H
ayden held
on to the rifle and waited to die.
He’d lost all sense of time having being cooped up inside the armoury for so long. He wasn’t sure if it’d been minutes or hours. Sure felt like forever. But he wasn’t going outside to see if the infected had cleared off yet either.
He sat alone. He could see Shelley with Amy over to his left, but he hadn’t spoken to them. He figured they’d have the same opinion of him as Miriam did. He’d cost lives. He’d caused the damage to this whole place. He’d started a domino effect of events that put them right here, right now.
It’d gone quiet outside. He hadn’t heard any bangs at the doors or screams for a long time. That was progress, he supposed. Of course, they’d have to leave this place at
some
point. He knew that. He wasn’t deluded.
But the more he thought about leaving this place, the sicker it made him feel. Sick to the stomach.
He didn’t want to walk away from here. He didn’t want to step back outside these walls. They were safe. They were secure.
They were all he and the others had left.
“Room for another?”
Hayden looked up. Miriam stood there. She was holding on to a pistol, standing by his side. She had a half-smile on her face. Not the kind that she usually had. Not a look Hayden was used to. But she was speaking to him. She was asking him if it was okay to sit beside him. That was something. It
had
to count for something.
Hayden nodded. “Always.”
He budged up. Made a little room for her to lean back against the wall beside him.
They sat there in silence for a long time. And the longer the silence went on, the more aware Hayden grew of Miriam’s warmth beside him. He wanted to apologise again. He wanted to tell her he’d fucked up. That he was sorry. He’d really tried to do the right thing, but sometimes your idea of the right thing was someone else’s idea of the absolute wrong thing. That was something that hadn’t changed much since the world fell to pieces.
“We can’t stay in here forever,” Miriam said, breaking the solitude.
“I realise that.”
“And I’m starting to think, well… the quieter it gets out there, the more we should think about taking our chance.”
Hayden scratched the back of his neck. “We will. Just not…”
“Not now?”
Hayden nodded. He saw from the way Miriam looked at him that she knew he was going to say that all along.
“You know, you’ve told me a little about your past.”
“There’s not a lot to tell.”
“You always say that. But you told me about… about Annabelle. About what happened to your sister. And as much as you try to play it down, I know that has an effect on you. A big effect.”
Hayden felt his muscles twitching. He looked away from Miriam. He didn’t want to look her in the eye while they spoke about Annabelle. “Yeah. I guess.”
“But other than Annabelle dying, I really don’t know much else about you. Six months of knowing you and we’ve never really had a conversation about our past.”
Hayden tried not to speak. But he knew what Miriam was prompting. He knew that there was no escaping the conversation. Not now.
“Annabelle died when I was fourteen. She hanged herself. You know that much.”
Miriam didn’t nod. She didn’t smile. She just watched. She just listened.
“I… I thought I handled it okay. Like, school was okay. Not amazing, but okay. It was when I left school and college and uni that things got, well…”
“Isolated?”
“How do you…”
“I’ve always got that vibe from you.”
“The recluse vibe? Really dishing out the compliments today, aren’t you?”
Miriam didn’t laugh. Hayden figured it probably wasn’t the ideal time to be making light comments.
“Anyway,” he said. “Things weren’t really going for me.”
“Not going well?”
“Not so much not going well. Just not… going
anywhere.
I drank. I smoked. I played video games. I went to bed and I got up and I did it all over again. I had no real life outside the odd friend here and there. I had no real passions. No major interests. My parents did everything for me. I dunno. I just didn’t do anything for myself because I didn’t feel ready to do a thing for myself.”
“And then the new world came along and you were forced to do the things you’d never had to do before,” Miriam said.
Hayden looked at her again. Part of him thought she was just guessing his next words. Finishing off his end of the conversation for him. But it sounded deeper than that. Like there was truth to what she was saying.
“How about you?”
Miriam looked at him. And he saw pure rawness in that look. Like she’d opened up, and nothing would close her for anything. “I… Actually, things were going good for me. Well. For a few months anyway.”
“Meet the guy of your dreams?”
“No. I left him.”
“Oh. I’m—”
“He sucked the joy out of my life. He took everything I had away from me. He used me for sex. He beat me. He made me scared to leave my own damned house and venture out into the world outside.”
“I’m really sorry.”
“Don’t be. Because I grew the courage to step up to him. To walk away. It wasn’t easy. Going getting my haircut, going shopping in Ann Summers. Meeting the girls for coffee. They weren’t easy things to do again. But I did it. I forced myself to do it even if it made me physically sick. Because I knew if I didn’t, I’d be trapped in that life forever. I’d get to forty and wonder what the hell I’d done with my best years. It’s not like I lived a wild few months after Jake. But it felt like for the first time, I was living. And then the fucking dead came along and ruined it all again.”
Hayden heard Miriam laugh a little. And he couldn’t help but laugh, either. “Yeah. That really must’ve been a bummer.”
“Something like that.”
She looked at Hayden. Put a hand on his knee. It made him feel strange inside. Like his muscles were melting. “What I’m trying to say is… sometimes we need to do things we don’t want to do. Things that seem impossible. And if we can do them—if we can force ourselves into doing those impossible things—then we can do anything we want. We can be anything we want. Zombie apocalypse limitations apply here, of course.”
Hayden smiled as he stared into Miriam’s eyes. And right there, as they sat beside one another, Miriam’s hand on his leg, he felt himself falling deeper into this woman. He felt the man that he’d grown into since the infected started to rise resurfacing. He felt himself growing again. Growing stronger. Growing more powerful.
Because Miriam was right. She was right because he was alive right now. He was alive because he’d pushed himself. He’d forced himself to change. He’d grown.
And he was going to have to keep on growing if he wanted to survive.
He lifted his hand. Went to hold Miriam’s in his.
Nothing could break this moment.
Nothing, but the crash against the armoury door.
The largest crash he’d heard while they’d been holed up in here.
And then, he heard the door splitting off its hinges, and footsteps pounding inside.
T
he perfect moment
between Hayden and Miriam seemed a distant memory when Hayden heard the footsteps racing down the entrance corridor of the armoury.
He sat there, totally rigid. Miriam was still, too. As were Shelley and Amy, both with wide-eyed stares of terror.
The infected were inside.
They’d broken the armoury door—the door to the best guarded safe place in New Britain—and they were coming for them.
Hayden didn’t even think. He jumped to his feet. Rushed over towards the door between the main room and the corridor.
“You can’t just go out there,” Miriam said.
Hayden grabbed the handle of the door. He could smell the rot from outside the building right through the door. “I have to.”
“You’ll get yourself—”
“I have to,” Hayden said.
Even if Miriam argued any more, Hayden wasn’t listening. He lowered the handle. Pulled the door open.
And then he lifted his rifle and stepped out into the corridor.
He nearly fell back when he saw the crowd of infected coming towards him. There were some things you could prepare for in this world. The occasional stray infected. Batty people with questionable intentions. Even blood, guts and gore.
But a crowd of infected, twenty, thirty, forty strong, all of them sprinting, all of them getting closer?
Nothing could prepare you for that.
Hayden open fired. He didn’t think about the noise the gun was making. Didn’t think about the fact that he could be drawing more of these infected towards the armoury. That didn’t matter. He just had to stand his ground. He just had to hold this place. He just had to keep Miriam, Shelley and Amy safe.
He watched the dead fall in front of him. Watched their muddy blood stain the white walls with every splutter of the rifle. They were falling. Falling right in front of him. He was dealing with them. Months of firearms training was going to save lives. It was going to save what was left of New Britain.
It had to.
Soon after, he heard more gunshots, and he saw Miriam by his side. She had a pistol, so she was just firing at their necks, taking down as many as she could.
The crowd of infected was thinning.
A path ahead was widening.
Hayden put his focus on the infected ahead and fired some more.
And then the gun stopped firing.
He looked down. Fuck. Out of ammo. Needed to—
He felt something slam into his chest. Knock him down, right onto his backside.
He felt the cold grip of its fingers, the jaggedness of its sharp fingernails, and he knew what it was right away.
He rolled around. Swung the gun at it to try and get it off him. It was a female. Her eyes had completely disappeared, replaced by bloody holes. Her skin was covered in cracks, which little maggots gnawed through.
And she was getting closer and closer to tearing a chunk of out Hayden’s neck.
Closer and closer to…
A blast. Right above Hayden. It made his ears ring with how loud it was. Made his head spin.
It took him a few seconds to realise what’d happened.
Miriam had fired her gun. She’d put down the infected pinning him down.
She’d saved him.
Hayden pushed the infected away. He got back to his feet. Struggled with the rifle. He had some ammo in the bag. But the infected were getting closer. Miriam’s pistol alone couldn’t hold them off, not much longer.
“We need to make a break, Hayden!” Miriam shouted.
Hayden ignored her. He focused on that bag. Focused on reloading the rifle.
“Hayden, we need to make a break for it while we still can.”
He slotted the ammo into the rifle.
Reloaded it.
And then he turned it right into the face of an oncoming infected, blasted its decaying flesh right from its skull.
He stood his ground. Cleared out more of the undead. Watched as they fell, filling the corridor of the armouries. The smell of smoke and decay filled the air. The taste of blood was enough to cling to every breath.
But they were clearing this place.
They were defending this place.
“Time to go, Hayden,” Miriam said. And Hayden couldn’t help agreeing with her. As hard a thing as it was to do, there was a gap. A chance to leave this place. To go back into the dangerous world outside. He didn’t want to do it. Didn’t want to put Miriam, Amy and Shelley at risk out there.
But he remembered what Miriam said. About forcing yourself to do things you weren’t comfortable with. How you had to do the impossible if you wanted to achieve what you wanted in life.
He saw that now. He saw it and he really wanted to believe it.
But it wasn’t easy.
He walked in the direction of the open door. Walked past the dead. Walked, Miriam behind him, Shelley behind her, Amy holding on to Shelley’s hand.
“What’s the quickest way to the wall?” Miriam asked.
Hayden didn’t want to think about reaching the main gate. But he knew he had to. It was their only option right now.
“Hayden, you know what we have to do now. What’s the—”
“We take the alleyways. Maybe even the roofs. We keep off the main streets. We’ll be there in… in no time.”
Again, speaking those words wasn’t easy. And Hayden knew Miriam would get that it wasn’t easy for him either.
“We’re doing the right thing,” Miriam said, her eyes watering. Leaving this place. We’re doing the right thing. But we need to get out. We need to go. Before—”
Miriam’s voice was drowned out by a scream.
A scream that made Hayden’s stomach turn.
Because it was a scream that came from
behind
Miriam.
When Miriam turned around, Hayden saw the exact source of the cry.
Shelley was the one screaming. Her arm was stretched out, reaching for one of the fallen infected.
Except…
No. She wasn’t reaching for one of the infected.
Her arm was being bitten by one of the infected.
Amy cried by her side. And Hayden knew he had to quiet her. He had to quieten both of them.
“Fuck,” Miriam said, the exasperation clear in her voice. “Fuck.”
Outside, Hayden heard footsteps approaching.
Infected getting closer again.
“We need to get her out of here—Shelley, it’s going to be okay. We’re going to get you out of here. We’re going to get you out of here.”
Hayden pointed his rifle at the infected. Fired another couple of bullets through its neck, finishing it off for good—at least hopefully.
Shelley fell to the floor. She didn’t stop crying out.
Miriam crouched down beside her. Put a hand on her shoulder. But that just seemed to make her scream louder.
“Shelley, it’s not over. We can—we can fix this. You just have to keep quiet. Please. You just have to keep…”
Miriam’s voice was drowned out again.
Only this time, it wasn’t by a scream.
It was by the blast of gunfire.
Hayden watched Shelley fall to the floor. He watched her body go limp. The final tears fell from her dead eyes.
Miriam looked up at Hayden. Looked at him, rifle pointed over in Shelley’s direction.
She looked like she wanted to say something. Like she wanted to have a go at him.
But Hayden knew, just as he knew himself, that deep down, Miriam knew he’d made the right call.
“Come on,” he said, hearing the loudening shrieks of the infected getting closer. “We need to get out of this place.”
Miriam took a few seconds to take Hayden’s words in. And then she nodded.
She stood. Took Amy’s hands in hers. And together with Hayden, they ran towards the door, away from the armoury.
Hayden couldn’t get Shelley’s screams out of his mind.
A reminder of the human he’d become.
The human he
had
to become to keep his people safe.