by Casey, Ryan
“Where are you going?” Hayden asked.
“If the house is clear, you need to let us leave.”
Hayden stood in front of the door. Blocked their route. “No.”
“Hayden, step aside,” Miriam said.
He shook his head. “I can’t let you do that—”
“Step the fuck aside.”
Something happened then. Something that made Hayden’s stomach turn.
Miriam looked at him in the same way those people outside the wall looked at him just earlier.
They looked at him like he was the monster.
Miriam looked at him like he was the monster.
And she held the machete to his chest.
Hayden swallowed a lump in his throat. Outside, he heard New Britain falling. And inside, he felt it falling too. Falling to pieces. Everything he’d worked for. Everything he’d cared about.
“Move,” Miriam said. There was a hardness in her eyes. A coldness. But underneath all that guise, Hayden saw the pain, too. The pain of having to do this. The pain of having to stand up to him. Because he knew Miriam cared about him. He knew she cared about him, just like he cared about her.
His shoulders collapsed. He turned around. Grabbed the handle.
“You better not—”
“At least let me open the door for you,” Hayden said.
He started to turn it. Then he felt a hand on his arm. He looked around and saw Miriam looking right into his eyes. The softness had returned to her face.
“You… you can’t stay here,” she said.
Hayden knew she was right. He knew everything she said was right. But this place was home. New Britain was the only place he felt safe. This was his bubble. “I have to,” he said.
Miriam wiped a tear from her eye. Hayden wanted her to tell him she couldn’t leave without him. That she wasn’t going anywhere without him by her side.
But she didn’t.
Of course she didn’t.
Because she had herself to protect. She had others to protect.
Miriam opened her mouth to say something. And Hayden sensed the goodbye coming. The goodbye they’d been working for, for so, so long.
And then, in the corner of his eye, Hayden saw something dripping.
Something dripping from the ceiling just outside the door.
Something red.
Blood.
He looked up. Looked up, right at the ceiling.
An infected stared down at him.
Its neck split from where something had pierced it.
A screwdriver was wedged into its skin.
Just like the one Shelley thought she’d killed.
It threw itself down towards Miriam.
Hayden dragged her back, back into the room. He slammed the door shut. Sat up against it, the infected bashing itself against the wood.
He heard a few screams. Panic seized the room.
Downstairs, Hayden heard something smash.
Martha ran over to the window. Looked outside.
“They’re… they’re inside,” she said.
Hayden pressed all his weight back against the door as the infected bashed against it.
“Four more of them,” Martha said, her voice shaking. “They’re coming inside. They’re downstairs.”
Chapter Twelve
Hayden pressed back against the door as hard as he could and hoped to God he had enough strength inside himself to hold the infected off.
He saw Miriam, Martha, Amy and Shelley all opposite him. They were backing off. Backing towards the window. They were saying things. Barking commands at each other. Shouting things over at Hayden, too. But all of it just blended together. All of it just drifted into insignificance.
All that mattered right now was holding off these infected.
One way or another, they just had to hold them off.
He felt a bump. Felt a bump hit the other side of the door. It knocked him forward, sent him hurtling towards the floor. But then he backed up. Pressed himself to it again. He couldn’t allow himself to step away. He had a duty to Miriam, to Martha, to everyone here. He had to protect them. To do what he could to keep them safe.
He had to hold off the infected.
“Hayden, you need to hurry the hell up and come with us,” Miriam said. She struggled with the window. Tried to yank it open, Shelley helping her.
Hayden held his ground. He stuck his teeth into his bottom lip as he pushed back against the door, so hard that he tasted the copper tang of blood across his mouth. “I can’t,” he said.
“You can, and you fucking will,” Miriam said. She punched at the glass with the butt of her machete. Kept on banging against it, doing all she could to smash it open. “You get the hell up. You come over here. And we get out of here. All of us.”
Hayden’s thoughts wandered again to the real reason he was staying still. The real reason he couldn’t climb out of that window with them. Simply put, he was afraid. Afraid of what was out there. Afraid of what they might do to the people he cared about.
Yes, they were surrounded by infected—the fast ones, too. But they were inside. They were inside Miriam’s home. That should count for something. That should be defendable.
Hayden’s thoughts were interrupted when another bang smacked against the door, and the sound of splitting wood filled his eardrums.
He saw the horror in Martha’s eyes. And when he looked up, he realised exactly why that was.
An arm had wedged its way through the wood. It searched around furiously, frantically, like a leech in search of skin to suck the blood from. It looked detached from its host. It looked like it was covered in bruises, scars.
It twisted downwards and reached for Hayden’s hair.
Hayden saw what he had to do in a flash. As much as he didn’t want to do it, he knew exactly what action he had to take. The only action he could take.
He rolled forward. Out of the way of the trailing hand. Away from the door that he was holding back with all his strength.
He hurtled towards the window.
“Quick,” he said, helping Shelley clear the ledge of smashed glass. “We need—we need to get out.”
“You’ve changed your tune,” Martha said.
“Not now. Just—we need to—”
The door slammed open.
Four infected stood there, staring, getting ready to race towards them.
“Get the hell out!” Hayden shouted.
Martha and Amy went first. They shimmied to the edge of the window and then dropped down below. Hayden knew it wasn’t that far a drop, but he didn’t want to say it was safe. It was reckless. Stupidly reckless. They could break their legs and end up free food for the infected.
But right now, it was the only option they had.
The infected ran towards Hayden.
Shelley followed Amy and Martha out of the window. Miriam followed not long after. But Hayden stayed there. He stayed there and watched as the infected rushed his way.
He wanted to hold his ground. He didn’t want to let the undead take something else away from him. He didn’t want them to force Miriam out of her home.
He felt something smack into his chest and push him back towards the window.
One of the infected pressed down against him. He felt more of them grabbing on to his legs, their teeth snatching for anything that resembled flesh.
Hayden struggled with it. Twisted, writhed and turned, eager to break free of its grip. He needed to get his footing. He couldn’t fall out of this window headfirst. He might make it by jumping, but definitely not by falling. It was too far. It was too dangerous.
But then he felt his body weight shifting and he knew he didn’t have much of a choice.
He fell. Fell backwards, spinning upside down and hurtling to the road below, the infected still clutching on to him.
Hayden wasn’t sure what he did. Just that he tried to shift the infected as they fell. Tried to twist it around so he fell onto it, and not the other way
around.
Before he could, he felt the road slam into the back of his shoulder, and a biting pain split across the top half of his body.
The strength in his arms dropped instantly. He saw the infected move its teeth towards him, close in on his neck for a bite. And he hoped Miriam was okay. He hoped everyone from inside that room was okay. That was the main thing. That they’d made it. That they’d found a way to safety.
That was the—
He felt cool blood splatter over his face.
Smelled that familiar stench of decaying flesh, only the kind that’d been wrapped up in skin, unexposed for a lifetime in spite of death.
He opened his eyes and he saw Miriam’s machete was through the back of the infected’s neck.
“Now come on,” she said, pushing the infected away from Hayden and holding out a hand to help him to his feet. “We’ve really got to get the hell away from here.”
Hayden stood. His neck and back ached like mad, but he could still walk, so he had to consider that a bonus.
He ran. Ran with Miriam, Martha, Amy and Shelley, all of them running down the street and away from Miriam’s house. There were more infected in there. They’d do what they could to avoid any sort of confrontation. Confrontation was expensive on the body, especially when this place was in the midst of a full-blown siege.
“What now?” Shelley asked, when they stopped in an alleyway at the end of the street, the screams and cries of impending destruction echoing through the air.
“Only one way,” Miriam said, holding her hands on her knees and panting. “We’ve got to leave this place while we still can.”
Hayden shook his head. “No. I won’t—”
“It’s not your damned call anymore,” Miriam said. “This place is falling. Collapsing. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry if it’s hard on you to take or to accept or whatever, but it’s true. You need to look around and you need to save yourself. While you still can.”
Hayden shook his head. It was all he could do. He knew there was no reasoning with Miriam, not now.
Miriam started to make a break for the wall.
Martha started to walk away too.
Hayden grabbed Martha’s arm.
“Martha, please.”
“Hayden, I’m sorry, but Miriam’s right.”
“This place. You came all this way. You know how important it is we keep safe. How rare a place like this is.”
Martha half-smiled and nodded. “You’re right about that. But staying here is suicide and you know it.”
She started to walk again, but Hayden grabbed her arm once more. Miriam had stopped, waiting for the others to join her. Shelley didn’t look like she’d made her mind up yet.
“Going outside is suicide, too. At least here, we might still have a shot. But out there… once you go out there, that’s it. And you know that.”
Martha’s smile grew a little wider. “Hayden, we’re always living on the tightrope between life and death. Nowhere’s safe. Not truly. We just happen to have stumbled upon a decent bit of rope for the last few months.”
She took her daughter’s hand. Turned towards the wall. Started to walk.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to—”
Martha didn’t finish her sentence.
She didn’t finish because something rushed towards her from her right.
Smacked her to the ground.
Knocked Amy out of her hand.
An infected.
Hayden took a step to try and get the infected away from Martha.
When he saw the blood, he knew it was already too late.
The infected sunk its teeth into Martha’s neck.
Ripped away her flesh.
Stuck its fingers into her torso so hard that its dagger-like fingertips pierced the skin, sent thick blood oozing towards the road.
Blood spluttered out of Martha’s mouth.
Amy screamed.
Chapter Thirteen
Amy’s screams rang in Hayden’s ears.
Hayden saw the scene in front of him as if it wasn’t real. As if he was watching it on television, detached from it, not quite taking it in.
But there was no denying it was real.
There was no denying the truth of the horror in front of him.
Martha was lying on her back. Blood was pooling out of her torso, out of her chest, out of her neck. Her eyes were wide, and more blood dribbled down from her lips.
An infected perched above her, ravaging her.
Hayden tasted vomit hitting the back of his mouth. He could smell Martha’s blood. The only sound he was aware of was Amy’s screaming, her crying fit, as her mother got ripped to pieces in front of her.
And Hayden felt his face pricking up with heat. He felt the muscles in his body tightening as he stood there watching, embraced by shock—just as Miriam and Shelley were.
He felt the burning sensation of rage building up inside.
He walked over to the infected. Grabbed it by the back of its white polo neck collar. With all the strength inside him, he pulled it away from Martha and pushed it down to the ground.
He sat on it. Pressed its forehead down with his left hand, watched as it writhed and wretched and tried everything it could to break free of Hayden’s grip.
And Hayden punched it.
Punched it in the throat.
Punched it over and over and over. So hard that he felt its skin splitting. That he felt its blood splattering up, hitting his face.
He punched at its mouth. Punched at its face. And before he knew it he felt blood across his knuckles. He heard the infected’s teeth snap under the force of his punch.
He knew why he was doing this. He knew why he was crouching here, beating the infected to a pulp. He knew why the rage was burning inside him, and that the only thing he could focus on or think about was turning this fucker into mincemeat.
Not just because it’d bitten Martha. Not just because it’d torn her to pieces.
But also because he knew the truth.
If he’d let Martha go when she wanted to go, she’d still be alive right now.
If he hadn’t held her back in hope of keeping his group here, Martha wouldn’t have been bitten.
If he’d just done the right thing—the thing he should’ve done all along—then Amy wouldn’t have had to watch her mum have all her immortality ripped away just inches from her.
When Hayden’s thoughts and consciousness returned to the forefront, he could still hear Amy crying.
He looked down. Looked at the mess in front of him. The infected’s skull had caved in. It had softened from decomposition in the first place, but beating a skull to a pulp was still hardly an everyday thing. He could taste sick on his lips. Sick and blood. His head spun. His body shook as the adrenaline cooled down
The infected was dead. The infected was finished.
His knuckles were raw, bruised, possibly broken.
But he’d done what he had to do.
He went to stand when he saw Miriam looking at him in a peculiar way.
He didn’t totally understand her look at first. Didn’t completely comprehend why it was she was looking at him with such… fear.
But then he felt the blood drip down the side of his face and he knew exactly why, right at that moment.
She was seeing him for the monster he really was.
She knew why he’d beaten the infected in such a way. She knew it wasn’t just because of what happened to Martha. She knew there was another reason, too.
And Hayden couldn’t deny that.
He was guilty.
Guilty for Martha’s death.
Guilty for having Amy witness her—
He heard a splutter.
A splutter, over on his left.
His stomach dropped, right at that moment.
“Mum!”
He watched as Amy ran out of Shelley’s arms and to her mum’s side. He worried. Worried that Martha might turn right there. The speed of turning was al
ways different. Sometimes, turning was more rapid than others.
“Amy, you’d better watch…”
But Amy was in her mother’s arms.
Covered in her mother’s blood.
Martha, gripping on to the last fragment of life in her veins, stroked the back of her daughter’s hair, clogged it up with blood.
Hayden stood and stared at them for a few seconds. He felt their pain. Felt the pain of a child losing someone they cared about so dearly. He knew how that felt. He’d loved his older sister more than anyone when he found her hanging. And it took him months to truly understand what’d happened. Years, even. In fact, sometimes, in the dark of night, lying there in the silence, Hayden wondered if he’d ever really got through what happened to his older sister at all. He wondered how different his life would be if she hadn’t killed herself that day.
He wondered if he’d still be alive right now.
He walked over to Miriam. He didn’t look at her. He just held his hand out. He didn’t have to ask her for her to know exactly what he wanted.
Miriam didn’t say anything back to him. And after a moment’s hesitation, she put the machete into Hayden’s hand. She didn’t look into Hayden’s eyes. Not once. And Hayden knew why. Hayden understood why.
Blame.
But he didn’t have time to think about that right now.
He walked over to Amy and Martha’s side. Martha was still spluttering, her eyes wide and bloodshot. Amy held on to her, tears soaking her bloodstained cheeks.
“Please don’t go, Mum. Please don’t leave me. Please.”
Hayden wasn’t sure what to do. After all, what did anyone do in these situations?
In the end, he decided to crouch down beside Amy. To put a hand on her back. To pat it. “We’ve got you, Amy. We’re here. We’ve got you.”
They sat there for a few minutes. Sat there and looked down at Martha. And as Martha’s splutters grew less frequent, as her grip on her daughter’s hand loosened, Hayden knew the moment was arriving. He knew he’d have to put her down for good. He felt a lump in his throat. Pressure behind his eyes with every cry from Amy. It wasn’t right. Wasn’t right what she’d witnessed. Wasn’t right what else she’d have to witness and go through.
“You know what I have to do, Amy.”
