Dead Days Zombie Apocalypse Series (Season 7) Page 9

  The bitter, painful memory of Cody’s family struck him deep. “I did. Not anymore.”

  Steve nodded. “Whatever happened, I’m sure you did the right thing by them. You strike me as that kind of guy. The kind of guy not made for this world. Made for the next world.”

  Cody thought back to finding the two people he loved most dead. To putting his daughter down. “I hope so.”

  He opened the door and light seared his eyes.

  Gav stood by the door. His arms were folded. He looked impatient, hot and bothered, as the September sun showed no signs of respite.

  “Well?” Gav said.

  “Only one option. We take him to the extraction point. He seems honest.”

  “He ‘seems’ honest?”

  “His story matches up with Maryam’s. His story of the outside world.”

  Gav shook his head. “It’s too risky.”

  “Then what do we do? Kill him? Give up on him?”

  Gav reached into his pocket. “You said there was only one option. You were wrong about that. There’s another.”

  He pulled out a long, rusty pair of pliers, and pressed them down into Cody’s hand.

  Cody frowned. “What’s this?”

  A half-smile crossed Gav’s face. “If he won’t speak, then make him speak.”

  “You’re asking me to torture him?”

  “I’m telling you to do what we have to do.”

  He patted Cody on the shoulder and turned around, walked away.

  Cody stood there, speechless.

  He looked down at the pliers in his hands.

  Looked back at the door that Steve was behind.

  What we have to do…

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Riley opened the door to the bedroom and saw Chloë standing over Kesha, and still he had to convince himself this wasn’t some sort of dream.

  Two days had passed since he’d found Chloë and this baby in the middle of the woods, back up against a tree. He’d brought them in. Fed them. Given them water. Mostly, he’d let Chloë rest, let her recover. Jordanna had stitched her bullet wound, which wasn’t too bad, fortunately. She’d sat by her side and whispered reassurances to her, told her she was here with her now, that she was never going to leave her side, ever again.

  But now Chloë was on her feet, standing over Kesha’s makeshift cot, staring.

  She cared for this girl. A lot. Riley could see that.

  “Good to see you on your feet,” Riley said.

  Chloë spun around. She didn’t look healthy—who did anymore?—but she certainly looked a lot better than when Riley found her two days ago. She’d been at death’s door, Riley was sure about that. He wasn’t sure what she’d been through, what had happened to her. But whatever had happened, it’d brought them back together, the three of them.

  Only there was something different about Chloë. She used to have such a spaced-out look in her eyes, a look that made you wonder where she was at, at all times. It was that spaced out look she’d had in her eyes when she’d shot Anna in the battle of Riversford. That same spaced out look when she’d tied a noose around her neck and hung herself in the middle of the woods.

  That spaced-out look was gone, now.

  So, too, was her right arm.

  “She’s a quiet kid,” Riley said, looking into the cot and down at Kesha’s cheery face.

  “Yeah.”

  “Want me to watch her while you and Jordanna—”

  “No.”

  “Okay. That’s fine. You just… I’ll just stand here with you. If that’s okay.”

  This time, Chloë didn’t answer. Riley wasn’t sure how to take it.

  After ten minutes, maybe more, of standing in silence and staring down at Kesha, Riley decided to make the first move.

  “What happened to you out there?”

  Chloë didn’t look up at Riley. Which was a good job because he was busy looking at her right arm stump. It looked like someone had done a good job of cauterising it, like it’d happened some time ago. “A lot,” she said.

  “That figures. A lot happened to us too. We got the MLZ back to full strength. Well, stronger than ever. And well. Not me exactly. I wasn’t in such a good place. Jordanna did a fantastic job, though. Everything was going well. And then…. something happened.”

  “I saw,” Chloë said. “Went there. With Kesha. To find you. Loads of monsters around the place.”

  Riley nodded. “Yeah. I figured that’d be—”

  “The others. James. Tamara. Their baby. They okay?”

  Riley felt his insides turn to mush. He shook his head. “No. They didn’t… they didn’t make it.”

  Chloë nodded, like it was just normal regular news she was receiving.

  She looked back down at Kesha, squeezed her hand.

  “So how about you?” Riley asked.

  “Like I said. A lot.”

  “I can see that. You’re an arm short for one—”

  “Does it matter what happened? Really?”

  The bite to Chloë’s words struck Riley. She didn’t speak like a kid anymore. She spoke like she’d grown up. Like whatever she’d been through out in the wild had changed her, dramatically.

  “As long as you’re okay not talking about it.”

  Chloë scanned Riley’s face. “There’s only one thing. One thing you need to know.”

  She pointed at Kesha.

  “We need to get Kesha somewhere safe. Somewhere really safe.”

  “I figured,” Riley said. “Well, this place is pretty safe.”

  “No. Somewhere safer.”

  “Chloë, I understand you—”

  “No, you don’t. You really don’t.”

  She leaned down and pulled Kesha’s little blanket back.

  On the top of her right thigh, Riley saw a few tiny marks.

  “She’s immune,” Chloë said. “Not just immune, but when other people have her blood inside them, they become immune too.”

  The news hit Riley like a punch to the gut. “Wait. She’s… She’s been bitten?”

  “She was bitten a long time ago. When she was just born, probably. But she’s okay now. She’s more than okay.”

  Riley shook his head. Goosebumps climbed up his skin. She was immune? He wasn’t sure whether to believe Chloë. But he couldn’t argue with those light tooth marks on her skin.

  “We need to find somewhere safe. Safer than here.”

  Riley scratched the back of his neck. “I don’t know. I mean, you want to find a lab or something to—”

  “No,” Chloë said. “Well. She… On the road. Some people I got her away from. They wanted to use her. Use her as, like, a cow in a farm but for good blood. But she’s a person. She’s Kesha. We have to find good people. Real good people. And we can only trust real good people with her.”

  Riley felt like he was dreaming and he wasn’t sure whether he liked it. “I don’t know where else we’d go.”

  “Chloë’s right.”

  The voice came from behind. When Riley turned, he saw Jordanna walking into the room.

  She stood beside Chloë. Put an arm around her back. “If what Chloë says about Kesha is true—and even if it isn’t—then we need to find somewhere much safer than here.”

  Riley shook his head. “We’ve had this conversation a million times.”

  “And it always ends with you killing people who might be decent.”

  That one stung.

  “How many more people do you have to kill before you realise you’ve gone too far?” Jordanna asked. “How many more heads do you have to slide onto stakes before you realise you’re going to have to trust someone from the outside world eventually? How many more people have to die for you to wake up and face reality?”

  Riley didn’t know what to say. He didn’t even know what to think, not anymore.

  “I’m going,” Chloë said. “Even if you aren’t. It’s not safe for her here. I won’t stop ’til I find somewhere properly safe. Even if I’m on m
y own.”

  “You won’t be on your own,” Jordanna said. “Wherever you go, I’m coming with you. I’m not leaving your side. Not ever again.”

  Riley watched as the pair of them stood together. He loved the bond they had. He was so glad they’d been reunited. But it was scary too because it was going to leave him alone.

  “Let’s pack up,” Jordanna said.

  “Wait, already?”

  “It’s what we have to do, Riley. No time like the present. Besides, I’ve seen enough of these mouldy walls to last a lifetime.”

  Riley watched as Jordanna and Chloë packed some supplies. He watched them fill rucksacks, turning the life Jordanna and he had lived for two months upside down right before his eyes.

  He didn’t want to leave this place. He didn’t want to trust anyone on the outside. But he saw the way Chloë and Jordanna looked at one another; he heard the words Chloë said about Kesha, and he knew he couldn’t just let them go. He couldn’t just leave them, as hard as it was for him to accept.

  “I’m coming with you,” he said.

  He walked up to them as they stood at the door. Smiled at Chloë, then put a hand on Jordanna’s arm.

  “We’re going to find somewhere. Somewhere… somewhere safer. We’re going to make sure Kesha gets through this. And when the time’s right, we’re going to make sure Kesha comes to good use. For the whole of humanity.”

  Jordanna kissed Riley’s cheek.

  Chloë cringed. “You’re together now?”

  Jordanna laughed, and Riley found himself laughing too. And before he knew it, all of them were laughing. All of them were standing there, laughing, as they prepared to step out into the next world, onto their next journey.

  They kept on laughing until they heard the high-pitched squeals outside.

  Until they heard the footsteps.

  Riley looked out of the window. Looked out into the woods.

  “What is it?” Jordanna asked.

  A bitter taste filled Riley’s mouth as he stared out at the oncoming crowd.

  “The hybrids,” he said, as their pulpy, bulbous heads and teeth-covered limbs came into view. “A lot of them. Coming our way. Fast.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Kane watched Spud slip to the ground as the limbless zombie crawled on top of him.

  Everything seemed like it was happening in slow motion. He saw the zombie press its face down towards Spud. Watched it try to bite down on his neck. And in that moment, in that split second of confusion, Kane wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. He felt annoyed at Spud. So annoyed that he could taste bitterness. Spud had proven himself weak. He’d let himself down and he’d let Kane down. He was weak. Way, way weaker than Kane thought in the first place. He was going to be hard work training. Much harder work than he’d expected.

  Was he even worth the effort?

  He listened to Spud’s screams as the zombie shuffled closer to his neck. He could practically smell the rustiness of the blood in the air already. He could taste it, warm on his tongue, like he was the one doing the biting all along. He thought about letting that just happen. Letting events play out as they should. Because the world had an order for a reason. A natural order, beyond the influence and control of humans. Sure, he could play God with people. He could make people trust him. He could decide who lived or died.

  But there was something else that went on, beyond his understanding. A way the world just worked. A way it weaned out the strong from the weak, the helpless from those who helped themselves.

  There was no room in this world for the weak anymore. And as he listened to Spud’s screams, as he watched him struggle, he contemplated just leaving him there to die. Because really, that’s how it should go. That’s what the world wanted. That’s the way it should be.

  But then he felt a magnetism pulling him in the other direction. Hell, he’d go as far as calling it a bond. He’d not known Spud so long, but he couldn’t deny he felt something for him. He felt like it was his duty to look out for him, to care for him. Sure, he wanted him to be a killing machine, just like him. He wanted him to be a monster, just like him.

  But he saw it took time to get to that point. He couldn’t just click his fingers and expect that transformation to happen, straight up. He had to fight for Spud. Give him a hand.

  Besides, if anyone was killing Spud, it’d be Kane, when he finally got bored of trying to train him. Not some pathetic mindless zombies.

  Kane lifted the smaller knife, realising he’d given his machete to Spud, who was still screaming. He forced himself to walk over to Spud, resisted every urge in his body telling him to hold off, to let Spud die, to leave him to the hungry mouth of the zombie.

  “Hold yourself still, kid,” he shouted, lifting back the knife. “Hold yourself…”

  It was then that Kane saw the blood.

  His body froze. The only part of his body that didn’t freeze was his stomach, which sank dramatically.

  He saw red blood spurting up from Spud and he knew it was over.

  Usually, the sight of human blood was such a joyous occasion. He’d dip his finger in it, draw patterns with it. Sometimes, if he knew the blood was squeaky clean of all the nasty bugs that went around these days, he’d even have a little taste.

  But all he felt when he saw Spud’s blood was sadness. Shame.

  He’d let Spud die.

  Spud wasn’t strong enough yet, and he’d tried to force him to be stronger than he really was.

  He’d done this. He’d killed Spud. He’d killed his chances of having someone to kill with.

  He felt anger, then. Anger not just at this dismembered zombie, but anger at all the infected, all the people, everyone that’d ever wronged him. If it weren’t for them, he probably wouldn’t be here right now. If it weren’t for them, maybe he wouldn’t be so mad. Maybe he wouldn’t even feel the need to kill people.

  He saw his stepdad’s face on the back of the infected—the stepdad that had beaten him, abused him, twisted and bullied and turned him into the monster he was today. The monster he enjoyed being, which he hated more than anything.

  “Fuck you.”

  He pulled back the knife and went to stab the zombie.

  He noticed something then. Something he hadn’t seen when he’d first looked. Something sprouting out of the skull of the infected.

  The machete.

  He got a closer look at the blood covering Spud then, saw it dripping down onto him, bathing him, and he realised it wasn’t Spud’s blood at all. It was the zombie’s blood.

  Spud had stabbed the zombie. The zombie hadn’t bitten him.

  An electric burst of joy sparked right through Kane.

  Spud was okay. Spud was alive.

  Spud had killed the zombie. Done exactly what he had to do.

  Kane dragged Spud’s snivelling body out from underneath the zombie. He wiped some of the blood from his eyes. Brushed back his hair. Then he pulled him to his feet. Put his hands on either side of him, rubbed them up and down. “You’re okay. You did good. You did very good.”

  Spud was covered from head to toe in blood. Not his own, but the blood of the zombie. The machete dangled from his hand, loosely. Spud’s eyes were wide, and the contrast with the blood made them bulge even whiter as he stared down, terrified, at the zombie he’d killed.

  “Hey. Look at me. Look at me.”

  Spud dragged his eyes away from the zombie. Looked into Kane’s.

  Kane smiled. He kept on patting Spud’s arms, rubbing the blood off them, onto his hands. “You did it. You killed it. You killed it all by yourself.”

  Spud looked down in amazement at the zombie lying beneath him. He looked all around at the others that Kane had taken down. Looked at the blood glistening in the grass, which blew in the breeze.

  “You killed it. And you’re going to keep on going. You’re going to be strong. I’m going to show you how to be strong. Okay?”

  Spud still looked lost in a daze, caught up in a nightmare that
he didn’t understand.

  But the important part in this entire exchange was that he looked Kane in the eyes. Nodded. “Okay.”

  “Okay,” Kane said. “Okay.” He saw movement in the distance. Heard the groans of more zombies. He took his machete back, handed Spud the knife. “You did well. Very well. But now it’s time to graduate.”

  The pair of them stood together and looked on as the zombies staggered towards them.

  Kane smiled as he held on to his machete and got ready for another round.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Cody walked into the dark room where Steve was being kept prisoner, pliers in hand.

  Stepping into this prison cell from the light of outside was like slipping from dream to nightmare. It was cold and damp in here. It reeked of urine—of human presence—a smell that made Cody feel extremely uncomfortable. Because it reminded him of what he had to do. What Gav had ordered him to do.

  He felt the pliers in his hand. Rubbed his palm around the handle. They didn’t feel right. In truth, no weapon ever felt right in his hands. Even when he was using a weapon on the undead, there was still something uncomfortable about how they felt. He supposed he was a typical Englander, really. Not used to guns, not used to any real kind of violence.

  So now he’d been asked to torture a man with some pliers just to get some information from him… well, it was safe to say that he was well outside his comfort zone.

  “Back already?” Steve asked.

  Cody took a deep breath of the sour air. He held his body upright and walked towards Steve, not looking at his face, not looking into his eyes. Best to just not view him as another human in a situation like this. View him as something separate. Something different. Something less than what he was. That’s how people went about torture, right? That’s how they pulled it off? How they did it?

  He felt sick right to his stomach. He held the pliers behind his back in his shaky hands. He didn’t want to use them. Didn’t want to resort to that. He hoped he could win Steve over without having to torture information out of him. Maybe there would be a way to strike a deal. Make some kind of agreement.

  Sure, Steve had made his position pretty damned clear the last time Cody stood in this room. He wanted taking back to the extraction point, back to his wife and daughter. There was no way he was giving up the location willingly, not without him being there.