by Ryan Casey
Pedro waved his hands. “Yes. I killed him.”
“How?”
Pedro exhaled with disbelief. “Jesus, man. I’ve not been away that long.”
“So if I went inside that house now, I’d find his body dead. Right?”
Pedro pointed at Chloë. “I’ve got the girl, for fuck’s sake. What other proof do you need? But yes. You would. So now it’s your call from here. Shall we go in there, or—”
“Wait.” Ivan was short. Snappy. His face was grey and pale. The soldiers behind him didn’t say a word. “We wait. Wait until they scream. I want them to feel that fear. I want them to realise what is happening. I want them to realise they can’t trust anyone again.” He tilted his head to the barracks. “And then we start from scratch.”
Pedro gulped down the lump in his throat. He’d planned the timing in his head, but he wasn’t entirely convinced by the reaction of the other troops. But he had to try to get this right. “Was it you? Who killed Barney?”
Ivan turned to face Pedro. “What did they say?”
“Hey,” Pedro said. He raised his hands. “Just that it was you who killed him. Not them. Just like you killed…”
“Okay, okay,” Ivan said. “Enough. How fucking long do these people sleep?”
Pedro noticed Adam and Dave exchange a wary glance when he mentioned Ivan killing Barney and the other soldiers. They were still completely silent. Hopefully he’d done enough. If not, he’d have to improvise. Work out how to handle them, too.
Pedro stared out of the window. His heart raced. He could see the following events playing out in his mind. He just had to say the words. The clue words. And then it could happen. The crazy, messed-up plan could begin.
“You know, we were so close,” Pedro said.
Ivan frowned. “So close to what?”
“Normality. Even after they’d found the bodies we stored—oh, sorry.” Pedro intentionally stopped himself as he noticed Adam and Dave growing more fidgety and jittery in the back seat. “Sometimes difficult remembering who knows what around here.”
Ivan peered at Pedro. His eyes scanned his face, like he was weighing him up. Working out what to do with him. Working out whether he had just slipped those words in there or whether it was all intentional.
“We could always move on,” Pedro said. “Move on from this. Move on from the barracks and start again elsewhere. We shouldn’t be fighting one another. We should be fighting the creatures.”
Ivan shook his head. “This is moving on, Pedro. We don’t just fucking walk away from something good. We’ve got a chance here. I’m thinking long-term. We can bring the women in. Start the… the cycle of life once again.”
Pedro’s stomach sank. Ivan’s eyes were bloodshot, frenzied like an angry dog. He’d lost it. He’d completely lost it. So there was nothing else he could possibly do. “If that’s what you really want. But I’m sorry.”
Ivan paused for a moment. “Sorry for what?”
Pedro let go of his nervous breath. “Now, Chloë.”
In what seemed like the space of a second, Chloë lunged from her blanket and pressed the drugged cloth into Ivan’s face. Ivan was so caught off-guard by Chloë that he left his gun lying free in his pocket. Pedro grabbed it and pointed it at Al and Dave in the back, who raised their guns at Pedro.
But they were too slow. Pedro fired at one. Then he fired at the other. He’d won them over. Planted the seeds of doubt over Ivan. They were good men, but he had to do this.
Ivan’s arms were flailing. He tugged at Chloë’s hair, pulling out a chunk and sending her flying towards the window of the vehicle as his strength seeped away. The drugged cloth slid down his face. Pedro aimed the gun at his head as Chloë held her back that had cracked against the window. “You did good, Chloë,” Pedro said. “You did so good.”
Pedro pressed the gun against the side of Ivan’s head. His eyes rolled up into his skull. He tried to focus on Pedro as his pupils dilated. He tried to speak, but nothing but foamy saliva dribbled out of his mouth.
“I’m sorry, Ivan. But you did this. You fucking did this, not me. Not me.”
Ivan’s jaw began to tremble. He started fitting. Snot dribbled from his nostrils as Pedro kept the shaky gun pressed up to his temple. Tears started to fall down Pedro’s cheeks. “You did this. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Ivan’s fitting came to a sudden halt. His eyes closed. He was unconscious.
Pedro lowered the gun and wiped his eyes.
“We did it, Pedro. Why are you sad?”
Pedro looked up at Chloë. A chunk of her hair was missing and she gripped hold of her shoulder, which had collided with the window. He smiled and finished wiping away his tears. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get this finished with and get you back to your mum. Good girl. Come on.”
Pedro lifted Chloë out of the vehicle. He took a final glance at Ivan’s unconscious body. He’d be out for a good three to four hours. Purer than chloroform, army-grade shit.
“Mum!” Chloë waved at the window, wincing and lowering her arm. She grabbed her shoulder, but the smile didn’t disappear from her face. “I did it, Mum. I did it.”
Pedro stared up at the group. They were all gathered around the window. Claudia had her hands in front of her mouth, and she was crying. Anna held her. And Riley stood behind them. He nodded at Pedro.
Pedro nodded back at him. “Let’s get you back inside. Come on.”
Chloë and he walked towards the door. There was just one thing left now. One thing he didn’t want to do, but one thing that had to happen.
Riley appeared at the door to meet them. Chloë grabbed hold of him. He held her, then half-smiled at Pedro.
“Whatever you do next,” Pedro said, “I don’t want to be a part of it. I’ve done my bit.” He kept his head down, handed Ivan’s gun to Riley, and pushed past him.
Riley stared at the gun-mounted vehicle. Ivan’s static body sat in the driver’s seat. Ted’s killer. The killer of so many. He had one last thing to do. Something he just needed to do. And then they could go.
“You go inside to your mum, now,” Riley said. “And get that arm seen to with Anna, too.”
Chloë skipped past Riley and disappeared into the house.
Riley took a few deep breaths in. Gripped Ivan’s gun.
Then, he walked towards the gun-mounted vehicle. One final thing to do.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A shiver ran across Ivan’s skin. His head stung. At first, his breathing was calm. He was waking up in bed. Something had happened, he wasn’t sure what. But he was okay. He was holding this group together. The bodies — the frozen bodies — none of that had happened. They were okay. Life was good. Supplies were good. They were okay.
But then a sense of dread and realization thumped him in the stomach. He pulled open his eyes. He was in a room he recognized. He was shivering. It was so cold. He just wanted to be enveloped in a warm, tight jumper. Something to keep him from this cold. His breath frosted in front of him. What was going on?
“Welcome back.”
The voice came from the doorway. He looked ahead. He recognized the silhouette. Riley.
“Wondered when you’d be joining us again.”
Ivan tried to step up but something was stopping him. He looked down — his wrists were tied with plastic ties to the arms of a chair. His feet were also tied up. He was stuck. Trapped.
Riley stepped towards him. “A part of me didn’t want you to wake up again. A part of me wanted you to rot on the side of the road for the things you’ve done. The people you’ve killed. The people close to me that you’ve hurt.”
Ivan tried to reply to Riley as he crouched opposite him but he was just too cold. His army uniform had been torn away from his body. He was wearing nothing but his boxer shorts. No wonder he was freezing.
Riley tapped the gun against the floor. Ivan’s gun. And he was avoiding looking behind Ivan.
Ivan knew exactly why.
“I wanted to ki
ll you. Make no mistake about it. I think you’re lucky to be here. To have another chance.” Riley stepped up.
“Pl—please,” Ivan said. “I—I… Please.”
Riley turned away from Ivan and walked back towards the freezer room door. As he got about half way between Ivan and the door, he reached into his pocket and dropped a pair of scissors onto the floor. “The difference between me and you is that I’m willing to give people a chance. Even after all the horrible, horrible things I found in this freezer—” Riley gestured to the piled-up bodies behind Ivan without looking at them. “Even after all those things, I was willing to let you and your people stay here. But we didn’t want to be a part of it.”
“Please,” Ivan begged. His lips were chapped and dry. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been unconscious. Probably a few hours. “I can change. I can change.”
Riley leaned against the door and smiled. “You, on the other hand, didn’t give people a chance. You just wanted things your way. All your way. And look how it’s ended up. Pedro’s leaving with our group. Your men are all dead. But hey — you’ve still got your beloved barracks, right?”
A tear dripped down Ivan’s cheek. Soon, it would freeze against his skin. He had to get to the scissors. He had to get out of here.
Riley kicked the scissors in Ivan’s direction. “We’re leaving. We’re going to start again, from scratch. I suggest you do the same. If you can reach those scissors and get yourself out of that chair, of course. I’ve made sure the freezer is extra-frosty today.”
Ivan shook his head from side to side. “I was only trying—trying to do the—the right thing.”
Riley shrugged. “Well, you failed. You killed my friend. My best friend. And you would have killed us all. Pedro told me about your plans for the women. Ironic, really, how your patronising little view of how weak or strong they were was your downfall in the end. Chloë did good.”
Ivan shook his head from side to side. “Please. Please.”
Riley reached for the door handle. “Well, better leave you to it. We’ve got work to do, and so have you.” He started to close the door. “Good luck, Ivan. Not many people would give you a chance after the things you’ve done. I hope you come back from them, I really do. But take one step at a time, huh?”
“Please!”
Riley slammed the door shut. The room descended into darkness.
Ivan’s heart raced. He dragged the feet of the chair forward. He could only just see the scissors up ahead of him as a dim beam of daylight peeked in through a window. He just had to get to the scissors. He just had to get out.
His chair tumbled forward. His forehead smacked against the hard, frozen ground. He bit into his tongue and swore. He couldn’t move. He’d fallen forward with the chair on his back so he couldn’t break free, no matter how much he turned from side to side.
And staring down at him with frozen eyes and half-eaten torsos, the bodies that he’d kept in here. The ones that the creatures had been feasting on. Intestines spilling out. Chunks missing out of necks. Faces he recognized. Reminders of what he’d done.
“Please!” Ivan shouted, as he shuffled his chair from side to side, desperate to get the frozen bodies out of his eye-line.
He shuffled, and he shuffled, and he shuffled, as another intensely cold shiver ran through his body.
Then, he closed his eyes, the images of what he’d done flickering in his head like a montage, and he let out the largest, loudest scream he could.
Riley bit his lip as he walked down the corridor away from the freezer room, as Ivan let out a huge scream. He’d given him a chance. A chance to live. That was more than most would give him for the things he’d done. He’d given him a choice. That’s what separated him from Ivan.
He took a look inside Ivan’s room as he passed. They’d removed the weapons and ammo he had stashed in there. There should enough to get by on for now. Not for forever. Nothing was forever anymore.
But they’d cross that hurdle when they came to it. They couldn’t make the mistake of over-preparation. That’s what Ivan had done when he’d killed his soldiers. The fear of running out of food gripped a hold of him, driving him to obsession. They couldn’t become another Ivan. That’s where they were different.
Pedro was waiting by the cracked window and destroyed front door as Riley walked out. There were bodies scattered around the canteen. Bodies they’d had to deal with. Creatures, dead for a second time. For a final time.
“You done?” Pedro asked.
Riley knew he didn’t need to answer as Ivan screamed again. “Yeah. We should go. Got everything we need?”
Pedro turned to the gun-mounted vehicle. Anna, Claudia, and Chloë were sat in the back. All of them were holding weapons. Armed and ready for the next step. “Ammo for the mounted gun should we run into any trouble. Weapons for everyone. Enough food to get us by for now.”
“Which is all we need to worry about,” Riley said.
Pedro hesitated for a moment and nodded. “Right.”
The pair of them walked towards the vehicle.
“You made the right call, bruv,” Pedro said. He didn’t look Riley in the eye, but it was the first time he’d acknowledged Riley’s decision to leave Ivan in the freezer room. Alive. “You were saying all those days ago about the guilt. About the things you’ve done. Well, you’ve done the right thing. The tough thing, but the right thing.” Pedro walked past Riley and climbed atop the gun-mounted vehicle, back into the position he had been in when Riley and the group first saw him by the railway.
Riley looked back at the barracks. The foundations were destroyed. Ivan’s screams had stopped. In the courtyard, a few creatures that they had missed out staggered in the direction of the vehicle, dried blood crusted around their teeth. It was a shame things couldn’t work out here, it really was. But the only way was forward. Ted and he had done the right thing leaving the flat to find his Grandma. They’d done the right thing running out of that restaurant as it burned to the ground. And they were doing the right thing now.
“You coming?” Anna called. She was smiling as she sat in the vehicle.
Riley took in a deep breath of air. “Yeah. I’m coming.”
He walked over to the gun-mounted vehicle and climbed in to the driver’s seat.
“Sure you don’t want me to drive?” Claudia asked.
Riley gripped the steering wheel. He examined his hands. They weren’t tingling. His heart was beating fairly fast, but nothing like it used to. “I’m good.”
“Well, let’s get out of here!” Pedro called.
Riley reversed the gun-mounted vehicle and turned it around, then drove in the direction of the barracks gates, past the creatures in the yard, past the half-mast Great Britain flag, away from the terraced houses, the ‘Please Save Us’ lettering completely washed off.
Away to somewhere new.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Clear.”
They crept around the door of the old wooden cabin beside the docks. The journey down here had been difficult at times, but they’d made it. No losses. No hitches. They’d pulled together, like they were going to have to keep on doing from this point forward. There was no room for individuals in survival.
“Hell yes. You take the left, I’ll take the right.”
Riley nodded at Pedro and crept into the cabin. The narrowboat was intact, sat on a wheeled carrier, undiscovered.
Well, relatively undiscovered.
Riley closed in on the creature that wandered around, disgruntled by the light that now shone into the cabin.
“One, two, three…”
Riley sunk the knife into the creature’s head. Its brains spilled out of its temple and it fell to the floor. Pedro did the same to the creature he closed in on, wiping his knife once he had finished.
Pedro inspected the boat for a few seconds then pumped his fist. “All looking good. Just got to get her on water now. Anna, Claudia — all good out there?”
Claudia and Anna poked th
eir heads around the door as they held their guns. They both stuck their thumbs up in approval.
“Good,” Pedro said. “Come on, Riley. Better move this thing.”
They scanned the area once more then attached the narrowboat carrier to the back of the gun-mounted vehicle. Pedro jumped into the front seat. “I’ll get her on the water.”
Riley nodded. He could smell the burning behind them. It would be ready soon. He turned around and he saw the smoke was still rising, thick and black. His stomach sank slightly. But at least they’d finally given them a civilized way to go. Finally, Ted and Elizabeth had been given the exit they deserved. No secrets. No lies. No brutality, not anymore.
“You handling that okay, Chloë?” Riley asked.
Chloë turned around from the burning bodies and nodded her head, a smile on her face. He could tell that she had been crying as she bid her sister a final farewell, but she was a tough kid. She was a survivor. All of them were.
Claudia jogged over to Chloë with the two urns that Pedro had retrieved from the barracks and started to scrape some of the ashes inside. They couldn’t take all of their ashes, of course. But as long as they gave them some sort of memorial. Some sort of send-off. Ted used to go on about how he never wanted any fuss when he died because the last thing he wanted to do was depress everybody. He wanted something quick. Something different. And to be buried with his Xbox. Unfortunately, the last part was going to be tough, but a spare copy of Call of Duty from the barracks would have to suffice.
A large splash crashed against the surface of the water. Riley turned and saw that the narrowboat was on the docks. Pedro rushed out of the vehicle and checked the boat. He’d warned the group that getting the boat onto the water might not be so easy.
“All good?” Riley called.
Pedro looked around. He had a frown on his forehead. He shook his head.
Riley’s stomach sank. “Fuck. Fuck.”
And Pedro burst into laughter. “It’s perfect. Perfect. We’re good to go, bruv.”