Dead Days: Season 3 (Books 13-18)

by Casey, Ryan

  Chapter Two: Pedro

  They had been walking for hours, but it could have been days judging by how little conversation was going on.

  Pedro led the group. He walked down this road, tree-lined on the left, in the direction of the M6 motorway. Their direct route to Manchester. Not the ideal route, but the best route they had.

  He was freezing cold. So fucking cold he could see his breath, no matter how much his warm black coat was zipped up to his chin. Hated winter. Always had hated winter. Reminded him of the cold Afghan nights‌—‌the vast difference to the warmth of the days.

  Except this was worse than Afghan. Much, much worse.

  At least in Afghan, all he had to deal with was the stench of sweat and suntanned skin. Here, in the end times, he had the smell of decay to deal with too. The smell of decay, constantly blocking his nose. He could smell a thousand lilies and still, getting in the way would be that fucking awful smell, a constant reminder of how close death really was.

  He could hear footsteps on the concrete of the road behind him. He knew Chris was closest. Chris, who’d come out of nowhere to save him when he’d fled Heathwaite’s. Taken him under his wing, greeted him, respected him like he’d known him for a bunch of years.

  Stupid. Trusting anyone was stupid in these times.

  Especially when you had a bitten boy in your company.

  A boy who’d been bitten two weeks ago and still hadn’t turned.

  As the road narrowed, more and more empty cars built up, signalling the proximity of the motorway. Pedro caught a tang of the rabbit he’d eaten at breakfast. It was there, lingering in his mouth. Something he’d enjoyed at the time. Something he’d enjoyed very much.

  But that was before he saw the bite on young Josh’s arm. Before all Barry’s fucking weirdness. Before he became part of something‌—‌a trek to this supposed Manchester “Living Zone”‌—‌that he wasn’t even sure he liked the sound of anyway. When you’d done multiple calls of duty, you came to realise the living were a pretty shitty bunch.

  “What do you think?”

  The voice came from behind Pedro. Chris. Pedro had been avoiding speaking to him‌—‌avoiding speaking to anyone‌—‌after finding the bite marks on Josh’s arm. The kid needed leaving behind. Needed a merciful death. He could just be slow at turning into one of those flesh-eating goons. No-one had done any science research into these zombies, so who was to say they didn’t have different turning rates?

  Maybe a kid could last a while after the initial trauma.

  He gulped. Gulped and shivered, the cold air biting at his cheeks.

  Sam had lasted a while.

  Panting, behind him. Closing in, to his left.

  He looked around and saw Chris jogging in his direction. He was holding a large metal spanner, wearing a red Nike hat, black Thinsulate gloves. The only part of his skin exposed was his face, his cheeks rosy. It had been fucking freezing since the first snow had fallen. And sure‌—‌it had only fallen a little, but a little was enough for now. Pedro dreaded to think how he’d cope if any more snow fell.

  He didn’t like snow at the best of times.

  “So the motorway plan sounds good to you?” Chris said, catching his breath as he caught up to Pedro’s frantic pace.

  Pedro shrugged. Smiled. “Doesn’t look like I’ve got an option, bud.”

  He looked over his shoulder. Looked at bald Barry, standing separate from blonde-haired Tamara, who held the hand of her skinny, dark-haired son, Josh. Josh peered at Pedro. Peered at him with his little eyes that looked at him like he’d done something wrong. Pedro felt a knotting in his gut. He was a good kid. A good kid who’d been forced into a fucking horrible situation.

  But he was a bitten kid. And that made him something different.

  “Barry’s right about the motorway,” Chris said, clouds of breath frosting up ahead of him. “It was a dangerous place at first. One of the most dangerous. But it’s weeks since the spread started. The zombies get hungry, just like us. They move on.”

  Pedro bit his lip. Powered forward, his body freezing, as the cars got thicker and thicker. “Like I said, don’t really have much of a choice.”

  “What scares you so much about Josh?”

  The question took Pedro by surprise. He glanced at Chris, who was half-smiling. It was direct. To the point. Shit, he had to respect the man for being up front, not like some of the bullshitters he’d had the pleasure of dealing with since the start of the fall.

  “What scares me is that he’s bit,” Pedro said. “Ain’t no comin’ back from that, y’know.”

  “And what if there is?” Chris said, latching right on to Pedro’s statement. “Because I was there. I was there holding Tamara back as the zombies took her son. I was there when they stuck their teeth into his flesh. And I was there as he came running away from them, running towards us, holes in his arm and flowing with blood. I told Tamara when we left. Told her what it all meant, and she‌—‌she struggled, as you’d expect a mother to struggle. But anyway, we cleaned him up. Cleaned up his wound. Barry stayed awake the first night with Josh, in case…‌You know. I stayed awake the next night. Tamara stayed awake all the time.

  “And then something just‌—‌just happened. His skin started going less pale. Colour came back to his cheeks, things like that. And then all of a sudden he was eating again. He wasn’t spewing up, sweating all the time. And we‌—‌we still weren’t sure, but well. It’s two weeks since he was bitten, and to me, he looks alright. What about you?”

  Pedro gulped down the lump in his throat. He looked back at Josh, who was wading through the thin layer of snow on the road. Wading with confidence, not with injury. If not for the bandage on his arm, for the blue coat covering that bandage, he was a normal kid. Not a goon.

  “I just don’t get my hopes up,” Pedro said. “Seen enough bullshit the last few weeks to know better.”

  “You strike me as a man who’s seen enough bullshit in a lifetime to know better,” Chris said. A slight smile tugged at his cheeks.

  Pedro knew Chris was probably right, but he wasn’t giving him the dignity of a reply.

  “So the motorway,” Chris said. “We head down it for fifty miles, shelter on the way when we can, divert if we have to. Leads us straight into the heart of Manchester. Straight to the Living Zone.”

  “How d’you even know where this Living Zone is supposed to be, anyway?”

  Chris kicked at some of the snow with his large black boots. “If you were setting up a hotspot to save mankind against a mass of illiterate creatures, what’s the one thing you’d use to catch attention?”

  Pedro shrugged. “Machine gun.”

  Chris sniggered. “Words, Pedro. I saw it on the websites and the blogs I managed to take a peek at in that house two weeks ago. Big red banner, right on the entrance of the city, directing us right to it. We’ll see it.”

  “And if we don’t?”

  Chris didn’t even flinch. “I believe we will.”

  Pedro was about to take the argument further, simply ‘cause he was feeling tired and ratty, when he heard a scream from behind.

  Right away, him and Chris swung around.

  What he saw made the rattiness intensify inside him.

  There were five creatures surrounding Barry, Tamara and Josh. Barry was occupying himself with two of them with a large, sharp piece of scrap metal, and Tamara too was dealing with two, snipping and stabbing away at the goons with the hedge cutters.

  But there was one of them closing in on Josh.

  One of them making him tumble to the road, into the thin layer of snow, reaching its filthy, bloody hands towards him.

  Pedro didn’t even think.

  He ran. Ran along the slippy road in the direction of the creature as it got closer and closer to Josh.

  He sprinted with all he had. Sprinted, fuelled on adrenaline, towards Josh, towards the creature closing in on him.

  He saw the blood. Saw the blood in his mind’s e
ye, but not in reality. The blood in his mind’s eye was Sam’s. His son’s.

  No. He wasn’t seeing that blood again.

  He threw himself at the creature before it could sink its teeth into Josh, knocking it onto its back. The creature‌—‌once a man with short, dark hair, now with a chunk of his head missing and filled with green maggots‌—‌gasped and snapped at Pedro with its chipped, worn-down teeth.

  Pedro pressed his hand into the creature’s head. Pressed with all he had, pushing, and then smacking, and then beating to the concrete, the sound of the flesh giving way to the harder sound of skull, until eventually…‌

  A crack.

  And then another crack and another and another, and then Pedro twisted the creature onto its back and smacked his fist into its brains, mashing them up as well as he could.

  The creature shook, twitched, hurled darkened blood out of its dead mouth as Pedro tore its skull’s contents up with his bare hands, flesh and brains wedged between his fingernails.

  And then he looked up. Looked up at the shock on Tamara’s face, the fear on Josh’s face, the sheer disgusted disbelief on Barry’s face.

  Chris smiled. Shook his head. “Looks like you’re with us then, friend?”

  Chapter Three: Chloë

  Chloë had been walking for so long that her feet were sore all over.

  She shivered as she held the map that she’d taken from the bad men under her arm, and she walked down the road. The snow was stopping and starting. Dad used to say it was typical British and “couldn’t make its mind up,” though she didn’t know what he meant. But it looked pretty. Pretty at the sides of the road. Just she had to be careful not to slip because she’d slipped before and it’d hurt her butt a bit.

  She looked around her every step she took down this road. It wasn’t a road like Lulworth Road that she used to live at with her mum, with Elizabeth, with Dad. No, there were no houses on this road. No houses, just trees. And the wind blew against the trees and made things crack and rustle, which she always thought were the monsters but they weren’t. Not yet. But she’d have to be careful. She’d seen what the horrible monsters did to people, how cruel they were. She had to watch herself.

  Her teeth chattered together. She had a blue coat on, but she’d zipped the hood off back when they were with Mike because she thought hoods looked silly. But she wished she hadn’t now. Her ears were freezing, like they were that time they’d gone on a school trip behind the scenes at Tesco and gone inside the freezer. Like that day up the cold mountain with Dad, wanting nothing more than some hot milk.

  She was hungry, too. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been walking, but it hadn’t gone dark since this morning‌—‌since waking up in that place opposite Heathwaite’s. But it felt like she’d been walking for days and days, and her stomach was rumbling. She thought back to the soup they used to have at the hotel. How she never used to like the little green bits in the tomato soup.

  Her stomach churned again, the taste of that tomato soup tingling her tongue in memory.

  She’d love some of that soup now.

  She kept on walking down the road; kept looking over her shoulder, looking to the sides at the trees, looking ahead at the endless road as it went on and on and on. The map the bad men had left said that this road led to Manchester. But Chloë had been to Manchester with Mum and Elizabeth when she was younger to the Trafford Centre and Manchester definitely didn’t look like this. She wondered how far she had to go. If she’d get there before night. If there would be children‌—‌girls and boys her age that she could play with.

  If Daddy would be…‌

  “Daddy’s gone, Chloë,” she muttered, her lips shivering as she spoke to herself. “Daddy’s gone and Mummy’s gone and Elizabeth’s gone.”

  Speaking the words out loud made it easier for Chloë to understand, but it still made her sad and all teared up inside. She didn’t know why Mike and the bad man and Riley all had that fight. She thought the creatures were the bad ones, so she didn’t know why people were fighting.

  But what the bad man did to her mum.

  No. Forget it, Chloë. It’s done. It’s‌—‌

  The blood spraying out of her mum’s head.

  “No!”

  Her shout was louder than she expected. She was shaking. She heard rustling around her, but that was just the wind again‌—‌or maybe it was monsters, but she’d be okay because she had a gun and people with guns always won. She gripped it tight in her right hand. It was heavy, solid. She didn’t like shooting it. Especially not after how she’d missed before.

  How she’d missed and hit Anna.

  She sniffed up the bitter air, her legs so cold and tired that they were numb. She looked down at her front. Looked down at the little silver chain with the locket around her neck. She lifted it. Brought her thumb against it and rubbed it. Her mum’s Christmas present. She’d got it especially for her. Especially for‌—‌

  Christmas. Was it Christmas yet? Had she missed Christmas? She didn’t know. She knew it was in a few days when she’d left Mike’s, but she’d lost count of how many.

  She started walking again, a sickly weight in her stomach. She didn’t really feel like Christmas much anymore. She just wanted to sleep. Get in bed and sleep and stay nice and warm.

  That would be her ideal Christmas present. A bed. Warmth.

  Maybe in this “Living Zone” she’d find a bed and warmth and some hot soup and they’d be able to have Christmas later this year with all the other children. She’d like that. She’d prefer‌—‌

  She heard a louder rustling up ahead to her right. Louder than the rustling of the wind.

  Her heart beat fast. She gripped the heavy, sweaty gun tightly.

  “Be brave, Chloë,” she whispered to herself. “Mum’s here.”

  The rustling went on. It was coming from the bushes in front of her. The bushes just in front of the tall trees that clawed into the blue-grey sky. She stepped slowly towards it, holding her gun tight, trying not to shiver too much in the cold.

  She lifted the gun. Pointed at the bush. She could see it was moving now. Moving, and shaking away snow.

  Another deep breath. Heart still racing.

  “Be brave, Chloë. Do what Riley would’ve done. What Anna would’ve done.”

  She lifted the gun. Started to squeeze the trigger.

  Just before she could pull, a little squirrel poked its head from around the side of the bush.

  Chloë immediately lowered her gun, smiling. The squirrel was so little and it had a red face. Chloë thought her teacher told her that red squirrels were all dead, but her teacher was stupid anyway so she was probably lying.

  She crouched down opposite the little thing. It was so skinny she could see its bones.

  “Hello, Mister,” she said, smiling. She reached her hand towards it. It was so tame, like the birds Nan used to have in her garden. “Are you hungry?”

  The squirrel jolted away back behind the bush.

  Chloë carried on smiling. She stumbled around the bush after the squirrel. Maybe it could be her friend. Maybe it was her mum or Elizabeth coming back to her in animal form, like Gurdit used to believe in and people laughed at him for it.

  “Come on,” she whispered. “I won’t hurt you.”

  When she got around the other side of the bush, it took a few moments for Chloë to really understand what she was seeing.

  There was a woman lying on the ground. She had blonde hair, although there was red in it like dried tomato ketchup. She was wearing a white shirt, but her skin underneath was whiter.

  It was then that the smell hit Chloë. The smell that made her heart beat even faster because it meant that the monsters were around.

  But there was something wrong with this lady. Something wrong with her, as her glass-like eyes looked up at the sky.

  She was missing a leg.

  Chloë gasped and stumbled back. The little squirrel was nibbling away at the bloody stump of purple an
d red worms where the lady’s leg used to be. It took a bite, getting its head even redder, then looked up at Chloë, nibbling at the meat.

  Suddenly she felt very sick. She didn’t want to be friends with this squirrel anymore. Mum wouldn’t eat another person. Elizabeth wouldn’t either.

  She turned away, the wind whistling through the trees, and started back to the road.

  That’s when she saw them.

  There were ten of them, maybe more. She could tell from the way they were walking that they weren’t people. They were all slumped over, and some of them had hands dangling on, others of them limped and had bits of their legs missing.

  Chloë’s heart pounded even more. She struggled to swallow the lump in her throat, as the snow fell down even heavier.

  She stayed still. Frozen still, like she was frozen by the snow.

  She gripped the necklace in one hand and the gun in the other.

  “Be brave, Chloë. Mummy’s with you.”

  Chapter Four: Riley

  In the two-or-so months since the start of the Dead Days, Riley had never expected to be the one to be told he was “saving the world.”

  He sat down on this white leather chair in the corner of the bunker. It was so clean in here, so pristine, it was surreal. Like anything could be happening‌—‌anything was happening‌—‌outside, and yet he was stuck in here a million miles from it all.

  He smelled deodorant, a sweet smell, and it took him a moment to realise it was coming from himself. He’d actually taken a warm shower. Sure, there had been water at Heathwaite’s, but he’d felt consistently grubby there. And after covering his hands with creature gunk and brains just earlier, he’d needed a good scrub.

  At the other side of the bunker, over by the kitchen area, Alan was limping around, whistling away as he buttered himself some toast. The toast was ready toasted, out of a packet. A silver packet, of course.

  “So what is it?” Riley asked. The words came from a part within him, a part that had been suppressing itself since he’d got here‌—‌since Alan claimed he’d discovered the formula to “save the world.”