Hassan watched Riley walk over to the moustached man. He watched him crouch above him. Covered in sweat. Covered in blood. But alive. Completely and utterly alive.

  The moustached man writhed around on the ground. Riley looked down at him. There was a dullness to his eyes. An anger.

  “You okay, Hassan?” Riley asked.

  Hassan cleared his throat. Looked to the side at the rotting crowd. “I… We need to—”

  “Don’t worry about them,” Riley said.

  He pulled the axe from the moustached man’s chest.

  The moustached man cried out.

  “Their meal’s right here.”

  And then he brought the axe crashing down on the man’s left hand.

  And then again and again until his hand was detached.

  He pulled the hand from the moustached man’s bleeding body.

  Walked over to the mouth of the zombie crowd.

  “Come on,” he said, standing by Hassan’s side. “There’s nothing for us here.”

  Riley threw the dismembered hand into the mass of undead.

  And then with Hassan by his side, he ran away from the bloodied scene.

  Away from the rotting horde.

  Away from the scene of the showdown.

  It took the moustached man six seconds to start screaming. Six long seconds for the undead to reach his position, start ripping him to shreds.

  He didn’t stop screaming for twenty-four seconds after that.

  And Hassan felt completely fine about it.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The clouds thickened over Rivington.

  It’d been such a beautiful day earlier. So nice. So sunny. Warm, even. Not anymore. Not now the clouds had arrived. They seemed to have taken all the goodness of summer away. Robbed it. Fitting, really. Fitting, considering the circumstances.

  Rain pattered against the reservoir. The wind brushed against the tall trees. There were no sounds. No sounds of birds. No sounds of the dead. Just a stillness. A stillness other than that wind, other than the rustling breeze.

  There were no sounds other than Jordanna.

  Her panting.

  She kneeled against the road. The gravel was rough, tearing through her trousers, cut her knees. But she knew that didn’t matter. She knew a cut to the knees was irrelevant. It counted for nothing going forward.

  Because there were much more serious matters at hand.

  She tasted blood on her lips. They were sore, chapped from when she’d had the tape snapped away from her mouth earlier. They were dry. Her bandaged right hand stung, as did her right leg, which the hybrid had attacked.

  But again. All this was irrelevant. None of it would matter. Not in the grand scheme of things.

  Not when she had a rifle pointing at her.

  “Please,” she muttered. Talking hurt. Moving her lips in the slightest manner hurt. She looked into his eyes. Looked into the eyes of the man holding the weapon. The man she knew.

  No.

  The man she thought she knew.

  “It doesn’t have to be this way. It doesn’t have to end this way. Please.”

  She didn’t like begging. She’d always been raised up on the premise that begging was a bad thing. A sign of weakness. That begging didn’t really get anybody anywhere in this world.

  She knew begging for her life was similarly futile. Because the man holding the gun had already made his mind up. He’d already brought her here. After everything they’d learned about each other—everything they’d shared—he was still going ahead with this.

  He was still getting his revenge.

  A kind of justice.

  “You don’t have to do this. We’ve both done things we regret.”

  “Be quiet.”

  “No. I won’t be quiet. I won’t be fucking quiet because—”

  “There’s nothing else to do. This is the only way.”

  “It’s not the only way.”

  “It is.”

  She looked into James’ eyes and she saw it then. Saw the certainty. The decision. She saw that spark in his eyes.

  He was going ahead with this.

  He was getting his revenge.

  Even after everything they’d talked about, everything they’d discussed, everything they’d discovered, he was getting his revenge.

  “James. Tamara wouldn’t want this. She wouldn’t want us fighting like this. She’d want us together. She’d want all of us together. You know that.”

  Tears filled James’ eyes. His bottom lip started to shake. “I know.”

  He wiped away his tears.

  “Sorry.”

  AND THEN THERE WAS A MEMORY.

  A sudden memory sparked in Jordanna’s mind.

  A memory that came to her when she saw the boots James wore. Those black boots. Those thick black Timberlands.

  “You… You did it.”

  She looked up. Saw the surprise in James’ face. No. Not surprise. Guilt. A look of guilt in his eyes. A look of shame.

  Shame that permeated inside Jordanna in a completely different form.

  Shock.

  “You kicked her down,” Jordanna said.

  James’ face dropped. Jordanna had been told about such a phenomenon in the past. When people were in severe states of shock, their expressions just sank. All emotional facades broke away. The true shell of a person underneath reared its head for the world to see.

  “I didn’t—”

  “You did,” Jordanna said. Memories of that fateful night of Tamara’s murder flooded back to her. Cloudy memories. Dreamlike, even. All bathed in red. But as real and lucid as the scene in front of her.

  She walked over to Tamara, knife in hand.

  Tamara stood. Tried to get away.

  But someone grabbed her.

  Someone pushed her back to the ground.

  Someone kicked her while she was down.

  Someone held her down for Jordanna to kill…

  Someone with black Timberland boots.

  James.

  “You kicked her down and you held her down,” Jordanna said.

  James was crying now. The gun in his hand shook. Emotion had overtaken him. He wasn’t saying a word. Wasn’t saying a single thing. He was just standing there and pouring his emotions out.

  “And you couldn’t face it. So you… you brought me here. That’s why you brought me here. Because you knew I’d—”

  “I didn’t mean to hurt her,” James said.

  “No. I know you didn’t. I know none of us—”

  “But my baby,” James said, lips shaking, teeth chattering. “We… We killed my baby.”

  Jordanna felt her eyes watering, stinging. She shook her head as the breeze picked up, as specks of rain fell from the morning sky. “That’s not true.”

  “It is true.”

  “You didn’t do this. None of us did this.”

  “Then who did?” James said.

  Jordanna opened her mouth.

  She couldn’t say a word in response.

  She could only sit there, silent.

  James sniffed. He leaned back against the brick wall of the bridge. Pointed his pistol back at Jordanna. “You know, all my life I’ve just wanted one thing. To make other people happy. To please other people. To cheer people up. But fuck. Now I see. Now I see how it really is. Should’ve seen it long ago.”

  “You can still be that person.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You’re a good person, James. A fucking good person. Right from the moment I met you. You’re—”

  “There’s two bullets in the pistol.”

  “James, listen to yourself.”

  “I’m gonna do what I have to do.”

  “James, don’t—”

  “For Tamara. For my baby.”

  “James, you don’t have to—”

  Jordanna stood.

  But then the blast echoed through the woods.

  She felt the pain in her abdomen. Tasted metal in her mouth.

  And as she looked into James’ eyes, she thought she saw shock. She thought she saw regret.

  She thought she saw a realisation of what he’d done.

  And then she fell to her knees.

  Smacked her face against the brick.

  She swore she saw something watching from the woods as her vision softened, as her sense of sight, sound, taste, smell, all drifted away.

  She clutched her stomach and listened to the trickling of the water.

  She heard a second blast.

  Then, silence.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Riley wiped the blood of his victims from his hands.

  The sun was at its midpoint now. That space in the day that nobody could really decide whether was morning or afternoon. There was a thickness to the air. A mugginess.

  And sure. The blood on Riley’s hands, deep in the crevices of his skin, didn’t help.

  He stood at the end of a street. He could hear Hassan’s footsteps catching up behind. He could hear the footsteps of the oncoming creatures, too. They were approaching. They were always approaching.

  But they didn’t phase him. Not anymore.

  They weren’t what mattered right now.

  He looked at the fallen walls. The fences they’d done their best to reconstruct. He thought about the hurt they’d all gone through to get that place standing again. To establish a sense of normality even after Mr Fletch half-ruined the place.

  He thought about the camaraderie between people. The love. The respect.

  All of that was gone now.

  There wasn’t any time for sentiment.

  Hassan stopped by Riley’s side. He put his hands on his knees. Sweat rolled off his face. He was panting heavily. There were bloodied bandages wrapped around the stubs of his dismembered fingers. Something he’d seen to on the road a few miles back. Hassan was a doctor, after all. He knew the basics.

  But the basics weren’t easy when you were missing four fingers.

  It’d do for now. Without the luxury of a good medical system. Without the fortune of somebody to rely on. A safe place to heal.

  It’d do.

  ’Cause that’s the world they lived in.

  That’s the world they were returning to.

  Again.

  “We need to decide what we’re doing,” Hassan said. Every word sounded a panted struggle. “We—we need to decide what we’re doing and where we’re going.”

  Riley licked his dry lips. Tasted a coppery twang of blood. “We know where we’re going.”

  He walked ahead.

  Hassan stayed put a few seconds. Then he followed Riley. Caught him up again. “You might think you know where you’re going. But I don’t have a fucking clue. So if you don’t mind enlightening me.”

  Riley stopped. He looked down at the cracked tarmac of the abandoned road. The road out of the MLZ. The road out of Manchester. The road outside the city, into the moors, the woods, the wilderness.

  He crouched. Put his finger in a small pool on the road. Dabbed his fingertip onto his tongue. Gasoline. Definitely gasoline.

  “Riley, don’t take this the wrong way but you’re acting off. There’s people out there who need our help. Cody. He’s in the woods. We need to get to him before—”

  “You go after Cody,” Riley said. He stood. Wiped his fingertip against his black leather jacket.

  “And what? You’ll stay around here tasting puddles?”

  Riley smiled.

  He looked beyond Hassan. Looked back at the fallen MLZ walls. He could smell the rot of its invaders from here. And who knew when they’d die? Who knew when those parasitic things would burst out of the creature heads and render them deader than undead all over again? Who knew if they even would?

  Nobody knew.

  But they couldn’t stay around to find out. Not this time.

  He looked at the road ahead.

  “James took Jordanna.”

  “James? He’s—”

  “He took her in a car and drove her out of here. I think he wants revenge. For what happened to Tamara.”

  Silence. Just for a moment. But a moment that stretched on for eternity.

  “I don’t… James wouldn’t—”

  “He did,” Riley said. “And I worry about what’ll happen if we don’t find him. If we don’t find Jordanna. Don’t you worry about that?”

  Hassan’s head lowered. He stared at the road, wide-eyed. “So she’s alive?”

  “I hope so,” Riley said. “I hope so.”

  He turned again. Looked at the long road. Looked at the abandoned buildings either side. The smashed windows. The dusty pavements.

  Further in the distance, the way out of North Manchester.

  And even further than that, the trees.

  The hills.

  “The gasoline is pretty fresh,” Riley said. “There’s been more patches like this all the way from the MLZ. Doesn’t matter anyway. I think I have an idea where he’s gone. A place he took Tamara to. Rivington.”

  “So we just, what, go there on the off-chance that’s where he’s gone?”

  “Yes,” Riley said. “That’s exactly what we do.”

  He took a deep breath of the sour air.

  Started to walk.

  “When we find them,” Hassan said. “If we find them. What then?”

  Riley held his head high. Slowed down. Turned and looked Hassan in the eye.

  “If we find Jordanna, we start again. Find somewhere safe. Well. Not safe. But somewhere else.”

  “And James?”

  Riley had thought long and hard about James. He’d thought about the good man he knew. Thought about the man who’d supported him when he’d struggled with the booze. He’d thought about the loving partner to Tamara. The excited dad.

  But the one memory he couldn’t shake was the look on his face when he took Jordanna away and left Riley for dead.

  “We’re going to kill him,” Riley said. “I’m going to kill him.”

  Hassan didn’t say a thing in protest. He just stared on, wide-eyed.

  Riley looked back at the road ahead.

  Took another deep breath.

  And then, without looking at the MLZ for what he knew would be the final time, he walked.

  Walked down the long, empty road.

  Towards the city exit.

  Towards the hills.

  Towards the woods.

  FROM THE WOODS, they watched.

  They stalked the darkness. All forty-six of them. Stalked the darkness and waited for prey.

  Because this was their world now.

  This was their world because it’s exactly how they’d been designed.

  From the woods between Riley and Hassan, Jordanna and James, they watched.

  They watched with their blackened skin.

  With their sharpened teeth.

  With their angry eyes.

  They watched and they waited.

  Because although Mr Fletch was gone, his Orion project wasn’t dead yet.

  It was just getting started.

  EPISODE THIRTY-SIX

  TURBULENCE

  (SIXTH EPISODE OF SEASON SIX)

  Maryam gripped the armrest and prayed for a safe landing.

  The sky was dark outside. Not that she liked looking out the window too much. It scared her too much. The only time she looked outside was during take off. At least that way, she’d be able to watch the plane make its upward trajectory. Watch it climb on nothing but air, hurtle into the clouds and forty-thousand feet into the nothingness above.

  She’d heard stories. Rumours. Apparently the first three minutes of a flight were the most dangerous. So she spent those entire first three minutes counting silently. And then the next three minutes too, just for comfort, just for security.

  To be honest, she spent the whole flight counting.

  The weather outside was windy. They’d warned of minor turbulence over the speaker system. Everyone was shaken up as it was already. The plane was half full, which was rare for Dubai Express. They were premium flights. Full of business types, usually. Boeing 787 Dreamliner, so the latest and the best.

  But flights were never full these days. Not anymore.

  Not since the news from the west.

  She stared at the screen on the back of the seat in front of her. Watched the happy images scroll across of life in sunny Dubai. Of the beautiful beaches, the fancy cars and the elegant hotels. And as she ascended even higher, Maryam longed for home already. What was she doing? Why was she taking this risk?

  Of course, the answer was always the same.

  She was doing it because it was her job to do it.

  Oh. And there was a man involved, too. She liked European men.

  She listened to the engine rumbling. Listened for any sign that it might not be running correctly. That something was amiss. The air conditioning was useless. No middle ground. It was either too cold and strong or too weak and stiflingly hot. Besides, there was always the risk of infection when it came to air conditioning. Always the risk of germs spreading from person to person.

  Everyone was paranoid about germs now.

  She looked to her right. The two seats by her side were vacant. Over on the seats parallel, a Chinese man sat. He had a white mask over his mouth. He was reading a newspaper. She couldn’t see the words properly from here, but she knew what the headlines would be discussing. They’d be discussing the very thing the whole world was discussing.

  The Chinese man looked up. His eyes softened. He raised his eyebrows, tilted back his head.

  Maryam nodded at him in a similar fashion.

  A pure exchange of “what the fuck are we doing on this flight?”

  Maryam leaned back. Closed her eyes. Sucked on the cherry Lifesavers she’d bought at the airport. Truth be told, they weren’t doing much of a good job. Making her feel sick. Making the stomach acids seep up into her mouth. She couldn’t throw up. Not again. Especially not while the seatbelt signs were on.

  Just calm down. Just pull yourself together. You’re safer up here than you are down there.

  She watched the images of her destination scroll through her mind. Iceland. Reykjavik. She was heading there on business to discuss a new geothermal energy contract. As the world’s oil supplies ran low and the stance on nuclear power seemed to be taking a U-turn, the whole world suddenly had an interest in Iceland and its geothermal wonders. She was supposed to be meeting a man called Thor at the airport. He looked cute in his photographs. Maybe they could take a dip in the Blue Lagoon before they departed for Hveragerði.