by Casey, Ryan
But those people in the window.
The woman and her daughter. The fear on their faces.
He couldn’t just leave them behind. Not after all he’d already lost.
He started to walk back through the gates when he felt Sarah pull him back. It stung the side of his neck, which still leaked with blood from Ally’s stabbing.
“Hayden, you can’t save everyone. You might think you can but you can’t.”
But saving everyone wasn’t Hayden’s concern.
Saving someone was.
Because he’d lost too many people. Lost far too many people. And sure, he’d gone back and he’d got Sarah free of the chains before Ally had a chance to kill her. But she wasn’t enough. One person wasn’t enough. It was like being undercharged for fish and chips and only repaying the cost of the chips through honesty—a half-job.
“I’m going in there and I’m going to get them out of here,” Hayden said.
He pulled away from Sarah yet again and made his way back onto the waterlogged tarmac of the industrial estate.
“But how will you—”
“I’ll find a way,” Hayden said. “I have to find a way. We can’t just start giving up on people, otherwise what humanity do we have? We’re supposed to help each other. Look out for each other, no matter what. But if we just leave these people to die, what makes us so different from the Riversford people?”
“We’re completely different to the Riversford people.”
“Are we?” Hayden asked. He raised his eyebrows, felt blood crusted in his frown lines. “I’m going. I’m going because it’s something I have to do. You get started. Get running away from this place. I’ll find you. We’ll find you.”
Hayden turned and continued his walk, the knife tightly wrapped between his fingers. He could see a few zombies drifting his way from the left. And then a few more over by the hangar door, congregating underneath the woman and the child who were desperate, begging for help.
“Oh screw it. Screw it.”
Hayden looked over his shoulder and saw Sarah catching up with him.
“I always bloody end up following you one way or other. You’re like the frigging Pied Piper or something. If this kills me, just sleep soundly in the knowledge that I will hold it against you.”
Hayden lifted the knife and stabbed it through the sinewy neck of an oncoming zombie. “You’ll be way too dead to hold anything against me.”
The pair of them ran towards the doors of the hangar. Hayden kicked back a few zombies, but most of the time he tried to dodge them. But their dead mass was growing more claustrophobic, more suffocating. And as the clouds moved across the moon and the lightning eased, avoiding them became progressively difficult.
He didn’t want to look back at the pile of unfinished zombies he’d left lying in his wake. He knew there was still a part two to this mission: getting the hell out of here when they’d rescued the family.
One step at a time, perhaps.
Optimistic naivety, more likely.
A white-haired zombie clutched at Hayden’s ankles as he passed. Long hair, male, wearing a black biker jacket. Rotting teeth lined his gums. His body split in two at the hips, the bottom half dangling on by a few stringy threads of flesh and skin.
Hayden didn’t feel any remorse. He didn’t even have to think about swinging the knife across its mouth, then crouching down and cracking its neck in his hands. But when he stood he saw another zombie coming his way—a skinny girl with auburn hair, her teeth so cracked through grinding that they were as sharp as a vampire’s.
Sarah lifted her gun and fired at the zombie but no sound came out. She looked at the gun, tried to fire again but still to no sound. “All out of ammo. All out of—”
And then another zombie rose from the darkness and grabbed her ankle.
Dragged her to the ground.
Hayden let go of the biker’s neck and reached for his knife.
And then he felt something smack into his left side and knock him to the ground.
The knife fell from his hand.
Sarah shouted in pain.
Forty-Two
Sarah’s scream made Hayden’s skin prick up with goose pimples.
He struggled around on the soaking wet floor, the dampness spreading through his clothes and reminding him just how damned cold it really was. The zombie kept on clutching onto his left side. He couldn’t see it in the darkness, but he could hear its throaty drawl, smell its rotting body pressing him further and further down.
Teeth snapping.
Moving closer to the side of his body.
Towards his stomach …
And then he saw Sarah. Saw the two zombies on top of her. Saw her shaking and struggling as she fought hand to hand with the zombies, but they too were closing in on her. As the rain lashed down, the mass of zombies approached. This was getting worse before it could get better.
No. Hayden couldn’t allow that. He couldn’t let somebody else die. He couldn’t lose another person. Another friend.
So he swung his fist around and cracked his hand into the zombie’s face. He felt the thing’s snapping teeth, felt his knuckles crack against them, milliseconds from closing in on his hand and biting him.
But he had no other choice. No other way.
He struggled and swung again. Punched the zombie in the face and the neck repeatedly until it backed off some, and then kept on punching as it backed off, still holding on to his left arm, snarling and spewing cold blood and raw innards out of its disfigured face.
He gained some ground and heard Sarah shout again. He didn’t even want to look. He didn’t want to see her being bitten because he didn’t want to accept failure, not again.
So he kept on punching at the zombie. Kept on punching until its face was bloodied and distorted and Hayden’s knuckles stung and ached like mad.
He saw the other zombies coming. Tons of them wandering through the cold, damp darkness of the Riversford Industrial Estate. They’d be on him in seconds. On Sarah in seconds. They’d never get out of here. They’d never save the woman and her kid from the room.
They’d die here. Each one of them would die here. More names to add to the world’s ever-growing list of newly deceased.
He saw the zombie’s mouth closing in on his arm as it kept gripping on.
He felt the weight on his back. The weight of the rifle that wasn’t working. No time to fix it now. No time to try to figure out what the hell was wrong with it.
But he reached over onto his back.
Gripped the front of it.
The zombie’s teeth descended on Hayden’s arm.
Hayden held his breath and swung the rifle right into the zombie’s skull.
He heard a crack, like an Easter egg splitting.
And then he swung the rifle again and again at the zombie’s neck until he heard another crack, more splitting.
And then the zombie tumbled to the floor, shook and twitched like a seizure victim.
Hayden wanted to make sure it was definitely dead. He wanted to deal with the larger crowd swarming this way.
But Sarah …
He turned around and readied to swing the gun at the zombies standing over her.
Nobody was taking her. Nobody was taking anyone else away from him.
But what he saw wasn’t exactly what he expected.
Sarah was standing in front of Hayden. Her white T-shirt was covered in blood and dirt. The zombies that had been crawling over her were on the ground beside her, holes in the sides of their heads.
It took Hayden a few seconds to realise there was someone standing behind Sarah.
“You left me to die, you fucker. You left me to die.”
The chubby, balding guy who’d been tied up with Hayden and Manish.
And he was holding a sharp-edged pole to Sarah’s exposed neck.
Forty-Three
“Put the pole down. Nobody has to get hurt here.”
The chubby guy with the sharp, b
loodied pole to Sarah’s neck peered at Hayden with hateful eyes, which illuminated in the dim glow of rain-battered moonlight. “You left me to die, you fuck. You left me to die and—and look what went and happened ’cause you left me to die.”
Hayden didn’t understand what the chubby guy was referring to at first. And then he saw the mark on his right arm. The bite marks, deep into his flesh, blood dripping down from them. He was shaking, sweating, like he was angry at the world and was taking his anger out on anyone, anything he could.
“Please. Just put the weapon down and we can figure this out—”
“Figure this out?” the chubby guy shouted. He smiled a little, sweat and rain pouring down his head. “I’ve been bit. All thanks to you I’ve been bit. You fuck. You fuck.”
Hayden glanced to the left. The large crowd of zombies was approaching and getting quicker as it did. There was absolutely no way they were escaping through the main gates now. There was only one way to go, and that was inside.
Inside to whatever lay ahead.
“We can go inside and we can get safe. We can … we can—”
“There is no fuckin’ safety here,” the chubby man said. Hayden swore he was sobbing, swore he saw tears rolling out of his hopeless, pitiful eyes. “No fuckin’ safety for me or—or my wife or kids. No safety for anyone here.”
Hayden glanced to the left again. The zombies were approaching fast. He looked back and saw Sarah nodding at him; nodding at him to go on, to get out of here, to leave her behind.
And a part of Hayden was tempted. A part of Hayden that still remained from his days of cowardice considered turning around and running.
But no. He’d run away too many times in his life already. And he’d left Sarah behind before, so never again.
She’d come with him. She’d put everything on the line to help rescue the innocents from the hangar. He couldn’t just give up on her.
“Please,” Hayden said, his voice drowned out by the crackling of thunder from above. “I’m begging you not to do this. And I’m sorry for leaving you behind. But we can go inside. We can go inside and put all of this behind us and focus on the next step. Because we need to focus on the next step.”
The chubby guy’s eyes narrowed. More zombies approached from behind him, lit up in the moonlight. He tightened his grip around Sarah’s neck. “You … you’ll just kill me. You’ll just throw me away to be like them.”
Hayden shook his head. His heart pounded as the footsteps of the surrounding zombies echoed closer. “I won’t,” he shouted. “I won’t leave you behind. We need to go inside. We need to move. Now!”
The chubby guy glanced over his shoulder at the zombies that were just five, four metres away.
And then he looked back at Hayden, jaw shaking, eyes wide. He nodded. “Thank you. Thank you.”
He lowered the pipe from Sarah’s neck and Sarah pulled herself free.
Hayden nodded back at the chubby guy. But in a way he felt a sadness. A sadness about the bite in his arm. A sadness about what that meant.
He turned and started jogging in the direction of the hangar door.
Reached down and picked up his fallen knife then carried on running, the zombies nipping at their heels.
And when they reached the concrete steps he stopped.
Turned around.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I hope you understand.”
The chubby guy’s eyes narrowed. “Understand what—”
Hayden stabbed him in the neck.
He yanked the knife out of his flabby neck and turned around before he had the chance to see the chubby guy glug, see him fall over in shock and crack his head on the concrete, sending him into a merciful unconsciousness as the crowd of zombies sunk their teeth into his blubber, tore the meat from his bones, feasted.
Sarah looked at Hayden with horror as Hayden opened the door. “Come on,” he said.
Her eyes narrowed. She looked back at the chubby guy being torn into pieces. “You … you …”
“He was bitten. I did what I had to do. Now get inside.”
Sarah walked slowly past Hayden, like she was stuck in some kind of trance.
Hayden listened to the sounds of tearing flesh, but he didn’t look back.
He only looked forward. That’s all he could do right now.
All anyone could do.
Forty-Four
They moved quickly and silently down the darkened corridor and towards the room that the family were penned into.
Hayden led the way and Sarah followed closely behind. At the doors, the handles of which they’d wedged a metal pipe between, the sound of gasping, tearing, of footsteps approaching followed their every move. The knowledge that those doors wouldn’t hold forever—that eventually, this building would be compromised and the entire Riversford Industrial Estate would be lost—gnawed at Hayden’s sanity like a fox at a trapped leg.
“Was it the third floor they were on?” Sarah asked, breaking the deafening silence.
Hayden looked around the empty CityFast hangar. It looked so intact. So … safe and secure. It was hard to believe that an army of zombies was on the verge of taking this place—no need for it, but they flowed into empty spaces like water. “Second. Second, I think.”
Sarah slowed her run and panted. She put her hands on her hips and looked around. “There might still be time to get away,” she said. “We … we can still turn around and—”
“Stairs are over there,” Hayden said, pointing just past Sarah and to the staircase leading up to the upper floors of the hangar.
Sarah looked as if she was about to say something in objection, then decided against it. And that’s because she must’ve seen it. Must’ve seen the look on Hayden’s face—the determination. Nothing was stopping him from reaching those innocent people in that room. Nothing was stopping him, even if it meant self-sacrifice.
She followed him as he reached the bottom steps of the hangar. He looked up. Kept the knife tightly between his fingers. He’d lost track of how much his pierced neck was stinging, how dizzy his head was and how dry his throat was growing. And it had to stay that way. He couldn’t think about himself, not until he saved these people.
He wasn’t letting anyone else innocent die.
But then again, who even was innocent anymore? And what was it to be innocent?
He powered up the staircase. He had to be ready for anyone who’d stuck behind of the Riversford group to leap out, attack him. Some of them had to have stayed back. Most of them would have fled, but they couldn’t all be gone.
“We have to watch out,” Sarah called. “We have to think about—about what we’re going to say.”
“There’s nothing to say,” Hayden said, reaching the top of the staircase. He kept his eyes ahead. “This place is lost. Those people need help getting out of here. We—”
His voice was interrupted by an echoing thump against the main door of the hangar. He swung around, and so too did Sarah. Then she looked back at him, her face a new shade of pale. “They’re coming. We have to hurry. We have to do whatever the hell it is we’ve got to do and then we’ve got to get the hell out of here.”
Hayden heard another thump at the door.
Sarah was right. They didn’t have much time.
He swung over and poked his head around the sides of the staircase exits. On the left: nothing but a desk similar to the one Callum used to sit at, his murderous drawings in the top drawer.
On the left … a door.
The door was closed, but Hayden knew there was somebody inside. He could see the shadows of feet moving around in there. And he couldn’t hear any growling or gasping—just the faintest of whispers.
His heart picked up in pace. He turned and looked at Sarah, then nodded.
This was the room. This was the place where the survivors were. This was—
Another crack against the main door of the hangar. A crack that sent shivers up Hayden’s arms. Rain and wind battered against the foundation
s of the building, and the urgency of the situation welled up inside Hayden. They had to get in here and they had to get out.
They had to be quick.
He walked slowly towards the door and he heard another whisper ahead of him. He thought about what to say. The people on the other side of this door could be armed, ready to strike. He had to put them at ease. He had to make his presence known without scaring them.
“It’s … it’s Hayden.” He felt stupid for saying that straight away. “I … I was a prisoner here. I’m one of the …” He was going to say “one of the good guys,” but he wasn’t too sure even he believed that anymore. “I saw your sign. And I’m here to help you out.”
Nothing but silence at the other side of the door. But there was a feeling. Hayden couldn’t describe it any other way than a feeling of someone being there; knowledge of a presence.
He waited for a response. Waited for a sound. But beyond the wind, the rain, the snarling of the zombies gathered in the grounds outside, there was nothing.
Hayden looked back at Sarah, who rubbed her arms and kept on glancing at the stairs they’d headed up. And then he turned back to the door. Grabbed the handle. “I’m going to come inside. Just … please. I’m not going to hurt you. I… I lost someone here too. We all lost someone here. I’m going to come inside. Right now. Please.”
He hesitated for a few seconds. Jumped when a blast of thunder crackled overhead.
And then he gripped tighter hold of the handle.
Held his breath.
Lowered it.
When he pushed the door open, the first thing that startled him were the eyes.
There were lots of them. Eyes, all looking at him, all wide and focused and bloodshot.
The eyes of five, six, seven people.
Men. Women. Children.
And then he saw the eyes of the little girl by the window, her mum’s arm around her shoulder. He saw her eyes and he just knew, right away.
