Dead Days Zombie Apocalypse Series (Season 8) Read online

“I remember you,” Riley said.

  The man lifted his head and glanced at Riley. He had long, black hair and a thick beard that was going ginger. His bottom lip was shaking. He looked afraid. Afraid of the fact that Riley had remembered him.

  “I remember you standing there with Mattius’ people,” Riley said. “Pretty close to the front, actually. You just watched. You just watched what Mattius did. You just let it happen.”

  The man didn’t open his lips. He smelled badly of stale sweat, a slight hint of booze on his breath.

  “You don’t have anything to say about that?” Riley said. “Anything at all?”

  Bob’s shaking face turned to a smile. Then, he started laughing.

  Riley heard him laughing and he saw it happening again.

  He travelled back a month to when it’d happened.

  Chloë.

  Jordanna.

  Kesha, being taken away…

  Then he felt the rage building up inside and he pulled back his fist and cracked it right across Bob’s stupid laughing face.

  Bob swung to the side. He looked back at Riley, blood starting to drip from his nose. For a moment, Riley thought Bob actually looked scared.

  “See, that isn’t so funny, is it?” Riley asked. He felt the adrenaline building up inside. The urge to get just a fraction of the revenge that he knew he deserved.

  Bob started laughing again.

  “I think we’ll set a target here,” Riley said.

  He cracked Bob across his face again, so hard that it made his knuckles sting.

  “I’m going to wipe that smile, that smug little laugh, right from your face.”

  Another punch across the jaw. This time, Riley heard a crack. He wasn’t sure whether it was his knuckles or Bob’s jaw.

  He didn’t particularly care, as long as Bob could feel the pain.

  “I won’t kill you, though. In fact, killing you is off the table. I need you alive. I need you alive because I need you to tell me where your camp is.”

  Riley pulled his fist back again.

  “Please just…”

  He stopped. Held himself, just before he punched. “What was that?”

  Bob spat blood out onto the dusty concrete floor beside him. He looked back into Riley’s eyes, his eyelids already swollen and bruised. “I said you’ll never find Mattius. And you’ll never find Kesha.”

  He smiled again, and that smile was enough to send another shiver of rage down Riley’s spine.

  “You’re right,” Bob said. “I was there. I stood there and let Mattius do what he did to those two pricks. Because they put our people through hell. You put our people through hell.”

  Riley punched him again.

  “You burned down our home. You acted like you were the fucking gods. And when someone gave you a taste of your own medicine, you just couldn’t take it.”

  Another punch. Blood pooling from Bob’s mouth.

  He looked back, looking barely conscious, and he forced a bloodied smile at Riley.

  “But we’ve taken steps to make sure you’ll never find ’em. Even if you get close, we’ll crush you. Hell, we could crush you right now, if we wanted to. But we’d rather leave you to stew. Over your wifey. Over your little gi—”

  Riley punched again and again. He was in a frenzy now. He could feel the rage just begging to surface.

  The more he punched, the more Bob’s face disappeared and was replaced by Mattius’.

  He saw Mattius and he saw everything that’d happened and he kept on punching.

  Then he stood up and pulled back his foot and booted Bob—Mattius or Bob, he wasn’t sure, he didn’t care—again and again and again.

  It wasn’t long before people poured inside this cell. Before he heard the shouting, as light filled the room. Then people were holding on to him, dragging him away.

  “You fucking idiot,” Amy shouted, as she pulled Riley away. “One chance and you fucking half-kill the guy.”

  But Riley didn’t care.

  As much as he didn’t want to give up, and as much as he didn’t want to kill Bob because killing Bob meant losing hope of finding Mattius’ camp, he wasn’t sure he could control the rage.

  “Let me go,” he shouted.

  “Not a chance,” Amy said.

  “He won’t talk—”

  “And do you fucking blame him?” Amy shouted. “You’re acting like a fucking feral animal.”

  She pulled Riley out of the cell. And on the way out, Riley caught a glance of someone else in the next room. Another prisoner. He was smiling. Like he was enjoying this whole thing. Like the drama was gratifying him in some way.

  Kane.

  He nodded at Riley, like he understood his rage, and like he understood the dark forces that drove him.

  Then he was gone.

  Amy and a few others threw Riley onto the ground. He tried to stand, but they booted him down, then they pointed bows and arrows at him and made sure he stayed put.

  “I get it,” Amy shouted. “I know how much you want to find Chloë’s killers.”

  “Then you’ll let me carry on in there—”

  “But you have to be patient. We all have to be patient.”

  “I don’t think I can be patient much longer.”

  “You have to be. Kesha depends on it.”

  “How can you talk about Kesha depending on something?”

  “Because you’ve been here a month now,” Amy said. “And I haven’t seen any planning. I haven’t seen any real direction. All I’ve seen is rage. Do you even want to get Kesha back at all?”

  “Of course I—”

  “Or is it more important to you to get your revenge on Mattius? Is it more important to you to avenge what happened to Chloë? To Jordanna?”

  Riley didn’t want to accept that judgement, but he couldn’t deny the truth in what Amy said.

  Because of course getting Kesha back was important. The most important thing in the world.

  But getting Kesha back came with something else.

  Getting Kesha back was part of a package.

  And a primary part of that package?

  Making Mattius and his people suffer for what they’d done.

  No planning. No direction. None of that needed, not really.

  And especially not patience.

  Revenge didn’t wait for anyone.

  And if he didn’t get his revenge fast, he might just self-destruct.

  He didn’t know where Mattius was. Not now.

  But he would find out.

  Fast.

  He had to, or he’d cave in on himself.

  He stood up, then. He let Amy take him away.

  And as he walked, he thought he saw her in the corner of his eye.

  He thought he saw Chloë standing there, watching him.

  He thought he saw Jordanna by her side, also watching.

  He even thought he heard them whispering, begging him to get his revenge, get his revenge fast.

  And then his vision faded and he saw it happening all over again…

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Seriously, Riley. We didn’t allow you to live with us on the basis that you’d be exploding every five minutes. That wasn’t the agreement here.”

  Riley sat alongside the archery range and watched as Amy’s people fired at targets. It was a nice afternoon, in truth. Frosty. Crisp. In the old days, Riley kind of hated the colder months. Because they meant darkness, and darkness and he had never really got on too well.

  But right now, the growing winter felt somewhat calming. That coolness about it was pushing back against the vengeance running through his body.

  He knew that vengeance would break out, eventually. He knew it would storm from his body, eager to be released.

  But he was keeping it at bay.

  For now.

  Amy sat beside him. She was restringing her bow. He’d known Amy a month now, and if there’s one thing Riley had learned about her, it was that she was tough. Probably one of the to
ughest people he’d ever met. He didn’t know much about her past. He didn’t know how she’d got here, or the circumstances of what led her to lead a group of women surviving in the middle of the woods. He didn’t even pry about why there were no men here. He figured it was some kind of empowerment thing, and utmost respect where it was due in that case.

  But if there’s one thing he didn’t like about Amy, it was her apparent lack of urgency where Mattius and Kesha were concerned.

  “I just don’t know if I can wait this out much longer,” Riley said.

  Amy sighed and lowered her bow. She looked into Riley’s eyes with those big eyes of her own. “Y’know, you weren’t the only person who lost Chloë.”

  “Please, don’t—”

  “Chloë came to us, with Kesha. She lived with us for a while. And in that time, I saw her strength. I saw what she was capable of. Even though she decided to leave us, even though she walked away in search of something… else. Well, you and I both know why she did it.”

  “Because she believed in herself,” Riley said.

  Amy nodded. The sound of arrows peppering against the targets split through Riley’s concentration.

  “Bob,” Amy said. “From Mattius’ group.”

  “Where did you even find him?”

  “Hailey and Anisha were out scouting. Found him alone out in the woods just standing there.”

  “And how’d you know he was one of Mattius’?”

  “Huh?”

  “I recognised him. But how did you know?”

  Amy narrowed her eyes. “Because he admitted it. Right away, he admitted it.”

  Riley had to concede that was pretty weird. “Why would he just admit he was a part of Mattius’ group?”

  “What’re you thinking?”

  Riley looked over at the cabin where Bob was being held. He called it a cabin; it was more like a prison, in truth.

  In the room next door to Bob, he knew Kane was in there.

  “I’m thinking we were supposed to find Bob. I’m thinking Mattius is just making sure we know he’s still around. That he could attack at any time.”

  Another blast of arrows hit the targets. They all looked pretty good shots.

  “We’re ready for them, if they do,” Amy said.

  Riley shook his head. “No. No, that’s not going to happen. We aren’t going to be on the defensive here.”

  “Riley—”

  “You promised you’d help me get Kesha back. You promised you’d help me get revenge on Mattius.”

  “But I didn’t promise I’d get into a war. I didn’t promise I’d put the lives of my people at risk.”

  “Well, you can’t have one without the other.”

  Silence followed. Riley’s heart thumped. He didn’t like raising his voice at Amy. He was appreciative of her for letting him stay here, against all of their rules and order.

  He squeezed his shaking hands together, rubbing them as the cold sneaked around them.

  “I just worry about Kesha. I worry about what might happen to her if we don’t act fast.”

  “We can’t act if we don’t even know where Mattius’ camp is.”

  “So you’re telling me you would act if you did know where it was?”

  “Of course I would.”

  “So you’d get into a war?”

  Amy shook her head. “There are better ways to go about this confrontation without involving ourselves in war.”

  “Really?” Riley asked. “’Cause I don’t see it.”

  Amy lifted a hand and patted Riley on his shoulder. “You know, when I was in my early twenties, I was depressed. My dog died. My life was in tatters. I didn’t have anything left. So I kept on going out really late and partying.”

  “Is this going somewhere?”

  Amy ignored Riley. “I went out and partied right into the night. And then despite how mad it was, I’d always walk home. Alone. A young woman walking home alone in central Manchester. Do you know how dangerous that is?”

  “Again, is this going somewhere?”

  “What I’m trying to say is… subconsciously, I think a part of me wanted something to happen to me. A part of me wanted to accidentally wander out into the road and get hit by a passing car. A part of me wanted to get hypothermia and freeze to death. It was like I was putting myself in those dangerous situations with too much alcohol in my body and not enough clothes on my flesh because I wanted to justify something bad happening.”

  Riley felt his throat tightening. He could see where this was going there. But he feigned dumb, anyway. “And how’s that supposed to relate to me?”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I think you’re so focused on getting revenge that you don’t really care if you die doing it. In a way, I think you kind of want to die doing it. And that’s why I’m holding you back.”

  Riley smiled. He shook his head. “You’re off the mark. Way, way off the mark.”

  Amy tilted her head to one side. “Just a thought. Like you say, I’m probably way off.”

  She patted Riley on the shoulder and stood, then walked over towards the women practising their targets.

  As she walked off, Riley held on to that smile.

  He tried to keep calm. Tried to keep his composure.

  But the demon inside kept on telling him that Amy was right.

  He did want to die in battle.

  And he’d be totally content with that.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Mattius looked out of his fifth storey window and he felt grateful to still be alive in this world.

  The sun was setting as the day reached its close. It’d been a nice day. A frosty, crispy day, the kind of day that Mattius always enjoyed. It took him back to the days before his wife Cassandra passed away. The winter walks the pair of them would take together. The sheer absorption in the present moment as they crunched their feet through the fallen leaves, their breath frosting up in front of each other.

  Cassandra was so good for him. She kept him level-headed. She brought out the positive in him. The optimistic.

  When she’d died, things had changed.

  He still missed her to this very day.

  But in a way, he was thankful she’d never known this harsh, cruel world.

  Below him, he saw movement. His people. Their community was strong, now. Forty people, many of them armed. Besides, they had thick, tall walls, too, rendering it nigh on impossible for anyone to sneak inside. They had people watching the fences at all times. They had people beyond the walls, keeping track of the one-mile perimeter. This place was a fortress, which was exactly what it needed to be.

  They had something important here. Something very important that they had to keep safe.

  And although he never used to think he would, Mattius was sure that he would die for that certain something now.

  He heard footsteps clattering up the stairs, heading up to his floor. His stomach turned, and he sighed. He enjoyed his moments of peace, his moments of tranquillity. He didn’t like it when those moments were broken. But for certain, he knew someone was coming his way with news right now.

  Good news?

  Bad news?

  It didn’t matter. All of it was just news now.

  He took a deep breath of the cool air and in the distance, he could smell the dead. They weren’t a problem. His people had them covered. There was always the threat of them surrounding the walls, sure. Every now and then, they’d face a siege-like scenario, where they were trapped inside without the ability to go hunting or scouting for days.

  But they pulled together, as a community. They pulled together, as people. And they’d never had to go longer than three days, so these situations were certainly manageable.

  They pulled together, because that’s what people did.

  “Mattius?”

  His tranquil respite was broken completely when he heard Ricky’s voice.

  He turned around and looked at Ricky. He was short and skinny, with dark curly hair. He had beami
ng blue eyes. He didn’t look all that tough. But make no doubt about it, Ricky was one of Mattius’ most trusted allies.

  Any news of dissent within the community, Ricky would find out.

  Mattius would find out.

  That dissent would soon be snuffed out.

  Harsh, but the only way to run a place like this.

  “What’ve you got for me, Ricky? Something good? Something bad?”

  “A little of both,” Ricky said, walking up to Mattius’ side and staring out of the window.

  “Give me the bad, first. Warm me up.”

  “The bad news is that we’ve got another wave of undead coming. A big one.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah. We’re gonna be pretty pinned back in for at least a week. It’s a crowd unlike any we’ve ever seen. A fucking tidal wave of dead. Thousands of the things headed right in our direction. So yeah. Now’s the time to stock up on final rations from outside before locking down. It’s not gonna be an easy one to defend, this storm.”

  Mattius sighed. Ricky sounded serious about this, which wasn’t a good thing considering his usual level-headedness. “And the good news? Something to really cheer me up?”

  “The good news is that our old friends bit the bait.”

  Mattius turned around and narrowed his eyes. “What?”

  “We got eyes on Bob and the people who took him away. It’s that woman’s group. The one where…”

  Ricky’s voice faded into the background then because of the memories swirling around Mattius’ head.

  Slamming that machete against the girl’s arm.

  Cracking her skull open.

  Stabbing the woman through the back…

  He hadn’t enjoyed doing that. It made him feel sick to even think about it. Sometimes, he woke up at night and thought he saw the pair of them standing at the bottom of his bed, their dead forms haunting his consciousness for eternity.

  But he’d done what he had to do. He’d taken out his revenge on the man called Riley. He’d broken him; then he’d tied him up and left him for dead.

  But he’d never known for certain what’d happened to Riley.

  “And?” he asked.

  “Bob did good,” Ricky said. “Not that he had much choice, with his brother hanging over the zombie pit.”

  That made Mattius feel a little sick, too. The zombie-pit wasn’t a nice invention. But it was a necessary one. They’d basically dug a trench and filled it with undead. When someone needed a little persuading doing something, they just hung someone close to them over that pit of zombies.