Dead Days: Season 8 Part 17

"Kesha," Melissa said.

"Oh, you're good."

"So you'd kill Kesha? You'd kill the last bit of hope-the girl with the cure in her bloodstream-just to punish Riley?"

"Again. I thought so. But now, I dunno. I guess Riley is growing on me. His fight. His spirit. I dunno. Maybe imminent death is getting to my head."

"What do you mean?"

Kane hesitated a few seconds.

Then he leaned forward and pulled his jacket away.

The back of Kane's T-shirt was ripped apart. Underneath it, Melissa could see blood.

Lots of patches of blood.

"You've been bitten."

"I've had a good run," Kane said. "It had to end, eventually."

Melissa felt mixed emotions over Kane's state and still she couldn't understand why.

"Well?" Kane said. "Isn't this the part where you celebrate?"

Melissa shrugged. "People die. It's just something that happens."

"So you're not happy to see me go."

"I'm not happy to see anyone go. We're all... we're all people, at the end of the day. No matter what we're like underneath, we're all people, and we are all united. Against the monsters."

Kane's smile grew even further. "You don't really believe that. Do you?"

Melissa couldn't hide her real thoughts anymore, as her heart thumped, as her pulse raced. "No," she said. "I think we're the real monsters."

Then she did something that surprised her more than anything.

She leaned over and she wrapped her lips around Kane's.

She was on top of him, then. He gripped on to her hair, pushed his fingers through it. She could feel him getting hard underneath her and she couldn't control her feelings, couldn't control her emotions, couldn't control her cravings.

Her l.u.s.t.

She felt his sharp fingers ripping the jumper off her back.

She felt his cold hands against her skin, cupping her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

And above anything, she felt his heartbeat. His heartbeat picking up as they got even closer, even more intimate.

She sensed Kane had never experienced feelings like this before, and that got to her more than anything. That turned her on.

She reached down the front of his jeans and grabbed his hard, throbbing c.o.c.k in her hand.

Upon touching it, he went soft right away.

"Disappointing," she said.

Then Kane grabbed her around the throat and squeezed. He looked into her eyes with a look that she'd never seen before. An animalistic l.u.s.t. "Trust me," he said, tightening his grip around her throat to the point Melissa couldn't swallow, couldn't breathe. "We haven't even got started yet."

"And we aren't gonna be finishing anytime soon, lovebirds."

The voice made Melissa jump, and Kane loosened his grip around her throat. She hopped off of Kane right away, looked over to her right. She lifted her knife. Scanned the trees. There was no one there. No one that she could see.

And then she felt a hand on her shoulder.

She swung around and felt something crack against the back of her head.

She fell, right towards the ground.

When she fell, she saw someone standing above her.

It was a man. He was bald, and he was smiling.

"Come on, princess. If you want to finish off, I can help-argh!"

He didn't finish speaking because Melissa rammed the knife right up into his b.a.l.l.s.

She dragged the knife away, feeling the warm blood splatter down her hand.

And when she'd pulled that knife away, despite how much her head was still hurting and her ankle still aching, she ran away into the trees as quickly as she could.

She looked over her shoulder. She saw there were two more people standing near where she'd been.

She saw them standing right over Kane.

And she saw Kane's eyes. His smile.

The way he looked at her, like no one else looked at her.

She wanted to stay. That small, self-destructive part inside her body-the same self-destructive part that had almost killed herself a number of times-told her to go back and fight for Kane.

But the bigger part-the logical part-made her shake her head.

She turned around and ran.

Kane leaned back against the bark of the tree, still in a euphoric state of bliss after his moment with Melissa.

Whatever that moment meant, he'd felt it. He'd felt it like he'd never felt it before.

He'd felt a connection.

An alien connection.

Two men stood over him. The third man was lying in the dirt, twitching as blood pooled out of his stabbed genitals.

The two men above him grabbed his arms.

"Come on, fella," the one on the right said. "It's time we introduced you to the boss man."

But as they took him away, the pain in Kane's back building as the infection built in his body, he still couldn't feel bad about any of what was happening-of what was about to happen.

This was all a part of the plan.

Chapter Eleven.

Riley spent the rest of the day helping to clean up the camp, but it was blatantly clear that this was no longer a sustainable home in the way it used to be.

It was getting dark, and Riley was concerned about Amy. She seemed too focused on getting the place sorted out, making sure everywhere was guarded. She seemed to be burying herself in the cleanup of this place so she could avoid facing up to the reality.

The reality that this place was a lost cause.

And the reality that the bulk of her people were gone.

He stacked some debris on top of a pile of rubble regardless. It was to act as a kind of makeshift wall until they could figure out another, better way of keeping this place secure. Honestly, though, Riley wasn't sure keeping this place secure was even possible anymore, not in the long run. It had taken too much damage as it was.

He tasted the remnants of blood on his lips. The blood of the creatures he'd fought out there in the woods. He looked over at the woods, and at the fallen bodies of the creatures around it. He remembered that ma.s.s of them that had been there just a matter of hours ago. An army of them unlike any he'd ever seen. Where had the bulk of them gone? They'd killed a few of them, sure. But they can't have taken all of them down. That was impossible.

The thought that the crowd of undead was out there, somewhere, just pa.s.sing through the country... it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand right on end.

He looked around at the rest of Amy's people. At least, those that were still standing. He saw the exhaustion on their faces. The loss they were feeling. Because all of them had lost. And Riley knew what that loss felt like.

But this scale. This ma.s.sive scale, where more of them had died than remained... that must've been particularly bitter to take.

He heard a groan in the distance.

When he looked up, he almost lost his grip on the rock he was placing on the makeshift wall.

There were a few creatures. Not many. Four, five. But still, a steadily growing number.

Amy was standing right in front of them.

And then she started walking towards them and taking them down.

"s.h.i.t," Riley muttered. "You keep on working on the wall. I'll go out there."

He heard a few panicked whispers, but he didn't acknowledge them, not really. Instead, he just ran outside, the rock still in his hand.

Amy was fighting the creatures. For some reason, she was outside, and she was taking these creatures down. She was being particularly violent towards them. Smacking their heads when they'd clearly already gone down. She was chopping limbs away- Just like Chlo just like- No, he couldn't remember that. He couldn't let it blur his judgement right now.

"Amy!" Riley shouted.

She didn't turn back to look at him. She just kept on fighting against this growing crowd of creatures. Admittedly, not much of a crowd compared to what she'd taken on before, but still, big enough to worry about.

"Amy, get back here."

"I need to go," she said.

Riley narrowed his eyes. He saw a couple of the creatures divert their attention to him, then come staggering in his direction.

He held his breath, pulled back the rock-the only weapon he had in his hand right now-and he slammed it down against the creature's skull.

He listened to it crack. And he expected the creature to fall.

But it didn't.

He might've cracked its skull, but he hadn't properly damaged the creature's brain.

The creature stuck its fingers against Riley's stomach, the filthy remnants of fingernails scratching at his skin. It opened its mouth, half of which was dangling down in a sloped angle, and it went to take a bite.

Riley could only do one thing.

He drove that rock right down against the creature's skull once more, cracking away more pieces of bone.

And when that didn't do anything, he pushed his fingers inside the skull and pressed as hard as he could, blood and flesh wrapping around his fingertips.

The creature opened its jaw wider.

It went to bite, its eyes wild with... with what looked like confusion. Understanding.

And then it looked right up at Riley and went totally silent.

It fell to the ground. Riley grabbed the rock again and went to take on the rest of the creatures that were surrounding him, surrounding Amy.

But all those creatures had fallen.

All of them had fallen, and Amy was gone.

"Amy!"

Riley ran into the trees. It was going dark, so Riley didn't want to be stuck out here too long. He looked everywhere to try and find Amy. But no matter how much he squinted, no matter how much he strained to listen, she was gone. Amy was gone.