by Casey, Ryan
She’d seen Daniel die, and as much as Hayden knew Daniel wanted him to slam that door, as much as he knew Miriam probably got that he was only doing it to keep the rest of them safe, too, he knew she blamed him for that, too.
Because if this chain of events hadn’t started, maybe the pair of them would still be alive.
He stood up. Took a deep breath of the dusty air, which caught on his chest. He walked over towards Miriam. He knew she wouldn’t want that. He knew he should probably just sit around and back off.
But no. He wasn’t going to let it be that way. He wasn’t going to just give up on Miriam. Because he cared about her. They’d been close. Miriam had made her feelings clear to Hayden too. Certainly clearer than Hayden made his feelings.
Well now he knew it was time to start being honest.
Now he knew it was time to start making his feelings a lot clearer. As uncomfortable as that might be.
“What do you want?”
Miriam lifted her head. Glanced into Hayden’s eyes. And then she looked away. She was uptight. Not moving a muscle. Amy sniffed by her side.
Hayden cleared his throat. “I need to talk to you.”
“You’ve said everything there is to—”
“No. No, I haven’t. I really haven’t.”
Miriam’s eyes met his again. And for a moment, he saw that look. That old look of her defences wearing down. The way she used to look at him with sensitivity, with understanding, and with an air of sympathy.
She patted Amy on her shoulder. “You go help Shelley find some weapons. I won’t be long.”
Amy nodded, then stood up. She walked away, leaving Hayden and Miriam alone.
“So go on. Better get what it is you want to say said.”
“What happened to Martha. I—”
“It’s your fault she died.”
“I know. I see that. I was just…”
“Please don’t tell me you were just trying to keep your people safe.”
“Are you going to talk over me or will you just listen for one second?”
Miriam narrowed her eyes. Then she nodded. “Go on.”
Hayden scratched the back of his neck. He could hear Shelley and Amy searching the shelves, finding the best weapons they could should they need to use them. Outside, he could still hear the occasional scream, the occasional peppering of gunfire. “The people. Outside the wall.”
“The ones you killed?”
“You’ve seen what people can do. You’ve seen what they’re capable of.”
“Oh. I thought it was because you were worried about them being infected. It’s actually far fucking worse than that.”
“There is that too,” Hayden said. “But I just…”
He stopped speaking. Because he truly did not know what to say to defend his side of the argument.
Miriam half-smiled. Shook her head. “Yeah. I didn’t think you had anything either.”
She stood up. Started to walk past Hayden. Over to Shelley, to Amy.
“I did everything I did because I care.”
Miriam stopped. Turned around. “Care about who?”
Hayden looked at the ground. “People. The people in this place. It’s special. It’s—”
“If you care so damned much about the people in this place, then why aren’t you out there letting people inside this armoury right this second?”
Again, Hayden felt the words slip from his reach. He felt his argument disintegrating rapidly. There was nothing he could say. There was nothing he could do. Only try.
“The way I see it, you got Martha killed. You got Daniel killed. You got every damned person killed today all because you shot Amanda.”
“That’s not fair—”
“Fuck off, Hayden. And get a grip. I hope you’re having fun in your little bubble now.” She lifted her arms. Gestured towards the confines of the armoury walls. “Because this is it.”
She turned. Walked away.
Hayden watched her walk. He listened to the gunfire outside. The shouts. He listened to the fingernails scratching against the metal of the armoury.
He stood there, and he felt like he was back at home again, cooped up in his bedroom, the taste of weed on his lips, the smell of booze surrounding him.
He felt the walls closing in.
If only he knew how much tighter they were going to get.
Chapter Seventeen
Gary held up his gun and fired down the infected hurtling towards him.
For a man that should be dead, he felt pretty damned good.
The afternoon was getting cooler by the minute. Darker, too. The clouds were thickening up. Looked like rain was coming along to wreck what’d been a pretty decent autumn so far.
Well, until now. Until this day. Nothing was decent anymore. Not after the attack.
“Not sure how much longer we’re gonna be able to hold ’em off.”
Gary heard Elijah’s voice and he gritted his teeth. He knew Elijah had a point, but he didn’t see what good whining did about their current situation. They were pinned down inside one of the shops on West Bank Street. Outside, there were tons of those things. Not directly visible—they’d dealt with the immediate ones—but they’d be waiting somewhere. Getting ready to attack.
“We just have to keep our cool,” Gary said.
“Keep our fucking cool?” Elijah said. His dark hair was packed with sweat. Tears were rolling down his flushed cheeks. “How the hell are we supposed to keep our fucking cool? This place is collapsing.”
Gary looked around at the rest of the people holed up in here with him. Elijah. Mani. Eve. All of them gathered here waiting for their death. Place smelled like shit. Wasn’t an abnormal thing to shit yourself when the undead was coming. Perfectly understandable, really. Anyway, the smell of shit was better than the smell of rot, Gary figured.
But he didn’t plan on being stuck in a shit-reeking room like this much longer anyway.
’Cause he was making a break for it.
Didn’t matter if it was just him. Didn’t matter if it was the people with him.
He was surviving this. He was going to do whatever he could to get the hell out of here.
And then he was going to take this damned place back.
He looked around at the others again. Chewed on his lip. “Now, we’re gonna have to be brave here. Gonna have to pull together. We’ve got guns, so that’s a bonus.”
“Guns don’t heal bites,” Mani said.
“No. But they stop bites ever happening if we deal with the biters before they get to us, don’t they?”
“You really think we’re going to survive this?” Eve asked.
Gary looked at her. Looked right into her eyes. Sometimes, when he looked into Eve’s eyes, he saw his ex-wife. The one who died before this world collapsed. The one who he’d loved with all his goddamned heart.
The one who’d got stuck in the crashed car, and who he’d been too chickenshit to go in and save before she roasted in the flames.
“I do,” Gary said. “I really do.”
He turned around. Pushed up against the wall beneath the smashed window. He listened for a sound. Listened for a sign of life out there. Nothing but silence, at least in their immediate vicinity. Gunshots elsewhere. Cries in other places. But right here, he was fine. He was handling this.
He was going to get out of here no matter what it took.
“On my count,” Gary said, tightening his grip on the rifle he’d picked up from one of the dead guards. “Three. Two. One…”
He lifted to his feet and pointed the rifle out of the window.
The streets outside were empty. Empty of the living. Empty of the undead.
But the dead?
The real dead?
They filled the pavements.
Gary looked around to make sure it was all clear. And then he climbed out of the window, helping the people with him. As he stepped out into those streets, he couldn’t believe how quickly it’d got so quiet. Just mi
nutes ago, these streets were full. These streets were taken. Now, they were ghostlike.
“Something must’ve distracted ’em,” Eve said.
Gary stood at the front of the group. Held his gun. Checked everywhere he could for signs of movement, for signs of life. “Don’t count your chickens.”
“Where are we actually going?”
Gary stopped. Turned back and looked at Elijah. He wanted to beat the teeth out of his whiny mouth. That fucker always had grated on him. But he couldn’t snap. Not now. Now wasn’t the time to snap. “We’re going to the armoury. To get more supplies.”
“And then?”
Gary gritted his teeth. “And then we’re going to figure out a way to clear this place out.”
“You really think we can—”
“Yes, Elijah. Yes, I really do think we can. Now has anyone else got any more fucking banal questions while we’re at it, or can we get on with…”
Gary stopped speaking. He saw it happening right in front of him.
The light in Eve’s eyes going out.
Her falling. Dropping to her knees.
Smacking against the road, head banging onto the concrete.
“Eve?” Mani said.
Mani crouched by her side. Elijah stood there, dumbstruck. Eve had been feeling off ever since Gary bumped into her an hour or so back. He thought there was something in her eyes. A pallid look to her skin.
And just like that, with the click of a finger, she’d gone. Fallen to the floor. Silenced.
“She’s—she’s gone cold,” Mani said. “Eve? Can you hear me? Can you—”
Eve’s eyes opened.
She clamped down on Mani’s neck with her teeth.
Pushed right down.
Deep red blood spurted out from Mani’s neck as Eve ripped the flesh away.
Mani’s eyes widened, and he screamed.
Gary knew the danger of human screams right away. So he didn’t even think.
He lifted the rifle. Pointed it at Mani first. Sent a bullet through his head.
And then he turned the gun on Eve and fired one through her skull too.
No emotions.
No thought.
Just fire.
Silence followed.
Elijah backed away. Horror filled his bloodshot eyes. “What just… what the hell just…”
Gary stared at the two bodies on the road in front of him. He felt tension building in his chest. Elijah might not understand what was happening, might not know what was occurring, but Gary did.
He knew what it meant.
He knew who it was linked to.
Hayden.
“She… she got the immunisation,” Gary said. “Didn’t she?”
Elijah lifted his head. Narrowed his eyes. “What… She…”
“And you did too. Didn’t you?”
Gary saw confusion segue into understanding in Elijah’s eyes.
Elijah lifted his hands. “Don’t—”
He didn’t finish his sentence.
Gary fired a bullet right in the middle of his head.
Elijah fell down to the road. And Gary stared at the fallen people around him. He listened to the chaos unfolding. Listened to the screams and the cries of people still living. He saw eyes staring through windows. People opening their doors, joining him on the street.
He knew what this was now. He’d seen someone turn without being bitten. Someone who’d been immunised. And for whatever reason, those people were turning now. Those people had caused the infected outside to change. To adapt.
To attack the cured.
All because of Hayden McCall.
Hayden McCall, whose dirty blood had given this place a death sentence.
Hayden McCall, who’d been the one to put a bullet through Amanda’s head.
Hayden McCall, who’d left him for dead.
“What does… what does this mean?” someone asked by Gary’s side. Must’ve witnessed the events. Must’ve seen Eve turn, just like Gary did. That was good. It meant he wouldn’t have to explain what he was going to do next.
Gary walked over to the guns at Eve, Elijah and Mani’s sides. He looked back at the small group around him. Some faces he recognised. Some, he didn’t so much. “It means we aren’t just hunting the infected if we want to take back this place. It means we’re hunting the immunised, too.”
He saw the horrified looks on some of the faces. He saw some of them back off. Walk away.
But on others, he saw the nods. He saw the understanding.
“It’s what we have to do. For the good of this place. The good of our home.”
He lifted one of the rifles. Threw it at the person nearest.
“And Hayden McCall?” a short, dark-haired woman asked.
Gary thought about Hayden for a minute. Thought about what this meant for him. About how he should’ve beaten the shit out of that publicity seeking traitor tosser when he’d had the chance.
He cleared his throat.
“Hayden won’t be necessary anymore. He’s just like the others now.”
He loaded his gun and watched the horrified faces turn to half-convinced faces.
The half-convinced faces turn to nods of defiant agreement.
After all, they just wanted their home back.
They just wanted something—and someone—to believe in.
Gary was going to be that person. He was going to be the one that led the way. He was going to be the person who won back this place. Who gave them hope.
He was going to be the person who put down Hayden.
Even if it killed everyone around him.
He pointed his rifle at the people fleeing—the obviously immunised people.
“It ends right now,” he said.
He pulled the trigger, and together with the people around him, he shot them down.
Chapter Eighteen
Hayden 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 thin
k, 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.
