by Ryan Casey
Stranger things happened in this world.
So he ran. He ran as fast as he could. He ran in spite of the sharp tarmac digging into his socked feet. He ran despite the boxer shorts revealing themselves to be a little too loose around the waist, slipping down from time to time.
He ran because it was Anna he cared about. It was Anna he wasn’t going to give up on.
He was done losing people.
That time had long ago passed.
He reached the end of the road he’d seen Anna disappear down.
He couldn’t see them. Not anymore.
But he could see a scattered group of about seven creatures.
All of them turned to look at him.
All of them paused for a few seconds.
Then, all of them groaned and started to walk towards him.
He was caught in two minds about what to do. On one hand, he’d definitely seen Anna and the guy in the hood go down this road. He’d seen them, and he wasn’t hallucinating for sure.
But on the other hand…
Riley knew it was dangerous. He knew he was putting himself at risk, and by extension putting Anna at risk. He didn’t doubt his ability to take down these creatures individually. He just doubted whether it was worth even trying, especially after what’d happened when he was in the store.
But what choice did he have?
What other options were there, really?
He lifted his blade and he took a deep breath. His chest was still sore, and he swore he’d cracked a few ribs.
Again, didn’t matter. More urgent and immediate matters at hand.
He watched the creatures get closer towards him. Time was running out. But he was going to be patient. He was going to take them down. One by one by one.
Anna was worth fighting for.
Anna was worth dying for.
But hell. He hoped he wouldn’t die yet. He didn’t intend on that happening, anyway.
The first creature stepped close to him and he grounded himself back in the moment.
Just focus on the present moment.
Nothing else matters. Just the present.
He pulled back his blade…
Something happened, then. Something he didn’t quite understand. Not initially.
The creature in front of him. Its head snapped to the left. It happened so hard that it could only be…
Shit.
He saw and heard it, then. The creatures. They were being shot at. One by one, someone was taking them down.
The man.
It had to be the man.
Riley thought about taking some of the creatures down himself but he didn’t want to step in the way of any stray bullets. So instead he just stayed put.
He stayed put, blade lifted, goose pimples spreading across his bare legs as a cool breeze brushed against them, watching as more of the undead fell.
When they’d all fallen, he decided it was time to move. That man. He was helping him for some reason.
But he had Anna still.
And because he had Anna, that meant Riley had to…
The man stepped out opposite Riley, Anna by his side.
There was no speaking. Not for a while. Riley couldn’t figure out the expression on Anna’s face. It didn’t look like fear. It looked more like… bemusement. Bemusement and relief that Riley was alive.
Riley stepped towards them, blade still in the air. “Let her go. Let her go right this second.”
The hooded man stared on. Riley could see his mask clearly now, too. A gas mask like one of those you see in the war movies.
He raised his rifle at Riley.
Then, he laughed.
Riley didn’t understand. And as he stood there, he figured that this was probably the most bizarre circumstance he’d been in right since the beginning of the end.
And damn had there been a few bizarre circumstances along the way.
The man lowered his gun and kept on chuckling. “Bloody hell. Only gone and used all my ammo keeping you alive.”
There was a pause. A moment where Riley wondered whether this was some kind of trick.
Then he tensed his grip on his blade and walked towards the man.
“You don’t want to kill me,” the man said.
“And why’s that?”
“Because I have something important to share with you. Something I really, really think you’ll want to hear.”
It was then that Riley thought he recognised this voice. Like there was something familiar about its tone.
“But first,” the man said, pulling back his hood, and then lifting off his mask. “Put some goddamned trousers on. There’s no way I’ll be able to keep a straight face while that little thing’s staring back at me.”
Riley would’ve been embarrassed.
He would’ve blushed.
But he didn’t have time to be.
He didn’t have time for anything other than shock.
Total shock.
The man.
He did recognise his voice.
And that’s because he knew who he was.
Dark skin. Muscular build.
And a smile on his face… albeit a more scarred face than he remembered.
“Cody?” Riley said.
Cody’s smile widened. “Good to see you again, Riley. Now put some trousers on and sit down. You’re going to want to when you hear what I have to tell you.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Caitlin Graves didn’t believe there was any getting out of this world until she saw it for herself.
She sat on the helicopter and listened to the blades swirling above her. It was a beautiful spring day. And for the first time in quite some time, she could hear the birds singing. It brought tears to her eyes. She’d spent so many months struggling to survive in this world, she’d forgotten to take a moment and notice the sheer beauty around her.
She wouldn’t ever take it for granted. Not again.
She felt the helicopter start to lift off the ground and her stomach turned. She looked around at the military people with her in their gear and she thought of the horrors she’d seen even the military commit. She worried that perhaps these people were just in on it too. That she was going away to somewhere terrible.
And she could see from the looks on the faces of the other people on this helicopter with her that they feared the same things. The dark haired woman with two severely malnourished children. The bald man, surprisingly healthy looking in spite of everything.
So much fear. So much uncertainty.
But still, so much hope.
As the helicopter lifted higher off the ground, Caitlin felt a squeeze on her hand and she looked around to see Michael staring up at her.
He was such a good kid. Tall. Dark haired. Pale-faced, even before all of this ugly mess of a world.
She loved him so much. He’d been through some horrible things. He’d seen some horrible things. And he’d done some horrible things.
But they’d move on. They’d not forget what had happened to them, or what they’d done, but they’d use those experiences to become better people in whatever world lay ahead.
That was all they could do.
“Are we going to be okay, Mum?”
When Michael asked her that, Caitlin couldn’t help crying. She held him tightly, the wind blowing against her hair as the helicopter got higher and higher. “We are,” she said. “No matter what. No matter what.”
She looked out at the camp as the helicopter rose higher. She saw the tents erected, the walls and the fences keeping the dead at bay. And then she saw something else. The fields, the hills, and the little houses in the distance. All of it was so beautiful. All of it was their world.
And it would be their world again. It would be their home again. One way or another, they’d go back, and they’d make things work.
Just not now.
Not now.
So she took a deep breath of the fresh, cool air and she closed her eyes as the helicopter g
ot further and further away from the extraction point.
She tightened her grip around her son’s hand.
She was ready for whatever was ahead.
She was ready for whatever the new world had waiting for her.
RILEY LISTENED to what Cody was telling him—trousers on now—and tried to comprehend what he was really hearing.
“An extraction point?” he asked, as he sat on a doorstep of an abandoned house in the middle of Lancaster in the full glow of the sun, Anna by his side.
Cody nodded. “Just a hundred miles from here. Taking people away and into a new world.”
Riley felt a sickening taste cover his lips. He shook his head. Nothing felt real, not anymore. “But… but we’ve heard rumours before. We’ve heard talks of extraction points. And they’ve always been dead ends. Always.”
Cody smiled at Riley. “Not this one.”
“How can you be so sure about this new world?”
Cody looked from Riley to Anna and back again.
Then his smile extended further.
“I can be so sure because I’ve seen it. I’ve been there. And I’m gonna take you back with me.”
EPISODE FORTY-EIGHT
TRESPASSING
(SECOND EPISODE OF SEASON NINE)
PROLOGUE
Cody opened his eyes.
It was bright. He didn’t know where he was. He didn’t know how long he’d been here. But he was totally at ease with his situation, in a weird kind of way.
He felt like he was just waking up from a long sleep, where all of the nightmares he’d imagined didn’t happen.
He lifted his head off the pillow he was lying on. His neck was stiff, and it didn’t feel like he’d moved it in a long time. In fact, his entire body was stiff. Kind of like a brand new toy that had yet to be played with, or some new leather boots, the leather still not yet broken into.
He couldn’t deny he liked the way he felt. He might be hungry, but he sure was fresher than he’d felt in a long time.
But… wait. Had it been a long time? Or had he just dreamed everything after all?
His heart started to race. He thought about the undead. He thought about all the people he’d seen bitten. And more than anything, he thought about his wife and daughter. If it’d all been a dream, then they would still be out there. They wouldn’t be dead. They wouldn’t—
He heard a door opening, and he realised right then that his hopes of everything being a dream were sadly misplaced.
The man standing at the door, smiling, was familiar. He couldn’t properly place him, but he knew that he knew him. He’d spent time with him. A long time with him.
“Cody?” the man said. “Damn, I didn’t expect you to be back with us for a long time. How’s the shoulder?”
Cody looked at his shoulder and saw it was bandaged up. He remembered the pain he’d felt then, as he’d taken a bullet to it. And then he remembered something else. Being bitten back when Gav had left him to die in that creepy old building.
But he was alive.
He was still here.
“How…”
The man—who Cody remembered now as Michael—sat on the edge of his bed. “You’ve been out cold a long time. We didn’t think you were ever gonna come round. But you’re awake now, and that’s the main thing. It says a lot about your strength, for sure.”
“My wife. My—my daughter.”
“Still not with us,” Michael said. He put a hand on Cody’s other shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
Cody lowered his head then. He felt the grief returning. His family was still gone. His hopes of any of the things he’d witnessed being false were scuppered. This was life, and he was still being forced to live it. “I was infected,” he said. “How am I still here?”
He looked up then, and he saw Michael smile. And it was then that he remembered everything else. Michael’s promise to take Cody and his group to an extraction point. The chaos they’d faced on the road together. Cody finally, finally getting Michael to the place he’d wanted to go… and then Michael reuniting with his family. Cody could vaguely remember a military presence unlike any he’d seen since the fall. Part of that filled him with hope. Part of it filled him with fear.
“You’re still here because you’re strong, partly. But also because…”
Michael stopped, then. He looked around at the door, like he was checking if anyone else was listening.
Then he turned back to look at Cody and he smiled. “I think you should see what we can do for you. In your own time.”
Cody didn’t need any more prompting to get out of this bed.
He staggered to his feet. Pins and needles spread right up his legs. But he didn’t care. He was just glad to be here. Glad to be alive. Glad that his faith in humanity had been reinforced.
“Whoa, there,” Michael said, steadying Cody as the pair of them walked towards the door. “You know, I can get you a wheelchair if—”
“I don’t need a wheelchair.”
“Trust me,” Michael said, barely able to contain his smile. “What you’re about to see could knock a perfectly healthy person down.”
Cody gritted his teeth. He was still here, for one, so something strange was happening. But Michael seemed excited. He seemed hopeful. There was something about the tone in which he spoke that told Cody he was about to discover something big.
He followed Michael towards the door.
“My family,” Michael said. “I’ll introduce you to them properly. I’ve told them everything about you. The lengths you went to in order to get me back here. And they’re grateful. Eternally grateful. You should join us for dinner when you’re feeling yourself.”
Cody nodded. The thought of food was nice. It was only then that he realised how ravished he was, and how bony he’d become in the space of an unconscious month.
“But for now,” Michael said. He stopped by the door. “Cody, are you sure you’re ready for this?”
Cody narrowed his eyes. “What are you talking about?”
Michael didn’t respond at first. He couldn’t keep himself from smiling. “What you’re about to see. It might… it might knock you back.”
“I’m used to being knocked back,” Cody said. “Just make sure you keep bloody hold of me and I’ll be fine.”
Michael laughed a little. Then he nodded. “Yes. Yes, I guess you will.”
He reached out for the door handle.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
Cody nodded.
He thought he was ready.
He really did.
But when he saw what was outside, he realised there was no way he could be ready for a thing like this.
Nothing could’ve prepared him for the reality of what was facing him.
CODY LOOKED out of the door, Michael by his side, and he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“How…” he started. He actually felt pretty faint. Just like Michael told him he would. It was all too much to take in. All too much to accept.
“Welcome,” Michael said. “Welcome to the new world.”
The last things Cody heard was the laughter of schoolchildren making their way back home. The barking of dogs chasing one another around a nearby park.
And the buzz of traffic as it rushed by…
This wasn’t the new world.
This was the old world, just how it used to be.
And Cody was standing right in front of it.
CHAPTER ONE
Riley sat at the dining room table of their little detached house in the middle of nowhere and he couldn’t quite believe his company.
Anna was there of course, which was weird enough in itself, even all this time after she’d returned. And there was Carly and Kesha too. Carly spent a lot of time with Kesha, looking after her, making sure she was okay. But the unlikelihood of the pair of them still being here was also against the odds.
A teenager.
A little kid, barely into her second year alive.
&nb
sp; It was impossible. The unlikeliest group of survivors imaginable.
And just to make it all the more unlikely, Cody had returned to join them.
Riley looked across the table at Cody. He saw his weathered skin, more scarred than he remembered, but that smile still on his face that seemed so calming and so ever present. He remembered when he’d first met Cody back at the Manchester Living Zone. They’d ended up escaping together when the MLZ came under attack from that hybrid breed of the undead. Riley wasn’t ever sure of Cody’s fate. He knew he was in trouble. But he hadn’t known where exactly he’d ended up.
To see him sitting here at the table, so long after that moment… it scared Riley. Because it made him wonder just how many more people he’d known were still alive out there. Just how many more people who he’d written off as dead were actually still alive.
It was a scary thought. But it was an exciting one all the same.
“So you say you’ve been to… to a place where things are good?”
Cody looked across the table at Carly. He smiled at her. And Riley couldn’t help feeling a little resistance when he did that. Mostly because he didn’t want anyone getting their hopes up only to be crushed all over again. Carly was tough. But she was still young. She was susceptible to the promises of the new world, and what a spell those promises could cast.
But Cody didn’t seem to be the kind of guy to offer false promises. He’d been a good man. Riley had always remembered him for his kindness and his trustworthiness.
“The place I’ve been to is perfect,” he said.
Carly’s eyes flickered as Kesha wriggled around on her lap, gargling and chattering to herself in gibberish. “So there’s, like… there’s people like us?”
“There’s people like us and people not like us. It’s a growing place. There’s all the old things. Shops. Cinemas. Churches.”
“So it’s a fairytale?” Riley asked.
Cody narrowed his eyes. “No. It’s… It’s complex to explain.”
“We’ve been surviving for the last couple of years in a world we thought was empty. All we had was rumours and hearsay. And now you’re saying there really is somewhere out there? Somewhere good? Forgive me if I’m a little sceptical.”