by Casey, Ryan
But at the same time… maybe that was stories Riley told her.
She just knew they were beautiful.
Henry would like them.
She looked back across the room. She wanted to stay here, some of her. Because this was home. She thought she wanted Outside but she was sad, now. Sad because Riley told her to go if she heard the bangs. To go and walk towards the sea and get in boat and just go.
And survive.
That’s what he told her.
Survive.
Only she didn’t know what survive meant.
And that scared her, too.
But she trusted him.
She trusted him.
She’d been in the sea with him before, when she was younger.
Nice memories.
Floating.
Happy.
She took a deep breath.
Cried even though she was happy.
Then she wiped the tears away.
“Bye Henry,” she said. “Be good boy.”
Then she opened the trap door.
She’d tried it before, sometimes. Tried it when she was sure it was shut and knew she was naughty.
But it was always shut.
It was open now.
She pushed it open, and the light filled her eyes.
She couldn’t see at first. Couldn’t see a thing, and it scared her. Just bright. Just white. This wasn’t what she thought the Outside was. She thought she remembered a few things about the Outside, and this wasn’t it.
But then the light went, and she saw it.
She saw the green trees.
She saw the blue sky.
She saw the birds.
She saw it all, and she smiled and she cried because it was so nice. It was so beautiful, like Riley said. So beautiful.
She looked back at the trap door. Back at her home. Back down towards Henry.
She took a shaky, deep breath.
And then she looked over at the smoke.
Over at the bang.
Past Them as they lay on the ground.
“Thank you,” she said, looking over at where the smoke rose. “Thank Dad.”
She pulled her bag higher on her shoulders.
She turned around.
Turned to where Riley told her to turn.
Towards the long, tall grass.
Towards the coast.
And then she walked.
Chapter Fifteen
Riley heard his cell door open, and he knew it was time.
Part of him wanted to believe this wasn’t the end. He wanted to believe there was still a way out of this. Still a chance that he could leave this cell and go looking for Kesha.
But at the same time… he knew there were a few desperate creatures left.
He knew they weren’t going to let him go.
Not as long as he knew where Kesha was.
Not as long as he kept on hiding the truth.
The cell door opened.
He saw Alison standing there.
She was thin. Far thinner than he’d ever seen her. Gaunt, stretched features. Clearly exhausted. Clearly weak.
She staggered over to him. Crouched right in front of him. Like she had so many times before. So many times already.
It would be wrong to even think of her as Alison anymore.
But they were still her features. It was still her body.
There was no getting away from that.
He waited for the words. Waited for the questioning. He waited for the day the questions ran out, and he met his demise.
Today felt like that day.
He couldn’t explain it. Couldn’t describe how he knew.
He just felt it deep within.
“You come here to offer me some kind of I Am Legend way out?” he asked.
Alison tilted her head to one side. Smiled. “I wish… I wish it were that simple.”
“It is simple,” Riley said. “You’ve taken four of my fingers. Three of my toes. The bulk of the teeth I had left. I’m not sure you can take much more from me. Unless you’re going to move on to limbs. In which case… that could get very messy, very fast.”
She shook her head. Her confidence was waning. She was clearly growing weaker. “I’m just… I’m just here for one thing. To ask one… one question. To beg.”
“And you know what my answer is going to be,” Riley said.
He looked at her, and he smiled.
She looked back at him. Shook her head. “I wish you’d shown the same… the same fight.”
“What?”
“With me. With our… with our boy. I wish you’d…”
She didn’t finish. She didn’t have to. Riley knew what she was saying. He knew what she meant.
He reminded himself that this wasn’t Alison. That she was just trying to get to him.
But at the same time… he found himself speaking from his heart.
“I can’t change the past,” he said. “But I can keep trying to be better. It’s all I can do. And I’ve made it clear. You’ll never find Kesha. It doesn’t matter how hard you search. It doesn’t matter how much you try to break me. You’ll never get to her. And you know it now. You see it now.”
Alison’s eyes twitched. She searched Riley’s face, side to side, up and down.
“Then I’ll show you.”
She uncuffed Riley. Pulled him to his feet. She dragged him with what little energy she had left through the cell door. Up the steps. Gasping. Blood dripping down her chin.
She reached the door to the building and then she pushed it open.
When Riley saw what was outside… his eyes struggled to get used to it. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been in here. Wasn’t sure how long it’d been since he saw light. True light.
But now he saw it, and it was the most beautiful thing he could imagine.
A stunning sunrise.
A golden glow over the fields of yellow tulips.
And lying on those grounds, there were creatures.
Most of them were dead. Some of them were as good as. Barely moving. Regressing. Slipping into their base states.
“We’re desperate, Riley. We’re dying. And only… only you can fix us. Only you can help. Only you can let us help your world. Before… before your kind destroys it. Just like it was doing before me.”
Riley looked at Alison. Looked into her eyes, which were drifting. Moving from side to side. The humanity slipping away.
“You took from us,” Riley said. “You destroyed. You caused so much chaos. So much pain—”
“I wanted to fix things,” she said, bloodied tears smearing her cheeks. “I did… I did what I was designed to do. To fix things.”
He looked into her eyes—into the eyes of the virus—and he felt something unusual.
He felt pity.
Because it was right.
The virus was just a human creation, at the end of the day.
It was only doing its job.
He put a hand on her shoulder, and he smiled.
“You don’t have to fight anymore,” he said. “You can leave us to fix things ourselves. Just like we messed things up, ourselves. Because that’s what we do. We’re not perfect. We’re not the best species that’ll ever live. We’re a pretty shitty one by all accounts. But we’ll sort our own shit out. We don’t need you. Not anymore.”
He saw the way those vacant eyes scanned his face, trying to find a clue, still eager to solve the mystery of Kesha.
He saw their desperation.
And then their defeat.
And then he heard her speak those words that sent shivers up his spine.
“You’re better than we—than we could ever hope to be.”
He saw it, then.
Saw the way her eyes rolled back in her skull.
Saw the way blood spooled out of her eye sockets.
Her nostrils.
Then out of her mouth and her ears.
Then he saw the mush from inside.
The mush. A
nd the solids. All pooling out. All dripping from her.
He saw the body of the woman he once loved—the mother of his first child—falling to pieces before him.
Then he watched as she hit the ground.
After that, there was a silence.
But not just from her.
It was a sense.
A sense of a weight being lifted from his shoulders.
A sense of safety.
Of certainty.
A sense he hadn’t felt for a long time.
He dropped to his knees by Alison’s side, and he cried.
The sunrise shone over the landscape of the dead.
The tulips glowing in its warm light.
“I kept her safe,” he said to Chloë, seeing her in his mind’s eye, smiling. “I kept her safe.”
The clouds parted, and the sun shone down over an ocean of death.
A new world.
Chapter Sixteen
When Riley opened the trap door, he felt a mixture of emotions.
First, there was relief. Relief that the creatures had fallen. Relief that the virus was over. And more than anything, relief that Kesha had listened to him. That she’d got herself away from here. That she’d escaped the danger. Trusted him.
But then there was another emotion, too.
Because Kesha was gone.
He climbed down the steps. Searched the room. Searched her old bed, which was nothing more than a blanket on the cold, hard floor. Then he searched the box. Part of him hoped she hadn’t listened. Part of him wished she’d stayed put. That she hadn’t left this place.
But he’d taught her well.
He’d taught her what to do if she heard the two bangs.
One after the other.
And she’d listened.
God bless her, she’d listened.
He turned around and saw something in the corner of his eye.
Henry. Kesha’s spider.
Standing there.
Watching.
He nodded.
Then he grabbed the things he’d need. Supplies. Water.
He turned around. Looked back at this room, one final time.
And then he took a deep breath and climbed out.
He walked for miles in the direction he’d told Kesha to go before he gave up.
He dropped to his knees. He was exhausted. A combination of physical and emotional factors.
He’d fought so hard.
And not just today. Not just the last few days, or weeks or months. But for the last years.
Even when life had been going well.
Even when things were good.
Still, he was fighting.
Still, he was struggling on.
In his happiest moments, darkness was never far around the corner.
He dug his face into the earth, and he cried. He cried at the nightmares he’d witnessed. At the things he’d been through.
But more than anything, he cried because he didn’t know what to do anymore.
He didn’t know what to do if there was no more running to be done.
He didn’t know what to do if there was no more hiding.
He thought back. Right back to that first day. Walking away from that office covered in sweat. Stepping into the car park, where it began. One creature. That’d been how it started. One solitary creature.
He’d run from it, afraid, scared. Ended up escaping the flat. Finding Grandma, dead. Then finding Anna and the rest of the group and…
Everything after that was such a blur.
But one thing was consistent about everything. One thing had stayed the same, all this time, all these years.
He’d been under threat.
Even when he’d felt safe, that threat was always there. Always coming. Always just over the horizon.
And there was something else, too.
Other people. People he’d looked out for. Even in his lowest moments, they’d always been there. He’d always had someone to help. Someone to protect.
And now it was just him, he could see a stark, cold truth that had followed him all this time, all these years.
It was time to start protecting himself.
It was time to start helping himself.
Because if the dead hadn’t started walking, he’d be a dead man right now. Suicide would’ve taken him, no doubt.
But now he was more alive than ever.
He had a purpose.
He had a goal.
He had—
“Dad?”
He heard the voice, and he lifted his head.
Kesha was standing there.
Little rucksack over her shoulder.
Confused look in her eyes.
“Kesha,” he said.
He rushed over to her. Grabbed her. Lifted her into the air.
“Why crying? Why sad?”
But Riley could only laugh as the tears continued to pour down his face.
He could only laugh, as he held her close.
The girl he’d done everything for.
His last friend left in this world.
His daughter.
“I’m not sad,” he said. “I’m not sad at all.”
He held her a while longer. Held her as the sun rose higher in the sky. As bright light broke through the dark clouds. He thought of all they’d been through. All their battles. All their struggles. Especially these last two awful years.
Eventually, he put her back down. Held her hand, tight. Smiled at her.
“Where now? New home?”
Riley looked at Kesha.
Then, he looked at the horizon.
He looked at the fields ahead, leading off into the distance. Looked at the bodies, dead or dying. He looked at them, glowing in the sunlight, and as a tear rolled down his cheek, he smiled.
“We’re already home,” he said.
He didn’t know where he was walking to.
But as long as Kesha was in his arms, he’d keep going.
Until his dying breath.
He swallowed a lump in his throat.
Took a deep breath.
And then, as the sun shone down on him and on Kesha, as it illuminated the relics of a dying world, he walked.
Chapter Seventeen
Kesha put down her pen and smiled.
The sun was just beginning to rise. She always liked to get up super early to work. Somehow, writing earlier in the day felt much easier. Much more… meditative, in a sense.
But today was a special day.
Because today was the day she finished her story.
She looked around her office. Looked at the pictures she’d drawn on the walls. She looked at the books in the shelves. The notes she’d taken. All of them building up to this one key piece. This one epic tale.
It hadn’t been easy. There were parts before her. There were stories within stories. Areas she’d had to fill in gaps.
After all, she was only a little girl.
But Riley had raised her. He’d told her stories. She’d only had to ask, and he’d shared it all.
But there was one final thing she needed from him.
One final question, to give her the closure she needed.
She stood. Walked across her office, past her little dog, Chloë. She put on her jacket and stepped outside.
And when she reached the balcony, she took a few deep breaths of the warm spring air.
It was still surreal, living in a world where everything was just… well, fine. Especially after the childhood she’d experienced. She thought of the day the virus had died, one of her earliest real memories. The way she and Riley had walked for miles. The way they’d slept under trees. Cold. Tired. Hungry.
But together.
She thought of all of that, and then she remembered the first sign of hope.
The group. The armed group at the coast. The nice lady, Hannah.
The camp they’d set up for the survivors.
The needles, which hurt a little, but made sure nobody could ever
hurt like they had again.
And then being taken away, off into the new world, into a new beginning.
She walked through the street. Looked at the flats either side of her. Thought of the people inside, lying in their beds, preparing for their days ahead. About how beautiful it was that they didn’t have to worry anymore. That they didn’t have to hide anymore.
There was nothing to hide from.
The world was virus free.
She saw the nursing home in the distance and a knot built in her stomach.
She took a deep breath. She knew there wasn’t much hope of finding the answer she wanted to find on this journey. And she knew she was probably just being a bit precious about things. She could go ahead without his approval.
But she felt she owed him the chance to have his input.
To really, truly have his say.
She walked further down this street, towards the nursing home doors. The clean-up from the virus had taken a long time. The population of the world had been decimated to just under a million survivors. There had been conflicts since. Skirmishes. Adapting to a new world was never going to be easy.
But for the most part, humanity had found its way.
It was rebuilding again.
But it would never forget the past.
It could never get so complacent again.
She walked up the steps of the nursing home when she froze.
It happened, sometimes. Flashbacks. Flashbacks whenever she was delving into the story. Even if the memories she was recounting weren’t exactly her own. Because this was a biography. A biography of a man who went to great lengths to protect what was dearest to him.
This was a biography of a man who saved everyone.
And she knew what people would say. This was a fantasy. It was fiction. The virus died out of its own accord. There was no “key” to the virus. It was all drama. Hearsay.
But it was Riley’s story.
It was his experiences.
It was his life.
And she owed it to him to recount it.
She walked down the corridor, towards his room.
Nerves building. Because this was never nice. It was never easy.
She knew there were unanswered questions. That was just the nature of life. Riley had never reunited with his biological son. The districts had been duly destroyed. Island 47 and its mysteries were nothing more than the stuff of legend.
And the fact that she was supposedly so important. That she was the one who could unlock Narcissus’ powers.