by Ryan Casey
It was a cool night. Everything was totally silent other than Riley’s footsteps, and the light mumble of conversation somewhere in the distance.
Butterflies swarmed around Riley’s stomach and chest. Maybe this was them. Maybe someone had captured Anna and Cody.
Or maybe worse…
He couldn’t even think about what would be worse. He couldn’t allow himself to.
He just knew he wasn’t prepared to face up to anything worse, not now, not ever. Not after everything he’d already lost.
He crept slowly through the grass. He gripped onto his axe at all times. He swore he saw movement in the trees. He felt like someone was watching him. Like the gaze of the unknown was burning into him as he walked…
And he knew there was that gnawing guilt eating away at him.
The guilt about leaving Carly and Kesha back home.
The guilt about walking away from them.
He heard the voices getting nearer and he pulled back his axe. He didn’t want to have to get into any kind of full-on scrap. He wanted to act silently, stealthily. He wanted night to be his ally. After all, the last thing he wanted was to die and for Carly to be left looking after Kesha forever.
He knew Chloë had been through hell on the road when she was alone with Kesha all that time. He didn’t want the same fate to be pushed onto another child, even if Carly was older than Chloë had been.
He took a few more steps and then he stopped. His pulse raced in his skull. He knew that this was it. The movement was right ahead of it. He had to act fast. He had to attack if that’s what he had to do.
He pulled back his axe and held his breath.
Then he went to step out and see who he was up against.
When he saw who it was, his muscles went weak.
“Guys?”
Anna and Cody turned around. They smiled at him. They were both laughing about something.
“Oh hey, Riley,” Anna said. “You okay? I was just showing Cody here some of the traps we’d set up. Figured I might as well do it to pass the time.”
“You idiot,” Riley said.
Anna frowned. “What?”
“I said you’re a fucking idiot. The pair of you.”
“Whoa,” Cody said. “What’s this about?”
“You know, Carly nearly died back at the house.”
Anna’s face dropped. “Riley? What the… Is everything okay?”
“No thanks to me. I actually closed the fucking door behind me, unlike some. Great way to lure in a creature. Might as well put a “Welcome, Undead!” sign above the door.”
“But we closed the door,” Anna said.
“Yeah,” Riley said, unable to stew his temper now. “Yeah I’m sure you did. That’s what you would say when you’ve fucked up, isn’t it?”
“No,” Cody said, stepping forward. “Riley, I’m sorry, but Anna’s right. We closed the door. Because Anna showed me the lock system you guys have in place. I locked the door, then Anna went through it all over again. She definitely closed that door, Riley. We both did.”
Riley stood there. He didn’t know what to say. All he could feel was the warmth receding from his face. The goose pimples spreading up his skin.
“If you shut the door,” Riley said, turning around in the direction he’d come from as the moonlight shone down brightly. “Then who opened it?”
He didn’t get an answer.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to get an answer.
He just thought about Carly and Kesha, all locked down in that house to keep them safe, all alone.
Only they weren’t all alone.
Somebody was in there with them.
Something was in there with them…
CHAPTER EIGHT
Carly grinned as Kesha laughed back at her, and she knew that no matter what, she’d always be here for Kesha. She’d always look after her. She’d always protect her.
It was dark outside. She was sitting on her bed upstairs. Her curtains were closed, but there was just a little crack between them to let a bit of moonlight in.
She didn’t want to go and get up to close those curtains because she was too scared.
The darkness was just too strong, too intense.
She held on to Kesha. Carly wasn’t going to move a muscle until the others got back. But the more that she sat there and the more she played with Kesha, the more Carly wondered—and worried—if the others were even going to come back at all.
Sure, Riley had promised her he wasn’t leaving her. And she understood why he had gone away. He was worried about Anna and Cody. Of course he was.
But there were Melissa and Ricky, too. Maybe they were on their way back. Or maybe something had happened to them. They’d been gone a long time. They might’ve run into some undead. Or maybe some bad people.
Carly didn’t even want to think about it.
She just knew that she had to stay here with Kesha.
She had to wait.
She had to—
She heard something smash downstairs.
She went totally still. She thought she’d been still before. But not like this. Her muscles seized up. Her throat tightened. Everything around her seemed to go black, like the only thing she could focus on was the space that had followed that smash.
Her mind started racing with so many different thoughts and fears that there were just too many to even comprehend.
She stayed totally still. It was just the wind. Or a trick of her imagination. That’s all it was. She just had to stay put and wait for someone to get back. She just had to wait here with Kesha and everything would be okay. Everything would be—
She heard footsteps.
There was no doubting it. And when she heard them, her stomach sank completely.
Her heart raced. Her chest tightened.
There was someone in the house.
There was someone in the house…
She panicked. She didn’t know what to do. Was it best to just wait here and hope whoever was in the house wouldn’t find her? Or would it be better to try and get out?
If she could get out, she could hide in the trees and wait for the others to get back. Then she could tell them about someone being in the house.
Yes. That’s what she had to do. She had to get out.
She walked her stiff legs over to the window and peered out of it. The drop was way too far for her to make. She was going to have to go downstairs.
There was no getting away from it. No avoiding it.
She crept slowly across the creaky bedroom floor. She didn’t want to make a single sound. She guessed someone had been watching their group. A looter or someone just waiting for an opportunity, thinking nobody was home. They weren’t here to hurt anyone. They were just here for supplies.
At least Carly hoped…
She walked out of the bedroom and stood in the dark upstairs hallway. She listened for any sounds; any sign of life, but there was nothing.
She held tightly on to Kesha. She had to hope she stayed still and quiet. Totally quiet.
When she was sure there were no sounds downstairs, she crept down the stairs, keeping her eyes on the front door at all times.
The walk was the longest she’d ever taken. She didn’t smell anything, so she assumed there were no dead in here. And she didn’t hear anything either. Maybe whoever had been here had gone.
Still, she didn’t even want to look anymore.
She just wanted to get out.
She just needed to escape.
She moved quicker as she reached the bottom steps. And before she knew it, she was on the ground floor. She felt totally exposed. Like she was in the view of whoever was in here.
But she just kept on moving to that front door.
When she reached it, she turned the handle.
It didn’t budge.
Her stomach sank then. The key. The bloody key. She’d left it upstairs. Which meant she was going to have to go back up there and get it.
She turned
around, Kesha in her arms, dared a look back down the hallway at whatever was ahead.
Something was different.
The door leading to the cupboard under the stairs was partly open.
Carly knew right then that she should just turn away. She should take this opportunity to get back upstairs, to get the key, then to get out of here.
But that cupboard under the stairs…
Something drew Carly towards that door to the cupboard under the stairs. Part of her wanted to close it then use that as an opportunity to give herself more time to get away.
But another part of her wanted to see what was down there…
Because there was something down there. She knew that much. There had to be.
She looked up the stairs. She could be up there in seconds.
But the door under the stairs. Whatever was through there would hear her.
So she refocused her attention on that cupboard door. She took a few deep, panicked breaths.
Then she started to walk towards that door.
As she crept towards it, she could feel herself getting closer to something horrible. Something she didn’t want to see. But it was like when you see those “DO NOT ENTER” signs and you know you just have to take a look, just out of curiosity.
She reached the door. She peeked through it, into the darkness. She felt like there was something down there in the pitch black, staring right back at her.
But there was only one way to find out.
She took a deep breath, heart racing, chest tightening, as she kept hold of Kesha closely in her arms.
She opened the door slightly more, so she could see better inside.
There was nothing there.
Nothing at all.
Carly frowned. Because she knew something had to have been in there. Something that wasn’t there now.
But then if it wasn’t there now, where was it?
It was right then that she heard the footsteps to her right, and saw movement in the corner of her eyes.
A jet black figure. Tall. Taller than any person. Than any creature.
And it was in the house.
She froze. She went completely still. Even Kesha turned around, transfixed by what she was looking at.
Because Carly had heard stories about them. She’d heard rumours about them. But she’d never quite believed the stories.
Well there was no denying the cold, hard truth right now.
There was an Orion in the kitchen.
And it was turning around to look in her direction.
CHAPTER NINE
Melissa saw the people inside the farmhouse staring right in hers and Ricky's direction and she knew it was time to run.
She turned around and sprinted from the window. But the second she moved, another few blasts of gunfire cracked against the glass.
“Quick!” Melissa shouted. Her heart pounded. She couldn’t think or focus on anything, just getting away from here. That’s all that mattered. “We need to keep going. We need to—”
She stopped when she saw what was right ahead of her.
Another two people. Both dressed in black. Both armed.
They were pointing their guns at her and Ricky.
“Turn right!” Ricky shouted.
She tumbled to the right, moving around the side of the farmhouse, almost on cue.
The two people who’d been standing on their own fired shots in Ricky and Melissa’s direction as they just ran. Melissa felt like she was running on fumes now. Her legs were like jelly, and she was convinced they were going to give out at any moment.
But that couldn’t happen. She couldn’t let that happen.
She ran down the side of the farmhouse with Ricky just behind her. She could hear the rest of the people from inside the farmhouse stepping outside. They were onto her and Ricky. And soon, they were going to be on their trail. All of them.
And through all this running, all Melissa could think of was what she’d witnessed through the window of that farmhouse.
The people lying dead on the floor.
The man, pinned down, only to have a syringe of God-knows-what pumped into his skull.
The way he’d passed out, then come back to life as an infected.
But the screen…
The screen with the brain activity.
She knew what she’d seen. She just wasn’t sure whether she was ready to accept it just yet.
“Melissa, quick!”
She zoned back into the present moment. It was dark. Ricky was ahead of her now, somehow. They were in the woods. Behind, Melissa could still hear footsteps, their pursuers still racing after them.
“We can’t afford to wait around,” Ricky said. “We can’t mess about. Not anymore.”
He held out a hand to Melissa.
“Come on,” he said. “We’ve got—”
A blast of gunfire whooshed right past Ricky and Melissa, slamming into a tree right in front of them.
“Run!” Ricky said.
Together they started running again. And as much as Melissa knew that they weren’t really heading in any direction in particular, she just had to keep on going. If either of them stopped for a single moment, they were risking being shot.
Or captured.
Or worse…
They ran a little further. And after some time, Melissa was convinced that there were no more sounds. As much of a struggle as it was to hear over the racing of her heart, anyway.
She put her hands on her thighs and she stared back into the darkness. And deep inside, part of her wondered whether this was really worth it. Whether all this struggling and all this pain had a viable endgame. Because she’d seen what was happening now. And the realisation of what was happening—of what had dawned upon her when she’d looked through the window of that farmhouse…
It was enough to make her lean forward and throw up.
Ricky appeared at her side. He put a hand on her back. “Hey. It’s okay. Come on. I think we’ve lost them but we can’t take any chances.”
Melissa threw her guts up some more. A part of her wished she’d just spew out all her organs, get everything done with right here.
The guilt.
The guilt over what they’d all been doing.
The guilt of what had seemed so normal…
All of it building up to breaking point after what she’d witnessed in that farmhouse.
After what she now understood.
She looked up at Ricky and she shook her head. “How do we keep going? After… after everything. Now we know what they are. What we’ve done. How do we keep going?”
She could see from the faint look on Ricky’s face in the darkness that he had come to the same conclusions as her about what they’d witnessed. The momentary fear in his eyes, as it all caught up with him.
Then he took a sharp breath and half-smiled. “We keep going because we have to get back. For Riley. For Anna. For Carly and for Kesha. Because they’re our people. And they deserve to know just as much as we do. Right?”
Melissa heard Ricky speaking but it was as if she wasn’t witnessing reality at all.
“Now come on,” Ricky said, offering a hand. “Let’s get going.”
Melissa steadied herself. Then, she spat out a final bout of vomit.
She looked back through the trees where that group dressed in black had chased them.
She stared into that nothingness and she wondered who they were. How they’d come to be here. Where they’d come from.
But the only thing that really mattered was what they’d discovered.
She took a deep breath.
Then, she took Ricky’s hand.
“We have to get back,” she said. “We have to tell them the truth. Fast.”
CHAPTER TEN
Riley ran as fast as he could back toward the cottage.
And as much as he tried to convince himself not to think, just to focus on putting one foot in front of the other and running as fast as he could, he still could
n’t help picturing all the awful possible things that might’ve happened to Carly, and to Kesha.
It was pitch black all around him. He couldn't see what was ahead, not really. But deep down, as the wind blew coldly against him, Anna and Cody following not far behind, he knew exactly where he was going to, exactly where he was heading.
He thought about Melissa and Ricky too, out on their investigation of the farmhouse. He felt guilty that he hadn’t really spared many thoughts for their well-being or their safety. Because of course he cared about them getting back in one piece. Of course he gave a damn. They were a part of his group; a part of his family, and he was worried about them.
But right now there was a more immediate concern ahead of him. And that concern came in the form of Kesha and Carly.
He couldn’t shake the horrible feeling in his gut that something had happened to them.
And would that make him responsible?
He’d been the one to go out and try to find Cody and Anna. He’d been the one who had left them behind.
Did that make him culpable somehow?
No. He couldn’t think like that. He couldn’t allow himself to believe that. Believing that would only add to his guilt, and there was only so much guilt you could take before it tore you apart completely.
He just had to hope Carly and Kesha hadn’t been torn apart completely…
No!
He stopped, then. He stopped because he saw it, up ahead. The cottage.
The door was still closed.
“We should be careful,” Cody said. “If there’s someone in there, then we should think about it before going rushing—”
“I’m not leaving them in there on their own for another second.”
Riley walked towards the door. He moved up the steps. And as he stood there, staring at the chipped wood of the door in front of him, he wondered what he was going to see behind it. A small part of him wondered whether he really wanted to open that door at all, because opening it was only going to bring him face to face with another horror.
But it was his responsibility to go in there.
It was his duty to go in there.
He lifted his hand and went to unlock and open the door.
Before he could open it, Anna rested a hand on his arm.