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  Apocalypse

  Surviving the Virus, Book 3

  Ryan Casey

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  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

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  Chapter One

  Gabby Birch stared out into the street and wished her husband were by her side.

  It was late evening, but the weather was still so damned nice it could’ve been the middle of the day. The sun beat down onto the concrete. She hadn’t been able to smell the concrete for a few days. Usually one of her favourite smells. The hot tarmac. The succulent warmth of the melting tar. Weird, she knew, but she liked the buzz of the traffic, the sound of engines roaring, of horns honking at one another. She preferred the busyness of a bustling urban city to the remote solitude of the countryside or the beach or anything like that. She just enjoyed the sound of kids playing on the busy estate; the creaking of swings and merry-go-rounds. The jingle from an ice cream van somewhere up ahead. The taste of jam sandwiches as she sat on the wall in front of her terraced house, trying to waft away the wasps.

  It made her smile. Reminded her of childhood.

  But Gabby hadn’t been able to taste or smell a thing for two days now. Didn’t think much of it at first. Just assumed she was a bit under the weather, a bit run down. She’d had no choice but to crack on. Martin was only four. He needed looking after. Needed feeding. Didn’t help that he wasn’t the most intelligent child.

  That sounded pretty harsh to say, but it was true. Martin had learning difficulties. He was sweet. Caring. Affectionate. He was so well behaved. But he was going to grow up at least a few years behind the rest of his peers.

  It pained Gabby to think of it, the thought of him having to start school. Because as much as she treasured her boy, as much as she knew he’d make friends and be conscientious and well-mannered and beautifully behaved, she knew kids were cruel to those who were different. And they were going to be cruel to her Martin, too.

  So when this outbreak, whatever the hell it was, came along, she couldn’t deny feeling a glimmer of relief that her boy might actually grow up in a kinder world one day, when the dust all settled.

  Or maybe he wouldn’t have to go to school at all if this really was as serious as it looked.

  She looked down the streets. Empty. Cars on the sides of the roads. Windows boarded up. Every now and then, she’d see someone cycle past. Maybe someone would attempt to drive down the street before getting caught up in the blockade and be forced to either turn around or abandon their cars. It was the same every day. The same couple across the street left the house and sneaked off, returning with bags of unknown supplies from some unknown location at the same time every evening. They’d look over their shoulder then disappear inside. And when it went dark, every night, a little blond boy would come to his window further down this row of terraces and hold up a sign that read “ANYONE WANT TO PLAY?”

  Nobody ever went around there. Nobody ever answered.

  Nobody wanted to play.

  “Mummy?”

  Gabby looked around and saw Martin standing by the door.

  He was wearing his Spider-Man pyjamas. Clutching a Batman teddy. The best damned Marvel and DC crossover imaginable, Fred—Martin’s dad—used to say.

  He looked at Gabby with those big brown eyes. That curly hair that reminded her so much of Fred.

  “What’re you doing out of bed, big man?”

  He looked down the corridor, uncertain. “There’s someone in the garden.”

  Gabby frowned. Hairs on her arms stood on end. She knew people lurked around at night. Looters were just a natural annoyance, really. Luckily, she had a rifle. Something she insisted was stupid when Fred first bought it. He wasn’t licensed to use it. He just had a fascination with weapons. Bought shit like that on the deep web.

  She’d bollocked him for it. Strongly.

  Didn’t ever think she’d be so grateful for him bringing it into their lives.

  God bless him.

  “In the garden?” she said. She peeked out of the bedroom window. Nobody that she could see. A stone water feature. Martin’s tricycle lying on its side. A few weeds breaking through the flagged patio area that Fred had spent one long summer’s day paving. Got the nastiest sunburn. Gabby would never forget his screams as she poured and rubbed the icy After Sun onto his back. And her laughs, too. The little moments. The moments she missed.

  “I don’t see anyone, love.”

  “The back garden,” Martin said. “They… they looked up at me. Waved at me. I think it was Daddy!”

  Gabby shivered. She walked across the room, barely able to put one foot in front of the next. Not just because of the sudden feverishness rushing through her body. But because of those words of her son.

  I think it was Daddy!

  She crouched opposite Martin. Felt a lump swelling in her throat as she reached over, planted her hands on his bony little shoulders. “Martin… I’m sorry. But we’ve had this talk. Your daddy. He’s gone away. And he isn’t coming back.”

  Martin’s eyes twinkled. “But I saw him.”

  She reached for his hands. Put them on his chest. “He’s here. In our hearts. If you ever want to speak to him, you just put your hand on your heart, close your eyes, and he’ll hear you. He won’t speak back. But he’ll hear you. Okay?”

  Martin shook his head. “But he’s there, Mummy. Really. It’s him. Or his twin. Or his spooky ghost! Like Casper the Friendly Ghost! Come see!”

  Gabby knew she wasn’t winning this battle. She lowered her head. Nodded. Maybe Martin was right. Maybe someone was out there. Maybe someone was even knocking around Fred’s grave. She’d buried him at the bottom of the garden when he died, right by the shed. His favourite damned place in the whole world, that shed. He’d sneak out there. Pretend he was doing something productive. She’d sneak in on him and find him just standing there, rearranging his tools.

  “I just like the solitude in here,” he said. Which she found a little insulting at first.

  But standing in there, inhaling the
warmth of the wood… she felt it too.

  His death wasn’t like the usual virus deaths. It was peaceful. No bleeding. Nothing.

  Just waking up one morning to find him beside her.

  Cold.

  Devastating. But she had no choice but to keep her shit together. For her boy.

  She’d isolated herself from Martin as well as she could for a few days. Monitored herself closely for symptoms. It’d been three weeks now, maybe a little longer.

  But she was fine. She had plenty of canned food stocked up.

  And yet… that food would run out.

  The supplies would run low.

  But she couldn’t worry about that right now.

  She couldn’t torture herself.

  “Come on,” Martin said, grabbing Gabby’s hand with his warm, clammy fingers. “Come see!”

  She didn’t say anything back to Martin. She just followed him out of the bedroom. Out onto the landing. Right through to Martin’s room.

  She saw the computer sitting at the side of the room. The Nintendo Switch on its charger. She saw the animal teddy bears, which she and Martin pretended were in a zoo when they were playing. She saw the stacks of books that Fred used to read to him every single night, in a way that Martin said was “better than how Mummy did it,” something that only recently broke her heart. Because she knew her son would never hear his father’s stories again.

  And she knew just how good a storyteller he was herself.

  The tales he used to tell her to send her drifting to sleep.

  The stories that crept into her dreams and soothed her.

  She reached Martin’s bed. Watched her son bounce onto it and hurriedly pull back the curtains.

  “There! Look. See. He’s… Oh.”

  Gabby reached the window, looked outside, and saw exactly what she expected to see.

  The garden was empty.

  Nobody was there.

  She sighed. “Come on, Martin. I know you’re sad, and I know you miss your dad, but it’s time to…”

  Then, she saw something.

  It just about caught her eye. Just about crept into her peripheral vision.

  Her heart started to race.

  Her mouth went dry.

  “What…”

  She looked outside and saw it clearly.

  The grave she’d dug for Fred.

  The soil.

  It was all over the place.

  Someone had dug up the grave.

  Someone had—

  Then she heard something else.

  Footsteps.

  The corridor outside Martin’s room, creaking.

  She took her son’s hand. Turned around. Held up the rifle, shaking. Certain now that something was wrong. Someone was here.

  But not who Martin said.

  Not Fred.

  There had to be an explanation for this.

  There had to be an answer.

  “I told you,” Martin said, smiling, laughing. “I told you he was here.”

  The footsteps stopped, right outside Martin’s door.

  Gabby prayed this was a nightmare.

  She prayed she had this wrong.

  Because it couldn’t be possible.

  It couldn’t be…

  Martin’s door opened up.

  The man stepped inside.

  Looked at her.

  Then at Martin.

  It was only when Martin said that one word that everything came crashing down around her.

  When the reality finally hit.

  “Daddy!” Martin said.

  Chapter Two

  Noah opened his eyes the second he heard the door slide aside.

  He might as well have kept them shut. He couldn’t see a thing. Always terrified him when he first woke up. Those first few moments in pitch-black darkness, convinced he’d gone blind.

  Only the truth, in some ways, was far more terrifying.

  He heard the footsteps cross the tiles of this cold, hard floor. Somewhere over his shoulder, he could hear dripping. He could smell something in the air. That sickening stench of hand wash mixed with that soupy noodle shit they fed him every day. He’d counted eighteen meals so far. Or maybe nineteen. Hell, maybe twenty or twenty-one at this point. Were they days? He didn’t know. Sometimes the time between meals sped by. Sometimes it dragged on.

  But that soupy noodle shit. He hadn’t been able to finish eating a single damned bowl.

  But today was going to be different.

  Because today, he’d managed to untie the tight bands around his sore, chapped wrists.

  Those footsteps got closer. The blindfold dug into his eyes. The bands around his wrists had loosened naturally with weight loss. And it wasn’t like he was home and dry just yet. He was tied down to this chair, too. His ankles were bound. There were sores across his back and his arse through being sat here for so long. His legs ached with inactivity. He just wanted to get up. Just wanted to move.

  He just wanted to know where his friends were.

  He flashed back to the last time he’d seen them. That painful moment that replayed itself in his mind, over and over again.

  First, Jasmine.

  Seeing her standing there even though he’d killed her.

  Somehow standing.

  Somehow… different.

  Alive.

  Not entirely alive, no. Alive was the wrong word.

  But she was there.

  He remembered seeing her.

  And then approaching her.

  Rushing over to her.

  Bang.

  He remembered watching her hit the ground.

  Everything disappearing into the background.

  He’d held her body as her skull crumbled in his hands like clay as those people surrounded him, surrounded his friends.

  And then they’d thrown them all towards a van—Eddie, Kelly, Barney—and now here he was.

  No idea whether any of the others were still even alive.

  No idea where this was.

  No idea why the hell they were even keeping him alive.

  Only that he had a chance, now.

  A chance to do something.

  A chance to act.

  His wrists were free. Sore. Bloody. Achy.

  But free.

  He could attack this fucker.

  He could smash his face in.

  Jasmine.

  All the rage he felt for her loss.

  All the pain he felt.

  All the torturous agony he’d been forced to sit with for so, so long. Alone. In the darkness.

  And all the pain he felt for not knowing what was happening. For not knowing where his friends were. For not knowing anything.

  All of it built up.

  Eager to just release it all.

  “Food,” the voice said. Male. Deep. Noah smelled that mush before him. Behind this man, he heard footsteps. Chatter. A cool breeze brushing in through whatever door was ahead of him. No concept of the kind of place he was trapped in. No idea where he was. Only that the place had to be pretty big. Echoing footsteps. Muffled voices.

  “Hey,” the voice above him said. That same voice every single day. Or maybe different. Maybe two people. Sometimes he thought it was the same person; sometimes he thought they smelled different. He imagined someone tall. Muscular. Larger than life. Tried to picture where their face was. Where he could swing at, now his wrists were free. “Food. You know what to do.”

  Noah bit down into the sour, sickly gag around his mouth.

  And then he nodded.

  The man reached down for him.

  Pulled at his gag.

  And Noah sensed this was his moment.

  Sensed it was his chance—

  And then the food hit his lips.

  Hot. So hot it made him cough and splutter.

  Bitter and sour and rancid.

  “Shitting hell, man,” the voice said. “Don’t go wasting it. Got a lot of mouths to feed here.”

  It was little bits of in
formation like that which Noah picked up on. Lots of mouths to feed. He knew that anyway, of course. He’d heard the shouts. The cries. Sometimes, the gunshots.

  But these were miserable times. Torturous times.

  Any information was valuable.

  “Let’s try again,” the man said.

  Noah waited. He ate a few noodles this time, just to stay alive more than anything. Always so hot, his tongue was totally scalded. He ate some of them. Chewed on them. He’d need all the energy he could get. Need all the fuel he could get.

  And he waited.

  Waited ’til he could lift his hands.

  Waited ’til he could knock that bowl of scalding water into this bastard’s face.

  Waited ’til—

  “You know, you might be out of here soon. All of us might be out of here soon. If we’re lucky, anyway. Testing’s going well. Much faster than we expected. Just… well. Don’t die, man. Don’t die. And don’t do anything stupid, either.”

  Those words.

  Words about getting out of here.

  About testing for whatever the hell this was.

  They made Noah stop. Made him pause.

  Don’t do anything stupid.

  But he had a chance to get out of this.

  A chance to act.

  A chance to fight his way free.

  “You’re always co-operative, at least. Not like some of the other guys. But anyway. I shouldn’t even be talking with you. Eat up.”

  Noah ate another few mouthfuls of that rancid shit.