Dead Days: Season 8 Part 8

It was the question Amy had been dreading. Mainly because she didn't want to accept or face up to what they really had to do. They had a choice. Go after Riley and Kane and make them their business. Or leave them to destroy themselves. Whoever won that battle was on a surefire path towards self-destruction anyway.

But she felt for Riley. She felt for him after he'd lost Jordanna, lost Chlo. And more than that, she felt for Kesha. She didn't know what Mattius planned to do with her, but she'd seen the violence he'd been capable of, and for that reason, she didn't trust him.

She owed it to Chlo to get Kesha back here.

Even if Riley wasn't involved in that, she had to get Kesha back here.

She hoped Riley would get back here too. But she was worried he was already too far over the edge of that dangerous cliff of vengeance to return anytime soon.

"We should let Stef know. She can scan the area. They can't be too far away."

"Are you sure?"

Amy looked at Melissa. She saw the doubt in her eyes.

Then, Amy took a deep breath and nodded. "I'm sure."

They were silent. Silent, just for a few seconds.

"Hey," Amy said, "you're doing okay, aren't you? With-"

"Yes," Melissa said.

She lowered her head. Her cheeks had blushed. As much as Amy wanted to believe Melissa, she couldn't. Not with that kind of reaction.

But again, she didn't want to pry.

"Just as long as you know where I am. If you need to-"

"I'm fine."

Amy nodded. She looked back over the wall.

In the distance, she saw someone running their way.

"Stef?"

Stef was one of their perimeter guards. She was powering towards them. She looked terrified.

Like she was running from something.

"Stef?" Amy called. "What is it?"

When Stef told Amy what was coming-when she told them what was looming on the horizon-she knew they were going to have to put their plans to go find Riley and Kane on hold.

She turned around. Rushed down the ladders. After Stef rounded everyone up, she stood in the middle of their group, thirty strong now, and looked around at each and every one of them.

"We need to batten down the hatches," Amy said, trying to keep the fear from her voice. "We need to secure every single section of this wall. And we need to be ready."

"What's going on?" Carly asked.

Amy swallowed a lump in her throat.

"Something's coming," she said.

A breeze brushed across her.

And from a distance, she smelled a wave of death.

Heard an echo of groans, far far away.

"Something big."

Chapter Ten.

"Walk."

Riley wasn't exactly in the mood to be ordered around by Kane. At the end of the day, when could anyone be in the mood to be ordered around by a psycho that wanted to punish you for depriving them of half a hand, a protege and... well, who knows what else was motivating him?

But Riley had a pistol to his back. A pistol Kane had taken off the woman from Mattius' camp when she'd fallen. And he was still handcuffed. So he wasn't exactly in the greatest position to bargain right now.

The sun had just risen, and the ground was coated in a thin sheen of frost. Riley listened to the crispy fallen leaves crunching underfoot. He listened in the distance for the small group of creatures that had chased them earlier, but nothing. They must've got distracted.

His throat was dry, and his feet were sore. Every few seconds, he got flashes in his mind. Flashes of Jordanna. Flashes of Chlo. Sometimes, in his state of delusion, he swore he could hear their voices.

"Turn around, Riley."

"Turn around and take him out!"

The voices were loud. So loud that at times he felt like he had no option but to adhere to what they were telling him.

"You look awful, you know?" Kane said.

Riley looked over his shoulder. Kane had rings right around his eyes. His face was pale. The charm that he'd inevitably had-and used-so many times had corroded. His real face was on display. "Don't look too great yourself."

"See, I was a prisoner in that place. But so were you too, in a way. You've been in a prison of your own making. Let yourself get all churned up by grief. That's why it's better not to be attached."

"So you weren't attached to Spud, were you?"

Kane's right eyelid twitched, like Riley had hit a nerve. "That wasn't attachment."

"Well, it looks to me like you're getting your own revenge for what happened."

More twitching of Kane's eyelid. "See, the difference between you and me is that I didn't have any emotional feelings or attachment with Spud. He was just a protegee. I saw something in him. But in the end, yes. He turned out too weak for this world. He was a disappointment. Just one of those things."

"You're not a good liar," Riley said. "You know that?"

Kane laughed. He'd slowed down, and he'd lowered his gun slightly. That was Riley's plan. Try and distract him for as long as he could, then do what he had to do when he had a second to act. "n.o.body's ever told me that before and truly meant it."

"Well, you should listen to me. I know what's good for you."

They walked further through the woods. It was so silent. But it was that eerie kind of silence; the silence that precludes a storm.

"There's something coming," Kane said.

Riley looked around instinctively. Looked left. Looked right. "I don't see anything."

Kane stood still. He lifted his head, like he was a dog sniffing at the air. "I don't either. I just... feel it."

Riley couldn't help snorting. "You feel it? s.h.i.t. This world really is taking its toll on you."

"What did you do before all this, Riley?"

"Before all this palaver? I was in that cabin back at camp enjoying a good sleep."

"Not today. I mean before. Way, way before."

Riley walked slower, and Kane seemed to be letting his guard drop too. Riley had to make the most of this. If it was his last walk, might as well savour every moment. "I was a journalist."

"That explains a lot."

"About what?"

"Why you talk so much rubbish."

"Thanks. I'll take that as a compliment that I was good at my job."

"So," Kane said, getting closer to Riley again, the barrel of the gun pushing against his spine. "How does a journalist go from struggling over words to a ruthless post-apocalyptic survivor in such a short s.p.a.ce of time?"

"And how does someone go from whatever the f.u.c.k you did to a bats.h.i.t crazy serial killer in the same amount of time?"

Kane laughed again. He was clearly genuinely amused by this whole performance. "Riley, I was always who I am. I haven't changed at all. I've just embraced the things I couldn't do so freely in the old world. In a way, this new world is ideal for me."

"Well, you'd better make the most of it. You won't be here much longer."

Kane ignored Riley. "And I think you're the same, too. All this rage. All this violence. I believe you've always had that inside you, deep down. I believe everyone has. It's just society has piled so much on top of us all that we covered up our primal urges; the way we really should be. You got into journalism. You created a mask for yourself. You believed in a lie. That's why so many people-yourself included, I imagine-were so unhappy in the old world.

"But the new world is different. The new world is about letting all those false coats of armour that a capitalist world forced on us die. It's about spreading our wings. Expressing ourselves. I like what I see in you, Riley. I'm still going to kill you. I'm going to enjoy killing you. But I love a good story of the everyman turning into someone not so different from me. Actualisation of the self, my friend!"

Riley stopped, then. He turned around. Looked right into Kane's eyes.

"You and me are nothing like each other. Nothing. Just because we've both killed, don't mistake that for similarity. Ever."

The corners of Kane's smiling mouth twitched as he looked deeply into Riley's eyes. "You keep on telling yourself that."

Riley looked into Kane's eyes for a while longer because he saw something, then.

In Kane's place, he saw himself.

A mirror image of himself.

Were they really so different?

Was his way really so right, and Kane's way really so wrong?

"Come on," Kane said. "We'd better get..."

Kane's voice trailed off. And Riley didn't understand why at first.

"Smell that?"

It hit Riley right at that moment. The stench was light, initially. Then it got stronger. Much stronger and much more intense than anything he was used to.

"f.u.c.k," Kane said. "Must be a whole boatload of them."

Riley saw movement through the trees.

He walked towards it.

"Hey," Kane said. "Where d'you think you're going?"

Riley kept on walking until he reached the last of the thick trees at the edge of the woods.

That eerie silence.

That smell of death that had been gradually building their entire journey.

And that faint movement, right ahead.

"I asked you a-"

"Ssh," Riley said.

He peeked around the branches and the leaves.

When Riley saw what it was, he couldn't move.

All he could do was stand and stare.

Kane stood by Riley's side, too. His gun was lowered, like he trusted Riley not to run away.