by Casey, Ryan
Eddie smiled. “Zelda. Yeah. I’ve thought about her a lot. I figure if anyone’s gonna be alright in this thing, it’s her.”
He thought of her, armed to the hilt. Still seemed a little surreal in all truth. Felt like a fantasy. Someone he hadn’t really witnessed. An experience he hadn’t really been through.
But he wasn’t totally insane. Tim had seen her too. As too had Harold.
He heard Harold’s footsteps getting closer. “Anyway,” Tim said. “Better get that squirrel cooked and eaten before my uncle gets back. He might be a jolly chap, but he isn’t really one for sharing his food.”
Eddie smirked a bit at that. “Trust me. I can relate. Deeply.”
Tim looked at him. Smiled.
And then he looked over Eddie’s shoulder, and he saw something that made his face drop.
Eddie froze. He didn’t want to look around. Didn’t want to see.
But when he turned around and saw it, his heart skipped a beat.
What he saw was not what he expected.
Not one bit.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Noah raced down the street, determined not to let that slippery bastard Paul slip free of them quite so easily.
Kelly ran by his side. Both of them looked at the abandoned cars. Down the empty alleyways. Through the smashed windows and into the darkened houses beyond. This town was dead. Looked like it’d been abandoned long ago. Judging by the smears of blood along the concrete, it looked like something nasty had gone down here. Loads of possibilities. Infected. A conflict between survivors for supplies. Anything was possible in this crazy world.
But there were also plenty of places for someone to hide.
Which meant Paul could be anywhere.
“He’s not exactly the fittest looking guy,” Kelly said. “He can’t have gone far.”
Noah knew she was right. As much as they were running down the road, reactionary more than anything, he got the feeling they should be looking closer to where they’d lost him. He’d literally vanished in an instant, after all. He couldn’t be far away.
He had to be close by.
He couldn’t be far away.
He couldn’t…
“Noah.”
Noah looked around at where Kelly was looking, and he saw him.
At first, he thought it was Paul.
But… no.
Whoever this guy was, he was standing by the side of a car down the road they’d come from.
He’d appeared from nowhere.
And he was banging against the car bonnet.
Kelly walked to Noah’s side. “What the hell’s that nutter doing?”
Noah found himself smiling. ’Cause he knew exactly what was happening.
“He’s in there,” Noah said.
“What?”
“Paul. He’s in that car. No reason an infected would be going mad like that if he wasn’t. Come on. Let’s go pay him a visit.”
They walked back towards that car. Slowly. Noah held on to the rifle. Pointed it at that infected. It still seemed weird, holding a gun. Made him feel very… well. Very American. Kind of envied their access to arms in times like these.
He got closer, and he heard struggling. Shouting. Sounded like it was coming from under the car rather than inside it.
As Noah got closer, he saw him.
“Please,” Paul muttered, pinned underneath the car. Terrified look on his face. “Help me. Help me!”
Noah stood and watched. Smiled as that infected guy with long dark hair smacked his fists against the car bonnet.
And then, suddenly, he turned around. Glared at Noah. Eyes totally bloodshot. Drooling blood. Deep red sores all over his cheeks.
Noah held that rifle. Kept it pointed at him.
He kind of wanted to drag Paul from under that car.
Feed him to this fucker.
“Noah!” Kelly shouted.
It took him a second to realise what she was shouting about.
But then he heard the snarl behind and felt hands on his back.
He tried to shake free. Infected. Holding on to him. Pushing him to the road.
And then the one before him hurtling towards him. Long, dirty finger-nailed hands outstretched towards him like claws.
He quickly fired a few shots at the infected before him as he fell to the road.
He landed. Felt those hands heavy against his head, pushing him against the concrete.
He looked at Paul under the car. Fear in his eyes. But also something else, too.
Almost like he was smiling.
“I told you it wasn’t simple,” he said. “I told you you wouldn’t—”
A blast.
A crack.
Then the pressure on his head went silent.
He pushed the body off himself. Looked around. Saw Kelly standing there, her rifle in hand.
She held out a hand.
“Thank me later.”
He got to his feet.
Then he stood up and pointed the rifle at the bottom of the car. “Shall we deal with this weasel now?”
Kelly nodded. “My pleasure.”
They reached under the car. Dragged that slippery fucker out, kicking, screaming, protesting.
Noah cracked the rifle against his face. “Shut up.”
Paul lay there. Writhing around on the ground. He held up his hands. “Please. Just… just take me out if you have to. But don’t leave me to die in this world. Don’t do this to me. Don’t—”
Noah kicked him in the skull. Hard.
“Shut up!”
He stood there. Looked at Paul’s bloody face staring up at him. Almost begging him to kill him.
But Noah knew there had to be another option.
He knew there had to be something better.
Something different.
So he dragged him up.
He pinned him down against the front of the car.
He reached for the pair of dirty pliers he’d spotted inside the car and wrapped them around Paul’s tongue.
“I’ll tell you how this is going to go.”
He tightened the pliers.
Thought of the pain of losing Jasmine.
The anger.
The grief.
The loss.
And he tightened those pliers further as Paul lay there screaming.
“You’re going to talk,” he said.
“Ple—ple—”
“You’re going to talk, or I’m going to rip your fucking tongue out, you piece of fucking shit.”
“Ple—”
“You’re going to talk, or I’m going to make you suffer, and then I’m going to kill you. You understand? I’m going to rip your tongue out and knock your teeth out and pull your eyeballs out, and I’m going to—”
“I’ll—ork! I’ll—ork!”
Noah held those pliers in place.
Heart racing.
Chest tight.
And then he loosened them.
Paul cried. Clutched at his mouth. Clutched at his bruised, blue tongue.
“You could’ve just asked,” he said, glaring up at Noah. “You psychopath.”
Noah lowered the pliers. Then he raised that rifle. Nodded a slightly startled looking Kelly to do the same.
And then together with her, he stood there. Pointed the gun at Paul.
“Tell us. Tell us everything you know about this virus. Tell us why you had us in that compound. And tell us why you’re so damned frightened about being out here.”
Paul looked up into Noah’s eyes.
And in a moment of total defeat, he smiled.
“I’ll tell you everything I know,” he said. “But you might want to sit down. It’s quite a lot to process.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Eddie looked at Harold and felt his jaw drop.
Because it wasn’t Harold.
“Zelda?” he said.
She stood there just as he’d remembered. That short, jet black hair. Those nose and eyebrow pi
ercings. Slim, with tight black jeans and a jacket. She looked even more mythical in the day. Even paler than he remembered.
She had a sour look to her face. Eddie wasn’t sure if that was just her default expression or something else.
But she was here.
She’d followed them here, somehow.
“What’re you doing here?” Eddie asked.
Zelda walked over towards him and Tim and sighed. “I was thinking. About what you said.”
“About Lancaster?”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea, for what it’s worth,” Zelda said. “I don’t… I don’t trust anyone out there. Especially not someone offering some kind of hope. Some kind of salvation.”
“But you’re here. Why?”
She looked up at Eddie. Held eye contact with him, just for a few seconds.
“I figured you guys might need some support.”
She flashed a smile. The first smile he’d seen.
“Come on, though. We need to get moving.”
“Not until my uncle gets back,” Tim said.
“He has been a while,” Eddie said, looking around at the trees, worrying about Barney, too. “Sure we shouldn’t go look for him?”
But there was an uncertainty to Tim. A sense of hesitation about him.
“I think we should wait,” he said, staring into the trees, which blew in the gentle breeze. “Like he said.”
Eddie looked at Zelda. Still couldn’t believe she was actually here at all. He nodded. “We wait for Harold. Barney’s with him, too. Not going anywhere without them both.”
Zelda sighed. “Maybe I’ll just make my own way then—”
“You won’t,” Eddie said.
“What?”
“You came back here. You must’ve come back for a reason. And don’t go pretending the reason is because you want to protect us or whatever. You’re a free spirit. Doesn’t take a genius to see that. So what is it?”
Zelda looked away. For a moment, it was like she disappeared into some alternate state. “Thing is, I’m madly in love with you.”
Eddie flushed. “What?”
“Ever since I laid eyes on you, I’ve not stopped thinking about you. I’m tingling now just looking at you.”
Eddie’s cheeks went hot. “I—”
Zelda rolled her eyes and laughed. “Jesus Christ. Don’t get too excited. You’re not my type. Trust me.”
Eddie felt his face cool a little. Felt embarrassed for turning red. “I… Sure. I’ve heard ‘you’re not my type’ before a few too many times in my life. I’m used to it.”
“Look. Why I’m here doesn’t matter. If it’s a nice little fireside heart to heart about motives and intentions you want, I’m not your girl. Are we going to Lancaster or what? You might want to get that old man and that mutt to hurry up ’cause I’m not waiting around here forever.”
Eddie looked at Tim. Tim looked back at him. Shrugged.
“I guess…”
He heard it, then.
A shout.
Somewhere in the woods.
Barking.
Tim’s eyes widened.
“Uncle Harold,” he gasped.
“Tim,” Eddie said.
But it was too late.
Tim was running into the woods. Hurtling towards it. It could be dangerous in there. There could be anything in there. Anyone in there.
He had to be careful.
He looked at Zelda. Saw her standing there. Shotgun in hand.
“Well?” he said. “Are you gonna help or what?”
Zelda took a deep breath and rolled her eyes. “I didn’t sign up for this shit.”
“Actually, you kind of did. Now come on. Before he gets himself killed.”
Eddie ran into the woods after Tim. Zelda followed closely behind. He felt himself running quicker, somehow. A spring in his step. Maybe it was Zelda’s presence that did it to him. She did have an intoxicating quality. Probably helped that she was a badass who was named after his favourite video game series.
“Tim!” he shouted.
He’d lost sight of Tim. And there were no sounds anymore. No shouts. No barks. Nothing.
He kept on running into the woods. Looking all around for a sign. For a trace.
But there were just trees.
“We’ve lost them,” Zelda said. “About time we headed—”
“I’m not leaving them,” Eddie said.
“But—”
“I’m not leaving them. Okay?”
Zelda opened her mouth like she was going to protest.
Then she just sighed and shook her head. “If this gets me killed, I’ll fucking haunt you.”
They turned back to the woods. Kept looking. Kept searching. Eddie’s heart raced. He liked Zelda, but he didn’t want to be alone with her. And he didn’t want to let Harold and Tim die the moment he’d just made a connection with them.
And there was Barney, too.
His reminder of his past.
His reminder of his old friends.
Of Noah.
He went to take a left when he saw something up ahead.
Barney.
Sitting there.
Tilting his head.
Quiet.
“Barney?” Eddie said.
He walked closer to Barney. Everything around him was silent. The wind had dropped. His footsteps cracked against fallen branches.
“You okay, lad?”
But his eyes were fixated on something.
Something up ahead.
He stepped up to Barney’s side, and he saw him.
Harold sat on his knees.
He covered his face with his hands.
“Harold?” Eddie said.
He heard footsteps, then. Tim. “Uncle Harold? What’s wrong? What’s…”
And then Harold lowered his hands.
His palms were covered in blood.
His eyes were totally red.
His cheeks were smeared with tears of pure blood.
He looked up at Eddie, Zelda, Tim, and Barney, and he sobbed.
“You have to do it,” he said. “You have to do it!”
Tim shook his head. “No. Uncle Harold. No. No—”
It all happened so fast.
Harold launched himself at Tim.
A blast.
The sound of a shotgun firing. Zelda’s shotgun.
Harold’s head splitting open.
Falling to the ground.
“Uncle Harold!” Tim screamed.
Eddie stood there. Stared into the bloody fleshy mess of Harold’s caved-in skull. Zelda by his side. Barney by his side.
“I’m sorry,” Zelda said. “But you know I had to do that.”
Tim shook his head. Stood there, stunned. Tears flowing. Shock in his eyes. “No. No.”
And as awful as this was, as bad as he felt for Tim, Eddie had something else on his mind.
As traumatised as he was. As horrified as he was. As grief stricken as he was.
There was something else in focus.
He looked at Zelda.
Saw her eyes widen in realisation.
Footsteps creeping through the trees, right towards them…
Chapter Twenty-Five
“It started sixteen years ago,” Paul said.
Noah stood opposite Paul. Kept his rifle pointed at him as he leaned against the bonnet of that car. Kelly stood by Noah’s side. Her rifle lifted, too. The streets were quiet. Every now and then, the sound of a discarded plastic bottle scraping against the concrete in the wind. Or the sight of something moving in the corner of his eye, enough to make him turn and look.
But his focus was on Paul.
All his attention was on Paul.
Because Paul was coming clean.
If he didn’t come clean, Noah was going to make damned sure he channeled all his anger and sadness over Jasmine’s death into torturing this bastard.
“Sixteen years?” Noah asked. “What did?”
Paul sighed.
He wiped his bloody nose, his sweaty head. “I work for a secret government organisation. We specialise in biological defence research.”
“Biological what?”
“Biological warfare, specifically. Defence systems. Things far, far too advanced for your little brains to understand. So I’ll put it in as clear English as I can for you. That okay?”
Noah nodded. He felt the hairs on his arms raise a little at that. Some confirmation. Some realisation. Some admission at last that there was a kind of human involvement behind all this, as he’d suspected. “Go on.”
“We found something. Out in the Arctic Circle. An ancient virus, buried in the permafrost. But it was unlike any virus we’d ever come across. Its very nature was to evolve. To change. To transform itself. Again and again and again.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“Viruses succeed because they mutate,” Paul said. “In time, they evolve. But this… this was off the scale. Its mutation rate is quite unlike anything we’ve ever come across. To the point that we only call it a virus because we haven’t thought of another name for it yet. But it’s in a whole category of its own.”
Noah nodded. Tried to wrap his head around all this. “So this was sixteen years ago.”
“Sixteen years ago, we started researching this virus. Top secret. But knowledge is powerful and dangerous. We soon got the feeling we weren’t alone. Intel told us Russia was in possession of it, too. And China. And before we knew it, we faced a silent, secret war to weaponise this virus. A new nuclear arms race, so to speak.”
Noah shook his head. “Humanity. Always messing things up. How did it get out? You saying we were attacked?”
“We can’t know for certain. Only thing we do know for certain is that… the rest of the world. The whole damned rest of the world is in the same boat. Which points towards some accidental exposure. Some unintentional outbreak. Like Chernobyl, times a million.”
“How does it spread?”
“Any way it can,” Paul said. “Airborne. Food. Water. Surfaces. Even in ways we don’t even understand yet.”
“Like?”
“Who knows? Maybe even consciousness itself.”
Noah shook his head. He didn’t understand. “And why are some of us…”
Paul smiled. “That is the question, isn’t it? Why do some of you not react? Why do some of you not fall ill? And that’s exactly why we had you in the compound. That’s exactly what we were researching. Because there’s a truth about yourself you need to know, Noah. There’s a truth you need to understand.”
