by Casey, Ryan
Hayden expected Miriam to look at him like he was an idiot.
But strangely, she didn’t.
She looked at him like he had a point.
Hayden’s heart started to race. He got the sense that she was coming around to his argument. And he had to leap on that opportunity right now while the argument was strong and while he still could. “The ladders,” Hayden said. He pointed up towards one of the few ladders remaining standing. “We can go up there. Use the rope to drop down the other side.”
“This is madness.”
“We can secure the perimeter outside. Clear out the stragglers heading towards the gate and clear out those inside the tunnel, too.”
“What’s this going to achieve?”
“When we’ve cleared the area surrounding, we can climb back up and close the outer gate. This place will be secure.”
“You aren’t paying attention, are you? These things can jump. They can climb.”
“Then we line spikes along the top of the wall.”
Miriam shook her head. “It won’t work.”
“Then we build an army. To defend this place.”
“With who?”
“There have to be people alive in here. I won’t accept everyone’s dead. I just won’t.”
Silence between them. Silence, as if they were both negotiating with one another, both of them trying to out-bluff the other.
“You really care about this place. About keeping it intact. Don’t you?”
Hayden figured there was no point in lying. “I get what you said. About pushing myself. About forcing ourselves to do something uncomfortable to achieve anything. And that’s fine. But sometimes, there’s things worth fighting to keep intact. Sometimes things are worth protecting. This place, there’s nowhere else like it. It’s special. We have to do what we can. We can’t just… we can’t just abandon a sinking ship when there might still be passengers aboard.”
Miriam looked right into Hayden’s eyes. She nodded. “You know, for the first time in this fucked up day, I genuinely believe you when you say this is about more than just yourself.”
“It’s never been about just myself,” Hayden said. “Never for one minute.”
He looked up at the ladder. Miriam joined him, Amy by her side.
“So what d’you say?” Hayden asked.
“I think it’s crazy. Potentially suicidal. And I think it’s more hassle than it’s worth.”
“But…”
“But I think you’ve got a point. About not giving up on the people here. Even if we do have to leave this place—which, by the way, I think we will—it’s not fair for us to just abandon everyone who might still be alive in here.”
“So we have a deal?”
Miriam nodded. “Something like that.”
Hayden smiled at her. “Then I win.”
Miriam frowned. “Hey. Nobody said anything about games here.”
Hayden kept the smile on his face as he turned around. Looked up at the wall above. At the ladder leading up there. “Then let’s clear the perimeter. Let’s secure the gate. And let’s do what we have to do to keep this place safe.”
Miriam took a moment. She didn’t say anything to Hayden. She just put her arm on Amy’s back. Looked down at her. Half-smiled.
Hayden took that as a yes.
He took a deep breath.
Started to climb the ladder.
He didn’t see them watching.
Chapter Twenty-Two
When Hayden reached the top of the wall and looked down at the ground below, he started having second thoughts about his plan to clear the outside of New Britain.
The afternoon sun still hung relatively high in the sky. After the climb up the ladders, it was a relief to feel the brush of cold air against the face.
But the relief of that coldness soon went away when Hayden saw what was below.
He knew there were infected surrounding the walls, so that wasn’t much of a surprise to see. He’d been prepared to see them. But what shocked him most was the sheer mass of them wandering around. Infected he’d seen every single day he’d been watching this wall. Nothing different about them. Not really.
Only the knowledge that he was climbing down amongst them made them very different. It made them threatening.
It made them real again.
“You okay?”
Hayden felt a hand on his back that made him flinch. When he looked around, he saw it was only Miriam. Amy was by her side. And as he nodded, taking a deep breath of the smoke-ridden air, he looked back over New Britain. Back at that place he’d called home for so, so long. He never used to think he’d adapt to life outside his actual home. But now he’d managed to. He’d found somewhere else. That’s why it was so worth protecting. So worth fighting for.
“Maybe we can just pick them off from up here,” Hayden said. He wasn’t totally aware of what he was saying. He was shaking too hard for that. He didn’t want Miriam to see that was the case.
“We can only pick them off for so long.”
“Maybe we can—we can just stand on guard. Get some people around to fight off the infected.”
“And what about when ammo runs out?”
Hayden didn’t know what to say to that. He couldn’t say anything, in truth. He knew Miriam had him. He knew she saw him for what he was—afraid. Afraid of leaving the comfort of these walls, even if it was only for a matter of minutes.
“I’ve got you,” Miriam said. “We’ve both got you. And we’re doing this together.”
Hayden took a deep breath. Nodded.
And then he unfurled the rope. Looked down over the edge.
“Once we’ve used this rope,” Hayden said, “there’s no going back up it. Only through the tunnel. You understand that, right?”
Miriam nodded her head. Although technically it would be possible to re-climb the rope, anyone who’d tried the fireman’s climb in gym class at school knew how difficult that really was. And Hayden might’ve been many things, but he wasn’t a damned fireman.
Miriam crouched down opposite Amy. She put her hands on both of her shoulders. “Now you’re going to have to be brave for us while we go down there, darling.”
Amy shook her head. Her bottom lip twitched. “I wanna go with you.”
Miriam half-smiled, but the frustration on her face with this entire situation was there to see. “I know, sweetheart. And I wish you could. But it’s not safe.”
“I don’t care,” Amy said. “I just—I just don’t want to be alone anymore. Please.”
Miriam sighed. She lowered her head, then looked over at Hayden.
Hayden swallowed a bitter tasting lump in his throat. He shrugged. “I guess you can come with us. Just know what you’re getting yourself into, kid. Just know we’re going out into somewhere very dangerous. A place where—”
“I know. I’ve been in that place before. We were both in that place. Remember?”
Hayden sighed. Of course he remembered. The times they’d spent at Riversford, the bad and the good. “Just don’t take a thing for granted when we get down there, okay?”
Amy nodded like she didn’t totally understand what Hayden was asking her but figured it was the polite thing to do regardless.
Hayden pulled the rope over. “And whatever you do, hold the hell on tight and don’t look down.”
He stepped over the edge. Looked down, shooting his own bloody advice in the foot right off the bat.
He took a deep breath. Tightened his grip around the rope.
And then he started to descend.
The climb down felt like it lasted forever. He could feel the rope digging into his hands. Above, he kept an eye on Miriam and Amy, who was above her. He didn’t want to have to worry about either of them because he had enough to worry about himself. But he couldn’t help it. They were his responsibility. Amy had lost everything, and fuck it, he had to take a share of the blame for that. Not just for Martha’s death, but for Newbie’s, too.
&
nbsp; He’d let Newbie run off towards his ex’s house in search of Martha and his daughter.
He’d watched as the infected sunk their teeth into Newbie, pushed him out the window, sent him hurtling to the ground below.
“How you doing down there?” Miriam shouted.
Her voice made Hayden jump a little. But he was glad to hear it. “Hands are sore. But getting there. All okay up there?”
“Ditto,” Miriam said. “Feel like I’ve rubbed my palms against warmed up sandpaper.”
“Warmed up?”
“Yeah. Painful, i’nt it.”
“I’d imagine rubbing your hands against sandpaper is always going to be painful, whether it’s warmed up or whether it’s—”
Hayden felt his grip on the rope loosen.
Slid down towards the ground below.
He wasn’t sure how far he fell. Lost sense of all his surroundings. He was vaguely aware of Miriam calling out for him, and vaguely aware of a few infected lurking right at the bottom of the rope, which he was heading towards.
He saw his life flash before his eyes. Saw his mum. His dad. His sisters. Sarah. Everyone who’d died before him, all of them waiting for him to join them, waiting for him to fall down into the infected, get himself torn apart, because it was wrong that he was the last alive, it was wrong that he was the last one standing, it was wrong because he was weak and because he wasn’t strong enough and because he was too scared and—
His fingers wrapped around the rope.
His fall halted.
He gasped. Swung side to side on the rope. Sweat rolled down from his face. His teeth chattered. Down below, he could hear the infected—slow ones he hoped—starting to groan.
“Hayden!”
He looked up. Saw how far away he was from Miriam. He couldn’t wave so he just nodded, nodded so she knew he was okay. “I’m fine. Just a fall. Nothing—nothing to worry about.”
He looked at the rope and saw blood on it. He realised it was from his hands.
He took another calming breath. He had to keep himself together. Keep himself composed. He couldn’t go risking another fall like that. He had to get to the bottom of the rope, which wasn’t far now, and he had to secure the perimeter.
He took another step and heard the rope stretch.
And then he felt it snap, right between his fingers.
The fall didn’t last long this time. His life didn’t flash before his eyes again, either.
He hit the ground in seconds.
A mass of infected crowded around him, groaning, drowning him with their stench, their longer fingernails digging into every inch of his body.
He reached for his gun but it was in his rucksack. He tried to turn around, but he knew he had no time. He was stuck. He was trapped. He was going to die down here. They were going to kill him.
He kicked and pushed back at the infected around him, fought them away, but their faces pushed up against him. He needed to get on his feet. He needed to use his rifle.
But he didn’t have time.
He was finished.
It was over.
It was—
He heard a blast.
Felt blood splatter all over himself.
He watched as the infected fell down to the ground. And he didn’t understand what was happening.
Not until a gap appeared in the middle of the infected.
Miriam was standing at the bottom of the rope. Amy was by her side.
“Well come on!” Miriam shouted. “Don’t leave me to kill all of the fuckers.”
Hayden grabbed the rifle from his back. Swung it across the jaw of an old-looking infected, sending half its skull flying into little pieces, hitting the ground below.
And then he turned. Fired a round of bullets into the neck of a bald, skinny one, who was dressed in blue hospital robes and looked like he’d been ill long before the world ended. Where had he come from? How far had he walked?
What was any of it for?
“Quick, let’s get to the gates.”
The three of them ran over to the gates. Hayden felt his confidence growing, his determination to succeed quadrupling. They could do this. All of them, they could get back inside New Britain, clear the stragglers, then they could close the main gates and get back to restoring their world.
Life wasn’t over. It was far from over.
Or at least Hayden thought so, until he got inside the tunnel and saw the main controls to the gate were damaged.
“Shit,” Hayden said. He lowered the lever, then raised it and lowered it again.
Miriam shot down a few infected that were just feet away. “What is it?”
“Controls are screwed. The damned controls are screwed. Shit.”
He tried persevering with it some more.
Miriam turned around. Shot at more of the oncoming infected. “Hayden, we need to make a break while we still can—”
“No,” Hayden said.
“You’re being ridiculous now. Even more ridiculous than you were before. We have to leave. We don’t have a choice.”
“We do have a fucking choice,” Hayden said, slamming the controls down once more.
The gates didn’t budge.
And from behind, from the opposite direction, Hayden heard the damp footsteps of another infected.
Faster footsteps.
He turned. Fired a few bullets into it before it could hurtle towards him.
Then he felt a hand on his shoulder. Turned around, made sure it was an infected, then sent that to the ground too.
“We’re not leaving this place,” Hayden shouted. He ran over to the controls. Tried to turn them again.
The only thing that stopped him was hearing a blood-curdling scream.
Amy’s scream.
Chapter Twenty-Three
When Hayden heard Amy’s scream, his entire body froze.
He turned around. Started to look towards her. Images flashed in his mind—pictures of her being torn apart, of the flesh being pulled from her bones like meat from a kebab. He couldn’t face witnessing that. He couldn’t bring himself to watch that innocent little girl—a girl who was all alone because of his errors—die right in front of him. He just couldn’t witness that anymore.
But he knew he had to turn around.
He knew he had to see what was happening to Amy.
When he saw her, his body froze even more.
Amy was on the ground.
An infected was on top of her. Pushing its rotting face closer and closer towards her neck.
Hayden knew what he should do. He knew he should go over to her, help her. He knew that she was one of his people, and all he wanted more than anything was to protect his people.
But he also felt the fear kick in.
Heat crept across his skin. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. The sounds all around him—sounds of the groaning infected, the footsteps as they stepped towards him, the smells of rot and the taste of death in the air—all of them mixed together and rendered him inactive.
He was outside.
He was outside the fucking walls and he wasn’t safe.
He needed to get back to safety.
More than anything, he needed to get back to safety.
He saw Miriam. Saw four infected standing around her. She batted them off. Shot at them. Then she turned to Hayden. Fear and panic filled her eyes. She screamed something at him. Screamed at him about Amy; to go and help Amy.
And then he felt his muscles loosen.
He felt his surroundings come back to him. The fear inside diminish.
Fuck being scared. Fuck being afraid.
He was outside of safety. He always had been outside of safety, and he always would be, no matter how much of an illusion he built around himself, or how much he tried to convince himself otherwise.
He took a deep breath.
Lifted his rifle.
Pointed it at the infected pinning Amy down.
He knew he might miss. He knew the bull
ets might ricochet. Hit Amy.
But he had to take a risk.
He had to take a risk to save that girl’s life.
He pulled the trigger. Fired a few bullets into the side of the infected’s neck.
He watched its head snap to the side. Watched blood splatter out of it, covering Amy below.
It fell down on top of her. Trapped her underneath. Around it, more infected approached. They looked down at Amy’s struggling body with their cold, blank eyes and closed in for some easy prey.
“Help her, Hayden!”
Hayden was already onto it. He started to hurtle towards Amy, to help her out from underneath the decaying mass pinning her down. But then he saw Miriam.
She was surrounded.
Surrounded by infected.
“Help Amy, Hayden!”
He looked at Amy. Looked at the infected, just inches away.
And then he looked at Miriam. Looked at her as she disappeared into the middle of the infected.
He had to make a decision.
He had to make the right call.
He ran towards Amy. Pushed the infected further over her, so that it was covering her completely.
And then he stepped up to the crowd surrounding Miriam.
Beat the first one right in the back of the neck with the butt of his rifle.
And then he cracked the skull of the next one.
Fired three bullets into the one after that.
He felt blood splashing against him. Cold, rancid blood. But he kept on going. Kept on fighting. Kept on looking over his shoulder too, to make sure Amy was completely okay.
Three infected surrounded her. Tried to reach down and get her.
But she was shielded. She was okay because she was shielded.
Hayden kept on fighting the infected surrounding Miriam. Kept on fighting until just four, three, two, were standing.
When he saw the last one with its hands wrapped around Miriam’s wrists, he raised his gun. Went to fire.
Miriam put it down before he had the chance.
