Dead Days: The Complete Season Two Collection (23 page)

“It’s fine,” Anna said, moving closer to the pair of them. “Better save the supplies for Christmas Day. Don’t want to end up being hung-over for it. And I’ve not been lashed for so long that I think that’s a real possibility. I was drunk after a sip of the last beer I had.”

Rodrigo chuckled. The sound of the gates opening caught his attention. “I’d best go check on the volunteers. See how they got on with that ol’ Dumping Ground extension.”

“As long as it keeps a boundary between the creatures and us, then I’d say they’ve got on pretty well.”

Rodrigo hopped down the concrete steps at the front of the main centre and jogged over to the volunteers. They’d been rounding the creatures up like sheep, extending the boundaries of the Dumping Ground. It was necessary, considering how many creatures there were. But they had the whole woods to keep themselves occupied. If they starved in there, then boo-hoo for them.

“Do you think we’re safe? Really?” Anna asked. She pushed herself closer to Riley as they leaned on the railings looking out at the descending late afternoon sun.

Riley let the warmth of Anna fill his body. She twiddled with her heart-shaped locket. “I don’t think we’re ever safe. But we’re safer right now than we were an hour ago. And that’s how we have to work our progress now.”

“Not just the creatures,” Anna said, staring dreamily into the distance. “Mike. He…‌‌We don’t know what he wants. What he’s planning. And if Dave was working on the inside for him, then‌—‌”

“We deal with things as they come,” Riley said. “This place is nice. It’d be nice to spend Christmas here‌—‌maybe essential, with the warmth and food and shelter. And I think we will. But we have to be prepared. Always prepared.”

Anna looked at Riley, breaking free of her trance, and smiled at him. Her brown eyes made him feel all gooey inside. He really was getting soppy, and so was she, evidently.

“What?” Riley asked, blushing.

Anna laughed. “Just…‌‌you know. Company is nice too. I’d say company’s the most important thing of all.”

More gooey feeling inside. More soppiness. Even a warmth between his legs. Shit‌—‌this wasn’t on the cards.
Play it cool, Riley. Play it cool.
“Company is‌—‌”

“Ho-ly shit,” somebody shouted.

Riley turned around, jolted out of his moment with Anna. Anna looked around too. The accent was that weird American-English hybrid. Rodrigo. He sounded triumphant. Happy about something.

The gates, which had opened to let the people clearing up outside back in, were closing. Everyone seemed intact, wandering through with baseball bats, long fragments of metal and occasionally, guns. Smiles on faces. Too smiley.

“What is it?” Riley asked, jogging down the steps and over towards Rodrigo. Rodrigo was smiling from cheek to cheek. Colour had invaded his greying face.

“Only went and found a pair of Mike’s stragglers. Tried to fire a shot at ol’ Paddy they did, only they missed and got themselves caught. Ain’t that right?”

Riley saw who Rodrigo was talking to now. Behind him, two people were being pushed into the Heathwaite’s, guns pointing into their backs, cuffs wrapped around their wrists.

Riley was completely silent. He experienced joy, despair, fear and confusion‌—‌mostly confusion‌—‌all within the space of a solitary second. The people he was staring at, covered in blood and filth…‌‌they weren’t alive. They were gone. They couldn’t be here.

They stared back at him too, frozen to the spot. Their eyes were wide. He could see them trying to talk to him, but black bandages were tied around their mouths, presumably to stop them screaming and attracting any creatures‌—‌or worse.

“Get them to a free caravan,” Rodrigo said, patting one of his baseball bat wielding volunteers on the back. “Work out what we wanna do with ‘em.”

The woman and the girl were pushed past Riley and Anna, tumbling to the ground and being yanked back up again, but all the time, their wide eyes staring‌—‌staring at Riley, staring at Anna.

Riley looked at Anna. Anna looked back at him. The smile was gone from her face. Her cheeks were pale. So he hadn’t been seeing things. He wasn’t just imagining the whole fucking situation. They’d been shooting at Rodrigo’s men. They were out there, all along.

Claudia and Chloë were dragged further and further towards the caravans down the main stretch of Heathwaite’s.

Claudia and Chloë were alive.

But they were in trouble.

Serious fucking trouble.

EPISODE TEN

(FOURTH EPISODE OF SEASON TWO)

Prologue

When the water filled the boat, the one thing that Claudia kept a hold of‌—‌kept aware of‌—‌was her daughter’s hand.

She clenched her eyes shut as the water smacked against her face. She tried to hold her breath, but the force of the water smacking into the narrowboat was just too strong. She held Chloë’s hand to her chest. Held her despite the force of nature between them, trying to tear them apart.

She held and held and held. Even when everything was at its darkest. Even when she couldn’t hold her breath any longer, and when the complete darkness of the water surrounded her, she gripped Chloë’s hand. Her daughter wasn’t going anywhere. Not her other little girl. She’d already lost Elizabeth. She wasn’t losing Chloë. Not after all that girl had been through. Not after all they’d both been through, together.

Her hand was still gripping hold of Chloë’s tightly when she opened her eyes and realised the darkness wasn’t surrounding her anymore.

Claudia lifted herself up. She was damp to the bone, shivering, teeth rattling. It was dark. Was she still under water? Was this the end?

But no. As she lifted herself further upright, she felt a blockage in her throat. Inadvertently, she collapsed forward and spewed out what seemed like a whole bottle’s worth of salty, stinging water, and then some more. She coughed it all up then looked around, squinting into the darkness. She could hear the sea behind her. She could smell the salty air blowing in the freezing cold breeze.

And in her hand, she could still feel Chloë’s.

Her heart jolted. Chloë.

She jumped over to her right, where her daughter’s body was.

“Chloë,” Claudia said, pressing on her chest. She’d taken a medical training course back when she worked in the local council, but this‌—‌saving an actual life‌—‌it was different.

Even more different when it happened to be your daughter’s life you were saving.

“Chloë, come on now,” Claudia said, pressing Chloë’s chest some more, no idea of whether she was pushing too hard or too weak. She lowered over her daughter’s cold, salty lips and breathed into them, then pressed again.

Then again. And again.

She sat upright as her daughter’s sickly saliva covered her face. Tears dripped down her cheeks as she stared out into the endless black of night sea, only the moon illuminating the water for company.

“Why are you doing this to me?” Claudia asked, her voice crackling. She’d done a good job in her personal opinion of staying tough for Chloë, especially after what had happened to Elizabeth, and especially with their dad, Pete, not being around. He’d always been around. Always the one to provide. Always the one to organise.

And now Riley was gone. Anna was gone. Pedro was gone. All of them were gone.

“Why do you take everyone away?” she muttered under her voice.

Just then, she heard a splutter on the hard pebbles beneath her. It took her a few moments to register truly what it was, but looking down at Chloë all lit up in the moonlight, she realised soon enough.

More tears dripped down her cheeks. Her stomach did a somersault.

“Chloë,” she said. She lunged down and wrapped her arms around her daughter, leaning her forward to cough her customary pint of water out of her lungs.

“Oh, Chloë,” Claudia said, tears streaming down her cheeks and making them even more salty now. “I thought…‌‌I thought…‌‌Thank God you’re okay.”

Chloë tried to mumble something. Instead, as her body shivered in the cold and the dampness, she spewed a load of saltwater down her mother’s back, and the pair of them sat there, arms wrapped around one another, in complete unison.

The door creaked open. Seeing light again was something Claudia had actually given up in the however long they’d been here. It made her eyes sting. Her heart raced when she looked over at the silhouettes by the door. The men who’d captured them. The two men‌—‌one of them with that dribbling grin on his face, the other with the dead eyes and the rough hands. She tried to think as the two men entered the room, another man closely behind them. She tried to talk as two of them walked in the direction of her daughter.

“Please,” she tried to say, but the words faded out from her chapped, dry lips. She couldn’t lose Chloë. People, they’d lost their humanity in this new world. Being at the barracks with Ivan and co. for two weeks had done enough to make her realise that.

Chloë had lost enough innocence as it was. These men, the looks on their faces…‌‌no. That couldn’t happen. Not to her girl. Not now.

Claudia moved backwards and forwards, tied down in the chair. She let out a loud moan from the bottom of her lungs as two of the men‌—‌the dead-eyed, rough-handed one and another man she didn’t recognise, walked over the mucky tiled floor and loomed over her, the light from outside shining through the boarded up, damp-smelling room.

The pair of them just stood there for a few seconds. The drooling man stood over by Chloë. All three of them watched in silence. The new man had an inquisitive look on his face. Like he was weighing Claudia up. Weighing the pair of them up.

Drooling man continued to drool.

“Please. We just…‌‌Let my girl go back to the boat wreckage where we washed up. Please.” Claudia whispered as quiet as possible, like speaking this way would reach out to the souls of these men or something. Over to her right, Chloë was also tied to a wooden chair. She just stared at the drooling man, her bottom lip quivering as drooling man stared back at her, grin extending.

“Don’t…‌‌not my daughter. Me, if you have to. Just me. Please.”

She knew this was all she could beg. A group of men in the middle of the zombie apocalypse, they were going to want things from two women. In a world where morals were skewed, and where killing was a part of everyday life, men felt like they were entitled to a treat every now and then. And two women…‌‌Claudia knew they’d certainly be a type of treat. She’d seen enough television shows and read enough books to know what they wanted from her.

The tall man behind the men who had captured her and Chloë from their shelter at the wreckage that morning walked over to Claudia. He kneeled down, staring right at her with his invasive, piercing blue eyes. He reached around her back, rubbed his slippery fingers against her wrist, all the time staring into her eyes, all the time staring right through into her soul. She knew what was going to happen. She had to let it. What other choice did she have?

“Lady, I think you’ve got us wrong,” the man said. He swiftly moved his fingers up to the cuffs around her wrists and did something that brought them free. “Same with the little girl, Seth,” the man said, turning to the drooling man.

Claudia noticed the disappointment on the drooling man’s face. Saw the protestation in his eyes.

But still, the drooling man went over to Chloë, reached around her back, and untied her wrists.

The man who had freed Claudia stepped back. Stood alongside drooling man and dead-eyed man. Smiled, as Claudia brought her chapped wrists and sweaty palms in front of her, trying to work out if there was supposed to be some kind of trick here.

“I think we got off on the wrong foot,” the tall man with the blue eyes said. “I’m Mike. This is Seth and this is Matt.” He pointed at drooly and dead-eye in turn, then smiled again. “You say you washed up on this coast?”

“They could be lying,” Matt said, not quite as welcoming as his blue-eyed friend.

Mike raised his hand and nodded at Claudia to answer.

“Yes…‌‌we…‌‌we had a boat. We had a boat and it‌—‌it crashed. It‌—‌”

“You’ve seen nobody else out here?”

Claudia shook her head. Closed her eyes tightly and tried to struggle through the ache that rattled through her mind. “No, I…‌‌me and my daughter, we just washed up. We just‌—‌please. Don’t hurt her. Hurt me, if you have to. Just not‌—‌”

“Miss,” Mike said, in that trademark calming voice of his that he’d spent the last few minutes speaking in. “We aren’t going to hurt you. We’ve got no interest in hurting you. We’re going to help you. Both of you.”

He smiled again, then walked towards the bright light of the door. Seth and Matt followed closely behind. They didn’t look best impressed. The bulge between Seth’s legs had maxed out, and his filthy eyes were still looking right at Chloë.

“Come down the stairs and into the main reception area. We have food, fresh water and clean clothes waiting for you. In your own time.”

Claudia expected the man to slam the door shut. To lock it‌—‌something to fuck with her psychologically.

Instead, the three men left the room, left the door wide open, and left the cuffs off Claudia and Chloë.

Claudia sat still for a few moments. Waited for them to come back. Waited for what she’d expected‌—‌what she knew men were capable of. Waited. Counted the seconds. Counted the minutes.

“Are we okay, Mum?”

Claudia looked to her right. Chloë was sitting on her chair, completely still although she’d been freed of her cuffs. She looked back at Claudia with her lovely big brown eyes. Her hair was greasy. Her jaw was shaking.

“I think we are,” Claudia said, a weight lifting from her shoulders. “I…‌‌I really think we might be.”

Chapter One

Claudia held Chloë’s hand as they stepped out of the dingy, damp-smelling room into the light outside. Turns out they were just in a boarded up room, by the looks of things in somewhere like a hotel. There were wooden doors just like the one they’d stepped out of all down a corridor. Outside, the place looked relatively clean. Untouched. As if this place was still running, regardless of the fact that it was the end of the world.