Dead Days: The Complete Season Two Collection (13 page)

“You lucky piece of shit,” Riley said.

“Well I didn’t know what the fuck we were supposed to do next,” Aaron said. “Do I go left or do I go‌—‌”

“This way,” Riley said. “Unless you want to go wandering on the other side of the blockade all alone.”

Aaron was silent.

“Let’s try again,” Riley said. “On my count. Three, two, one…‌”

This time, he lifted it a lot easier. Same pain in his back. Same pain in his chest and his leg‌—‌fuck, he’d bust some stitches if he wasn’t careful. But he had a hold of the car. He’d have a hold of it for another five, ten seconds. He had to move. They both had to move. Fast.

“Okay, let’s go,” Riley said, stumbling to his right.

Aaron moved in sync. They were so close now. So close to getting the car out of the way and being able to move. There was a gap forming at the side of the blockade. A big enough gap for them all to fit through. They’d have to go on foot, but it would suffice. It had to suffice.

Then, Aaron let out a cry, and his end of the car went tumbling to the road again.

Fuck. Riley looked back over at the creatures. The bulk of them were still crowding around the trailer, but a few of them were looking in their direction this time. Looking in the direction of the noise.

And then, one by one, a few of them started to move in Riley and Aaron’s direction.

“What the fuck have you done now?” Riley said.

“My‌—‌my back,” Aaron said. Riley saw that he was on his side clutching the bottom of his back. “It just‌—‌it just gave in. It just‌—‌”

Riley yanked him to his feet. “I fucking told you to lift from your legs. Now look. Now look.”

He did look, and judging by the sudden, stunned postponement of pained gasps, he saw just what Riley saw.

More creatures were walking in their direction. Some of them still surrounded the side of the trailer, as Anna and Pedro bashed their pieces of scrap metal against it, but many were growing disinterested. Many were seeking new prey.

Easier prey.

“What do we do?” Aaron asked. “What…‌‌what now?”

Riley watched as the creatures approached. It was all he could do. Watch and wait. They’d have to get on top of the car. Fight them off with what bullets they did have.

But bullets wouldn’t last forever. And a Smart Car wasn’t so hard for a creature to mount.

“I say we run,” Aaron said, pointing at the gap in the blockade. “Make a break for the pier. We‌—‌we can come back for the others if‌—‌”

“No. These are my friends. Just because they’ve no personal value to you doesn’t mean they’re dispensable.”

“We can’t just fucking stand here,” Aaron said. “We have to do
something
. There has to be something we can‌—‌we can try.”

Riley looked around at the blockade of cars. Looked ahead of the blockade, through the gap. No. He couldn’t lose Anna and Pedro. They’d held up their end of the deal‌—‌put themselves on a plate so that Riley could try to get them out of this situation. He couldn’t let them die. He was through with letting people die. There had to be another way.

“We lift again,” Riley said, turning back to the car.

“Didn’t you just hear me?” Aaron said, easing against the front of the car. “My back, it’s fucked. I can barely even move.”

“Well you’ll just have to,” Riley said, reaching around and getting ready to grab Aaron.

But he didn’t, because he saw something inside the Smart Car.

“Keys,” Riley said.

Aaron whimpered. The groans were getting closer. Anna and Pedro continued to rattle their scrap metal against the trailer, but it was a lost cause. The creatures were on to Riley and Aaron. They weren’t letting up.

“We have to run. We have to‌—‌”

“Keys!”

Riley pushed Aaron out of the way and tried the handle of the Smart Car but the door was locked. Fuck. The keys were in the ignition. If this thing had any petrol, they could drive this thing. Where they’d drive it…‌‌Well, they’d work that out next. But right now, they needed those keys.

Riley lifted his gun out of his pocket and aimed it at the window.

“I thought you said no‌—‌”

The gunshot rattled through the air. The glass of the car window cracked and crumbled. The groans were echoed out momentarily, but when they returned, they were louder and stronger than ever before.

Riley reached in through the smashed window and yanked the keys from the ignition. Then, he tried to slot them in the door with his shaking hand.

The keys slipped to the ground.

“Fuck,” Riley said. He scrambled to his knees and reached under the car for the runaway keys. In the reflection of the blue Smart Car paintwork, he could see movement behind him. The creatures were so close. Too close.

“Hurry the fuck up,” Aaron said. “Just do something. Please.”

Riley stretched his arm out right underneath the car and got a hold of the keys.

He pulled himself back to his feet and this time, just about managed to get the keys inside the manual lock. Fuck these first edition Smart Cars and their lack of an automatic lock system.

The door clicked open. Riley opened it up, more glass crumbling onto the seat as he did. He threw himself into the driver’s seat, Aaron climbing through into the passenger’s seat.

He slammed the door shut. Put the key in the ignition.
Please work. Please fucking work.

“Quick!” Aaron shouted. The creatures clutched at the broken window. Sunk their teeth into the metal framework of the car.

Riley turned the key.

Waited. Waited.

The engine started.

About five creatures were pressed up against the side of the Smart Car. Riley put his foot on the gas and sped forward, sending the creatures onto their arses as he moved back in the direction of the van.

“Wait. Where the fuck are you going?”

Riley accelerated to the right of the van. The creatures were all moving at the Smart Car from the left, reaching out, some of them bumping into the windscreen that was so close to their faces.

“Where the fuck? We have to get out of here. We have to‌—‌”

“I told you, you moaning son of a bitch. I don’t leave my friends behind. If you don’t shut that fucking whining mouth of yours, I won’t hesitate to use you as bait.”

Aaron, as expected, fast shut up.

The Smart Car moved around the left hand side of the van. Anna and Pedro looked on with wide-eyed, open-mouthed expressions, their pieces of scrap metal dangling by their side.

“I’ll come round the right!” Riley shouted as the creatures followed the Smart Car around the left hand side of the van like Lemmings. “Be ready to jump!”

Anna and Pedro nodded. It was just about all they could do.

Riley swerved the Smart Car around the back of the van. The route through the blockade to the right of the van was clear, bar a few straggling creatures. He waited a few seconds. Revved the engine as loud as he could. Waited for the creatures to stumble around the left of the van. They had to see him. They had to know where he was.

“When are we‌—‌”

On sight of the first few creatures emerging from the left of the van, Riley sent the Smart Car lurching forward. He stopped it beside the van, reached over and opened the passenger door.

“Quick! Get in!”

Anna was first to scramble down from the trailer. She threw herself into the two-seater Smart Car, making Aaron wince with the pain in his back once again.

Pedro was next. He dropped down as the creatures turned around the back of the van and moved in their direction. He threw himself on top of Anna, crushing Aaron further in the process. Pedro’s stinky-as-fuck feet were right in Riley’s face as they shut the door and squeezed further across the seats.

“I’m…‌‌fucking…‌‌squished here.”

Riley pressed his foot against the accelerator and the Smart Car went flying in the direction of the open blockade. They passed creatures. Creatures that reached out and tried to grab them as well as they could, but missed. They were ten feet away, five feet away, a foot away…‌

And then they were through.

“Yes!” Riley shouted, pinned down by Anna and Pedro, who lay across the seats.

“I need some…‌‌some breathing space,” Aaron said, his head the only part of his body visible under the mass of Pedro and Anna.

“You’ve got it easy,” Riley said, driving down the open road. “You don’t have Pedro’s stinky-as-fuck feet in your face.”

“You think you’ve got it bad,” Anna mumbled from somewhere underneath the rest of them. “Try having Pedro’s
arse
in your face.”

Riley laughed. Aaron laughed. Pedro laughed. All of them laughed.

As the four of them drove down the open road, squished in front of a car barely big enough for two people, leaving behind a staggering mass of creatures, Riley thought this was just about the most surreal moment of his entire life.

Chapter Six

“So, how long are we going to be cramped inside this thing again?” Pedro asked.

Riley kept his foot on the gas. Pedro and Anna had readjusted so that it wasn’t quite as uncomfortable in the Smart Car, but it still wasn’t perfect. Riley could still smell Pedro’s stinky feet, for one. Aaron couldn’t stop tutting and moaning. Perhaps the one who had got away the lightest was Anna, who’d pulled herself to the top of the crowd and squeezed above everybody.

“It’s just up here on the right,” Aaron said. “Fuck, my back. I swear‌—‌lift a Smart Car. The fuck you actually thinking?”

“Yes,” Anna said, moving the hair out of her eyes. “What
were
you thinking?”

“I was thinking about surviving,” Riley said. He could see the pier extending right out to sea just up ahead. At their current pace, they’d be there in a couple of minutes. Wherever “there” was. Whatever was “there.” After all, in the Dead Days, anything was possible.

“Surviving is a good idea,” Aaron said, wincing and gasping as he tried to arch his back upright. “Not looking in a fucking car for keys is madness.”

“Well, you always had the chance to look for yourself,” Riley said. “Instead of acting like it was just me out there, you always had the chance to look.”

“Sorry, mate. I was too busy being pushed and shoved around by you to take a look.”

“He can be like that,” Anna said. “You learn to live with it.”

Aaron pointed to the right. “Just slow down here. The creatures were right at the bottom of the pier by that amusement centre there. Hopefully we’ll be able to draw them out. Draw them out then check on Dominic and Peter. I know they’re alive. They have to be alive.”

“News for you, bruv,” Pedro said. “Nobody has to be alive in this world. That’s just how things are now.”

Riley slowed down the car as he reached the entrance to the pier. The sky was grey, bitter cold specks of rain spitting down on the ground. The tempered sea bashed against the shore, mist and fog clouding up the hills in the distance. So far from home, they were. Hell, wherever home was now, anyway.

And on the shore, right at the end of the pier, Riley saw the crumpled wreckage of the top end of the boat.

“So we‌—‌we go down to the end of the pier, check for Dominic and Peter. Maybe we can‌—‌we can try to use the car. But anyway, we check, we get them out of here, and then we get the fuck away ourselves.”

“We’re not leaving until we’ve checked that wreckage,” Riley said. “If Claudia and Chloë really are down there, we have to know.”

Aaron sighed. “I thought you said nobody had to be alive?”

“Watch your lip,” Pedro said, tightening his grip around Aaron’s skinny leg. “Don’t you go using my words against me.”

Aaron winced then pushed Pedro away. “I’m sorry. It’s just…‌‌what happened to Stevie. He’s…‌‌he was my friend, you know? Like…‌‌back when it started, I was living in Silverdale. I heard about it on the news and then it was in the streets in front of my house, that’s how fast it happened. I…‌‌my mum. My dad. I still lived at home with them. Just got back from university. I could…‌‌I could hear them arguing upstairs. Arguing about some shit or another shit or I don’t even know what shit. But that was them. Arguing about…‌‌about their future. Arguing about their jobs and how they hated the fuck out of each other. Always arguing. Always. And I‌—‌I saw these zombies walking up our road towards our house. And then I saw Stevie. This ginger bastard fighting these things off from this big Land Rover of his.

Anyway, I see that there’s a couple of people in the back of the Land Rover. Survivors, you know? And I look and he looks back at me and I see it in his eyes. ‘Quick,’ he’s calling. ‘Quick.’ And I turn around. Turn around upstairs to where my parents are arguing. Shouting and shouting, always shouting, for years and years. I turn around and get ready to call for them but…‌‌but then something inside me tells me I should walk. I should just run. And before I know it I’m out of the door and running down the street to that Land Rover. Sprinting. Sprinting and panting and…‌‌and yeah. You get the picture.”

“So you left your parents behind?” Anna asked.

“More than left them behind,” Aaron said. “It was only when I got in the Land Rover‌—‌when Stevie told me to watch his back‌—‌that I realised what I’d done. Saw the door to my house wide open. Must’ve‌—‌must’ve left it like that in the panic, you know? But anyway. As we’re driving off, I see them wandering in through the front door of my old house. These‌—‌these mindless zombies, all wandering through. Wandering towards the shouting. Towards the arguing.”

“We’ve all made tough decisions,” Riley said. He thought back to Jordanna. Stan. Trevor. Little Thomas. All the people he’d left behind to save himself. All the people that had fallen because of his innate, selfish sense of self-preservation. “You can’t…‌‌you can’t blame yourself for what you’ve done. If we blamed ourselves for everything we’d done in this new world, we’d‌—‌”

“I don’t blame myself,” Aaron said. “I didn’t even feel any regret back then. I just thought of…‌‌I thought it was payback for all the‌—‌the pain they’d caused me and my sister throughout our teen years. And that’s what fucking troubles me. Was that wrong? Was I wrong to‌—‌to partly want them to suffer for the things they’d done?”