Dead Days: Season 3 (Books 13-18) (3 page)

Her teeth chattered together. She had a blue coat on, but she’d zipped the hood off back when they were with Mike because she thought hoods looked silly. But she wished she hadn’t now. Her ears were freezing, like they were that time they’d gone on a school trip behind the scenes at Tesco and gone inside the freezer. Like that day up the cold mountain with Dad, wanting nothing more than some hot milk.

She was hungry, too. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been walking, but it hadn’t gone dark since this morning‌—‌since waking up in that place opposite Heathwaite’s. But it felt like she’d been walking for days and days, and her stomach was rumbling. She thought back to the soup they used to have at the hotel. How she never used to like the little green bits in the tomato soup.

Her stomach churned again, the taste of that tomato soup tingling her tongue in memory.

She’d love some of that soup now.

She kept on walking down the road; kept looking over her shoulder, looking to the sides at the trees, looking ahead at the endless road as it went on and on and on. The map the bad men had left said that this road led to Manchester. But Chloë had been to Manchester with Mum and Elizabeth when she was younger to the Trafford Centre and Manchester definitely didn’t look like this. She wondered how far she had to go. If she’d get there before night. If there would be children‌—‌girls and boys her age that she could play with.

If Daddy would be…‌

“Daddy’s gone, Chloë,” she muttered, her lips shivering as she spoke to herself. “Daddy’s gone and Mummy’s gone and Elizabeth’s gone.”

Speaking the words out loud made it easier for Chloë to understand, but it still made her sad and all teared up inside. She didn’t know why Mike and the bad man and Riley all had that fight. She thought the creatures were the bad ones, so she didn’t know why people were fighting.

But what the bad man did to her mum.

No. Forget it, Chloë. It’s done. It’s‌—‌

The blood spraying out of her mum’s head.

“No!”

Her shout was louder than she expected. She was shaking. She heard rustling around her, but that was just the wind again‌—‌or maybe it was monsters, but she’d be okay because she had a gun and people with guns always won. She gripped it tight in her right hand. It was heavy, solid. She didn’t like shooting it. Especially not after how she’d missed before.

How she’d missed and hit Anna.

She sniffed up the bitter air, her legs so cold and tired that they were numb. She looked down at her front. Looked down at the little silver chain with the locket around her neck. She lifted it. Brought her thumb against it and rubbed it. Her mum’s Christmas present. She’d got it especially for her. Especially for‌—‌

Christmas. Was it Christmas yet? Had she missed Christmas? She didn’t know. She knew it was in a few days when she’d left Mike’s, but she’d lost count of how many.

She started walking again, a sickly weight in her stomach. She didn’t really feel like Christmas much anymore. She just wanted to sleep. Get in bed and sleep and stay nice and warm.

That would be her ideal Christmas present. A bed. Warmth.

Maybe in this “Living Zone” she’d find a bed and warmth and some hot soup and they’d be able to have Christmas later this year with all the other children. She’d like that. She’d prefer‌—‌

She heard a louder rustling up ahead to her right. Louder than the rustling of the wind.

Her heart beat fast. She gripped the heavy, sweaty gun tightly.

“Be brave, Chloë,” she whispered to herself. “Mum’s here.”

The rustling went on. It was coming from the bushes in front of her. The bushes just in front of the tall trees that clawed into the blue-grey sky. She stepped slowly towards it, holding her gun tight, trying not to shiver too much in the cold.

She lifted the gun. Pointed at the bush. She could see it was moving now. Moving, and shaking away snow.

Another deep breath. Heart still racing.

“Be brave, Chloë. Do what Riley would’ve done. What Anna would’ve done.”

She lifted the gun. Started to squeeze the trigger.

Just before she could pull, a little squirrel poked its head from around the side of the bush.

Chloë immediately lowered her gun, smiling. The squirrel was so little and it had a red face. Chloë thought her teacher told her that red squirrels were all dead, but her teacher was stupid anyway so she was probably lying.

She crouched down opposite the little thing. It was so skinny she could see its bones.

“Hello, Mister,” she said, smiling. She reached her hand towards it. It was so tame, like the birds Nan used to have in her garden. “Are you hungry?”

The squirrel jolted away back behind the bush.

Chloë carried on smiling. She stumbled around the bush after the squirrel. Maybe it could be her friend. Maybe it was her mum or Elizabeth coming back to her in animal form, like Gurdit used to believe in and people laughed at him for it.

“Come on,” she whispered. “I won’t hurt you.”

When she got around the other side of the bush, it took a few moments for Chloë to really understand what she was seeing.

There was a woman lying on the ground. She had blonde hair, although there was red in it like dried tomato ketchup. She was wearing a white shirt, but her skin underneath was whiter.

It was then that the smell hit Chloë. The smell that made her heart beat even faster because it meant that the monsters were around.

But there was something wrong with this lady. Something wrong with her, as her glass-like eyes looked up at the sky.

She was missing a leg.

Chloë gasped and stumbled back. The little squirrel was nibbling away at the bloody stump of purple and red worms where the lady’s leg used to be. It took a bite, getting its head even redder, then looked up at Chloë, nibbling at the meat.

Suddenly she felt very sick. She didn’t want to be friends with this squirrel anymore. Mum wouldn’t eat another person. Elizabeth wouldn’t either.

She turned away, the wind whistling through the trees, and started back to the road.

That’s when she saw them.

There were ten of them, maybe more. She could tell from the way they were walking that they weren’t people. They were all slumped over, and some of them had hands dangling on, others of them limped and had bits of their legs missing.

Chloë’s heart pounded even more. She struggled to swallow the lump in her throat, as the snow fell down even heavier.

She stayed still. Frozen still, like she was frozen by the snow.

She gripped the necklace in one hand and the gun in the other.

“Be brave, Chloë. Mummy’s with you.”

Chapter Four: Riley

In the two-or-so months since the start of the Dead Days, Riley had never expected to be the one to be told he was “saving the world.”

He sat down on this white leather chair in the corner of the bunker. It was so clean in here, so pristine, it was surreal. Like anything could be happening‌—‌anything
was
happening‌—‌outside, and yet he was stuck in here a million miles from it all.

He smelled deodorant, a sweet smell, and it took him a moment to realise it was coming from himself. He’d actually taken a warm shower. Sure, there had been water at Heathwaite’s, but he’d felt consistently grubby there. And after covering his hands with creature gunk and brains just earlier, he’d needed a good scrub.

At the other side of the bunker, over by the kitchen area, Alan was limping around, whistling away as he buttered himself some toast. The toast was ready toasted, out of a packet. A silver packet, of course.

“So what is it?” Riley asked. The words came from a part within him, a part that had been suppressing itself since he’d got here‌—‌since Alan claimed he’d discovered the formula to “save the world.”

But Riley wasn’t buying it. Not until he saw it. Not until he saw it, properly, for himself.

Alan chuckled. Some pieces of toast fell down his chin, tumbled to the floor while other bits of it clung to his grey beard. “What’s what?”

“You expect me to just believe that you know what cures this thing? The people walking around out there…‌I’ve seen it in their faces. They’re gone. Dead. There’s nothing behind their eyes.”

Alan shook his head. He tutted. “No, not a cure,” he said. He staggered closer to Riley. “Cure is inaccurate. I’d…‌I’d say more of a vaccination, to be precise. If my research is correct.”

Riley brought his fingers through his hair. At least it wasn’t greasy anymore, although he figured if he had to put up with Alan’s question-dodging for much longer, his scientific jargon, it’d be greasy as shit again in no time.

“Just tell me. Tell me what caused the outbreak. Tell me when, where, why it started, and tell me what it is we’re going to do about it.”

Alan leaned against the back of the leather sofa, which Riley found comfier than anything he’d sat in for days‌—‌weeks, even. “I never have been a fan of exposition,” Alan said. “I prefer to…‌to show, rather than to tell‌—‌”

“I’m a journalist,” Riley said, his skin tingling with heat. “I don’t need a crash course in linguistic tricks.”

Alan chuckled at this. “There are no tricks, Riley. You asked for the answers, but there’s only so much I can tell. What you
see
with your own eyes, however…‌that’s what makes the difference.”

Riley stared into Alan’s tired eyes. He was on the verge of storming over to that cabinet, grabbing a gun, and leaving on his own. This man was clearly mad. Insane. How could a man like this know the answers to the question of the virus‌—‌or whatever it was‌—‌on the outside?

“You need to be straight with me,” Riley said. He stood up from the sofa. If he stayed in it any longer, he’d get too comfy, too accustomed to it. He walked around the back of the sofa and confronted Alan. “So far you’ve told me you have a vaccination of some kind. And that you were in fortnightly contact with Rodrigo and the people at Heathwaite’s‌—‌”

“Rest their souls‌—‌”

“And now you just expect me to push you along through some fucking hidden tunnel to Manchester. Suppose I do go along with this story of yours. Suppose I actually for a moment go insane enough to believe you. What then? What’s in Manchester?”

Alan sighed. “You really do need spoon-feeding, don’t you?” He intertwined his rough old fingers. “I’m surprised you haven’t already heard, but why would you with limited mobile coverage, I suppose. There’s a place in Manchester. A “Living Zone,” as they are aptly calling it. A shelter. A home for everyone. One of the last ports of true, governmental civilisation left in the country.”

Riley could hardly believe it. He’d been in Preston, his home town, just weeks ago. Manchester was closer to Preston than his current location, somewhere under the bloody Lake District. He’d gone in the wrong direction. He could’ve been safe.

Anna. Claudia. Pedro. They all could’ve been safe.

“Top of my personal list of highlights in Manchester Living Zone is a medical research facility. The very best in the country. And that’s where we’re going. That’s where our tunnel very handily leads us right to.”

Riley stepped across the cold, hard tiles of the bunker floor. For a place so safe, he could feel himself going insane down here already. It was like being in a plane, miles above the earth, no idea what’s going on around you, and yet the things that aren’t going on around you instantly becoming so…‌irrelevant.

“How do you know all this?” Riley asked.

Alan shrugged. Crinkled his forehead, like his answer was common sense. “Well, I’m in the armed forces. I’m technically government.”

Riley scratched at the back of his neck, an itch burning him. “I just don’t…‌I don’t get it. It doesn’t add up.”

“The world is crawling with the dead. The days of simple addition and subtraction are long gone‌—‌”

“If you’re government, I don’t get why you wouldn’t have someone here with you. If you’re working away on some‌—‌some cure or vaccination or whatever, I don’t get why there wouldn’t be a backup. Because…‌no offence, but I wouldn’t want the whole of humanity to rest on your shoulders.”

Alan smiled and limped back over to the other side of the bunker. He dragged out his wheelchair and plonked himself back down on it again. Still smiling.

“What?” Riley asked. Clearly insane, this guy. Clearly a complete lunatic. A flaw in his story‌—‌Alan wasn’t expecting this. Sure, the tunnel to Manchester might help, but there was no way Riley was pushing this old psychopath along with him.

“You just don’t get it,” Alan said, struggling to wheel himself closer to Riley, his wheels screeching against the tiles. “It’s right in front of your eyes, and you just don’t see it.”

Riley could feel the vein in his temple pulsating. He was starting to prefer it up above, with the creatures. At least they were predictable. “Just tell me, for fuck’s sake. Tell me what you’re harping on about, or I’ll‌—‌”

“Look at my leg, Riley.”

Alan lifted his trousers and for a moment, Riley couldn’t understand. There was something out of place about Alan’s leg, the one he limped around on.

And then he clocked it.

The piece of flesh missing from him.

The bite marks.

Riley looked Alan in the eye. He was still smiling, still holding his trouser leg up, still showing off his wound.

“You…‌You’re‌—‌”

“Bitten? Yes.”

Riley’s eyes dodged over to the guns. Bitten meant dangerous. He knew what he had to do to those who were bitten now. No room for sentimentality. No room for thoughts. Just destroy.

“Two weeks ago, it happened,” Alan said, as Riley made a beeline for the gun cabinet.

Riley slowed down. He frowned. Turned around slowly to look at Alan again, who was still smiling away.

“You…‌It can’t have been‌—‌you’d be‌—‌”

“I should be,” Alan said, finally dropping his trouser leg and turning back to Riley. “But I’m not. Don’t you get it now, Riley? Don’t you see? See it right in front of you?”

Riley gulped. Gulped down a huge, pulsating lump in his throat.

“I am the answer, Riley. I’m immune.”

Chapter Five: Pedro