Dead Days Zombie Apocalypse Series (Book 9)

by Ryan Casey

  “We walk on,” she said. “We go to the extraction point. We see what we can do for Kesha. For Carly. But we have to face up to the truth. And it’s not a nice truth to face up to. It’s not an easy thing to accept. But we have to face it head-on if we’re going to do this.”

  Ricky nodded. “And what’s that?”

  Anna swallowed a lump in her throat and got ready to say it, once and for all. “We might find out Kesha is safe. We might find out Carly is safe. We might, if we’re lucky. But let’s get one thing straight. There’s no guarantee any of us are going to get out of this alive. In fact, we probably won’t get out of this alive.”

  She looked at Riley. Saw him considering things, the cogs turning in his mind.

  “It’s worth it,” he said. “If we get a chance of helping Kesha and Carly somehow, it’s worth it. If we just get a glimpse of them safe, it’s worth it. I’m tired of this world. So tired. But don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t swap places with Kesha and Carly if they’re going into this new world. Never.”

  Anna sighed, then. She sighed and she felt like a collective burden had been lifted off her shoulders, and the rest of the group’s shoulders. She looked around at all of them, and she got ready to say the words that sparked the final push.

  “Are you ready?” she asked.

  Ricky nodded. “I’m in.”

  Melissa smiled and nodded. “I can think of worse ways to die.”

  And then, without a moment’s hesitation, Riley took a deep breath, smiled and nodded. “I’m ready.”

  And with that, Anna didn’t have a choice. She turned around. The rest of them turned around.

  And together, maybe for one final time, they walked.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Ricky saw the small, quaint village emerging in the distance and he immediately felt uneasy about his new surroundings.

  The afternoon was growing darker, and the storm was intensifying. All around, he could hear the sound of rain pummelling down; feel the strong wind against his leaky pea coat. He’d taken it from someone who had fallen. So in a sense, it was just karma, really. That guy’s last laugh. At this rate, it’d probably end up getting him killed.

  He saw the roofs of the houses in the distance. And then eventually, he saw the buildings, too. The grey-bricked buildings. The little village square. The kind of place that you could imagine quite conceivably going on as normal, unaffected by the change in world circumstances.

  The kind of place that didn’t have to be in the midst of a disaster for it to seem like a ghost town.

  He took a deep breath and smelled mugginess in the air. His stomach churned as the thought of all kinds of foods swirled around his mind. As he walked down this street, the village getting closer, he remembered a trip he’d taken with his mother, when she was first starting to lose her grip. She loved the Lake District, the quaint villages, the little antiques dealers and old-fashioned sweet shops. She loved everything about it. It put her at ease, reminded her of a time when she was younger, when things were better for her, back when she and Dad used to take trips of their own.

  He remembered taking her to Ambleside and expecting her to be so happy to be in those surroundings; so content to finally be back in the kind of place that had always previously made her so happy.

  But her reaction hadn’t been what Ricky was expecting.

  She’d started crying the second they pulled into that village. And when Ricky had asked her what was wrong, she’d banged against the dashboard, curled her long nails into it, her eyes bulging out of her head with fear; total fear.

  “I can’t go back,” she kept on saying, over and over. “I can’t I can’t I can’t.”

  And Ricky hadn’t understood. Not at the time. It’d taken him many years—maybe until this point—for him to finally realise what his mum was so afraid of.

  She was afraid of going back to normality because she knew, deep down, that things weren’t normal. Things had changed. And if she pretended or feigned normal, it would tarnish her real thoughts and memories of those good times forever.

  Ricky thought, right now, he knew exactly how his dear mum felt.

  “Sure you don’t wanna just shack up here instead?” Melissa asked. “Leave the rest of them to go on this suicide mission of theirs?”

  Ricky saw the smile on Melissa’s face, but he wasn’t fooled. He knew there was truth behind what she was saying. Because no matter how much camaraderie or optimism there was between them, Ricky saw this for what it was too. A suicide mission. An ill-planned suicide mission, albeit one with good intentions.

  He’d seen the extraction point. He’d seen the type of technology they were packing down there.

  What made them so foolish that they thought they’d be able to just walk right in?

  What made them so arrogant that, even when all of them had been touched by the infection in some ways—some closer than others—they expected the new world leaders to just ignore that and allow them to go on living?

  As far as Ricky was concerned, this was their home now. This was their reality.

  And he wasn’t getting any hopes raised for a change to this reality any time soon.

  “We should bear this place in mind at least,” Ricky said, walking past the smashed windows of a fish and chip shop, past the bloodstained tiles of a village square. “Or maybe… you know. Find somewhere less creepy.”

  “Less creepy?”

  “What?” Ricky asked. “What’s so weird about that?”

  Melissa smiled and shook her head. “We spend two years living in a world where the dead walk and you’re bothered about finding somewhere ‘less creepy’.”

  Ricky tilted his head. “Humans are illogical beings, right?”

  Melissa nodded. “I’d drink to that. If I had a drink.”

  There was a pause between them then, as they made their way out of this ominously silent village. Riley and Anna were up ahead. But when Ricky was with Melissa… well, that’s when Ricky felt his most alive.

  “You’ve helped me, you know?” Melissa said. And then out of nowhere he felt the gentle touch of her fingertips. “Through… through the shit I’ve been through. You’ve helped me.”

  Ricky let his fingers tighten around Melissa’s and he found himself falling down a dangerous hole. A dangerous hole of desire, of passion.

  Of love.

  He tightened his grip, felt the warmth fill his body and he smiled. “Me too. Me too.”

  He looked into Melissa’s eyes and for a moment, just a moment, he felt perfect.

  Then he saw the movement between the houses.

  Men in black.

  Men with guns.

  “On your knees,” one of them shouted, rifle raised at them.

  Ricky went with his right hand to turn his gun on them but he saw more of them. They outnumbered them by double. There was no way out. They were trapped.

  “Weapons down and on your knees. Now!”

  Ricky looked Melissa in her eyes. His left hand was still holding hers.

  He looked at her in that way that said “everything’s going to be okay,” then he let go, cast his weapon aside and dropped to his knees, as too did Melissa, and then Anna, and then Riley.

  There was nowhere to go now.

  They were trapped.

  And the armed people were closing in on them.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Riley crouched on his knees, hands behind his head, and he did the only thing he knew he could do in a situation as grave as this.

  He begged.

  The rain lashed down heavily. The armed group, all in black, surrounded his people. He could have no doubts about who they were. They were the group that Cody had been with. The one he’d broken away from after disagreeing with the way they did things.

  If he could just get through to them. If he could just make them realise what Cody had come to realise all along. Then maybe… just maybe, things could work out for them.

  But he didn’t hold too much hope.


  “Tell you what you’re going to do,” one of the men said; the nearest one to Riley. He was masked, so his face wasn’t clear. But he was just as Melissa and Ricky had described the group that they’d seen, and just as Cody had looked when Riley had first come across him. “You’re going to tell us first of all where the hell you got those guns.”

  Riley couldn’t speak. He didn’t want to speak. He didn’t know how much these people knew about the tunnels underground. But deep down, he was starting to wish they’d at least attempted to take that route after all, as impenetrable as it appeared.

  They’d been foolish. So close to the extraction point and they’d allowed themselves to be caught like this.

  If there was a medal for a combination of bad luck and bad judgement, Riley was under no illusions as to who’d be taking first place.

  But shit. People did stupid things when they were pushed to their limits. And they’d made it this far, after all. Maybe their judgement was bad, but it wasn’t quite as bad as the people who hadn’t survived.

  And that group had to make up the biggest majority.

  “Tell us!” the man shouted.

  “We—we knew Cody,” Riley said. It was the only thing he could think to spit out.

  The man didn’t budge. A few of his people looked at one another.

  “What did you say?”

  “I… I said we knew Cody. He was our friend. And… and he told me things. Things about the extraction point. About the new world.”

  The sound of the rain cut through the conversation as Riley tried to keep his nerves together. Begging was pitiful, sure. But if it kept him and his people alive, a little pity went a long way.

  “Then if you know about the new world, you’ll know why we can’t take you there.”

  “Your leader has no intention of taking any of us back,” Riley said.

  The man shook his head. “That’s where you’re wrong.”

  “Cody realised the truth before he died. Your leader, Gareth. He was using the whole ‘gathering survivors’ thing as an excuse to get rid of everyone who had been in contact with the infection in any way. And that includes people who’d been bitten, even if they’d been cured.”

  “Bullshit,” the man said. He lifted his gun then, pointed it right to the side of Riley’s head. “We were cured. We were sent out here to research the progression of the virus and to bring back people who were absolutely certain not to have been in contact with it.”

  “And yet, who does he send out to do his duty? A bunch of people who’ve all been bitten. Who’ve all been in contact with the virus.”

  A pause, then. A pause, in which Riley sensed a movement. He sensed… hell, he sensed progression.

  They were hearing what he was saying.

  They were understanding him.

  He had to keep on pushing.

  He took a gamble then. It was a gamble he knew came with significant risk, but one he had to take in order to try and salvage some trust.

  He stood up.

  “Don’t move.”

  “You see it,” Riley said, continuing to rise to his feet. “And I dunno. Maybe you’ve suspected as much. But just think about this. Think about it for one minute. You’ve spent all this time bringing people to the extraction point, curing people at the extraction point. And have those people shown any signs of turning? Have they?”

  Silence.

  “I’ll take that as a no. And then, just add to that, Gareth decides conveniently that there is a risk posed by the people still out there. Those who have been bitten will always have some residue of the infection inside them. So he conveniently sends you people—who just so happen to have been cured—out to do his dirty work? You think he’ll let you back? You think he ever intended to let you back?”

  The man was silent. Just for a few seconds. But it was just long enough to reassure Riley about the biggest gamble of all he was about to put out there next.

  “There was a girl in our company. Now I don’t know how you go about curing people, but this girl—this baby girl—she’s… she’s got the cure in her bloodstream.”

  Riley pulled back his shirt sleeves. He watched the people examine them, closely, silently.

  “I was bitten. Several times. And I was cured. I haven’t been taking ‘boosters’ or whatever the hell your leader calls them. I had one dose from this girl, and that’s made me okay again. Maybe Gareth’s lying. And even if he isn’t… I don’t know about you, but I think this girl’s special. I think anyone who has the ability to cure the infection is special. Maybe you’ve seen others like her, maybe you haven’t. But whatever you believe, I don’t think she’s someone we should just give up on. But there’s a problem. This little girl—Kesha—her and our friend went missing. And we have reason to believe they ran into your people. So you’re going to tell us, right now, whether you can help us. Whether there’s any help for us at all.”

  More silence. More apprehension, both on the faces of Riley’s people and in the body language of the group.

  “So come on,” Riley said. “Tell us. Tell us what you believe. Tell us where we stand. Help us.”

  The main man’s gun lowered, and just for a moment, Riley thought he’d got through to them.

  Then, he lifted his gun and pointed it at Riley. “I think you’re talking shit.”

  He went to pull the trigger but then something stopped him.

  A sound. A shuffling.

  Movement, right in the corner of one eye at first.

  Then, in the other.

  And then, Riley heard the groans.

  As he looked around this abandoned village, he saw something that made his toes curl.

  The streets—every street—was filling with creatures.

  All of them were focused on their position.

  All of them were wading towards his group, towards the armed group.

  And there was nowhere to run.

  Riley backed up to the man holding the gun as the creatures closed in.

  “You think we’re talking shit?” he said. “Well I guess now there’s only one way to find out.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Riley saw the creatures coming towards them and he knew that they were going to have to act.

  Fast.

  The sky was darkening. The rain was lashing down heavier. All around them, in every direction, creatures were filling the streets, ploughing towards them. Just seeing them funnelling in like water in a crevice made the hairs on Riley’s arms stand on end, and his stomach dropped completely. It never lost its impact. It never got old.

  The groans echoed louder the closer the creatures got, all of them calling to one another in their undead manners. The smell was getting progressively worse, to the point that Riley could taste stomach acid tingling against the back of his tongue, making him want to puke.

  But it wasn’t any of these things that made Riley the most uncertain. It was the looks in the eyes of these people. Because that’s what they were. People. People being used as hosts, some semblance of their minds still locked in their skulls.

  He looked at them and he felt pity for what he was about to do.

  “So,” Melissa said. She was beside Riley now, as was Ricky, Anna, and the rest of the rival group, all armed. “Any grand ideas this time, smartarse? Any secret holes in the ground you’re going to pull out of nowhere and drag us down?”

  Riley wasn’t even in the mood for the slightest of jokes. He needed to get back to his rifle. All of them needed to get to their weapons.

  They needed to fight their way out of this oncoming storm.

  “There’s too many of them to choose one particular direction,” Riley said.

  “That’s hardly inspiring.”

  “We… we need to hold our ground. To pick them off slowly from all directions and hope for an opening.”

  “And if there is no bloody opening?” Ricky shouted. He had hold of his gun now. In fact, the group in black didn’t seem too bothered about Riley’s grou
p’s presence all of a sudden. More worried about the main problem at hand.

  Riley swallowed a lump in his throat and watched as the crowd of undead right ahead of him powered on in his direction. “Then God help us.”

  He lifted his rifle, as did Ricky, but the other guns were out of reach. They were backed right up against the wall of a shop. Riley knew that they could go inside, hide. But he didn’t want to be surrounded again. He was tired of being surrounded, being forced to find ways out of situations like this.

  But what choice did he have?

  “We should go into the sh—”

  The gunfire rattled him as it powered from the guns of the group in black. And when they fired, it didn’t exactly have the effect they were looking for. All that happened were some of the strays that weren’t already wading in Riley’s people’s direction definitely, absolutely were now.

  Time was running out.

  “Back up!” Riley shouted, his voice becoming unheard under the mass of bullets and the deafening echo of the groans. “We need to go into the shop. We need to—”

  “Shit!”

  When Riley heard that voice, he recognised it right away as Melissa’s.

  He spun around to see what she was swearing about.

  There were creatures coming from the left. They were just feet away.

  “Melissa!” he shouted.

  She turned to him. And he could see from the look in her eyes that she knew this was it. She knew this was the moment they were going to be torn away from each other; that the group was going to be fractured in two.

  He fired at a few of the creatures coming at her, but it was no use.

  She had to make her move.

  “I’ll see you again,” she said, as the opening to her left rapidly narrowed.

  “Get inside,” Riley shouted. “Get to higher ground. Get—”

  He stopped immediately when he saw Melissa disappear into that gap of the dead.

  Only it wasn’t just Melissa who disappeared in the end.

  Ricky went running after her.

  “Ricky!” Riley shouted.

  The elongated fingers of the dead stretched out at Ricky. Some of them pulled at his shirt. Some of them scratched at his legs. But all of them were united in their desire to consume him.