Dead Days: Season 3 (Books 13-18) by Ryan Casey Page A

and saw Chris climbing around a lorry door, disappearing to the other side. “All this‌—‌this chat is slowing us‌—‌”
    “Ever been on the stage, Baz?”
    Barry narrowed his eyes. “It’s Barry. And believe it or not, yes. Many times. I…‌” He scratched the back of his bald head. Looked over his shoulder at the mass of abandoned cars, little specks of snow resting on their roofs. “Before all this, I did‌—‌I did charity work. Save the Children, Make a Wish, things like that. And I had to dress up as a clown for a cancer group once.” He smiled. A genuine, warm smile. “Felt like an absolute buffoon, but it made the kids happy, so…‌”
    He looked at Pedro, Tamara and Josh and suddenly snapped out of his confession, as if realising he was peeling too many layers from his well-guarded soul.
    “Come on,” he said. “Let’s keep moving.”
    “Wow,” Tamara said. She looked at Josh, wide-eyed. “I don’t know what I’d rather see, Pedro in his underpants, or Barry in a clown suit.”
    “Definitely Pedro in pants!” Josh shouted, sniggering.
    Pedro grinned. He was buzzing all over. Buzzing from his present company. They were decent people. Genuine decent people. And yeah, he was wrong for feeling buzzing, but company was good. He’d been lucky. Lucky he’d bumped into them. Even Barry, as frumpy a fat-fuck as he usually was, was letting himself go a bit. Progress.
    “What about you, Chris?” Pedro called, squeezing past the large lorry door that Chris had gone through a few moments earlier. “Ever been on stage in your pants?”
    Chris didn’t answer.
    Pedro’s heart thumped as he pulled himself around the lorry door. His arms tingled, and he became aware of the cold wind on his skin, then sheer silence of the road. Chris had to be behind this door. He’d just disappeared out of sight for a split second, but he had to be behind it.
    “Chris? You okay, bud?”
    Again, nothing but silence in reply.
    “What’s that smell?” Josh whispered.
    Pedro looked back at Josh. It was only when the kid mentioned it that he smelled it too. The rotting smell. Fuck‌—‌one of the worst rotting smells he’d ever smelled. The others must’ve smelled it too, ‘cause they were sniffing at the air, looking left and right, seeking the source. Must be a body in a car nearby. Something like that.
    Pedro crept further around the tight gap of the lorry door. He still couldn’t see Chris, but he couldn’t be far ahead. Damn that bastard if this was a trick. Damn that…‌
    He stopped. Stopped, just before he emerged from behind the lorry door.
    A chilly breeze washed against Pedro’s face, biting into his skin. The smell of rot was strong in the air, the taste of it lingering in the back of his throat.
    “What is it?” Barry asked. “What do you see?”
    Pedro’s heart sunk when he stared down the motorway at what was ahead. When he saw them, so numerous in their dead masses, unlike anything he’d ever seen before.
    It sunk just like it had when he’d seen his son lying in a pool of blood fourteen years ago.
    Chris was lying on the motorway up ahead.
    Lying in a growing pool of blood.
    His eyes were wide open. Wide open, as a zombie bit into his neck, took out a chunk of his flesh.
    Another one ripped through his black coat and feasted on his wormlike guts.
    But it wasn’t just Chris that made Pedro feel ill. It wasn’t just the fact that Chris was down that froze him in his tracks and made him want to get the fuck out of here right away.
    It was the hundreds of creatures surrounding him.
    It was the hundreds of creatures, and how…‌how quiet they were.
    “Pedro, what is it?” Tamara whispered.
    One of the creatures, a dark-haired man with glassy eyes and narrow, gaunt cheekbones, lifted itself from Chris’s thigh and looked up at Pedro.
    It let out a tiny little groan, and, raw meat spilling down its chin, it stood up.
    And then the other creatures all looked.
    Looked at Pedro,