Authors: Ryan Casey
“
W
e only use
the guns if we have to,” Hayden shouted.
“I’d say this fucking qualifies as ‘have to’,” Sarah said.
The group of four sprinted as fast as they could through the trees. The ground switched between icy and thawed as the sun peeked in through cracks in these evergreen trees. Hayden tried to keep his balance. He couldn’t slip. Couldn’t fall. Not now.
Behind, the guttural groans of the zombies grew ever closer.
“Which way?” Hayden shouted.
“Any way!” Gary said. “Ain’t sure directions matter too much right now.”
Hayden didn’t like that, but shit—he was hardly in a position to argue. So he kept on running. Felt the loose branches of trees scrape against his face, felt his knees tensing up with every awkward step, a stitch spreading through his stomach and threatening to floor him.
“An opening!” Holly said. “Up ahead!”
Hayden didn’t have time to scrutinise Holly’s words. He told himself not to peek over his shoulder but doing so just prompted him to look.
A dozen of them. At least.
Not a smidgen of frostiness about the way they were moving. Not now.
And then he stumbled forward.
Felt himself floating through the air, like he was moving in slow motion.
And just as quickly as he’d slipped, Hayden found his footing again, kept on running like it was all just part of the plan.
“Which fucking opening are you on about?” Sarah shouted, not giving a shit about how her voice might attract the undead—and with reason. They were attracted as it damned well was.
“I … I dunno,” Holly said. “I swore I saw—”
A half-dozen strong group of zombies staggered from behind the trees up ahead.
“Shit!” Sarah shouted. She stopped running and Holly crashed into her, Gary just about slowing his run before he could fly into them too, Hayden already stationary.
He looked around. Looked behind at the zombies as they marched closer. Some of them were still frozen at the teeth, and Hayden couldn’t shake the image of ice-cold fangs slicing through his skin and feasting on his insides. Up ahead, more zombies approached. To the left and to the right, the trees were thicker and it was impossible to see what was hiding beyond those natural walls.
“Need to make a decision right about now,” Gary said. “Left or right, guys.”
“Fuck it.” Hayden lifted his pistol and pointed it at the crowd of zombies heading from behind.
“No!” Sarah said. She knocked the gun down. Stared at Hayden with bloodshot eyes. “We don’t absolutely need to. Not yet. We need to move.”
Hayden looked at the frosty zombies stepping towards him and right there and then he felt a deep, unavoidable anger and frustration. He knew it was irrational, like being angry at the customer service adviser at a call centre when the real problem was management. But he couldn’t help it. He wanted to punish these beasts for the disruption they’d caused to this world. He wanted to punish
anybody
for the disruption to this world.
But not right now.
Right now, he had to move.
Had to get the hell out of here.
He ran to his right into the thicker mass of tree trunks and branches. Darkness seemed to descend on the group as they disappeared into the unknown, the zombies’ cries a constant reminder that they were hot on their heels.
They ran. Ran over icy patches and ran over snapped logs and ran over the remains of squirrels and rats, gutted and splayed out all over the bed of the woodland. And as they ran, as the natural taste of the trees covered Hayden’s lips and encapsulated his senses, he realised how frigging unfair it was for the human race to go and wreak so much havoc on mother nature. Unintentional havoc, sure, but havoc nonetheless. Havoc that wouldn’t even be a conscious idea if it weren’t for the presence of humans.
Humans. “They just screw things up,” his granddad used to say.
And Hayden hadn’t understood what he meant as a kid. He saw the positives to humanity. Technological advances, medical care. Missions into space and democracy-spreading wars.
But right now, he agreed with his old granddad. Humans really did just screw things up, whether they had a conscious hand in it or not.
“Argh!”
The scream snapped Hayden out of his terrified senses.
He looked for Sarah and Holly. But no—they were still on their feet, running along into the mass of trees, on the brink of disappearing into a nothingness beyond.
On the floor to Hayden’s right, Gary lay.
Gary clenched hold of his foot. Blood spilled out of the bottom of his black walking boot. The teeth of a sharp metal fox trap had pierced through the rubber and the leather.
His foot was bloodied and mangled inside it.
Gary screamed. His face was completely pale. He clutched his ankle and stared at his injured foot in disbelief.
“You—you need to get up,” Hayden said. He heard the gasps getting closer. Saw the branches behind shaking.
“I—I can’t, mate. My foot. Fuck. My fucking foot. My fucking—arghhh!”
Hayden cringed when Gary screamed. And it was a cringe that didn’t
feel
right because he knew he was cringing more for his own safety than with Gary’s pain.
But he had to make a decision right now. He had to do something.
He looked up. Sarah and Holly getting further away. He was losing sight of them. Fast.
Gary screamed.
Behind, the branches swayed. Gasps got louder. Hungrier. Closer.
Gary screamed.
Hayden crouched beside Gary. “You—you need to be quiet. You need to be quiet or—”
“My foot my fucking foot my—argh!”
Hayden heard the rustling of the branches and the gasps and the cries all as one. He moved his hands towards the rusty, blood-soaked trap. “You need to keep still. We don’t have much—”
“Please make it stop. Please make it stop.” Tears rolled down Gary’s cheeks as he clutched his ankle, stared up at the moving mass of the trees behind, awaiting his fate.
Hayden’s heart raced. He’d lost sight of Sarah and Holly completely. Soon it would be just him and Gary. And then Gary would bleed out and it would be just him. Just Hayden, all alone in a deathly woods in the middle of nowhere.
Exhausted. Trapped.
No.
He wrapped his hands around the teeth of the trap and tried to pry it open.
It didn’t budge.
Gary roared with pain.
Gary’s blood covered Hayden’s fingers. And right there, holding Gary’s ankle upright, he understood. He understood what this was. He understood the decision he had to make. A cruel decision. An impossible decision. A decision that shouldn’t even be in his hands.
But the necessary decision.
“Keep as still as you can,” Hayden said. He dropped the rucksack and reached into it with his quivering fingers. In the corner of his eye, he saw the zombies approaching.
“What—what—”
Hayden swung the mallet into the side of Gary’s head.
“I’m sorry, Gary,” he said. “I’m … I’m so sorry.”
And then he laid down a sharp handsaw at Gary’s unconscious side and he stood up and ran.
He ran away from the gasps and the cries of the zombies.
He ran through the branches, onwards and onwards in the trickling glow of the late winter sun.
He ran like someone was controlling him. Someone playing a sandbox video game with multiple routes of good and evil to choose from.
He was never the evil. Ever.
Until now.
No!
He’d done what was right for Gary.
What was kindest.
There was no hope for him.
Nothing.
He ran and ran through the trees and he felt a warm tear roll down his cheek as Gary’s blood crusted in his palms.
H
ayden sprinted
through the woods as fast as his wrecked body would allow him.
His feet ached with pain. Every tree he ran past blended into one. Sometimes, he thought he heard a voice—the voice of Sarah or Holly up ahead—but when he emerged from the trees, all he saw was more twigs, more branches, thick, constant, endless.
It was the middle of the day but a darkness hung over Hayden. The darkness of his actions; of what he’d done. He didn't want to admit it. He didn't want to face up to it. But he had to.
He’d knocked Gary out. Left him behind to be feasted on by the oncoming mass of zombies. Left a blade beside him, just in case he woke up and needed to take a stand against the zombies.
Or to make his own decision about the next step.
Hayden felt tears dripping down his chapped, scratched face as he kept on running. Sickness welled at the back of his throat, the smells of death refusing to leave his senses. He’d done the only thing he could for Gary. The only thing that seemed right at that moment in time. Because he was trapped. His foot was wedged in a trap and there was no way out for him, no escape.
He’d done what he had to do. And that was wrong. So, so wrong.
And now he was lost. Lost, alone, in the middle of the woods. Only death awaited him. He knew that now. Accepted it. And in a way, he knew he deserved it for what he’d done. Because there was no bright light at the end of the tunnel in the form of Holyhead. There was no turning back to Riversford for anything other than more death, more destruction.
There was just endless nothing. Endless death.
He slowed down and leaned against the cracked bark of a tree. He panted. Felt a stitch rippling through his stomach and crippling his body. Behind, he couldn’t hear the zombies approaching anymore. But he knew they were there. He knew, somewhere behind him, they were there. Because they always were. Everywhere he looked, everywhere he turned, always watching, waiting …
He hadn’t heard Gary scream or cry out. Part of him wasn’t sure how to feel about that. On one hand, he was relieved. He didn’t want Gary to suffer any pain. He wanted Gary to stay quiet in hope that the zombies wouldn’t bite him … but that was a long shot, he knew.
So the next best thing was that Gary didn’t wake up from his unconsciousness. That he stayed trapped in the clutches of sleep, the throes of darkness.
He didn’t want Gary to wake up knowing he’d been betrayed.
Hayden’s heart pounded.
What have you done?
What have you become?
He crouched down and leaned back against the tree. Tears rolled down his cheeks like falling rain, uncontrollable and unstoppable. He saw flashes of the last few weeks in his mind. Of his parents—of what he’d had to do to them. And then of Newbie, Clarice, of Matt, Karen, and little Tim, and now of Gary.
And then he remembered Ally. Remembered Callum and the evil that enshrouded him. The things those two—and many others—had done to all those poor women, those poor children.
But Hayden had left a man to die. He’d decided the fate of a friend. He’d signed Gary’s death warrant. Who was he to do that?
His body started to shake. He dug his head between his knees, rocked back and forth in the cold darkness. He just wanted out of this. Out of all this. Because he couldn’t trust anyone or anything anymore. And the horrifying part about that truth was that he was right—nobody could trust
anybody
. And Hayden was no exception to that rule either.
There was no good in this world, not anymore. There was only what kept you alive.
He sniffed. Smelled the metal and the rot in the air—the smells that might not even be there—and he wished for a way out of this. It was the most like his old self he’d felt since the day of the fall. He cried freely. Blubbered like a fucking baby. He’d kept his emotions, his fear, his sadness, all of it bottled up inside until now.
Nothing but a self-pitying wreck.
And then he heard footsteps cracking through the twigs on the woodland floor.
He looked through the trees. He couldn’t see the source of the sound, not at first. Too many branches. Too many trees packed in closely together. It was like a hall of mirrors. Nature’s evil hall of mirrors waiting to catch him out.
Then he saw it.
Saw the torn grey jacket.
The bloodied skull.
He saw the blood pooling out of the sinewy neck and the dirty long fingernails peppered with blood and bits of flesh.
Hayden held his breath and kept still as the zombie approached through the trees. A part of his mind screamed out at him to run. To get the fuck away from here. To hide.
But then another part—a stronger part that had been hiding away in the back of his mind ever since his older sister killed herself—told him to stay put.
Let it take you.
This can all end, right here.
Mum’s dead, Dad’s dead, Annabelle’s dead and Clarice is dead.
And then he saw his family just like he saw them in his nightmares.
Blood soaking them, head to toe.
Bite marks tearing through the sides of their necks.
Beaming smiles. Bright eyes.
Join us join us join us.
The zombie staggered closer. Hayden’s body was frozen. He gritted his teeth. Listened to the skin-crawling groan.
Join us Hayden please join us join us.
Five steps away.
Four.
Three.
Annabelle with a belt around her bruised neck.
Clarice holding her head under her arm.
Smiling.
JOIN US JOIN US JOIN—
And then something crashed into the side of the zombie and it fell to the ground.
Someone.
Sarah pushed the knife into the zombie’s neck as it wriggled around on the soily woodland. Her face turned as she wedged the knife in even further, pressed in even harder. All the while, Hayden couldn’t get the images of his family out of his mind, couldn’t stop them singing and dancing and chanting.
Don’t leave us please so close please …
Putting the pillow over Mum’s face.
Pressing down.
Mum who gave birth to him. Raised him up. Did everything for him.
Pressing and pressing until her last breath trickled out of her weakened—
“Come on. Get up. Don’t wanna stick around here.”
Hayden snapped out of his thoughts like he’d been hit in the face. He looked up. Saw Sarah standing over him holding a hand out.
He took a few steadying breaths. Took Sarah’s hand and stepped up. His knees were weak. His entire body felt like it’d been through a metal crusher and straightened out at the other end. He looked around, saw Holly standing with her arms folded. She half-smiled and nodded at Hayden, her brown eyes twinkling in the glimmer of light from above.
“Gary,” Sarah said. “He not … not make it?”
Hayden didn’t look at Sarah when she said
his
name. He just stared back into the darkness of the woods. He stared back and he saw infinite secrets—infinite secrets and demons that he’d never tell of, never.
They’d stay trapped away in those woods. Confined to history.
They had to.
He breathed in a sharp, deep breath and shook his head.
Sarah sighed.
“Come on then,” she said. “After what we found, we’re gonna wanna get the hell away from here sometime soon.”
Hayden followed Sarah and Holly. His thoughts were still dim and unfocused like a radio improperly tuned. “What did you—what did you find?”
Sarah stopped. Pointed ahead. “This.”