Running away from Kane was the last thing on Riley"s mind right now.
In the distance, far in the distance, Riley could see a tall hotel block. He"d seen it before. One of those wilderness escape places, right on the edge of the forest.
But this time, he saw someone standing in the fifth story window.
He saw the man standing there.
The ginger hair.
The burns on his face.
And he saw the baby in his arms.
"It"s him," Riley said, as his skin went warm, as all thoughts faded from his mind, as a tunnel vision drove him towards Mattius, towards Kesha.
He was here.
He"d found him.
He was getting his rev- "Don"t you dare move," Kane said. He put a hand in front of Riley"s chest. There was fear in his voice. "Not now."
Riley blinked a few times, broken from his vengeful stupor.
And then, even though he"d already seen it, it dawned on him why Kane was so scared.
What the smell was.
What the movement was.
In front of him, between Mattius" camp and the edge of the woods, there was a ma.s.s of undead.
Not just a lot of them.
Hundreds of them.
An absolute sea of them.
As far to the left as Riley could see.
As far to the right as Riley could see.
He stood there, heart pounding, Kane by his side.
He stood there, and he looked back up at the window, Mattius looking out towards him.
"We need to go," Kane whispered.
"I c-"
"Riley, we need to go."
It was that moment-that exact moment-that one of the creatures nearest the back turned around and looked right in Riley and Kane"s direction.
There was a pause. A moment of silence. A fragment of time where Riley saw the cogs in whatever thing resembling a brain in that creature"s skull tried to process the stimuli.
"Riley, we have to go right now. Before they..."
But it was already too late.
Another creature turned around.
And another.
And another.
And before Riley knew it, there were tens of them looking right at him.
Then there were hundreds.
Another pause.
Another moment where time felt like it"d stopped completely.
Then they started to walk in Riley and Kane"s direction.
Riley and Kane might"ve thought about running.
But if they"d seen this scene from above, they"d understand what was happening.
The ten undead that"d chased them earlier were just the other side of this thousand-strong group of undead.
And there weren"t just ten of them.
There were hundreds more of them, all approaching, all getting ready to block them in.
They circled them. Completely surrounded them.
And Riley and Kane were right in the middle of the biggest wave of creatures either of them had ever experienced.
They were trapped.
EPISODE FORTY-FOUR.
WE"RE STILL HOME.
(SECOND EPISODE OF SEASON EIGHT).
Prologue.
Andrew Kighy preferred life when it didn"t involve indiscriminately tearing people apart with his teeth.
He was drifting, again. The drifting days were always the hardest. It was like he was playing one of those on the rails video games where he didn"t know exactly where he was heading or who he was heading towards, only that he would eventually reach his destination and find someone. And he"d either drive his teeth into their back, or they"d spot him before he could do so and take him out.
He"d had some near misses in the days since he"d turned. Someone had taken off his arm. Another had knifed him in the skull and got excruciatingly close to putting him out of his misery once and for all. But as things were, Andrew was still standing. He had turned, and then he"d woken up.
It"d taken him a while to really get his head around the whole consciousness in death thing. At first, he"d been convinced that this was all some kind of horrible nightmare. That he was hallucinating after being bitten.
But when the rich, metallic taste of blood first slipped between his teeth and down his throat-at least what was left of his throat-Andrew knew that all this was real. Very real.
It was a horror story. Paralysis. Total paralysis of the condition. It didn"t matter how much he tried to break out of his state, he couldn"t. He was one of the undead. And just like the other undead-he a.s.sumed-he was conscious.
When he pa.s.sed by the dead, he used to be terrified of them. Now, he sympathised with them. He saw the women, stripped of their clothes and their dignity. He saw the children sinking their teeth into the bodies of their parents. The horror they must"ve felt. The fear they must"ve experienced.
And there was nothing they could do about it.
Nothing but drift.
Sometimes, Andrew wondered if one day, someone would break out of this state. And if they could, that meant reversal of the infection was possible. It wasn"t beyond the question that it could be do-able.
But then there was the problem of the state of the bodies of the infected. Many of them had wounds that even reversal couldn"t heal. The flesh of many had rotted. After all, this was death. Life after death.
Humanity"s greatest fear is a great nothingness that follows living.
If only they realised that life after death was the biggest thing to fear after all.
It was a nice winter"s day. Andrew drifted down a high street towards woods. He wasn"t sure where his feet were taking him. He was definitely on the trail of something. He could tell by the way he was shuffling.
He moved his eyes to the right, then to the left, up at the buildings either side of him. Control over his eyes was one thing Andrew had maintained. And yet even that had a sinister twist to it. Of course he had to be aware of the living that were around him. He wanted to know when he was living his final moments before someone shot him or took him down.
But at the same time, spotting someone who didn"t know he was coming meant targeting another potential kill.
It meant tasting blood all over again.
It meant deafening screams as he tore-literally-another life apart.
It meant unavoidable guilt as he condemned someone else to this living h.e.l.l.
But today, he didn"t see a soul.
He just drifted down the road, towards... well, towards whatever.
If one thing made Andrew"s condition easier, it was that he never switched off. He was always conscious in this form. No time to sleep. Just drift, wander, etcetera.
However, he"d had some strange experiences. Experiences he was sure those still living wouldn"t know about.
The quiet moments.
It was mostly when he was in the company of other undead. Always a creepy experience, for sure. But when they were alone, when they"d been travelling and drifting for a long, long time, Andrew had that feeling, sometimes.
The feeling where they all stood still. When they all went totally rigid and looked at one another.
And in those moments, he couldn"t explain the feeling he felt other than warmth in his chest.
Because it was in those silent moments that he felt like he was connecting with the dead around him.
Like they were... h.e.l.l, like they were communicating.
He might be mad for thinking that way. Probably way, way off the mark. But it helped put him at ease. At least it did until one of the people-because the dead were still people-he"d been communicating with fell.
He"d made a friend a few weeks ago. An older man with a long bushy beard. He"d felt that connection. And they"d walked off together, unwittingly, no control over it. Or perhaps there was some element of control. Perhaps the virus or whatever was controlling them knew they connected together in some way, so sent them off together.
He"d walked with that man. The man he knew was gentle, somehow. The man he knew had lost people around him before losing himself. The man who wasn"t a terrifying monster, not underneath the snapping jaws and the rotting flesh, but who was just a man. A man, just like Andrew, and just like everyone else who"d fallen.
The man-who Andrew thought of as Old Bill for a reason he couldn"t explain-went chasing after a kid just a few days ago. Andrew was further back when it happened. He watched him go chasing the boy, and he knew something bad was going to happen.
He was right.
He saw the man and the woman step out and slice Old Bill"s legs away.
He saw them hacking off his arms, punching out his teeth one by one, like they were taking pleasure in what they were doing.
He saw them stabbing Old Bill everywhere, then getting their kid to join in with the torture, leaving Old Bill nothing more than a limbless head on the ground, like a spider that"d had its legs torn away.
He heard their voices, too.
"s.h.i.t. Look at his eyes! They"re going crazy!"
And that hurt Andrew more than anything because he knew Old Bill was just desperately trying to communicate, his only means of speaking lost in translation.
He was begging the people to back off.
He saw Old Bill lying there, still snapping his teeth, still trying to bite, and as he walked in their direction-unable to back away-Andrew couldn"t help seeing things from a different perspective.
Who were the real monsters?
The dead?