And then she remembered escaping that cell. Fighting off one of the Angries. Climbing out the window, cutting her… shit. Her hand. It was sore. No wonder. She’d put it right through some sharp glass.

  She’d landed outside. Rushed towards safety.

  Her stomach sank when she remembered the next part.

  James had been there. Standing there. Waiting for her.

  She’d felt relief when she’d seen him initially. Felt like she was being reunited with family. Because in a sense, that’s what he’d become. Family.

  She thought he was dead. He’d survived. She was relieved.

  But that look in his eyes.

  That… off look.

  Like something wasn’t right.

  Like he’d changed.

  It unsettled her right from the off.

  And then he’d captured her. Tied her hands and gagged her. Told her Riley would be back for her. Told her he wouldn’t leave her behind because he loved her.

  He was right. Riley did go back for her. He did find her.

  And then James…

  “You left him behind,” Jordanna said.

  James didn’t answer. No response, yet again. He just kept his foot on the gas. Kept on driving. Jordanna couldn’t even arch her neck to look in the rear-view mirror, to see if it really was James. She couldn’t even look him in the eye when she addressed him.

  She knew what that did. She’d learned it when she was a prostitute in the old world.

  Not having to look someone in the eye dehumanised them even more. It made them less… well, real. Human.

  Jordanna had no clue where she was going. But she was under no illusions about what she was heading to.

  Her death.

  “You don’t want to do this.”

  “I have to do this,” James said.

  Hearing him speak was a relief in itself. It was a start. A start of a conversation with someone she knew. Someone she’d known for months. Someone she counted as a friend.

  “It’s me, James. It’s Jordanna. I’m not some outsider. I’m not some threat. I’m your friend.”

  “You killed Tamara. You killed my baby.”

  “You know how it was, James. You know exactly how it was. I didn’t do it. I wasn’t in control of myself. None of the people standing around watching were in control of themselves. It’s—it’s the infection. Something to do with the blood moon. It changed people. It—”

  “You killed Tamara!” James shouted. “You killed my baby!”

  He turned around now. Turned and looked right at Jordanna. He was still driving. Still hurtling ahead. Even faster than before, in fact.

  But that look in his eyes. That look of pain. That look of grief. It terrified Jordanna.

  Because it wasn’t a look of someone she recognised.

  It was a look of someone who’d cracked.

  A look of someone who’d bent under the strain of loss.

  It wasn’t a look of a friend.

  He turned back around. The car swerved, and then straightened up again. Carried on hurtling down the road, hurtling towards whatever was ahead.

  And Jordanna just lay there. Just lay there, heart pounding. She hadn’t ever heard James shout like that before. Hadn’t heard him shout at anyone. He wasn’t that kind of person. He wasn’t a violent guy. He was sweet. He was kind. He was friendly and understanding.

  And he was going to kill her.

  “Just be quiet,” James said. A softness returned to his voice. “Be quiet and let me… just let me concentrate on driving. Please.”

  Jordanna didn’t want to be quiet. She didn’t want to adhere to James’ demands. She wanted to put him in his place. She wanted to fight. She wanted to beg.

  But she couldn’t.

  She just couldn’t.

  So she lay there.

  Lay there and watched the trees pass by. Listened to the sounds of the engine. Felt her body sway from left to right, left to right.

  She lay there and she waited for her arrival.

  Waited for her death.

  Because there was no way out now.

  There was no way out.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Cody and Hassan walked away from the Manchester Living Zone, walked away from the place they’d called home for so, so long.

  Cody was tired. His feet were sore. Couldn’t walk as quickly as he’d have liked because of his sprained ankle, too. It was easing off, though. And whenever he struggled, Hassan slowed down, stopped. Even came over and helped him. For all that guy’s flaws, he was pretty decent company when you had a sprained ankle.

  He just hoped he stuck around when it really counted.

  The sun edged lower in the sky. It was evening now, and there was a chill in the air. The nights were getting later, summer continuing its advance. And the extra daylight was good. It bounced off the canal on their right. Flickered on that murky, still water. Peeked through the green leaves of the trees, also still. It was nice. Hell, it was almost relaxing.

  But the constant threat of night lurked over Cody and Hassan. They didn’t say much. Didn’t talk much about the oncoming night or about anything for that matter. But Cody knew the worry was there. He knew the night was a problem.

  It’d been a long time since either of them had been out in the wild in the darkness.

  Nowhere to go.

  Nowhere to call home.

  “We’re gonna have to stop sometime soon,” Hassan said.

  And there they were. There were the words that Cody was dreading. He wasn’t sure why he feared them so much. Maybe it was something to do with the fact they didn’t have a home anymore. With the MLZ there, at least there was somewhere to go back to. There was someone to go back to.

  Sasha. Kelly.

  Not anymore.

  Nothing left for him back there.

  Nothing left for anyone back there.

  “Just a little further,” Cody said.

  Hassan stopped. Shook his head. “We’ve been walking for about four, five hours. We’ve barely made any ground ’cause of your ankle.”

  “My bad. I’ll try not to accidentally sprain it in future.”

  “I don’t mean it like that. I just… It’s good. It’s good that you’ve stayed active. It’ll heal quicker that way.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.”

  “But we need rest, too. We haven’t drank anything for hours. Haven’t eaten anything.”

  “Hardly gonna be a hot dog stall out here in the wild.”

  “Right. Which is why we need to rest.”

  Cody stopped. He looked around at the trees. The light seemed to be diminishing every minute, even though sunset was surely an hour or so away. He scanned beyond the trees. Looked for movement. Looked for a sign of life. “We keep going for another half hour at least. See if we can find anywhere safer.”

  Hassan sighed. His shoulders slumped, but he started walking again. “There is nowhere safe. Not out here.”

  “I didn’t say ‘safe’. I said ‘safer’.”

  “Fair point.”

  They walked a little further. Truth be told, Cody was struggling. His mouth was dry through lack of water. His stomach churned, at a stage so beyond hunger that he felt nauseated. He needed to shit. Fuck, he hadn’t missed it out here. Hadn’t missed it one bit.

  “You don’t seem like someone too comfortable out here in the wild,” Cody said.

  Hassan slowed. He bowed his head. “Neither do you.”

  “I didn’t have to spend long out here. One of the lucky ones. Lived in Salford. Pretty close by. But y’know. Still saw enough death.”

  “Yeah,” Hassan said. “I know.”

  “All cosy at the MLZ. The odd incident, the odd breakout, you know. All cosy ’til your folks showed up and bombarded the walls to shit.”

  “What Fletch did wasn’t my call—”

  “How long were you with him, anyway?”

  Hassan slowed a little more. His head was still down. Sure sign of someone shitting themselves about their own inner demons in this world was someone looking down. Someone with no awareness of their surroundings.

  In this world, you needed to look up.

  You needed to face what was in front of you.

  Head on.

  “I was there from the beginning.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “It’s not—”

  “I can hear it in your voice. I grew up with five sisters, pal. I know when someone’s lying.”

  Hassan looked at Cody. And in the diminishing light, Cody saw a look of guilt in his eyes. A look of pain.

  He opened his mouth like he was preparing to say something.

  Then he shook his head. “I don’t know how you can be so…”

  “So what?”

  “Nothing.”

  “No, go on. You don’t know how I can be so what?”

  Hassan looked at Cody again. There was more of a reluctance to his gaze this time. “I don’t know how you can be so chilled. After what you did. What you had to do.”

  Cody saw flashes of his daughter, Kelly.

  Of his wife.

  Of Kelly sitting over with that knife in hand.

  Of doing what he had to do to put his baby out of her misery.

  He took in a sharp breath. “You’ve had to do something similar. Haven’t you?”

  Hassan’s head bowed again.

  He looked away. Like he hadn’t heard Cody speak at all.

  “You can speak. If you need to. Speaking helps. But if you must know, I’m not calm. I’m far from calm. How could any father be—”

  “Is that a boat?”

  Cody frowned. He looked ahead, over to where Hassan was pointing.

  “Shit.”

  They walked over to the boat as quickly as they could. It was a canal boat. One of those wooden barges painted red and green. Just sitting there, tied up to a wooden pole.

  “You watch my back,” Hassan said. “I’ll check it out.”

  “You want to be careful in there.”

  “I’ve got it, alright?”

  Cody nodded. He watched Hassan creep up to the door. Raised his pistol. Cody gripped his pistol tighter in his hand. Wasn’t sure how much ammo he had left. Didn’t really want to know, in truth.

  Hassan grabbed the handle.

  Cody’s heart rate picked up.

  And then Hassan turned the handle and swung the door open.

  The first thing Cody noticed was the dust. A real dustiness to the place. Like it’d been untouched in weeks. Ignored by the Hoover.

  Then he noticed the smell.

  His body tensed when he noticed that smell. ’Cause Hassan was heading inside. He was heading inside and he hadn’t smelled it. He hadn’t—

  “It’s okay,” Hassan said. “It’s all clear.”

  Cody moved slowly towards the boat entrance. Poked his head inside.

  He saw right away what Hassan was talking about.

  Saw right away the source of the stench.

  There was a man. He was sitting upright at the back of the boat. Flies swarmed around him, around the boat. His skin was all shrivelled up. He looked like he’d been dead for some time.

  There was something etched into his neck.

  Something that looked like letters.

  “This place do?” Hassan asked.

  Cody walked closer towards the dead man. He didn’t answer Hassan. He wanted to see those letters. Wanted to make them out properly.

  “What you think happened to him?”

  Cody stopped right in front of the dead man.

  Lifted his chin.

  He saw the letters clearly now. Three letters. Letters he’d seen on attackers a few weeks back. On bandits that kept on launching small scale attacks and raids on the MLZ.

  Three letters.

  CoY.

  “It’s them,” Cody said.

  Hassan didn’t respond.

  Cody turned. “The bandits who…”

  He stopped.

  There was a man by the door of the canal boat.

  No. Two men.

  Three men.

  Four.

  All of them long-haired.

  All of them topless.

  All of them with those three letters etched on their chests.

  CoY.

  “Yeah,” the guy at the front said. He had greasy jet black hair, the scar across his face. “Yeah, it’s those bandits.”

  He smiled at Cody with rotting teeth.

  Held a dirty machete to Hassan’s neck.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Jordanna desperately needed to take a piss.

  She lay on the back of James’ car. They’d been driving for a good few hours now. She knew it’d been hours because the sun was starting its final descent. The sky was turning orange.

  She didn’t know where they were going. Didn’t know where James was taking her exactly. Only that wherever it was, it had to be some way out of Manchester. Somewhere with a lot of trees, a lot of fields. The Yorkshire Dales? The Lake District? Bearing in mind every journey took a little longer because of the debris and abandoned cars in every road.

  Fortunately, they hadn’t come across any undead.

  At least, not yet.

  And not that she knew about.

  Jordanna’s back ached. Her neck was stiff. Her mouth was dry and her stomach empty. She could smell sweat, and she knew it was her own. She wanted to stretch out. Wanted to itch her wounded leg. But she couldn’t. She was tied by the wrists, then tied down to the back seat. She’d tried wriggling free earlier, to no avail.

  This was just the way things were for now.

  “You remember the day we got back to the MLZ?” Jordanna asked. She figured begging was worthless. After all, a friend of hers had tied her up in the back of a car and was driving her into the middle of God-knows-where. Not much she could do to convince him otherwise, not anymore. “When we were together. The group. Me. You. Riley. Tam—”

  “I remember,” James said.

  It was the first words he’d said for what felt like hours. And yet Jordanna heard the pain emanating from them. The regret. Not for what he’d done, but for what he was about to do.

  “I remember the first time I ever arrived. The feeling I had when I got there. The wonder. The amazement that a place like that could exist. I didn’t think I’d ever feel good again. Didn’t think I’d ever feel normal again.” She smiled. “That place was good for all of us.”

  James was silent.

  “Then I remember being reunited with Riley fucking Jameson and everything going to shit.”

  She laughed. Recalled the horror she’d felt when she saw Riley. The anger bubbling inside when she’d come face to face with that man who’d abandoned her back in Preston. “Seemed like fate brought us back together. Only at the time I thought it was so I could kill the bastard.” She laughed again. Felt tears stinging her eyes. “Funny how things turn out.”

  She waited for James to respond. Waited for him to say anything.

  Still, he kept silent.

  Kept on driving.

  They were silent for a while longer. The darkness built outside. It made Jordanna uneasy. Something about the knowledge that it’d be the final sunset she ever saw.

  Reminded her of that red moon. The blood moon.

  The moon on the night that everyone went crazy.

  “When I was twenty-three, I got a man killed,” Jordanna said. She wasn’t sure where the words came from. Probably that same dark place of consciousness that always emerged whenever someone was desperate. Like a backup resource. An anecdotal storage system to try and convince somebody not to fucking kill you. To prove to them you’re human. That you’ve made mistakes. That you’re sorry.

  “I was working the streets,” she said. “One of my earlier years. Maybe three, four years since I left home. Got into some real weird shit. Kinky stuff. But hey. Weird shit pays. But anyway. One night it got too weird for me. I remember the man. Curtis, he called himself. Big fat bastard. Smelled him coming from the other end of the street. He hit me. And I said that was fine. I said he could pull my hair. Get things a bit heated, y’know. But he didn’t stop. He just…”

  She swallowed a lump in her throat.

  Tasted the blood in her mouth from the memory. Felt the sores and the bruises all over her face.

  “So I… I told my pimp. Told him about what happened. Told him about this guy. And Roger—my pimp—he cared for us. At least I thought he did, anyway. Said he’d keep a look out for him. Said he wouldn’t hurt any of his girls again. He liked to make us feel special. Liked to make us feel like we were his children.

  “But he didn’t show up. He went under the radar. And to be honest I’d forgotten about him. ’Til he turned up at my hotel door one day crying his fucking eyes out.

  “Now I was terrified. Didn’t know what to say. I just froze. He was babbling on about how sorry he was. About—about some problems he’d had. Mental problems. Problems that spawned from the way he was treated as a kid. Problems that reared their fucking head when his wife left him. He came back to apologise for everything he’d done to me. Then he dropped a thousand pounds outside my door and he left.”

  Silence in the car. Silence, as Jordanna collected her thoughts. As she fought the lump building in her throat.

  “Did you take the money?” James asked.

  James’ interest sparked something in Jordanna. Relief, perhaps. Because she had his attention. He was listening.

  That was something.

  That was progress.

  “I didn’t get the chance,” Jordanna said. “Curtis got stabbed eighteen times as he was leaving. One of Roger’s goons went down for it. Roger took the money. Walked over to me and smiled. Stroked my face with blood on his hands and told me everything was going to be okay. That I was safe now. That I was his angel. And I just couldn’t stop thinking about what Curtis said. About how desperate he’d looked. I couldn’t stop thinking how human he was as he lay there choking up his own blood in the middle of that corridor.”

  James didn’t say anything this time. The car had slowed a little though. Made it easier for Jordanna, who was almost pissing every time the car went over a bump.

  “Don’t do this, James,” Jordanna said. “Don’t let this stain your conscience. Please.”