Infection Z (Book 4) (11 page)

H
ayden should’ve known escaping
the supermarket wouldn’t be quite so simple as it sounded.

But watching Emily, one of the group, rip the guts out of Jill wasn’t exactly what he’d expected to walk out to.

He stared out of the storage room. Emily was perched over Jill. Blood dripped down from her teeth; blood that Hayden could smell in the air, fresh and metallic.

Jill, bless her, was still alive. Still screaming. Still struggling.

Still fighting as Emily tucked in. Her face was completely pale but for the splash of blood that covered it, like spray paint on canvas.

Hayden stood, the two young kids by his side. Stood and stared as Emily ripped out Jill’s intestines with her long, sharp nails.

Jill kept on screaming. Kept on crying.

A few seconds later, Hayden heard running. Heard the sound of contact, like something heavy crashing into something else.

When he looked to his right, he saw exactly what it was.

Miriam was fighting a zombie. Smacking it on the side of its head with a cricket bat she’d evidently found lying around in this place.

Only it wasn’t just any old zombie.

It was Russell.

Russell had turned, too.

“I’m—I’m scared,” one of the boys muttered. The skinnier one in the Manchester United shirt.

Hayden looked down at him. Put a hand on his shoulder. He flinched at first. Looked at him with fear in his eyes. Like a lifetime of fear had been building up inside them.

“You don’t have to worry about a thing,” Hayden said.

When he looked up, he realised he might be wrong about that.

Emily’s zombie was standing. Tubes of intestines dangling from her bloodied lips. As the sound of fighting, shouting and groaning echoed around the derelict supermarket, Hayden watched as Emily stumbled towards him.

Jill had finally stopped screaming.

Which meant she’d be soon to turn.

Hayden stepped in front of the boys, the sour taste of fresh death filling the air. Not rot. It took time for a body to rot. But just a scent of difference. A hint of death to the air. Sweet. Sickly. Only way of describing it.

Hayden lifted the sharp metal pipe.

Waited for Emily to approach. The two boys closely behind him.

He watched as Emily picked up her pace. She stumbled, and her ankle split, the bone jutting out of her skin. Didn’t bother her, though. Nothing bothered her.

All that bothered her was getting to Hayden.

All that bothered her was meat.

Hayden pulled back the metal pipe and rammed it into Emily’s throat.

He pushed back. Pushed towards the top of her neck. Wanted to take her down as quickly and confidently as he could. Didn’t want to watch her wallow in this state of limbo for long.

But Emily wasn’t stopping.

She kept on pushing.

Pushing against the pipe.

Pushing right against it, even though the sharp edge of the pipe was scraping her spine.

She kept on coming until Hayden realised he was going to have to let go.

“Quick!” he shouted to the boys.

Let go of his pipe.

Grabbed the boys’ hands.

Ran, just as Emily tumbled forward, the pipe slicing right through her neck.

When Hayden looked back, he saw Emily still wriggling around on the floor.

Jill’s eyes opened, and she started to rise.

Hayden ran past a few aisles. Kept his hands wrapped tightly around the boys’ hands. He reached Miriam, who’d just about taken down Russell. Pinned him down under one of the shelves.

But Russell was still gasping, growling.

Even though his neck was covered in cuts and piercings.

“How’d it happen?” Hayden asked.

Miriam put her hands on her knees. Panted. “It—it just—they just turned. One sec, all’s okay. Then they just—”

“Turned,” Hayden said, nodding.

Miriam shook her head. Her eyes were narrowed, staring blankly at the floor. “I just… I just don’t get how—”

She didn’t finish her sentence.

Jill stumbled around the back of the shelves.

Lunged for the four of them.

Hayden felt the pressure on the boy in the purple cardigan’s arm as he tried to run away. The boy cried out. Screamed.

No.

Hayden wasn’t going to let him die.

He wasn’t going to lose him.

He wasn’t going to give up on somebody else. Not after all this time.

So he ran around the back of the boy.

Punched Jill square in her face.

Punched and punched until she fell back, all bloodied, skin still warm from when life ran through her veins.

He punched until she let go of the boy.

“What now?” Miriam asked.

Hayden listened to the shouts. Listened to the groans. The footsteps. Smelled that sweet scent of death growing in the air.

“We run,” Hayden said.

The four of them ran down the shopping aisle. The main entrance was up ahead. They could try unlocking it from inside now they knew there was nobody around. Well, at least they hoped nobody else was around.

“How many turned?” Hayden asked.

Miriam shook her head, still panting. “I… I don’t know. I was just… they were just…”

“It’s okay,” Hayden said.

“It’s not fucking okay. Not at all.”

“Well, maybe it’s not okay. But we’re here. We’re here. And we’re going to get out of this place. All of us.”

They reached the end of the aisle. Looked to the left. A couple, Jacob and Neela, sat together. Jacob gripped his ankle, winced. They backed off, holding onto a sideward turned shopping trolley. The only thing they could put between them and the oncoming dead.

“We can’t just leave them,” Miriam said.

And although Hayden wanted to disagree, although he wanted to argue, he couldn’t.

“No,” he said. “No we can’t.”

He looked around at the boys. Looked them both in their tired, distraught little eyes. “Miriam here’s going to look after you. I’ll be back for both of you. I promise.”

Miriam frowned. “Hayden, what—”

“There’s no other way,” Hayden said. “We can’t just leave them. Like you said.”

“But I didn’t mean—”

“I can handle myself,” Hayden said.

Miriam didn’t say another word.

She just shook her head. Looked away from Hayden.

Hayden took a deep breath and ran towards Jacob and Neela.

As he ran, he wasn’t sure what exactly he was trying to do. Five zombies surrounded Jacob and Neela. All of them he recognised as old group members. And the fact he saw no source of the outbreak made him think about Little Tim again. Little Tim, Bob.

The virus.

It was changing.

Adapting.

Adapting in the most terrifying way.

“Jacob!” Hayden shouted. “Neela!”

They glanced up. Raised their eyebrows. “Hayden. We—we—”

“Neela, I need you to run out. Distract the zombies. So I can get Jacob away safely.”

Neela shook her head as the five zombies closed in, pressed up against the shopping trolley. They hadn’t noticed Hayden yet. But they would, soon.

As would many others.

Something he had to accept.

Something that might just kill him.

“Neela!” Hayden shouted. “You need to step out. You need to make a run for it. Please. Both of you. Your lives depend on it.”

Neela curled herself up into a ball as the zombies kept on pressing against the trolley, pushing them further back into the wall. “I—I can’t.”

“You can.”

“I’m scared.”

“We’re all fucking scared. But you just have to…”

It happened in an instant.

The metal of the trolley split away.

The zombies forced their faces through the crack.

They chomped down on Neela’s face while still pressing against the trolley, still desperate to get closer to their prey.

Hayden watched as Jacob’s face pressed up to the trolley.

As the metal forced through his skin, turned him purple, crushed him slowly.

He watched Neela and Jacob struggle to escape. Struggle to break free. But the more they struggled, the more the zombies fought back. The more flesh they sunk their teeth into. The more blood they spilled.

Hayden turned away as Jacob’s skull cracked, crushed by the force of the undead.

He smelled fresh death in the air. Tasted that sweetness. The sweetness that would soon turn sour; that signified another loss of life. Another loss of hope.

He turned away from Jacob and Neela, knowing he could do nothing else for them, and looked back at Miriam and the boys.

When he saw the puddle of blood underneath them, a sudden coldness hit his core.

H
ayden stared
into the muddy hole in the back of the garden.

He held the gun loosely in his right hand.

Looked down as the rain fell, the night warm, the darkness thick.

He knew what he’d done.

He knew he’d had to do it.

But it would haunt him for the rest of his life.

T
he six survivors
made their way down a long country road away from the supermarket. Hayden, Miriam, the two boys, as well as two other people they’d bumped into on their way out—Renee and Anthony. They’d found a few bullets for Miriam’s pistol back at a derelict house a few miles back, which was something. Old guy there had shot himself in the head, left a little gift behind. The night crept up on them like a predator, silent and watchful. None of them spoke. Not about events at the supermarket. Not about when to stop. Not about anything.

But Hayden knew from the silence that they were all thinking about the same things.

As visibility diminished, silence surrounding them but for their footsteps, the occasional cough, Hayden thought about the outbreak at the supermarket. The sudden outbreak amongst their own people. Amongst people he’d spoken to not much earlier. People he’d been with, been around, just moments before he stepped through that door to the storeroom at the back of the supermarket.

And then they’d turned.

All of them, turned.

Well, not all of them. He wasn’t sure how many exactly. But a number of them had and then gone on to attack the people who hadn’t turned.

Which meant one thing.

The virus was airborne.

Little Tim’s turning back at Riversford confirmed that long ago. He was just too afraid to face up to it.

“We should rest,” Anthony said.

Hayden squinted ahead. Saw a few detached houses lining the road. He knew they were getting closer to the wall. The zombies were building up in number. Made sense that any kind of wall guarding life would attract the dead like a magnet.

But Hayden and the group just diverted around them. Did everything they could not to bump into them.

They couldn’t take anymore.

They couldn’t put the two boys through anymore.

They’d found out the names of the two kids. Charlie and Sam. Charlie in the United shirt, Sam in the purple jumper. Turned out the man Hayden put down with a Stanley knife wasn’t their dad at all, but a weird neighbour who always used to insist on giving the children a lift to places they wanted to go. Sounded to Hayden like he’d taken advantage of the apocalypse. Used it to his own benefit.

What mattered was that Charlie and Sam were safe now.

They were looked after now.

Properly.

“We’ll take one of the houses on the right,” Miriam said. “Search it bottom to top. Camp out upstairs until dawn breaks. Then we’ll make our final push.”

“In separate rooms,” Renee interrupted.

“What?”

“In separate rooms. We… It’d be best if we camped out in separate rooms. Right?”

She looked around at Hayden. At the others. All of them understood. But it was just unspoken. Like speaking it aloud confirmed the truth, verified the new reality.

Sleeping in separate rooms meant that if any of them turned, they couldn’t harm anyone else.

Every sneeze or sniff was met with inquisitive glances. The paranoia tired Hayden out. Part of him wanted just to go back to his old life. His life of looking out for himself and no one else. His life of no responsibilities. Of no ties.

But he knew that was bullshit now.

There was no going back.

Only forward.

Only onwards.

When they reached the first of the detached houses, they scanned the downstairs first. Took out a zombified old woman in the living room. Buried her outside in the garden with jumpers and shirts over their faces, just in case there was anything contagious.

They cleaned up the room where the woman had been as best they could. Couldn’t get rid of the rotting stench though. Could never get rid of the rotting stench.

Hayden volunteered to sleep in the lounge. To keep an eye on downstairs.

Nobody argued against him.

They decided to get to sleep right away. Didn’t say much to one another. Told the boys not to worry. That everything was going to be okay. That they’d be moving on to a better place tomorrow.

“Will it have people there?” Charlie asked.

Hayden smiled. Nodded. “Yeah. It’ll have people there.”

“Will it have children there?”

Hayden swallowed a lump in his throat. Rubbed a hand against his arm. “Yeah. Yeah, it will.”

Charlie’s eyes lit up. Just briefly, like all that mattered in the world right now was new children to play with.

Then he walked out of the lounge, towards the stairs.

Hayden saw Miriam looking through the banisters at him as Charlie past. And when he saw that hard stare, the reality of what he had to do flooded his mind once more, made the taste of vomit fill his mouth.

“Charlie,” he said.

Charlie stopped. Turned. Looked at Hayden with his cute little eyes. His innocent, pale face. “What?”

Hayden felt weakness building in his muscles. “Just… just come to the garden with me a sec. There’s something I have to show you out there.”

He saw the frown on Charlie’s forehead. The puzzled expression. “What… what is it?”

“It’s a surprise,” Hayden said.

Charlie stood still for a moment. The rest of the house was silent. Dark. Ready and waiting.

Charlie smiled. Walked back down the stairs. “Is it an adventure?”

“A kind of adventure,” Hayden said, leading Charlie out of the lounge, towards the garden. “You just close your eyes and hold my hand.”

Hayden grabbed Charlie’s hand.

Eased him down the corridor.

Past the staircase.

Towards the kitchen, towards the back door.

He felt Miriam’s eyes burning into his back with every step he took.

He thought he heard her sobbing.

When they stepped out into the pitch black garden, Hayden led Charlie down the steps, across the long, uncut grass, right to the trees at the bottom end.

“It’s like Jurassic Park!” Charlie said.

Hayden wiped a tear from his cheek. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

“You sound sad. Why are you sad?”

“I—I’m not sad. I’m happy. Happy we’re all here. All of us. That we made it this far.”

“And then we’re going to go to the wall with the people and the children, aren’t we?”

Hayden stopped. He couldn’t reply to Charlie. Couldn’t say a word. Tears rolled down his cheeks. His eyes stung.

“Hayden? Why are you crying?”

Hayden looked down and saw Charlie staring up at him.

His body went cold when he looked into Charlie’s eyes.

But his body went even colder when he saw Charlie’s arm.

The bandage wrapped around his left arm.

The blood staining through the dressing.

“We’re going to be okay, aren’t we Hayden?”

“Of course we are,” Hayden said, smiling. He crouched opposite Charlie. Took both his hands. “Of course we are. You’re a good kid. You’re such a good kid.”

“You’re a good leader.”

“I’m not a leader.”

“You saved me from Nasty Nick! You’re a good guy. He’s a bad guy.”

Hayden nodded. Wiped his eyes once more. Smiled. Smiled for Charlie more than anything. “You’re one of the good guys, too.” His muscles tightened. He couldn’t do this. He wasn’t strong enough. Didn’t have it in him.

“I hope I stay with you forever.”

“Me too. Me too.”

Charlie smiled.

Turned around, looked at the tall oak trees at the bottom of the garden. Cool rain trickled down lightly from the dark sky above.

“Where’s the surprise?”

Hayden pulled the gun out of his back pocket.

Held his breath.

Looked away.

“Hayden, where’s my—”

The sound of the gunfire rattled through Hayden’s body. Made it go cold. And as he listened to the echo, he hoped maybe this was a dream. A nightmare. Just like the other nightmares he had.

He prayed when he opened his eyes he’d be inside that house.

Or back at the shopping centre.

Or somewhere, anywhere but here.

Anywhere before Charlie got bitten.

Anywhere before this mess.

But then he heard a thud.

Heard Charlie’s body hit the ground.

Silence.

H
ayden stared
into the muddy hole in the back of the garden.

He held the gun loosely in his right hand.

The shovel in his left hand.

He looked down as the rain fell, the night warm, the darkness thick.

He knew what he’d done.

He knew he’d had to do it.

Because he couldn’t let Charlie turn. Not because he was a threat. Not for any bullshit reason like that.

But because he was a kid.

He was a kid. He didn’t deserve to come back as one of them. He didn’t deserve to die a painful death. He didn’t deserve the bastardisation of his life that the infection would cause.

But as Hayden stared down at the ground, dripping with rain, he knew what he’d done would haunt him for the rest of his life.

He turned round.

Walked back up the garden.

Looked upstairs.

Miriam stood by the window.

Tears rolled down her cheeks.

She nodded at Hayden, and Hayden nodded back.

Little Charlie was finally at peace.