by Casey, Ryan
Hayden lowered his head. He hadn’t thought of it that way before. “You didn’t take it, though. Neither of you took it. And you’re still here.”
“That’s because of you,” Miriam said.
Hayden felt a lump swelling in his throat.
Miriam walked towards him. “I’m not downing the immunisations. I have my reasons to be against that kind of thing. I watched the person I cared about most—my mum—get hooked on painkillers. Become reliant on them. She lost her mind. Lost her dignity. Eventually, she lost her life. But for me, the reason we’re here isn’t through luck. It isn’t through chance. It isn’t even through research. It’s through faith.”
She stopped in front of Hayden. Looked right into his eyes.
“I believed in you. I believe in you. And that’s why I’m still here. That’s why so many people are still here. Because like it or not, you’re a leader, Hayden.”
Hayden half-smiled. He couldn’t fight the heat in his cheeks. “A leader of two.”
“But still a leader. Still someone doing the right thing for his people. Still the captain of the ship, no matter what. Now come on. You said it yourself. We need to get to the extraction point. No time to dally around. And then we need to get the hell away from this shithole once and for all.”
Miriam smiled at Hayden. And in the light of the moonlight, Hayden smiled back at her. “If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be here,” Hayden said.
“How’d you work that one out?”
“If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have reached New Britain. I’d be wandering around in the wilderness feeling sorry for myself. I’d probably be dead right now.”
He stepped closer to Miriam. Stroked the back of her soft hair with his hand, even if there were still specks of infected flesh in it.
“If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be here right now. I’d be back at New Britain too scared to leave my room. Just like I used to be before all this.”
Miriam moved closer to Hayden’s lips. “Then it’s just a good job I’m here then, isn’t it?”
Miriam went in to kiss Hayden.
She didn’t reach his lips.
The sound of a helicopter rattled overhead.
Hayden stood still. Miriam stood still. Amy stood beside them. None of them looked up at the sky. All of them just froze, not believing what they were hearing, not accepting what they were hearing.
“It’s…”
Eventually, they did look up. All of them looked up.
In the sky above, Hayden couldn’t believe what he was looking at.
There were helicopters. Not just one, but several. Eight, nine, maybe more. All of them were hurtling above them. Heading in the direction of the Dunstable Downs.
“It’s real,” Miriam said. “It’s—it’s actually real.”
Hayden heard the joy in her voice and he felt a tear roll down his cheek. He stared up. Listened to the helicopters. He reached out, slipped his fingers around Miriam’s. Stood there, in the darkness, regardless of the events of the last twenty-four hours, regardless of the world they were living in, this moment felt perfect. This moment felt like everything his life had been building up to. A chance. A chance to start again. A chance to start afresh.
But more than anything, a chance to make sure the people he cared about got to safety.
They watched the helicopters disappear into the distance, startled by their presence, like rabbits blinded by the headlights.
They stood in silence for a few moments, maybe longer, before Miriam finally opened her mouth.
“We need to go,” she said, a smile on her beautiful face. “We need to—”
She didn’t finish what she was saying.
Movement filled the corners of Hayden’s eyes.
Then gunshots rattled in their direction.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
When Hayden heard the gunshots firing in his direction, he knew exactly who it was right away.
He grabbed Miriam’s hand, then Amy’s. He ran in the direction of the helicopters, into the darkness. He could see lights behind. The lights of torches shining on them. They had to get behind a car. They had to get to some kind of shelter.
Whatever they did, they had to run.
He heard the engines behind and he knew what’d happened as he hurtled down the road. Gary. Gary’s group had heard the transmission. They’d figured out where Hayden was going. If they’d moved quicker, they could’ve avoided this. If he hadn’t slowed Miriam and Amy down with his damned fever, they could’ve avoided all of this.
But he hadn’t. This was happening.
So he had to accept it and he had to fight.
“Stay low!” he shouted, as the bullets whizzed past. He saw a car up ahead on the right. A red car, already peppered with bullets. He ran up to it. They had to duck behind it. They had to get a moment’s peace so they could get their weapons out and—
A groan resounded from behind the car.
Three infected staggered out.
Hayden thought about stopping. About fighting them. But the engines behind and the bullets were getting nearer. He could feel the bullets inching closer to firing through him.
“No time,” he said. “Next one!”
He ran past the infected. Slipped past their determined reach. He’d deal with them later if he had to. For now, having them behind him provided a decent shield. A way of stopping a few of the bullets, of slowing Gary’s people down.
But it wouldn’t be long enough to stop them chasing.
It wouldn’t be long enough to allow them to make it to the extraction point.
1:45 a.m. Time was already ticking.
“Duck down over here,” Hayden said. He ran around the side of the car. Let go of Miriam and Amy’s hands, then took out his gun. “I won’t be long.”
He didn’t even think before he rose from the side of the car.
He fired. Fired back at Gary’s people. Fired into the blinding light of the torches. He didn’t want to waste all his bullets. He didn’t have many. He wanted to be able to use them on the infected. The road to the extraction point was still long, so he didn’t want to be all out by the time this conflict was done with.
Something inside Hayden told him this conflict wasn’t ending anytime soon.
That this was the conflict he’d been trying to avoid all along.
He lowered the gun. Thought about another tactic. There was a car on the opposite side of the road, just a few metres further up. Abandoned. Decent enough shield. If he could run across there, he could startle whoever headed in his direction. He just had to keep low. He just had to take it easy.
He started to turn around the side of the car when he heard the bullets rattle into the upturned bonnet.
Felt one sear across his arm, knocking the skin off it.
He winced. Fell back. Blood dribbled down his forearm. “Fuck.” He knew now he was pinned down. That there was no getting to that other car. They had him. They had him and they had Miriam and Amy and they weren’t going to stop until both of them were dead.
He shuffled back. Shuffled over to Miriam and Amy. To think about it, Hayden found it funny that neither of them had backed him up. He’d been shooting them all on his own. He hadn’t even had the time to consider why that might be.
When he turned around, all sense of the bullets whooshing past him, firing into the car, all of them trickled away.
The first thing he noticed was Amy. She was crying. She was covered in blood. Fresher blood than the crusty type they’d covered over themselves. Much fresher.
And right then, Hayden started to feel sick. He tasted vomit in his throat. He didn’t want to look at what it was Amy was crying about. He didn’t want to see the source of the blood, even though he already knew, deep down.
He just wanted to step out into the bullets.
To step out and make all of this go away.
But his eyes drifted down. Drifted to that exact spot where Amy was looking. The thing she was c
rying about. The place where the blood was coming from.
Miriam was lying back against the side of the car.
Blood poured from her chest.
And her arms.
And her stomach.
She looked up at Hayden, shock and fear in her wide eyes.
Opened her mouth like she was getting ready to say something.
Blood trickled out of her lips.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Hayden held on tightly to Miriam and didn’t have a clue about anything going on around him.
The darkness was thick. He could still hear bullets, but they didn’t seem relevant anymore. They didn’t seem to matter.
Even the looming deadline to reach the extraction part didn’t seem to matter anymore.
The only thing that mattered was in his arms.
Bleeding from her stomach. From her chest. From her mouth.
Miriam.
“Please, Miriam,” Hayden said, pulling her closer. “Please hold on. Please.”
He could feel Amy tugging on his sleeve. He was vaguely aware of her telling him that they had to move, that they had to get out of here and to the extraction point, or at least just away from Gary’s people for now.
But none of that mattered.
Everything that mattered rested here in Hayden’s arms.
Another person he’d loved. Another person he’d cared about. Another person he’d put his faith in—one of the few people he’d actually managed to put his faith in, in his entire life.
Gone, just like the rest.
But no. That wasn’t true. Miriam was still alive. He could still help her. This wasn’t over. There was something he could do for her. There had to be.
“We—we need to lift her out of here,” Hayden said. He started to lift Miriam’s body but realised he was too weak himself to carry her.
Amy shook her head. “We can’t.”
“Amy, we have to!”
He hadn’t intended to shout. Especially not with Gary’s people closing in on his position. But he couldn’t help it.
The last thing he cared about was fading away.
The last person he truly wanted to protect was dying.
And there was nothing he could do to ease their pain.
“Lift her, Amy.”
“She’s too heavy.”
“We can’t just—just leave her here!”
“The people,” Amy said. “The bad people after us. They… they’ve gone. I think they’ve gone to the… to the extraction place.”
Hayden looked over the top of the car. The last thing he knew, Gary’s people had been firing bullets towards him. He was convinced they were still heading his way.
But they’d run on. For some reason, they’d run on.
Part of Hayden wondered if maybe it was because they hadn’t seen him. That he’d been hiding well enough.
But another part deep down knew exactly why they’d run on.
Gary swore he’d make Hayden suffer. He’d enjoy watching Miriam die; having his heart ripped out once again.
And he was winning.
He was absolutely…
Hayden looked down at Miriam. He saw her lips moving. Saw her coughing, spluttering.
A spark of hope ignited inside. Even though he could hear groans approaching, see silhouettes edging closer in the corners of his eyes, he crouched down and put his hand around the back of Miriam’s head. “It’s okay,” he said. “I’ve—I’ve got you. I’m here for you. And I swear I’m not letting you go.”
Miriam coughed a little more. Some of the specks of blood splattered onto Hayden’s face. Her eyes drifted, like she wasn’t completely conscious or aware of her surroundings.
“You don’t give up. Not for anything, okay? Please, Miriam. Just… Just please don’t leave me.”
Hayden felt the tears burning in his eyes. And as he crouched there by the side of the car, infected approaching in the moonlit darkness, he felt just like he’d felt when he said goodbye to Mum. When he’d said goodbye to Sarah and everyone else he’d said goodbye to.
He didn’t want to believe this was a goodbye. Didn’t want to accept it was a goodbye.
But it sure as hell felt like one.
He felt a hand touch his face. Cold, shaky.
But alive.
He looked around. Saw Miriam was the one reaching her hand out, holding onto him.
She looked right into his eyes, lucidity returning to her gaze. She smiled.
“Miriam I’m not going to let you go,” Hayden said. “I’m just… I can’t let you go. I can’t.”
“You… You can’t give up,” Miriam said, her voice raspy and strained.
“I won’t. I won’t give up. I—”
“On… on Amy. You can’t… you can’t give up.”
She stroked his face. And he understood what Miriam was saying to him then. What she was asking of him.
She was asking him not to give up on Amy.
But she wasn’t saying a thing about herself.
“I need you,” Hayden said. “I—I need you, Miriam.”
Miriam smiled. She opened her mouth like she was preparing to say something.
Amy shuffled around. “They’re coming. The infected. We’ve got to go.”
“I need you,” Hayden said, staring deeply into Miriam’s eyes.
He saw them looking at them, filled with the same life they’d always had. He remembered the first time he’d heard her voice. Locked away in Salvation prison. The way she’d convinced him to kill a guard before he’d even seen her face.
The way she’d given him a choice. A choice to go with her. A choice to break free of the pitiful excuse of an existence he’d been living up to that point and into a life of meaning; a life that mattered.
He’d lived that life. He’d been through the ups and downs of it, but one thing was for sure.
If it wasn’t for Miriam, he wouldn’t be the man he was right now.
If it wasn’t for Miriam, he wouldn’t be the man he had to be.
“I love you,” Hayden said. “I—I love you.”
Miriam’s eyes had already faded.
Her head bobbed to one side.
She let out her last breath, and her body went still.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Gary sat aboard the helicopter and felt the rotors above start to spin.
He couldn’t help smiling. Couldn’t help grinning as he sat there and waited to depart. He stared out into the darkness. Stared out into the world he was leaving behind. The world he’d lived in for so long—for too long.
He was one of the lucky ones. One of the ones who’d made it to this extraction point.
And Hayden McCall wasn’t. That was the main thing.
Hayden was staying behind because he belonged to this world. He was a monster.
He looked around the extraction point outside. Still couldn’t believe quite how organised a job this was. There were lots of helicopters. Eight, nine, maybe more. The sound of their rotors spinning was deafening, but the most beautiful kind of deafening. Barricades had been erected around the Dunstable Downs Golf Club, where armed guards dressed in black stood, shot down every infected that drifted into their view. They were UN. There was no doubting they were UN. They had the badges. They had the damned look in their eyes of people who hadn’t been exposed to the horrors Gary and the rest of the people who’d spent all these months living in this awful world did.
But they were leaving now. They were leaving and they were starting again. Starting from scratch.
Didn’t matter what’d happened in this world now. All that mattered was a new start. A fresh start.
It was just nice to see Hayden wasn’t going to be around to enjoy that same fresh start.
He looked around his helicopter. Saw the malnourished faces of fellow humans. He saw a woman with narrow cheekbones, with a scar on her forehead. She nodded at him, smiled. He smiled back. But there was an emptiness in her eyes. Emptiness in the way she looked
at him. And he knew he’d be looking right back at her with a similar emptiness.
Living in this world for so long left a hole inside. Right in the middle of your damned chest.
It took everything you thought you knew away. Snatched it, right from the midst of your grip.
And it pissed all over it.
They were memories Gary couldn’t allow to resurface. Things he’d been forced to do that he couldn’t accept.
He leaned back against the chair and thought back to the people he’d fought with. The people he’d led, albeit for a short time. He’d enjoyed it. Enjoyed the way they made him feel. Like he was responsible for something. Like he was important. Hell, it’d felt good. No doubt about that.
But the closer he’d got to the extraction point, the more he realised he couldn’t have those people with him.
Because they knew what he was. They knew what the Gary of this world was capable of.
He couldn’t live in the company of people like that.
He thought about the mass of bodies he’d left lying a few miles behind. The women. The boys, barely old enough to call men. He’d shot them, one by one. Stabbed a few of them. They could’ve fought back. Could’ve shot him in return.
But he’d seen the hope in their eyes. The hope that this was all just some kind of mistake. Some kind of disastrous mistake.
They’d wanted to believe Gary was their saviour. And he’d wanted to be that person too, he really had.
But there was no room for them coexisting in the next world.
No room at all.
So he’d put them to sleep. Put all the memories of the past to sleep, one by one.
He smelled the engine fuel getting stronger. He knew they couldn’t be long before take-off now. He knew there was no chance Hayden was getting here on time. He’d been so transfixed staring into the eyes of his dying bitch that there’s no way he’d be coming back.
But still, Gary looked out into the darkness. Looked beyond the barriers, beyond the UN troops with guns.