by Ryan Casey
He was thankful.
He was grateful.
He was right where Holly needed him to be.
She caught a glance of Sarah as she went to focus on the debris-laden road ahead. Caught a glance of her looking into the mirror, but not with the same warmth as Hayden. Not with the same naive understanding. With distrust. The same distrust she’d always had.
But that was okay.
Sarah wouldn’t be around much longer anyway.
Not with the crushed painkillers Holly had been sneaking into her water ever since they’d set off.
Not with the pale look on her face. The blood dribbling down her nose. The saliva drooling down her chin.
So Holly just smiled back at her.
Smiled at her, then looked at the road ahead.
Maybe Sarah was infected. Maybe the infection was airborne.
But maybe she wasn’t. Didn’t really matter either way. She’d be dead soon anyway.
And then, Hayden would follow.
One way or another, Hayden would follow.
But for now, Holly just kept her focus on the widening road ahead.
On the barren drive to Holyhead.
And she thought of the best and most effective ways to get rid of Hayden and Sarah.
Twenty-Nine
Hayden watched Sarah grow even paler as she lifted the murky bottle of water to her lips.
Rain lashed down on the windscreen. Sounded like zombie claws scratching against the glass, against the paintwork. And although Holyhead was approaching, although they were getting closer and closer to some kind of answers, some kind of freedom, Hayden couldn’t help but shake the unavoidable feeling of dread deep in the pit of his stomach.
Sarah’s pale, sweaty face. Her bloodshot eyes. Snot drooling in a constant bloody stream out of both nostrils.
She was sick. Very sick, as she sipped at the remains of her final bottle of water, the one bottle she’d held on to. The one Hayden insisted he didn’t want to sip, as did Holly. Not because of a fear of catching an infection. But simply because Sarah needed it more than him. She needed to stay hydrated. She needed to stay strong.
Well, staying strong was perhaps the wrong way to put it. She needed strength, pure and simple.
“What d’you actually think they’ll do to me when we get there?” Sarah asked.
Hayden turned. Looked at her. Beyond her, through the back window of the car, rainfall distorted the view. Impossible to see beyond. To see what lurked. What awaited. What watched them.
“They’ll be able to help,” Hayden said.
“And you know that?” Sarah asked, sniffing. “You—you know that for sure?”
Hayden swallowed a lump in his throat. He couldn’t lie. He couldn’t pretend he knew exactly what lay ahead for Sarah, for any of them. And there was nothing kind about reassurance. It was cruel if anything. ’Cause that just meant that if everything got snatched away, it’d hurt a hell of a lot more.
“We can’t pretend to know what’s ahead. None of us. But we’re in this together. One way or another we’re in this together.”
Sarah nodded. Shivery. So shivery her teeth were chattering.
Hayden looked into the front mirror of the car. Caught Holly glancing back at them. That same tearful look in her eyes. That uncertain look.
And then he remembered she’d come back for him. She’d stood with him, stood with Sarah, so everything was good. Everything was okay.
They were making it to Holyhead.
“Sometimes I … I think I’ve been selfish,” Sarah said.
“Selfish how?”
“I—When I started feeling ill. Before then, even. When—when we saw the message. The message about the infection being airborne. I shouldn’t have come. Should’ve stayed behind. Shouldn’t—shouldn’t have put any of you at risk.”
Hayden saw the sadness in Sarah’s eyes. Saw the fear on her gaunt, starving face.
Then he reached for her hand. It was boiling. Absolutely boiling hot.
“You just drink your water,” he said. “We’re here with you. That’s all that matters. We’re here with you and we’re going to make this. Not gonna let anything happen to you. Or to anyone.”
Sarah looked back at Hayden. Slight glassiness to her eyes.
Then she forced the best smile she could and lifted the water bottle to her lips.
In the rear-view mirror, Hayden caught Holly looking back once more.
“You okay?” Hayden asked.
Holly looked away. Then looked back, quivery smile on her face. “I—I should be the one thanking you. For bringing me along. Even though … even though I’m bit. I should be thanking both of you.”
Hayden leaned forward. Looked through the window, the snapped wipers slashing away what they could of the rain. Nothing but open road. Holyhead approaching. Fate approaching.
“You came back for me. You’re the one I should be—”
“No,” Holly said. And she raised her voice in a way Hayden hadn’t heard, never before. “You let me in in the first place. You let me in. You—you came with me. To Holyhead. I owe it to you.”
She stopped. Hayden saw her fingers tighten on the steering wheel.
Saw tears building up in her eyes.
“I just wanted to … to thank you. I want you to know that. I want you to know I’m—”
“Need to puke!” Sarah shouted.
Hayden swung around. Saw Sarah’s face was a light shade of green. A colour that no human face should ever be.
Her cheeks were stretched like a pufferfish. Her eyes were watering, blood vessels burst in them.
“Stop the car,” Hayden said.
Holly kept her foot on the gas. “Hayden, I—”
“Just stop the car right this second.”
She didn’t. Not for a moment. She kept on driving. Sarah kept on heaving. Her cheeks stretching even wider.
“Stop the—”
The car slammed to a halt.
The engine stopped.
Rain bulleted down on the roof.
Sarah scrambled for the handle. Grabbed it, pushed it open, rushed across the dusty ground into the grassy verge and fell to her knees.
She let out her guts. Let out all the contents of her guts.
And Hayden thought about staying put. Thought about staying inside the car until he saw the blood laced vomit spilling out of Sarah’s mouth.
Until he saw the movement in the grass up ahead.
Heard the groan.
“Sarah!”
He lunged out of the car. Ran across the road. Ran into the grass, past Sarah, right into the zombie.
Slammed himself shoulder first into its chest.
Sent it flying back into the mud.
Cracked its head on contact with the ground.
He pulled away. Looked down at the zombie beneath him. Bald. Too bald to be healthy. Chemo patient by the looks of things. Still dressed in a blue hospital gown, torn in the middle where it’d been bitten open. Skeletal cheeks. Tarantula fingers.
Groaning and growling and doing everything it could to snap at Hayden.
Hayden felt pity for the zombie as he wrapped his hands around its neck, its skin and flesh soft and bloated.
He felt pity as his fingernails split through the zombie’s skin.
Pushed into its neck.
Sliced through its crumbling flesh until it reached the bony tip of its spinal cord.
He felt pity as this zombie scrambled and scrambled, coughed up blood, as he tightened his hands around the bone.
Dragged it upwards.
Hard.
Nothing happened first time. Nothing at all.
The zombie kept on twisting and turning, spitting blood out of its ghastly-smelling mouth at him.
And Hayden kept on pulling.
Kept on pulling even though he saw more shadows and silhouettes in the grass beyond.
Heard more throaty groans.
Kept on pulling as he heard Sarah spew up some m
ore.
Kept on pulling as …
He heard the car door slam shut.
Heard a shout.
Holly’s shout.
When he turned around, he didn’t see Holly. Didn’t see her in the car. Didn’t see her outside the car.
The car was empty.
All he saw was the slightest movement in the long grass at the opposite side of the road.
He tried to figure out what’d happened. Tried to figure out if this was some kind of trap. If this was some marauders working against him. Working against all of them.
He looked at the zombie on the ground, all the flesh dragged away from its yellow spinal cord.
Then he looked up at the three, four zombies stumbling through the grass.
He wanted to deal with them. He wanted to put them down.
But he couldn’t.
Not right now.
Not while Holly was in danger.
So he stood.
He stood and he slammed his boot down on the zombie’s neck, finally heard the deafening crack he’d been waiting for.
Then he ran towards Sarah, still spitting out vomit.
“Come on!” he shouted.
And even though she wasn’t ready, even though she was in pain, even though she could barely move, Hayden grabbed her.
Ran past the grass.
Ran in the direction of the movement.
’Cause he wasn’t leaving Holly behind.
He wasn’t leaving anyone behind.
Even if it cost him his life.
Thirty
Hayden took his hand away from the car and rushed into the tall grass.
He held onto Sarah. Her body weak, flailing with every step. He kind of wanted to leave her behind. Leave her in the car. But he knew that was way too risky. Too much chance the zombies would surround the car. Too much chance of them smashing through the glass, forcing their way inside, tearing Sarah from the back seat.
He didn’t want to bring Sarah along with him on his search for Holly.
But he knew he had no choice.
“Just keep moving,” Hayden said, as the tall rain-soaked grass brushed against his bare chest. Sarah clung to his arm, her body growing weaker as the rain lashed down even heavier from the blackening sky. Behind, Hayden heard oncoming zombies. Zombies getting closer. Zombies that wouldn’t give up the chase, not for anything.
They were onto him.
They wouldn’t stop chasing him.
He just had to accept that, and he had to find Holly.
He scanned the grass. Scanned beyond the grass to the trees. To a wooden fence between the verge and these trees. Whoever took Holly must’ve taken her down there. Dragged her down there.
But she couldn’t have gone far. Not in this weather, not the way running through mud was like skating on an ice rink.
She had to be close.
She couldn’t be far away.
Hayden couldn’t give up.
Hayden tried to listen beyond the lashing rain, beyond Sarah’s throaty gasps, beyond the growls and footsteps of the infected. He tried to listen for a sign of life. A sign of a scream. Some sign that Holly was close—that she was okay—that he could still save her.
But there wasn’t a sound.
Not a single sound.
Nothing.
“Hayden!”
Hayden heard Sarah’s voice—heard her shout—and he wasn’t sure what she was shouting about, not at first.
When he looked to his left, looked where Sarah was looking, he understood.
Zombies. Four zombies flanking from the left.
Running through the grass like lions closing in on their prey.
Hunting.
He turned. Ran to the right. Ran into the taller grass, Sarah still clinging onto him. The grass was so tall. So tall that all visibility ceased; that all he had to go on were the grunts of the zombies, all he had to trust was his faith, his intuition.
His senses.
He ran further through the grass, and all the while the storm raged even louder and heavier above. And the further he ran, the more his faith slipped. Faith in finding Holly. Faith in finding whoever had captured her. Because they were lost. They were stuck in the tall grass with no visibility and they were lost.
Holly was lost.
Hayden stopped when he heard Sarah heave. He stopped, gave her a moment to spew some more.
More blood.
Thick, red blood.
He looked at Sarah as blood dribbled down her chin. As it stained the grass below. She put her hands on her knees, looked up at him.
“You … are you—”
“You should—you should go,” Sarah said.
Hayden walked over to her. Went to put a hand on her back. “I’m not—”
“No,” Sarah said, slapping Hayden’s hand away. She looked at him sternly. Looked at him with power. “No. You—you shouldn’t touch me. You should leave me.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“I’m dying,” Sarah said. And although she shouted it, although she screamed it, Hayden heard the fragility in her voice. Saw the emotion building in her eyes.
The acceptance bubbling under the surface.
Behind her, the growls of the zombies got louder.
“I told you I wasn’t going anywhere,” Hayden said. “That none of us were—”
“You go back to the car,” Sarah said. “You—you go back to the car and you get to Holyhead. You get there and you save yourself.”
“I’m not prepared to do that, Sarah.”
“Then we all die.”
Hayden looked up at the sky. Looked up at the thickening clouds. Felt the bitter breeze crash against his topless body.
And he took a deep breath.
“Then so be it,” he said.
He walked over to Sarah.
Put a hand out to place on her back.
And this time, even though she tried to slap it away, he forced it onto her back anyway.
Let it rest there.
And faced the shaking grass.
“Hayden what’re you—”
“If all of us die out here then so be it. So be fucking it. Because Holyhead isn’t worth it. Survival alone isn’t fucking worth it if it means … if it means giving up on the ones you care about.”
He stared into the shaking grass.
Listened to the cries, the footsteps, get closer.
“Hayden you know that’s not true. You know survival’s the most important—”
“I’ve watched too many people die,” Hayden said. Memories of his parents. And his sister.
And Gary …
“I’ve … I’ve watched too many people fall. And I’m not letting that happen. Not again. I’m not going to—to form a bond with someone else only for it all to fall apart again. No. This is it. If this is where it ends then this is where it ends. So be it. I’m … I think I’m ready.”
He looked into Sarah’s eyes.
Sarah looked back at him, bloodshot eyes glistening.
“Thank you,” he said, as the footsteps approached.
“For what?”
He felt himself smiling. “For always being you.”
He pulled her close.
Closed his eyes as the zombies’ cries came within metres.
And then …
He heard it.
Heard it split through the gasps, through the wind and through the rain like a battering ram in intensity.
The sound of an engine.
An engine starting up.
Tyres screeching against tarmac.
Smell of fumes filling the air.
Hayden and Sarah looked at one another. Both with a familiar disbelief. Both with a familiar confusion.
But deep down, Hayden saw it in Sarah’s eyes. Saw his own feelings reflected.
A realisation.
Neither of them had to speak a word after that.
They just ran to their left.
Ran through the grass.
>
Zombies so close they could feel their jaws snapping inches behind.
They ran through the mud as the engine revved.
They clambered through the grass as more fumes filled the air.
And when they reached the top of the hill, the side of the road, they understood.
When they saw the Honda Civic departing, both of them understood.
“It’s … it’s gone,” Sarah said, hanging onto Hayden’s arm.
And as the zombies got closer behind, Hayden could only watch the car disappear down the road. The road now scattered with zombies. The road to Holyhead, suddenly longer and more dangerous now they were on foot.
All he could do was watch the car drive away.
Stare through the back window at the silhouette in the driver’s seat.
Stare at Holly, her eyes looking back at him through the rear-view mirror.
Then, gone.
Thirty-One
“What now?” Sarah asked.
The words resonated in Hayden’s mind as he walked as fast as he could down the derelict A-Road. Every now and then, a rusty sign marking Holyhead. But the distance never seemed to get any closer. Forty miles. Thirty-eight miles. Thirty-six miles.
And Hayden was exhausted. Sarah was exhausted.
Not just physically, but mentally.
After Holly’s departure.
Holly’s betrayal.
“Maybe she didn’t—” Sarah started.
“She did,” Hayden said. He rubbed his fingers around the metal cap in his pocket. Felt its cool, smooth surface as he stared on down the cloudy road. Quiet. Empty. No sign of life—or dead—for quite some time.
Which was good. For now. While it lasted.
Because it never lasted. It never would.
“I just—I just don’t get why—”
“She lied to us,” Hayden said, his legs like jelly. “I … I don’t want to accept she did, but she did. For whatever reason, she lied to us.”
“About Holyhead?”
“I don’t know. That’s why we have to keep moving. That’s why we have to find out.”
They walked further down the middle of the road. Hayden’s mouth was as dry as sandpaper. He turned and looked at Sarah. Saw a bit of colour returning to her cheeks, the whiteness peeking from behind the burst blood vessels in her eyes. “How you feeling?”
