by Ryan Casey
“Worse,” Rodrigo said. “He’d been feeding them for days. Left people behind. Boys. Girls. Animals. The weakest ones that people wouldn’t notice so much. The shy ones. Fuckin’ sick, that’s what it was.”
Riley thought back to Thomas. Thought back to him, left in that caravan while his dad lay dead on the caravan bed. He was a weaker one. One that had been left for the creatures to feed on. Fuck. That explained why he was on his own out there. He’d just tried to go to the Heathwaite’s main building for some food. His dad knew it was pointless—that they weren’t getting out of the Dumping Ground. So he’d ended his life. Ended his own life and left Little Tommy’s fate in his own hands.
“When I find this out, that for me is the final straw,” Rodrigo said. “So we have a sit down. The guys on Mike’s side and the guys on mine. Keep it all very hush-hush. Don’t want to scare the people, and all. Mike insists that the zombies needed feeding to keep them away. I tell him he doesn’t know that. Tempers flare. Mike puffs up and insists he isn’t going nowhere because he helped build this place. Shit—he was this place.”
“So what made him leave?” Riley asked.
Rodrigo checked his empty pint glass, then looked over at the cluttered desk at the row of empty whisky bottles, and sighed. “His son. He was all ready and pumped to stay until his son decided to tell him he was in the wrong. That broke Mike. His son, he was his pride, y’know? For his son to tell him he was in the wrong…it ruined him. He and a couple others left soon after. We shook hands, and he went. But I could see it in his eyes right then. It wasn’t goodbye. It was just…well. A hiatus.”
“Jesus,” Anna said. “Jesus fucking Christ. If he’s out there, then this place is just a sitting duck. He could come back at any minute and—”
“He won’t attack this place,” Rodrigo said. “Not as long as he thinks his son is alive.”
“‘Thinks’?” Riley said. “Where is his son?”
Rodrigo took in another deep breath. Looked over at Aaron, who was shaking and sweating.
“He’s wherever you left him to turn into a fucking zombie,” Rodrigo said. “So if you want Heathwaite’s to survive, you find Stevie’s body before Mike does.”
Riley lifted the Fosters beer to his lips and stared out at the caravan site. Night had fallen on Heathwaite’s. Rodrigo had fixed him up with a caravan of his own, and the same went for Anna and Pedro. It was cold outside, but the caravans had portable heaters inside, which meant that he had warmth to go back inside to. Warmth on its own was no treat. Warmth from the cold—that was a treat.
“What do you think?” Anna asked.
Riley swilled the beer around his mouth. He’d never been a fan of Fosters, but right now, it tasted so smooth, so sweet, so perfect. “I’m more of a Cobra fan. But it’s okay.”
“Not the beer,” Anna said, hitting Riley’s leg. “This place. What do you think?”
Riley looked down the street at the rows of caravans. Most of them were lit with dim lights. Inside, Riley could see families gathering round tables to eat. Children laughing and smiling. Even animals.
But then, in the back of his mind, he remembered what Rodrigo had told him about Stevie. Mike’s son. If Mike found him, he’d attack this place.
“Like Rodrigo said,” Riley said. “This place is stronger than Mike and a few people. We’ve got walls. We’ve got the Dumping Ground, if we have to use it.”
“You saw what Mike did to those men of Rodrigo’s. We can’t just put that to the back of our minds and pretend it never happened. He’s proving he’s out there. Teasing us.”
“Or, he’s got no other way of getting to Rodrigo than capturing those who are on the loose. Face it—there’s a good few people here who know how to use a gun and know how to fight. And there’s more people here in general. Not to mention walls. We have the upper ground.”
Anna stared out at the road. An old woman, knitting in the window of her caravan, smiled and nodded her head.
“I’m just worried we’re going to lose everything again,” Anna said. “I’ve…I’ve seen how good this place can be. I’ve bought into it. I just don’t…”
Riley sipped on his beer. Truth be told, it was actually pretty flat. But fuck—beer was beer, and he hadn’t had nearly enough of it lately. “It’ll be okay,” Riley said. “Mike won’t find his son. You saw the size of that crowd of creatures. No way is he going to root on through that crowd and just by chance find his son. And even if he does, this place is solid. Mike’s not a threat right now. Maybe he’s a threat to individuals, but to the whole? He’s not.”
Anna turned and glared at Riley. “But many individuals make a whole.”
Riley couldn’t think of much to say to this one. Perhaps she had a point.
“We need a contingency plan. A last resort, if something did happen to this place.”
“Which it won’t, but—”
“We bring it up with Rodrigo tomorrow. He seems keen to defend Heathwaite’s, but he doesn’t seem to have a plan for if all goes wrong. That’s something we have to raise with him.”
Riley’s teeth chattered as he finished the bottle of beer. He knew Anna was right, but what possible contingency plan was there? Here, they had warmth, food, supplies. It was the perfect location to shack up for winter. But out there, whether it was through the woods or in the derelict town of Morecambe, there was nothing but creatures, scraps of food, and cold. Intense cold.
And as the days and weeks went on and December turned to January, it would only get colder.
“The snow’s going to fall,” Anna said as if reading Riley’s mind. She stared up at the black, starry sky. “One day soon, the snow’s going to fall. And I hope to God we’re in this place when it does. But if we aren’t, then I hope even more to God that we aren’t curled up in a ditch biting the ground just to keep ourselves warm. I hope we have somewhere slightly better than that, at least.”
Riley cracked open another beer and opened the door to his caravan. “Me too,” he said. “Me too.”
“We talk to Rodrigo tomorrow,” Anna said, stepping up from Riley’s caravan step and zipping her black fleece even closer to her chin. “He seems erm, honest enough. As honest as a man in his position can be. I think he’ll see my point.”
Riley nodded. Truth was, he was frozen solid. He desperately wanted to get inside to the warmth of his caravan. He desperately wanted to curl up under his duvet and sleep for days and weeks and months.
“Night, Riley,” Anna said. She smiled. Her brown eyes seemed to twinkle in the reflection of the moonlight. Fuck. Soppy bastard.
“Goodnight, Anna.”
He opened up his caravan door and stepped into the warmth.
It engulfed him right away. Caressed every part of his body. Warmth, natural light. After a week on a damp boat, it was heaven. Even better than the barracks. A whole place to himself.
He clicked the lock across the door and watched Anna walk around the corner of the hedge to her caravan, the silver necklace swaying from her neck.
Then, he closed the curtains, crashed out on the sofa, and got his hard-earned sleep.
Tomorrow, they’d talk to Rodrigo.
If he managed to wake himself up on time.
Chapter Two
Riley didn’t manage to wake up in time for that conversation with Rodrigo, and he didn’t for the following ten days either.
Every day he woke up in his caravan, heated by the warmth of the portable heater which he always “accidentally” left on through the night, he felt a little more comfortable about his current set of circumstances. So comfortable that it warranted just another five minutes in bed, which became another ten minutes, and before he knew it, another hour. He couldn’t blame himself though. After the less than stellar surroundings of the boat, this caravan was like the most expensive suite in a Hilton hotel.
It was on the tenth day that Rodrigo informed him that Christmas was in five
days. Funny, really. He’d never really considered it was approaching before today. Every day of the Dead Days had seemed to blend together, especially the days they were out on the road, moving from place to place, losing person after person. There were different ways of monitoring the progress of seasons on the road. But in this place, in Heathwaite’s Caravan Park, the days started to feel like days again. His leg had recovered, day by day. Things were looking positive.
The first specks of snow had fallen overnight. This was something discussed in a hush over breakfast in the cafeteria area on the 20th December. Women and their husbands whispered to one another about that little film of snow that had fallen on the caravan site. About what it meant. Whether the water supply was cold enough to freeze, how it would affect the animals and the milk and all the other supplies—a whole host of uncertainties that naturally came with any change in circumstances. This was the first winter, after all. If humanity could survive the winter, then surely every other season would be a doddle.
“Does it worry you?” Pedro asked. He sliced a sausage in half and held it up in the air. It’d been dipped in the top of his runny fried egg, which gave it a rather questionable look. Riley didn’t bother to bring it up with Pedro. He wasn’t the sort to take to gay humour quite so lightly.
“Does what worry me?” Riley asked as he scooped up a spoonful of more conservative Cheerios cereal.
Pedro chomped on the sausage. “The snow. What else, bruv?”
Riley shrugged. He looked around the cafeteria. He could smell fried food rich in the air. The distant tang of chlorine from the swimming pool, which reminded him of trips to the pool with school as a kid. Never liked going underwater, really. Avoided it where he could. But that smell of chlorine after a swim, wrapped up in warm clothes and walking home in the rain…that was the smell of achievement. Of victory. Of living to swim another swim.
“Everyone else seems pretty worried,” Pedro said. “Not Mr. Cool, though.”
“Is that your new name for me then?”
“Well, you sure seem to have settled in just fine to this place.”
“If I remember rightly, it was you who was trying to get me to settle in. You don’t seem too settled yourself.”
Pedro sighed. He chopped off another piece of sausage, observing it this time before he ate it. Pedro didn’t have to explain what he was worried about to Riley. Riley knew.
“Pedro, we’ve been on six supply runs since Dominic and Peter. There’s no sign of them. And if anything, the snow is going to work in our favour. It proves it’s getting colder out there. Harder for them to operate. To survive.”
Pedro’s eyes narrowed at Riley. The look he always gave him when he wasn’t impressed.
“What?”
He planted his forkful of sausage down on the plate. “We don’t know a thing about this Mike character, bruv. Don’t know fuck all. And yeah, Rodrigo is a solid guy, but we don’t know what Mike will do if he finds his goon son, y’know?”
“He won’t find Stevie. If we haven’t found him on our supply runs, then Mike won’t—”
“You don’t know that. You can’t possibly know that.” He lifted the sausage again and scratched away the crispy skin.
“No. I don’t know that. But I don’t see the point in spending our lives stressing about it anymore. We’ve lived under the shadow of fear and worry for long enough as it is. We’ve had it hanging around our neck like a fucking rock on a string for weeks. But now we’ve got this place, things are getting better. And we’re going to buckle down for the rest of winter and for Christmas and we’re going to fight on through. And if a time comes when we do have to leave this place, then so be it.” Riley stabbed the remaining sausage from Pedro’s plate and shoved it in his own mouth. “But right now, we’re here. We’re as safe as we’re going to be.”
He smiled at Pedro. Pedro did something that resembled a smile. A twitch.
“It’s just…what happened to the kid, bruv. Thomas. Knowing that this Mike figure left him to that fate. Fuck—fed him that fate. Just doesn’t sit right. Not one bit.”
Riley chewed at the sausage. It reminded him of breakfast in New York a few years back. Better times. Pre-Dead Days and pre-shitty life days. Greasy, juicy and delicious. “It doesn’t sit right with me either. I had to…I had to make sure he didn’t come back. Imagine how that—”
All of a sudden, a shrill, cold scream echoed from outside. At first, Riley thought it came from the pool; that maybe someone had slipped over or was just playing around in the water.
But no. It came from outside. Everyone in the cafeteria paused right at that second and looked around at the main door, in the direction of the gates.
Riley turned around too. Outside, he could see a woman in front of the main gates. Allison Winkleman she was called. In her late forties. Really cheery woman who always seemed to have her book in her hands as she sat outside her caravan, her Border Collie Luther at her feet wagging his tail.
Riley got up from his seat. Approached the door. He could see that Allison was crying. Sitting on her knees and crying as she held something in her arms. Something red. People gathered around her—guards from the gate, others from the site who had heard the screams. As people bustled past, Riley too made his way to the main door of the Heathwaite’s cafeteria and down the steps into the road.
Allison was whimpering. She was cradling something in her arms. Riley couldn’t make it out. It looked like she was holding a big slab of meat, like those they hung up in creepy freezer rooms on television shows and films. He got closer to her as Donald Stanton, a gate guard, patted her on the shoulder.
It was when he was a few feet away that Riley realised what the red chunk of meat was.
“Allison, how did this happen?” Donald asked. “Come away from him, my love and tell me how this happened.”
She looked up, snivelling, keeping the chunk of meat to her chest. “He…he was with me this morning and then he was gone. He—he never runs away. Never. I just…Oh my poor Luther. My baby. My Luther.”
Donald sighed and raised himself to his feet. He turned to address the crowd. “If you’d all like to take a step back, please, and give Allison a bit of space. We’d really appreciate it.”
“What’s gone on here?” a man’s voice shouted.
“What the fuck is that thing?” another said.
Riley didn’t need an answer.
He knew that chunk of meat was Luther.
Except Luther had been skinned, with every bit of fur sliced away from his flesh.
Riley stepped away from the scene of the crime, or Allison’s discovery, rather. He rubbed his hands against his face. Seeing poor Luther like that in her arms was in stark contrast to the normality they’d established over the previous ten days. A slab of meat, that’s what he was. Bloody, fresh meat. Soon, he’d smell. Soon, he’d be just like the rest of the slabs of meat that Riley had grown so used to seeing roam the streets. Rotting flesh. So void of life.
“How the fuck did this happen?” Pedro shouted.
Rodrigo had joined the scene of the chaos. He stood looking at Allison, cradling her skinned dog. His cheeks were pale. He held his hand over his mouth. Riley could see that look in his eyes. The same look he’d seen when Riley had told him about the discovery of Dominic and Peter. And judging from the way that Pedro was raising his voice, he’d noticed that same look too.
“When did he go missing?” Rodrigo asked, softening his voice with every word as he approached Allison.
Allison blubbered. Tears dripped down her cheeks beneath her thick-lensed glasses.
“Allison,” Rodrigo said, crouching beside her. He rested a hand on her bloody wrist. “It’s very important that you talk to me here. I’m so sorry about…about Luther. But it’s very important that you—”
“He was at my feet. At my feet like always. And then…then I went inside the caravan and he was gone. But I
didn’t think anything of it. He never goes, and when he does, he always comes back right away. But he didn’t. He stayed gone and—and then I went to find him. I looked everywhere and then…then I saw the gate guards with him. I saw them with him and—and although his fur’s gone…although his lovely fur’s gone, I know it’s him. I know my Luther.”
Rodrigo sighed. He patted Allison on her shoulder, cringing as Luther’s skinned corpse caught his eye.
“So what do you think?” Pedro asked, still speaking a little loudly. “This look familiar to you?”
“Pedro,” Riley said. “Let’s go inside—”
“Does this look like him to you?” Pedro shouted at Rodrigo. “Or are we just gonna go back inside and pretend like nothing’s happening here? Like everything’s normal.”
“Pedro,” Riley said, raising his voice. “Think about this. Nothing rash here.”
But it was too late. The whispers were already starting. People in the crowd were looking at one another with curiosity.
“Who’s ‘him’?” one voice asked.
“Do you know who did this?” another asked.
Rodrigo clenched his jaw and rose to his feet, away from sobbing Allison and the lump of flesh that was her Luther. “What’s happened here is a terrible accident,” he said, authority in his voice. “It’d be wise to head back to your caravans. We’ll hold a full meeting about this down in the cafeteria later if you’d like to—”
“Accident?” one voice said. It was Dave Wellson. Always sceptical and cynical about things, no matter how good things seemed to get. “You can’t tell us that dog there died accidentally. Look at the mutt—he’s been skinned.”
More voices sparked up with fear and anger. Allison whimpered even louder.
“We’ll look into every possible avenue,” Rodrigo said, raising his hand in a Cesarian-esque attempt to silent the crowd. “But we need to sit down and have a talk. A proper, civilised talk in the cafeteria. If two p.m. sounds good by you, then it’s good to me too. Right now, we need to give Allison some space to grieve. It’s the very least we can do.”