H
ayden took
a sip of his beer and tried to forget everything.
It was still early morning, but it felt like the day had dragged on. Outside, through the dusty windows of the Red Lion pub, Hayden saw the sun shining brightly. Part of it made him happy. Made him grateful for where he was, for the life he was living.
But what Daniel said. His suspicions about Hayden putting Amanda down—an uninfected Amanda.
It was getting to him.
Hayden looked around the pub. It was pretty quiet inside, which made sense for this time of morning. The bartender, Mike, walked around with a smile on his face, enjoying his life. Because that’s how it should be in here. People should be able to enjoy their lives. To forget about the horrors outside the walls and just zone out.
But the events of the last few days had reminded Hayden that it wasn’t so easy to switch off. Once you stepped back into the life—the life of the outsider—you couldn’t just change your colours again all that easily.
Which was why he could never become that outsider again. Ever.
That’s just why he had to stay here. Inside New Britain. Never to venture out. Comfort zone or whatever, it was where he was safe, where Miriam and the people he cared about were safe, and that was the most important thing.
He took another sip of the beer. It tasted acidic. He used to be able to knock loads of beers back, lose himself to its calming, numbing state. And as he sat there, staring at the glass as the sun shone in the window and through it, he thought about just how much he’d changed from the old waste of space he used to be. Sitting around in his boxers, waking up in his own sweat and puke. He was a waste of breath. A waste of oxygen. He’d grown so much since the world ended. What a horrible way to look at the downfall of humanity.
That’s why Miriam was wrong about him and his “comfort zone”. She didn’t know the old him. She didn’t know what he used to be like. How far he’d come. How long he’d spent just trying to
fit in
somewhere. To find somewhere he could truly call home.
And that’s why he never wanted to leave it.
That’s why he’d shot Amanda.
Because he’d seen what the infected were doing out there. How they were acting. And he didn’t want to risk anything to do with it getting inside these walls. Ever.
As long as enough people believed that Amanda was infected when Hayden shot her, everything would be okay. There wouldn’t be a story.
As long as Daniel let it drop, everything would be fine.
He went to take another sip of his beer when he heard the door to the pub open.
He didn’t turn around. Didn’t look to see who it was. Not at first.
But when he heard his voice, he knew exactly who it was.
“Bit early for a drink, don’t you think?”
Hayden put the glass down. He turned. Nodded. “Try having half a pint of blood pulled out of you every week. Think I’ve earned it.”
Gary didn’t smile back at Hayden. He didn’t smile at much, in truth. He pulled up a barstool, sat right beside Hayden. Considering Hayden saw a bit of Gary—they were both rotating shifts on defending the wall—he realised right then how little he actually knew him.
Other than Gary was a good friend of Amanda’s. A very good friend.
That’s what worried Hayden.
“Nice day to be stuck inside,” Gary said.
Hayden nodded. He tried to make eye contact with Gary. Tried to figure out whether he was just messing with him or whether he knew something about Amanda, too. He’d been there when the attack broke out. When Amanda disappeared into the woods, and Hayden told him she was gone—that they were all gone.
But then a group had been outside the following morning. Pulled Amanda’s body back in. Found the gunshot in her head. No sign of other infected around her.
Although there was no real trace of wrongdoing, he knew Daniel suspected something wasn’t right. So what about Gary?
“You know what I find strange?” Gary said.
Hayden braced himself for whatever barrage Gary was preparing. He wasn’t a guy to mess with. Better built than Hayden. Had this handlebar tache that made him look even more intimidating. “Go on.”
“Humour me for a second,” Gary said. He shuffled closer to Hayden. “You’re on watch. You see the scouting team out there get attacked. Killed, right then. Right?”
Hayden swallowed. “I didn’t say I saw them all—”
“No, you did,” Gary said. “You said you saw every one of ’em as good as dead. Even Amanda.”
“I saw her get chased into the woods.”
“But you didn’t see ’em
attack
Amanda, did you?”
“I think it’s safe to assume they were going to attack her after—”
“But you didn’t, did you?”
Hayden closed his mouth. Waited a few seconds. There was nothing he could say other than the truth. “No.”
Gary nodded. “So you don’t see Amanda die. But you tell me there’s no point going after her. None at all. And then that same night, you pop a bullet through her head.”
“I didn’t know it was her. She must’ve been running towards me. With the other infected.”
“So she was infected?”
Hayden nodded. “She definitely looked—”
“You know, without a shadow of a doubt that she was infected?”
This time, Hayden couldn’t tell the truth, as much as he wanted to. He knew the damage telling the truth could cause. “She was infected. One hundred percent.”
Daniel raised his eyebrows. Nodded. “Funny.”
“What’s so funny?”
“I found her dead with her gun wrapped in her palm, that’s all.”
Hayden went to speak. But he didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know what he could say to absolve himself. “There’s—”
“There’s what?”
“It might not mean—”
“It means she was alive when you shot her, Hayden.”
“No. That’s not possible. She was infected. She was—”
“She was alive when you shot her. You could’ve shot those infected. You could’ve kept that damned girl alive. But you were the one who put a bullet through her eyes. Who fucking ended her life. And you fucking knew it. Didn’t you?”
Hayden’s head spun. He felt his face heat up. The tang of the beer got more acidic on his tongue. He needed to leave. Needed to get out of here. He didn’t want trouble. He hadn’t come to New Britain in the first place for trouble. He was here to get away from it. To escape it.
He climbed off his barstool. Headed towards the door. He wasn’t having this conversation. He needed time to think—
He felt a hand pull him back. A strong hand. It spun him round. Then pulled him closer.
Gary stared into his eyes. And he looked manic. Feral. Like a rabid dog let off its leash.
“You admit it. You admit it to me, right here, right now. ’Cause I don’t care whether you’re some cure. I don’t care whether you’re the fucking Holy Grail. The way I see it, we’re safe in these walls whether we’re fucking immunised or not. And some of us don’t want your dirty blood in us. So you aren’t as important as you think, you skinny runt. Now tell me. Tell me what happened.”
“Nothing—”
“Tell me what the fuck you did to her!”
Hayden was sure Gary was about to punch him. He was getting ready for a scrap. Bracing for the impact of a fist, or a knee, or skull against skull.
But none of that happened.
None of that.
Because, outside, down by the wall, Hayden heard a blood-curdling scream.
H
ayden knew
the scream was bad news the second he heard it.
He stepped out of the pub. Turned in its general direction, over at the wall by the gates. The sun was bright and blocked his vision down past the terraced houses and towards that entrance area. There were people outside their houses. People looking to see what was going on, what was wrong.
A scream outside the walls? That wasn’t exactly normal anymore, not since they’d rolled out the immunisation.
But a scream inside the walls?
That was unthinkable.
Hayden could hear muttering. He heard the door of the pub creak open behind him, and he knew Gary was following him. They’d had their row in there, their confrontation. But it didn’t matter. Not anymore.
The only thing that mattered was that scream.
Hayden walked down the road. Walked towards where he’d heard the scream. He could see someone standing right inside the wall. Right in front of the main gates. He wasn’t sure who it was. Wasn’t sure he recognised them.
But the closer he got, the more realisation built inside Hayden.
Whoever it was, they were covered in blood.
More people gathered in the streets. Some of them kept their distance from this mysterious figure. Others went up to them, tried to talk to them.
As a cloud covered the sun, sending an autumnal chill through Hayden’s body, he saw who it was. He saw exactly who this person was. Where the scream had come from.
It was Colin. The missing survivor of Amanda’s group.
The group that were attacked by the infected.
A mixture of emotions came over Hayden. Colin stood there, wide-eyed. He was covered in blood from head to toe. He looked terrified. His lips were moving but no sounds were coming out. It didn’t look like he’d been bitten, not from this distance, but it was hard to tell under all the blood.
Part of Hayden was relieved to see one of his people alive. He was relieved that Colin had survived out there, and regardless of what’d happened, he’d made his way back home.
But another part of Hayden made him put his hand in his back pocket. Reach for the knife that he always kept in there.
If Colin had been outside, then something could’ve happened to him.
The infected were changing, again. So Colin could be a risk.
Hayden thought back to little Tim back at Riversford the closer he got to Colin. He never found out what happened to Tim. Never found out why he’d died, how the infection had passed on to Karen. Why she’d turned without any bites. As much of an invention Terrence Schumer’s “airborne virus” was, Hayden couldn’t pretend to understand all the mysteries of the infected. It would be naïve to assume that the virus didn’t have different ways of transmission; that people were susceptible to infection by various means.
But Colin. He was supposed to be immune. He wasn’t supposed to even be recognisable to the infected.
And yet his group had been hunted down.
Hayden couldn’t run the risk of this man just walking back inside New Britain like everything was normal.
“What’s he saying?” someone to the right of Hayden asked.
“Something’s not right,” another voice said.
Hayden just kept his focus on Colin. Kept his hand on his knife. If he had to kill him, he would, because his main priority was keeping New Britain safe, keeping the people he cared about safe.
If he had to put him down, just like he’d put Amanda down, he would have no hesitations.
The future of humanity was more important than the future of one, two humans.
He never used to believe that. Used to be against everything that ideal stood for.
But now he was in a position to say it, he believed it was true.
Hayden stepped even closer to Colin. And the nearer he got to him, as more people drifted back, as calls for a doctor broke out, Hayden swore he could hear words coming out of Colin’s mouth. He was mumbling something. Saying something.
Hayden needed to know what.
He kept his hand on the knife. Got within metres of Colin.
Colin’s eyes hadn’t connected with Hayden’s once. They hadn’t connected with anyone.
They’d just stared ahead, transfixed, terrified.
“Colin?” Hayden said.
Colin didn’t lift his head. He didn’t make eye contact with Hayden. He just held that stare into nothingness. A stare that gave Hayden shivers—made him want to turn around and get back to his home. To tell Miriam and everyone in here to lay low, not to worry.
But he knew there was no running away. Not now. Not while Colin was like this.
“Colin?” Hayden repeated. And as he got closer to Colin, just inches away, he made out some of the muffled words he was muttering.
“They… they… they are…”
“Colin, it’s me,” Hayden said. His heart raced. He could smell metal emanating from Colin’s body, the rustiness of blood piercing the air. “It’s Hayden. I… I saw what happened to you out there. What’s going on?”
“They… they’re… they’re…”
Colin just kept on repeating those words under his breath. Like he was trying to spit something out but couldn’t quite bring himself to.
Hayden stood right in front of Colin. Just inches away. He could hear his breathing cracking. See him shaking.
“What’s happening, Colin? What’s going on with you?”
Colin did something he hadn’t done in the entire exchange.
He lifted his head. Looked right into Hayden’s eyes.
“They’re coming. They’re coming.”
And then a light in his eyes dropped.
A snarl covered his face.
He threw himself at Hayden.
Hayden heard the cries from behind as he fell back on the ground. The back of his head cracked against the concrete, making his hearing muffled. He felt the full force of Colin’s body on top of him, pressing down, opening his mouth and readying to wrap his teeth around Hayden’s neck.
Hayden pulled out the knife. Lifted it. And even though he saw horror in the eyes of the New Britain residents, he knew what he had to do.
He rammed the knife into the back of Colin’s neck.
Twisted it. Felt warm blood trickling down between his fingers. Heard something crack under the pressure.
After a few seconds, Colin’s body went still.
Hayden rolled Colin away. He wiped some of the blood from his forehead. He still couldn’t hear properly. He could tell people were talking to him, trying to ask if he was okay, but he couldn’t make out their words, not properly.
All he could make out was the fear in their eyes.
Something had happened to Colin. Something terrible had happened to Colin.
“They’re coming. They’re coming.”
Hayden looked at the crowd of people. He looked at the horror in Gary’s eyes. At the shock on the faces of people he knew, like Martha, Amy, Shelley. He looked at them all looking at him like
he
was the monster.
He was about to tell them what Colin had said when he heard another scream.
This time, Hayden couldn’t quite comprehend it. Because the screams were coming from the people in front of him. The horrified stares lifted from Hayden and up towards the wall. Up at the top of the wall. People started to turn around, started to run. Panic, chaos, it all set in during that one split second.
Hayden turned around. Looked up at the top of the wall.
He saw something moving down the side of the wall. Several things, all powering down it, gripping onto it and hurtling towards the inside of New Britain.
“They’re coming. They’re coming.”
They weren’t just infected. They weren’t just an army of infected.
They were an army of the new breed of infected that Hayden had seen just days ago.
And they were hurtling towards New Britain.
Hurtling towards Hayden’s home.
Fast.