by Ryan Casey
“It’s worked,” Cody said. And when he looked at Anna, she saw the absolute delight on his face. And she knew right then that this was a man who could be trusted.
She might’ve had her reservations at first. But his loyalty could not be disputed.
He was one of their group. And he was—
Anna felt the ground beneath her shake, and she heard a crack.
She didn’t know what was happening at first, as she fell back, smacking the back of her head against the solid earth. She felt everything spinning around her; heard ringing in her ears; tasted blood on her lips.
And as she raised her head, looking around, she tried to get a sense of what exactly had just occurred. What had knocked her off her feet.
It didn’t take her long to realise.
The road had sunk. A hole had formed, which she was right on the edge of. Rubble was crumbling its way down into the middle of this hole, which was hollowing more and more by the second.
But there was something else.
There were hands in the rubble.
There were faces in the rubble.
There were snapping teeth in the rubble.
And…
“Cody!” Anna shouted.
She tried to throw herself forward, but she couldn’t. If she threw herself, she’d fall into that sinkhole too. She’d be torn apart by the infected that were underground. All of a sudden, everything was starting to add up. The digger that had been abandoned by the side of the road. The sudden patch of rough, loose ground.
It was a grave.
And that grave had caved in.
Cody fell further and further into the sinkhole, his rifle still wrapped over his shoulder.
“Cody!”
He tried to shake free of the hands of the infected, but a small group of them grabbed him, propped him upright.
“Hold on!” Anna shouted. “Hold…”
She couldn’t say any more.
First, she heard the grunt of pain.
Then she saw the blood.
Blood spurting from Cody’s shoulders.
Then from his skull.
And then the hands all around him pulled harder and harder, dragging his arms wider apart, pressing his chest out so that his ribs were protruding unnaturally, all the while Cody screamed out and gargled and—
A blast.
Cody’s chest split.
infected hands pushed through his ribcage.
His organs fell out in a juicy heap, most of them falling down towards the bottom of the sinkhole, wasted.
And as the sinkhole’s progress stopped, all Anna could do was sit there and stare as the light in Cody’s terrified eyes finally went out.
As the infected around him chewed at him, ripped away chunks of his flesh, and as his ribcage stretched out even more, making him something less than human.
Shock hit Anna hard. She couldn’t think properly. All she could see was that blast of blood that had spurted its way out of Cody’s chest.
But then something else struck her.
She lifted her head.
“Carly?”
She looked around. Heart racing. Chest tightening.
“Carly!”
But it was no use.
Her voice echoed on.
Carly was gone.
Kesha was gone.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Carly heard the screams and she knew it was Cody.
She was in the woods, surrounded by trees. She’d run as soon as she’d seen the earth caving in, the road giving way. She knew she should’ve stayed put because running away was for cowards, but she’d been so scared of anything happening to Kesha. She couldn’t risk it. It was just too dangerous to even think about.
She’d seen Anna lying at the other side of that hole in the ground and she knew she was probably in danger too. Which again, made her sad. Because Riley, Melissa and Ricky were out there. She was on her own.
All alone with Kesha.
She crouched under a tree and caught her breath. The air was muggy and humid. Kesha was crying softly. As Carly cuddled Kesha, she wondered if this was what it’d been like for Chloë all that time she spent on the road, alone with Kesha.
She wished she’d asked Chloë more about how to look after a little girl like this. Even though Chloë was younger than her, it seemed like she’d formed a natural bond with Kesha.
And yeah. Carly had made a big bond with her too. But it still felt like she was doing her best job of pretending she was a mother-like figure to Kesha rather than actually truly being one.
But she was doing her best.
And her best was going to be enough.
It had to be enough.
She lifted Kesha up with her shaky hands. Kesha looked into her eyes and immediately started grinning.
And right then, as the light shone down between the trees, Carly found herself smiling through tearful eyes too.
“You’re so precious,” she said. “You know that, don’t you? You’re just so precious.”
Kesha didn’t respond of course. Well, she responded with a giggle, if that counted. It was enough. Whatever it was, it was enough.
They were going to be okay.
Carly struggled to her feet, which were sore after all their walking. Her head spun with all kinds of thoughts that made her feel sick. Should she try and carry on down the road? What if all the zombies were still there? Riley had said it was up to her to get past them first, and that the rest of them would protect her.
But where would she go?
What would she do?
She thought about Anna. She’d seen Cody fall into that pit. Heard his screams as he got torn to pieces by the undead. And it hurt her to think of that. She hadn’t known Cody for long at all, but he’d seemed like a good man. A nice person.
But Anna…
She’d seen her fall, yes. But she hadn’t actually seen her die.
She couldn’t just give up on her.
She lifted Kesha up and smiled at her. “Come on, you. Let’s go find Anna.”
She saw Kesha’s smile widen, saw her lips start to form a word. For a moment, Carly wondered if she was going to speak… but in the end another spurt of gibberish bubbled out of her lips.
She’d speak. In time.
She was about to get moving when she saw the movement behind Kesha.
She held her breath. Looked around everywhere. She’d seen movement. She’d definitely seen movement.
But she couldn’t see any movement anymore.
Her stomach turned, as she listened to the breeze rustling against the leaves of the trees, the branches scraping against one another.
She’d seen something. There was no doubt about that. There’d been a movement right behind Kesha.
She didn’t know what it was. She didn’t know who it was.
She just had a feeling it wasn’t Anna. And that terrified her.
Her heart pounded. She swallowed a lump in her dry throat, looked all around at the trees, but still she couldn’t see a thing. And the more time went on as she stood there in the silence, the more she started to question whether she had in fact seen anything at all. Maybe it really was just her mind playing tricks on her. It was possible, right? She’d seen some awful things. She’d been through some awful things. She was bound to be a little fucked up in the head. They all were.
She took a few deep breaths and started to compose herself, getting ready to go back to look for Anna, when she heard the rustling to her right.
She stopped. Turned around suddenly.
There was a bush to her right. And it was rustling, for sure. She blinked a few times, just to be certain that it wasn’t her eyes playing tricks on her again.
But there was no doubt about it. There was no denying it.
The bush was moving.
Her heart picked up in pace. Part of her wanted to just walk away. She knew where the source of the noise was, now she could just leave it, right?
But there was somethi
ng else, too. Curiosity. She’d always been curious, right since she was a little kid. She’d always go looking in places that she knew were out of bounds to her. She’d always go rooting through her mum’s drawers for clothes that looked nice that she could steal, or through her dad’s computer…
She remembered what she’d found on Dad’s computer that time. The weird images. How sickly inside they made her feel. And when Mum had walked in and found her looking at them, Carly hadn’t really understood.
But she heard the arguments that followed, violent and ruthless.
And before she knew it Dad was in prison, and the newspapers were saying all sorts about him.
She loved her dad. She missed him. She didn’t understand why he’d done what he’d done, but she knew deep down he loved her too.
And even though Mum said they were going to stick together, a part of Carly knew that she resented her for going on that computer, for finding those images.
They were such a happy family before that moment. Those uncovered secrets tore everything apart.
Revelations could be dangerous like that.
Carly took a deep breath and thought about walking away. After all, finding what was rustling behind that bush wasn’t going to be the answer to all life’s problems.
But she wanted to know.
She wanted to see.
She walked slowly towards it. Every step was heavy and seemed like it took forever.
But eventually she got there, and she held her breath.
She stood over it. Thought about walking away. She didn’t have to be curious. She didn’t have to look.
But of course she did.
It was just who she was.
She moved her hand towards the bush and pulled the leaves aside.
When she saw what it was, she almost tripped up and fell back.
It was a head. The head of an undead.
Only it was detached from a body.
And it was looking up at her with such helpless, defenceless… human eyes.
She stumbled back. She hadn’t liked the way it’d looked at her. It reminded her of what Cody had told them.
The undead. They were people. Even in their horrible forms, they were still people behind those glassy eyes and snapping jaws. People who didn’t want to do what they were doing, witnessing all those horrors.
And all of it was catching up on Carly.
All of it was making tension build in her chest.
She turned around. She had to get out of here. She had to get to Anna. She had to get away…
When she spun around, she hit something.
It wasn’t an undead.
She thought it was at first… but it wasn’t.
It was a man. He was tall, and he was dressed all in black, just like Cody had been when they first bumped into him.
He was holding a gun.
“Hello, kid,” the man said. He lifted his gun. “I’ve got a few questions for you.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Riley heard the wave of creatures closing in on the cabin and he knew they were all in the shitter.
The afternoon was stretching on. Inside this cabin, it was stuffy and the air smelled of damp and piss. And that damp and piss were being intermixed with the growing stench of rot.
The rot of the undead.
Because that’s exactly what they were. Undead.
Alive behind those eyes. Witnesses behind those eyes.
A horror that was unimaginable to even contemplate.
He turned around to Melissa and Ricky and saw them looking at him with bewildered, puzzled eyes.
“Any ideas?” Melissa asked, with a little too much hope in her voice for Riley’s liking.
Riley looked back out of the window. The undead were all in front of this cabin now, an absolute sea of them. On the one hand, at least they were being drawn away from the road. But on the other… yeah. Away from the road meant towards them.
What fun was this if all three of them died in the process?
“Promise me one thing,” Ricky said. “You don’t let me come back as one of those things. You put me down before I have the chance.”
Melissa nodded. “I’m all for the whole suicide pact thing. So that’s another vote from me. Riley? You in?”
But as Riley stared out of the window, he had no plans for suicide. Whether joking or not, he didn’t even want to consider that as an option. The only option was getting out of here somehow. Getting to the rest of their people.
He had to hope they were still out there. That nothing had gone wrong.
He couldn’t ignore the scream he swore he’d heard.
And he didn’t want to think about what or who that might be. So many possibilities, none of them pleasant to think about.
“We’re going to get out of here,” Riley said.
Melissa and Ricky didn’t say a thing. Not at first.
It was Melissa who broke the silence in the end, as the creatures came within a few feet of the cabin. “What?”
Riley turned around. “We’re going to get out of here. If we have to fight hand to hand, we have to fight hand to hand.”
“No issue with the whole motivational thing,” Melissa said. “I mean, really. That’s all great. Positive thinking for the win, and all that. But there’s fucking hundreds of those things out there, Riley. How do you expect to get through them? Really?”
Riley looked through the glass and saw one of the creatures looking right in at him, right in his eyes. “I’ve faced worse odds in the past and found a way.”
“Well you’d better get a move on,” Ricky said. “Because those things are gonna be banging their fists on those windows in five… four…”
The bang was sudden and it was jarring. A stark reminder that yes, they really were trapped and yes, they were running out of time.
Riley listened to the scraping fingernails of the undead against the wood of the cabin. He saw them bashing against the window with their withered hands, teeth snapping at the glass, which was already being strained under their collective weight.
“They’re going to walk right through these walls,” Melissa said. “They’re going to crush us before they even have the chance to eat us.”
Riley tried to block Melissa’s words out of his mind. He looked around at the cabin. There was an opening on the roof. If they could get on there, they could wait. See what their best route out of here would be.
But on the other hand, this cabin could just collapse. The creatures would swarm it. It’d be game over. Just as ineffective as staying inside here.
The glass smashed. A fist stuck through. Then another, and another, until before they knew it, all the light in this place was blocked out by the arms of the dead, rotten and sore.
“Seriously,” Melissa said. “Can we start thinking about the best route out of here now?”
“Any ideas?” Riley asked, as he backed up to her and Ricky.
“Perfectly sharp knife to cut our throats with. Want me to get cracking?”
Riley watched as the creatures ripped their way through the window. He saw one of them pull itself up, dragging its wretched body through the glass.
He had to be honest with Melissa and Ricky. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what the best route out of this situation was. So in the end, all he could do was pray. Hope for the best.
“It’s been nice knowing you,” Riley said, as the wood started to creak and come away, the weight of the creatures growing more intense.
And then he thought of something.
The ground. The floor he’d just stepped on. He’d felt something about it. Something familiar from a long time ago, but something weird.
Something… hollow
And as he looked down, he wondered…
Could it be?
Could it really be?
He crouched down and started pulling the wooden floor up.
“Riley?” Ricky asked.
“Help me with this.”
“But they’re—they’re getting in.”
“Just help me. Please.”
So even though time was running out, even though the creatures were closing in, Melissa and Ricky crouched down and started to help Riley pulling up the floorboards. And the further they got with them, the more the struggle became.
But that just made Riley wonder.
That just made him wonder whether he was right.
Whether his suspicions were right all along…
The wood of the cabin crumbled and fell down in a heap of dust.
The wall was down.
The creatures were inside.
“Pull!” he shouted.
And as they all collectively pulled together, Riley waited for the barrage of creatures to swallow them up completely.
Then, something happened.
The wood on the floor snapped away.
And underneath it, he saw what he’d been hoping to find. He saw exactly what he’d suspected all along.
“What is it?” Ricky said, his voice almost inaudible amidst the calls of the undead.
But Riley didn’t have time to answer. Not now.
All he had time for was to yank open that hatch.
To urge the pair of them down the ladders, then follow himself.
And then to close the hatch just before the creatures could get to them.
As they held on to the ladders, hearts racing, chests tight, Riley couldn’t help smiling as he remembered the hatch he’d found near Heathwaite’s, where he’d met Alan, who’d taken him on the journey to the Manchester Living Zone and where all this madness really began.
“What is this place?” Melissa asked.
Riley took a deep breath and he smiled. “It’s going to get us to safety,” he said.
CHAPTER NINE
“Two questions,” Melissa said. “First: what the hell is this place? And second… how the hell did you know it’d be here?”
Riley looked at the vast expanse of the bunker and he had to admit he was feeling pretty nostalgic. All of the outside world felt like it disappeared when you were in these bunkers. He couldn’t even hear the creatures on the outside, which added to the illusion of total security in here.
And he knew himself just how secure the bunkers were. He’d been in one with Alan Mixter all that time ago. He remembered the shock he’d felt when he’d found that place. The amazement that places like this existed at all, hidden in plain sight. And he could see from the look on Melissa and Ricky's faces that they were just as bewildered, just as amazed.