Through those trees just ahead.

  Running water.

  Running water from the reservoir floodgates.

  Riley stood. Walked across the empty road. Every footstep was heavy. Part of him didn’t want to find out what hid in these woods. Part of him feared the worst. Jordanna, dead. James standing over her with one of those parasitic things sprouting out of his skull.

  His baby ravaged.

  He shook his head. Kept on moving. The longest walk he’d ever taken.

  The sound of running water got closer.

  And suddenly his surroundings appeared more familiar. Surroundings he’d seen when James showed him this place. The very place he used to bring Tamara.

  Riley was about to enter the woods and make his final approach on the running water when he saw blood.

  Just a little blood. A patch of it on the road beneath him.

  He looked down at it and prayed. Prayed it wasn’t Jordanna’s. Prayed it was just a coincidence.

  Behind, way into the distance, he heard the growls of the Orions.

  He walked on. Headed into the thickening trees. Every tree he stepped around, he expected to see them. To see Jordanna as a creature. Or James pointing a gun at him.

  He didn’t know what to expect. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to see.

  Was there a good way out of this mess?

  Was there any way he could go back? Forgive James? Move forward?

  His thoughts froze when he spotted the bridge up ahead.

  It was still. Everything was still. Everything except the sun glistening on the surface of the pool.

  Riley stepped closer. Legs numb. Chest tight.

  Mouth dry.

  Thoughts empty.

  He stopped when he reached the side of the bridge.

  James was lying back against the left wall. His eyes were closed. His skin was pale. A bite mark oozed blood on his right leg.

  A pistol rested by his side.

  Blood seeped out of a red hole on the right side of his head.

  Riley held his breath. Walked around the opening of the bridge to get a closer look. To see if…

  Then he saw her.

  Jordanna was lying down.

  She was still. Totally still. Like she was sleeping. Only she couldn’t be sleeping because she twitched when she slept. Twitched and shook and…

  She was lying in a pool of her own blood.

  Riley didn’t want to step towards her. He didn’t want to accept what was lying ahead of him. His eyes stung. His throat wobbled.

  But still he walked towards her.

  Still, he walked down the bridge.

  When he got close to Jordanna, he saw her eyes were closed. Saw the wound. And seeing it sickened him. Seeing it punched him in the stomach. Ripped out his heart.

  There was a bullet wound in her abdomen.

  A bullet wound from the pistol.

  Jordanna was gone.

  And so too was his—

  “Riley?”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Riley wasn’t sure where the voice came from.

  He didn’t register it. Didn’t understand it.

  Not right away.

  “Ri… Riley?”

  He stared down at Jordanna’s dead body. Her still body. Blood-soaked. Shot.

  Except no.

  She wasn’t dead.

  Her eyes were open.

  She was speaking to him.

  She was alive.

  He crouched down beside her. Wrapped his arms around her. Didn’t care that he covered himself in blood. Didn’t care about anything.

  Just that Jordanna was alive.

  She was alive and she was going to be okay because he was here for her.

  He pressed his lips against her hair, which although greasy, still had that smell of strawberries to it. That delicious smell. That fruity taste.

  “Riley I… It hurts, Riley. It hurts.”

  Riley held her tighter. Pressed his face up to hers. Kissed her repeatedly, his tears mixing with hers. “I know. I know but it—it won’t for long. ’Cause I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

  He looked into Jordanna’s eyes. Saw her bottom lip was shaking. She looked terrified. Like a lost kid. Completely defenceless. “I—I’m scared.”

  Riley stroked the back of her head. Kissed her on the lips this time. He tasted blood. Tasted it on her tongue. And it made his stomach roll. If he could taste blood in her mouth, that couldn’t be a good sign. That couldn’t be a good sign at all. “It’s okay to be scared. But I’m here. I’m here now.”

  “Are you—are you really here?”

  He smiled. Stroked her hair out of her sweaty face. “I am. I swear. I swear I’m…”

  His voice gave way when he saw the state of her abdomen once again. The blood pouring out of it. Pouring out from where she was pregnant. Their baby. The baby Jordanna didn’t even know about anymore.

  He’d got to Jordanna. He’d reached her.

  But the baby was gone.

  He had to accept that much.

  “He—James. He didn’t mean to… He was just hurting. He was just confused and—”

  “Ssh,” Riley said. He wrapped his arms around her once more. Felt warm blood seeping through to his chest. He held her close. “Don’t think about him. Don’t think about anything. Just… just ssh.”

  They sat there and held each other. They cried. They smiled. Riley felt the warmth of Jordanna’s body and it made him feel okay again. Because he’d found her. He’d done everything he could and he’d found her.

  And suddenly it didn’t matter that he could hear the Orions getting closer. It didn’t matter that the undead would be upon them soon. That they were out here, alone, lost.

  Because they were together.

  That’s what mattered.

  That’s what Riley had fought for.

  He felt the breeze against his face. Smelled the freshness of the air, which cooled as night approached. And as he listened to leaves blowing in the breeze, he understood why James loved this place so much. Why he used to love bringing Tamara here. Why it transported him to another world. A better world. A safer world.

  “He just loved her so—so much,” Jordanna said.

  “What?”

  “James. He… Tamara. He just loved her. So much.”

  Riley heard the guilt in Jordanna’s voice. It hurt him. Pained him.

  He lifted her chin softly. Kissed her. “You don’t have to feel guilty about anything. What James did. It was wrong.”

  “He helped,” Jordanna said, her eyes drifting. “When I… When I killed Tamara. He helped. He was there. He kicked her down. And it just… it ate him up. He cracked. He…”

  Her eyes closed.

  She drifted out of consciousness.

  “Jordanna,” Riley whispered.

  He moved her head either side with his blood-soaked hands. Sniffed back the tears.

  Her eyes stayed closed.

  “Jordanna, please!”

  But her eyes stayed closed.

  Her body stayed still.

  Riley cried. He pulled Jordanna’s body even closer and he cried.

  “Please, Jordanna. Please don’t go. Please.”

  He felt her heart beating even lighter.

  Felt it struggling to hold onto life.

  He grabbed her icy hand. Held it, tight.

  “Please. Just hold on. Just hold on. Please.”

  They crouched together in Jordanna’s blood.

  Crouched together opposite James’ dead body, his brains oozing out of the side of his skull.

  The water ran down the canal. The sunlight simmered against its surface.

  Wind brushed through the trees. And in the distance, the Orions approached. Hunting down their next kill. Closing in on their next meal.

  Further out, creatures. Hybrids. People. All kinds of horrors. All kinds of stories.

  All of them existing in a darkening world.

  A dying world.

  Riley held onto Jordanna’s hand.

  He held on and felt every single weak heartbeat.

  Felt every single twitch of every single muscle in her body.

  “Please, Jordanna. Please.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “I still don’t get why you can’t just tell me what it is.”

  Cody followed M into the darkness. They’d been walking for quite some time. A hell of a lot longer than Cody figured when she told him she had something to show him, anyway.

  Something to do with her understanding of how the virus had adapted into a parasite.

  Something to do with “studies” that were supposedly being undertaken.

  Shit Cody couldn’t get his head round. Shit that didn’t make sense.

  But shit that M seemed to understand a hell of a lot better than Cody could explain.

  She stopped. Stood behind a tree. Nodded to her left at a vacant tree beside her.

  Cody sighed. He stumbled over to the tree. Stood behind it. “You’ve had me standing behind–”

  “Ssh.”

  Cody shook his head. Tutted. Since they’d set off on their silent journey to wherever a few hours ago, he must’ve stood behind about a thousand trees. Waited behind them while M scouted out the area ahead.

  She was carrying a torch. But she wasn’t using it. Good job the moon was bright. Cody’s eyes were just about adjusting to his environment.

  Eventually, M nodded, and she started walking on again.

  Cody followed her some more. He felt the branches of trees scratching against him as they thickened. He felt the ground under his feet softening. He’d asked M where she was taking him a few times already. Asked her whether it was safe. Whether her people were safe back at their camp. They’d talked about the parasites. The way nobody could be trusted because the virus had the ability to take on the human form now, much like happened at the MLZ, leading to its downfall.

  So could he trust M?

  “It’s just ahead,” she whispered.

  Cody jumped. He didn’t realise M had stopped. He caught a breath. Nodded. “Swear you’ve said that half a dozen times already.”

  She smirked. It looked as unnerving as ever on the right side of her face—the burned side. “How else would I have got you to follow me?”

  “So you could technically be lying about… about ‘whatever’ being just ahead again?”

  “I could. But I’m not.”

  “You’d say that anyway.”

  “Yes. But what choice do you have but to follow your curiosity?”

  Cody shrugged. “I guess I don’t.”

  “There’s always a choice,” M said.

  And then she turned around and walked quicker ahead.

  Cody had to jog to catch up. “Wait. What’s with the sudden urgency?”

  M didn’t respond. She just kept on walking quickly, then jogging, then sprinting.

  It was only when Cody heard the gasps from the right that he realised exactly what she was running from.

  Undead. The classic type, God bless ’em. Four of them staggering out of the trees a couple dozen metres away.

  “Should I deal with them?”

  “On the way back,” M called.

  Cody stood there. He had a baseball bat in hand. She had a gun. Didn’t trust him to carry one. Not yet.

  “Shit.”

  He turned away from the undead army he so desperately wanted to kill and followed M.

  They soon lost the trail of the undead. The trees thickened even more. The ground grew strange, though. There were harder bits underfoot. Things Cody couldn’t quite make out through lack of light. M was still quite a way ahead. Shit. Couldn’t lose her now. Couldn’t let her slip away. Not after making it all this far.

  “Are we nearly…”

  A light illuminated up ahead.

  It took Cody a few seconds to realise it was from M’s torch.

  She’d had a frigging torch all along?

  She was still. Pointing the torch at something up ahead. As Cody staggered towards M’s position, he noticed an opening in the trees. No. Not an opening exactly. But a load of fallen trees. Trees that’d been brought down by… something.

  He reached M’s side. Squinted ahead. “What am I supposed to be looking at?”

  M didn’t say a word. She just kept the torch pointed ahead.

  Cody rubbed his eyes. Squinted some more. Should probably have invested in some glasses before—or even after—the world collapsed.

  It was then that he saw it.

  A pipe of some kind. A metal pipe. Only it’d been charred and distorted at the edges.

  “I don’t…”

  There were other pieces of metal scattered around the forest grounds too. Pieces of thick metal that looked like they were a part of the larger pipe. A pipe large and wide enough to fit Cody inside. To fit M inside.

  “It’s a metal pipe. And?”

  “Look closer.”

  Cody turned away from M. Looked at the light.

  He could see things inside the pipe. Seats.

  And on the seats…

  Shit.

  People.

  There were dead bodies strapped into the seats inside this pipe. Charred remains. Split skulls and torn chests.

  Flies buzzed around the corpses.

  The fresh-smelling corpses.

  “I… I still don’t…”

  Cody didn’t finish because he did realise.

  He understood.

  He understood when he saw the writing on the side of the metal pipe.

  He narrowed his eyes. Gulped. He walked over to the metal pipe. Walked towards it like a puppet on a string.

  He got it.

  He got what M was showing him.

  But how?

  It didn’t make sense.

  It didn’t… It just didn’t add up.

  He stood opposite the metal pipe—a metal pipe that wasn’t a pipe at all.

  No. Not a pipe.

  A—

  “It might not look significant,” M said, interrupting Cody’s train of thought. “It might seem remarkable but irrelevant. But I assure you. It’s very relevant.”

  She handed Cody something. A paper of some kind.

  He took it from her without even registering what it was.

  He was too busy looking at the writing on the side of the metal.

  Dubai Express.

  This wasn’t a metal pipe.

  It was the wreckage of a plane.

  He looked down at the charred papers in his hand. News. News of some kind. Economic reports. Talks of war. Quarantine. Infection.

  “You asked how I got my burns. And how I know so much about the virus. About how it works.”

  M’s voice blurred away to the back of Cody’s attention.

  All because of the writing he’d seen on this paper.

  “The reason I know so much is because I was on this plane.”

  Cody shook his head. His hands trembled. “No.”

  “My name is Maryam Patel. I’m the survivor of Dubai Express Flight 8040.”

  “It can’t… This.” Cody held up the paper. “It can’t be real. It just can’t be… it can’t be real.”

  Maryam stared at Cody intensely. Both sides of her face were visible in the torchlight. “It is,” she said. “And you know it is. You see it now.”

  Cody’s vision blurred. He looked down at the paper. The newspaper.

  More than any of the headlines, he looked at the date.

  The date written on the front of that paper.

  Tuesday 18th June.

  2014.

  This year.

  Two months ago.

  “It… it can’t—”

  “I was on this plane, Cody. I was on a high-risk flight from Dubai to Iceland.”

  Cody dropped the paper. Shook his head. The taste of vomit filled up in his mouth. “I don’t believe you. This isn’t real.” He turned to the woods and walked away.

  “It is real,” Maryam said. “As real as the burns on my face. Down my body.”

  Cody shook his head.

  He couldn’t believe.

  Couldn’t accept.

  “I know so much because I was on this flight.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “I know so much because the plane crashed. Two months ago.”

  “That’s not—it’s not possible—”

  “The world outside Britain is alive, Cody,” Maryam shouted.

  Her words echoed through the woods.

  Cody stopped in his tracks.

  Looked Maryam in her eyes.

  “It’s… The world’s dead.”

  Maryam shook her head. The faintest trail of a smile stretched across her distorted mouth. “It’s not. It’s really not. Because before I crashed, I spent the last eight months living in it.”

  WANT MORE DEAD DAYS?

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Ryan Casey is the author of over a dozen novels and a highly successful serial. He primarily writes post apocalyptic fiction, and also has a series of mystery novels. Across all genres, Casey's work is renowned for its dark, page-turning suspense, unforgettably complex characters, and knockout twists.

  Casey lives in the United Kingdom. He has a BA degree in English with Creative Writing from the University of Birmingham, and has been writing stories for as long as he can remember. In his spare time, he enjoys American serial television, is a slave to Pitchfork's Best New Music section, and wastes far too much of his life playing Football Manager games.

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