alone. You—”

  Melissa stopped, right in front of her. “It’s not Kesha you need to worry about.”

  She nodded.

  One of her companions rammed a syringe into Rhubi’s stomach.

  Rhubi’s eyes widened. Widened further as more blood was extracted from her.

  And then they pulled the syringe away, and Melissa’s attention turned to Kesha.

  She walked over to Kesha. Stroked her hair. Smiled. “You don’t have to worry about the needle, my princess. We’ve got another plan for you. Something much, much easier.”

  Anna kicked back. She tried to break free. Tried to push her captors away.

  But Melissa just reached out and plucked Kesha from her arms.

  “No! No! Give her back! Give her the fuck back!”

  Melissa walked around Anna, then.

  She walked around her, over towards the helicopters, as Kesha wailed and cried in the torrential rain.

  “Goodbye, Anna,” Melissa said. “And good luck. Hopefully, you’ll find the beauty in this new world here. Hopefully, you’ll see just how beautiful the virus really can be. Even if it is the last thing you see.”

  She turned around and headed to the helicopter.

  “No!” Anna shouted. “Kesha! Kesha!”

  But then Melissa disappeared into the helicopter.

  It started up.

  Kicked into life.

  “Kesha! No!”

  The helicopter lifted into the air.

  Turned around.

  And it headed off over the sea, over towards Britain, over towards the rest of the world…

  Kesha in hand.

  Riley’s blood in hand.

  Rhubi’s blood in hand.

  Anna dropped to her knees and cried. She punched the ground. Wept. Because they’d failed. They’d given Melissa a chance, and she’d taken it and fucked them completely.

  Now Kesha was gone.

  Melissa was gone.

  The virus. “Narcissus.” It had got what it wanted.

  And there was nothing they could do about it.

  “Anna?”

  Anna looked up. Saw Rhubi standing by her side.

  “I hate to break this to you,” she said. “But we’re going to have to get away from here. Fast.”

  Anna frowned.

  And then she looked over her shoulder, and she saw them.

  The creatures.

  Only they weren’t like the creatures she’d seen before.

  They were covered in flowers.

  Covered in vines.

  And they were racing through the streets towards them.

  Chapter Seven

  Riley lay back against the wall and listened to the helicopter depart.

  Light shone through the bars of his cell. Rain lashed down, muddying every other sound out there. But not enough to disguise what he’d heard. Not enough to totally mask the events that had gone down.

  He’d heard the explosion.

  He’d heard the cries.

  And more than that, he could hear the footsteps…

  The oncoming footsteps from District 63.

  He clutched his arm. A sharp pain seared through it, blood oozing out where the needle had pierced. He should’ve seen Melissa’s stand before it happened. A crucial error. Hamartia. That’s what they used to call it in the Greek tragedies. A fatal error that leads to the protagonist’s downfall.

  Riley’s biggest tragedy, right from the beginning?

  He wasn’t strong enough.

  He was too weak.

  He was a coward.

  It didn’t matter how much he’d grown since day one. It didn’t matter how much loss he’d suffered, how many people he’d killed.

  He was here, and the island he was sitting on was falling.

  And soon, the world out there would fall, too.

  The virus would ravage the new world.

  Turn the remaining survivors into these pain-free bastardisations of the human condition.

  Turn the rest of the dead into the near-living.

  And turn those who were immune into the monsters. Into the hunted.

  The enemy.

  Because they were the ones who had the ability to cause so much pain, so much disorder.

  Because they had free will.

  And free will was what Narcissus hated more than anything.

  He listened to the oncoming horde, and he felt at ease with it, in a weird kind of way. He’d seen the beauty of the other district already. He’d seen the colours and heard the sounds and… yeah. That was probably the first form of virus that he could actually hold his hands up and admit he wouldn’t mind becoming a part of.

  The island would fall under the might of District 63’s strain.

  And judging from the sound of the helicopter disappearing into the distance, the rest of the world would collapse under the Narcissus strain.

  He wanted to get up and fight.

  But there was nothing left to fight for.

  There was nothing he could do.

  So he leaned back and closed his eyes and—

  A bang.

  A bang at his cell door.

  He opened his eyes.

  Anna was standing there.

  Rhubi by her side.

  Anna had a look of grief on her face. A look he’d seen before when she’d lost. He knew it was over Kesha. He knew that Kesha had been taken. He could just see it on her face.

  But they didn’t have time to dwell on things.

  Rhubi opened up the cell and pulled Riley out.

  “No time to wait around,” she said. “No time to sit around and mope. This island’s going to fall, and when it does, I don’t want to be anywhere near here. I’ve lived in District 63 for long enough to see what kind of forms this virus can take on. And believe me; I do not want to come back as a fucking sunflower.”

  Riley nodded. But he didn’t know what to say. “Alison,” he said. “Where is…”

  He looked over Anna’s shoulder as he stood by the cell door and saw her, then.

  She was lying on the ground. Totally still.

  “She’s out cold,” Anna said. “But she’s still alive.”

  Riley swallowed a lump in his throat as he looked around and saw the plant creatures surging through the streets, surging towards them. Their groans like birdsong… only with a sinister, jet black undertone beneath them.

  “So how the hell do you propose we get away from here?” Riley said.

  Rhubi looked over her shoulder. “Melissa. She took Kesha with Rhubi’s and your blood. If she gets back to Britain, if she gets Kesha’s blood and injects it all into herself… it’s over.”

  “So what do we do about it?”

  “Our only hope is the helicopter,” Anna said. Sounding a bit more focused now. Like there was a renewed energy about her. A renewed optimism.

  “And how the hell are we going to fly that?”
<
br />   She looked around at Alison. “That was kind of what we were hoping Alison could help us with.”

  Riley rubbed his hands through his hair. He looked at Alison. Saw her lying flat. “We really need her to wake up.”

  “It’s the last hope we’ve got,” Rhubi said. “But until she does…”

  “I’m not sure I’m going to like what you’re gonna say next,” Riley said.

  Rhubi shrugged. “Like it or not.” She handed him a rifle. “We have to hold the creatures off. We have to protect Alison. And we have to make damned sure that helicopter doesn’t fall. Or it’s over. All of it’s over.”

  Riley looked at the rifle in his hands.

  Then at the mass of oncoming creatures hurtling through the streets.

  “Are you ready?” Rhubi asked.

  Riley took a deep breath as the creatures closed in.

  Then, he lifted his rifle.

  “Fuck it,” he said. “Let’s do some fucking weeding.”

  Chapter Eight

  Riley watched the creatures closing in and braced for the impending storm.

  The rain lashed down. The clouds were thick, bringing the darkness early. It reminded Riley of those long winter days, trapped in his flat with Ted, not daring to step outside because of his anxieties and his obsessiveness and a whole mix of everything.

  But what he’d do to be trapped in that flat right now.

  Because the force coming towards him was something he wasn’t sure he could hold back. Something he wasn’t sure any of them could hold back.

  But they had to stand up.

  They had to try.

  So much depended on it.

  He saw Anna one side of him. Saw Rhubi the other. Holding on to Alison, who was still unconscious.

  And all the time, he couldn’t shake the thought of Kesha flying away on that helicopter.

  Getting further and further and further away…

  And they’d get to her. They’d get to the helicopter, and they’d find their way out of here.

  He looked down at Alison as she lay by their side. Still unconscious. Still flat out.

  They needed her to wake.

  They needed her to spark back to life.

  Their lives depended on it.

  Everybody’s lives depended on it.

  “We focus on one at a time,” Riley said. “We don’t let the mass of them distract us from—”

  “The individuals,” Anna interrupted. “I know. That’s what I taught you.”

  Riley looked at her, looked into her eye, saw everything they’d been through together flash before his eyes.

  And then he smiled.

  “So you did,” he said. “You’ve been dead and alive again so many times I barely remember what you taught me and what you didn’t.”

  Then he looked back at the creatures.

  One right in front of him.

  Deep green vines stretching out from his grey skin.

  Daisies clinging to his drooping eyelids.

  Blood dripping from his snapping teeth.

  He saw that desperation for some kind of release in his eyes, and he took a deep breath.

  “Go,” he said.

  He fired his rifle at the first of the creatures. Watched it split into a mass of flowers, of blood, and of incomprehensible colours.

  “Stay focused,” Riley said. “Don’t be drawn in by their beauty. Don’t be—”

  “Again,” Rhubi interrupted, between gunshots. “I’ve lived with these things for longer than I care to admit.”

  Riley nodded. “Mansplaining duly noted.”

  He looked at the next of the creatures. This one looked… more decayed. The flowers across its body were withering. Crisping. Like its beauty was fading.

  He couldn’t differentiate between them in any way. They were just the same, after all.

  He picked this one off.

  Then moved on to the next.

  And the next.

  And the next.

  As the three of them stood there, firing in turn, trying to guard Alison, Riley felt hopeful. Optimistic.

  But then on the other hand, he realised something.

  “It’s not enough,” he said.

  Anna frowned. “What?”

  “The creatures. There’s—there’s too many of them.”

  Anna cursed under her breath like she was realising the truth of their situation too. “So what do you propose we do, white male saviour?”

  Riley looked down at Alison. Saw how static she was. How damned unconscious she was.

  “We pray,” he said.

  He looked up. Backed off a little between shots. The horde of creatures pushing ever forward. Their ammo, it wasn’t unlimited. It was finite. It was going to run out soon. They had to be fast—very fast.

  He took another step back when he heard something.

  A cry.

  A cry that made his skin crawl.

  “Was that…” Anna said.

  Before she could finish, Riley saw it.

  Hurtling through the crowd of creatures was an Orion.

  Only it wasn’t like the Orions Riley had seen in the past.

  It had flowers sprouting from its body, too.

  And it wasn’t attacking the creatures.

  It was acting like it was infected.

  Riley felt a surge of fear rush through his system. He scurried to the left. “Abort. A-fucking-bort!”

  The Orion kept on coming. Leading the crowd of creatures now. The creatures were filling the streets. Time was running out.

  They were fucked.

  Riley kept on running. Anna by one side. Rhubi just behind him. And between them, Alison, who they were dragging along.

  But they weren’t moving quickly enough.

  Alison was holding them back.

  In that moment, Riley sensed two rival forces.

  On the one hand, he wanted to survive. He wanted Anna to survive. And Rhubi, too. She’d done so much. He barely knew her, and she’d fought so hard for their people. With their people.

  But then if he left Alison behind…

  She wasn’t just the first person he’d truly loved.

  She wasn’t just the mother of his child.

  She was the only one who could help them follow Melissa.

  The only one who could fly that helicopter.

  She was the only one who could help.

  He saw a fork in the road as he backed against one of the buildings. He saw that fork, and he knew what he had to do.

  He felt the regret already. Felt the pain already.

  But then he took a deep breath and wiped a tear from his face.

  “Let her go,” he said.

  Anna frowned. “What?”

  “There’s… there’s no time,” he shouted. “They’re closing in. We can’t all die. We can’t let that happen.”

  Anna shook her head.

  But she only had to look around to see Riley was telling the truth.

  The creatures were close.

  The Orion was closer.

  And they weren’t going to let up.

  They weren’t just going to give in.

  “Let her go,” he said. “Now.”

  He saw the defeat on Anna’s face.

  He saw the way she was shaking her head.

  “But Kesha,” she said.

  “We’ve… we’ve got to let her go,” Riley said. And it was the hardest thing to say of all. The hardest thing he’d ever had to say. “We need to let her go. There has to be another way.”

  Anna shook her head.

  Orion close.

  Creatures close.

  Deafening groans surrounding.

  But then she looked at Alison.

  She looked at the helicopter.

  And then she looked back at Riley.

  “We need to keep fighting for her,” she said.

  Then she did something Riley didn’t expect.

  She turned around.

  Faced the Orion.

>   Riley frowned. “Anna?”

  “We—we need to fight. You need to get Alison to that helicopter. You need to get her to wake up. And you need to get out of here.”

  “Anna, no,” Riley said.

  But then she turned and looked at him, rifle in hand. “We’d have made fucking great parents,” she said, crying. “But more importantly… we already did. For Kesha. We need to keep on doing that. For her.”

  Riley went to move forward, but it was too late.

  The creatures.

  The Orion.

  All so close.

  Anna looked at him. She looked at him, and he felt like he was seeing her for the first time again. Felt like he was falling in love with her for the first time, all over again.

  “Remember what you promised,” Anna said. “Remember what you promised Chloë.”

  “Keep Kesha safe,” Riley said, barely able to speak. “Keep—keep Kesha safe.”

  Anna nodded.

  And then she turned to the Orion and lifted her rifle.

  “Goodbye, Riley,” she said.

  Not looking at him.

  Not facing him.

  Not anymore.

  He looked at the Orion, closing in on Anna.

  He looked at Alison lying there.

  He looked at them both, and he knew there was only one thing he could do.

  He went to move towards Alison. To get to her.

  But before he did, something happened.

  The Orion.

  It stretched out its arm. Longer than he thought it could. Longer than he realised they were capable of.

  And it grabbed Anna.

  Lifted her into the air by her neck.

  And all Riley could do was stand there, as the creatures closed in.

  All he could do was watch like he’d watched so many times before.

  All he could do was…

  Chapter Nine

  Riley saw it all in a flash.

  The Orion lifting Anna from the ground.

  Tightening its grip around her throat.

  Her one remaining eye widening, her face turning blue, the air being squeezed from her lungs.

  He swore he could hear the sound of her bones beginning to snap.

  But then something happened.

  Alison.

  She opened her eyes.

  She stood up, then, right away. Like nothing had happened.

  She stood up, and she walked in front of the Orion.

  In front of the oncoming creatures.

  She stood right in front of them.