by Casey, Ryan
The lower half of the infected that he’d just killed.
“These keys,” she said, holding a fob of keys. “They were—they were in its hand.”
Hayden stood. He walked over to the side of the car. Took the keys from Amy. “Please be legit. Please, please be fucking legit.”
He hovered his finger over the key fob.
Held his breath.
And then he pressed down.
The door clicked. Hayden’s shoulders loosened.
“Yes, yes, yes,” he said.
He cleared the remains of the dead man out of the Land Rover. Climbed inside. His hands fizzled with anticipation, with adrenaline.
“Is it good?” Amy asked.
“If it has petrol, it’s good. Let’s hope the gods are shining down on us today.”
“Isn’t it angels that shine?”
“Gods, angels. Whatever. We need something. That’s the main thing.”
He put the key in to start up the car.
Closed his eyes, prayed to everyone he’d lost.
And then he turned the key.
At first, Hayden heard the engine splutter, and his stomach sank. Fuck. They’d found a car, but there was no petrol. They’d have to get some petrol and bring enough to the car to run it until they reached a petrol station or some supply place at least.
But that would eat into their time. And they didn’t have a lot of time. They didn’t have a lot at all.
“Is it working?”
Hayden sighed. He turned the key again. “Doesn’t look like…”
This time, the engine didn’t splutter.
The Land Rover came to life.
Hayden sat there for a few seconds. Sat there, his eyes opened now, startled by the beautiful music that was the Land Rover’s engine.
“We did it,” he said.
Amy cheered. A wide smile spread across her face. She looked the happiest Hayden had seen her since all the chaos went down yesterday. Strong kid. A survivor, the kind of which the new world needed.
He put his hands on the steering wheel. Looked at the road ahead. The petrol gauge wasn’t showing full, but there was enough to get by on. Enough to get them close to the extraction point at least.
He hoped.
“We’re doing this,” he said. “We’re… we’re really doing this.”
He put his foot on the gas.
Drove.
Drove, without trouble, without disruption.
Until 5.05, anyway.
When the clock hit 5.05, Hayden wished he hadn’t got so optimistic so soon.
When he saw the crowd of infected in the distance.
A crowd of them, at least one-hundred thick.
All of them walking towards him.
Chapter Forty-Two
“Close your eyes, Amy.”
“But I don’t want to—”
“Please. Please just… just close your eyes.”
Hayden stared ahead at the oncoming horde of infected. The rising shone from behind them, illuminating them, making them look somewhat devil-like. Beyond them, Hayden couldn’t see the road ahead. He knew the next extraction point was some way in that direction, approximately half an hour from here.
But these infected were going to slow down progress.
If he even managed to get the car past them at all.
They only had twenty-five minutes left.
He listened to the engine rumbling. Outside, the groans were getting louder, the footsteps even more prominent. He gripped the steering wheel with his clammy hands, the seat below him vibrating with the slightest movement of the engine.
He couldn’t just stay put. He couldn’t just waste petrol.
He had to move.
As reckless as it was, he had to move.
He could smell the exhaust fumes mixed with that recognisable tang of rot. He knew soon it would surround it. That the smell would turn into taste. And it wasn’t a good thought. It was a damned horrible thought.
But he had to get Amy to safety.
He had to get her to that extraction point.
Everything depended on it.
He looked over his shoulder. Looked through the back window. Part of him thought about just turning back. Heading back to New Britain once again.
But it was too late for that now. Besides, he knew it was the wrong decision. Crawling back there always had been the wrong fucking decision.
No. There was only one direction he was heading now.
Forwards.
He held his breath and lifted the handbrake.
“Keep your eyes closed. And hold on. Please.”
He started to accelerate slowly. He didn’t want to ram so hard into the infected that they smashed through the glass. He just wanted to get close enough that he could knock them down with the front of the car. Maybe that in itself was a mad ambition. Maybe it was impossible.
There was only one way to find out.
He watched as the infected got closer. His mind started to race. He heard voices in his head telling him he was being stupid, that this was suicide.
“Amy, if anything happens to me and you spot a gap, you run, okay?”
“With my eyes closed?”
“I…”
The kid had a fair point there.
“Just stay aware. Right?”
When Hayden glanced to his left, he saw that Amy’s eyes weren’t closed at all.
They were staring into the abyss, just like him.
He saw the infected rapidly get closer. They were just metres away now. He braced himself for the impact of the first one against the front of the car. He hoped he’d made the right call. Hoped this car was tough enough to take it.
Hoped it wasn’t going to just cut out again as it had before.
The first of the infected smacked into the front of the car.
Hayden bit his lip. Part of him—instinct—made him want to stop and reverse. But he forced himself to keep his foot down. To keep on pressing down on the accelerator.
The sunlight drifted as the infected surrounded the car, blocked the light.
Their smell seeped in through the air vents.
Their starved cries were deafening, insanity-inducing.
“You okay?” Hayden shouted, as he kept on moving slowly but steadily through the infected.
He looked around and saw that Amy’s eyes were closed. Her hands were over her ears. Just inches to her left, a hungry-looking infected snapped its teeth against the glass, the side of the car slowly peeling away the loose, decaying skin from its face.
Hayden looked back ahead. He listened to the hands and the legs kick out at the car. It felt like he’d been driving through these fuckers forever. Like he was in one of those automated car washes, only this was never-ending—and a shitload more intense.
But he kept his breathing steady. He kept his foot steady on the accelerator.
He knew he couldn’t be far from making his way through these monsters.
He knew he couldn’t be far from—
He heard a crack. A crack, over on the left of the car.
He turned. Looked back at the window beside Amy.
When he saw the glass splitting, his stomach sank. Every muscle in his body loosened. He saw flashes of what was going to happen. Of the infected breaking their way inside. Of them ripping Amy’s flesh apart.
“Get back!” he shouted.
He grabbed Amy’s shoulder.
Pulled her out of the passenger seat.
The glass caved in.
Hayden kept his foot on the accelerator but he felt the car jolting forward. He couldn’t keep control, not now six of those things were cramming their way inside through the window.
With one hand on the wheel, Hayden lifted his pistol. He fired into the necks of three of them. They just flopped down, dangled on, still shaking, still desperate to get inside.
And when they did fall from the side of the window, more of the infected just replaced them.
Hayden fi
red more bullets into them. He looked ahead. Still no sign of light. Still no sign of an end to this…
He heard another crack.
This time, it was to his right.
He looked at the window beside him and he saw the glass splitting.
He froze.
This was over.
They were getting inside.
They were going to crush them then eat them alive.
There was only one thing to do. One thing to try. It was risky. It might kill them. But if they didn’t try it, they were going to die anyway.
“Hold this,” Hayden said, putting the gun in Amy’s hand. “And use it if you have to.”
She looked down at the gun, perplexed, terror in her eyes.
Hayden listened to the cracking glass and he faced forward. Faced the wall of infected trying to smash their way in through the front windscreen.
He leaned back.
Held his breath.
“You stay safe,” he said.
Then he rammed his foot down on the accelerator.
Rammed it down. Hard.
He felt himself jolt backwards. And he heard the windscreen in front of him cracking too, splitting open as piles of dead weight cracked against it.
But he kept on pushing his foot down.
Kept on going, just determined to get out of this crowd, just eager to get out of the clutches of this army of the dead.
He saw Annabelle in his mind. Saw Martha. Saw Sarah, and Clarice, and everyone he’d lost.
He was keeping Amy safe.
No matter what it took, he was keeping Amy safe.
He heard the windscreen split. Felt glass hit his face.
And then he saw light up ahead.
Light beyond the infected.
His eyes widened. Hope filled his chest.
They were through. They were doing this. They were—
He didn’t think for much longer.
An infected hand grabbed the steering wheel.
The car spun to the right.
Towards a wall.
“Hold on—” Hayden started.
He didn’t finish.
The car crashed into the wall.
Silence followed.
Chapter Forty-Three
Hayden knew he should’ve been dead.
Amy should’ve been dead, too.
But the very fact that he was having those thoughts painted a very different picture.
The sun was fully visible up ahead now. It teased another warm autumn day, as chilly and feverish as Hayden felt. Didn’t help that he’d just crashed the car into a wall. That he’d just been surrounded by undead, and every window had caved in.
But he was alive.
He was alive, Amy was beside him, and he was driving.
It was 5.15.
He stared at the buildings ahead. His foot was right down on the accelerator now. He knew he didn’t have long to get to the extraction point. He tried not to speak. Tried not to do anything that could distract him from the one thing he had to do—his one sole remaining mission.
Getting to that extraction point.
Getting Amy to safety.
He looked around at Amy. Her head was cut. Her face was bruised. She was probably concussed. But she was alive. She was alive and she was sat up in her seat, staring out of the windows as the wind brushed through her dark hair.
“You’ve been brave,” Hayden said. “Really… really brave.”
She looked around at him. Narrowed her eyes. “I’ve had to be.”
She spoke with a maturity beyond her years. And Hayden figured that was because she was mature beyond her years. Every kid in this world had to grow up. They were forced to grow up simply to survive.
But Amy had done more than just survive.
She’d restored Hayden’s hope. She’d given him reason to live. Reason to fight. Even after Miriam passed away in his arms.
“Your mum,” Hayden said, taking a rare moment to speak despite his concentration on the road ahead. “She was a good woman. She’d be proud of you if she could see you right now.”
Amy nodded. She looked back out of the window. Hayden saw her cheeks flushing slightly at the mere mention of her mum. It had to be so raw, only a day ago she’d watched her die. Had her snatched away from her. “I know,” she said.
“She wanted me to do this. To… to get you to safety.”
“Yeah.”
Hayden looked back ahead. The buildings were getting nearer. There were no signs of helicopters. No signs of any extraction point. “How’re you… how’re you coping? You holding up okay?” He never had been good speaking to kids. Found it hard to change his language to adapt to their ways. Good job Amy seemed pretty intelligent.
“I’m just glad you’re here,” she said.
Hayden felt a lump in his throat right then. He felt his eyes start to sting. He knew he should tell her. That he should be honest with her. Straight with her. He just didn’t want her to go through any more pain. He wondered if she understood what was happening to him. Not just a fear it was happening, but a certainty now, his arm stinging, his fingers stinging.
He wondered if he should tell her. If he should just open up and lay it out to her right now.
And then he heard a noise overhead.
As much as he wanted to keep on powering towards the buildings in the distance, Hayden couldn’t help slowing down. Leaning out of the car window. Looking up into the sky.
“What is it?” Amy asked.
Hayden felt tears slipping down his cheeks. He felt a smile tug the corners of his mouth. “Look,” he said.
He knew Amy had looked out of the window and seen what he’d seen when he heard her laugh. Heard her laugh for the first time in forever.
Up above, drifting towards him, there were helicopters. Ten of them at least. Their rotors were so loud that he could feel them reverberating in his chest.
“We did it,” Amy said. “We—we made it!”
Hayden smiled. He smiled as he looked up at those helicopters. There was tension inside him still. Because he knew Gary had killed his people. He knew that, somewhere, he’d be on board one of those choppers.
And after everything that’d happened, that didn’t sit right with Hayden.
“Come on,” he said, sitting back inside the car. He watched as the helicopters moved right overhead, then he rammed his horn. Amy leaned out of the window and waved at them, shouting up at them as they drifted lower and lower, the wind from their rotors ruffling her hair.
Hayden smiled.
He smiled as he sat there, Amy by his side.
He was almost there.
He was almost home.
He looked down at his arm. Saw the blood seeping through his sleeve.
And then he saw the patches of blood on the steering wheel. The pale colour of his skin.
Felt the sharpness of the snapped tooth in his mouth.
He tasted the sickliness in the back of his throat. Just for a moment, he gave himself a second to understand. To realise and accept what was happening.
Then he took a deep breath.
Honked on the horn once again.
Powered on towards the extraction point.
Towards the final stretch.
Nothing was getting in their way this time. Nothing.
If only that were true.
Chapter Forty-Four
Everything seemed to be going okay until Gary saw the car driving beneath him.
He looked down out of the side of the helicopter. In the glow of the early morning sun, he saw a Land Rover powering its way onwards, right towards the position they were heading—the final extraction point. When he squinted, he swore he could see somebody leaning out of the passenger window, waving up.
“They’re cutting it close,” Shirley, the woman opposite him, said.
Gary licked his dry lips. He forced a smile. He had to keep up the Stefan illusion. He couldn’t go looking all panicked and flustered already. “A bit too clos
e.”
“I hope they make it,” Shirley continued.
Gary cleared his throat. “Me too.”
As he stared down at that Land Rover, a part of him wondered: what if? What if it was Hayden? What if somehow Hayden had made it all this way?
No. That was impossible. No way he’d mustered up the courage to make it this far. No way he’d grown the balls to get to this position as quickly as he had.
He had to relax. He had to chill out.
But a part of him hoped that the Land Rover wouldn’t make it to the extraction point.
There were enough people aboard this UN extraction as it was.
“They’d better be up for a fight if they wanna make it,” a man called Stu said.
Gary didn’t know what he was talking about first, as he stared out of the window.
But then he saw what was up ahead. Saw what was between the Land Rover and the extraction point.
He smiled.
There was a wall. Not any kind of wall, but a wall of infected.
A wall of the dead.
“Poor souls,” Shirley said.
Gary felt himself smiling. He did his best to rid that smile from his face. Then he leaned back. Sat upright. “Yeah. Really gotta feel for them.”
“I mean, to get so close only to be…”
“It’s unlucky. We live in a cruel world. But not for long.”
Shirley tilted her head. “You never know. They might make it.”
“I’m not sure about that,” Gary said.
Shirley smiled. “We did. And we never thought we would. Right?”
Gary had to force another smile out of himself. As much as he found Shelley attractive, her insistence and faith in that Land Rover down there was starting to annoy him.
He had to ease his temper. Had to remind himself that the old Gary was dead. No, Gary was dead. He was Stefan. He was a new man.
“Right,” he said.
They flew over the top of the mass of infected.
Gary looked back out the window once more. Saw that Land Rover powering right towards the undead.
He felt the gun in his pocket. He’d kept it for safe-keeping. Just in case. Never knew what you might bump into. Who you might bump into.
He allowed himself a smile—just a momentary smile—then he went back to his new life all over again.