by Ryan Casey
He spun around and ran for this yard as the zombies inched closer from both sides.
Come on. You can do this. You can do this …
He clambered into the yard and threw himself at the iron gate that led down the alleyway between two terraced houses.
His stomach sank.
This gate was padlocked shut, too.
He turned around. Behind him, he could see at least twenty zombies closing in. They were all heading in his direction. The only sounds he could hear for miles were their agonised, hungry cries.
And soon, they would get what they wanted.
Hayden turned back and rattled at the gate. He knew it was no use, but he had to try something. He’d come this far. He couldn’t just roll over and die, not now.
If his mum and dad and sister saw him, they’d be so proud.
For the first damned time in their lives, they’d be proud of their fighter, their boy.
Mum would be proud of her little soldier.
But no rallying thoughts were budging this gate.
Hayden gripped the rusty metal. He heard the footsteps and the groans entering the front yard, felt the zombies closing in. He imagined what their bony fingers would feel like when they stuck into his flesh. He imagined the sharpness of their broken-down teeth as they tore into his body.
He imagined the life drifting from his body and coming back as one of them.
And then he saw the drainpipe to his right and he got the only idea his idealess mind could think of.
He launched himself at it. Wrapped his hands around it. Looked up at it as it sprouted right to the top of the terraced house. Fuck. He’d always been shit at rope ladders and things like that, right from being a kid. Now was not the ideal time for a fucking crash course.
But it was all or nothing.
Try or die.
He put his shoes onto the sides of the drainpipe and struggled up it. He took deep breaths as he moved, and as the creaky plastic of the drainpipe shifted under his minimal weight. He tried to block out the sounds and the smells of the zombies, but he’d been trying that a long damned time to very little luck.
He kept on climbing. Kept on breathing. Kept on focusing.
He felt the zombies scraping at his right boot. He felt one of them grab his shoes, tug his leg down, wrap its teeth around the leather of the Doc Martens.
He swung his foot back into its bastard face again and again and again.
After the third kick, he was free.
He climbed some more. The crowd of twenty zombies was piled at his feet now. They were all stretching their rigid arms in his direction, all snapping their teeth, all looking on with hungry, desperate eyes.
Hayden turned away from them. He was dangling fifteen feet above them. One slip, and he was dead.
No, worse. One slip, and he’d be ravaged.
He kept his calm, kept his breathing deep and focused, kept his sweaty hands gripped tight to the wobbly drainpipe as he climbed higher up, further from the zombies, further from—
He heard something crack above him.
Plastic.
He held on tight. Kept as still as he could. Tried to understand.
And then he saw the top of the drainpipe split away from the brick wall.
Twenty-One
Hayden clung onto the drainpipe even as he watched it crumble away from the brick wall and move back over the mass of hungry zombies nipping at his heels below.
He couldn’t bring himself to let go. Because letting go meant certain death.
But holding on meant probable death.
He listened to the gasping, the grunting, the thrashing of the zombies below, as the drainpipe tumbled back even further, barely supporting his weight—which wasn’t even that much at nine stone five.
And then it stopped. On a forty-five degree angle, the drainpipe just stopped moving. Hayden looked down as he dangled above the mass of twenty-something zombies all reaching for him. They were still some way off. A few metres away from grabbing him. But he was stuck. Stuck and hanging over them like food supplies for the starving while they all battled away for the first of the rations.
He took a few deep breaths of the putrid air, a deathly cocktail of passed feces and his own sweat. He looked up at the pipe. The top of it was about four metres from the wall now. Way too far for him to reach the top of the terraced house.
But there was no room below him, either. No way he could climb down and not be torn apart by those hungry motherfuckers.
He was screwed, quite frankly.
He felt himself getting close to a meltdown again. Close to just closing his tearful eyes and just letting go of the pipe. Getting his painful death done with.
And then he saw the window of the terraced house, the top section of it open.
The window was about a metre and a half away, and just up to his right. Reaching it would be quite a stretch—a stretch that he wasn’t sure the drainpipe could take—but he didn’t see any other option. Either stay here and die when the pipe eventually fell away completely or try to survive right now.
Maybe die in the process of trying to survive. Maybe. But hell—that was the wonderful risk-filled world he lived in right now.
He looked down at the zombies and regretted it right away. A blonde woman with one of her blue eyes dangling out of its socket was stretching her arm up towards him, the gnawed, exposed tendon on show. A grey, bearded guy with pale skin who Hayden swore was a local homeless man he’d ignored many a time pushed at his companions, stared up blankly at Hayden with blood staining his yellow teeth, waiting for another meal.
Hayden looked away. He couldn’t bring himself to stare down at his enemies anymore. All that mattered right now was attempting to reach that window. It was open just enough for his skinny frame to squeeze through. Maybe. Hell, he didn’t know. But he had to try. Try or die. It had quite a ring to it.
He held his breath and gripped hold of the pipe extra tightly with his left hand and arm. He didn’t want to slip away from the pipe completely. He had to support himself some way or another.
He gripped the pipe. Prayed to whatever god was up there that they’d help him through this. Realised that nobody could help him but himself.
Then, he stretched out his right arm and reached for the window.
The drainpipe creaked even more as Hayden shifted his weight. It seemed like the zombies gasped and groaned louder, too, but maybe that was just his imagination playing tricks. He kept on reaching for the window. Kept on holding onto the drainpipe. Kept on—
The drainpipe shifted back.
It stopped almost as suddenly as it had moved. Hayden’s heart pounded. “Fuck. Fuck.” He grabbed the pipe again with both hands. No chance was he making this window. No chance. The pipe had shifted further back now, so he was a few more inches away.
He was staying on this pipe. He had to stay on this pipe or he’d die.
But if he stayed on this pipe, he’d die anyway.
He swallowed a sickly lump in his throat. He steadied his breathing, tried to bring his heart rate down, but no therapist’s advice brought much use in this bullshit situation. He focused on the window. Focused on the section of it that was open. He could still reach it. He just had to be quick. Swift. He could do this.
He scrapped the deep breath bullshit and breathed as quickly and short as he damned well pleased.
And then he gripped tight hold of the drainpipe with his left arm again. Tighter than ever.
Come on. You can do this. You can make this.
He readied himself. Prepared to lunge for the window.
Three.
Two.
One …
When he lunged for the window, he still couldn’t quite believe he’d made such a risky move.
He felt the drainpipe swinging away towards the mass of zombies below.
Heard it creaking.
But he gripped hold of the edge of the window with his sweaty right fingers.
He’d made it
. He’d made—
Fuck. No he hadn’t. Not yet. Don’t get complacent. Not now.
He held on to the top of the window, the pain of gravity searing through every one of his fingers on his right hand. His biceps was at full stretch. He begged himself not to look down, not to focus on the zombies below.
But he looked. Of course he looked.
The black drainpipe landed on top of the crowd of zombies. They shrugged it off, acted like it wasn’t even there, and kept on stretching their arms out to reach Hayden.
But Hayden held on. He gripped on with his right hand, his fingers on the verge of popping out of their sockets.
Keep holding. Keep holding.
He pulled his left hand over with all his strength and reached for the edge of the window. As he grabbed hold of the top of it and held on with both hands, he had a horrible image of a zombie waiting in the room at the other side. A flash of his fingers being gnawed away.
Letting go.
Falling into the starving mass of psychos below.
He pulled himself up and climbed through the window, which proved an even bigger struggle than he’d imagined. There was a bathroom on the other side, which reeked of toilet cleaner and disinfectant. The shower was empty. A Stephen King book rested on top of the toilet, the pages curled and yellow.
Most importantly, there was no zombie in this bathroom.
He’d made it.
Hayden took a few moments to collect himself as he leaned against the bathroom wall. He could still hear the crowd of zombies grunting away outside. A part of him expected to open his eyes and find himself still clutching to that drainpipe or clinging to the window, edging closer and closer to death.
But he’d done it. He’d made it.
He’d pulled through.
Himself.
He stood up and walked towards the bathroom door. He couldn’t hear anything from outside—human or zombie—so he lowered the handle and stepped into the hallway.
The hallway was silent and dark. It was a narrow corridor with two doors—presumably two bedrooms. Hayden walked past them both, but he didn’t see anyone inside. Which was a bonus. He wasn’t quite ready to run into anyone else just yet.
He descended the stairs. To his left, there was a lounge area with leather sofas and a huge CRT television in the corner. The curtains were closed, but Hayden could see the silhouettes of the zombies on the other side.
To his right, there was a kitchen area with black and white tiled flooring and a circular wooden table in the middle.
And a back door that led out to a yard.
Hayden rushed towards the door. He grabbed the handle, opened it up, stepped out into the shitty freshness of the zombie-tainted air.
And then he turned back. Searched the cutlery drawers. Pulled out a knife as long as his forearm.
He knew he was going to need it. He knew now that he was going to have to be violent, be decisive, if he wanted to live.
He heard a shout outside. A shout from just beyond the concrete-laden back yard of the house.
He couldn’t believe it when he saw who it was.
Sarah, Frank and Newbie were all at the other side of the brick wall. Sarah was waving at him to come join them. They’d come back for him. They’d waited for him.
Hayden ran across the yard, climbed over the back wall and joined them on the narrow road at the other side.
“Shit,” Sarah said. “Thought we’d lost you.”
“I … You almost did,” Hayden said, his voice shaky. “You almost did.”
“Well thank God you stuck around to get bailed out, pussy,” Frank said, a wide grin on his face.
Hayden frowned. “What d’you mean?”
Frank pointed to the end of the road. All of them turned around and looked.
There was a green armoured vehicle heading in their direction. In the front seats, there were four people dressed in jet black uniform wearing black masks and goggles.
“Is … is that army?”
“Special Forces,” Newbie said. A smile cracked at the sides of his mouth. “They … We made it. We made it.”
Frank ran ahead. “Then what you guys waitin’ for?” he said, smile on his face. “Let’s get aboard.”
“Hold your position and put your hands in the air!”
The voice bellowed out from a speaker at the top of the armoured vehicle. That struck Hayden as wrong right away. Because loud noises attracted the zombies. Loud noises were to be avoided at all costs.
Frank laughed and raised his hands as he faced the armoured vehicle. “S’alright, folks. We’re good’uns. Come close to being gnawed on a few times, but we’re alright. I’ll even strip down ’n prove it if you want me to.”
The four people inside the armoured vehicle looked to be speaking to one another, but it was hard to tell with the masks they were wearing. There was something sinister about those masks. Something emotionless. Something … less than human.
“Guys,” Frank said, holding his hands in the air. “Are you gonna help us out ’ere or what?”
The people in the vehicle nodded some more. Then, the one on the passenger side opened up the door and hopped down.
“Thank God,” Frank said. “Wondered how long we were gonna have to—”
Frank didn’t finish what he was saying.
The person in the mask pointed a big, black rifle and fired a round of bullets into him.
Twenty-Two
Hayden watched the person in the black Special Forces uniform fire a blast of bullets into Frank’s body.
Frank shook on the spot. Blood splattered out of his chest, his legs, his arms, and eventually his head. At first, Hayden couldn’t quite understand what he was seeing. He couldn’t understand why the army was shooting at Frank. This couldn’t be possible. This couldn’t be real. The army were supposed to help.
And yet, here they were, blasting Frank into fleshy, bloody pieces.
“Run!” Hayden shouted.
He spun around and threw himself back onto the wall at the back of the terraced house he’d come through. As he pulled himself over, he heard shots whoosh past his head, the heat of them stinging the side of his face. He dropped down onto the concrete at the other side of the wall, Newbie and Sarah following shortly afterwards.
He heard the people from the armoured vehicle running too, heard the vehicle rumbling closer towards the back wall …
“Get inside,” Hayden said.
“But Frank,” Sarah said.
“Frank’s gone.” The words still felt alien to Hayden. He hadn’t known Frank long, but he liked him. He seemed like a genuinely good person. He’d been there right from the start. The very first person to help Hayden wrap his head around the chaos of the new world.
But he didn’t have time to dwell on Frank’s death.
He sprinted towards the back door of the terraced house. As he reached the door, he heard more bullets fire from behind. They cracked the concrete at the sides of his feet as he threw himself into the kitchen, swung around the door.
“Quick!” he shouted.
Newbie and Sarah ran too. Behind them, one of the black-suited military people fired at them, the bullets narrowly missing them as they zigzagged across the concrete. Hayden hoped they wouldn’t be called on to defend the nation anytime soon with their skew-whiff shooting. But no—that’s exactly what they were doing right now. Defending the nation against a threat.
Only Hayden was, the others, they were part of that threat.
Newbie and Sarah rushed inside. Hayden slammed the kitchen door shut. Bullets peppered against the wooden kitchen door, pieces of it crumbling away under the force of the bullets.
“We don’t have long,” Hayden said. “They … they’re going to come through here any moment.”
“Then what do we do?” Sarah asked.
“We have to go through the front,” Hayden said.
Newbie shook his head. “Not a chance. The road out there is filled with infected.”
>
“Then we fight them,” Hayden said.
He wrapped his fingers around the long butcher’s knife in his hand.
“We don’t have a choice here,” he said, sweat pouring down his cheeks. “We fight our way out the front and hide somewhere other than this fucking house, or we wait here to be shot dead.”
Sarah’s eyes were wide, stunned. “They … they shot Frank. Maybe they thought he was one of them—”
“They knew exactly what he was,” Hayden said.
He was about to elaborate when he heard boots hit the concrete and the military personnel running across the yard.
“Quick. We’ve gotta go.”
Hayden led the way out of the kitchen and through to the lounge. Sarah and Newbie followed. Hayden could hear the footsteps of the military getting closer. The bullets had stopped, but he knew they’d start again soon. He knew exactly what was happening here, as sickening as it was to admit it to himself.
He didn’t even have time to ponder it. Not yet.
He reached the front door. Through the curtain, he could still see the silhouettes of the zombies outside, but there seemed to be fewer of them now.
“Stay behind me,” Hayden said, holding the long knife at his side. “Newbie—use the air rifle if you need to. Sarah—got anything you can use?”
She raised a rusty metal crowbar in her right hand. She still looked half-dazed.
Hayden nodded. “Good. Aim for the head. It … it might not kill them, but we don’t have the time to start messing around trying to break their necks right now. At least if we can get their heads, we can knock them down. Smash their teeth out. Give us a chance to get away before they—”
The kitchen door smacked open.
“Down on the ground!” one of the masked troops shouted.
Hayden lowered the handle and opened the front door. “Now!”
The three of them ran out into the yard. As Hayden turned to shut the door, he heard more bullets firing in his direction. He slammed the door shut, then turned to face the road.
Four zombies to his left. All of them staggering towards them.
Hayden rushed towards the first one that was blocking their way—a ginger man wearing a checkered shirt with the side of his head missing—held his breath and stabbed it in the side of its head with the knife, then pushed it away. He saw Newbie punching one of them, Sarah reluctantly swinging a crowbar at an old woman with flesh dangling down from her exposed breasts. And behind him, he heard the bullets. Heard the military getting closer.