Dead Days: The Complete Season Two Collection (7 page)

Pedro paused tying the bandage around Riley’s leg for a brief moment and shook his head. “I’m sorry. That’s rough, bruv. Really fucking rough.”

“It’s okay,” Riley said, shaking his head and smiling a little too cheerily. “I’d make a shit dad, anyway.”

“Well, I hope for your sake Australia is safe from this…‌‌this plague. Right. Your leg is freshly bandaged. It doesn’t look badly infected yet, but you know how it is. That isn’t going to be the case forever. There’s a few meds in the drawer that you might want to check out. But I er…‌‌I think we need to talk about our problem now, don’t we?”

Pedro turned to Thomas’s bedroom door. From inside, Riley could hear objects being moved around; rustling under the bed, a slight singing from the boy. Searching for his coolest toys, that’s what he was doing. No idea of what was going to happen to him.

“We can let him turn and…‌‌and deal with him then. But the transformation, it isn’t always pretty. And it’s never painless. Or we can…‌‌we can put him to sleep. The sleeping pills in the drawer, they’re strong and he wouldn’t…‌‌he wouldn’t know a‌—‌a thing. Especially if we mixed them with some other stuff.”

Riley bit into his lip. Through the battering of the creatures’ hands against the side of the caravan, he could still hear Thomas rustling around. “It’s not right. This world, it’s not right.”

“Preach, bruv. But we need to make a decision here. And I think we‌—‌”

“I’ll do it,” Riley said.

Pedro blinked. “You…‌‌you’ll‌—‌”

Riley stumbled to his feet and walked over to the drawer. The fresh bandage didn’t rub against his wound as badly as the last, but the piece of metal he was using as a weapon from the boat wreckage nipped at his hip. “I’ll put it in his drink. It’s the…‌‌It’s the kindest way. Letting him turn, it wouldn’t be fair on him. It would be cruel. Even crueller than this.”

He opened up the box of one-a-day tablets and broke fifteen of them up before dropping them into a glass from the kitchen sink. Fuck knows whether this was even gonna work, but it was better than letting the kid just turn. He turned the tap, let it run through the system for a few seconds, then filled the glass to the brim with water.

“You…‌‌I can do it,” Pedro said, still crouching on the spot where he’d seen to Riley’s leg. “You don’t have to be the one to do this. You don’t‌—‌”

“You’ve had to do this once too many already, Pedro. I’ll do it. It…‌‌it has to be done.”

Pedro stared at Riley. Stared right into his eyes, more intensely than any other stare they’d ever exchanged.

He nodded.

Riley nodded back at him.

Then, he walked down the pink-carpeted corridor towards Thomas’s room.

He held the glass tightly in his hand as he approached the door. Contemplated what he was going to say.
Thomas, I’ve got a glass of water for you. Drink up, now. Oh yeah. Cool toys. Go on. Keep drinking…‌

His entire body shivered with the thought. The water in the glass wobbled from side to side.

Thomas, those toys look really cool. Have some…‌‌oh, you don’t like water?

Or he could just be up front and honest with him. Tell him what was happening. Tell him what was going to happen. Give him a choice.

No. A little boy didn’t deserve to have to make that decision. Especially not this boy. A boy who’d been left alone through all of this horrible sequence of events. A boy who’d gone out to get him and his dead daddy some food out of the goodness of his heart. A boy who’d been bitten.

He needed a bit of hope. He needed one little bit of hope in his life.

Riley placed his hand on the handle. Held it there for a few seconds. His heart raced. His head was heavy, and his stomach tingled with butterflies and moths and whatever the fuck else. Go in, give him the drink, wait. It was the kindest option. The kindest, least cruel way of dealing with the situation.

He opened the door.

He expected to see Thomas on the floor, searching under his bed for his toys.

Instead, he was on the bed. His eyes were closed. His Yellow Angry Bird teddy was clutched to his bleeding neck.

He was still. Completely still.

Riley walked into the small room. Blue curtains covered the scratching creatures outside. Toys‌—‌Action Men, figures from The Walking Dead, Spiderman‌—‌were scattered around the dusty floor. The Batman printed bedsheets were bloody.

Riley crept down the side of the bed and placed a hand on Thomas’s chest.

No heartbeat.

He sighed. Thomas had gone. He’d gone peacefully. After all that, he’d gone peacefully. Hopefully he hadn’t known a thing. Hopefully, he’d had no idea.

Riley placed the glass of sleeping-pill-spiked water on Thomas’s little bedside table, which had a copy of RL Stine’s Goosebumps atop it. He wouldn’t have to give him the drink after all. He wouldn’t have to make the decision. The decision had made itself.

But there was still the problem of Thomas coming back as a creature. That was a decision that was still in Riley’s hands.

He brushed Thomas’s greasy, matted brown locks back.

Then, he took a deep breath, and he lifted the large, sharp piece of wreckage from the top of his belt.

Riley closed the door to the bedroom. He placed the metal weapon back underneath his belt and wiped his bloody hands against his shirt.

He looked at Pedro, and he nodded.

Pedro nodded back at him.

Chapter Seven

Pedro lifted the hatch on the roof of the caravan.

“You sure this is going to work?” Riley asked.

Pedro shrugged and grunted. He held onto Riley’s bloody old makeshift bandage and a few other blood drenched cloths. “It works and we make it a few hundred metres down the road, or it doesn’t work and we’re eaten alive in here. Either way, we’re screwed.”

Riley nodded. He tried not to look back at Thomas’s bedroom door. He hadn’t had to put him to sleep. That was a decision he was relieved he hadn’t had to make.

But he’d had to make sure he didn’t come back as a creature. That was something he had had to do.

He’d closed his eyes while he’d done it, but still, the image of what was happening; of the sounds, the smells, the sensations…‌‌they were strong in his mind.

Pedro lifted himself up through the hatch on top of the caravan roof and held out a hand for Riley. Riley grabbed it and supported himself, clambering his way free of the confines of the caravan, back out into the fresh air of outdoors.

On top of the caravan, Riley and Pedro stayed low. Pedro handed Riley some bloody rags and shimmied towards the edge of the structure. They couldn’t see the creatures from up here because they were low down, but they could hear them, still. Staggering, grunting, scratching at the sides of the caravan.

Pedro stopped at the edge, as did Riley. Pedro looked at him. “We throw the rags into the garden and we run down the street. Okay?”

Riley nodded, but he wasn’t sure whether he was okay. He wasn’t sure whether his injured leg could take a fall from twelve feet. He pictured himself dropping to the ground below, being unable to move…‌‌while a party of creatures gathered around him and tore him to pieces.

Pedro unravelled a bloody cloth that he’d dabbed Riley’s leg with. He slipped further towards the side of the caravan and aimed his throw. Riley joined him.

“Okay,” Pedro said. “On three, we throw. We wait for them to move into the garden. Then we jump. Okay?”

Riley nodded. “Three.”

“Two, one.”

The pair of them threw all of the bloody rags down onto the paved area in front of the garden. As they did, a few creatures stumbled from the doorway of the caravan towards them, groaning, more of them following, more of them turning away.

“It’s working,” Pedro said. He pumped his fist. “Come on. Let’s‌—‌”

“Wait,” Riley said. He stared down at the creatures that gathered around the grass. They looked at the bloody rags, disinterested, confused.

Then, one by one, they turned back to the caravan. Walked away from the rags and walked back to the caravan and started pressing up against it, scratching it, once again.

“Fuck,” Pedro said. He brought his fist down towards the roof of the caravan but refrained from hitting it so as not to make a sound. “Fucking shit. We’re fucked. That was our only way. Our only fucking way.”

Riley brought his head down against the roof of the caravan. They were fucked out here. Even if they found their way to another caravan, the creatures would follow. The infection would catch up with him. He’d been lucky to make it this far, even. But of course‌—‌whatever god there was up there just wanted to give him another shitty challenge to complete. Another battle of morals. Yeah, well fuck morals. Fuck it all.

Then he noticed the hatch.

“I say we jump and make a run for it anyway,” Pedro said. “Otherwise we’ll be stuck here forever. It’s gonna be cold tonight. Just look at those fucking clouds, bruv. We’re gonna freeze out‌—‌”

“What if…‌‌what if instead of drawing them away from the caravan, we can lure them into the caravan?”

Pedro squinted at Riley. “What are you suggesting?”

Riley wasn’t sure himself. He wasn’t sure how good an idea it was, anyway. But what else did they have? What other options could they possibly explore?

“Say one of us goes back down into the caravan. Opens up the door. Draws them inside. Then…‌‌then the other of us lifts the one in the caravan back onto the roof and we make a run for it while they’re flooding the caravan.”

Pedro shook his head. His mouth opened, then closed again. He looked as if he wanted to protest, but didn’t have a better idea himself. “And I’m guessing from your…‌‌from your criteria, bruv that you’re going to be the one jumping into that caravan and expecting me to drag you out.”

“Well, you’re stronger than me. It makes sense.”

Pedro sat up on the roof of the caravan. He spat over into the mass of stinky, filthy creatures below. “And say they get you. Say they surround you. You remember the…‌‌the rules, right? You remember how it works.”

“Survival of the self comes first. Survival of others comes second.”

“In this case, let’s fuck that rule. I’d go batshit crazy stuck out here on my own.”

Riley nodded. He looked down the hatch. His idea might’ve been insane, but again, they didn’t have a better one. And it was a shame for Thomas’s caravan to end up compromised‌—‌he’d wanted somewhere peaceful for the boy to rest‌—‌but survival was survival.

“Be ready,” Riley said, as he hopped back down into the caravan.

“Already am,” Pedro said, holding his hand through the hatch, ready to lift Riley back up.

Riley faced the doorway. Silhouettes of creatures. Fingernails and broken teeth scratched against the glass. He walked right up to the blinded door. Walked up to it, stood for a few seconds, and waited.

Then, he lifted the blinds.

He was face to face with four creatures. The one at the front had clearly been a woman before she turned. Maggots were crawling through a gaping wound on her neck. She had two fingers missing, and patches of her hair dangled pieces of her torn scalp around her head like a morbid crafts display.

She pushed herself closer to the glass door when she saw him. Pushed herself closer, and those behind her pushed themselves closer too. He could hear the glass cracking under their dead weight. He could tell it was curving, bit by bit.

He grabbed the golden handle of the door and turned the lock.

“Come get me, bitch,” he said, although it sounded infinitely better in his head, to the point that he was blushing.

He took a deep breath. Swallowed the lump in his throat.

Then, he lowered the handle, and he ran back to the middle of the caravan.

The sound of their groaning filling up the small space surrounded Riley. He clambered onto the small, wooden table below him so he could reach Pedro’s hand.

“Quick!” Pedro shouted. “And don’t look the fuck back whatever you do!”

Riley climbed onto the table, which wobbled underneath his feet. He grabbed Pedro’s hand. Grabbed it and gripped as tightly as he could as he was elevated closer and closer towards his exit, closer and closer towards the sky.

And then he felt something on his leg.

First, a tug.

Then, a stinging sensation. A sharpness. Flesh, tearing. Warm fluid oozing.

His heart pounded. He looked down as Pedro pulled him further away, further from the grip on his leg, further from the creatures.

“Did you get bit?” Pedro shouted as he stood up on the roof. “Did you get fucking‌—‌”

“No,” Riley said. He looked at his leg. The area where he’d felt the sharpness, and the warmth. It was just his wound from the shrapnel. A creature had tugged his leg while he was being lifted and irritated the wound again. He was bleeding through his bandage.

Fuck. Close. So fucking close.

“Time to go, bruv,” Pedro said, running to the front of the caravan. “Up the road to the left and back down those steps if possible. We need a place to gather our thoughts. A place to regroup.”

Riley stumbled towards the edge of the caravan roof. The creatures were still flooding inside. Their path to the road was clear, bar a few lone stragglers.

“Let’s go!”

Pedro jumped from the roof of the caravan and landed on the stones below. He smacked a lone creature round the jaw with his metal weapon and ran up the street to the left, disappearing behind the trees.

Riley took a deep breath. “Please work,” he said. “Please fucking work.”

Then, he dropped down onto the stones below.

The pain was bad, but it wasn’t inhibiting. He got straight back to his feet and jogged‌—‌limped‌—‌as well as he could down the stones in front of the caravan and onto the road. He smacked a creature to one side with his piece of metal wreckage. He could hear the creatures that were surrounding the caravan beginning to stir, growing agitated, anxious, curious.

“Deep breaths,” he muttered, with every limp up the road he took. He couldn’t see Pedro anywhere. Fuck. Where was he? Must’ve taken a right. Or taken temporary shelter in a caravan. Maybe he’d found somewhere. Found somewhere already. Maybe he’d‌—‌