Dead Days Season Eight.
Ryan Casey.
DEAD DAYS: SEASON EIGHT.
EPISODE FORTY-THREE.
AND HE SAW IT HAPPENING ALL OVER AGAIN.
(FIRST EPISODE OF SEASON EIGHT).
Prologue.
She looked at the ma.s.s of undead in front of her and she knew this wasn"t going to be easy.
The autumn leaves were frosty underfoot, which was a sure sign that autumn was segueing into winter. The thought of the imminent winter didn"t scare her. It alarmed her a little. But in truth, not a lot could truly scare her anymore. Not after the things she"d been through. Not after the things she"d witnessed. Not after the things she"d done.
Winter was just another hurdle in a landscape of many hurdles.
And one of those hurdles was right ahead of her at this very second.
She stood still as the cold breeze blew against her, sending a shiver creeping up her spine. She was still protected by the trees all around her. She"d grown used to using the trees for shelter. When she was out of the woodlands, buildings would take the same role.
She"d been surviving alone long enough in this world to know the best ways to stay invisible.
She breathed in deeply, right through her nostrils. She knew some people might call her mad for that. After all, the stench of death never got any better. It got worse, as time went on, as rot kicked in even more. Much, much worse. But that was something else you just had to learn to deal with. Something you had to teach yourself to adapt to.
If you couldn"t handle a bit of smell, if you couldn"t train that gag reflex to behave, then you wouldn"t still be here today. Simple as that.
She felt her hands shaking, her heart thumping. She knew she"d have to stay still. Very still. There were a lot of undead at the bottom of this hill. A h.e.l.l of a lot. Hundreds of them. They seemed to be congregating in bigger groups lately. It"d been strange, watching the evolution of the infection right from the very beginning, even if the evolution of the infection seemed to have halted and even regressed of late. At first, they were the walking type of zombie. Then some of them started running. There was communication, of sorts. Hive mind behaviour.
Then there were the other things. The ones who looked like normal people, unbitten, but had the parasites inside their skulls.
They gave her the biggest creeps. Because you just never knew whether you were coming face to face with another survivor, or something else entirely.
And she couldn"t lie. She kind of missed people. She missed being around them. She"d always been a social being, even if she never used to realise it. She liked interacting with others. She was a kind of extroverted introvert, or maybe it was an introverted extrovert. She drew energy from other people, but at the same time, she needed a break from them every now and then.
She"d been on a break from people for a long time now.
She didn"t know whether anyone she cared about was left.
All she knew was that she had to keep on moving, keep on hoping that one day, she"d find a sanctuary all over again. A place of peace.
One day, she"d find hope amidst the darkness.
And if there"s one thing this world was rife with, it was darkness.
She started to ease back into the forest, knowing that she"d have to watch her step. If she so much as cracked a branch under her foot, she"d draw attention to herself. And drawing this crowd to her wasn"t her idea of a perfect Sunday morning.
Or wait. Was it Sat.u.r.day?
She wasn"t sure anymore.
s.h.i.t. What did it even matter? The days lost their relevance a long time ago.
She edged back gradually. At the same time, she gripped on to the axe in her right hand. It was a close combat weapon, but she kind of preferred it that way. At least at close range, she could be totally sure she"d taken her enemy down.
As she stepped back into the woods, breathing deeply to keep herself calm, she thought about some of the other horrors she"d witnessed. The bodies she"d found, mutilated, by something that must go way, way beyond mere undead. The talk of beasts with long, sharp teeth and jet black eyes... those murmurings scared her.
They scared her so much that she looked over her shoulder into the woods.
In the distance, she saw something.
She frowned. At that moment, her focus dropped.
There was a girl. A young girl, with long brown hair.
The girl was holding a gun, pointing it right at her.
She was-.
She recognised her, then. She recognised her and it took her right back.
It made the dread fill up inside her body.
It made the fear take a hold, take over her breathing, take over everything.
Because it reminded her.
She was lost, then. She knew when she was lost because she couldn"t think straight. And sure, she tried to tell herself just to focus on the present moment because this couldn"t be real. This was nothing more than an illusion. She tried to tell herself to focus on her breathing. To bring herself back to reality.
But that girl.
That girl holding the gun.
That girl looking right at her.
That girl...
She heard the blast, felt the bullet pierce her skull, but after that everything went blank.
It always went blank.
But this time, it didn"t go blank because of the loss of consciousness.
It went blank because she heard a groan to her left.
And the next thing she knew, she was falling.
The undead creature was on top of her. It looked like it was a woman, once upon a time. Her grey hair hung down in spindly strands. Her face was covered in broken, rotted flesh.
She looked like one of the early ones. Like one of the undead that"d turned a long, long time ago.
She didn"t know when these undead were going to die out. Surely they"d starve eventually.
But she didn"t have time to f.u.c.king think about that right now.
Instead, she tightened her grip around the axe and swung it at the back of the undead creature"s skull.
The creature pushed down towards her neck, its teeth snapping and crunching down. She could smell death, and feel drool falling onto her skin.
She kept on swinging. Kept on fighting. Kept on pushing- She heard more groans.
She caught a glance, then. Just a momentary glance. But a long enough glance for her to realise what was happening.
The crowd of undead were coming through the trees.
They were closing in.
Surrounding her.
Pressed under the weight of one of the dead, and losing the feeling in her right hand-the one that she was holding the axe with-she started to wonder if this was it.
If finally, after all this time, it was really it.
As she struggled some more, the monster closing in and getting ready to turn her into mush, she thought of him.
She thought of him and she hoped, whatever happened, that he was okay.
The undead closed in.
The one on top of her pushed down even harder.
Her vision blurred, and...
Chapter One.
Riley saw it happening all over again.
It was the middle of the afternoon. Sometimes when he saw it, it was morning. Others, it was the thick of night. But the time of day didn"t affect things. The weather didn"t affect things. It could be raining. Snowing. Sometimes, blinding sunshine. Others, thick cloud.
But no matter what, the way it played out was always the same.
The horror was always the same.
He was held back, pinned back by the might of two, three, maybe four people. He kicked out and struggled. He knew he had to kick out and struggle because if he didn"t, he wouldn"t even stand a chance of saving them.
And that was the worst thing about all this.
Now, when he saw it happening all over again, he knew what was coming. Every single time, he knew what was coming.
No matter how much he kicked out, how much he fought, or how much he cried and screamed and everything, Riley still couldn"t change the inevitable.
By its very nature, the inevitable was unstoppable.
He saw Mattius standing opposite him, machete in hand. He saw the lines on his face, and his ginger hair. He saw his vicious smile, and the redness in his eyes, and he felt the dread he"d felt that day when this scene happened for the first time.
He saw Chlo.
He saw Jordanna.
That was the hardest part of all this.
"We"ll put you through h.e.l.l for what you did to us. For the families you killed. For the lives you took."
Riley pushed and fought and kicked and cried.
"But I can think of much, much better ways of putting you through h.e.l.l than killing you."
There was a pause, then. A momentary pause where nothing seemed to matter, but where Riley understood everything that had happened, was happening and was about to happen.
Then Mattius brought that machete crashing down against Chlo"s one remaining arm.
He sliced it right off.
He saw that look on Chlo"s face all over again. It wasn"t fear. In the beginning, Riley thought it was fear. But no, it wasn"t fear. It was acceptance. It was a confused acceptance of the way things were, and of the way the world worked.
Because that girl had seen how this world worked.
She knew how it operated.