by Ryan Casey
Thick black smoke was pluming into the sky. A car was turned onto its roof; another car stuck into its side. But it wasn’t just any ordinary car. It was a police car.
Hayden stumbled away. He wondered how long this chaos had been going on. If a police car had crashed on the same street that these psychopaths were attacking, then there had to be some kind of serious attack.
But it seemed so weird that the police car was all on its own, unoccupied. And even weirder still was the lack of any siren or reaction from the surrounding houses on this quiet little street. It was usually a place of such natter and small talk—something which Hayden hated profusely, but did his best to come across as sociable and well-mannered. It was the kind of street where people gathered outside their doors if a fucking cat was in the road. Let alone an upturned car, a burning police car, and a shit-ton of hungry psychopaths.
Hayden kept on walking in the opposite direction to the car. His bare right foot hurt with every step, and the January cold sent shivers through his body. But he just had to keep going on. He wasn’t sure where to. He didn’t have a place outside his home. But he had to get to somewhere safe. Somewhere he could wait around until everything blew over, the psychos left his flat.
Then he’d just go back, lock his doors and drink himself into another self-imposed oblivion.
He kept his head up as he walked down the street. He looked at every window, every car, every little movement in the street ahead, whether it was a piece of discarded litter or some fallen leaves scraping along in the wind. He felt the blood encrusted in his palms and he thought back to his landlord, Terry. About what he’d done to him. About what he thought he’d done to him. He’d killed him. Attacked and killed him.
And yet, Terry was still alive.
Somehow, Terry was still alive.
Hayden heard a bang to his left. And then sirens in the distance on the main road to his right. Even further in the distance, he heard a dog howling and the faintest murmur of a scream.
He walked onto the pavement and headed up towards the little alleyway at the end of his row of flats. He just had to hide in there and wait for everything to pass by.
But the more he thought about the screams, the BBC website’s banner message, the impossible survival of Terry, the man being butchered in the street and then rising to his feet to attack Hayden …
He wasn’t sure how everything was going to pass by.
He stepped into the narrow confines between the two mossy fences. He walked down the piss-stenching alleyway, kept his head up. He didn’t want to hurt anyone. What he’d done to Terry, he wasn’t sure what had driven him to attack him. He’d always kept away from bullies or instigators, ever since his sister killed herself at the hands of her bullies.
But not because he was afraid of bullies. More because he was afraid of what he’d do to them if he let out all his built-up rage for the death of his sister on them.
Was that what he’d done to Terry?
In a brief moment, a brief slip of sanity and control, had he let his true self out?
He was about to step out of the alleyway when he saw two people standing at the opposite side.
He froze. He knew from looking at them right away there was something wrong.
The blood oozing down the white T-shirt of the blond man.
The glassy eyes of the dark-haired woman, completely naked.
The deep bite wounds on the man’s neck, in the middle of the woman’s chest.
Hayden stood completely still for a few seconds. He tried to figure out what to do. Tried to think of a rational way to get himself out of this situation.
Prayed that someone would come and bail him out, like they always did; like he could always rely on, all his life.
When the man gasped and blood pooled out of his mouth, Hayden spun around and started running as quick as his tender body would allow in the direction he’d come from.
And then he stopped again when he saw two more bloody, bitten people blocking his way out.
Approaching from both directions.
He was trapped.
Eight
Hayden watched the cannibalistic psychos approach from both directions of the narrow alleyway and no matter how much he wanted to get away, no matter how much he wanted to run, he couldn’t budge.
He listened to the sounds of their hungry, manic gasps and growls as they closed in on him. He could smell the sourness coming from their skin … a sourness that reminded him of the smell of his sister’s body when he saw her hanging from her top bunk.
The smell of death.
He tried to move down the alleyway in the direction he’d come from, but it was no use. Two psychos were coming his way. One of them was a woman dressed in police uniform, a large chunk bitten out of her right biceps. The other was an older man in a blood-soaked blue dressing gown who Hayden swore he recognised as one of his neighbours.
And from the other direction, two psychos became three, ran towards him, getting closer and closer …
And instead of running, instead of trying to fight his way out, all Hayden could do was hope. Pray. Pray for an intervention. Pray for someone to help him, like they always had. Pray for someone to dig him out of his problems at the last opportunity.
He prayed for his mum’s constant understanding.
His younger sister’s support.
His landlord’s lenience.
But he wasn’t getting any of that. Not right now.
He was fucked.
As the psychos got within a few metres, power-walking towards him, Hayden turned to the wooden fence on his left and clambered up it. He dragged himself up with his noodly arms. Now would’ve been a good time for some working out to come in handy, but video games and booze didn’t require much working out.
He clambered up to the top of the fence, the sounds of the psychos’ echoing cries closing in on him like a shark on its prey. He lifted his left leg up as splinters from the fence tore through his controller-hardened fingertips. He bit his lip, let salty tears spill down his face. Please help me. Someone help me. Please.
He went to pull up his right foot when he felt something grab hold of it.
One of the psychos below gripped tight hold of Hayden’s right ankle. It dragged it down so hard that Hayden felt like his leg was going to pop out of its socket. He tried to kick and pull back, but the grip didn’t seem to be loosening. The gasps and grunts of the psychos got closer, and soon more of them would grab hold of his leg, bite into it, tear it off and turn Hayden into one of them …
No. They weren’t zombies. Zombies were a thing of fiction. Stuff of movies and video games.
But maybe. Just maybe …
He pulled his leg once more. He caught a glimpse of three of the psychos closing in. He kept hold of the top of the fence. He couldn’t let go. He just had to hold on.
Hold on and think of his mum’s soft touch. Of his dead sister’s giggle.
Hold on and …
He heard a shout at the bottom of the alleyway.
“Get the fuck over the fence!”
The hand gripping Hayden’s right leg loosened. It took him a moment to properly acknowledge it, but when he did, he swung it back and clambered over the fence.
The psychos had turned their attention to the end of the alleyway to the left.
There was a woman standing there dressed in a black coat and blue jeans. She had dark hair and blue eyes.
Blue, live eyes.
“Do you have a fucking death wish? Over the fence and onto the road. Quick!”
She ran away from the entrance to the alleyway.
The psychos, all five of them, followed.
Hayden kept on clinging to the top of the fence like a cat to a tree branch. His heart pounded. Sweat and tears dribbled down his cheeks. He could feel the bruise where the psycho had gripped his right foot. He’d been so close. So close to death. So close to being butchered.
So close, until that woman answered his prayers.
>
Saved him.
He clambered around to the other side of the fence. He had to get onto the road and get to wherever she was. He wasn’t sure about it—he wasn’t sure he had the balls to face those homicidal psychos again—but she’d given him a chance. She’d given him hope.
He dropped down into the overgrown garden at the other side of the fence. His body wracked with the pain of another fall, another impact. Blood trickled out of the stab wound in his right foot, which was hurting even more, getting harder to look at.
He stumbled to his feet. The grass in this garden was up to his knees. There were cobwebs and spiders all over. At the edge of the overgrown garden, he could see a partly open gate, and beyond that, a white van, its engine rumbling away.
And then he saw the dark-haired woman. She clambered around the side of the van and threw herself into the front seat. “Wherever you are, you might wanna hurry!” she shouted.
Hayden took a step. He had to move. He didn’t know where she was going, and he didn’t like the idea of running from these psychos anymore, but he had to get to her.
He hurried over to the gate, got closer to the pavement, to the van.
He stopped when he saw what was on the street.
A dozen—maybe more—blood-soaked, bitten people were jogging down the road towards the front of the van. All of them had vacant, glassy eyes. All of them had wounds that should render them dead.
But they were alive.
And they were coming.
“Quick! We’re not staying here all fucking day!”
The woman’s voice echoed around Hayden’s head. He turned to the right and he saw more of the psychos approaching from the street in front of his flat. He could hear the psychos from the alleyway banging against the wooden fence, getting closer to the exit, closer to Hayden.
And then from the car park area, he saw Terry dragging himself along. His head had been crushed completely, presumably from jumping headfirst out of the window. His arms and legs were contorted in impossible positions, a snapped bone sticking out of his right leg.
But still, he kept on dragging himself along.
Kept on going, even though he was nothing but a bag of broken bones, of pierced flesh.
“Fuck this,” a man muttered from the van. “Sorry mate. You’re on your own.”
The engine of the van revved up.
Hayden looked back at his flat. He looked at the white doorway that he’d stepped through so many times. He looked at the front window of the lounge, where he’d spent so many happy nights laid out in front of the sofa with a joint and some trashy television for company. He saw the security of his Jobseekers Allowance, the comfort they gave him. He saw his cushy life.
The cushy life that was gone, now. The cushy life that had been destroyed by … by whatever the fuck this was.
The psychos emerged from the exit of the alleyway. They looked around with their distant eyes, and when they looked at Hayden—or through him—he just knew.
He took in a shaky deep breath.
He had to get away.
His home was gone.
His everything was gone.
He clenched his fists together as the psychos got closer from both directions.
He counted down from three.
And then he ran.
Ran towards the van, which was pulling away from the kerb.
Sprinted as fast as his sore foot allowed as the deafening, echoing cries of the psychos rattled around his head, and the cut in his foot got more and more painful.
“Please!” he shouted, as he chased the departing van. “Please don’t leave me. I … Please.”
He ran at the back doors. The psychos from the opposite direction were just a matter of metres away now. He was running right into a storm. Right into his death.
But running was all he could do now his home—his life—was gone.
“Please,” he sobbed.
He stared at the white doors of the moving van. In the wing mirrors of the van, he could see the psychos from the opposite direction closing in. He couldn’t run much further. His foot and his aching body wouldn’t allow it.
This was it. It was over.
He started to slow down, accept his fate, when the back door of the van opened up.
A bald man with a ginger beard held out a hand. “Quick! Grab my hand!”
Hayden thought about all the times he’d nearly given up. He thought about all the times he’d been willing to die, contemplated suicide, come so close to just ending it all.
But as the gasps of the psychos deafened him, he knew this wasn’t how he died. Not yet.
He ran faster.
Felt the fingers of the psychos scratching at his back.
Stretched his hand out to the man in the back of the van.
Prayed …
He closed his eyes and ran even faster. In his mind, he saw his home, his PS4, his comfort zone. He saw everything he was leaving behind.
He ran faster. Stretched his hand out even further.
Felt the mass of psychos surrounding him and readied himself for the sharp slicing of their teeth in his skin, his muscle, his bone…
And then he felt it.
Nine
“Jesus Christ, mate. You coulda shouted or summat.”
Hayden sat against the side wall of the white van. The van rumbled from side to side as the two people up front maneuvered it. His heart raced. His chest tightened. He couldn’t believe how close the psychos had been to grabbing him.
They’d been inches away … and then this bald man with a ginger beard had grabbed his hand and helped him into the back of the van.
The man was wearing a blue raincoat and torn grey jeans. He sipped on some water, then handed it over to Hayden. Then, he tutted and pulled the bottle away. “S’pose I should be more careful, infection spreading at the rate it is.”
The man’s language was alien to Hayden. He knew he must be on about the psychopaths running the streets. But an infection … it wasn’t like any infection he’d ever seen. Not in reality, anyway.
“What … what kind of—”
“Jesus, mate. Do you not watch the news or something?” He sniffed up. His nostrils twitched. “Nah. Course you don’t. Can smell the booze on you from ’ere. More of a raver, eh?”
Hayden didn’t argue with the guy. In fact, he quite liked that the guy assumed he was a partier more than a sole drinker. “I woke up this morning and … and I looked out my window and—”
“Yeah, yeah,” the guy said. “Same old story as all the slackers. Didn’t see the news about the riots. Didn’t get the bulletin about the infection. Just lazed around in bed and wasted the day. Lucky you weren’t killed. The joggers don’t seem too merciful. I’m Frank, by the way.”
He held out a dirty hand to Hayden, then pulled that back too. “Infection,” he said, shaking his head. “Keep on forgettin’.”
The van rumbled from side to side. It reeked of sweat back here, and the lack of windows was making Hayden feel sick and dizzy. Lack of windows, as well as the grubbiness from the lack of a morning shower.
But most of all, it was the lack of a home that hit Hayden the hardest. The lack of a place to belong.
“Not got a name yourself?”
Frank’s voice caught Hayden by surprise.
When Hayden looked at him, he realised that Frank was peering at him through narrowed eyes.
“Hayden,” he said. His voice felt trapped and forced, but then when did it ever feel any different around strangers? “Hayden McCall.”
“Hayden McCall. Unique name. I like it.”
Hayden let that one hang. He wasn’t sure how serious or jokey Frank was being. He wasn’t sure if now was the time or place for jokes.
“You really didn’t see the news?” Frank asked.
Hayden cast his mind back to the blurry memories of the night before. “Just … just something about a guy attacking a girl in Scotland, I think. Biting her—”
“Her f
ace, yeah. Sick fucker gnawed the poor young girl’s face off. Only eighteen, she was. Right pretty’un and all. Got a girlfriend?”
Hayden shook his head. He felt his cheeks heating up. “No.”
“You queer?”
His cheeks heated up some more. “No, I … I’m just single.”
“’Cause it’s cool if you’re queer,” Frank said. “Not that I’d be so happy if my son turned out queer. But I don’t discriminate or owt like that. Sarah’s alright, too. It’s Usman you wanna watch out for.”
“He’s … he’s homophobic?”
“Raving homosexual,” Frank said. He smirked. “Maybe you two could hook up.”
“I’m not gay—”
“What is it they say about two men cooped up at the end of the world?”
“I don’t …”
“Ahh, whatever. I’m just pullin’ your leg. Usman’s straight as a post. Truth is, you should be grateful. We pulled you outta some real shit back there. Doubt you’d still be alive right now if we hadn’t.”
Hayden nodded. As much as he struggled to read through Frank’s bizarre and awkward humour, he was right. He’d saved him. He’d bailed Hayden out, just like people had bailed him out all his adult life. “Thanks. I appreciate it. But what’s—”
“Usman knows a place we can hold up in until the military gets all this shit under control. Old petrol station of some uncle of his, summat like that. Shouldn’t take us too long to get there.”
Hayden’s sore head hit the back of the metal van wall, blurring his thoughts and theories even more. “You … you keep saying all this stuff about infection and … and the military. What’s happening?”
Frank looked at Hayden with wide, green eyes. “Shit. Keep on forgettin’ just how little you know about all this crap. Haven’t you figured it out yet?”
“I was … I was attacked in my own home by a bunch of psychopaths. I … I fought one of them off.” He omitted the part about bashing his landlord’s skull in. He didn’t want that one coming back to bite him when law and order returned. “They … their wounds. They were impossible. They can’t survive those kinds of wounds.”