Infection Z

by Ryan Casey

  Of what he’d done to Terry.

  He reached for his arms. And then he moved away from his arms and he reached for his legs, which were covered in baggy blue jeans. He wasn’t sure what he was planning. Just that he had to get Terry out of the lounge. Somehow, he had to get Terry’s body somewhere.

  He held his breath. Tried to convince himself he had this in order as he lowered his hands towards Terry’s legs, got closer and closer to grabbing them …

  “Fuck.”

  He fell back to his knees beside Terry. The blood that had stained the carpet seeped through the knees of his jeans.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

  He squeezed his eyes together and he felt warm tears running down his cheeks. He wasn’t a killer. He hadn’t even been in a fight. So he definitely wasn’t going to hide a body and evade the police.

  He had to do the right thing. He had to call them. Explain what he’d seen. Explain what happened.

  But prison. The thought of prison. He wasn’t cut out for a place like that. The men in there, they’d eat him alive …

  But they’d eat him alive for much, much longer if he tried to flee the scene of a crime.

  He opened his eyes and took a few more deep breaths, but all these damned breaths were just making him dizzy.

  He had to do the right thing. Call the police. Get this done with. Don’t even think about an alternative.

  He looked away from Terry’s dented skull and he grabbed his phone from the glass table at his side.

  He hovered his fingers over the keypad. Hit those three numbers, 999, convinced that it couldn’t possibly still be down.

  There was a silence on the other end of the line. Not even a message was playing anymore.

  “He-hello?” Hayden muttered.

  More silence. Like someone else was on the other end but wasn’t responding.

  A dead line.

  He rubbed his bloody hand against the side of his face, the tears from his cheeks dampening the congealed blood between his fingers.

  “I … I’ve done something—something bad,” he said. “Please. I’ve done something bad.”

  Nothing but silence.

  Nothing.

  He lowered his phone and cancelled the call. He couldn’t understand it. There had to be a problem with his phone. The emergency services couldn’t still be engaged. Besides, he’d heard a few sirens in the last half hour. It had to be a problem his end.

  He closed the Call window and went onto his internet app. He keyed in “BBC News” with his quivering thumb, got it wrong the first two times, then finally hit the jackpot on the third.

  What he saw made his insides tense up.

  The BBC site, which was usually filled with local and regional news, as well as sport, weather, and a television guide, had been replaced by a placeholder.

  There was a BBC logo in big black letters. And then, underneath, there were ten words in bold black type, and various languages.

  Ten words that Hayden had to blink at a few times to verify he wasn’t just seeing things.

  But they were there. They were real. So, so real.

  Please stay in your homes and wait for safe evacuation.

  Ten words, and that was all.

  Somewhere in the distance, Hayden heard a siren. And then the lounge around him seemed to open up, somewhat.

  The man on the street being butchered. And then Terry breaking into his house and trying to bite him. The emergency services being uncontactable, and the BBC website being filled with a placeholder.

  Something big had happened.

  Something terrifying.

  Hayden was about to call Clarice to check that she was okay—and that Mum and Dad were okay—when he heard movement on the floor beside him.

  He froze. Dread took over him.

  Something was moving on the carpet.

  Something big.

  Heavy.

  He turned his neck around slowly in Terry’s direction.

  Held his breath.

  He couldn’t be alive. He couldn’t possibly be …

  Hayden’s mind went blank, and the phone dropped from his hand.

  Terry’s hands were moving. And not in a rigor mortis way, either. His long, unwashed fingernails were digging into the carpet. His forearms and biceps were tensing as he tried to drag himself towards Hayden. His legs were moving along the carpet like a baby trying to master the art of the crawl.

  Hayden backed up to the sofa. He couldn’t understand. Terry’s head was caved in. He’d bled out all over the floor. He couldn’t be alive. He had to be dead.

  And yet …

  He grabbed his phone. Stood up. Jogged to the other side of the room as Terry’s head-crushed body got onto its knees and lifted itself to its feet.

  He had to get out of here. He had to get away.

  He grabbed the handle of the hallway door. Yanked it open. Threw himself around the staircase.

  He stopped when he saw the front door swing open.

  Four people clambered their way inside.

  One of them snarled at Hayden. His intestines and innards were hanging out of his stomach. There was a huge chunk chewed off his left calf, which was stripped right to the bone, the stringy torn Achilles dangling to the floor.

  It was the bald man who’d been butchered outside on the road.

  And he was coming up the stairs with his new friends.

  Six

  Hayden didn’t have time to think about what to do next when he saw the four blood-drenched people running up his stairs.

  He swung around and threw himself back into his lounge.

  He slammed the door behind him as the footsteps got louder, as the psychotic fuckers’ throaty shouts got louder.

  He turned around and readied himself to run to the bathroom and lock himself inside when he saw Terry walking towards him.

  Terry’s head was completely caved in on one side from where Hayden had repeatedly hit him where he’d already been bitten. Hayden could only see one of his grey, distant eyes, the other one lost somewhere in the mush that was the left side of his face. His head was hanging off his neck and onto his right shoulder, the few muscles and tendons that hadn’t been torn away by whatever barely keeping it in place.

  He was walking towards Hayden.

  More psychos were scrambling up the stairs towards Hayden.

  He didn’t have a choice.

  He had to run.

  He had to get away.

  He battled through the adrenaline freezing his body and he ran to Terry’s left. Even though the bulk of Terry’s head had been destroyed, he reached out for Hayden as he passed, his long, soily fingernails scratching the top of his grey v neck T-shirt. It was like he still knew where Hayden was, even though he wasn’t looking directly at him.

  This wasn’t real. This had to be some kind of fucking nightmare.

  No. It was real. A walking fucking nightmare.

  Hayden dodged Terry’s grasps and reached the bottom of the stairs. There was only one entrance and exit to this flat, and that was down the stairs that the other homicidal nut jobs were battling their way up.

  He could hear their footsteps getting closer.

  Their flailing arms banging against the walls.

  Their gasps getting louder, more animalistic …

  He looked away from the approaching Terry and ran up the stairs, skipping a step to get up there quicker.

  He had to lock himself in the bathroom.

  Block up the door …

  But then what?

  His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the metal hallway handle rattling and then the door creaking open.

  He didn’t want to look at the four psychos coming out of the hallway, but reactions were a cruel thing.

  He looked around as he reached the middle of the staircase and his heart dropped all over again.

  The bald man that had been savaged on the road.

  The old man with no teeth, bite marks in his head.

>   The blonde woman with bloody wounds just above her breasts, and pieces of flesh wedged between her teeth.

  A ginger man with one arm dangling on by a single strand of skin or muscle.

  Hayden would’ve thrown up if he’d had the time.

  Instead, he turned back around and jogged up the stairs.

  He listened to the sounds of the gasping getting closer as he bolted up the stairs. Usually, running up these stairs flew by. But he was trapped in the moment. Every move he made felt like it lasted an eternity.

  Three steps left.

  Two steps left …

  And then he felt something sharp against his right foot and he flew flat onto his face.

  The collision with the carpet stung even more than the collision in the lounge earlier. His right foot burned with pain. He looked down and saw wedges of glass.

  Shit. A bottle of booze. He’d broken a bottle of booze in the bathroom last night and forgotten to clean the fucker up.

  He heard the cries right at the bottom of the stairs and he struggled through the searing pain in his foot and struggled to the top of the stairs.

  He could hear the groans getting closer, footsteps creaking against the bottom steps. He wanted to look back to see how far away they were, how long he had left, but he couldn’t.

  He just had to keep climbing the steps.

  Just had to keep focused.

  Keep on going.

  He reached the top step, the sharp pain still searing through his right foot, and he threw himself towards the ajar bathroom door.

  He clambered inside onto the cold white tiles, grabbed the loose brass handle of the door.

  He couldn’t help but glance at the oncoming crowd of five gasping psychopaths all climbing over each other; all dead-eyed, all halfway up the stairs.

  He slammed the flimsy door shut and clicked the lock across. He felt a degree of safety for a moment, but then he heard the bangs against the door and saw it rattling on its hinges and he knew he didn’t have long to survive in here.

  He stared at the door as it shook on its hinges. It was built of cheap wood that would surely break in a matter of minutes, if not seconds. He wasn’t safe in this bathroom. He had to find some place to hide. Or find a weapon.

  He looked to his left. A cabinet where he kept his clean towels and winter coats by the boiler. He could hide in there. Hide and wait for the psychos to lose interest and move on.

  A thump at the door.

  The sound of wood cracking.

  He looked around the bathroom, tears streaming down his cheeks. He looked for a weapon of some kind. A razor blade? Too weak. The top of the toilet bowl? Too cumbersome. A mirror? Too damned unlucky.

  Another thump at the door.

  Something cracked and jingled as it hit the floor.

  Hayden looked at the tiles in front of the bathroom door and he saw that the little silver lock had fallen off completely.

  The door shook and wobbled on its hinges.

  All it took was for one of the psychos to figure out what they’d done.

  Lower the handle.

  He couldn’t stay in here.

  He swung around and grabbed the metal bar at the top of the Velux window. He pulled it down with all the force he had inside him, so much so that it was wide open, and a gust of cold January air wafted inside.

  “Fucking hell. Fucking hell.”

  He pulled himself out of the Velux window and onto the roof of his three-floor flat. He wasn’t sure what the hell he was doing, only that being out here on the roof was a better plan than staying inside the bathroom and being torn to pieces by psychopaths.

  He turned around and pushed on the top of the window when he saw the bathroom door swing open.

  The psychos tumbled into the bathroom. The bald man came in first, looked around with his manic, dead eyes.

  But it was the blonde woman who saw Hayden first.

  She bustled towards the window, let out a deep gasp like she was possessed by some demon, and held out her sharp, blue-painted nails in Hayden’s direction.

  Hayden slammed the window down as hard as he could.

  Slammed it so hard that it cracked against the woman’s forearm.

  But she grabbed his T-shirt and pulled him back towards the bathroom with impossible strength.

  Hayden struggled to keep his balance on the sloping roof of his flat block. Pieces of the roof were tumbling away under his clumsy movement. He slammed the window down on the woman’s forearm again.

  And then he slammed it again and again until it was completely bent and twisted.

  He pushed her arm back, but the other three psychos were right at the window now, all reaching for Hayden, all scrambling to climb on top of one another and get to him first.

  Hayden slid away a little. Slid further down the roof so he was at a point of no return. He looked at the psychos pulling themselves through the window.

  And then he looked behind at the parking area below.

  He listened to the throaty gasps of the psychos and he remembered what he’d seen on the road at the front. The bald man being torn to pieces, squealing like a pig.

  And now attacking him.

  He looked back at the psychos. Saw them pushing the window further open. Saw them blocking his way back into the flat completely.

  He slid right to the edge of his flat. And when he got there and felt the cold air underneath his bare feet, he thought about his dad and his mum and his sister, Clarice.

  He hoped they were okay. He prayed to God they were okay.

  But most of all, he wished they were here to help him. To bail him out, like Mum always did when he was in a bad situation, no matter how many harsh words or heated exchanges they’d had.

  “I’m sorry,” he sobbed, his stomach tingling and adrenaline coursing through his body. “Please. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  He closed his eyes.

  Edged further over the side of the flat.

  He didn’t want to see how far down the fall was.

  He didn’t want to know when he hit the ground.

  He just knew he had to if he was to stand any chance at survival.

  He waited until the glass of the Velux window cracked.

  And then he took in a deep breath of the freezing cold air, and he slid off the side of his flat.

  Seven

  When Hayden felt the concrete slam against his bare feet, he had a horrible vision of breaking his legs and being left in the car park for the psychos to feast on.

  But he didn’t feel anything crack. He felt a sharp pain sear through his sliced right foot and up to his hips, and he tumbled onto his side, but he swore he didn’t hear a crack.

  He felt lightheaded. Dizzy. He could taste blood in his mouth. But he was out of his flat. That was the main thing.

  He’d escaped.

  He rolled onto his back as aching pain throbbed through every inch of his body. He looked up at where he’d fallen from. It was a good eight metres, so he was lucky if he hadn’t broken anything. But he’d broken his ankle kicking the ball in the yard as a kid, and he remembered just how painful it’d been. He also remembered how terrified of going to hospital he was, for fear that somehow, he might end up like his older sister: dead.

  He could hear the psychos banging against the Velux windows. Their throaty gasps were getting louder, angrier. Soon, they’d find a way out, and if they stayed in their frenzy, they’d tumble down the roof of the flat and crash to the ground beside Hayden.

  He couldn’t wait around for that to happen.

  He held his breath and pulled himself to his feet. His legs ached, his foot stung, his arms and back and neck cramped with the impact of the fall.

  But he was okay. He was on his feet. That was something.

  He staggered around the back of the flat blocks and towards the car park exit. His mind raced with all kinds of thoughts and theories, none of them quite making sense. What were the psychopaths? Why were they trying to kill him? Why were
they eating people? Why were they alive when they had such obviously fatal wounds? How were they possible?

  But as Hayden walked out of the road behind his flat, it was the other, more personal questions that took precedence in his mind.

  What was he going to do?

  How was he going to survive without the confines of his home?

  Who was going to help him?

  He stuck his right hand in his jeans pockets and pulled out his phone. Tears streamed down his cheeks, and he couldn’t stop his lips from quivering. He needed help. Whenever he’d been in times of crisis in his life, he’d always got help. Whether it be help from the state with his benefits, help from his mum when money ran low, help from the doctors with his anti-depressants, or simply help from online communities when he wasn’t sure how to beat a boss on a video game. He’d always had help. Always.

  But right now, he felt so alone.

  He went to tap on his phone screen when he saw it was cracked.

  Loose pieces of glass dangled from the edge of his shiny white iPhone. The screen flickered, half of it stuck on the Home screen like it was still working, the other half blacked out and crackling with static.

  “Fuck. Please. Please.”

  He swiped at the phone, tapped at all different areas of the screen, but it was no use.

  His phone was fucked.

  He slid his phone back into his jeans pocket, a loose fragment of glass crumbling away and falling to the floor. He used his phone to connect with so many people. Shit—since he’d moved out after finishing uni, his phone was his entire existence. He lived through Facebook. Showed people how popular he was through it, how witty and successful.

  And every now and then, one of his posts got a “Like,” and that made him feel even more witty and popular and successful, as he sat back with a glass of hard booze in hand and played on his video games.

  He reached the opening of the car park and looked down both sides of Wilmslow Road. To the left, the street was completely empty, like it usually was at this time on a Saturday morning. Or at least, like Hayden assumed it was—he wasn’t so privy to being out of bed this time on a weekend. What was the point?

  He looked to the right and he saw something that made him stagger in the opposite direction.