by Casey, Ryan
He saw the fear in Miriam’s eyes. Saw the confusion. “Amy?”
They turned around.
Four infected leaned down over Amy.
Stuck their hands into guts. Covered themselves in blood.
“Amy…” Hayden heard Miriam’s grief as she raced towards Amy. As she took down one of the infected, then another, then another after that.
“It’s okay,” Amy mumbled. “I’m—I’m not bit. I’m okay. I’m okay.”
“Thank God,” Miriam said, pulling Amy from underneath the pile of fallen infected. “Thank God.”
They stood there, the three of them, and looked out at the surrounding landscape. More infected were coming in their direction. There was no getting through a wall that thick of them, not right now.
They only had one direction to go. Even if Miriam did eventually want to leave this place, they couldn’t. Not right now.
“It’s time we spoke to our people,” Miriam said. “Found survivors. Start to… to make some actual plans. Of how we’re going to deal with this.”
Hayden nodded. He heard the defeat in her voice. And he felt it, too. She was giving up. Giving up on getting away from this place. Giving up on escaping New Britain. As the afternoon progressed, it became more and more clear that this day wasn’t ending anytime soon.
“Through the tunnel?” Miriam asked.
Hayden looked inside the tunnel. Saw the silhouettes of the infected heading their way. “Through the tunnel.”
He reloaded his gun.
Miriam loaded hers.
Together, they walked through the broken gates and back towards New Britain, back towards home.
If only they knew what was waiting for them, maybe they’d have tried something different.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Hayden kept his gun raised as he walked through the darkness of the tunnel.
It was sunny outside the tunnel, but no matter how nice it got, this place was always pitch black. It reminded Hayden of the first time he’d ever stepped into it. When he’d run in here and come face to face with Terrence Schumer, with his army of guards. When he’d taken the infection-laced bullets and shot himself with one, making himself turn, ending his life right there.
He wondered how different things would be if he’d just stayed dead that day. His comatose, experimental state was kept a secret from the citizens of New Britain for a long time. The people in charge didn’t want to engineer hope, or something like that. And it added up. It made sense. Hayden was viewed as the sacrificial hero who saved this place from the ironclad grip of Terrence Schumer. A new world was born, even if the dangers of the old world still lurked outside those walls.
After the immunisation, a lackadaisical attitude had set in. People got more comfortable. More complacent.
If the immunisation hadn’t been introduced in the first place, would that attitude have set in?
Or would people be living a cautious life?
A life that might’ve saved this place altogether?
Hayden walked with Amy and Miriam by his side. He kept an eye out for silhouettes, for infected lurking towards him. The smell in here was gross. Like the worst back alleyway in the dingiest town centre you could imagine, with a whole lot of dead mixed in. It was so pungent that Hayden could taste it.
He tried to keep himself from heaving and pressed on through the tunnel.
“I don’t like this place,” Amy whispered.
Hayden nodded. He didn’t look at Amy, just kept his focus ahead at all times. “None of us do. But we’ve got to go through it if we want to get to the other side. Back home.”
“That’s what I mean,” Amy said. “I don’t like home. I don’t want to stay here. Not anymore.”
Hayden’s stomach sank when he heard Amy’s words. They’d worked so hard to build a place where everyone felt safe, regardless of age, race, gender.
And here was a little girl, traumatised by the things she’d seen, attached to the memories of death and destruction she just couldn’t shake.
“I know,” Hayden said. “But we’re going to make this place safe again. I promise.”
He knew it wasn’t the most reassuring speech. But it was all he had.
“Heads up,” Miriam said.
Hayden turned. Looked at where Miriam was pointing.
He saw movement right ahead. Just up to his left. This infected was quiet though. In fact, there were three of them. All moving quite slowly, creeping along towards them.
“Stealthy shits,” Hayden said. “You or me?”
“Be my guest,” Miriam said.
Hayden lifted his rifle. Pointed at the first on the left.
“Wait!”
The voice came from up ahead. It frightened Hayden so much that he almost pulled the trigger out of sheer gut reaction.
But he managed to compose himself just before he gunned down whoever was in front of him. “What—Who is that?”
“Shit,” the voice said. “They’re alive, Ste. I told you they were fucking alive.”
Hayden lowered his rifle. He walked up to these people. He couldn’t see them properly, not while in the darkness.
But as he got closer, he realised he recognised these people as New Britain citizens. Mark. Rajiv. Kayla.
“No idea how fucking good it is to see you,” Rajiv said. “We thought we were the last damned people left in this place.”
“You weren’t the only ones,” Miriam said.
“What the hell you doing heading back in there, anyway? Place is a shit tip.”
Miriam and Hayden exchanged a glance. Hayden knew what that look was. An “ask him,” look. But in truth, he was more than happy to answer. He was confident about what he was doing now. More confident than he’d been in a long time. “There’s more of them approaching. The main gates aren’t working. We have to find more people and we have to defend this place.”
“Until we can make a break for it,” Miriam cut in.
Hayden didn’t acknowledge that part.
“Seriously, you’re making a bad call,” Kayla said. “There’s nothing safer about this place than out there surrounded by those things. Not anymore.”
“There’s armouries. There’s buildings. There’s—”
“Undead hiding in every damned corner,” Mark said. “I’ve seen ’um. Seen what happens. They turn. Without even been bit or nothing. They just turn.”
Hayden narrowed his eyes. “Wait. They just turn? What do you mean by that?”
“I saw it too,” Kayla said. “Three of ’em. People who’d—who’d had the immunisation, you know. One sec, they’re just standing there. Second, they’re… well, they’re the runners.”
The revelation hit Hayden right in his core. He’d suspected that something was off with the immunisation all along. After all, it was too much of a coincidence that the infected were suddenly attacking those who’d been cured—it proved that something wasn’t going quite to plan.
But for people to be turning without even being bitten?
Were Mark and Kayla right? Were immunised people really just… turning?”
“What does that mean for us?” Miriam asked.
It was the question that’d been just about to swirl into Hayden’s mind. And as he opened his mouth to answer, he realised eyes were on him. They were looking at him like he had the answers. But really, he wasn’t anything. He was just the test tube. The carrier of Martha and Daniel’s people’s experimentations. The first person that immunisation really activated in.
“I guess we… we can’t do much about that. Not right now—”
“But all of us here are immunised, right?” Rajiv interrupted. “And if all of us are immunised, doesn’t that mean…”
Rajiv didn’t finish. He didn’t have to finish. Hayden knew what he was getting at. He knew what he was so terrified about.
If all of them here were immunised, then eventually, they were going to turn.
They didn’t know when it was going to happen. Didn’t know why, ho
w.
Only that it was coming.
It was coming, and nothing could prepare them for it.
“I’m not immunised,” Miriam said, resignation in her voice. “I guess that makes me one of the lucky ones.”
She tried to make light of the situation, but it didn’t exactly go down like a storm.
“I’m not immunised either,” Amy said.
Hayden looked at Amy. The others looked at her too.
“Amy, you must be. Your mum would’ve made sure you were—”
“She—she said she didn’t want me to be. Not until they knew. For sure. Or something.”
“Knew what for sure?” Miriam asked.
Amy’s little face looked up at the rest of the group. Looked up at them, all staring at her. “Until she knew it was definitely safe.”
Those words knocked Hayden back a few pegs. The anger and frustration towards Martha and Daniel built. They were good people with good intentions, but they’d used the people of New Britain as guinea pigs. As experiments for something they didn’t even have total faith in.
They were going to die. All of them were going to die.
And for the first time, Hayden believed that might not be his fault.
Not his, solely.
“Then if you’re not immunised, we need to keep you safe,” Hayden said, struggling to force the words out. “If you aren’t immunised, you could be the most important person here right now.”
Amy nodded like she understood, but Hayden knew it’d be difficult for her to get her head around. She was just a kid. Just a little kid who’d lost the last thing she cared about in her life just earlier that day.
“We’ll keep you safe, Amy. Even if… even if it means leaving this place and fighting through those infected right now, we’ll keep you safe.”
He saw the half-smile on Amy’s face as he squinted into the darkness.
He saw the look in Miriam’s eyes. The look of pride. And the look of respect in the eyes of the others.
They were getting out of here.
They were stepping up and they were getting out of here.
All of them. Together. United.
Mark nodded. “Then I guess we better—”
He didn’t finish what he was saying.
Something whooshed into the side of his head. Sent blood splattering out from his skull. His head cracked open and his brains drooled out onto the ground below.
Everyone went quiet.
And then they looked up in the direction the bullet had come from.
Over by the broken gate.
Hayden could only just make out their faces from this far. There were at least ten of them. Probably more. All of them were holding guns of some kind. Pointing them at Hayden and his group.
He could make out the face of the man at the front clearly.
Gary.
“I really didn’t wanna have to do that,” Gary shouted, torchlight shining towards Hayden and his people. There wasn’t an ounce of remorse in Gary’s voice. “Now, little piggies. You’ve got a chance to run.”
“Gary!” Hayden shouted. He lifted his hands. “We’re—we’re alive. We aren’t infected.”
Gary didn’t lower his gun. Nor did any of his people. “Yeah,” he said. “You might be alive. Right now, anyway. But we know what happens to them who’ve been immunised, don’t we?” He looked around at his people. Looked at them, and Hayden realised what Gary was doing. Who these people were.
They were people who hadn’t yet been immunised.
“Hayden,” Rajiv said.
He looked around. Saw infected at the opposite side of the gate. They were being surrounded. Blocked in by infected on the New Britain side and Gary’s people on the outside.
“We need to make a break,” Rajiv said. “We need to—”
Another bullet whizzed through the air.
Slammed into Rajiv’s neck.
Sent him falling to the ground, clutching his neck and gurgling as blood spurted out of it.
Hayden, Miriam, Amy and Kayla stood still. Held their ground. Frozen. Trapped.
“Now,” Gary said, joy evident in his voice. “You killed Amanda. You left me for dead. And you signed a death sentence for a shitload of our people. Time to return the favour. Only you ain’t going anywhere. None of you.”
Hayden listened to the approaching groans of the infected.
He saw the raised guns of Gary’s people.
He heard Rajiv’s last breath splutter out of his lungs.
He knew Gary was serious.
And that was terrifying.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Hayden stood his ground and stared at Gary’s raised rifle.
The clouds were thickening outside the walls. The tunnel was growing even darker. It seemed like the walls of the tunnel were closing in on him as he stood there, Miriam, Amy and Kayla by his side, Mark and Rajiv’s dead bodies by his feet.
He wished they would close in.
Especially with the groans echoing closer from behind.
“How does it feel, Hayden?” Gary asked. “How’s it feel not being the fucking hero saving everyone once and for all? How’s it feel being a fucking killer, hmm?”
Hayden didn’t respond to him. He knew this went deeper than him leaving Gary for dead. Gary really just enjoyed the power. He’d always had a chip on his shoulder about Hayden, his immunisation role. Seemed to relish that primal way of life—that survivalist way of life. That was the problem with this world. As nasty and brutal as it was, and in spite of some of the horrible things everyone had to see, had to go through, this world was the right world for some people. Some people didn’t want to go back to order, to routine, to being governed and paying bills and being fucking upstanding members of communities.
Some people just wanted to survive.
To enjoy power.
Gary fit right into this world. And he was finally flexing his muscles.
“We’re going to have to move, Hayden,” Miriam whispered.
He knew Miriam was right. They couldn’t just stand here forever, as the smell of death grew ever nearer. He knew they needed to get away from Gary, because if he didn’t, everyone he cared about would die, right here. Gary wasn’t immunised. Neither were the people beside him. It was obvious what was happening here.
Hayden knew he could try bargaining for Miriam’s life; for Amy’s life.
But somehow, he figured Gary might just relax his stance where two people Hayden cared about were concerned.
That said, if he made a break for it, he knew they’d shoot him down. They’d die. All of them.
And if they didn’t make a break for it, the infected would surround them. Tear the three of them apart.
He couldn’t let that happen either.
But he had to make a choice.
He looked back. Saw the infected edging closer. They were just a matter of metres away now. The slow ones, still. Wherever the runners had got to—the immunised who had turned—Hayden was grateful that they weren’t on to him. He could just about cope with the walking ones. Just about.
Or at least he hoped he could.
Runners were a different ballgame altogether.
As he looked into that approaching mass, he wanted to just throw everything down and run into them. Run right towards his death. Throw all he had at getting through them, at getting back to New Britain, back to the other side. Deep down, he wanted to believe that New Britain was still salvageable. That people inside were still alive, and they were the good sort of people who could be saved.
But then he looked back at Gary’s people and he knew what the living thought now. Everyone who’d been immunised was dangerous. Everyone who’d been immunised was prey.
Everyone who’d been immunised was no different to the infected themselves.
Gary, his people, they wanted this place back. They wanted to start again, just like Hayden did.
But they were willing to butcher the living to do so.
T
hat’s where the pair of them differed.
“Getting closer,” Gary said. “Any last words?”
Hayden held on to his rifle. He knew he could try shooting at them, but he wouldn’t last long. And he couldn’t put Miriam or Amy in that kind of danger. Instead, he lowered it. Put his gun over his shoulder, reached a hand out for Miriam, and one for Amy. He held on to them. Tight. He saw Miriam hold Kayla’s hand, and all of them stood there, waited.
The infected were just feet away now.
“This is actually kind of sweet,” Gary said. “Saves us ammo, anyway. Y’know, I always knew you weren’t a fighter when it came to it. Don’t have the balls in you, even when you’re surrounded. You just lay down in a corner and die. Ain’t no hero. Ain’t no hero, not one bit.”
“Hayden,” Miriam whispered. He could hear the fear in her voice and he wanted to take it all away.
“Do you trust me?” he whispered.
Miriam didn’t respond for a few seconds.
“Miriam, do you trust me?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes. But—”
“When I say fall, fall.”
“What?”
“Just do it.”
They stood still for a few seconds. Gripped on tightly to one another’s hands. The infected were just inches away now. So close to clawing their way through their bodies. To wrapping their sharpened, chipped teeth around their skin, tearing their flesh away.
“Shame we couldn’t work this out like real men,” Gary said, in the most horrible macho way imaginable. “Shame it had to come to this. But when you leave people for dead—when you kill people—this is just what happens. In fact, I see what you were doing now. You had a point. You were just keeping this place safe when you shot Amanda and those others. Guess I’m lifting your mantle in that sense, hmm?”
“Gary?” Hayden shouted.
The infected’s fingertips pushed into Hayden’s back.
“This isn’t over.”
He squeezed Miriam and Amy’s hands.
Took a deep breath.
And then he fell back into the group of infected, pulling Miriam, Amy and Kayla down with him.
Chapter Twenty-Six
