by Casey, Ryan
Fuck, stop thinking about the street, Pedro. Focus on the now.
He heard a scream from behind. A high pitched scream, followed by something hard hitting the ground, then nothing.
But still, he didn’t look. He didn’t want to know who’d fallen. He’d heard a woman’s scream. So it was Sammy or Elaine. Probably Elaine.
Just five steps to go.
Four steps. The exit getting closer. Freedom getting closer. Safety getting closer…
Three steps.
Two steps.
He didn’t feel the next step because something solid hit his right foot.
He tripped. Tripped up, felt himself tumbling out of the alleyway, flying towards the ground with his hand still tightly wrapped around Tamara’s, dragging her along with him.
He hit the road face first. His ears buzzed with the collision, and he tasted copper in his mouth mixed with the vomit.
He rolled over. Rolled onto his back. Someone else had to shut the gate. He wouldn’t have time. He wouldn’t…
When he looked up, he saw Dom skip out of the gate. He saw Elaine behind him, still glassy-eyed, as quiet as ever. And just behind her, the mass of paceys, getting closer to her, closer to another Christmas treat.
She stopped when she saw Pedro, Josh and Tamara on the ground.
“Close the gate, Dom!” Pedro shouted. “Close the fucking—”
“Thank you,” Elaine mouthed to Pedro, then to Tamara. “You…you keep your boy safe. You keep him—”
“No!” Pedro shouted, yanking himself from the road.
But it was too late.
Elaine grabbed the metal gate and slid it across with all the power in her slight body. She slid it right across, still behind it, the echoing footsteps of the goons bouncing off the walls around her.
She slammed it shut. Nodded at Pedro once more. Then closed her eyes. “I’ll see you soon, John,” she said, taking in a shaky breath. “I’ll see you—”
Pedro closed his eyes when he heard the crashing at the gate. The familiar sound of flesh being chewed, like a watermelon being sliced.
He didn’t want to see another death.
He couldn’t bear it.
Chapter Eight: Pedro
Nobody spoke a word when they left the alleyway.
Pedro, Tamara, Josh and Dom walked down the middle of the main road. Pedro looked around at the buildings he used to walk past whenever he was in Manchester. Looked at the smashed windows of the shops, the shopping trolleys spread out over the road. Looked at the cars that had crashed into one another, windows shattered. He could smell death in the air. The sour stench of drains and sick that was so synonymous with these times. The smell of a million lives—shit, more than a million—just drifting away.
He felt Josh’s hand squeeze his, and he squeezed back. Poor kid, wearing his green army helmet, had been through Hell. And he hadn’t stopped sneezing either. Suffering a cold, or whatever it was. And the things he’d seen, the people he’d seen die. It wasn’t right for a kid to experience these things. But what was right anymore? This was a different world now. A world that children were no doubt still being born into. What was the right way to raise them? Hide them from the truth? Or warn them of the reality? Train them to adapt?
Could grown-ups protect the young from the horrors of this world? Or did kids have to toughen themselves now? Animal kingdom, survival of the fittest, all that.
His shoes crunching against broken glass, the cold air brushing against him, Pedro thought back to when he was a kid. His old Dad sat in that brown leather chair of his, watching Pedro as he moved his fingers towards the fire. Watching him, almost daring him to do it with those bulging eyes. And he had done it. He had done it and Pedro had cried and screamed and begged for a hug from his dad. But his dad said he needed to learn. Needed to learn what was dangerous through his own experiences.
He’d never forgotten those words, not his entire life.
“Long to go?” Pedro asked. His throat was sore and dry. He had a bottle of water in his rucksack, but he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep it down him.
Dom shook his head. The man looked completely different since losing Sammy and Jason. His eyes were constantly staring at the ground, his entire demeanour slouched. He didn’t look like the aggressive nutjob he had when they’d been in the terraced house garden.
Pedro scratched his neck with his free hand. “Bruv, I…I’m sorry for—”
“It’s okay,” Dom said. He raised a hand to stop Pedro speaking. “You…You have a boy to protect. I get that. I just…I wish I coulda done something more for them.”
Pedro nodded. Stared ahead at the rows of shops coming to an end, the ugly abomination that was Hilton Hotel towering over in the distance. “Don’t we all.”
Of all the horrible things that had happened these last few days—of all the near-death moments, of sanity challenges—it was the image of Elaine Pedro couldn’t get out of his mind. The image of her standing at those gates and closing her eyes as the pacey goons got closer to her. She’d lost her boy, so she’d lost everything. Lost her will to live.
She’d given herself up to save someone else, just like Barry had.
And still Pedro wasn’t sure if he’d be able to do the same if he had to.
“I wish we’d got to know Elaine,” Tamara said, speaking her first words in ages. “And…and the others, too. She…they all seemed like good people.”
“I dunno about Elaine, but Jason and Sammy were shits when they wanted to be,” Dom said.
“We have to be shits,” Pedro said. “Wouldn’t have made it this far if we weren’t.”
There was another moment of silence as the group reached the end of the street. For a moment, Pedro couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Up ahead, Pedro could see the glass entrance to Piccadilly train station, a place he’d visited so many times on trips to gigs in Manchester when he was younger. The street beside it was piled up with a tall, metal wall. The road was completely blocked off, barbed wire wrapped around the top of this wall. Pedro swore he’d never seen anything like that in Manchester before. Never remembered it that way.
“Welcome to the Living Zone,” Dom said. He pointed his empty assault rifle over at Piccadilly Station, at this huge metal wall.
Pedro slowed down, and so too did Josh and Tamara.
“That’s…How big is it? Just the station?”
Dom snorted. “If only. We’ve got the whole area from Piccadilly to the Printworks cordoned off. See the guys with guns on the roof over there?” He pointed over to the left of the blocked road.
Pedro squinted. Couldn’t see a thing. “I—”
“Good. Me neither. But they’ll see you coming a mile away. Just be thankful you’re with me. I’m quite recognisable.”
They started slowly walking towards Piccadilly station. “The whole area up to the Printworks? That’s…that’s a lot of ground.”
“Four square miles of ground,” Dom said. “Whole of the Northern Quarter. Got people watching every wall, people watching the inside, making sure everything’s ticking along.”
Pedro couldn’t believe this place. Heathwaite’s was something, and that was just a caravan site. But an actual town. An actual living zone, just ahead. He’d made it. They’d all made it.
“How does a place like this get built up?” Tamara asked. “I mean…It can’t be easy. Keeping order. Things like that.”
Dom half-smiled at Tamara. “Not everyone’s a power-crazy nutter out there,” he said. “Problem with imposing old government systems onto the new world is that they don’t work. It creates uprising. It’s flimsy. Saw it all over the Arab world before our world turned to shit.”
“And what sort of system do you run?” Pedro asked. His head was spinning with questions now. “How…how many people are living there? Do you…Are there doctors? Police? Systems like that?”
Dom’s half-smile
raised a little as they reached a crossroads. “I think you’re gonna be pleasantly surprised. But it’d be better if you saw it with your own eyes than through my mouth. It’s…” He stopped. Cleared his throat and turned away. “It can be a fair lot to take in, at first especially. You might need a lie down after—shit, to the left!”
They all stopped walking. Pedro had become so compelled by the mystery of the Living Zone that he’d forgotten he was still on the outside, still in the dangerous world.
“Can you see ‘em?” Dom said. “To the left, by the Land Rover just there.”
Pedro looked down the road to his left. He saw two figures. One was a dark-haired woman, covered head to toe in blood, stumbling up the road. The other one was a kid. Teenage girl. Pale-faced, a little underweight.
“Should be no problem,” Dom said. “Only two of ‘em. Come on. Let’s get away. We’ve…”
But Dom’s words blurred away as Pedro stared at these two figures.
Or more specifically, as he stared at the girl.
Her light brown hair. Those big eyes.
His stomach tensed up. His heart raced.
He squeezed his eyes shut. Squeezed and blinked. Was this another haunting? Another repeat of the Afghan kid? Another kid he’d let down?
But when he opened his eyes, she was still there. She was still with this blood-soaked, greasy-haired woman.
And now, she was looking right at him. Her mouth opened wide. She came to a halt.
The pair of them just stared at one another for what felt like forever. Pedro could hear words being uttered around him, but none of them made sense. Not as he stared at the girl, not as she stared back at him, recognition in her face.
This was impossible. Impossible, insane, unbelievable.
It was Chloë.
“I…I know her,” he said.
He let go of Josh’s hand. Let go and started walking down the middle of the road towards Chloë, picking up his pace.
She let go of this bloody woman’s hand too. She let go and started coming towards him.
He couldn’t believe it. He’d found Chloë. Chloë had found him. She was alive. She was—
He heard the blast behind him. Heard a crack, and a thump, and then another blast.
And then he saw Chloë stop like a pigeon in the crosshairs. Saw the woman behind her cover her mouth, her eyes widening.
Pedro didn’t understand. He didn’t understand why they looked so upset, why they looked so shocked. Their faces had turned with the blast. They’d turned with the crack, the thump.
And then there was a scream.
It was the scream that made Pedro’s hairs stand up on his arms. He didn’t want to look around. It was a scream he’d had nightmares about. A scream he’d imagined time and time again when he imagined what failure looked like.
He didn’t want to look. He couldn’t look. If he didn’t look, it didn’t have to be real.
But he had to look.
He bit into his lip. Already he could taste salt on his lips, as the screaming continued, like he knew what he was going to see before he saw it.
He turned around.
Turned around slowly.
When he saw Tamara kneeling in the road, screaming at the top of her voice, tears rolling down her cheeks, his whole world crumbled apart.
Josh lay in her arms, two little bullet holes in his flimsy green army helmet.
His frail body was completely still.
EPISODE EIGHTEEN
(SIXTH EPISODE OF SEASON THREE)
Prologue
He opened his eyes.
When he saw the light beaming down from above him, he knew he wasn’t dead yet.
But if he wasn’t dead, what was he?
Chapter One
Pedro couldn’t hear a thing, couldn’t process a thing, as he stood there in the middle of the road staring down at Josh’s limp body.
Staring down at the blood trickling out of the two holes in his flimsy helmet.
He knew Tamara was screaming. He knew she was crying, and that footsteps were approaching from behind, but he couldn’t hear them. Not properly. Not beyond the buzzing in his head, running through his mind and his body.
Josh was shot. Shot in the head.
Pedro had failed.
He took a step closer towards Josh, closer to Tamara, but he was dizzy. His hands were shaking. He wanted to say something to Tamara, who pulled the helmet away from her boy’s head, and…
Pedro had to look away then. A punch in the gut.
The wounds he had. The boy was dead. The kid who’d been bitten, who was a survivor, the kid who’d been immune, he was dead.
He’d died when Pedro let go of his hand and started walking towards Chloë and the greasy, blood-soaked woman.
Dom was looking around. Looking around, up at the tops of the abandoned shops and flats lining the streets. He was shouting stuff too—shouting at Pedro, as he lowered his gaze, looking lower. He was shouting things, but nothing mattered to Pedro. Nothing else mattered at all.
Chloë and the woman arrived at Pedro’s side. Chloë looked pale, her eyes wide as she stared at the body of Josh. Pedro had just wanted to greet her. He’d bumped into frigging Chloë again—Chloë, who had to be dead. He’d bumped into her. She’d found him. He’d found her.
He’d lost Josh.
Pedro flinched when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked—saw it was the skinny, meth-faced girl. She looked sad for him too. Looked at him with those eyes that doctors and nurses and friends had looked at him with when Sam had died. The look everyone gave a grieving parent.
“We need to get off the road,” Dom said. His voice was stern, shaky. “We—you saw what just happened. We need to—”
“The shots. Where’d the shots come from?” Speaking didn’t feel right. Pedro’s mouth was dry. He could taste vomit lingering on his tongue. Vomit that was getting stronger, tangier.
Dom looked around. Sighed and shrugged. “I…I wasn’t—”
“Over—over there,” Chloë said. She pointed up the road, the direction the group had come from. “His…the boy’s head flew forward. So it came from over there.”
Pedro peered into the distance. Squinted down the empty road. Nothing. Nothing at all but abandoned cars, errant litter.
Tamara held Josh tightly. Sat on her knees and hugged him, sobbing into his chest.
Pedro swallowed the lump in his throat. “Can I…please. Just give me a—a minute,” he said.
Dom scratched the back of his head. “We need to get the fuck out the middle of the—”
“A minute,” Pedro shouted, squaring up to Dom.
Dom didn’t argue this time.
Pedro approached Tamara slowly. He crouched down in front of her. Crouched down, watched as she rubbed her hand down Josh’s little coat, as she supported his flimsy neck.
Pedro tried not to look at Josh’s face. He couldn’t look. He’d seen enough pain in his life.
“Tamara,” he said. Shit. He should be okay at this. He’d lost a kid of his own. He should be good at talking, counselling, whatever.
But he remembered back when he’d lost Sam. Remembered how no words could make a difference. Remembered wanting to die every moment of his waking life as his job, his friends, his wife, all disappeared and crumbled around him.
“I…” He cleared his throat. “Nothing anyone can say will ever make this—”
“Shut up,” Tamara said, then went back to crying and holding her boy. Blood from his head had splashed into her blonde hair. “Just…just please. Please.”
Pedro gulped again. He felt his eyes welling up, his vision clouding. “I…I lost a kid. I lost my boy. So I know…Tamara we need to get off this road. We’re…The Living Zone. We’re almost there. Then we can—”
“Fuck the Living Zone!” Tears and snot covered her cheeks. Her skin was flushed from crying. �
��What’s…what’s the point in a Living Zone when—when the only thing I care about in the whole world is—is—”
She burst into another batch of tears. She couldn’t bring herself to say the word.
Pedro sighed. Looked at the concrete below. Watched as his tears dripped onto the road.
He looked back. Looked at Dom, at Chloë, at this other woman who was holding Chloë’s hand. All of them looked shocked. All of them were wide-eyed, glassy-eyed, distant.
Pedro raised to his feet. He was going to have to do something. Because they’d lost Josh, yes. They’d failed. He’d failed. But they had to get off this road.
“Is there anyone that can…that can help bring them in?” Pedro asked Dom, nudging his head back at Tamara.
Dom blinked a few times, like he was still processing what had just happened. “We…There is, but it’s…” He gulped. Straightened his back. “Are you in any…any altercations with anybody? Is there anybody who might want to hurt you? Do serious damage?”
Chloë and Jordanna stared at Pedro, waiting for an answer.
He tried to think, but he couldn’t. “Too damn many people. But…but no. No-one…no-one who…why, anyway?”
Dom looked over Pedro’s shoulder. “I…We—we have rules at the Living Zone. Rules that we—”
“Can you get someone out your Living Zone to help us or not?”
Dom held his body upright. Blinked, gulped again, like he was a damned webpage that kept on refreshing. “That…that depends very much on—on your answer to the last—”
Dom was cut off by a whooshing sound over Pedro’s head.
A whooshing sound that Pedro knew all too well.
“Run!” Dom shouted.
He crouched down and jogged towards the looming Piccadilly Station. Chloë and the meth-faced girl followed as bullets continued to fizz over Pedro’s head, getting so close to his skull, his neck, his body.