W
hen Hayden heard
Amy’s scream, his entire body froze.
He turned around. Started to look towards her. Images flashed in his mind—pictures of her being torn apart, of the flesh being pulled from her bones like meat from a kebab. He couldn’t face witnessing that. He couldn’t bring himself to watch that innocent little girl—a girl who was all alone because of his errors—die right in front of him. He just couldn’t witness that anymore.
But he knew he had to turn around.
He knew he had to see what was happening to Amy.
When he saw her, his body froze even more.
Amy was on the ground.
An infected was on top of her. Pushing its rotting face closer and closer towards her neck.
Hayden knew what he should do. He knew he should go over to her, help her. He knew that she was one of his people, and all he wanted more than anything was to protect his people.
But he also felt the fear kick in.
Heat crept across his skin. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. The sounds all around him—sounds of the groaning infected, the footsteps as they stepped towards him, the smells of rot and the taste of death in the air—all of them mixed together and rendered him inactive.
He was outside.
He was outside the fucking walls and he wasn’t safe.
He needed to get back to safety.
More than anything, he needed to get back to safety.
He saw Miriam. Saw four infected standing around her. She batted them off. Shot at them. Then she turned to Hayden. Fear and panic filled her eyes. She screamed something at him. Screamed at him about Amy; to go and help Amy.
And then he felt his muscles loosen.
He felt his surroundings come back to him. The fear inside diminish.
Fuck being scared. Fuck being afraid.
He was outside of safety. He always had been outside of safety, and he always would be, no matter how much of an illusion he built around himself, or how much he tried to convince himself otherwise.
He took a deep breath.
Lifted his rifle.
Pointed it at the infected pinning Amy down.
He knew he might miss. He knew the bullets might ricochet. Hit Amy.
But he had to take a risk.
He had to take a risk to save that girl’s life.
He pulled the trigger. Fired a few bullets into the side of the infected’s neck.
He watched its head snap to the side. Watched blood splatter out of it, covering Amy below.
It fell down on top of her. Trapped her underneath. Around it, more infected approached. They looked down at Amy’s struggling body with their cold, blank eyes and closed in for some easy prey.
“Help her, Hayden!”
Hayden was already onto it. He started to hurtle towards Amy, to help her out from underneath the decaying mass pinning her down. But then he saw Miriam.
She was surrounded.
Surrounded by infected.
“Help Amy, Hayden!”
He looked at Amy. Looked at the infected, just inches away.
And then he looked at Miriam. Looked at her as she disappeared into the middle of the infected.
He had to make a decision.
He had to make the right call.
He ran towards Amy. Pushed the infected further over her, so that it was covering her completely.
And then he stepped up to the crowd surrounding Miriam.
Beat the first one right in the back of the neck with the butt of his rifle.
And then he cracked the skull of the next one.
Fired three bullets into the one after that.
He felt blood splashing against him. Cold, rancid blood. But he kept on going. Kept on fighting. Kept on looking over his shoulder too, to make sure Amy was completely okay.
Three infected surrounded her. Tried to reach down and get her.
But she was shielded. She was okay because she was shielded.
Hayden kept on fighting the infected surrounding Miriam. Kept on fighting until just four, three, two, were standing.
When he saw the last one with its hands wrapped around Miriam’s wrists, he raised his gun. Went to fire.
Miriam put it down before he had the chance.
He saw the fear in Miriam’s eyes. Saw the confusion. “Amy?”
They turned around.
Four infected leaned down over Amy.
Stuck their hands into guts. Covered themselves in blood.
“Amy…” Hayden heard Miriam’s grief as she raced towards Amy. As she took down one of the infected, then another, then another after that.
“It’s okay,” Amy mumbled. “I’m—I’m not bit. I’m okay. I’m okay.”
“Thank God,” Miriam said, pulling Amy from underneath the pile of fallen infected. “Thank God.”
They stood there, the three of them, and looked out at the surrounding landscape. More infected were coming in their direction. There was no getting through a wall that thick of them, not right now.
They only had one direction to go. Even if Miriam did eventually want to leave this place, they couldn’t. Not right now.
“It’s time we spoke to our people,” Miriam said. “Found survivors. Start to… to make some actual plans. Of how we’re going to deal with this.”
Hayden nodded. He heard the defeat in her voice. And he felt it, too. She was giving up. Giving up on getting away from this place. Giving up on escaping New Britain. As the afternoon progressed, it became more and more clear that this day wasn’t ending anytime soon.
“Through the tunnel?” Miriam asked.
Hayden looked inside the tunnel. Saw the silhouettes of the infected heading their way. “Through the tunnel.”
He reloaded his gun.
Miriam loaded hers.
Together, they walked through the broken gates and back towards New Britain, back towards home.
If only they knew what was waiting for them, maybe they’d have tried something different.
H
ayden kept
his gun raised as he walked through the darkness of the tunnel.
It was sunny outside the tunnel, but no matter how nice it got, this place was always pitch black. It reminded Hayden of the first time he’d ever stepped into it. When he’d run in here and come face to face with Terrence Schumer, with his army of guards. When he’d taken the infection-laced bullets and shot himself with one, making himself turn, ending his life right there.
He wondered how different things would be if he’d just stayed dead that day. His comatose, experimental state was kept a secret from the citizens of New Britain for a long time. The people in charge didn’t want to engineer hope, or something like that. And it added up. It made sense. Hayden was viewed as the sacrificial hero who saved this place from the ironclad grip of Terrence Schumer. A new world was born, even if the dangers of the old world still lurked outside those walls.
After the immunisation, a lackadaisical attitude had set in. People got more comfortable. More complacent.
If the immunisation hadn’t been introduced in the first place, would that attitude have set in?
Or would people be living a cautious life?
A life that might’ve saved this place altogether?
Hayden walked with Amy and Miriam by his side. He kept an eye out for silhouettes, for infected lurking towards him. The smell in here was gross. Like the worst back alleyway in the dingiest town centre you could imagine, with a whole lot of dead mixed in. It was so pungent that Hayden could taste it.
He tried to keep himself from heaving and pressed on through the tunnel.
“I don’t like this place,” Amy whispered.
Hayden nodded. He didn’t look at Amy, just kept his focus ahead at all times. “None of us do. But we’ve got to go through it if we want to get to the other side. Back home.”
“That’s what I mean,” Amy said. “I don’t like home. I don’t want to stay here. Not anymore.”
Hayden’s stomach sank when he heard Amy’s words. They’d worked so hard to build a place where everyone felt safe, regardless of age, race, gender.
And here was a little girl, traumatised by the things she’d seen, attached to the memories of death and destruction she just couldn’t shake.
“I know,” Hayden said. “But we’re going to make this place safe again. I promise.”
He knew it wasn’t the most reassuring speech. But it was all he had.
“Heads up,” Miriam said.
Hayden turned. Looked at where Miriam was pointing.
He saw movement right ahead. Just up to his left. This infected was quiet though. In fact, there were three of them. All moving quite slowly, creeping along towards them.
“Stealthy shits,” Hayden said. “You or me?”
“Be my guest,” Miriam said.
Hayden lifted his rifle. Pointed at the first on the left.
“Wait!”
The voice came from up ahead. It frightened Hayden so much that he almost pulled the trigger out of sheer gut reaction.
But he managed to compose himself just before he gunned down whoever was in front of him. “What—Who is that?”
“Shit,” the voice said. “They’re alive, Ste. I told you they were fucking alive.”
Hayden lowered his rifle. He walked up to these people. He couldn’t see them properly, not while in the darkness.
But as he got closer, he realised he recognised these people as New Britain citizens. Mark. Rajiv. Kayla.
“No idea how fucking good it is to see you,” Rajiv said. “We thought we were the last damned people left in this place.”
“You weren’t the only ones,” Miriam said.
“What the hell you doing heading back in there, anyway? Place is a shit tip.”
Miriam and Hayden exchanged a glance. Hayden knew what that look was. An “ask him,” look. But in truth, he was more than happy to answer. He was confident about what he was doing now. More confident than he’d been in a long time. “There’s more of them approaching. The main gates aren’t working. We have to find more people and we have to defend this place.”
“Until we can make a break for it,” Miriam cut in.
Hayden didn’t acknowledge that part.
“Seriously, you’re making a bad call,” Kayla said. “There’s nothing safer about this place than out there surrounded by those things. Not anymore.”
“There’s armouries. There’s buildings. There’s—”
“Undead hiding in every damned corner,” Mark said. “I’ve seen ’um. Seen what happens. They turn. Without even been bit or nothing. They just turn.”
Hayden narrowed his eyes. “Wait. They just turn? What do you mean by that?”
“I saw it too,” Kayla said. “Three of ’em. People who’d—who’d had the immunisation, you know. One sec, they’re just standing there. Second, they’re… well, they’re the runners.”
The revelation hit Hayden right in his core. He’d suspected that something was off with the immunisation all along. After all, it was too much of a coincidence that the infected were suddenly attacking those who’d been cured—it proved that
something
wasn’t going quite to plan.
But for people to be turning without even being bitten?
Were Mark and Kayla right? Were immunised people really just… turning?”
“What does that mean for us?” Miriam asked.
It was the question that’d been just about to swirl into Hayden’s mind. And as he opened his mouth to answer, he realised eyes were on him. They were looking at him like
he
had the answers. But really, he wasn’t anything. He was just the test tube. The carrier of Martha and Daniel’s people’s experimentations. The first person that immunisation really activated in.
“I guess we… we can’t do much about that. Not right now—”
“But all of us here are immunised, right?” Rajiv interrupted. “And if all of us are immunised, doesn’t that mean…”
Rajiv didn’t finish. He didn’t have to finish. Hayden knew what he was getting at. He knew what he was so terrified about.
If all of them here were immunised, then eventually, they were going to turn.
They didn’t know when it was going to happen. Didn’t know why, how.
Only that it was coming.
It was coming, and nothing could prepare them for it.
“I’m not immunised,” Miriam said, resignation in her voice. “I guess that makes me one of the lucky ones.”
She tried to make light of the situation, but it didn’t exactly go down like a storm.
“I’m not immunised either,” Amy said.
Hayden looked at Amy. The others looked at her too.
“Amy, you must be. Your mum would’ve made sure you were—”
“She—she said she didn’t want me to be. Not until they knew. For sure. Or something.”
“Knew what for sure?” Miriam asked.
Amy’s little face looked up at the rest of the group. Looked up at them, all staring at her. “Until she knew it was definitely safe.”
Those words knocked Hayden back a few pegs. The anger and frustration towards Martha and Daniel built. They were good people with good intentions, but they’d used the people of New Britain as guinea pigs. As experiments for something they didn’t even have total faith in.
They were going to die. All of them were going to die.
And for the first time, Hayden believed that might not be his fault.
Not his, solely.
“Then if you’re not immunised, we need to keep you safe,” Hayden said, struggling to force the words out. “If you aren’t immunised, you could be the most important person here right now.”
Amy nodded like she understood, but Hayden knew it’d be difficult for her to get her head around. She was just a kid. Just a little kid who’d lost the last thing she cared about in her life just earlier that day.
“We’ll keep you safe, Amy. Even if… even if it means leaving this place and fighting through those infected right now, we’ll keep you safe.”
He saw the half-smile on Amy’s face as he squinted into the darkness.
He saw the look in Miriam’s eyes. The look of pride. And the look of respect in the eyes of the others.
They were getting out of here.
They were stepping up and they were getting out of here.
All of them. Together. United.
Mark nodded. “Then I guess we better—”
He didn’t finish what he was saying.
Something whooshed into the side of his head. Sent blood splattering out from his skull. His head cracked open and his brains drooled out onto the ground below.
Everyone went quiet.
And then they looked up in the direction the bullet had come from.
Over by the broken gate.
Hayden could only just make out their faces from this far. There were at least ten of them. Probably more. All of them were holding guns of some kind. Pointing them at Hayden and his group.
He could make out the face of the man at the front clearly.
Gary.
“I really didn’t wanna have to do that,” Gary shouted, torchlight shining towards Hayden and his people. There wasn’t an ounce of remorse in Gary’s voice. “Now, little piggies. You’ve got a chance to run.”
“Gary!” Hayden shouted. He lifted his hands. “We’re—we’re alive. We aren’t infected.”
Gary didn’t lower his gun. Nor did any of his people. “Yeah,” he said. “You might be alive. Right now, anyway. But we know what happens to them who’ve been immunised, don’t we?” He looked around at his people. Looked at them, and Hayden realised what Gary was doing. Who these people were.
They were people who hadn’t yet been immunised.
“Hayden,” Rajiv said.
He looked around. Saw infected at the opposite side of the gate. They were being surrounded. Blocked in by infected on the New Britain side and Gary’s people on the outside.
“We need to make a break,” Rajiv said. “We need to—”
Another bullet whizzed through the air.
Slammed into Rajiv’s neck.
Sent him falling to the ground, clutching his neck and gurgling as blood spurted out of it.
Hayden, Miriam, Amy and Kayla stood still. Held their ground. Frozen. Trapped.
“Now,” Gary said, joy evident in his voice. “You killed Amanda. You left me for dead. And you signed a death sentence for a shitload of our people. Time to return the favour. Only you ain’t going anywhere. None of you.”
Hayden listened to the approaching groans of the infected.
He saw the raised guns of Gary’s people.
He heard Rajiv’s last breath splutter out of his lungs.
He knew Gary was serious.
And that was terrifying.