There was just something strange about the feel of things right now.

  Like something had changed.

  Like something was different.

  And it all went back to that… that thing Riley had seen crawling across his body.

  “All I know is I’ve seen two of ’em now. One of them back then. And another of them…”

  Cody stopped. Looked at the ground. Riley knew from the way his voice just gave way that he’d lost someone. He knew that look and sound from a mile away.

  “I’m sorry,” Riley said.

  “No you’re not. Nobody’s sorry. It’s all just normality, right? All just… just the way the world goes now.”

  “Doesn’t mean I’m not sorry.”

  Cody opened his mouth. Like he was about to argue once again. Then he closed it. Shook his head. “Shall we go find your friends, or what?”

  Riley nodded. He stepped past Cody. He hadn’t asked Cody to join him in finding Jordanna, Hassan, James. Cody was insistent about getting out of the MLZ as quickly as possible. But when Riley mentioned going back for someone he cared about, it was like something took over Cody. Like something possessed him, changed his entire perspective.

  And now the pair of them were on a suicide mission back to the heart of the MLZ.

  Back to find Jordanna. James. Hassan.

  To get them out of this place.

  Cody panted as he ran. “Still not figured out how we’re actually gonna get into those apartments if they’re really as blocked in as you say they are.”

  Riley held the rifle tightly. His shoulder ached. His chest throbbed. He knew he needed to get it seen to. Get it stitched up. But he didn’t really have the luxury right now. “We’ll find a way.”

  “Appreciate your faith, Riley. Makes a change to the guy I thought you were.”

  “The guy you thought I was?”

  Cody side-glanced at Riley. “No disrespect. But you don’t exactly have the best reputation around this place.”

  Riley thought about telling Cody exactly what he’d done to survive. Exactly the lengths he’d gone to in order to keep so many other people alive.

  Instead, he just tilted his head. “I guess I’ve done a job of earning that reputation myself.”

  They kept on running through the streets. The sky grew lighter, lighter. There was still a pungent smell about the MLZ, but the sound was still absent. To think of it, they hadn’t encountered a zombie for ages.

  “This is the exit,” Cody said.

  Riley lifted the rifle as he approached it. Didn’t want to take any chances. He had a weapon, and he knew it was a noisy weapon, but fuck. He was going to have to use something if he wanted to get to Jordanna and the others.

  If he wanted to get out of this place.

  Use another of his ninety-trillion lives.

  They backed up against the wall. Started to turn around it.

  “They were all gathered on the left in front of the apartment windows when I was last here,” Riley said. “So we turn this wall. We fire at the windows opposite. Distract them. And then we…”

  Riley stopped.

  He stopped when he saw the creatures lying on the road.

  He lowered his gun. Stepped out from behind the wall. Out of the alleyway.

  The creatures were all still there. All still clogging up the street.

  Only they weren’t walking anymore.

  They weren’t groaning.

  They were dead.

  “What the fuck?” Cody muttered.

  A sickly taste filled Riley’s mouth. He saw the state of the creatures’ heads. Saw the way they’d burst. Like a mini-explosion had erupted inside them.

  “Just like what’s happening to the people,” Cody said.

  Riley nodded. Raised his gun. Pointed it at the fallen creatures, just in case. “Just like it.”

  He walked down the silent street. Clambered over fallen bodies. In the windows of the apartments, he could see movement. People starting to emerge with the imminent rise of the sun. People looking on in horror. But also in confusion.

  What was happening to their city?

  What was happening to the creatures?

  “I know it makes sense to stand and gawp,” Cody said. “All in the gawping mood right now. But really. We need to get inside there.”

  Riley saw movement.

  Saw it right in the middle of the bodies.

  Something scuttling about.

  And then another.

  Flesh.

  Flesh scuttling about.

  No. Not flesh.

  Those… those things.

  “We need to get inside,” Riley said.

  “Right,” Cody said. “Right. Just what I was saying. Grand plan. Wise plan. Which place is it—”

  “Riley?”

  The voice.

  The familiar voice from right above.

  Riley looked up.

  Looked up at Hassan’s apartment.

  “Holy shit,” he said. “I’ve never been more relieved to see your face.”

  Hassan was looking out the window.

  Only he…

  Shit.

  His face was covered in blood.

  So too were his hands.

  And that look on his face.

  That fucking look.

  Riley didn’t think about his next actions. He just lowered the rifle and ran.

  Ran towards the entrance to Hassan’s apartment block.

  Pushed aside the mass of fallen undead.

  Felt the pain in his chest getting sharper, more pronounced.

  But it didn’t matter.

  He just had to get to Hassan’s apartment.

  Jordanna.

  She had to be okay.

  She had to be.

  “Riley!” Cody shouted. “Hell’s sake, man. Slow down.”

  But Riley didn’t slow down.

  He couldn’t.

  He kept on climbing over the pile of bodies.

  Climbed over them ’til he reached the stairs.

  Then ran up the stairs, ran all the way up until he was on the eighth floor.

  He looked down towards Hassan’s apartment door. Saw how it’d crumbled away.

  And a part of him didn’t want to walk up to it. A part of Riley didn’t want to see what was inside.

  But another part of him felt… prepared.

  Ready.

  Ready to see.

  Ready to accept.

  Then, ready to get his revenge.

  He heard Cody catching up with him. Heard him saying something else.

  But again, he didn’t wait up.

  He pushed on.

  Pushed on to Hassan’s apartment door.

  Pushed on, climbing over fallen bodies, slipping on punctured eyeballs, on loose intestines.

  He stopped right beside the door.

  He stood there. Stood still for a few seconds. Stared down the corridor. He knew he was close to finding out. Finding out the truth. But again, that desire to just deny the reality set in.

  No.

  He’d done enough denying as it was already.

  Way, way too much.

  So he held his breath.

  Turned around.

  Looked inside Hassan’s apartment.

  James was crouched down by the kitchen counter. Hassan stood over him.

  And in James’ arms, held just above the floor, Jordanna.

  Relief filled Riley’s body when he saw her face. Because it meant she was okay. It meant she didn’t have the thing inside her. It meant her head hadn’t…

  And then when he got closer, he saw Jordanna’s eyes.

  Saw the way they were twitching. The way they were rolling up into her skull to an impossible degree, then back again.

  The blood drooling out of her mouth.

  Her muscles, all tensed.

  “What… what’s—”

  “She just passed out,” James said.

  Riley approached her. Crouched down beside her. Took one of her hands. It was cold. Shaking. Tightening and loosening like someone was inside her, pulling her strings like a doll.

  “Wake up, Jordanna,” Riley said. “Please. Please, wake up.”

  He tightened his fingers around her hand.

  Squeezed his eyes shut.

  Pressed his head against hers, which was sweaty. Warm.

  “Please wake up.”

  Jordanna kept on twitching.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Jordanna saw the red moon shining above and carried on walking down the alleyway.

  It was dark. So dark. But tinged with red. A calm red. A red that made her feel… warm. That made the buildings of the MLZ feel alive, like they were radiating heat, life.

  She walked past buildings she knew she’d walked past many times in her life already. Brown-bricked buildings. Red-bricked buildings. Shops. Apartments.

  She walked, because it’s all she could do.

  It’s all she could do in the glow of the red moon.

  And she knew exactly what she had to do.

  She could hear things. Voices. Scratching away at her mind. Deep within, a sense of sickliness pervaded the calm. Because although she knew why she was here—although her mind convinced her she was okay, this was the right thing to do—a small part inside her cried out, told her it wasn’t.

  Told her this was wrong.

  Very wrong.

  But still she kept on walking down the alleyways.

  Still, she kept on following the trail.

  She knew other people were around her. Other people walking, just like her. She could smell them. Smell their rotting flesh. It seemed both familiar and distant, like the memory of a dream. Yes. That’s what this felt like. That’s what all of this felt like. A dream.

  The sour taste building in her mouth.

  On her lips.

  She felt something. Felt something squeeze her hand. And she had a vague sense then that she was in fact dreaming. No, more than dreaming. Recollecting events. Events she knew had happened. Events she couldn’t deny.

  She’d seen herself walk through her old apartment.

  Seen herself scratch at the palms of her hands.

  Rub the blood against the kitchen worktop; the blood she’d seen when she went back to her apartment the day after Tamara was found.

  She’d watched herself wipe her bloodied hands against the wall.

  She’d even seen Riley pass out, start traipsing around, following her to Tamara and James’ as the glow of the moon peered in.

  But then he’d slipped. Cut his hands on the gravel.

  And then he’d walked away.

  But there was something else. Something after Riley. Another memory. The last part.

  It was the last part of her memory she was uncertain about.

  The last part of her memory she didn’t want to accept.

  But she was seeing it now. She knew she was seeing it now.

  Nothing she could do to fight it.

  Nothing she could do to stop it.

  She turned the corner of the alleyway and she saw her.

  She was standing there. Standing still. Staring up at the red sky.

  There was a look of understanding in her eyes. A look of understanding that calmed Jordanna even more. Because it justified what she was about to do. What she had to do.

  What the voice inside her told her was the right, the only thing to do.

  So she focused on Tamara.

  Focused on her as she stood there in the red glow.

  Many others standing around.

  Many others watching, hypnotised by the moon, by things they didn’t understand, but things they accepted.

  Then, Jordanna walked towards Tamara.

  And—

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “Jordanna?”

  Riley looked down at Jordanna as she lay on the blood-soaked carpet. Her eyes were partly open now. Her shaking and muscle tensing had stopped. So too had the bleeding from her mouth, her nostrils.

  She looked up at him through narrowed eyes and Riley hoped—prayed—she wasn’t one of those angry fuckers.

  He hoped to God she didn’t have one of those… one of those things, whatever the hell they were, inside her.

  “Jordanna? It’s me. It’s Riley. I’m here for you. I came back for you. It’s okay. I came back for you.”

  Riley saw a flicker of a smile on Jordanna’s face and it filled his body with warmth. So much so that the bloodbath of exploded heads, the smell of creature innards, the sound of Hassan, James and Cody discussing the next step all drifted into the background, all disappeared into irrelevance.

  Because Jordanna was alive.

  Jordanna was awake.

  “I came back for you.”

  “Riley.”

  “Yes. Yes. It’s me. It’s me.”

  He felt Jordanna’s hand tighten around his. She was acting like she’d just woken from a long stint under general anaesthetic. Her reactions were naive, dulled. She didn’t seem to have a proper grip on things.

  But she looked calm. She looked peaceful. She…

  Her eyes turned.

  Went bloodshot.

  She started breathing rapidly. Started shaking all over.

  “Jordanna?”

  Riley tried to keep hold of her hand. Tried to stroke her hair. Tried to reassure her. The others came over, all crowded around her, all stood over her and tried to reassure her in their own ways.

  “If she’s one of them, you know what we have to do,” James said.

  Riley couldn’t even process James’ words. He couldn’t even think about what James was saying. The implications of it.

  He just kept hold of Jordanna’s hand.

  Kept telling her she was going to be alright. Everything was going to be alright.

  And then Jordanna stopped shaking.

  Her breathing eased. Riley could still feel her heart racing.

  “It’s okay. I’ve got you. You—you’re here. You’re here with me.”

  She looked Riley in his eyes. This time, Riley didn’t see naivety. He didn’t see partly-conscious relief.

  He saw terror.

  “I… I can’t…”

  “Ssh,” Riley said. He stroked her forehead. She was burning up. “You just rest. You just rest and we’ll sort everything out. You don’t have to worry about a thing. I’ve got you.”

  Riley kept on stroking Jordanna’s head.

  Kept on holding her hand.

  She was gripping on tightly, now.

  So tightly that Riley could feel a dampness spreading onto his palm from hers.

  Blood?

  “The things. The little worm-like things. You saw them too?”

  James tilted his head. Kept hold of his rifle. “I saw something in here. Dunno what it was, but I saw something.”

  “Then what does it mean?” Hassan said.

  James shrugged. “Was hoping you could tell us a bit about what it means.”

  Hassan shook his head. “No. This isn’t… this isn’t anything we worked on at the BLZ. This is nothing to do with the signals or anything.”

  “Signal?” Cody asked.

  “There was a signal,” James said. “A signal at the BLZ. A defence mechanism against the undead. Cut a long story short, it popped a few too many good heads. We figured this was something to do with that.”

  Cody shook his head. “What’s happening here ain’t just a signal.”

  “And why are you so confident about that?” Hassan asked. “Why is it you’re so determined to prove this—this worm theory of yours?”

  “It’s not a theory.”

  “It sounds far-fetched to me.”

  “Any more far-fetched than the dead walking around? Any more fucking far-fetched than tar-skinned modified humans hunting ’em down, breaking through our walls? I’ll tell you what’s not fucking far-fetched. My daughter’s head. The shape of my Kelly’s head when I put her down. And the thing that wriggled out of it when I did.”

  Hassan went quiet. Looked at the floor. James just stood still, distant and hazy, staring over at Riley, at Jordanna.

  Cody wiped under his eyes. “My Kelly. My Kelly was standing over my wife, Sasha. Standing over her with a blade. My blade. I coulda froze. I coulda tried to bargain with her. I guess that’s what’s supposed to happen. ’Cause a father can’t kill his kid, right?”

  More silence.

  Jordanna kept on holding Riley’s hand.

  The horror still building up in her eyes.

  “But she… she came at me. And I knew she wasn’t my Kelly anymore. I knew right then she wasn’t a thing like my Kelly. ’Cause my Kelly wouldn’t do that. My Kelly wouldn’t hurt a fly. So I… I did what I had to do. I did all I could do to finish her off. To… to put her out of her misery.”

  He choked. Turned away. Waited a few seconds, then continued.

  “And then I saw it.”

  “One of those things you’re talking about?” Hassan asked.

  Cody nodded. “It wriggled out of her skull. Like a slug, only… only faster.”

  “What did you do to it?”

  “I stamped on it. But I saw more on my way to the weapon’s store. Then Riley and I saw another when we were in Cal’s.”

  Hassan turned to Riley. “You saw one of these things?”

  Riley remembered the way the weird little wormy, slug-like creature crawled along his stomach, sneaking towards the split in his chest. “He’s not making it up.”

  Hassan sighed. Shook his head. “Then that takes us back to square one.”

  “Were we ever at square two, brother?” Cody asked.

  Hassan shrugged. “Fair point.”

  There was more silence. More silence as Hassan, James and Cody did their best job of clearing up the room. Outside, the sky was glowing orange now as the sun rose over the MLZ. Riley heard voices. People. Survivors.

  But he knew this wasn’t over.

  He knew there was something else going on now.

  Especially with the worms wriggling around.

  “Do you think that’s what… what took Tamara?” James asked.

  His voice was sudden and it knocked Riley sick.

  “What?” Hassan asked.

  “Tamara,” James said, staring across the room, rifle by his side. “She… she was worried. About the baby inside. Do you think maybe… maybe something happened back at the BLZ? And that’s what started all this. That they—they infected her with something and that’s what started all this?”