W
hen Miriam told
Hayden she never planned on going anywhere with him again, Hayden figured it was ironic that she was now running in the exact direction as him.
Just a pity it was because they were being chased by a growing mass of infected.
All of them running.
They ran through the streets. Hayden panted, keeping his pace fast enough to stay far away from the infected, but not so fast that he accidentally fell into the clutches of them. The infected weren’t far behind. But any slip, any hesitation, and they’d be onto them in seconds.
After watching them tear Martha apart, Hayden wasn’t ready to witness any more people he cared about die horrifically at the hands of those monsters.
“The armoury’s not far away,” Hayden shouted. The rest of the group were keeping pace with him. “We could go straight and get there in no time, or we could take a right down here and lose some of these.”
“It’s too risky,” Daniel said.
“What he said,” Miriam echoed.
Hayden could tell their trust in him was wavering. And who could blame them? But they needed to be together right now. They needed to work hard if they wanted to get out of this alive. Their heads had to be in the same place, even if their hearts were far apart. “We’ll go straight then. We just… we just need to keep moving. Fast.”
They ran further. Hayden could hear the growls of the infected getting closer. He could just about see the armoury up ahead. He felt a sickening knot in his stomach as he imagined getting there, only for it to be already occupied by some nuts, like Gary, or one of his cronies.
But no. He couldn’t let himself think about the worst right now. He could only think about one thing: getting to the armoury. Getting his people to safety.
And Gary was dead. He’d left him behind to close the gates. He felt bad about that too, sure, but now wasn’t the time to dwell on things like that.
Gary was gone. He wasn’t going to be a problem.
He had to believe that.
He heard a cry. Heard something hit the ground.
When he turned, he saw Amy was on her knees.
He stopped. Stopped in an instant. Even though the infected were rapidly making ground, he couldn’t leave her there. Couldn’t just leave her to die.
He ran back. Ran over to Amy. Pulled her to her feet. “Come on. Hold my hand. You can make this. We can both make this.”
Amy nodded, and the pair of them started running, hand in hand—
Miriam snatched Amy out of Hayden’s hand.
She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. Hayden knew exactly why it was. She still hated his guts for what she’d found out: he’d been picking people off to keep this place—“his perfect little bubble”, as she called it—safe.
He wanted to argue with her, to tell her he had everyone’s best interests at heart.
But now wasn’t the time.
Not now the infected were practically breathing down their necks.
“We need to run faster!” Hayden shouted, carrying on his hurtling towards the armoury. He gripped on to a heavy pipe, hoping he wouldn’t have to use it, but his hope was rapidly deteriorating the more he and the group fatigued. “We’re nearly there. Almost made it. We can do this.”
“If you stop fucking talking, maybe we will make it,” Miriam said.
As he ran, Hayden heard a glimmer of her old sarcasm in her voice. A sign that maybe she was coming round to his way of thinking. That maybe she saw he wasn’t the demon she wanted to believe so desperately.
And then he saw an infected rush out of the alley to their right, towards Daniel.
Hayden did the only thing that came instinctively to him.
He pushed past Daniel.
Lifted the pipe.
Cracked it across the infected’s neck.
The infected fell back. The hit wasn’t hard enough to end it completely, but it was good enough to buy them some time.
“No time to kill it,” Hayden said.
He started running again.
And then he saw two more infected coming from the left.
He gritted his teeth. Lifted that pipe. He saw Miriam, Shelley, Daniel all raise their various weapons too.
The armoury was just ahead. They could be there in seconds if they put everything they had into it.
Just another two infected to fight through.
The first infected collided with Miriam. She hacked at it. Hacked at its neck with the machete Hayden decapitated Martha with just earlier.
She killed it, but they were slowing.
The cries of the oncoming infected were getting deafening.
Hayden slammed the next infected right in its skull with the pipe. Sent half of its rotting face flying to the ground below. Heard the shards of bone raining down onto the road. The infected wasn’t down, not completely, but it was down enough.
The path to the armoury was clear.
They had thirty seconds to get there. Maybe less than that.
They all ran over to it. And as they did, those fears of not getting inside for whatever reason started to return to the forefront of Hayden’s mind.
The door was just metres away.
Then inches away.
It had to be open. It had to be free.
He reached the handle. Grabbed it. Started to turn.
It didn’t budge.
Hayden’s body froze.
“Won’t fucking move,” he said.
“Fuck,” Miriam said. She looked over her shoulder. The crowd of infected was fifty-strong now, at least. Just seconds away.
“Then what the hell are we supposed to do now?” Daniel asked.
Hayden looked at the door again.
Took a deep breath.
Did all he could to focus, to block the outside noise and events out of his consciousness.
He turned the handle.
Pushed down against it. Hard.
Pushed down with all he had.
He started to lose hope when the handle dropped.
The door opened.
It took Hayden a few vital seconds to realise he’d done it. That they were inside.
“Quick!” he shouted.
Miriam ran inside, Amy beside her. Shelley followed. Hayden waited for Daniel, but he noticed something. Daniel was staying put.
And then he saw why.
Daniel’s trousers were torn.
His leg was bleeding.
He looked at Hayden with a pale face. “Do it.”
Hayden shook his head. “We can’t lose you too—”
“You keep those people safe no matter what. Even if it means doing something you really don’t want to do. Because regardless of what’s happening right now, you’re immunised. That is worth more than anything in this world. Now close the door.”
Hayden saw the infected just feet away from Daniel.
He heard the shouts from behind. The confusion.
He saw the tears in Daniel’s eyes.
“Shut it,” he said.
Hayden felt the pain inside his body as he slammed the door shut.
Slammed it shut, just as one of the infected lay into Daniel.
He listened to the sounds of banging outside. The sounds of screams. He listened to flesh being torn away. To the gurgling of blood. To a feast.
And as he crouched there, eyes closed, behind the locked door of the armoury, he hoped maybe it’d be over. That maybe the horrors would end right now. That this would be the extent of the chaos.
He was wrong.
He just didn’t know it yet.
T
he sounds
of the infected scraping at the armoury doors didn’t stop for hours.
Hayden sat down against the wall inside the main room of the armoury. He wasn’t sure what it was like outside—whether it was still sunny, whether it was cool. He wasn’t sure about anything out there because there weren’t any windows in here. All he knew was that in here, they were safe. There was no way those infected were getting through the solid armoury doors. Even if they could, they’d give up soon enough. Move onto an easier target. Easier prey.
At least, he hoped so. He really hoped so.
The room he was in was big, wide, and towering. Guns were stacked up in racks. Some of them were locked up, so Shelley was doing what she could to track down the ones that weren’t, any loose ones that they could take. Hayden was sitting on his own at one side of the room. Opposite him, Amy by her side, Miriam sat.
He felt a lump in his throat when he looked at Miriam. He felt there were still things he needed to say to her. He didn’t want her to look at him like he was a monster. But he knew she’d seen so much that it wasn’t exactly something he could debate about.
She’d seen Martha die, and she blamed him for it.
She’d seen Daniel die, and as much as Hayden knew Daniel wanted him to slam that door, as much as he knew Miriam probably got that he was only doing it to keep the rest of them safe, too, he knew she blamed him for that, too.
Because if this chain of events hadn’t started, maybe the pair of them would still be alive.
He stood up. Took a deep breath of the dusty air, which caught on his chest. He walked over towards Miriam. He knew she wouldn’t want that. He knew he should probably just sit around and back off.
But no. He wasn’t going to let it be that way. He wasn’t going to just give up on Miriam. Because he cared about her. They’d been close. Miriam had made her feelings clear to Hayden too. Certainly clearer than Hayden made his feelings.
Well now he knew it was time to start being honest.
Now he knew it was time to start making his feelings a lot clearer. As uncomfortable as that might be.
“What do you want?”
Miriam lifted her head. Glanced into Hayden’s eyes. And then she looked away. She was uptight. Not moving a muscle. Amy sniffed by her side.
Hayden cleared his throat. “I need to talk to you.”
“You’ve said everything there is to—”
“No. No, I haven’t. I really haven’t.”
Miriam’s eyes met his again. And for a moment, he saw that look. That old look of her defences wearing down. The way she used to look at him with sensitivity, with understanding, and with an air of sympathy.
She patted Amy on her shoulder. “You go help Shelley find some weapons. I won’t be long.”
Amy nodded, then stood up. She walked away, leaving Hayden and Miriam alone.
“So go on. Better get what it is you want to say said.”
“What happened to Martha. I—”
“It’s your fault she died.”
“I know. I see that. I was just…”
“Please don’t tell me you were just trying to keep your people safe.”
“Are you going to talk over me or will you just listen for one second?”
Miriam narrowed her eyes. Then she nodded. “Go on.”
Hayden scratched the back of his neck. He could hear Shelley and Amy searching the shelves, finding the best weapons they could should they need to use them. Outside, he could still hear the occasional scream, the occasional peppering of gunfire. “The people. Outside the wall.”
“The ones you killed?”
“You’ve seen what people can do. You’ve seen what they’re capable of.”
“Oh. I thought it was because you were worried about them being infected. It’s actually far fucking worse than that.”
“There is that too,” Hayden said. “But I just…”
He stopped speaking. Because he truly did not know what to say to defend his side of the argument.
Miriam half-smiled. Shook her head. “Yeah. I didn’t think you had anything either.”
She stood up. Started to walk past Hayden. Over to Shelley, to Amy.
“I did everything I did because I care.”
Miriam stopped. Turned around. “Care about who?”
Hayden looked at the ground. “People. The people in this place. It’s special. It’s—”
“If you care so damned much about the people in this place, then why aren’t you out there letting people inside this armoury right this second?”
Again, Hayden felt the words slip from his reach. He felt his argument disintegrating rapidly. There was nothing he could say. There was nothing he could do. Only try.
“The way I see it, you got Martha killed. You got Daniel killed. You got every damned person killed today all because you shot Amanda.”
“That’s not fair—”
“Fuck off, Hayden. And get a grip. I hope you’re having fun in your little bubble now.” She lifted her arms. Gestured towards the confines of the armoury walls. “Because this is it.”
She turned. Walked away.
Hayden watched her walk. He listened to the gunfire outside. The shouts. He listened to the fingernails scratching against the metal of the armoury.
He stood there, and he felt like he was back at home again, cooped up in his bedroom, the taste of weed on his lips, the smell of booze surrounding him.
He felt the walls closing in.
If only he knew how much tighter they were going to get.
G
ary held
up his gun and fired down the infected hurtling towards him.
For a man that should be dead, he felt pretty damned good.
The afternoon was getting cooler by the minute. Darker, too. The clouds were thickening up. Looked like rain was coming along to wreck what’d been a pretty decent autumn so far.
Well, until now. Until this day. Nothing was decent anymore. Not after the attack.
“Not sure how much longer we’re gonna be able to hold ’em off.”
Gary heard Elijah’s voice and he gritted his teeth. He knew Elijah had a point, but he didn’t see what good whining did about their current situation. They were pinned down inside one of the shops on West Bank Street. Outside, there were tons of those things. Not directly visible—they’d dealt with the immediate ones—but they’d be waiting somewhere. Getting ready to attack.
“We just have to keep our cool,” Gary said.
“Keep our fucking cool?” Elijah said. His dark hair was packed with sweat. Tears were rolling down his flushed cheeks. “How the hell are we supposed to keep our fucking cool? This place is collapsing.”
Gary looked around at the rest of the people holed up in here with him. Elijah. Mani. Eve. All of them gathered here waiting for their death. Place smelled like shit. Wasn’t an abnormal thing to shit yourself when the undead was coming. Perfectly understandable, really. Anyway, the smell of shit was better than the smell of rot, Gary figured.
But he didn’t plan on being stuck in a shit-reeking room like this much longer anyway.
’Cause he was making a break for it.
Didn’t matter if it was just him. Didn’t matter if it was the people with him.
He
was surviving this.
He
was going to do whatever he could to get the hell out of here.
And then he was going to take this damned place back.
He looked around at the others again. Chewed on his lip. “Now, we’re gonna have to be brave here. Gonna have to pull together. We’ve got guns, so that’s a bonus.”
“Guns don’t heal bites,” Mani said.
“No. But they stop bites ever happening if we deal with the biters before they get to us, don’t they?”
“You really think we’re going to survive this?” Eve asked.
Gary looked at her. Looked right into her eyes. Sometimes, when he looked into Eve’s eyes, he saw his ex-wife. The one who died before this world collapsed. The one who he’d loved with all his goddamned heart.
The one who’d got stuck in the crashed car, and who he’d been too chickenshit to go in and save before she roasted in the flames.
“I do,” Gary said. “I really do.”
He turned around. Pushed up against the wall beneath the smashed window. He listened for a sound. Listened for a sign of life out there. Nothing but silence, at least in their immediate vicinity. Gunshots elsewhere. Cries in other places. But right here, he was fine. He was handling this.
He was going to get out of here no matter what it took.
“On my count,” Gary said, tightening his grip on the rifle he’d picked up from one of the dead guards. “Three. Two. One…”
He lifted to his feet and pointed the rifle out of the window.
The streets outside were empty. Empty of the living. Empty of the undead.
But the dead?
The real dead?
They filled the pavements.
Gary looked around to make sure it was all clear. And then he climbed out of the window, helping the people with him. As he stepped out into those streets, he couldn’t believe how quickly it’d got so quiet. Just minutes ago, these streets were full. These streets were taken. Now, they were ghostlike.
“Something must’ve distracted ’em,” Eve said.
Gary stood at the front of the group. Held his gun. Checked everywhere he could for signs of movement, for signs of life. “Don’t count your chickens.”
“Where are we actually going?”
Gary stopped. Turned back and looked at Elijah. He wanted to beat the teeth out of his whiny mouth. That fucker always had grated on him. But he couldn’t snap. Not now. Now wasn’t the time to snap. “We’re going to the armoury. To get more supplies.”
“And then?”
Gary gritted his teeth. “And then we’re going to figure out a way to clear this place out.”
“You really think we can—”
“Yes, Elijah. Yes, I really do think we can. Now has anyone else got any more fucking banal questions while we’re at it, or can we get on with…”
Gary stopped speaking. He saw it happening right in front of him.
The light in Eve’s eyes going out.
Her falling. Dropping to her knees.
Smacking against the road, head banging onto the concrete.
“Eve?” Mani said.
Mani crouched by her side. Elijah stood there, dumbstruck. Eve had been feeling off ever since Gary bumped into her an hour or so back. He thought there was something in her eyes. A pallid look to her skin.
And just like that, with the click of a finger, she’d gone. Fallen to the floor. Silenced.
“She’s—she’s gone cold,” Mani said. “Eve? Can you hear me? Can you—”
Eve’s eyes opened.
She clamped down on Mani’s neck with her teeth.
Pushed right down.
Deep red blood spurted out from Mani’s neck as Eve ripped the flesh away.
Mani’s eyes widened, and he screamed.
Gary knew the danger of human screams right away. So he didn’t even think.
He lifted the rifle. Pointed it at Mani first. Sent a bullet through his head.
And then he turned the gun on Eve and fired one through her skull too.
No emotions.
No thought.
Just fire.
Silence followed.
Elijah backed away. Horror filled his bloodshot eyes. “What just… what the hell just…”
Gary stared at the two bodies on the road in front of him. He felt tension building in his chest. Elijah might not understand what was happening, might not know what was occurring, but Gary did.
He knew what it meant.
He knew who it was linked to.
Hayden.
“She… she got the immunisation,” Gary said. “Didn’t she?”
Elijah lifted his head. Narrowed his eyes. “What… She…”
“And you did too. Didn’t you?”
Gary saw confusion segue into understanding in Elijah’s eyes.
Elijah lifted his hands. “Don’t—”
He didn’t finish his sentence.
Gary fired a bullet right in the middle of his head.
Elijah fell down to the road. And Gary stared at the fallen people around him. He listened to the chaos unfolding. Listened to the screams and the cries of people still living. He saw eyes staring through windows. People opening their doors, joining him on the street.
He knew what this was now. He’d seen someone turn without being bitten. Someone who’d been immunised. And for whatever reason, those people were turning now. Those people had caused the infected outside to change. To adapt.
To attack the cured.
All because of Hayden McCall.
Hayden McCall, whose dirty blood had given this place a death sentence.
Hayden McCall, who’d been the one to put a bullet through Amanda’s head.
Hayden McCall, who’d left him for dead.
“What does… what does this mean?” someone asked by Gary’s side. Must’ve witnessed the events. Must’ve seen Eve turn, just like Gary did. That was good. It meant he wouldn’t have to explain what he was going to do next.
Gary walked over to the guns at Eve, Elijah and Mani’s sides. He looked back at the small group around him. Some faces he recognised. Some, he didn’t so much. “It means we aren’t just hunting the infected if we want to take back this place. It means we’re hunting the immunised, too.”
He saw the horrified looks on some of the faces. He saw some of them back off. Walk away.
But on others, he saw the nods. He saw the understanding.
“It’s what we have to do. For the good of this place. The good of our home.”
He lifted one of the rifles. Threw it at the person nearest.
“And Hayden McCall?” a short, dark-haired woman asked.
Gary thought about Hayden for a minute. Thought about what this meant for him. About how he should’ve beaten the shit out of that publicity seeking traitor tosser when he’d had the chance.
He cleared his throat.
“Hayden won’t be necessary anymore. He’s just like the others now.”
He loaded his gun and watched the horrified faces turn to half-convinced faces.
The half-convinced faces turn to nods of defiant agreement.
After all, they just wanted their home back.
They just wanted something—and some
one
—to believe in.
Gary was going to be that person. He was going to be the one that led the way. He was going to be the person who won back this place. Who gave them hope.
He was going to be the person who put down Hayden.
Even if it killed everyone around him.
He pointed his rifle at the people fleeing—the obviously immunised people.
“It ends right now,” he said.
He pulled the trigger, and together with the people around him, he shot them down.