Part 19 (1/2)

Kane lay back against the wall in the cellar cell.

He'd seen the look in Mattius' eyes.

He'd planted the seeds in Mattius' mind. Now he just had to watch the fireworks explode.

And it started with Riley falling right into their trap.

He felt a smile stretch across his face.

Melissa, Amy and Riley stared into the crackling fire.

”Where do we go from here?” Amy asked.

Riley looked at Melissa. Melissa looked back at him. And then the pair of them looked at Amy.

”There's a place we could go,” Riley said.

And with that momentary, still partly revenge driven decision, the cogs that Kane had created started turning.

Fast.

EPISODE FORTY-FIVE.

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLa.s.s.

(THIRD EPISODE OF SEASON EIGHT).

Prologue.

She tasted the blood on her lips, and she knew she'd had a close call.

Another close call.

The day was drawing to a close, and she couldn't help feeling a little relieved about that. Even though the nights were dangerous, she'd be glad to put her head down on the spongy earth somewhere and get some rest. Sure, a shelter would be better. But when you were surviving alone in a post-apocalyptic landscape, shelter wasn't always an option. It depended what the elements decided. You didn't have much control over what you might or might not come across, not anymore.

A cool breeze blew through the air, carrying with it drizzly specks of light rain. She was relieved for that, too. She was soaked in blood. It'd been that way since she'd come across the enormous crowd of undead a few miles back. In a way, the drizzle freshened her up, acting as a micro-shower, and one that she was totally grateful for.

She walked down the long, narrow country lane. She tried to keep her focus on the tall hedges to her left, and to the occasional buildings on her right, which gave her hope of finding shelter tonight after all. In the fields beside her, she saw carcases everywhere. The skeletons of dead sheep and cows, which crows still picked at in hope they'd find something other than bone.

It was beautifully silent on this road. She'd been walking down it a long time now, and she knew it would be wise to find a place to rest somewhere around here.

She felt the sores on her feet getting worse. Another reason to stop. She'd been wearing the same shoes since... since... well, she didn't like to think about that day very much. Thinking about it just brought back too many reminders of the life she'd lived, and how everything changed on that winter's day.

Thinking about it made her stomach turn. Because it just made her speculate what might've happened to the people she'd cared about back at that place.

Back at that home.

She took a deep breath of the cool air, which was mostly fresh-a remarkable feat in a world where rot was so common. She felt warmth spreading up her body as she visualised a calming light filling up every single muscle inside her.

The more she thought about that light, the more at ease she felt. The calmer she felt.

And then she heard a groan on her right.

She stopped. There was a big house beside her, with a ma.s.sive black gate guarding its entrance. Behind it, the torn up remains of a dog, which remarkably didn't look like it'd been dead too long.

By its side, there were three creatures. All of them were looking at her, now, pressing their faces up to the gate, snapping their teeth against the metal.

She pulled out her axe as she walked towards that gate. She got close to the first one, then rammed the axe into its skull, some of the cold blood falling back onto her arm.

She moved on to the next one, then. A woman. Couldn't have been older than university years. Another tragic loss of this brutal world.

She pressed the axe in between her eyes and listened to her skull crack, then watched her fall against the bars.

When she moved on to the next one, she saw something different.

She couldn't explain what it was. This person was a man, once. Muscular. Dark, curly hair. Blue eyes. He was well dressed, even though his clothes were torn.

But it was his eyes that got to her, mostly.

That tearful look in his eyes, like he was fighting.

Fighting back against what he was doing.

He wasn't snapping his teeth, either. And that's when she wondered. As she looked into the eyes of the undead and he looked back at her, she wondered whether there could be a light inside some of these monsters. Whether there could be some semblance of how things used to be.

She was so focused on the undead's eyes that she didn't hear the footsteps behind her.

She felt the hands wrap around the tops of her arms. She tried to swing around and slash the creature, but her movement was restricted. And as much as she tried to push back against the creature behind her, she was being pressed closer and closer towards the one remaining zombie behind the gate.

She looked into its eyes and saw an eagerness not to attack. A determination not to do any harm. Because it didn't want to. That wasn't what it wanted to do. It was clear in its eyes and yet she couldn't explain it. Even trying to explain it would make her sound insane.

She pressed her feet up against the gate. She pushed back against the undead holding on to her.

Then she kicked back, with all the force she had.

She felt the undead behind her losing its grip. She felt it slipping.

But the one behind the gate had a hold on her shoe now.

It brought its teeth down towards her shoe. She couldn't see it properly. Her vision was blackened on one side.