Dead Days: Season 3 (Books 13-18)

by Casey, Ryan

  This caused more of a stir amongst the men. Pedro took this as an opportunity to take a few extra steps forward. Close in on them.

  “So kill them. Kill all of them, and I’ll kill ol’ Daniel here. And then you’ll kill me, but I’ll take at least one of you down before you do, trust me. And what’s left for you then? Human meat ain’t so good. And you blast the kid, you blast away our hope of surviving this mess.”

  Dan was still wriggling, but less so. So much for an alpha‌—‌he seemed to be warming to Pedro’s idea. Weak, that’s what this lot were. Weak and unorganised. Soft touches, amongst a bunch of shitty soft touches still living in this world.

  “Hand ‘em over,” Pedro said, taking a few steps closer. “Hand ‘em over, so at least we can talk. Think about it. Just think long and hard about what you’re doing.”

  The three people looked at one another some more. Kept hold tight of their guns, but muttered more inaudible stuff.

  He knew he was working on them. He knew they were coming around.

  “We keep our guns,” the man in the middle said. “We‌—‌we keep our fucking guns, and you don’t try anything stupid.”

  Pedro nodded. Smiled. “Like I say, there’s six bags of good crisps on that concrete over there. Me and Danny boy here can share a pack.”

  The men took another look at one another. Took another cautious look‌—‌another final, hesitant look.

  And then they nodded.

  Nodded, pushed Tamara, Josh and Barry over in Pedro’s direction, as Pedro closed in on them with his gun to Dan’s head.

  “Good choice,” Pedro said, smiling as he passed his three companions. They looked at him with tears rolling down their cheeks, all of them. Tamara even muttered a silent “thank-you” as she passed.

  Pedro waited until he got right opposite the three hooded folk before stopping. Kept his gun to Dan’s head.

  “Y’know what the main thing I learned in Afghan was?” Pedro asked.

  The men looked at him cluelessly. Looked at him through the slits in their hats with narrowed eyes.

  “Never trust a geezer with a smile.”

  He pushed Dan forward into the other men.

  Then he lifted Dan’s gun and fired.

  He hit the one on the left first. Blood spurted from his neck.

  Then he got the one on the right, who was lifting his gun the quickest. Popped a bullet right through this fucker’s skull. Heard it crack on contact.

  And then he fired one through the middle of the neck of the man in the middle. Listened to him choke, listened to him drown on his own blood as he fell back against the bloodstained white van.

  Pedro watched Dan wriggle around on the ground. Watched him back up against his dying companions. Watched him struggle to reach for one of his friends’ guns.

  He let him, too. Let him, smile on his face, gun still pointed at him.

  “I was serious about those crisps, y’know,” Pedro said, as Dan grasped for a gun. “Ah well.”

  Just when Dan’s hand rested on a gun, Pedro shot it. Shot it, turned the hand into a bloody stump in a flash.

  Dan screamed out. Screamed out and clutched at the bloody mess that was his hand, pooling out onto the floor.

  Then Pedro stepped back. Took a few steps back, his heart racing, his vision blurred, his body totally fucking tense and filled with that same anger he’d had for the people who’d done all those fucking awful things to him in that Afghan basement.

  He reached down for the wrench. Wrapped his fingers around it, then walked back over to Dan.

  “Puh‌—‌Please,” Dan said. His lips were shaking. Tears were dampening his black hooded mask.

  “Sorry, Dan,” Pedro said. “Like you say. Can’t be too trusting nowadays.”

  Dan sobbed. “I have a family. I have a‌—‌”

  He didn’t finish, because Pedro plummeted the wrench into his skull.

  As blood splattered against his bare skin, as Dan’s skull gave way beneath him, Pedro felt something like relief.

  Something like justice.

  Night fell on the group soon after. They walked away from the white van. Too risky sleeping near a bunch of dead bodies. Didn’t know whether the goons worked on smell or anything like that, but who wanted to sleep near a group of mutilated bodies anyway? Didn’t make for a peaceful sleep, that’s for sure.

  Pedro sat on the bonnet of a black Toyota Celica. He stared down the darkened motorway at the pile upon pile of cars up ahead. Just ahead, there was a little bridge, directions to Manchester and Birmingham on a blue sign peppered with birdshit. Twenty-one miles to Manchester. Not so far. Manageable in a day or two, for sure.

  He rubbed his hands together. They were still rough with dried blood. The dried blood from “Dan.” He’d buried a wrench into his skull. Couldn’t take any chances. And although he’d got Josh and everyone out of a shitty situation, he’d walked ahead alone, without saying anything. Barely managed to look them in the eye after the shit he’d done in front of them.

  He watched the cold air spill out of his mouth. Listened to the perfect, absolute silence. The smell was okay, too. No rotting, just the smell of stagnant petrol, of tires that’d burned rubber long ago. Ghosts of a million people, all with stories of their own.

  He heard a rustling behind him. Swung around immediately, lifting the gun that he’d taken from Dan. Still had three bullets in it, and the others were fully loaded. Left those with Barry and Tamara.

  But as he pointed his gun into the darkness at the side of a green Mercedes van that the others were sleeping in, Pedro realised that the footsteps were from Tamara.

  He lowered his gun. Looked away, turned back around.

  “Made me jump,” Pedro said. Might as well break the silence.

  Tamara kept on walking. She stopped right at his side; stared ahead at the cars, at the cloudy sky above. “The moon looks gorgeous tonight.”

  Pedro gulped. He hadn’t even noticed the moon, really. Been more focused on the road ahead. But Tamara was right. The moon was bright and bulging its way through the clouds, like a nightlight watching over them. “Yeah,” Pedro said. He couldn’t think what else to say. He’d done some shitty things. Scared them, no doubt. Lost their trust, inevitably. Best to just walk and not even speak from now on.

  Tamara, who Pedro could tell was shivering, perched herself on the front of the black Celica. In the moonlight, she looked really damn pretty.

  “Pedro, I…‌” She closed her mouth. Sighed out some steamy breath. She reached for the back of her neck and scratched it. “When…‌When Steve went. Josh’s dad. When he was…‌when he was taken away by the‌—‌by the zombies. At first, I…‌I saw him. Every night. I’d see him in the‌—‌in the faces of the people I knew. I’d‌—‌I’d see him in the distance, wandering around aimlessly.” She paused. Hesitated, took a breath. “I’d see him everywhere even though I…‌even though I knew he wasn’t there. Even though, I knew he couldn’t be there.”

  Her eyes connected with Pedro’s now. Her lush dark eyes that had so much kindness in them, so much love. She didn’t say anything else. She just looked at Pedro.

  And weirdly, he could feel something inside. Something bubbling at his throat, threatening to surface.

  “If you…‌Pedro, we’ve all lost in this. If you need to talk. I just want you to know‌—‌”

  “The boy. The kid I said I saw.” The words flowed off Pedro’s tongue subconsciously, his mouth splurging them out like vomit off some badly cooked takeaway. “He…‌I served in Afghanistan six years ago. Frontline. Only me and‌—‌me and a few colleagues, few army pals, we were captured.”

  He gulped. Wiped away the sweat forming on his hot forehead.

  “Sorry, I shouldn’t‌—‌”

  “No,” Tamara said, looking intently, unjudgmentally, at Pedro. “Carry on.”

  Pedro took another deep breath of the freezing air. Stared up at the bulbous moon. “I got tortured. The scars, you’d ‘ave
seen ‘em when Dan stripped me back then. Don’t pretend you didn’t. But I…‌I got hanged up. Hanged up and whipped. Still don’t know how many days it went on for. Part of me thinks it was weeks, another part thinks it was just a few hours, but I was pissin’ myself so much I lost track.”

  His hands were fully shaking now. His throat was so loose. But it felt a relief to be getting these words out. A hot-faced, heart-aching mother-fucker of a relief.

  “And…‌and then something went wrong. Something for the Taliban. And it was such a blur. I was‌—‌I was out and it was me and my troops in this dusty lounge and we‌—‌we were pointing our guns at the people who did it. Pointing…‌pointing our guns at the family.”

  His head pulsated. His eyes filled with blurry patterns.

  But he gulped. Gulped, forced himself to admit what he’d done. Forced himself to admit what he couldn’t ever admit to anyone, not in full, not even to the therapists who’d treated him for PTSD.

  “And I…‌I was so angry. I was so hurt and so angry at these‌—‌at these people for what they did. What they did to my friends. For what they did to their enemies. So I…‌”

  He saw the memory in his head. Saw it as clear as a film. Felt the cold metal of the gun in his shaking hand. Smelled the sweat, heard the cries and the shouts.

  And then he saw the eyes of his captor’s youngest son staring back at him, begging for mercy.

  “I pulled the trigger on the kid,” Pedro said. “I…‌The whole lot of us, we killed that family. Shot ‘em dead, right there.” He sniffed. Wiped away at his top lip, which tasted salty like snot and tears. “And that’s what I am, Tamara. That’s what I am. A fucking war criminal murderer who gets bullied by a vision of a kid I shot. That’s the man who’s walking around with you. Walking around with your son.”

  Tamara stared at Pedro. She’d gone pale. He waited for it. Waited for a barrage of hate. Waited for her to raise her gun and fire him in the head, like he deserved. ‘Cause God knows he deserved it. God knows he’d thought about pressing a gun against his own head and killing himself in the past.

  But instead, he felt Tamara’s hand. Felt her cold, soft hand press against his hand.

  He flinched at first, but then he let it settle there. Let it rest there, as she leaned from the bonnet of the car towards him.

  “That might be who you were, but it’s not who you are,” she said.

  With that, Pedro couldn’t hold back the tears. He felt a dick for letting them flow, but fuck, they were going like a salty tap right down his face.

  Tamara wrapped her arms around his neck and squeezed him tightly as he sobbed onto her shoulder.

  He tried to say things, but he couldn’t. He tried, but it only brought more tears.

  As they held each other in the moonlight, Pedro swore he saw that little boy dancing his way around the cars up ahead.

  When he squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, he was gone.

  He knew he’d be back, but it was a small price to pay. A small thing he had to live with.

  “I’ll protect Josh with my life,” Pedro said.

  Tamara squeezed him tighter. “I know you will.”

  Pedro wasn’t sure how much longer they were holding one another, but it felt like forever.

  A nice kind of forever.

  “Well how fuckin’ cute.”

  “Ssh, you twat. Don’t want ‘em to hear.”

  “Oh they’re fuckin’ miles away. And look at ‘em. They aren’t hearin’ a thing.”

  Cameron watched the bald skinny bloke and the fit blonde holding one another from the grassy top of the motorway embankment. Fucking crying, they were. The bloke especially. Sobbing away like a fucking baby.

  Not a shadow of the man who’d buried a wrench into Dan’s head.

  “When shall we jump ‘em?” Rob asked. His whiney voice was getting right on Cameron’s tits. All his fucking bossing around, all his demands.

  Cameron watched as pussy and blondie walked back to the green van holding hands. Watched as they took a final look outside, then slammed shut the van doors.

  “We follow ‘em,” Cameron said, as he leaned into the cold-as-shit grass. “We keep an eye on them and we follow ‘em.”

  Rob tutted. He lifted up his black wooly hat from his face and breathed onto his red-raw cold fingers. “Follow ‘em where? This safe place they were yanking on about? ‘Cause you and me both know there ain’t no‌—‌”

  “We follow ‘em to this safe place of theirs, watch the hope grow, then we snip away any last bit of hope they have. We shoot it in the face, stab it in the neck.”

  He slipped the gun into his pocket and checked to see his favourite, ultra-sharp carpet knife was still in there. It was, of course. Not lettin’ that go anywhere any time soon.

  “We start with the kid. Then the girl. See if we can make pussy cry some more. For Dan.”

  He patted Rob on the back and crept back from the edge of the embankment.

  “For Dan,” Rob muttered.

  Chapter Eleven: Riley

  Riley lay still while Alan applied the second bandage to his right leg.

  He winced and squealed with every little nudge of his tender flesh. Smelled the strong stench of disinfectant, which made stomach acid burn in his throat. His eyes were filled with tears, as he lay back on the cold hard floor of Bunker 749.

  But the smell of disinfectant was better than death.

  Better than the reminder of what he was going to become.

  “Just keep that bloody leg still,” Alan said. He’d gone pale as a sheet. His grey hair looked like it’d got a lot greyer over the last half-an-hour‌—‌or however long it had been since the creatures had barged their way through that side door.

  Before they’d sunk their teeth into Riley’s leg.

  Again.

  Riley couldn’t speak. He was in too much pain. His ears were ringing like a firework had just exploded right next to his head. He knew what this meant. Knew for definite what this meant. As if the first bite wasn’t bad enough, now he had a second.

  He had hours left to live. Hours left as a human.

  Manchester was still miles away.

  Alan was going to be alone.

  “J‌—‌just leave it,” Riley said, each and every word a struggle that made him dizzier, intensified the pain. He really had felt nothing like it in his entire life. When he was younger, he’d once been hopping up the steps of an old caravan his grandparents owned. He’d been hopping up on one leg for some daft reason. And then, as he made the jump over the top step, he tumbled forwards, sliced open his leg on the sharp metal doorway of the caravan, took a small piece of flesh out of his leg that left him scarred to the day. He remembered looking at it at the time. Remembered thinking how weird and cool it was that he’d actually lost a part of his leg.

  Right now, with a massive, bleeding chunk of flesh on his right leg, and tender tooth marks on his left, he couldn’t even bring himself to look.

  Alan leaned back. Brushed his bloody hands through his grey hair. He was dripping with sweat, and his eyes were glassy. “The…‌the disinfectant. And the bandage. They should…‌they should keep you clean for a few hours.”

  Riley looked at Alan with stinging tears burning at his eyes. “You‌—‌you go. You must…‌You have to go.”

  Alan shook his head. Let out a little gasp. “If you’d said that when we set off, I might’ve considered it. But I…‌I can’t leave you like this, Riley. You’ve brought me this far.”

  Riley gulped down the burning acid in his throat. “But you…‌The wheelchair. You‌—‌Through the tunnel. The wheelchair.”

  Alan looked over at the powered wheelchair. Half-smiled at it. “I got a good look out at the tunnel before I closed the door. It’s compromised. No idea how long it goes on like that until Manchester, but there’s no way we’re safe in there. Not anymore. Tunnel’s out of the question.”

  Riley’s head rattled, like he had a collection of razo
rs in his mind and they were scratching away at his thoughts. His comprehension was weak, off-balance. “What‌—‌what other way? What can we…‌What can you…‌”

  Alan lifted himself up and limped over to the metal door at the opposite side of the bunker. He pressed a hand against it. Let out a shaky breath. “Through this door is…‌is the outside world.”

  Riley’s insides churned up. “But you…‌the tunnel. You said we had to‌—‌”

  “If I open this door, there’s a very good chance that the infected will be lurking on the outside, just like they were when they compromised this place. And in our condition, with fifty miles still to travel, there’s a very slim chance we’ll make it to Manchester. We’d need‌—‌we’d need a car. And even then there’s no guarantee we’ll…‌” He paused. Looked at Riley with terrified eyes. “Everything’s resting on my safe arrival. Everything. I just…‌You know what I have to do if you turn.”

  This statement from Alan made Riley’s skin prickle with goose-pimples. He felt so weak, his throat so dry, as he lay there on the floor. But he understood. He’d failed at getting Alan safely through the tunnel system. So now it was plan B. Try their luck on the outside. Hope to God they found a car, and then hope to God they didn’t have any obstructions.

  And then hope to God Alan got to Manchester okay.

  But himself. His imminently dead self.

  What could he hope for?

  “Can you…‌” Riley started. “If you…‌If there’s‌—‌if there’s a cure. If there’s‌—‌if you’ve got something in you. Something…‌something to keep you immune. Can you…‌Is there a chance I’ll survive?”

  Alan stared at Riley with pity in his eyes. With sympathy and pity. A look that gave Riley the answer in itself.

  “For what it’s worth, I thought I was dying when I was bitten,” Alan said. “If that’s…‌if it’s any consolation.”

  It wasn’t, but Riley appreciated the attempted gesture anyway.

  Riley felt his tired mind racing as he lifted himself upright. He’d never felt the inevitability of death looming over him as intensely as he did right now. Not even when he’d ploughed his foot down on the accelerator of his car before this mess all started, driving himself into that solid brick wall.