by Casey, Ryan
He knew she was Newbie’s daughter. She didn’t have to say a thing. He just knew.
The people looked on, scared, hesitant. Two of them were men dressed in the same green slacks that Ally and the other CityFast goons wore. But they didn’t look threatening. They looked terrified. Holed up in here and at the end of their tether; the end of the line.
Hayden cleared his throat and stepped a little further into the darkened room.
“I’m … I’m Hayden. This is Sarah. We’re going to get out of here. All of us. We’re going to—”
Hayden didn’t finish what he wanted to say.
He heard the bang against the main door of the hangar.
He heard something snap and then the sound of metal echoing against the floor.
And then, he heard the echoing gasp of zombies stagger inside the building.
Forty-Five
“We need to get the hell out of here. Quick!”
Hayden didn’t have time for pleasantries with the new group. That time would come—hopefully, anyway.
But that hope was wearing thin as the zombies gathered inside the hangar, swarmed through the bottom floor, all seeking their next meal, all looking out for a grand prize that they weren’t even conscious to appreciate.
“Hayden, seriously!” Sarah said, to-ing and fro-ing along the corridor outside the room. “They’re filling up the downstairs hall. They’ll be up here in no time. We need to make a fucking break for it.”
Hayden turned and looked at the group. Two men in CityFast outfits with terrified faces, one of them clutching a pistol with his life. The black woman and the ten-year-old girl who had to be Newbie’s daughter. What must be a couple in their early forties holding hands with one another, their young boy stuck between them, the bruises on his face nothing compared to the mental scars this place would leave in his mind.
“All of us need to leave here right this second. Zombies are filling up the downstairs hall. We need to—”
“It’s no fucking use,” Sarah said. She ran back into the room and slammed the door, surrounding everyone in darkness. Hayden thought he could hear her pounding heartbeat from here. “They … they’re coming up the stairs. They saw me. They’re coming.”
The little boy started to cry. His mum whispered fearful words of reassurance to him. The men in the CityFast gear cursed. Newbie’s ex-wife and daughter just stood by the window and stared, the calmest and most composed of the entire group.
Hayden looked Newbie’s wife in the eye and at that moment in time, as the sound of the zombies crawling up the stairs, tripping and tumbling over one another, got gradually closer, he had no idea how they were going to get out of this situation. They were trapped. Nine of them trapped together in a tiny room. A feast for the zombies.
Because the zombies would find them. They’d sniff them out like they always did. And it didn’t matter how hard the group fought, those kinds of numbers couldn’t be dealt with by hand. They could hold them off. Maybe even stay on their feet for five or ten or fifteen minutes, fighting and fighting.
But eventually one of them would slip. One of them would fall.
That would be the start of the end.
The thunder crackled and lightning lit the room up in a blue, nightmarish hue. The little boy cried again, his parents reassured and calmed him again, but Hayden could hear the acknowledging fear in their voices, too.
He could hear the change in the snarls of the zombies. He could hear the way they echoed differently—a sure sign that they were up the stairs, on their level.
And he wanted to do something. He wanted to go out there and fight. He wanted to try to make a break for it.
But all he could do was stand still.
Count down the minutes.
Count down the seconds.
Life was ending.
He joined the collective silence of the room and his vision grew dreamy as he stared out into the dark. The grounds were filled with zombies. Some of them had branched off into the City Link building, others were still outside. He saw the bodies on the ground. The fallen bodies of men, women. Some of them good people, some of them bad people, but all of them people.
And then his mind’s eye wandered to the spot where Clarice had fallen. Where just metres away, he’d stood and he’d watched Ally slice her head from her body. He remembered the feeling that came over him then, as the footsteps of the zombies got closer to the room door. He remembered that stunned, dreamlike feeling of being frozen in time, prisoner to his emotions.
He felt it again.
Only this time he couldn’t find the key out.
He felt a hand on his arm. Looked to his left and saw Sarah by his side. She looked into his eyes, tears in the crystal blue of hers, and she attempted a smile but it was weak and pointless. It was terrifying.
It was that look he’d imagined so many times since the world ended.
The look of knowledge. Of, “this is it, we’re going to die and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
But the thing that terrified Hayden most was that he knew he was looking at Sarah in the same way.
He looked around at all these people and he felt so sad for them. Newbie’s ex-wife and daughter. The entire reason they’d headed to Warrington in the first place. At least they’d made it this far. That was something, wasn’t it? This entire journey wasn’t all for …
And then he remembered something.
Sarah pointing her gun at the zombie outside.
The bullet firing past the zombie, puncturing the petrol canisters.
Petrol pouring to the ground and bathing the zombies in a waterfall of flammable fluid.
“I … I think I’ve got something.”
Hayden rushed over to the window. He could hear people asking him what he was talking about, hear confusion and panic and puzzlement.
He looked out of the window and at the massive green canister, other canisters of petrol packed on top of them, petrol splashing out of the pierced one and hitting the ground below.
“Hayden, what’s—”
“A lighter,” Hayden said. “Does anyone in here have a lighter?”
He looked around. Looked at the two CityFast men and Newbie’s ex-wife and the couple in their forties.
Zombie footsteps getting closer.
Mangled hands scraping against the corridor walls.
“A lighter,” Hayden said sterner. “Does anyone have—”
“Yes. Yes.” The muscular man in a CityFast uniform held out a gold lighter to Hayden with his shaking hand.
Hayden reached down and snatched it away.
“I—I don’t think that’s gonna hold ’em off,” the muscular man said. “They ain’t much scared of the flames.”
“I need your gun, too,” Hayden said.
He looked at the other CityFast guy. Looked at the pistol clutched in his hand.
“I—I need this. Only got six bullets. Need to use ’em when we absolutely need to.”
“We absolutely need to,” Hayden said.
He reached down and grabbed the cold metal of the gun. He looked the CityFast man in the eyes.
“You need to trust me. It’s the only chance we have here. Please.”
The CityFast man loosened his grip on the gun.
Hayden edged it away.
He walked over to the window and with the butt of the gun he smashed it open.
He heard the group curse and shout out behind him. Heard them telling him to “ssh!”
Heard a deathly silence.
And then a zombie thumping itself against the door.
He pushed away some of the loose shards of glass from the side of the window and leaned out into the cold windy night. He heard another bang at the door, heard more shrieks and cries, but he kept his focus, kept his mind set on the only thing he could think to do.
It was suicide. But sometimes people survived suicide attempts.
Nobody survived the zombies.
He pointed the gun at the pile of green petrol
canisters and he fired.
Six.
Five.
Four.
Another bang at the door.
Someone by his side telling him they needed the ammo, screaming at him they needed to get the hell out of here or at least try to defend the place and—Oh God they’re coming in I can see them I can see them.
He fired again.
Two shots left.
One shot left.
And then he passed the gun back to the CityFast guy as the wood of the door caved in, as the zombies clawed their way inside the room, as pandemonium erupted.
He looked at the petrol water falling out of the canisters and he rolled back the lighter.
He hoped to God his video game logic had got this right.
He pulled his arm back.
Kept the lighter burning.
And then he threw.
The lighter moved through the air in slow motion. And one second it was there and then it was gone, completely gone, and as the gasps of the zombies echoed out just a few metres behind him, Hayden knew he’d lost. He’d fucked it up. He’d screwed everything up.
And then in the darkness there was light.
Forty-Six
The moment the flames went up was the moment Hayden knew that beauty still existed in this morally desolate world.
It happened fast. Not in a slo-mo montage like in a clichéd movie or anything like that. It happened so quickly that he didn’t even have time to process it.
One moment, there was nothing but darkness.
The next moment, flames.
Flames engulfed the petrol canisters. They burned through the petrol that waterfalled out of those canisters, hit the ground and then everything erupted. It happened so fast. Quicker than Hayden could comprehend.
Dark, then light.
Flames zipped across the entire Riversford grounds and set the place alight.
Set the zombies alight.
The smell of hundreds of burning bodies filled the air, and yet it was the most beautiful thing Hayden had ever seen.
He would have waited. Waited and watched all night as the flames burned away the remnants of the zombies, as the light engulfed more of the petrol canisters and sparked more explosions. He could’ve stood there in the heat and he could’ve watched the badness burn away in the beautifully white-hot light.
But he heard the door to the room splitting away, heard the little boy scream, and he knew he couldn’t stand around.
He gripped tight hold of the knife and he turned to face the zombies stepping inside the room. There were fewer of them than he’d imagined. They lit up in the orange glow of their burning peers outside.
“Make sure you’re armed!” Hayden shouted as the zombies piled inside the room. “Aim for the neck!”
And then he lifted the knife and he held his breath and ran at the zombies.
When he ran into them and swung at the flesh on their necks and skulls and wherever he could manage, he didn’t feel fear. Instead, he just kept his sister in mind. Kept Newbie, Manish, Frank, Usman—all the people he’d lost, he kept them in mind.
His parents.
He kept his parents in mind as he rammed the sharp edge of the blade into the back of the neck of a short, dark-haired zombie.
He felt them encouraging him as he stabbed an ageing bald man through his neck, the metallic stench of cold blood mixing with the char grilled meat outside. He felt them encouraging him to fight on, as Sarah fought, as the two CityFast men fought, as everyone fought.
He didn’t feel fear.
He just felt different.
He didn’t feel any kind of emotion when one of the CityFast men—the one who’d given Hayden the lighter— fell and a zombie sunk its teeth into his ankle.
He just kept on fighting, kept focused on the six, five zombies that were in front of him, and when he had the chance he sliced the back of the neck of the zombie that had bitten the CityFast man, and then he rammed the blade into the head of the CityFast man despite his begging, despite his protestations.
He didn’t feel fear. He didn’t feel sadness.
Just different.
Changed.
He was doing what he had to do to survive. He understood that now.
The group kept on fighting until there were just two left, then one left, and then nothing but a gap between the door and the staircase.
And then the eight of them that remained ran. They ran out of the room, away from the orange glow, away from the sounds of melting skin outside.
But they didn’t run down the staircase.
They ran past the staircase and then up another set of stairs. And when they reached the floor where Callum’s office was, they ran over to the scaffolding and looked down. It wasn’t burning down there. Not yet. It would be soon, but not yet. Everything would be burning soon.
They climbed down the scaffolding, all of them, and then they climbed over the fence that Hayden had sneaked back into Riversford via. They fought off more zombies. Snapped their necks. Sliced their heads. But the bulk of them were burning. Burning to a crisp. They crumbled away under a tap of the knife.
They climbed over the fence and dropped to the other side.
They ran. Ran and fought and ran some more as the clouds began to part and bright moonlight replaced the murky, thundery gaze.
And after they’d run for God knows how long they looked back, all of them, at Riversford. Looked at the flames as they spread across the grounds. Looked at the side of the hangar as it caught fire, as the flames reached the scaffolding and brought it down, as the windows inside the hangar started to crack.
All eight of the survivors stood and watched the flames like a family around a campfire on a cold winter’s day, and for a moment, everything was okay. Everything in the world was fine.
And tomorrow, it wouldn’t be. In five minutes, it might not be. There’d be some other crowd of zombies or some other humans with bad intentions that would flock this way.
But right now, right here in this moment of time, everything was fine.
Despite everything Hayden had done, everything he’d lost, everything was fine.
He watched the smoke rise from Riversford and he felt like he was home.
Forty-Seven
“All clear?”
“All clear.”
Hayden twiddled a daffodil shoot in his left finger and yanked the knife out of the side of the head of the charred zombie. Its body had set on fire several hours ago, in the darkness of night, but the smell of burning was still strong in the morning air. Now and then, as Hayden and the other seven survivors cleared out the grounds of Riversford, Hayden swore he heard flames crackling or screams radiating out, but whenever he looked up all he saw was the ashen remains of the undead, burned out to a crisp and left to wriggle morbidly in the low winter sun.
Sarah stepped up beside Hayden. Her hands were covered with black marks, the remnants of the burned bodies they’d obliterated. “Pity they aren’t all burned to a crisp. Might make our job a little easier.”
Hayden nodded in agreement. Sarah had a point. The zombies just crumbled to pieces when they’d been burned—they had no problem breaking their necks. And that’s what they’d spent the morning doing. Ever since the sun rose, ever since the flames died down, they'd been clearing this place out.
Because there was something with this place. Aspects of it that were worth holding onto.
“Are you sure about staying here?” Sarah asked, catching Hayden in his thoughts.
Hayden looked around the grounds. The major issue was the fallen fence. “We can use wood from the forest to build some new fences. Make it safer and stronger than it ever was before. And we can make ourselves scarcer than the CityFast group. We can work together. When we see zombie approaching, we make damned sure we have a proper plan in order—even if that means a legitimate evacuation plan.”
Sarah nodded. “The main hangar. It’s all burned out.”
“There’s three other hanga
rs in this vicinity. More than that at the other side of the fences. The CityFast group chose this place for a reason—it has solid foundations. It’s secure. And Riversford’s a big place. If we need to move on to another hangar, we can do.”
“And what about this lot?” Sarah asked. She pointed at the six people who had joined them, the six people they’d rescued from the CityFast room last night. Gary, the CityFast employee, currently walking around with a spade and smashing the skulls of any zombies that remained undead. Matt and Karen and their little boy, Tim, who sat at the side with their arms around one another, teeth chattering in the cold. And then there was Martha. Newbie’s ex-wife.
Amy. Newbie’s daughter. The whole damned reason Newbie had come to Warrington in the first place.
“I think they’re good people,” Hayden said.
“You don’t sound certain.”
“I’m not. I can’t be certain. None of us can be certain about anybody anymore. Not even me about you or you about me.”
He side-glanced at Sarah and saw her lower her head to look at the ash and debris covered floor. Somewhere overhead, crows cawed. “Are you going to tell them?”
“Tell them what? What I just told—”
“About Newbie. Are you going to tell Martha and … and Amy about what happened to Newbie?”
Hayden looked at Martha and Amy. There was a smile on Amy’s face. An actual smile. Martha caught Hayden looking and lifted a hand, and Hayden nodded back.
“In time. They deserve to know. Just … just not now.”
“How can you be the decider of when the right time is?”
“I can’t,” Hayden said. He lifted his knife and stuck it into the neck of another zombie on the ground in front. Its top half had been severed from the bottom, and its eyes had withered away in the heat. The skin and flesh was as easy as paper to tear, and it went silent within a second of contact with the knife. “I’m just trying my best here. Trying my best to keep in control of things. Because … because we all need to be in control. But right now, more than anything, we need a little hope. We all need a little hope.”
Hayden walked over to the spot where Clarice’s head had been severed from her neck. He crouched down on the spot that he was convinced she’d fallen, and he laid down the dandelion shoot on top of the ashes.
