Right now he needed someone there with him.

  “You don’t want to do this,” Jordanna said.

  “If I didn’t want to do this I wouldn’t be doing it.”

  “Riley’ll be here. He’ll be here soon. Just—James!”

  She shouted.

  She shouted because she saw him let go of the drainpipe.

  Reach over for the windowpane.

  The bloodsoaked windowpane of Hassan’s apartment.

  The apartment filled with undead.

  “James, just—just come back here. Come back onto the pipe.”

  James shuffled onto the windowpane. Dragged himself up towards the window using every ounce of strength in his upper body. Jordanna had images of him slipping. Falling to the undead below. Or one of them sticking its head out the window and ripping the top of his skull off.

  “You don’t have to—”

  “I do,” James shouted. “I fucking do.”

  It was then that Jordanna heard the fragility in his voice. The weakness of his words. The unwillingness to progress. To move on.

  Because all he cared for was gone.

  All he cared for was dead.

  She knew nothing she could say would bring him back.

  So she watched him.

  She watched him pull himself onto the window ledge.

  She watched him look into the room. Into Hassan’s apartment.

  She watched him…

  He didn’t move.

  He just stayed there.

  Stared into Hassan’s apartment.

  Didn’t move.

  It dawned on Jordanna what was about to happen. Made her stomach turn.

  He was going to jump.

  He was going to step back off the window ledge and he was going to jump.

  “Please, James. Please. Not this way. I’m begging you. We’re all begging you. Not this way.”

  James didn’t say a word in return.

  He didn’t move a muscle.

  Not for a few seconds.

  But eventually, he did turn.

  He looked down at Jordanna. And Jordanna didn’t see the anguish she expected from his eyes. She didn’t see the tears. The defeat.

  She saw… wide eyes. Parted lips.

  “You’re gonna wanna climb up here,” James said.

  Jordanna frowned. “What…”

  “Did he just say what I think he said?” Hassan called.

  “James, it’s not safe up there. You know it’s not safe. Come away from there. Please—”

  “Seriously,” James said. There was a calm sincerity to his voice, juxtaposing the backdrop of chaos. “You’re gonna wanna climb up here. You’re gonna wanna see this. Really.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  If there were one positive Riley could take from being wrestled to the floor by an angry, half-dead fucker, it was the fact his left shoulder had clicked back into place.

  And that was about the extent of the positives he could take.

  He felt the hands dig into the tops of his arms. Felt the nails sink into his skin. Not Cal’s wife, Sadia—she was still over by the door, heading to Riley’s position slowly. Another one. So somebody else had been in here after all. Somebody else had been watching. Waiting.

  Riley pushed back, the taste of sick filling his mouth. The thing on top of him was male. Not somebody he recognised. But he wasn’t creature, either. Not completely.

  He was one of those things.

  One of those things that had something to do with the blood moon.

  One of those things with the exploding heads.

  Well hurry up and explode. Hurry the fuck up and pop.

  Riley listened to the half-dead fucker’s teeth snap above him. He could smell that sweetness on its breath. That morbid sweetness that clung to all of these… whatever they were. He didn’t know yet. Only that whatever they were, they were spreading.

  And if he wasn’t careful, he’d be nothing but mush under the heavy hands of one of them very soon.

  He pushed back. Pushed back with all he had, no matter how heavy the weight on his chest was, how uncomfortable his breathing was. He looked around. Looked around the floor for the pistol. He’d dropped it. He’d dropped the pistol and…

  The rifle.

  Shit.

  He could feel it. Feel it digging into his back.

  If he could just turn around and grab it…

  The angry bastard above him started to laugh. A horrible, demonic laugh. Riley could see it now. Could see it clearly in the moonlight. Blood. Blood drooling from this monster’s lips. Blood seeping out of its nostrils.

  Not a bite in sight.

  Not a groan in sight.

  A human look in its eyes.

  But nothing human about its actions.

  Nothing human about its reasoning.

  As the thing pulled away from Riley, moved its rough hands towards his throat, Riley took the opportunity to swing to his left. To reach for his rifle. Failing that, he could grab the knife. He could grab the knife and stick it through its head and—

  He felt a force from his left.

  Felt something drag his left arm.

  Pull him back so he was lying flat on the floor.

  It took Riley a few moments to realise that Sadia was the one pinning him down.

  Two of them, now. Two of them, that sweet smell making him heave, the taste of it almost as disgusting. He tried to shuffle free; to break free of their grip.

  But he was stuck.

  He was trapped.

  There was no way he was grabbing anything.

  He thought about the situation he was in as Sadia’s mangled face moved closer towards him. As she scratched his skin with her long, broken fingernails.

  This was it.

  This was the moment he finally died.

  He couldn’t cheat death forever. He’d cheated it enough times already.

  This was the time death finally won the battle.

  Like it was his last life on one of Ted’s old video games.

  He lay there. Lay there and stared up at the things above him. Stared into the eyes of the man. Stared at the bloodied, fleshy mess where Sadia’s face once was.

  He stared up and he couldn’t do a thing.

  He’d lost.

  It was over.

  Everything was over.

  He thought he’d given up and accepted his fate when he felt Sadia’s fingernails stick into his chest, right between the ribs.

  She pushed them down. Kept on pushing, drawing blood.

  Then she kept on going. And Riley watched with horror as blood dribbled down his skinny body. As Cal’s wife kept on pressing her fingers further and further inside.

  And then he shouted. He wasn’t sure what he shouted, but he did. He’d wanted to die in dignity. Go down in silence.

  But he was scared.

  He couldn’t deny how scared he was.

  She was tearing him apart.

  She was ripping his chest apart.

  Just like Tamara.

  Riley struggled again. Fear built inside.

  Tamara.

  The look of terror in her eyes.

  Was this what she’d experienced?

  Was this what she’d gone through?

  Cal’s wife pulled open the skin on Riley’s chest. So much blood trickled out. He felt himself going cold. Felt his mouth filling with vomit.

  All the time, the other thing pinned him down.

  Watched.

  Like he was human.

  A spectator.

  Nothing more.

  Riley watched Cal’s wife pull her fingers away. He watched the blood roll down her arms. Watched her put those fingers into the man’s mouth. Watched him suck and lick all the blood away with his gnawed, swollen tongue.

  And then they looked back down at Riley.

  They both looked down at Riley.

  Lifted their hands.

  Riley squeezed his eyes shut.

  Braced for the impact.

  He felt the blood before anything else.

  Felt the lukewarm blood splash against his face. Against his searing chest.

  Felt something wriggling along his torso.

  It was only a few seconds later that he realised there’d been a blast.

  He didn’t want to open his eyes. Didn’t want to look. Didn’t want to accept his fate.

  They were fucking with him. That’s what this was. They were cognitive. They had some sense about them. And they were fucking with him.

  But when Riley did work up the courage to open his eyes, what he saw wasn’t at all what he expected.

  There was somebody standing above him. A man. Short, dark hair. Black. Five-foot-ten. Muscular. Riley recognised him, vaguely. Cody, he thought. Lived over on Dean Street with his wife and daughter.

  He was holding the pistol Riley had dropped.

  Sadia and the other attacker were both lying over Riley, their bloodied corpses completely still.

  “Get it off you. Right now. So I can finish it off.”

  Riley heard Cody’s voice. But he couldn’t really process it. Not with the shock. Not with the pain in his chest where Sadia tried to peel his skin away. “What…”

  “Keep very still. And knock it off you. Right now.”

  Riley didn’t understand.

  He didn’t understand what Cody was talking about.

  Not until he saw where Cody was looking.

  He glanced down at his stomach.

  Glanced down at the place on his body where he’d felt some movement.

  He’d thought it was just blood. Thought it was just one of his attackers toying with him.

  He still wanted to believe that when he saw what it really was.

  When he saw the little slimy worm-like bundle of flesh crawling up his stomach, crawling towards the wound on his chest.

  Riley shouted out. Whacked the thing away with the outside of his left hand.

  “Keep cool! Don’t lose… Shit.”

  Cody watched with disappointment as the thing disappeared across the floor, into the darkness.

  Riley lay there. Lay there, heart racing. All sense of pain had diminished. All sense of everything had gone.

  “What the fuck was that thing?” he said.

  Cody lowered the pistol. Walked over to Riley. Offered a hand. “Whatever it is, it’s killing our people. Now come on. We’ve got to get the hell out of this place.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  When Jordanna looked inside Hassan’s apartment, she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing.

  The room was still dark. It was still filled with undead. The air was still thick with their collective stench. The taste of blood and sweetness from Cal’s body could still be picked up even under all that rotting mass.

  “Are they…” Hassan started.

  He didn’t finish.

  And rightly so. Jordanna wouldn’t know how to finish either.

  The undead were all… they were all dead.

  Their heads had all burst.

  Jordanna lowered herself over the side of the window frame. Dropped back into Hassan’s apartment. She didn’t want to move any closer to the fallen undead in case this was some kind of trap. Some kind of—of new consciousness they were developing. She’d heard what the virus was like. It adapted. And in turn, the host adapted.

  She hoped this wasn’t just another adaptation.

  But how could it be?

  The undead were on the floor.

  Their heads were caved in.

  “I think I’m gonna be…”

  Again, Hassan didn’t finish. He puked out of the window, onto the zombie-covered street below.

  “How does this happen?” Jordanna asked.

  James walked around the room. He kept his eyes on the bloodbath below. His feet slushed through the mess of blood, the collection of insides. He stopped. Reached for the rifle he’d been forced to leave behind. Picked it up.

  It dripped blood.

  Thick, red blood.

  “I mean… nobody could’ve done this.”

  Hassan lifted his head. “Somebody must’ve…” More retching. More vomiting.

  “No,” Jordanna said. “Nobody did this. It’s… it’s like their heads burst.”

  She had a flashback. A flashback to what Riley said about Billy that night of the blood moon. About what happened to Cal earlier that night.

  She’d watched his head explode. Out of nowhere.

  Now the heads of the undead were exploding.

  What was going on?

  What was happening?

  James walked over to the apartment door. At least, what remained of it. He dragged some of the bodies away. The heavy, decaying corpses.

  “Want to be careful moving them,” Jordanna said.

  James didn’t seem too fussed about being careful.

  He just kept on dragging them away from the door.

  Kept on moving them so a gap formed, slowly but surely.

  A gap out of this room.

  Out of this place.

  “I don’t understand,” Hassan said. He wiped his mouth. Took a few deep breaths. Composed himself as well as he could. “I just… How does this happen? How do they just…”

  “Explode?” Jordanna said.

  She looked Hassan in the eye. And she saw from the way he looked back at her that he understood completely now. Understood that Riley was telling the truth all along.

  He hadn’t killed Stanley.

  He hadn’t killed Tamara.

  He hadn’t—

  “Fuck!”

  James.

  Jordanna turned. Expected to see him pinned down. Fighting off one of the undead.

  But he wasn’t.

  He was just standing back.

  Rifle lifted.

  Aiming into the dead mass.

  “What’s up?” Jordanna asked.

  “Saw something move.”

  “You want to step away from—”

  “It wasn’t one of these. It was… it was…”

  Jordanna saw his throat bob. He looked up at her. Saw the confusion in his eyes amidst the pain.

  “I guess it was a rat. Or something.”

  He lowered his gun and carried on clearing out the door.

  “So say something is happening,” Hassan said. “Say—say their heads are all exploding. Where does that leave us?”

  Jordanna walked back towards the window, over the sticky carpet. “Where does what leave us?”

  “Is… If the zombies all die out. If this is what kills them. Where does it leave us? Where does it leave the world?”

  Jordanna knew what Hassan was getting at. And yet it was something she hadn’t really considered before. Say the zombies were to disappear miraculously. The mistake movies and books made was that they assumed it meant order would somehow be restored. That if the zombies were dealt with, the problem was dealt with, and everyone lived happily ever after in a brave new world.

  But the damage had already been done. This generation, and the next, and the one after that, they’d all been scarred. Scarred by the brutality. Desensitised by the violence they’d witnessed, the violence they’d carried out.

  They couldn’t go back to a normal world. A world of order. A world of respect and courtesy and common fucking decency.

  They couldn’t, because they were a product of this world now.

  They were as much a product of this world as the zombies.

  And that thought was fucking terrifying.

  She stopped when she reached the window.

  When she looked down at the crowd of zombies below.

  “Holy fuck.”

  She stared down below. Heard Hassan rush towards her.

  “What is it?”

  Jordanna didn’t have to answer Hassan.

  On the road below, where the crowd of zombies prowled just moments ago, there was stillness.

  There was silence.

  And there was blood.

  Lots and lots of blood.

  All of it seeping from the skulls of the undead.

  All of it drifting across the road, into the gutters.

  “They… they’re dead too?”

  Jordanna couldn’t take her eyes off the scene below. “When—when we were heading to Birmingham. There was something there. A signal.”

  “The Radion?” Hassan said.

  “Yeah. It—it was designed to destroy the zombies. But it affected us too. Do you think maybe someone else is using it? And that’s what’s killing them?”

  Hassan shook his head. “The only Radion was in Birmingham. There’s no way anyone else is using it at any of the other Living Zones. Unless…”

  Jordanna saw Hassan go pale. Saw the uncertainty creeping across his face. “Unless what?”

  “Well it’s… it’s entirely possible somebody else got inside the BLZ. Someone who knows how to operate technology like that. But if they did, it’s…”

  He stopped again.

  “It’s what?”

  “It’s dangerous,” Hassan said. “It’s—it’s strictly to be used in limited doses. We tried it. Tested it. Too much of a risk to the general population. To all of us.”

  “So what you’re saying is… it’s possible someone’s ramped up the release of that signal.”

  “Unlikely. But if they have…”

  Hassan continued his habit of failing to finish.

  Only this time, Jordanna saw his lips were still moving.

  She felt dizzy.

  Tasted blood in her mouth.

  Smelled rusty metal in the air.

  Rusty metal and sweetness.

  “Jordanna?”

  She heard Hassan. Heard him and wanted to tell him she was okay. That everything was okay.

  But the next thing she knew, she was on the floor.

  She was surrounded by total darkness.

  And then she knew nothing.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “Not to go on. But seriously. What the fuck was that thing?”

  Riley and Cody ran down the narrow alleyways of the MLZ. The first signs of dawn were approaching, more of a blueness to the previously jet black sky. It was a stuffy morning. Probably not helped by all the blood Riley was soaked in, all the sweat clinging to his body.

  Especially didn’t help that his chest was still aching like mad.

  “I don’t know what it was,” Cody said, as he led the way down the alleyway, past the tall apartments. It’d gone so quiet around the MLZ. Like the creatures had just… stopped, somehow. Riley couldn’t understand it. He hoped it didn’t mean they’d all found their way inside. He hoped it didn’t mean they were settling down, whatever settling down was to them.