Her argument for being out here was irrational. To find Kane? What hope did she have of finding Kane?

And sure, she was doing a decent job of drawing plenty of those zombies away from their original destination. But what did that mean for her?

She kept on jogging further.

Then she felt her right ankle pop beneath her.

She wanted to keep on running, defying the reality and the inevitability of what'd just happened. But it was just too painful to run on. She slowed down, right down.

She'd sprained her d.a.m.ned ankle, dammit.

She hopped along through the trees. The zombies weren't runners, but f.u.c.k, they were power-walkers. They were gaining ground on her. Soon, they'd have her. She couldn't allow that to happen.

The more ground the zombies gained on her, the more certain Melissa grew that this really was it. There'd been times where she'd nearly died in the past. There'd been times where she'd come so close to death. There'd been times when she'd closed her eyes and convinced herself she wasn't going to wake up again.

But those moments were on her terms. This wasn't.

And having your life hunted down when you weren't ready to go yet was devastating to say the least.

She kept on hopping onwards but it wasn't getting easier. She just had to hope she could get far enough to lose the zombies.

And then her ankle hurt even more.

She fell then, down onto the ground. As she lay there, she realised she'd dropped the bag carrying her arrows, and a load of them had spilt out all around her.

"s.h.i.+t," she muttered, as she gathered as many arrows as she could. They weren't going to be enough to save her. They weren't going to be enough to keep her alive for long.

But what else could she do?

What other option did she have?

She pulled back the bowstring and it snapped between her fingers.

She looked at it in shock. She felt sickness creeping up her throat.

She was down.

She was without her bow.

And the zombies were getting closer to her.

She sat there, heart racing, and she saw her life flash before her eyes.

She saw the first of the zombies, all contorted, bones poking out of its flesh, eyes waggling everywhere but at her as it powered in her direction.

She saw her mum.

What secrets had she hidden from her?

How different would her life be if she'd just known the truth?

She felt a tear roll down her face then, as she held on to her knife. s.h.i.+t. She might be going down, but she was going down fighting.

"Come on," she muttered, the zombie getting closer to her, a crowd following behind. "Come the f.u.c.k on, you piece of s.h.i.+t."

She pulled back her knife and went to stab the zombie as it crouched down towards her.

Then she felt the hand on her shoulder.

"Not a good place to take a rest, my dear."

She recognised the voice. She recognised it, but she couldn't place it. Like it wasn't supposed to be heard out here. Like reality was glitching.

But as she looked around, she realised her suspicions-her fears-were true.

Kane was standing over her, hand on her shoulder.

He was pale. Well, he was always paler, but right now, he was much paler than usual.

But he was smiling.

"Come on," he said. "We'd better get moving. I made a promise that I'd kill you someday, and I'm not ready to abandon that just yet."

Chapter Eight.

Riley didn't think about anything anymore. The time for thinking was gone.

He just ran.

The rain had stopped, and the air felt thick. Really, it wasn't because of the weather that it felt so thick. It's because of how many bodies had walked this ground so recently.

Of course, those bodies were dead, so they were cold. But they added thickness to the air. A thickness that made d.a.m.n sure you knew they'd been here.

Not to mention the layers of dead blood coating Riley's body.

But anyway, the dead weren't here now. That was the main thing.

Riley had an opportunity to get back to camp.

He had to take it.

He looked around at the trees. He wasn't sure whether he was heading in exactly the right direction. But he'd seen which way the creatures were drifting when he'd come face to face with them. He was making a.s.sumptions about where they were heading, sure. But those a.s.sumptions felt grounded in possibility and reality.

The creatures were heading towards the camp.

And with that many of them... s.h.i.+t. He couldn't just allow that place to fall. He had to be there. He had to help defend it.

A niggling twinge tugged at his stomach, a voice in the back of his head. It was telling him not to go in this direction. That instead, he should be going after Mattius and Kesha. He knew where they were, now. Where they were staying. The thought of Kesha being with Mattius any longer made his insides turn.

But he'd seen the ma.s.s of creatures in front of Mattius' place, too. He'd seen how besieged Mattius and his people were.

Some of those creatures might've waded off after Riley, but he couldn't go heading back into the eye of a storm.

His best chance of getting Kesha back-and of getting the revenge he so desperately wanted to take out on Mattius-was to head back to camp and make sure he could gather as many people as possible.

Then, when the time was right, with people by his side, he was going to take those people to war.

He looked back over his shoulder as he kept on running. He wasn't so sure how exactly to feel about turning his back on Kane. He should be mostly delighted; he knew that. Kane was vermin. He was everything bad about this world.

But even as he'd pushed him back into that crowd of undead, Riley still felt like Kane was an unknown ent.i.ty. Something he didn't trust to be outside of his sights or attention.

He preferred Kane as his prisoner because, weirdly, he still felt like he owed something to Kane for not killing him yet.

He was a f.u.c.k. But there was something about him.

And that morbid curiosity as to whether he could truly turn Kane to his side-make him one of his warriors-was something he couldn't s.h.i.+ft from his mind for anything.

Riley was about to keep on running when he saw movement up ahead.

At first, he thought it was Jordanna, Chlo, and Anna. The visions had been bothering him more frequently lately. He felt like they were everywhere, like their ghosts were surrounding him and closing in on him, making that l.u.s.t for revenge even more prominent.

But it wasn't Jordanna, Chlo, or Anna.

It was a small group of creatures.

Riley slowed down and stepped behind a tree. There were quite a few of those creatures. But they looked like the back end of another group. A larger group.

He could see buildings up ahead. Little cabins, many of which had collapsed. He could see tents, and benches, all of them covered in blood.

And in a lot of these creatures, he could see arrows. Tons of arrows.

A sickening punch hit him right in the stomach at that point. Because that was the moment when Riley realised where this was, and when he realised exactly what he was standing on top of.

He looked on the ground and he saw the remains of the camp's walls right beneath him.

And under those walls, he saw fallen people.

He recognised Stef as one of them, and his heart sank. He walked past her, further inside the camp. A few of the creatures came at him, but he didn't pay them too much attention, taking them out immediately.

The closer he got to the cabin up ahead, the more bodies and arrows he stepped over, and the more creatures he killed on his way, the more dread he felt about this whole situation. There were a lot of dead. A lot. Maybe this entire camp.

He thought about Amy, and Melissa, and Carly. Everyone here who'd stood by him. Everyone who'd given him a chance.

He should've been here.

He should've- "Riley."

Riley turned around.

Over to his right, he saw the ghost of Jordanna. Her arms were folded over one another. Chlo was standing by her side. Chlo was crying tears of blood.

In front of them, Riley saw a creature heading his way.

He lifted his blade to take it down.

Then he lowered it as the realisation sunk in.

The creature staggering towards him was familiar. She was called Sophia. She'd made him breakfast on his first day here, and Riley had been having an on-and-off thing with her ever since.

A ma.s.sive chunk had been torn from her neck, and her eyes had glazed over, the infection clearly getting to her fast. The speed of infection varied. Just one of those unpredictabilities of this new world.

Riley swallowed down a sickly lump in his throat. He pulled back his blade, as much as he didn't want to, and he stepped towards Sophia.

He could see her eyes connecting with his. And they were just the same. Just those same brown eyes he remembered looking into on the first day. The same brown eyes that looked down into his when she was on top of him.

Looking at him the exact same way, like she recognised him.

He held that thought for a second. In fact, that's the way all the creatures looked. One thing they maintained. Their eyes. They were always so... human. Always so alive.

He sighed and grabbed the back of Sophia's head, her eyes still locked with his.

He pressed the knife to her skull and thought of the way Grandma's creature, when he'd had to put her down, had looked at him, also like she recognised him.

Then he rammed the knife into Sophia's head and she went still, out of her misery at last.

He eased Sophia to the ground, closing her eyes and pulling the knife from her head.

When he stood up, he saw Amy standing opposite him.

Her hair had fallen greasily down onto her shoulders. She looked pale. Her arms were crossed, her bow and arrow draped over her back. By her side, Carly, and a few of the others.

"Where's..." Riley started.

But he didn't finish.

He didn't have to finish. Not to know the answer.

The camp had fallen.

They were dead.