by Casey, Ryan
He looked down at the crumpled piece of paper he’d taken from Newbie’s hand. Saw the note written on it in what must’ve been Newbie’s ex-wife’s handwriting: Riversford Industrial Estate. Safe place there. If anyone’s reading this, that’s where we’ve gone. x
And then he held his breath, held his sister’s hand extra tightly, and threw himself at the top of the fence.
He was at the top and ready to climb over when he heard the wood split.
Twenty-One
Hayden felt the fence snap beneath his feet the second he and his sister reached the top of it.
As he fell to the ground below, he imagined breaking his leg or contorting his arm just like Newbie had. He imagined not being able to do anything as he lay on the floor, as the teeth of the dead sunk into his flesh.
But worse, he imagined his sister being stuck without a weapon, surrounded by zombies, and Hayden having no way of helping her, of saving her.
Hayden hit the road with a thump. He felt his face stinging, but he was okay on the whole. He quickly spun around to check his sister was okay—she was already on her feet and starting to run again. Beyond the split fence behind them, Hayden could hear the heavy footsteps of the rotting corpses coming in their direction.
There was no time to stick around, not anymore.
Hayden stood up and dug into his pocket as he ran across the open section of the road and past more detached houses. It was quiet, free of zombies, and that was a positive in itself. It didn’t matter that there was a group of them onto their scent, there wasn’t any more blocking the road. Small positives in the grand scheme of things.
He pulled the gun out of his pocket and handed it to Clarice. “You need to use this. If anything happens. If … if you’re surrounded, you need to use this.”
Clarice frowned and stared at it as they ran further along the road. “I—I don’t think I—”
“Just take it. Don’t fire it willy-nilly. But fire it when you absolutely need to. Whenever that is.”
Clarice took the gun, and Hayden had a horrible image of his sister holding the gun to her head after being gnawed by a zombie on one of her legs. Pulling the trigger.
No. He couldn’t let that happen. He wasn’t going to let that happen.
“Are they close?” Clarice asked.
Hayden didn’t even want to look. He knew they were chasing them, but he didn’t want to see them. Seeing them was accepting defeat. Seeing them was accepting that the undead were after them, and the very fact that they were after them meant that they were going to catch up with them.
It was just a matter of time.
The living tired far more easily than the dead.
They reached the exit of the cul-de-sac and Hayden looked down at the crumpled note in his hand. “Riversford Industrial Estate,” he said. “That’s where the safe place is.”
“Great load of help in the middle of a town that we’ve never pissing visited.”
“But we have a name. We have a location. A destination. That’s … that’s something.”
He wanted to tell Clarice that they had the story about Newbie to tell his daughter, too. How hard her dad had fought to get to her. How he’d … how he’d fought right until the very end, given it all he had.
But how he’d failed to make it.
Failed, like so many others.
“Take a right and head into those trees,” Hayden said, pointing across the road.
“I’m just about sick of trees.”
“I don’t see what other option we—”
“Hey! Help! Give us a hand here! Please!”
The voice came from the cul-de-sac Hayden and Clarice had just come from.
Clarice started to turn around and looked back but Hayden stopped her. “Don’t. Don’t pay any attention. We need to move on.”
Clarice frowned at Hayden. “There’s—there’s people back there. People who need help—”
“We need help,” Hayden shouted. The sounds of the gasps and the footsteps were nearing again, and no doubt the zombies would soon be in sight. “We need as much help as anyone. Everyone needs help. But we don’t get help anymore. And we don’t get to help. We … we just have to help ourselves.”
Clarice narrowed her tearful eyes. That judgemental scowl Hayden had seen so many times, more so in his twenties than when they were kids, covered her face. “Maybe you don’t think you have to help. But you don’t make my decisions for me.”
Before Hayden could protest, she ran back into the cul-de-sac they’d just escaped from.
“Oh for fuck’s …”
He saw a man on his own. He was in the middle of one of the gardens. He looked of Asian descent, and was wearing a green coat and blue jeans. He had dark hair and brown eyes. Looked like he was usually well-maintained.
Usually, because right now there were two zombies closing in on him, getting ready to bite.
Clarice was running towards them with the gun raised.
“Jesus Christ, Sis,” Hayden said. He ran in her direction. Tried not to look down the road where the bigger group of zombies were coming for them. This was suicide. Maniacal suicide.
The things you do for family.
The man struggled and shouted out as the two zombies snapped at him. “Please! I—I don’t wanna—I don’t wanna—”
Clarice raised the gun higher. Slowed down. Pointed it at the zombies.
“Put it down, Sis,” he said. “You’ll take the poor guy’s head off.”
Hayden rushed past his sister and swung the axe straight into the mouth of the first zombie. He heard bone crack as the zombie’s head flew back, and cold blood spilled out of the bottom of its chin.
“Argghhh!”
The second zombie had the Asian guy on the ground.
Teeth were wrapping around the side of his chest.
Hayden steadied his grip.
Swung the axe at the back of the zombie’s neck.
The zombie shook, went into spasm, and then went completely rigid and fell on top of the Asian guy, blood pooling out of it. A clean shot.
“Come the hell on,” Hayden said, holding a hand out for the Asian guy.
The guy muttered inaudible words. He put his hands together. “Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.”
Hayden grabbed the top of his coat and pulled him up. Just along the road, he could see the zombies approaching. At least fifty of them, all piling down the road. “We need to get out of here or you’ll have nothing to thank me for, believe me.”
The guy’s pupils looked dilated, like he’d literally stepped onto the brink of death and only a part of him had come back. “I—I—”
“Come on!” Clarice shouted, and Hayden was instantly impressed by his sister’s assertiveness.
The guy shook and jumped and then he saw the zombies coming down the road. “Shit. Oh shit. Oh shit.”
“You can ‘oh shit’ all you want when we get the hell off this road,” Hayden said, dragging the guy along, his sister aiding him. “Riversford Industrial Estate. You know it?”
The guy’s pace seemed to pick up in an instant upon hearing those words. “I … I—”
“Do you know it and can you take us there?”
Hayden looked at the guy as they ran out of the top of the cul-de-sac once more, the zombies edging closer to their prey.
He looked back at Hayden and smiled shakily. “I know it. And I can take you there. Is it—is there something there? Some kind of—of shelter? ’Cause I heard a few rumours but I’m not sure if—”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Hayden said. “Now let’s get out of here.”
The three of them took a right on “Manish’s” directions, and they followed the trees at the side of the road, the ever-constant hum of the zombies following behind them.
If he’d paid more attention, and if Clarice had paid more attention, they’d have seen exactly what was watching them from the opposite side of the road.
What was
edging closer.
And maybe if they had, things would’ve worked out different.
Twenty-Two
Hayden, Clarice and Manish finally collapsed after a good twenty minutes of running.
They sat at the side of the road and leaned back against a brick wall. Sweat poured down Hayden’s face, and it was so cold that it just made him feel even worse. His heart felt like it was going to burst through his chest, and his hand was wrapped so tightly around the axe that it felt numb.
“Riversford,” Clarice said, panting what must’ve been her billionth breath today. “It’s … it’s near here?”
Manish nodded. He wasn’t panting as badly. There was still a detachment about him. A detachment that Hayden wasn’t sure he liked. Admittedly, he’d nearly been savaged by zombies, but he seemed to be calm. Coping better than any of them.
Then again, wouldn’t every stranger seem suspicious after their luck with strangers so far?
“It’s about a mile up the road from here,” Manish said. “It—it’s a big place. Covers a lot of land. Few hangars in there. Dunno how—how they’re supposed to be keeping the flesh eaters out.”
“That’s what we’re hoping to find out,” Hayden said. And then the reality of the situation dawned on him. It was the first time he’d had a chance to properly catch his breath since Newbie’s death. The whole reason they’d come to Warrington in the first place was to find Newbie’s daughter. Sure, there was the lure of the safe place that Newbie’s transmission picked up, but Hayden was never too sure about that.
But the whole question of his being here struck him hard right now: why was he here? Why was his sister here?
Manish must’ve been reading his mind. “You—you don’t sound like you’re from around here.”
Hayden scanned Manish’s face. He had a few lines on his forehead, but his face was relatively young looking. Probably in his thirties, or even his late twenties, it was hard to say. He looked at Hayden in the same way Hayden probably looked at him—with distrust, with curiosity. Looked like he’d had a rough time on the road himself.
Which always brought questions along with it. How had he made it this far? Who else was he surviving with?
What were his secrets? Because everyone had secrets.
“We’re from Smileston,” Clarice said, breaking the silence. The road was still and completely quiet. There were no houses around, and the sounds of the groaning zombies were gone. They’d come, of course. Follow them until they caught them. Or maybe they’d get distracted. Find somebody else to hunt down and feast on.
Hayden felt terrible for even considering that diversion a better option.
“Smilestown?” Manish said. “I—I’ve never even heard of Smiles—”
“Smileston,” Hayden said. Always got on his nerves how people mispronounced his hometown. “We came a long way because we heard there was somewhere in Warrington. Somewhere letting people in to start again. You not from around here, either?”
Manish lowered his head. He rubbed his hands against his jeans. “I—I’m from Appleton. Just south of here.”
“And how’ve you made it this far?”
“What?”
“How are you alive? How have you made it this far?”
Manish opened his shaky mouth like he was about to respond. And then he closed it. Sighed. Hayden could smell he had bad breath—like everyone in the post-tooth brushing age. “How have any of us made it this far?”
It was a fair point.
They stood up and walked slowly along the brick wall at the side of the road. Through the hedges across the street, Hayden could see the grey metal of a looming industrial site, and he knew exactly where it was. Riversford. Their destination. Their glimmer of hope.
A dim, fading glimmer of hope, but a glimmer of hope nonetheless.
“I’m guessing it’s … it’s just as bad in Smiles … Smileston?”
Clarice nodded. “If not worse. Our place got bombed.”
“You got the jets? Then you were the lucky ones.”
“What do you mean?” Hayden asked.
Manish shook his head to dismiss the comment, but when he saw Hayden was still glaring at him, he probably figured he wasn’t going to be allowed to let that one drop. “I … Sometimes I think it would’ve been better if the jets had just flown over Appleton and bombed the place. While I was still asleep. Before—before all this mess. Because then I wouldn’t have had to get chased like I was back there. I wouldn’t have had to see the things I’ve seen. Or …”
He let that one go.
Hayden didn’t press him. He kind of knew what he was going to say.
Or do the things I’ve done.
“Don’t you ever feel that way?” Manish asked. “Like—like just giving up? Because this is hell, surely. Only it’s a forgiving kind of hell ’cause there’s still the chance of opting out. But then sometimes I wonder if this is just … just the prelude to the burning. That if I opt out, my god will punish me. Like this is all some kind of-of test. But I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve it. I don’t know what I’ve done.”
“None of us have done anything to deserve it,” Clarice said. But Hayden couldn’t agree with her. Not exactly. He’d been a shitty brother and a shitty son in the years building up to the fall of society. He’d pulled himself away from his friends, distanced himself from his loving family who’d done everything for him when he was growing up. Even when his older sister killed herself when Hayden was only in high school, they’d kept on doing everything.
And all Hayden had been was an ungrateful bastard.
He’d deserved it.
“What’s your story, then?” Hayden asked.
Manish picked some loose skin from the corners of his well-bitten nails as they walked. “I—I woke up and people were killing each other in the streets. I thought at first there was some kind of—of war. Some extremist group or another finally uprising. And that terrified me. But—but then I saw the dead coming back to life at the masjid near my house. I saw people I knew—friends, good people—being bitten and then … and then coming back to life.” His voice quivered, and he shook his head. “It was awful. The worst thing I’ve ever witnessed.”
“I can relate to that,” Hayden said. He looked at Clarice. “We both can. We … we’ve both lost people we knew. People we care about.”
“My sympathies,” Manish said, turning from Hayden to Clarice and then back at Hayden again.
Hayden couldn’t avoid the twinge of ill-feeling in his stomach when Manish laid eyes on his sister.
A twinge of protectiveness.
A protectiveness that had always been there.
“What about after?” Hayden asked.
“After what?”
“You say you locked yourself in your house in Appleton and now you’re up here in Warrington. What brought you here?”
Hayden was trying—and he only realised this right now—to catch Manish out. To find a kink in his story. Because there was something strange about him. Something … off. He just couldn’t put his finger on what it was.
But Manish replied with a perfectly respectable answer. “I came here for the same reason anyone goes anywhere these days: family.”
“And did you find your family?” Clarice asked.
Manish didn’t look at Clarice this time. Instead, he looked at Hayden in a way that made goose pimples rise up his arms. “I think so,” he said.
Hayden was about to question Manish some more when Manish stopped walking and pointed up ahead.
“Do you see them?” he asked.
Hayden squinted ahead. “See what?”
“The people. On the roof of that hangar. There … there are people there.”
“Shit,” Clarice said. “So it’s for real.”
It took Hayden a few seconds to pinpoint exactly where the other two were looking, but eventually he saw it clearly. On top of a metal industrial hangar—some postal depot by the looks of things—there were a gro
up of people. Hayden could count three, but there might’ve been more. They were all looking out into the distance.
Looking out, like they were trying to find something.
Someone.
Manish walked ahead. “Thank you so much, again. Truly. We must go there now. We must—”
“We need to scout it out first. See if anyone else goes inside. I still … I still don’t have a great feeling. About this place.”
Manish sighed and shook his head.
Clarice tutted. “Believe me, he’s always like this,” she said.
And then she turned and looked at Hayden with her twinkling blue eyes, smiled at him like she smiled at him when he encouraged her as a kid, when he told her to stand up to bullies and when he gave her a chocolate from his secret stash.
“You need to learn to tr—”
Clarice didn’t finish speaking.
Something whooshed from behind them.
Blood spurted out of her chest.
And then she fell to her knees and smacked her head against the concrete, the life drifting out of her ever-colourful eyes.
Twenty-Three
Hayden watched his sister tumble to the ground, the sound of gunfire still echoing in his ears.
He didn’t have time to think about who was firing at them. He didn’t have time to worry about them. He didn’t even have time to think about running away.
Because all he cared about was on the road, bleeding from just above her chest.
The one thing he’d sworn to protect—the one person left in his life that he actually gave a real shit about—was on the concrete, her eyes closing.
“Hayden, we—we need to run!”
Hayden heard Manish’s voice somewhere to his right but it was distant, echoey, out of focus. He rushed over to Clarice’s body as she lay on the concrete. The camouflage jacket she was wearing had split at the back where the bullet had hit her. To his left, Hayden could hear voices, and a car gradually approaching.