by Ryan Casey
But this place had been tainted by the memories of what had happened. It had been tarnished with blood; blood which was on Riley’s hands, on everyone else’s hands.
Once again, humanity had a remarkable chance to bounce back. To further itself. To push forward.
And once again, humanity had spurned that opportunity, tossed it all away.
He looked around the bedroom. Looked at the bedside cabinets. Looked at the wardrobes. Looked at the clothes neatly hung up, the shoes stacked by the door. And as he looked around, he realised the fallacy of the world they’d been living in for the last year. The fakeness of the faux security they’d treasured. Because there was no normality, no matter how much they tried to force it. And there was no security, not of any real kind.
There was just the way things were.
The world was a dangerous place. It always would be a dangerous place, especially now.
That was just something he was going to have to adapt to; to accept.
“I mean, we still have a roof over our heads. We still have a place to sleep.”
But Riley tasted bitterness in his mouth when Anna said those words. He tasted bitterness because he wasn’t sure her longing for security here was rooted in any reality. Because this place was falling. No, it had fallen. He didn’t know where Peter was. He didn’t know whether he was even still alive. But that didn’t matter anymore. Not really.
The sooner they got away from here and to somewhere else, the better.
“You don’t think we should stay here, do you?”
Riley looked over at Anna, his stomach sinking. She had a knack for reading what was on his mind in times like these. An annoying knack, that was for sure. He sighed, held her hands. “I just… This place. It isn’t the sanctuary we thought it was.”
“And where is? Someplace across the sea?”
“I just think we have a better chance of surviving—us and our child—if we try something other than—”
“This isn’t about our child, Riley.”
Riley frowned. He was surprised to hear those words come out of Anna’s mouth. “What do you mean by that?”
“Don’t pretend to me that this is anything to do with our child. It’s to do with your idea of how the world should be. It’s to do with your fear of what the world is turning into, all over again. It’s about your reluctance to step up and accept the reality of what’s happening. Of what’s always going to be happening.”
“I don’t believe that’s true,” Riley said.
“Then you’re a fool.”
Her words were sharp. Cutting. But the worst thing about them?
Riley couldn’t help but feel that perhaps they were right.
“We’ve been living in this post-apocalyptic world for years now. And sure, we’ve seen signs of hope. Sure, we’ve ended up here, and that has to count for something. Sure, there’s been rescues and happy families and smiles and moving forward. But it’s always there, Riley, that reality. And it’s always going to be there. The sooner you face up to that, the sooner you accept it, the better.”
Riley closed his burning eyes. He didn’t want to talk about this right now. He didn’t want to discuss it. He wanted a beer. Yeah, a beer. Sure, he was supposed to have quit a long time ago, especially after the bad turn he’d taken after being attacked by Mr Fletch back in the battle for the Manchester Living Zone. He was supposed to have slammed the door shut on that chapter of his life.
But a beer would put him at ease.
A beer would make him feel again.
Even if the only kind of feeling he wanted from it was suffocating numbness.
Anna’s hand squeezed his. She moved in closer to him, snuffled her chin on his shoulder.
“Don’t lose sight of what you really are in spite of everything happening around you,” Anna said. “You’re a good person. We’re all good people. And even though we’re going to be surrounded by darkness forever… there’s always light as long as we allow it to shine through.”
He squeezed Anna’s hand back. He wanted to say more to her. Wanted to tell her he believed her. That the light was still there, dim but there, and it would be as long as he believed.
He wanted to tell her so much, but then he heard a knock on the door.
His skin went cold. He looked at Anna, frowned.
“Who is it?” he called.
“It’s me.”
When he heard the voice—Carly’s voice—he leaped right out of bed and threw on some clothes. He grabbed his machete, just in case. Then he opened the door.
When he saw Carly standing there, he was hit by two things. Two stark things.
The first was the tears rolling down Carly’s cheeks.
The second was Kesha in her arms.
Blood was pooling from Kesha’s nostrils.
From her ears.
From her eyes.
Chapter Four
Riley stood over the burning mound, cigarette in his mouth, and felt the tears building in his eyes.
The sun shone down brightly. Which was nice of it. Considerate, at least. I mean, the sun could be such an arsehole, especially in Britain. Had this nasty knack of never really showing up when you wanted it to.
Honestly, Riley didn’t care what the weather was like right now, though. But the sun was always better in scenarios like this, or so they said. “What an awful day for Janice’s funeral,” people used to say in the old world, like a bit of rain made a difference.
But in a way it did.
In a way, it just proved that humanity was at the mercy of the world’s greater whims.
And there were no greater whims than the infection and the disaster it had caused.
All over again.
He held onto Anna’s hand, tightly, as he looked down at the mound. The smell of burning filled his nostrils. He could taste it in the air, too. Taste the remains of what was going up in flames. And he wanted to feel something about it. He wanted to break down. He wanted to be devastated. He wanted to fall to his knees and let out a deafening roar.
But he couldn’t.
He just stood there. Numb.
Stood there, staring.
Stood there, remembering.
And it was at that point that he heard a voice in his head. Only it wasn’t just an ordinary voice. It was a memory. A memory of a time not long ago. Of words Anna had said.
“And even though we’re going to be surrounded by darkness forever… there’s always light as long as we allow it to shine through.”
And he tried to see truth in what she had said. He tried to believe her.
Because she was right, of course she was. They were surrounded by darkness. Totally surrounded.
But there was light.
There had to be.
But as he looked at the glow from the flames, he started to question that.
Where was this light now?
Because even though the flames were bright, all Riley could see was darkness.
He took another puff of his cigarette. Anna said something to him, but he didn’t hear her. He wouldn’t hear anyone. Not for a long time.
He could only hold her hand. Stand there, tears building behind his eyes, but unable to let them loose.
He could only wait.
For what?
He wasn’t sure.
Just that he knew he had to hope the light shone again.
He just wasn’t sure how it could.
Not after this.
Not after everything.
He took one final puff on the cigarette before he threw it to the ground, stamping on it as he watched the flames recede.
Then he looked over to the right. Over to the crosses. Over to the graves.
The three graves.
“It’s time,” Anna said.
And now, as the flames went out completely, as Riley saw what lay inside that mass, he couldn’t bring himself to walk. He couldn’t bring himself to move.
He was so close to bursting.
&n
bsp; But then he swallowed a lump in his throat and walked, numb, over to the mound, helping to put the fire out.
Then he buried the mound in the earth.
“This is how it is now.”
Such was life in the Dead Days.
Chapter Five
Riley held Kesha in his arms and tried to figure out what the hell he was going to do—what the hell he could do.
The bedroom was dark. There was a lamp on, but it was flickering, made the room they were inside feel claustrophobic. Outside, the wind was roaring, rain hitting the windows, a storm picking up. Other than that, he heard nothing but silence. Like the world had paused. Like it had gone on hold. And all for this moment.
All for Kesha.
He felt his throat welling up as he held this little girl—because that’s what she was now, not a baby anymore—in front of him. She had blood on her lips. She had blood on her face. She had blood coming from her eyes, and her skin had a translucent, pale hue to it.
But the worst thing?
The most horrible, skin-crawling thing of all?
Kesha was smiling at him. Chattering to him. She might be bleeding, but she was content. She was happy to see him.
She was alive.
He felt cold. Totally cold. Anna was beside him, silent. Carly was crying. He felt for Carly, he really did. She’d been through so much loss. She’d watched Marie turn then die. Then she’d been forced to kill Ricky to spare him being torn to pieces by the undead.
And now Kesha…
Having to discover her like this. Having to be the one to break the news.
This was how it was now.
This was the world they lived in.
But where was the light?
Where was the light in that suffocating darkness?
Where the fuck was it now?
“We have to make a decision,” Anna said.
Her voice was cold. Stern. And the mere fact that she’d spoken in that detached manner scared Riley. Because he knew damn well what kind of a decision they had to make. He knew what kind of a decision she was talking about.
But he couldn’t face it.
He couldn’t accept it.
None of them could allow themselves to.
Because if they did, the darkness fully surrounded them.
If they did, there was no room for light. Not anymore. Not if they made that kind of decision about Kesha. Poor, innocent Kesha.
He looked into Kesha’s beautiful, alive eyes, and he thought about the promises he’d made. The promises he’d made to Chloë about how much he was going to look after her. About how much he was going to fight for her. Because Kesha was the future. Kesha was the new world. There was something different about her. Something in her blood that made her not only immune, but that could help other people too.
Then he felt it. A sickening punch to the gut.
“What if she isn’t immune to the airborne strain?” Anna said. “What if… what if none of us are?”
He should’ve felt fear at that moment. He should’ve rushed to cover his face. But he was beyond self-preservation. He was beyond giving a damn about himself.
Because only Kesha mattered. Only she mattered right now.
“There has to be another way,” Riley said.
“What way?” Anna said.
“There just fucking has to be, okay?”
Riley regretted his explosion of temper right away. But his head was spinning. His thoughts were racing. Because there could be no light anymore. Even entertaining what they were entertaining robbed them of that.
He looked at Kesha. Saw her smile at him again, bloodied nose and face.
Then he shook his head. Looked Anna in the eye. “I can’t.”
She looked back at him, tears flowing freely from her eyes. Beside her, Carly continued to sob.
“Then maybe… maybe I can,” Anna said.
Just hearing Anna say those words was like taking a bullet to the heart. Because there was no way they could go on after that. After doing a thing like Anna was talking about, there was no redemption. There was no moving forward.
There was no looking at their unborn child and being able to get over the awful knowledge of what had happened. Of what they’d decided. Of what they’d done—Anna, him, both of them.
But then he looked back at Kesha, saw the blood, and he knew what was going to become of her.
“I… I can make it quick,” Anna said, her words sounding distant, alien even. “I… There doesn’t have to be any suffering.”
“This isn’t putting down a dog,” Riley said. “This is… This is Kesha. This is Kesha and…”
He couldn’t speak any more. He couldn’t cry either. All he could do was look at Kesha as she smiled back at him, as she made those content little giggles and asked what was happening, why everyone was sad. All he could do was think of all the odds she’d conquered simply to make it this far. All the bravery she’d shown before she was even able to walk.
She was an enigma. She was a survivor.
And this.
This was what it had come to.
This was where it ended.
This was how it was now.
He looked back at Anna. Then at Carly. And as much as he wanted to fight, as much as he wanted to find a way, Riley knew simply from the expressions on their faces that there was no way around this. That there was no other way. It was one of those non-negotiables. A point of no return, ghastly and rotten.
And he was staring this reality right in its ugly face.
“I’ll do it,” he said.
Anna shook her head. “Riley, you don’t have to—”
“If she’s infected, then she’s going to turn,” Riley said. “And if she’s going to turn… she doesn’t deserve that. Nobody deserves that.”
He looked down at smiley Kesha in his arms, and for a moment, he saw a flash of the child he’d failed to raise, right across the world in Australia—or wherever he was right now.
And then he saw a flash of the child he was going to raise. The one with Anna.
“I’m sorry, Chloë,” he muttered under his breath, knowing full well that his promise was about to expire. “I’m so sorry.”
Chapter Six
Riley stared at the little wooden boat they’d crafted for Kesha, and he tried to convince himself this was just a horrible nightmare.
It was morning. They’d spent the night sleeping—or at least trying to. It felt awful, locking Kesha away in another room, mostly because they didn’t want to spend too much time around her, not if she could be an infection risk. But it just felt so wrong. It felt so… uncaring.
The irony was that what they were doing was the most caring move of all.
It just didn’t feel like it.
The clouds were thick overhead. Riley looked up, saw the light of the sun trying to break through. But it wasn’t going to. It never was. Because it wasn’t strong enough. The clouds were thicker. And as much as the sun would always be there, always shining down, sometimes it was out of view. More often than not, it was out of view.
But this was reality. This was the life they were living. This was the truth of their situation. The awful, unadulterated truth.
Anna was by his side. Carly was on the other side. The three of them were standing by the coast. The waves flew up, crashed against the stony beach, the fauna splashing against them as they stood there. Riley knew this wasn’t the nicest way to go. But he’d read it could be peaceful. He’d read it wasn’t as suffer-inducing as some people made out.
Just float out there across the water.
Just let the waves take her.
Swallow her.
Then wait for it to end.
He started shaking. All the bottled up emotion running even stronger, as he looked down at Kesha, lying there in that makeshift boat. She was grinning, getting excited about going out onto the water, the novelty of it all. She looked even worse than she had last night. Bloodied nose. Bloodied mouth. But that smile
still on her face. And that made this harder somehow. You might think that her crying would make it harder, but it wasn’t like that, not exactly.
Because a smile was a reminder of her innocence.
A smile was a reminder that she was human.
He heard footsteps approach his side. Saw Anna lean down, stroke Kesha’s hair.
“I’ll miss you, angel.”
She stepped back, tears covering her face. Then after her, Carly followed. Leaned down, whispered something to Kesha, then stepped away, totally broken down, totally grieving already.
And all Riley could do was stand there. Not show any emotion. Not let any of it come pouring out. Just stand there and stare at Kesha.
Kesha, who he knew what had to happen to—for her own good.
Kesha, who he knew he had to kill.
Who he knew he had to be responsible for her death.
He thought about leaning down towards her. He thought about saying something to her.
But as he looked into her eyes, he knew there was nothing.
Nothing.
He took a deep breath, and he lifted the makeshift boat.
And every step he took, he listened to her sing.
He walked into the water. Felt the waves crashing up against his legs, icy cold. He kept on going until the water was stomach height, not taking any regard for his clothing or for anything, just holding that crate and trying to ignore what was inside it, just holding that crate and preparing to put it down, to let her go.
He heard Kesha letting out a few excited little noises then. She said a few things, muttered a few cheerful words like this was all just some sort of a game.
And he looked up at the sky above. He looked up at the sun. At that light. That dim, suffocated light.
Is this it?
Is this what it’s come to?
Is this how it is now?
How it has to be?
And how does it go from here?
He looked back. Looked right back over his shoulder. Saw Anna and Carly looking out at him, waiting for the moment, waiting until it was done.
He looked down at Kesha in her boat. Started to tilt it to one side, heart racing, chest swelling with grief as he prepared for what he was about to do; as he braced himself for what he had to do.