by Ryan Casey
He owed it to Steve to try and follow the group, however far ahead they were, whichever direction they’d gone.
And if he died trying, well, so be it.
He wasn’t giving up on his faith just yet.
He yanked forward. Pulled against the metal pipe. Just moving his body ever so slightly made pain crawl down his face, across his chest, right through his abdomen. He knew he wasn’t in a good shape. If he stayed put here, he’d most certainly die.
There were worse ways to die in this world, sure. But he wasn’t ready to die just yet.
He tried to pull against the pipe again. The ties around his wrists were just too tough. He wasn’t snapping through them. Not anytime soon.
He opened his eyes a little more, managing to peek out of them despite the pain. Then he turned his stiff neck. Looked behind himself, down his back.
He had some plastic ties around his wrists. Those ties were both attached to a very solid but rusty looking metal pipe. The ties weren’t going to snap—he knew that for a fact as he’d accidentally tied one around his wrist once a long time ago.
But the pipe...
The pipe went up. Right up, above Cody’s head. And then it snapped away about a metre above him. Broke away on a sharp end.
If he could reach his arms back there, he could pull them over the top of the pipe. Drag them over. But doing so would mean dislocating his shoulders. And even then, it would still be a stretch.
But shit. What other choice did he have? What other damned option did he have right now?
He battled to his feet. Then he closed his eyes again and pictured Steve in his mind. He was doing this for him and his safety. He wasn’t going to just let Gav make his life hell. He wasn’t going to let Gav screw up the journey to the extraction point.
He was going to get out of here and he was going to fight.
He pressed his teeth into his bottom lip.
Held his breath.
Then he started to lift his arms backwards, right up the pipe.
The pain hit him right away. A nasty shooting pain, right through his ribs, halting him in his tracks. Dislocating your own shoulders wasn’t fucking easy at the best of times. But doing it when you’d been beaten within an inch of your life? Yeah. It was even trickier.
Still, he couldn’t give up.
He closed his eyes. Stuck his teeth into his lips again.
He steadied his breathing and lifted his arms.
This time, despite all the pain splitting through him, he felt his arms reach that point of resistance at the mid back. Everything in his instincts told him he was mad. That he should give up. His brain told him to stop doing this to himself. That he was on the verge of hurting himself—badly.
But he kept on pushing.
Kept on lifting his arms, pushing against the pressure.
Kept on raising them through the resistance, through the pain.
He was about to make the final press through the point of no return when he heard something outside the room.
Footsteps.
Creaking floorboards.
His body went cold. His arms dropped loosely back down the pipe.
There was someone out there.
He wasn’t alone.
He stood still. Listened to the footsteps and the creaking floorboards. Maybe Gav was still here. Maybe he hadn’t been unconscious as long as he felt he had.
Whatever. He knew he had to keep quiet. He knew he had to get out, now more than ever. He knew he—
He heard a bang against the door.
Then he heard the worst possible thing right now.
A moan.
The moan of an undead.
Cody’s stomach turned. If he had any food inside him, he’d throw it up right here and now.
He listened to the banging on the door get louder. Listened to the moans intensifying.
It was trying to get in here.
It knew he was in here.
So he had to get out. He had to get out, fast.
He held his breath and bit his lip again. He tried to drown out the banging on the door, the loudening moans.
He brought his arms to the middle of his back again.
Brought them to that point where he had to make the decision. Where everything in his body pushed back against him, told him to stop, to stop right now.
“Fuck,” he whispered, as he clamped down on his bottom lip so hard he tasted blood. “Fuck it.”
He bit down.
Cracked his shoulders upwards.
The pain was unlike anything he’d ever felt. Sudden. Totally sickening. He felt his entire body go cold in an instant. Sights, sounds, everything around him just faded into the background. He knew he was screaming out in pain, but there was nothing he could do about that. Nothing at all.
When his vision finally did return—when he was able to comprehend his surroundings once more, he saw something else that made his body go even colder, that made him want to vomit even more.
The door was open.
The undead was in the room.
And it was powering towards him.
CHAPTER FIVE
The undead man hurtled towards Cody.
Cody didn’t have time to think. He didn’t have fucking time for anything, not with the unrivalled levels of pain crippling his dislocated shoulders.
He just kept on lifting them higher, higher, all the while exposing more of his chest and body to the oncoming undead.
He felt his head going dizzy. His vision blurred. He knew what was happening. He was passing out. He could see the purple colours filling his eyes, blocking his view of the undead.
He could hear the sounds all around him getting louder, more focused.
He could almost hear his wife and child calling out to him, telling him they were waiting for him to come home to them…
And then he reached the top of the pipe and his hands came free.
He fell to the left, and the undead went crashing into the pipe. Cody’s arms were still stuck upright over his head. He had to bring them down around the front. He used to be good at gym as a kid and could twist his shoulders right around on demand. Now he was older, it was a lot trickier than he remembered.
He tried to twist his arms around and bring them to the front of his body, all the time focusing on the agonising pain and making sure the undead wasn’t close.
It was on its feet. It looked down at him lying on the floor.
Cody pulled his hands in front of him, the taste of blood filling his mouth. He looked down at the ties. He tried to shake free of them again, instinctively, then realised he wouldn’t be able to, not now.
The undead reached down for him, snarling, drooling pieces of decayed flesh.
Cody looked up at it.
Held his breath.
When the undead reached down for him and fell to its knees, Cody rolled to the right, sending more pain through his shoulder, and ran towards the door.
He wanted to be free of the ties. He wanted to stay here and take down the undead. But he didn’t have time and he knew it. He had to get away, fast. Even if he lost Steve and the group’s trail, there was nothing to gain from staying in here anymore.
Cody rushed through the door and out into the hallway. He realised just how much lighter it was out here. Whether that meant a day had passed or not, he wasn’t sure. The air was thick with dust. And it smelled bad, too. Like rotting.
He reached the top of the staircase when he saw something below.
There was a figure standing completely still.
To glance at it, you might’ve thought it was a human.
But you only had to look at its head to realise that wasn’t at all true.
It was one of the Uglies.
Cody crouched down behind the banisters. He didn’t want to draw the Ugly’s attention towards him right now. He could barely deal with a normal undead in his current state, let alone one of those stronger variations of the undead.
The pain in his shoulder
s had eased, but his skin was icier than ever. He figured he was in shock but knew he had to keep pushing. If he kept pushing, he could get out of here.
And then, he could think about catching up with Steve and the rest of Gav’s group—at least, whatever remained of it.
He heard a moan to his left. He looked back at the room he’d run from and saw the undead staggering towards him. Its growl echoed right through this open reception area.
Cody knew as the undead got closer that he couldn’t wait here. But he hardly wanted to go running down towards the Ugly, either.
He lifted himself up. Peeked down the staircase.
When he looked down, he saw the Ugly looking right back at him.
He crouched back down straight away. His heart pounded as the undead’s footsteps edged closer. The Ugly had seen him. It’d seen him and it was going to get him. He had to get up. He had to run. If he didn’t, he wasn’t going to survive.
He got up to run.
Stopped, right away.
The Ugly downstairs had gone.
Completely disappeared.
Cody’s mouth went dry. He checked the staircase all over to make sure he wasn’t seeing things, that the shock of his agony wasn’t causing any tricks of the mind.
He heard the undead just feet away. And although Cody didn’t feel comfortable about going down that staircase when the Ugly had stood there just moments ago, he knew he didn’t have a choice.
He saw the main door right opposite the bottom of the stairs.
He knew what he had to do.
He ran down the stairs. Hopped over the holes in the wooden steps.
And then when he landed on the bottom floor, he didn’t look back.
He just sprinted towards the door, hands still tied in front of him.
He stretched them out to—
His feet fell from under him.
He smacked against the hard floor. The pain returned to his shoulders. The fuzziness of his thoughts and senses came back.
But not for long.
Not when he saw the Ugly crouching above him.
He saw its awful face getting closer to him. The little mouths all over its fleshy head. It was even creepier because it was wearing a dinner suit like it’d dressed for a ball or some fancy event before the infection got its grips on it.
All of the little mouths were snapping.
All of them getting closer to Cody’s flesh.
Cody knew he didn’t have a chance. He knew his time was up. He knew his life was over if he didn’t do something rash. And if he didn’t do something rash, Steve would probably die, and the location of that extraction point would forever be shrouded in mystery.
So Cody did something he was totally uncomfortable with.
He did something he really, really didn’t want to do.
He lifted his fingers and stuffed them into some of the mouths of the Ugly.
He felt their little teeth chomping down on his hands. He felt warm blood trickling down his arms and knew right then he’d been bitten. He knew right then that whatever had happened to this Ugly would soon happen to him.
But he didn’t have time to think about that right now.
He just gripped whatever he could inside this fleshy, pulpy head.
Stretched further, as fresh bites were nibbled into his fingers.
He squeezed everything that came within his grip as his own blood splattered down on his face.
He was doing this for Steve.
Doing this for the extraction point.
Doing this in the name of trust.
When the agony of everything that’d already happened to Cody surrounded him, when the horror of what he was doing—of how little luck he was having in the process—finally dawned on him, he saw the purple colours in his eyes again. He felt the grips of unconsciousness approaching, all over again, as he clamped his hands around what he swore must be this thing’s brain.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered, unsure of who to exactly—to everyone in his life he’d let down before, and everyone he was about to let down. “I’m—I’m sorry.”
He felt another bite pierce through his fingers.
The purple colours completely engulfed him.
The heightened rustling noises surrounded him.
Then, the throes of unconsciousness came for him like a warm blanket.
But not before he could take one final squeeze on the Ugly’s brain.
And…
CHAPTER SIX
“Any wise suggestions right now?”
Riley stood and stared at the mass of creatures surrounding him, Jordanna, Chloë and Kesha. They were closing in from the cars up ahead. They were closing in from behind. They’d literally appeared out of nowhere, and that terrified Riley. It terrified him because it made him wonder whether there might be even more.
Any more than this and… damn. That was a thought he couldn’t afford to have.
The wind picked up, blasting the putrid stench of the creatures’ bodies in the group’s direction. Riley couldn’t move a muscle. There was literally nothing he could do other than stand here and wait for a moment.
But he couldn’t just stand here. None of them could just stand here.
“Riley!” Jordanna shouted.
Riley turned and looked at her. He saw the horror on her face.
“What are we going to do?”
Riley looked all around. He looked at the creatures on the left, the creatures on the right. Then he looked down into his arms at Kesha, who started crying.
He wasn’t going to let her down.
He wasn’t going to let anything happen to her or to anyone.
“We run,” he said.
He led the way to the hill towards the left of the motorway, where the tiniest of gaps had formed. He climbed up the hill, Kesha still in his arms. He had a crowbar, but he didn’t want to use it. He didn’t want to get distracted from his main duty—looking after Kesha.
He saw the creatures getting closer to him and hoped to God Jordanna and Chloë were okay. Sure, he had faith in them. They were strong, maybe even stronger than him. But you couldn’t help but worry about the people you cared about.
“There’s a way over here,” Riley called, as he reached the top of the mound beside the motorway. He looked back. From the high elevation, the road looked absolutely carpeted in undead. They’d got out of some situations in the past, worked their way out of some hellholes. But this? This was on another level. This was something different entirely.
Jordanna and Chloë reached Riley’s side. They stood together on the top of the hill, looked out at the fields in the distance as the darkness grew closer.
“Where to?” Jordanna asked.
“Only one place we can go. Off the road.”
“Maybe we can draw them out. Try luring them off the road.”
“And then what?”
Jordanna shook her head as they made their way down the side of the slope. The first of the creatures reached the top of the elevation, crying out as it stumbled in their direction. “A car. Just… just somewhere to stay for the night.”
Riley saw Jordanna’s look of concern. He felt the inevitability of the situation building up within.
He handed Kesha to her. Then he put his hand on the back of her neck and pulled her forehead close to his, so he could feel the heat radiating from her. “I’m going to make sure we’re safe. I’m going to make sure we survive this. I promise.”
“But I don’t know if—”
Riley kissed Jordanna.
Then he pulled out the crowbar and stepped out from around her.
Chloë frowned at him. “Where are you…”
“You three need to go. Right now.”
“Riley,” Jordanna started. “We can’t—”
“You go on and on about trust. Well right now you need to trust me. I’ll buy us some time. But you need to go. Now!”
Riley watched as Jordanna, Chloë and Kesha began their run away. As they disappeare
d into the fading light, he worried if maybe this would be the last time he ever saw them. If something went wrong here, maybe he’d never see them again. He worried about them out there in this world, all on their own. But then he realised he didn’t have anything to worry about because they were strong. Even Kesha was strong because she’d be born in this world. She wasn’t a normal child. She was a child of the Dead Days.
Riley turned around, crowbar in hand, and faced the oncoming undead.
“Better get to it,” he said.
He walked into the first creature and slammed his crowbar into its skull.
Then he walked to the next, smashed its head upon impact.
He kept on going. Kept on ploughing through them one by one, focusing on one at a time, keeping his calm and his composure like this was nothing more than a game, or a sport, even if he had been pretty shit all round at sport. He might not be able to take them all on, sure. He might not be able to kill them all.
But if he could buy Chloë and Jordanna some time?
If he could buy them some time to get to somewhere safer than here, somewhere as far away as possible… well, then making this stand was worth it.
He swung his crowbar at the next creature. Then he smacked it up into the chin of the next and the next after that, the smell of death intensifying, the taste of it filling the air.
He knew right then, as he looked at the trail of approaching undead, that his time was up. That he’d made his great decision. That he’d made his call.
And then he heard a scream.
He turned around. Looked back in the direction in which Chloë and Jordanna had disappeared.
And then he heard a groan in front of him.
A creature was right up in his face.
He went to swing his crowbar, but the creature was too close.
It pressed into his chest.
Knocked Riley down onto his back.
As Riley lay there, the creature on his chest, more of them surrounding him, he was terrified. Completely terrified.
But nothing terrified him as much as the scream in the woods.
Of what it might mean…
CHAPTER SEVEN
Jordanna didn’t look back once Riley told her to run.
It was almost completely dark now. The air was cold, bordering on icy. A dangerous reminder of just how close winter was, of how rapidly and sneakily it was creeping up on all of them.