by Ryan Casey
He’d thought they were mostly gone at this stage. That Mr Fletch’s experiment was limited in number. He thought they’d all died out when the MLZ fell for the first time.
But he knew now that Mr Fletch’s experiment must’ve gone much wider than he’d first thought.
He saw the first Orion step towards Chloë, towards Kesha.
He felt an urge to lunge in front of Chloë and he knew Jordanna would too. An urge to protect her, to defend her.
But by the way the three Orions all moved towards Chloë, towards Kesha, one after the other, Riley started to wonder about what Chloë said. About whether it was true after all.
He held his breath.
Then he risked a step back.
He kept his eyes on Jordanna, who was the other side of Chloë. She stared back at him, her lips quivering.
He nodded at her. Then the pair of them took another step.
The silence was deafening and intense. The only sounds were Riley’s racing heartbeat, the low hum of the Orions’ growls. He’d seen what they could do. He’d seen what they’d done to Ivan. Ripped him to pieces. And he could picture what they’d done to Hassan too, after the way he’d screamed when he’d sacrificed himself to protect Riley.
But there weren’t the same sinister mannerisms to the way they approached Kesha. There was something about them. Something gentle. Something sensitive.
Chloë lifted Kesha closer towards them and they were paralysed, they were transfixed.
Riley kept on moving back. He lifted his machete. He knew it was a risk. A machete to the side of an Orion’s head was a dangerous game and wasn’t even a guaranteed kill.
But Jordanna had her crowbar raised. They were going to take down two of these things—or at least try.
And they had to do it while they were distract—
Riley heard a branch snap under his foot.
The Orions flinched and all looked around at him.
He went still. Completely still. Beads of sweat poured down his head.
Please. Please. Please…
The Orions all turned back to Kesha, all crouched down to sniff at her as she stared up in awe of surroundings she didn’t understand—at a world she must just believe was normal.
Riley let go of his breath then. He saw Jordanna exhale almost visibly, too.
Then he tightened his grip on the machete.
Walked out towards the Orions.
He felt guilty about doing this. There was something so beautiful about the way the Orions were worshipping Kesha. And he knew Chloë could see it too, by the tears in her eyes.
Yet he kept on going.
And so too did Jordanna.
He kept on going until he was just inches away from the Orion. Until he could feel the coldness coming from its body as it crouched below him.
“Sorry,” Riley whispered, pulling back the machete. “So sorry.”
He looked at Jordanna.
Mouthed down from three…
Two…
One…
Then he brought the machete crashing down on the Orion’s neck.
Jordanna smacked her crowbar into the back of the Orion’s skull.
The Orion that Riley hit cried out. It let out a pained, betrayed shriek as black blood poured from its neck, sprayed all over Chloë, all over Kesha.
And then it smacked Riley.
It hit him so hard in his chest that he went flying back into the trees, dropping his machete in the process.
He went dizzy and tasted blood. He tried to regain his composure and stand, but his back was so sore and his head was spinning.
He had to get up. He had to make sure Jordanna was okay. Make sure Chloë and Kesha were both okay. He had to deal with the third…
He saw the third Orion standing above him.
It snarled at him. Drooled thick saliva. He saw anger in its eyes. Heard that rapid clicking of its teeth.
There was nothing he could do but lie there.
Nothing he could do but cower.
Nothing he could do but trust.
He squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the Orion to sink its teeth into his stomach.
And then he felt cold liquid cover his face and heard another screech.
When he opened his eyes, he saw the Orion was still standing over him. Only it was wobbling either side.
There was a machete wedged in its head.
His machete.
And beside the Orion, Chloë.
Riley watched as the Orion wobbled either side. As it struggled and shrieked some more. He saw tears in Chloë’s eyes. Tears, as together, they witnessed the Orions’ pain. Because there was something horrible about what they’d done. As monstrous as they were, there was something distinctly human about the Orions, after what they’d come from—genetic experimentation. There was something sad about them.
Chloë helped Riley to his feet. He stood, joined Jordanna, and the three of them stared at the Orions as the last of the life disappeared from their massive bodies. As their eyes, filled with sadness as they writhed around on the ground like fallen elephants mourning their losses, faded to total black.
“Come on,” Riley said. He could hear more groans through the trees. More footsteps heading their way. “Let’s get out of here.”
Chloë looked around like she was weighing up whether it was safe enough to go to the safe place she knew about. Then, she nodded.
The four of them disappeared from the grave of the fallen Orions.
They didn’t see him watching through the trees.
Chapter Ten
It wasn’t long before Riley and the group reached the camp that Chloë was leading them to.
But what they found wasn’t exactly what they expected.
It was quiet, for one. Totally silent. That went directly against Chloë’s claims that there was a thriving community of women here. At first, Riley just assumed that the women must be laying low, keeping their heads down. They must’ve seen them coming, and that’s why it was so silent.
That was until they stepped inside.
The camp was small, but there were signs of life all around. Wooden benches. A large fence wrapped all around the area, spikes and barbed wire on top of it. There were little tents and cabins, where Riley imagined the people who lived here spent most of their days. There were the remains of log fires. There were little pans where food had cooked. There were bottles of water.
And there was blood.
Riley watched Chloë walk slowly into the camp. She still hadn’t explained her true links to this place. But as she looked around, it was clear there was some kind of emotional attachment. Some kind of connection.
She stopped when she reached the bench. She looked down at it; at the bloody patch on it. Her eyes were glassy. She looked lost all over again, bereft of the confidence she’d done so well to find in herself. Trapped in the imaginings of what must’ve happened here. The painful unknowing of what really went down.
“Should I have a word with her?” Jordanna asked.
Riley swallowed a lump in his throat. It wasn’t like Jordanna to ask him for advice on how to deal with Chloë. “Give her a moment to herself. Let her… let her take it all in.”
Jordanna nodded. “This place. I know it looks like something’s happened here. Like something’s gone down. But it could be okay. Right?”
Riley took a deep breath. He smelled smoke in the air. He heard the wind brushing the leaves, the branches of the trees swaying. He didn’t hear groans. He didn’t hear screeches. He didn’t hear a thing.
This could be their new safe place, for now.
“I thought you wanted more from life than this?” Riley asked.
Jordanna lowered her head. “I do. But what choice do we have, really? What choice do we have when Chloë isn’t willing to hand Kesha over to anyone? What choice do we have when we can’t even trust anyone even if we did hand her over to help people? What choice do we have at all?”
Jordanna looked at R
iley then and he felt the pain in her words. It was exactly how he’d felt himself for so long. Only recently, he’d started to see the light—the light of trusting others, of looking back at the times in his life where trust had worked for him and knowing damned well they’d kept him alive. “We aren’t in a hurry,” Riley said. It was all he could think to say. “This place will do. For now.”
“It’s the ‘for nows’ I’m struggling with,” Jordanna said. She shook her head and walked across some of the burned out embers. “At the MLZ, it felt like we had something. Like we were building towards something. Even when we headed to the BLZ, we had a goal. Something at the end of it all. Now, it’s like we’re just…”
“Drifting,” Riley said.
Jordanna nodded. “Drifting.”
Riley looked over at Chloë. Looked at her, sitting there, Kesha in her arm.
And then he put an arm around Jordanna’s shoulder. “As long as we’re here, as long as we’re together, we aren’t drifting. We’re working towards something. Building something.”
“And what’s that?” Jordanna asked, as Riley moved closer to her lips.
He smiled. Brushed her hair from out of her eyes. “Family.”
He kissed her. When their lips connected, it was like the first time all over again. He didn’t feel pain anymore. He didn’t feel guilt. He just felt love for Jordanna. Total love.
He wasn’t going to let them just drift.
He wasn’t going to let any of them just drift.
They were his family. They were his everything.
He walked over to the bench where Chloë sat. Perched by her side.
“It’s a nice place,” he said.
Chloë didn’t say a word. She just stared into the distance.
“Look, I won’t beat around the bush. It’s clear something’s happened here. And I’m sorry. Sorry that it’s—”
“They were all I had left,” Chloë said.
Riley narrowed his eyes. He put a hand on Chloë’s back. “Hey. Hey, don’t say that. They aren’t all you had left.”
“When I was alone, I always knew that if I wanted to, I could get back to them. That they’d—that they’d look after Kesha. That they’d look after me. But now they’re gone. They’re gone and everything’s gone.”
Riley let Chloë cry. He wasn’t used to seeing her cry. An outpouring of emotion was probably a good thing. Especially compared to how she used to completely bottle her emotions up to the point of cracking.
“Everything’s not gone,” Riley said. He noticed then that Jordanna was by his side, then sitting on Chloë’s other side, holding her hand. “Everything’s not gone at all. Because we’re here. And we’ve got each other. And that’s… that’s how it’s always going to be. Us four. Us four against the world. And sure, maybe we will have to move on from here. And maybe one day when Kesha’s old enough, we will be able to find someone who can help her help others. But right now… this is all that matters. Us. We are all that matters.”
They sat there in silence, the four of them. Riley held Chloë, Chloë held Riley, Jordanna held both of them, and all of them held Kesha. And in that perfect moment, all of their emotions laid bare, Riley realised that in a strange, twisted sort of way, this was his ideal life. This was what he’d wanted, all along.
A family.
“We aren’t going to give up on Kesha, Chloë,” Riley said. “You’ve done so well to get her this far. You’ve done more than anyone your age has ever achieved. We’re not going to throw her to the wolves at the first opportunity. You don’t have to worry about—”
“We should start using her blood,” Chloë said.
Her words surprised Riley. They totally caught him off guard. “What?”
She looked down at Kesha, then back up at Riley, Jordanna. “We don’t have to use much of her blood. We don’t have to hurt her. But she can help people. And if she can help people then maybe we can start saving people. We can… we can start saving the world.”
Chloë’s words sounded lofty, like the over imaginative words of a child—which technically, they were. But she had a point. And Riley was proud of Chloë for facing her fears. For accepting that Kesha might have to be put through a little discomfort to save humanity.
“That’s very brave,” Riley said. He put a hand on Kesha’s. “But we’re not going to rush. Like you said, what’s more important is Kesha’s a little girl. She’s a little girl growing up in this world. She’s the new generation. She’s the future. Just like you. And that counts for way more than curing us old fogies. Way, way more.”
Riley kissed Chloë’s head. He hugged her and smiled at Jordanna, as Jordanna smiled back at him.
They weren’t putting Kesha in any danger.
He wasn’t putting Chloë or Jordanna in any danger.
They were here.
They were together.
They were fam—
“Well, well, well. Look what we’ve got here. A nice little reunion, hmm?”
The voice made Riley’s skin go cold.
He turned around. Looked back, over at the gate of the camp.
When he saw who was standing there, he didn’t totally recognise him. Not at first. There was something on his face. Something like a burn mark.
But then it clicked. It clicked because there were others. Others like him. Ten. Twenty. All of them armed. Many of them burned in similar ways.
The man at the front of the group was Mattius.
The group from the multi-storey car park.
The car park Riley and his family had burned to the ground.
Riley stepped in front of Chloë, Jordanna and Kesha, almost instinctively. He felt the warmth of their skin against his. Heard Kesha crying a little. “You followed us.”
“‘You followed us?’” Mattius said. “That all you can say? ‘You followed us’?” His grin dropped in the space of a second. “You fucking killed our people. You left us all for dead. Yeah, we fucking followed you alright.”
Riley tried to plot a way to get out of here. A way to escape. But wherever he looked, he saw there were people. And then he realised that this place hadn’t been empty at all. They’d been ambushed. Mattius’ group were here all along.
The group closed in on them. Mattius walked closer. And then Riley saw that his machete was in Mattius’ hand. His machete that he’d dropped when he’d walked in here.
It was covered in blood. And just looking at it made him feel sick. Totally sick.
But even more sickening was the two stakes that Mattius’ people carried.
Two stakes, just like the ones Riley used to put heads onto to deter people away.
“We don’t want any more trouble,” Riley said. And he realised immediately just how pathetic he sounded. How shaky his voice felt.
“Oh you don’t, do you?” Mattius said, just inches from Riley’s face now. All around them, the rest of Mattius’ people. Totally cornered. Totally surrounded. “You don’t want any more trouble?”
“What we did was wrong.”
“Hell yes it was wrong.”
“We were just scared—”
“You killed our people for no reason. And then you walked into our camp and we tried to punish you. Not the girls here, just you. We gave the ladies the benefit of the doubt. And then you all killed our people. Not just that, you went on to leave us all to burn. You killed men. Women. Children. Yeah, you did wrong. Very wrong.”
Riley shook his head. He tried to shuffle to the left, but his escape was blocked. He tried to move to the right, but that was blocked too.
Behind him, Kesha cried.
Jordanna shook.
Chloë was totally still.
Mattius’ eyes drifted behind Riley, a grin back on his face. His face was a mess. Completely burned on one side. So too was his chest, and Riley imagined his arms were, too. “The ladies are behind you, right? Are they gonna come out and say hello or are we gonna have to force them?”
“Fuck you!”
/> Riley threw himself at Mattius, unable to contain himself.
But he didn’t make it far.
One of Mattius’ people kicked him in his right side. Knocked him to the ground. And then more boots connected with his body, more with the side of his head. As he tasted blood and his head spun, he looked up and saw Jordanna. He saw Chloë holding Kesha.
They were completely exposed to Mattius and his people.
Mattius’ smile grew. “Well hello, ladies. I don’t believe we had the chance to say a proper goodbye when you massacred my people.”
Jordanna shook her head. She stepped in front of Chloë. “Don’t do this. Please.”
“You see, if you had stuck around, you’d have heard a lot of my people beg, too. A hell of a lot of ’em. But you didn’t stick around, did you? You disappeared. You left us. And a lot of us died. Too many of us. But not all of us, thankfully.”
Mattius looked back at Riley then. Behind Riley, two of Mattius’ people propped him up. He wanted to break free. He wanted to beat Mattius to the ground.
But he knew violence wasn’t the answer right now.
He knew violence had failed him so many times that he had to try something else.
“I made a mistake,” Riley spluttered, his voice shaky and quivery. “Me, alone. I made a mistake. I—I stopped trusting people. You can understand that in this world, can’t you? You can understand why I’d stop trusting people.”
“You killed our people in cold blood.”
“Yes!” Riley shouted. “I did that. Me. But Jordanna, Chloë, Kesha… they had no involvement in this. Jordanna didn’t want me to do what I did. Chloë only joined us after the first fight with your people—”
“Chloë killed my people to help propel your escape. And if I remember rightly, so did Jordanna here.”
“Please,” Riley said. He was running out of things to say. Running out of argument. “Kesha. She’s… she’s important. She can save people. Make them immune. That’s why she’s so important to us. Why we’re so—so distrustful. Just don’t do anything. Anything you have to do, do it to me. Please. Punish me alone. Please.”