Dead Days Zombie Apocalypse Series (Season 5) Read online

“Go on.”

  She shook her head. Looked at Jordanna. “You’re banging on about this ‘good people’ bullshit. This ‘morally right’ crap. What I’m wondering is why you think you have a fucking right to decide what’s morally good anymore?”

  Riley thought he’d have an immediate answer for that. He didn’t.

  Kelly leaned over the smouldering ashes of the fire. “If you’re tryin’ to convince me to join your little ragtag band, then by all means invite me. But don’t go preaching this ‘morally right’ bullshit. ’Cause there’s nothing morally fucking right about anything in this world anymore.”

  “I don’t believe that,” Riley said.

  “Well I fucking do,” Kelly said. She looked Riley in his eyes. “There is no ‘morally right.’ Only one person’s version of right and wrong. Some people, that’ll be pussying about not killing anyone. Others, it’ll be hunting people. Butchering ’em to stop ’em turning into zombies. That sorta thing. It’s no different.”

  “I think it—”

  “There is no human fucking race anymore, Riley,” Kelly said. “There’s only smaller groups of humans. Smaller groups with different goals, different ideas, different fucking morals.”

  She stood up. Wiped her hands together.

  “There’s no ‘humanity’ anymore. We’re just animals let out of a cage to roam a world we don’t understand. We all kill—for whatever ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ reason, we all kill. Or we’re killed. That’s just the way it is now. Way it’s gonna be forever.”

  Riley wanted to disagree.

  He wanted to argue with Kelly.

  But he couldn’t.

  “I’m in if that’s what you’re fucking wondering,” she said. “I’ll come to Manchester. See what this place is like.”

  She looked at Jordanna, then at Andy.

  “But if any of you try anything stupid, I won’t go all fucking moral crusader on you when I cave your skull in.”

  Everyone was looking at Kelly. Everyone was silent.

  At the other side of the car, James cleared his throat. “Think we’re all gonna get along just fine,” he said.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  JORDANNA

  Jordanna crept around the side of the car to find Chloë still lying there, eyes tightly shut.

  She could hear the others packing up, preparing to leave. And as uncertain as she was about this Kelly girl coming along and joining them, it seemed Riley had gone through some kind of moral fucking transplant. So she didn’t have much of a say. None of them had much of a say.

  But if they were to leave soon, head to Manchester while it was still early, she had to wake Chloë.

  “Chlo?”

  She felt bad just saying her name right away. She was lying across the back seat of the car they’d spent the night by. Doctor Ottoman’s off-white jacket was wrapped around her. Her eyes were closed but Jordanna knew she wasn’t asleep. She knew she hadn’t slept a wink last night. She’d woken up, turned over and found her staring out of the window into the darkness. Tears rolling down her cheeks.

  She knew she was cut up. About Tiffany. About everything else that had happened.

  Way more cut up than a kid should have to be about … well, anything.

  “Chlo, I … I know you’re tired but we’re gonna have to leave soon. Sorry. But you know we need to get moving.”

  No response from Chloë. Not even a flinch.

  Jordanna looked to her right. Tamara was standing there, a sympathetic half-smile on her face. She shook her head, Jordanna shook it back, then she turned back to the car.

  Her heart picked up when she saw Chloë’s eyes were open wide.

  “Chlo, I … You okay, sweetheart?”

  She stared up at Jordanna. Stared up with such intensity, such … such hate, that Jordanna actually felt uncomfortable.

  “You ready to get—”

  “You go,” Chloë said.

  Jordanna shook her head. “Chloë, we’re not leaving you here.”

  “You sent me away before.”

  Jordanna thought back to the armoured vehicle. Riley’s anger at Chloë. Anger that had persisted ever since. Sure, they’d banded together to escape the BLZ. But the pair of them had barely exchanged a glance since the escape. A conversation—an opening up—that’s what they needed.

  Jordanna just wasn’t sure either of them was having that conversation any time soon.

  She sat on the edge of the back seat. Felt the vehicle creak with her slight weight. “Y’know, I had a cat when I was younger. Charlie, he was called. Lovely little ginger thing. But Charlie used to always run off. Run off and scare us for days. Sometimes he’d come back covered with oil and dirt. Other times he’d have about five mice stuffed in his mouth. But he always came back. Until one day my mum locked his cat flap. Kept it shut for weeks.”

  She glanced at Chloë, who was frowning. She could see she’d piqued the kid’s interest at least.

  “Charlie kept on coming back and trying to get in all covered in oil, carrying dead birds, stuff like that. But my mum just didn’t let him in. Told me that if he was gonna act wild then he could be wild. See how he got on.

  “Then one day he did come back. Except he was clean. Didn’t have a mouse in his mouth. He came back and meowed like mad and this time, my mum let me bring him in. He never ran away again after that.”

  Chloë’s frown was even wider. Her eyes were bloodshot. Her hair was greasy and her scarred cheeks were pale. She looked so damned tired.

  Jordanna reached over. Grabbed her hands, which were icy cold. “I’m not trying to say what we did was right. It wasn’t right. And I regret it to this moment. But you have to see why we did it. Why Riley was angry. You have to understand that.”

  And then Jordanna saw something in Chloë’s eyes. A glimmer of understanding. A quivering of her lips. A kid on the verge of opening up about all the horrible things she’d done, all the horrible things that had happened to her.

  But then she snatched her hands away from Jordanna.

  Pushed past her and climbed out of the car.

  “Chloë, can we—”

  “I’m coming,” she said.

  And Jordanna couldn’t argue. She couldn’t argue because that’s what she wanted. Get Chloë out of that car and get her on the way to Manchester.

  But at the same time, she felt a part of her die inside.

  Because she’d failed Chloë.

  They’d all failed Chloë.

  Here was a girl who’d been through hell and had all those mixed-up emotions bottled inside.

  Here was a girl who needed to open up, to be honest, before she self-destructed.

  Here was a girl who was dangerous.

  But a girl Jordanna couldn’t do a thing to help.

  That nobody could do a thing to help.

  “She’ll come round,” James said.

  Jordanna watched Chloë walk over to the front of the car, lean against it and stare up at the grey sky.

  “I hope so,” Jordanna said.

  She didn’t believe it.

  Not for a second.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  RILEY

  It was half an hour before the group finally left their temporary camp and made their way down the winding country road. Riley led the way. Behind him, the rest of the group followed. Some of them seemed more sceptical about bringing Kelly along than others—some of them seemed reluctant to even head back to Manchester at all.

  There was an overriding feeling of loss. Not just a loss of people, an emotional loss, but loss in a disorienting sense too. Because without the BLZ, their primary goal was gone. Their purpose had vanished.

  And the time-bomb of infection was ticking away inside Riley. A time-bomb that he was keeping at the back of his mind. A time-bomb he couldn’t allow to explode. Not yet. Not while they were all on the road. Not while there was still safety to be pursued.

  The group behind were deathly silent. Not a word, other than their footsteps, the occasi
onal whisper to one another. And in a way, it made sense. It added up. There were a lot of new additions. People who weren’t here before today. There were still issues. Issues of trust. Issues of security.

  But they were together. They were alive.

  That was the main thing.

  That was what mattered.

  The trees arched over the road like monster’s fingers, still bare of leaves in this eternal winter. It seemed like so long since last summer. So long since he’d … well, he hadn’t really done much. He’d gone to work. Reviewed some music. Moped about his shitty pre-apocalyptic life over beers and Xbox with Ted. Not even a year ago, and yet it felt like a lifetime had passed. Like he was trying to recall a dream but couldn’t quite place it, put his finger on it.

  Shit. What kind of a state was the world going to be in next summer if so much chaos, so much devastation had wrecked it these last five months?

  “Riley?”

  The voice came from behind. He didn’t recognise it, not immediately, so it had to be one of the new arrivals.

  He looked and saw Doctor Ottoman catching up with him.

  Doctor Ottoman was a strange man who looked like he’d stepped right out of the seventies. White coat and black trousers. Bit of a mullet going on. Chubby cheeks. Circular glasses. Yeah, a stereotypical seventies doctor right here in a twenty-first-century apocalypse. Anything goes in the dead days.

  “How’s Ivan?” Riley asked.

  Doctor Ottoman attempted a smile. It was clear right away to Riley that he didn’t bring good news.

  “He’s okay in himself. Shouldn’t transmit any kind of infection from the bite, if my Orion research is correct. But—but the transformation. The change into an Orion. The procedure already started.”

  Riley looked back. Saw Tamara walking and chatting with James. Kelly on her own a little further back. Ivan, Andy, Jordanna. Chloë. “You’re saying he’s gonna fully turn into one of those things?”

  “I’m not absolutely saying that,” Doctor Ottoman said, sweat dripping down his forehead, which was weird considering it was still a chilly spring morning. “I’m just saying there’s a chance that … that things might start changing inside him.”

  “What sort of things?”

  Doctor Ottoman stuttered a little, trying to find the right words. “He—He … With the Orions, Mr Fletch followed a very specific procedure. A procedure that once started, had to be concluded. Ivan received a very small exposure to Mr Fletch’s formula—”

  “So he’ll turn?”

  Doctor Ottoman’s face flattened. “He may well suffer an excruciating death before he reaches that point.”

  Riley turned to Ivan once more. It was strange seeing him this way. A caricature of his former self—a self that Riley had despised. A part of his new form took that old form away, somehow. Because as much as Riley still hated him for what he’d done, he sympathised. It could so easily have been him. So easily have been Jordanna. So easily have been all of them.

  “Have you told him?”

  Doctor Ottoman puffed out his lips. “Would you tell a man whose teeth are twice the size of your little finger?”

  “Fair point,” Riley said.

  “The … the truth is I’m not sure telling people is … is always the best way, exactly.”

  Riley slowed down. “You saying we just kill him?”

  Doctor Ottoman raised his hands. “Nothing of the sort. Just suggesting that—that if he’s sleeping then maybe it’d be better to go … to go peacefully.”

  “And what about me?”

  “What about you?”

  “You just gonna put me down in my sleep before I turn? You just waiting for me to look the other way all because I’ve been bitten? Because the cure’s failing?”

  “Riley I didn’t—”

  “You don’t suggest things like that. You understand?”

  Doctor Ottoman raised his hands higher. “Yes. I’m sorry. I didn’t—I didn’t—”

  “You’re useful but you aren’t indispensable. Just remember that.”

  But the words felt uncomfortable as they left Riley’s lips. Alien, even.

  All because of what Kelly said about morality.

  He turned and saw her looking right at him. Smile of victory tugging at her cheeks.

  He spun back around and walked on. The country roads were narrowing with every sharp turn. Sharp turns they couldn’t see around. Sharp turns that meant every sense had to be tuned in to the max—sight, smell, hearing. Even taste. There was something of a taste in the air when the creatures were close. A dampness. A mustiness.

  A taste that Riley had in his mouth for the last twenty minutes.

  “We get to Manchester,” Riley said, Doctor Ottoman barely keeping up with him. “Then whatever happens from then on … well, so be it.”

  “There—there might be a way,” Doctor Ottoman said. “New research. Jim Hall is a great man … I—I hear. Maybe there’s—”

  “We get to Manchester,” Riley said. He smiled at the doctor. “We don’t talk about the rest.”

  Doctor Ottoman held his mouth open like he wanted to. Like there was something he really wanted to say. Something bottled up he wanted to let out.

  Then Riley heard a scream up ahead.

  He wasn’t sure where exactly it came from at first. Around the corner. Hairpin bend on the right.

  Taste of damp getting stronger in the air.

  Another scream.

  “You hear that?” Jordanna called.

  Course he fucking heard it.

  He always heard it. Every scream. Every single pained scream.

  And he was sick of it.

  Tortured by it.

  He pulled out a pistol from his right pocket and a shard of metal from his left. “I’ll move on. Check it out.”

  Doctor Ottoman grabbed his arm. “No. We should go together. Think it through. We should—”

  “I’ll go it alone,” Riley said, snatching his arm away.

  He wondered if Doctor Ottoman saw it. Saw the emotions within.

  The acceptance that if he was about to die soon anyway, he might as well die trying to help people.

  Save people.

  Keep them from pain.

  He ran down the slope. Reached the hairpin bend.

  Gripped the gun and the knife tightly.

  Held his breath.

  Another scream.

  Took a look around the corner.

  When he saw what was ahead, he wasn’t sure whether he was so ready to die yet after all.

  But he wasn’t sure he had a choice when he heard Andy shout, “Infected! Coming—coming out of the trees!”

  CHAPTER NINE

  When Riley truly understood what was ahead of him, he kind of wished he hadn’t turned the corner at all.

  There was a black Land Rover right in the middle of this country lane. The front of it was smashed, the glass cracked and shattered. The air stunk of hot metal. In the driver’s seat, a man sat with blood rolling down his face. There was no way he was alive. Not with the pieces of glass in his head. Not with the thick, sharp shards in his skull.

  But behind him, in the back seat, someone was moving. A woman. No, a girl. She was crying out. Screaming. Stuck.

  And beyond her, beyond the Land Rover and making their way down the road, a crowd of two dozen creatures getting closer, closer …

  Riley heard another shout from the back of his group. The sound of a struggle. He looked around. Saw James crack a crowbar into the side of a creature’s head. Fuck. They were coming out of the trees at the side of the road. Flanking them. Soon, they’d be surrounded. Soon, there’d be nowhere out.

  The girl in the car cried out again.

  It was that scream that got to Riley the most. As his companions fought off the creatures, held them off in whatever way they could as they continued to flood out of the trees, the sound of that girl’s cry cut Riley deeply. It was just a girl. Just a kid. A kid who’d lost her parents. A kid who was s
tuck out here alone.

  But mostly the scream terrified him. Because it held up a mirror to his old, former self. The hardened self. The one who’d have used the girl’s screams to lure the zombies away from them. To divert attention while he and the rest of his group fought their way back down the road. A version of himself he couldn’t bare look in the face.

  No. He wasn’t leaving anyone behind. Not again.

  “Riley, man, we need to—” James started.

  But Riley didn’t wait for James to finish.

  He gripped his gun and he sprinted for the Land Rover. Sprinted for it as fast as he could. His legs wobbled, his knees buckled, but he kept on going. Kept his focus on the Land Rover, on the back door. Not on the girl. Not on the creatures approaching the vehicle, gradually picking up in pace.

  “Riley!”

  Jordanna’s voice this time. And then more sounds of a struggle. A few pops of gunfire—gunfire that they’d agreed only to use when there was no other option. When they were surrounded.

  Which meant they were surrounded right now.

  Fuck.

  Riley powered on to the Land Rover, the taste of this morning’s rabbit creeping up his throat and threatening to resurface. He could see the girl’s face now. Could see her shoulder-length auburn hair. Could see the blood on her face, all over her white hoodie.

  He could see her looking through the dirty glass at him. Begging.

  “I’m coming for you,” he said, keeping his gaze on her. “I’m—”

  Something hit him from the right. Pushed him off his feet, sent him onto the road.

  He turned around and saw it. Saw the creature with the cracked bald head and the empty eye sockets, loose flaps of rotting skin dropping down into Riley’s face as it pinned him down with its sharp fingers, pushed him onto the floor.

  Riley tried to angle his gun but the creature had hold of his hands. To his right, he could see the footsteps of the creatures approaching the Land Rover. The sound of struggling, fighting, gunfire all ringing out from the rest of his group.

  The creature on top of him moved closer. Flies buzzed around it, nonchalant about the rest of their surroundings. Fuck, just about the ugliest creature he’d ever seen. Or smelled, for that matter.