Infection Z 3 (11 page)

H
ayden walked
down the long empty road and wondered how long it’d be before he finally toppled over.

The sun beamed down from above but Hayden couldn’t shake the feverish grip of cold that split through his bones. His throat was dry. Not a single sip of water since they’d lost the rucksack back at the safari park. His stomach churned with hunger. He imagined the spices of curry, the succulence of fresh chicken and fluffy rice … things he used to enjoy in the old world. Things he’d eat as comfort food from the local Indian whenever he couldn’t be arsed cooking.

Which, of course, turned out to be pretty frequent.

“Not sure I can walk much further,” Sarah said.

Hayden looked at her. Looked at her as she staggered down the cracked concrete. Over the potholes in the road, crunching through the smashed shards of glass. She looked tired. Exhausted. Of course, all of them looked tired and exhausted, but Sarah. Her face, deathly pale. The patch of blood just above her top lip—the reminder of what had happened to her earlier, of her collapse.

The collapse she seemed eager not to talk about.

But the collapse they all had to address at some stage.

The words smeared in front of young Tim’s body.

KAREN NOT BIT HES AIRBOURNE TIM AIR—

They made Hayden shudder.

Hayden walked over to Sarah. Held a hand out for her.

She raised her eyes. Narrowed them at him. A look that told him to piss off. That she was tough enough. That she could make it alone.

Hayden lowered his hand.

In truth, he was relieved.

Relieved ’cause he wasn’t sure he’d be able to support the extra pressure.

Prop up the added weight.

“We’ll get through this,” Hayden said.

Sarah didn’t look back at him. Not this time.

And he was glad about that too.

Because he wasn’t totally sure he believed himself.

He turned. Looked ahead. Looked at Holly as she walked in front of Hayden, in front of Sarah. Led the way down the middle of the abandoned street. Boarded-up windows in red-bricked buildings either side of them. The sounds of cans scraping against the concrete in the wind.

Silence.

Deathly silence.

Silence Hayden had learned not to trust.

“Better go see to her,” Hayden whispered.

Sarah gave him that sideward glance. The one she always gave when it came to Holly. He knew Sarah didn’t like her. Knew there was a distance between the pair of them. A mistrust.

And while Hayden had his guard up—while he had his guard up about everyone—he saw no reason to doubt Holly. She’d come so far with them. Put her neck on the line to keep them alive. That had to count for something.

Right?

He stepped forward. Tried to jog but fuck, his knees weren’t in the mood right now.

“You okay?” Hayden asked.

Holly kept on looking straight ahead. Kept on focusing on the road in the distance. The sun lighting up her pale face.

“Holly, are you—”

“We need to talk. About … about Sarah.”

She whispered Sarah’s name. Glanced back over her shoulder. Sarah just looked on. Stared on.

“What about her?” Hayden asked.

“You know what. You told me what happened. To—to the kid back at Riversford. To your friends.”

“And what’s that got to do with—”

“You know exactly what it’s got to do with the kid,” Holly said, raising her voice a little. She looked at Hayden now. Looked right into his eyes. “Sarah. If—if she’s … if the virus is airborne then she’s a danger.”

“Then what’re you suggesting?”

“I’m suggesting we do the right thing. The kindest thing. For everybody.”

It was those final words that lifted Hayden’s defences. That made him uncertain. That gave him an overriding bad feeling. A crippling dread.

“So that’s what you do, is it? Leave people behind when they’re no good?”

“Oh don’t start—”

“We didn’t leave you behind. We took you in. Could’ve left you out there. Could’ve left you to die outside those walls. But we didn’t.”

“No. No you just left Gary to die instead.”

Hayden stumbled, and he knew he’d made a bad move in doing so right away.

His throat welled up.

Dread and guilt scratched inside his head.

“I know what happened back there,” Holly said, staring at Hayden. “I’ve seen the guilt in your eyes. I’ve seen that guilt so many times in so many people. I know what it looks like.”

Hayden’s lips felt like elastic. “You—you don’t know—”

“You keep on telling yourself you didn’t do anything wrong. That you’re innocent here. You keep on telling yourself you’ve never sacrificed somebody to preserve your own survival.”

She looked away. Looked right at the ground. Scratched at the bandage on her arm, the bandage on her bite wound.

“You keep telling yourself that,” she said.

Hayden wanted to respond. He wanted to come back with something confident. Something assertive. Something to put Holly in her place.

But he couldn’t.

He was too tired to come back.

Too weak.

Too guilty.

He wanted to say something to Holly, to make sure she knew she wasn’t the one who called the shots around here. That she was here because Hayden kept her alive. Because Sarah kept her alive. Because Hayden’s people, they’d trusted her. They all trusted her.

He wanted to argue with her assertion that everyone had sacrificed somebody.

That everyone was guilty of something.

He wanted to, but then he heard the thud.

Heard the crack against the road behind them.

He looked over his shoulder and he saw Sarah lying face flat on the concrete.

Blood pooling out of her nostrils.

Seeping through the cracks in the road.

And behind her, creeping around the side roads and out into the street, out towards them, infected.

“
Q
uick
!”

Hayden rushed as fast as he could towards Sarah’s fallen body. He didn’t know whether she was alive. Whether she was dead. Just that she’d collapsed. She’d fallen on the road. Passed out again.

He didn’t know what her fate was. Didn’t know whether she’d tripped from this plane of existence already. Whether his efforts were in vain.

All he cared about was getting to her.

Saving her.

Making sure he got to her before the infected.

He tried to run but his legs were weak and stiff. But he pushed on through the pain. Pushed through the stiffness. And even though Sarah was only a few metres away, it felt like she was a mile or more.

Even though the zombies were still just in the distance, even though they were scattered into smaller groups, it felt like they were much, much closer.

So close that Hayden felt surrounded.

“Holly!” Hayden shouted. Didn’t look back. Just knew he needed her help. Needed her help to lift Sarah. To get her on her feet. “Need a fucking hand here!”

But then, as he reached Sarah’s side, the conversation he’d just had with Holly flashed into his mind.

The talk about sacrifice.

About leaving people behind if it meant self-preservation.

How that’s all Hayden had done with Gary. How that was the real reason he hit him across the head, left him for dead.

Because he knew downing Gary could keep him alive.

He’d knocked him out because he didn’t want Gary to suffer, didn’t want him to experience any pain.

But he’d knocked him out because saving Gary meant sacrificing himself.

And in this new world, nobody sacrificed themselves.

Not when they knew what awaited.

He crouched down beside Sarah. Felt rain peppering down from the greying clouds above. “Sarah.”

He put a hand on her shoulder and went to turn her over but she just flopped to her side. Rolled, limp and unconscious and still.

Blood still pooling out of her nostrils.

And her ears.

And her eyes.

He heard the gasps up ahead. Heard the growls and the cries getting closer, the rain powering down against the concrete. He looked up. Saw two zombies at the front of the group. One was dressed in a white shirt and black trousers, its white shirt torn at the side, a chunk missing from its torso. The second one was shorter, skinnier. A teenager perhaps. Teenage girl. Barbie-doll hair. Long, fake blue nails.

Dragging her intestines along with her, trying not to trip on them.

“Come on,” Hayden said, reaching down for Sarah, trying to lift her. But he couldn’t. His muscles just couldn’t support her weight, not completely. He needed help. “Holly! Please!”

He looked over his shoulder and he saw the look on Holly’s face.

It was a look Hayden imagined he’d had when he was debating what to do with Gary. When he was deciding whether to leave him in the woods to die or whether to fight. Fight to save him. Go down fighting if he had to.

It was a look that terrified him.

But a look he knew many would’ve had since the world went to shit.

“Please, Holly. I—We need you here. We need you.”

“It’s over,” Holly said. “She’s—she’s gone. Just… Come on, Hayden. Come—”

“She’s not gone. She needs your help. I need your help.”

“It’s worthless.” Rain poured down now. Drenched Holly. Made it look like tears were dripping down her face. “You—you know it is. You have to leave her.”

“I won’t fucking leave her,” Hayden said.

He turned back to Sarah. Put his arms under her body and tried, tried with all he had to drag her up, to lift her, to pull her away.

All the while, the zombies got closer.

The infected approached.

Hungry.

Ready for another sacrifice.

And it was at that moment, as Hayden looked up at the zombies, trying his damnedest to lift Sarah, that Holly’s words resonated with him. That he understood the true test was ahead.

As the infected inched closer, just a few metres away now, Hayden asked the question.

Can I stay with her?

Can I sacrifice myself trying to save her?

Am I capable of doing that?

“Hayden, please,” Holly shouted.

Hayden didn’t respond. He didn’t say a word back to Holly.

Instead, he reached into his pocket with his shaking hand.

Lifted out the gun. The gun they’d promised to preserve the ammo of in case of emergency. Well this was an emergency. It was an absolute fucking emergency.

Sarah’s life was worthy of an emergency.

He let the white-shirted infected step within an inch of him and then he fired.

Fired right at its throat. Hoped for a clean shot—a shot at its neck, a bullet to sever its spinal cord.

But the zombie just staggered back.

Staggered back, bleeding, into its companion.

But still standing.

Still looking at him.

And then walking towards him again.

“Hayden you’ve got to—”

“No!” Hayden said.

He stood his ground.

Stood above Sarah.

Pulled the trigger again, the sound of the gunshot echoing against the walls of the buildings.

Because he wasn’t leaving Sarah.

He wasn’t leaving anyone else behind.

He couldn’t allow himself to leave anyone else behind.

And yet that voice whispering in the back of his mind got louder and more prominent when the second bullet did nothing to put the zombie down.

When the second zombie stepped in front of the first, more zombies closing in from behind, their decomposing stench hanging in the air, the sound of buzzing flies deafening.

I won’t let go.

He fired the trigger again.

I won’t leave your side.

And again.

I won’t …

He fired the trigger again but this time, nothing happened.

Nothing fired.

He was out.

All fucking out.

And all the infected were still standing.

Hayden looked into the eyes of the infected, looked at their eyes glistening in the rain and he knew what was going to happen. He knew what
had
to happen.

He was supposed to stand here with Sarah.

Fight with his fists if he had to for his friend. For someone who’d stood by his side. For someone he cared about.

But Holly’s words echoed through his mind.

“You keep on telling yourself you’ve never sacrificed somebody to preserve your own survival.”

He watched the infected walk closer.

Listened to the throaty snarls, the guttural cries.

He looked into their bloodshot eyes and he wanted to stay put.

To stand his ground.

But Sarah was still.

She was still. She’d bled out. Internal bleeding in her skull. Infected, even.

She was badly sick. As good as gone.

So Hayden had to do the only thing he could do.

The thing he didn’t want to do, but the only thing possible.

“I’m so sorry,” he said.

He looked down at Sarah. Looked at her, eyes closed and oblivious as rain dripped down her hair.

And then he took a step back.

But when he stepped back, he walked into something.

“Not just yet,” Holly said.

She stepped around Hayden and smacked the first zombie across the neck with a large piece of concrete from the cracked road.

Snapped its neck in one hit.

And then she swung at the next one. The skinny girl. Split her rotting skin, sent her flying to the ground.

And when she fell to the ground, Holly stepped over the girl and crushed her spinal cord.

Silenced her, once and for all.

She turned around, dripping rain and blood. “Better get a fucking move on then hadn’t we?”

Hayden still couldn’t believe it, still couldn’t understand how close he’d come to walking away from Sarah.

But he didn’t have time to dwell because more zombies were flooding towards them.

He rushed over to Sarah’s body.

Crouched down by her side, fighting the fatigue, the hunger, the agony.

Holly got to Sarah’s other side. Rain lashing down now. Making visibility difficult. “On three,” she said. “One …”

Memories of Gary flashed through Hayden’s mind.

“Two …”

Leaving him behind to die. To save himself.

“Three!”

Hayden lifted.

He lifted and Holly lifted.

He thought he felt something split in his lower back. Something crack. Expected his body to tumble down like a Jenga tower.

But it didn’t.

He was on his feet.

Holly was on her feet.

Sarah was in their arms.

“Where now?” Hayden asked.

Holly looked over her shoulder. The dozen or so infected still staggering their way. Still growling at them. Still getting ready to feed.

“Anywhere but here,” she said.

And then, Sarah in their arms, the pair of them walked.

They walked, but Hayden couldn’t shake the image.

Couldn’t shake the emotion he’d felt when he stood over Sarah’s body.

The temptation to just walk away. To just leave.

He wanted Sarah to move. Wanted her to make a sound. Just something to give him a sign that she was okay. That she was hanging on in there.

But she didn’t.

She didn’t move a muscle.

Blood dripped from her orifices and down Hayden’s coat, down onto the road.

A reminder of the bloodshed he’d nearly caused.

Of a friend he’d almost given up on.

Again.