That was his sole purpose now.
He"d seen the good side to Mattius. For just a moment, he"d allowed himself to believe that Mattius would be capable of looking after Kesha and protecting her.
But then he"d seen the true Mattius, who made Riley throw Kesha through those flames and into his arms.
Mattius would rather see everyone die than see Kesha survive in someone else"s arms.
That was the turning point for Riley.
He was about to start running towards the ladders, which ran up the side of the wall, when he heard a splat to his left.
He looked. There was a creature beside him. One of its ankles had turned in, but it was still getting to its feet.
Then another creature appeared beside him, falling from above.
And another.
He looked up and saw that ma.s.s of creatures all tumbling over the edge like lemmings, and Riley knew right then that he only had one option.
Run.
He pushed aside the first creature to his left and battled his way onwards. The gap where he"d stood just moments ago had been filled with more dead ma.s.s, just as he"d expected.
Which meant that the blank s.p.a.ce in front of him was surely going to be occupied in no time.
He pushed past more of the creatures. He swung at a few of them with his knife. But really, Riley"s only focus was on that wall, on scaling it, and on getting down it somehow.
Unless there was another way.
Unless there was...
He saw it, then. And in that gap in time, Riley understood.
There was a small opening in the wall right ahead of him. It looked like it"d been pushed apart by creatures. Blood and flesh dangled from the sharp metal edges, some of it dripping onto the ground below.
But the thing he noticed more than anything was the piece of fabric dangling from one of those serrated pieces of metal.
It was the blue fabric like the clothing Kesha wore.
Riley"s jaw tensed. At that instant, he heard the groans behind him intensifying.
When he looked around, he realised those groans weren"t just coming from behind him.
There were creatures coming from the left now, too. And creatures from the right as well. The scariest thing about all this, though? The thought and the knowledge that what he was seeing inside Mattius" camp was only scratching the surface of the real number of creatures around them right now. There were more of them outside. They stretched onwards, further than the eye could see.
And sure, that had always been the case. There"d always been an unknown underbelly of creatures waiting for you wherever you went.
But this was different. Just knowing that a sheer ma.s.s of them was literally nipping at your heels upped the stakes.
Riley just had to hope that they broke up, or moved on, fast. Whatever it was-whatever reason they were congregating in this group-he was sure that it had to be something to do with the infection"s evolution. He"d been told back in the day about its different stages by Alan, G.o.d bless him. How the virus itself adapted like a strain of flu.
Riley had seen all kinds of different versions of the virus. Enough to last him a lifetime.
And he knew more incarnations were no doubt coming in the near future.
But for now, he just had to focus on what was in front of him.
That was running.
He sprinted towards the gap in the fence. He could hear the groans and the footsteps of the creatures either side of him closing in, their jaws snapping together ravenously like piranhas.
He didn"t turn his attention. He just kept on running. The gap in the fence got closer, closer until it was within touching distance.
And when it was within reach, Riley found himself stretching out his fingers as if it would get him there faster. He dared not look over his shoulder. He didn"t want to see the ma.s.s of undead right behind him.
He thought of Kesha. Jordanna. Chlo.
He thought of them, and he told himself repeatedly that he was doing this.
He was getting to Kesha.
He was strong enough.
He was- He felt something pull him back.
He saw it vividly, then. Saw a horrifying sequence of events unfolding.
The teeth sinking into his back.
The sharp, bony fingertips sinking into his flesh, stabbing him like knives.
He felt his mouth filling up with blood as the creatures tore away his throat.
He saw it vividly, and he saw Mattius standing there too, Kesha in his arms, smiling.
When he saw it, he knew that"s what failure looked like.
He snapped back to his senses then, out of his imagined downfall, dragging himself out through the gap in the fence. He cut himself on the way, right across the stomach, but that didn"t matter. He could handle a cut.
He stepped out into the gra.s.sy surroundings and saw the woods up ahead. On the ground, which had been muddied by the rain, he saw footsteps. An area that had been surprisingly untouched by the undead.
He knew who those footsteps belonged to.
He started to walk when he felt the hand grab his arm from behind.
When he heard the ferocious growl, so hungry.
When he felt the teeth touch his skin and pierce his arm...
Chapter Eight.
Carly never liked being trapped anywhere without the option to escape.
It was a fear that ran really deep and went way back to her youth. She"d got trapped in a car boot once when she was younger. She"d been playing with her friend, and her friend had told her to hop in there, promising that the light would stay on and that she"d be able to get out in no time.
She remembered climbing in there, reluctantly. Something deep within her whispered in her ear and told her that she was making a big mistake. That she wasn"t going to be able to get out. And that a.s.suming the light would stay on in there was totally illogical because why would it?
But still, the desire to prove herself-a desire that every child has-reigned supreme, and she"d climbed into that boot. She held her breath as she lay there, and as the light faded away and her friend slammed the boot, she remembered thinking that this must be what it would be like to be buried, and how awful being buried must be, and how sorry she felt for Grandad who"d been buried just weeks before.
It got even worse when the light stayed out, and when she realised she couldn"t get out of the boot from inside.
Her heart had pounded. Her throat had closed up. She"d screamed at the top of her voice for what felt like hours but in reality must only have been seconds.
She"d felt fear at that moment. Total fear, for the first time in her life. Not the usual kind of fear you feel when you"re younger; the kind of fear that always comes with something of a filter. But real fear. The kind of fear adults must experience.
Carly wasn"t exactly old now. She was only seventeen.
But she"d felt that real, adult fear a few more times than she expected most people had at her age.
"So what"re we supposed to do?" Melissa said. "Just stand around and wait in here?"
Amy was quiet. They were in the shaft between the rooms in Mattius" hotel. Outside, Carly could hear the sc.r.a.ping feet of the undead as they walked aimlessly around. Except, no. It wasn"t aimless. Not really. If it were aimless, then the undead wouldn"t even be here in the first place.
There was method to the way they walked. They knew exactly where they were going.
They were here because people were here. Food was here.
And Carly, Melissa, and Amy were trapped right in the middle of this place.
"He left us here," Melissa said. "Why would he just leave us?"
"He thought he was keeping us safe," Amy said.
Melissa turned around and frowned. "Keeping us safe?"
"Keep your voice down, please."
Melissa ignored Amy. "Keeping us safe, how exactly? By making us jump down here with nowhere else to go? By leaving us here to rot? How is that keeping us safe?"
"I asked you to keep your voice down," Amy said.
There was a gla.s.siness to Amy"s eyes, Carly thought. She was so used to Amy acting the leader that she"d had so much faith in her for so long. And in a way, she"d never really stopped to think that Amy was just human, really. Human, like the rest of them.
"Maybe he didn"t lock us down here," Carly said.
Both Amy and Melissa turned to her and frowned. She was used to being looked at in that way, somewhat patronisingly, in all truth.
"What"s that supposed to mean?" Melissa asked. She hadn"t lowered her voice at all, surely to Amy"s despair.
Carly tried to put the words together in the right order. She struggled doing that, sometimes. It"d been an area she"d always had trouble with. She was good at thinking through problems. Beyond her years, apparently.
So right now she really had to make sure she got this right. She really had to work hard.
"I just-I just think maybe Riley wouldn"t leave us here knowing we"re going to die down here."
Melissa lifted her arms. "Look around you, kid. The door"s locked. There isn"t anywhere else to go."
"Maybe that"s not true."
"Can you stop speaking so cryptically and just get on with-"
"Riley knows we"re strong. He knows we don"t need help. We"re us. And even though the... even though the rest of our people are gone, we"re still us. We"ll always be us. We can work together. We can figure things out." Carly looked down, then. She saw more metal railings. More doors. "And we can get out of this place if we want to."
She looked back and saw Amy was looking right at her, then. Tears were filling in her eyes. Again, that scared her. Amy seemed to have weakened so much over the last couple of weeks; the whole illusion of her leadership appeared to have collapsed. And in a way, it had. So many people had fallen. It was bound to break Amy right down.
"But we need to be in-in it together," Carly said, walking over to Melissa, looking at her, then at Amy. "We need to decide what we"re going to do and we need to-to own that choice."
Melissa lowered her head. She let out a sigh. But, for a change, it wasn"t a sigh of discontent. There wasn"t a whim of any patronising in it. It was a sigh of realisation of the truth of what Carly was saying.
"You"re right," Melissa said.
Carly couldn"t help smiling.
She made eye contact with Amy again then. And this time, she thought Amy looked so strong. So warrior-like. She saw her spirit had returned, completely.
"You are right," Amy said, her voice shaky. She stood up. "So we go. We-"
She might"ve finished what she was saying, but Carly didn"t hear it.
Melissa wouldn"t have heard it either.
The door behind them slammed open and a small group of undead flooded into the shaft.
They all backed up. Carly felt that fear again. That claustrophobic fear that was rooted in the boot incident of not being able to escape.
She tightened her grip on her knife and got ready to attack.
But something strange happened.
Amy was standing still.