by Ryan Casey
CHLOE: THE JOURNEY
RYAN CASEY
If you want to be notified when Ryan Casey’s next novel is released and receive exclusive free books, please sign up to his Readers’ Group newsletter.
Click here to get started: ryancaseybooks.com/fanclub
Your email address will never be shared and you can unsubscribe at any time.
Chloë can be read as a standalone series. However, if you are reading the Dead Days series, the following reading order is highly recommended.
Dead Days: Season One
Dead Days: Season Two
Dead Days: Season Three
Dead Days: Season Four
Dead Days: Season Five
Chloë
Chloë: The Journey
1
ONE
Stanley Werther knew the moment he saw the empty town that tonight was going to be different.
The darkness was thick and intense. Stanley wasn’t sure what time it was exactly. Didn’t seem to matter, not anymore. The nights were always long and troublesome. And these were just the summer ones. Imagine what it’d be like when autumn came along. When winter wrapped its clutches around the world…
No.
He didn’t want to think of winter.
He’d done enough damned thinking of winter to last him a lifetime already.
He walked through the middle of the town. Just behind him, he could hear the footsteps of his companion, Martin Freece. He looked back. Saw Martin dragging his feet along. Fuck. He’d lost some weight since they’d first met. That white shirt had seen some undead action, too. It was only because Stanley had travelled with Martin for so long that he knew the shirt was white. To anyone else, it probably looked brown. Filthy.
But the darker the colour, the easier it was to blend in.
Something else they’d discovered on the road.
“What you thinking?” Martin called.
Stanley looked around the town. Medium-sized apartment buildings with the curtains closed, windows still intact. Shops with the shutters still up. The cawing of crows echoing through the streets. Like this place had just died. Like someone had just clicked their fingers and the whole damned existence had gone to shit.
“Looks just what we need.”
“You sure about that?” Martin asked. He walked up beside Stanley. Joined him in the middle of the road. Cars parked up on pavements. Windows untouched. If it wasn’t for the overgrown grass, the weeds sprouting up between the cracked tiles, you’d be hard pressed to know this was a town in the midst of an apocalypse.
Well, if it wasn’t for the smell, either.
The smell never eased off. If anything, it only got stronger. It was your reaction to the smell that was important. The way you dealt with the constant death-rich air. That thickness of decay clinging on to the back of your throat. Stanley’s old mate, Bob, once said Venice smelled bad. Said he struggled to cope with the constant smell of sewerage outside his hotel window. Left a day early.
He hoped Bob was still surviving, somewhere.
Try opting out of this fucking stench, Bob.
Stanley swallowed a lump in his dry throat. “I’d say it’s the closest we’re gonna get to safety for the night or so. Take a look around. Gotta be some supplies and things like that lying around.”
He saw the look in Martin’s eyes. Just a momentary look, but it was there.
He saw the doubt on his gaunt face.
“We’ll be okay,” Stanley said. “As long as we watch our backs.”
Martin didn’t respond. Not for a couple of seconds.
Then he nodded.
Lifted his pistol.
Followed Stanley.
Stanley knew why Martin was so doubtful. Knew why he was sceptical. The things the pair of them had seen in their four months on the road was enough to scare anyone.
But more than anything, Stanley knew it was the things they’d done that was the source of Martin’s fears.
The things they’d done kept Stanley awake at night. And he knew, deep down, they kept Martin awake too.
They’d done bad things.
Things when they were hungry.
Things to other people…
Walking through the centre of town and scanning the empty supermarkets, Stanley recalled the taste of blood. Human blood. There was a tang to it. Different to your own blood. Everyone had a taste. Everyone.
The meat itself, well. That wasn’t so bad. Started off eating it well done. Cooked to a crisp.
But as time progressed, as their hunger grew, Stanley took to eating his meat medium rare.
Then rare.
Just how he liked his steak.
Blue and bloody.
He did his best job of banishing the thoughts of the little rump he’d sliced away from his victims to get that steak.
The stringy, sinewy flesh he’d chewed down on.
Everyone had to do bad things to survive in this world.
Just depended how bad you were willing to go.
“I don’t like it,” Martin said. “Not one bit.”
Stanley stared into the partly open door of a convenience store. The place was dusty as hell. But it was intact. Nothing on the floor. Shelves still stacked with food, with drinks, with everything.
“I see food and I see drink,” Stanley said. “Far as I can see, this place is a goldmine.”
“But why’s it a goldmine?” Martin asked.
Stanley didn’t say a thing. He couldn’t, of course. He didn’t like the feel of this place either.
But it was stocked up.
And that was all that mattered.
They grabbed some food. Tins of beans. Old crackers. Over at the meat counter, flies swarmed the not-so-fresh packs of salmon, desperate to nibble their way in.
“Shit,” Martin said, filling his rucksack with some tubs of Rowntree’s jelly. “This place reeks worse than it does out there.”
“To be expected,” Stanley said, grabbing cans of tuna, wiping the slugs away from the metal. “Food all going to waste in here. Good job we found it when we did.”
“You reckon anyone else has?”
“Anyone else has what?”
“Y’know. Found this place.”
Stanley looked around the shop. Peered over at the cash register. At the counter. Still covered with chocolate bars, with chewing gum.
“Doesn’t look like it, does it?”
Stanley went over to the counter and grabbed what he could of the chewing gum.
When they stepped out of the shop, the serenity of this place dawned on Stanley. He wasn’t sure why he found it so weird that a town had just gone undiscovered since the collapse. After all, there were more dead than there were survivors. That much was obvious. Just made sense that some of the harder to access places wouldn’t be as booming with life.
They’d travelled far and they’d battled hard to get to this place.
Far as Stanley saw it, they’d earned their luck.
“So what do we do?” Martin said, walking down the centre of the street beside Stanley. “Just find a place to kip? Midnight feast?”
Stanley kept his gun tight in his palm. “Not a lot else we can do.”
“Well I found the jelly. So if you don’t fucking mind, I’ll—”
“Ssh,” Stanley said.
He stopped. Lifted a hand.
“What?”
“Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
Stanley waved at Martin to quiet. Backed up a few steps. “Just then. I heard something.”
“Undead?”
“No. Like…”
�
�Living?”
“Static.”
Stanley said that word with confidence. Because he could hear it again.
And by the look on Martin’s face, by the widening of his eyes, he heard it too.
The pair of them turned. Looked at the partly open door to their left. A building. Some kind of flat block.
“What d’you think it is?” Martin asked.
Stanley adjusted his grip on the pistol. Looked at the darkness seeping out from behind the door. “Only one way to find out.”
“Wait,” Martin said, grabbing the back of Stanley’s winter coat. He wasn’t cold. Just figured the thicker material gave the undead an extra bit of biting to do. Handy shield. Always needed to think outside the box like that. “You aren’t really going in there, right?”
“Then what do you suggest?”
“We… we got our stuff. We got food. Water. Jelly.” Martin smiled, like jelly was the fucking Holy Grail. “We can push on. Get something to eat. Get some rest. Then check it out in the morning. Right?”
Stanley shook his head. “After all the things you’ve seen. All the things you’ve done. And still you’re a fucking wuss.”
He yanked his coat away.
Turned to the door.
Walked.
He pushed the door aside with the tip of his gun. It creaked open. As it moved, Stanley felt a cool breeze from within. The crackling static got stronger, louder.
“Sounds like a… a television. Or a radio. Or something.”
He walked into the hallway. Smelled something sweet in the air. Looked around—an empty lounge area, the cushions tidied. A kitchen table with the remains of a ninth birthday cake still waiting to be cleared. Two goldfish floating at the top of a bowl.
But the thing he noticed most was the stairs.
The static coming from up the stairs.
“You got my back?”
He waited for Martin to reply.
Put a foot on the first step. It creaked, like one of those houses in the old horror movies.
“Martin. Are you…”
It dawned on Stanley that he hadn’t heard Martin for a while. Hadn’t heard him since he’d stepped inside this building in fact.
He turned around. Saw no one was there. “Martin. Stop fucking around. I know you’re—”
A scream echoed from outside.
A sharp, ear-piercing scream.
Like someone in agony.
Like someone suffering.
Stanley’s skin went cold. He felt his heartbeat racing. Martin? Was it Martin? It didn’t sound like Martin. But then, who else could it be? It was only Martin and him in this town. Only Martin and him walking around these streets at night. Only Martin and him…
He stepped outside.
Scanned the roads. The buildings. The streets.
Martin was gone.
He’d disappeared.
He’d…
And then he saw it.
Saw the movement. Over in the doorway of the garage across the road.
Martin. Definitely Martin. Fucking Martin messing around.
“Martin,” he called, keeping his voice to a whisper for reasons he didn’t want to accept. “I know you’re fucking with me.”
He walked towards the garage.
Kept his gun raised.
Again, for reasons he didn’t want to face up to.
Because of that uncertainty.
That uncertainty about the scream.
Was Martin, a fully-grown middle aged man with a voice that sounded like Vin Diesel after twelve beers, capable of such a screech?
“Martin,” he said, walking up to the garage door. His pulse thumped around his skull. His throat was dry. He kept his gun pointed at the gap at the bottom of the garage. Waited for Martin to stick his hand out. To jump out covered in fucking jelly. Just like him to throw a prank like that. At least, like the old him.
The old him before shit got serious.
The old him before…
He heard the scream again.
Loud.
Right from the pit of the screamer’s chest.
But not from the garage.
Not from the garage at all.
He turned back to the house he’d stepped out of.
Cause the scream had come from the other direction.
He looked around. Felt his head spinning. He thought he saw shadows drifting through the darkness. Thought he saw glowing eyes illuminating just outside his field of vision.
But the second he looked at them, they disappeared. Shifted from his view. Gone.
He turned back to the garage door and got ready to lift it up. He knew someone was inside. He needed to—
He saw the black silhouette at his feet.
Perched down.
Staring up at him.
Stanley lifted his gun and fired a shot but it rattled off the metal garage door as the thing on the ground lurched up at him.
Wrapped its mouth around his neck.
Ripped away his throat.
Chewed down on his chest with staggering ferocity.
Stanley tried to scream. He tried to scream as this monster ripped him to shreds; as the agony intensified. But he couldn’t. He was frozen. Completely frozen by the agony, but also the surprise.
The surprise at the crowd of four standing around him.
Staring down at him.
Shielded by the darkness.
When a scream finally left his throat, it was weak and pitiful.
Weak and pitiful as the rest of the crowd gathered around him.
Ripped out his insides.
Crunched down on his bones.
As the darkness surrounded him completely, as his senses softened and his thoughts subsided, Stanley swore he saw Martin standing over him, blood dripping down his chin.
IN THE UPSTAIRS room of the building across the road, the static continued to crackle.
2
TWO
The Barnatium Children’s Home sat right in the middle of a grassy valley just waiting to be discovered.
The fences around it were tall but flimsy. They rattled in the wind, which was strong for late summer. The air was thick and muggy, but there was a chilliness to the mornings that teased the onset of autumn. The spread of the frost. The dew. August was stretching on into September.
And then September would stretch into October, October into November, and then… winter.
Winter and still no home.
Winter and no place to call “safe.”
“What do you think?”
Chloë leaned across the grass. She felt the front of her black cloak turning soggy in the morning dew. Her throat was dry. Always was dry these days. Just came with the territory of the larger group. Just part of the sacrifice of providing for everybody.
She turned. Saw Alice lying flat by her side. The binoculars were lowered. She looked at the Barnatium Children’s Home with a squint.
“Can I take another look?” Chloë asked.
Alice nodded. Handed Chloë the binoculars.
Chloë went to reach for them with her right hand when she remembered she didn’t have a right hand anymore.
It happened in waves. The memories. The reminders of what had happened. Being in the Church of Youth stronghold. Being bitten. The only option left for either Dad or Alice to cut away her arm and hope for the best.
And they had. At least, Alice had, from what Chloë had been told. Dad struggled. Of course he struggled—he was her dad.
But she was still here. She was without her good arm. The one she’d learned to use a knife with. The one she’d learned to fire a gun with.
But still here.
She lowered her knife, cautious to let it go. And then she clumsily grabbed hold of the binoculars. Felt them slip between her fingers.
“I can hold—”
“It’s okay,” Chloë said.
She tried to avoid noticing her cheeks heating up. Maybe if she didn’t pay attention to them, she could pretend
they weren’t heating up at all.
She looked through the binoculars. Looked through the metal fences towards the old children’s home. The grass was long. The cars parked up in the parking bay were covered in a film of dust. Crows sat on the top of those cars, cawed at the top of their voices.
At a glance, this place looked empty.
But it was always the glance that could be deceiving.
“Doesn’t look like there’s anyone around,” Alice said.
Chloë swallowed a lump, dampened her throat. She moved the binoculars from left to right. Examined the cracked windows. The ivy dangling down over the smashed glass. She licked her lips. “It doesn’t.”
“Which means we can push on in there.”
“After asking the group whether they want to—”
“Chloë, you know the group as well as I do. They’ll want to settle.”
Chloë stopped moving the binoculars. Stared at the darkened room behind one of the dusty windows. She wasn’t sure if Alice was right when she said she knew the group as well as Chloë. Because of the nineteen survivors from the Church of Youth’s camp, Chloë didn’t know many of them at all.
Just that there’d been thirty-three. There’d been thirty-three survivors that walked away from her mum and sister’s makeshift grave six weeks ago. And now fourteen of those had died.
The last nineteen.
Nineteen people who relied on her to lead them.
Who turned to her.
All because she’d saved their lives.
“I can go back and mention it to them,” Alice said. “I can ask your dad to take a look. See what he thinks.”
Chloë’s thoughts drifted. Drifted back to the Church of Youth camp. To all the other safe places she’d stumbled upon. And she didn’t like the feeling those drifting thoughts brought along with them. There were too many memories. Too many bad memories.
She didn’t like the memories.
Especially not the ones where she’d thought she was safe.
Because she knew now there was no such thing as safe. Not in the company of other people.
Which was why it was important to—
She saw something shift in the right of her binoculars.
She blinked. Snapped out of her thoughts.
“I’ll go—”
“There’s something in there,” Chloë said.