Dead Days: Season 3 (Books 13-18) Read Online Free Page B

other bits of it clung to his grey beard. “What’s what?”
    “You expect me to just believe that you know what cures this thing? The people walking around out there…‌I’ve seen it in their faces. They’re gone. Dead. There’s nothing behind their eyes.”
    Alan shook his head. He tutted. “No, not a cure,” he said. He staggered closer to Riley. “Cure is inaccurate. I’d…‌I’d say more of a vaccination, to be precise. If my research is correct.”
    Riley brought his fingers through his hair. At least it wasn’t greasy anymore, although he figured if he had to put up with Alan’s question-dodging for much longer, his scientific jargon, it’d be greasy as shit again in no time.
    “Just tell me. Tell me what caused the outbreak. Tell me when, where, why it started, and tell me what it is we’re going to do about it.”
    Alan leaned against the back of the leather sofa, which Riley found comfier than anything he’d sat in for days‌—‌weeks, even. “I never have been a fan of exposition,” Alan said. “I prefer to…‌to show, rather than to tell‌—‌”
    “I’m a journalist,” Riley said, his skin tingling with heat. “I don’t need a crash course in linguistic tricks.”
    Alan chuckled at this. “There are no tricks, Riley. You asked for the answers, but there’s only so much I can tell. What you see with your own eyes, however…‌that’s what makes the difference.”
    Riley stared into Alan’s tired eyes. He was on the verge of storming over to that cabinet, grabbing a gun, and leaving on his own. This man was clearly mad. Insane. How could a man like this know the answers to the question of the virus‌—‌or whatever it was‌—‌on the outside?
    “You need to be straight with me,” Riley said. He stood up from the sofa. If he stayed in it any longer, he’d get too comfy, too accustomed to it. He walked around the back of the sofa and confronted Alan. “So far you’ve told me you have a vaccination of some kind. And that you were in fortnightly contact with Rodrigo and the people at Heathwaite’s‌—‌”
    “Rest their souls‌—‌”
    “And now you just expect me to push you along through some fucking hidden tunnel to Manchester. Suppose I do go along with this story of yours. Suppose I actually for a moment go insane enough to believe you. What then? What’s in Manchester?”
    Alan sighed. “You really do need spoon-feeding, don’t you?” He intertwined his rough old fingers. “I’m surprised you haven’t already heard, but why would you with limited mobile coverage, I suppose. There’s a place in Manchester. A “Living Zone,” as they are aptly calling it. A shelter. A home for everyone. One of the last ports of true, governmental civilisation left in the country.”
    Riley could hardly believe it. He’d been in Preston, his home town, just weeks ago. Manchester was closer to Preston than his current location, somewhere under the bloody Lake District. He’d gone in the wrong direction. He could’ve been safe.
    Anna. Claudia. Pedro. They all could’ve been safe.
    “Top of my personal list of highlights in Manchester Living Zone is a medical research facility. The very best in the country. And that’s where we’re going. That’s where our tunnel very handily leads us right to.”
    Riley stepped across the cold, hard tiles of the bunker floor. For a place so safe, he could feel himself going insane down here already. It was like being in a plane, miles above the earth, no idea what’s going on around you, and yet the things that aren’t going on around you instantly becoming so…‌irrelevant.
    “How do you know all this?” Riley asked.
    Alan shrugged. Crinkled his forehead, like his answer was common sense. “Well, I’m in the armed forces. I’m technically government.”
    Riley scratched at the back of his neck, an itch burning him. “I just don’t…‌I don’t get it. It doesn’t add up.”
    “The world is crawling with the