by Ryan Casey
Anything to stop them reaching him.
Anything to help him save his family.
When a gap opened up in the road, Hayden checked to see Newbie and Sarah were coping—they were, slicing and smashing away at the dwindling undead numbers—and then he ran as quickly as possible down the middle of the road. His heart pounded as he sprinted faster and faster. His parents’ house was just around the corner on a little cul-de-sac. He was almost there. So close to saving them.
So close to home.
He swung the pipe at another zombie, cracking its skull like an egg, as he turned into the cul-de-sac. On this road, he could see a few zombies in the depleting daylight, but they weren’t in a crowd so they were manageable. Besides, he was almost home. He was so close. So, so close.
He jogged a little down the street and craned his neck to get a good view of his parents’ semi-detached. He just wanted a sign that they were okay. Just a sign that they were alive.
He stopped when he saw the front of the house. His stomach dropped.
The white-painted front door of the house was open. Blood was smeared across it in two dripping handprints.
And inside the living room of the place he’d grown up, somebody was hobbling around.
Somebody undead.
Thirty-Six
Hayden walked slowly to his parents’ house.
He tried not to focus on the bloody handprints smeared across the front door. He tried to ignore the sounds of gasps and groans up the street. But mostly, he tried to keep his attention from the silhouette moving around his parents’ living room. He didn’t want to see if it was Mum or Dad. He couldn’t comprehend that thought. He couldn’t face it.
He walked across the marshy front lawn, his legs weak and wobbly. Up the road, he could hear Sarah and Newbie getting closer. And a part of Hayden wanted to wait for them. Wait for them to stand beside him as he stepped through the front door. Wait for them to hold his hands, to tell him everything was going to be okay. To confirm to him that, no, it wasn’t his mum, it wasn’t his dad.
He wanted their support so badly, and yet still, he found himself walking across the waterlogged grass that Dad always used to complain about, and stepping up to the door.
He lifted the metal pipe and reached for the door. It was partly open. Bloody footprints were smeared across the Welcome mat that Dad had bought from a car boot sale in Morecambe years ago. Mum always had a go at how much she tripped up over it, how much of a “bleedin’ death trap” it was. Dad just nodded and smiled, then lowered his head into his newspaper or his book and pretended he couldn’t really hear his wife.
He always just buried his head in literature. When Annabelle died, it was his means of escape. His way out.
Everyone had their own ways of dealing with things.
“Hello?” Hayden called. He lifted the pipe and pushed it against the door. It creaked open, the sound echoing through the hallway.
The echo was the only response Hayden got.
He stepped a little further inside. The hallway was freezing cold. Then again, it always seemed cold. Some dodgy old boiler Dad was reluctant to replace. Knocked the socks off these crappy new combi boilers, apparently.
Hayden was never sure. Hot water and working heating always seemed like it would be a pleasant alternative.
Newbie and Sarah approached the front of the house. They didn’t say anything, instead letting Hayden make his own way into the house. He looked to the right at the study area. Ancient CRT monitor that Hayden’s dad always swore he’d get rid of someday, but again, never quite got round to it. He was LCD paranoid, something like that. Always an excuse with Hayden’s dad.
But never an excuse where Hayden’s well-being was concerned. He always turned up for Hayden. Always. It was only now that Hayden was truly starting to appreciate that.
Hayden turned left and looked at the white wooden door of the lounge. It was closed. There were no blood prints on this door. But there was someone behind it. Someone staggering and shuffling around.
Somebody dead.
Hayden heard shouting outside. He looked and saw Sarah struggling with a zombie. He wanted to go out there and help her out, but eventually she pushed it away and sliced its neck half open. Newbie did his routine with the baseball bat, breaking the zombie’s neck and ensuring the thing didn’t come strolling back to life in that godawful way.
And then Hayden turned back to the white lounge door. Images flashed through his mind. Thoughts of his mum, a dullness overtaking her usually pretty brown eyes. Or Dad, a bloody bite mark deep into his chubby neck.
He blotted the images out. Took a few steadying deep breaths. Just do what you have to do, Hayden. Just do what you have to do.
He lifted the sharp metal pipe in his right hand and took a few more breaths. He listened to the shuffling and the scraping around the living room. Detached his emotions. Prepared himself for whatever he was going to face.
But in a deep part of his mind, he heard a little voice screaming out a few desperate, honest words.
Please don’t be my family. I need my family. Please don’t be them. Please.
He grabbed the smooth golden handle and tightened his fingers around it.
He lowered it, being careful not to make it creak too loud, just like he did when he sneaked down for chocolate in the middle of the night as a kid.
He felt the handle hit the bottom.
Held his breath.
Steadied his grip on the pipe.
Counted down from three.
Three.
Two.
One.
He waited another two seconds before he pushed the door open and pulled the pipe back, primed and readied to swing it at the zombie, no matter what or who it was.
When he saw who it was, he froze.
Male.
Dark hair.
Blue eyes.
The zombie flew itself at him and Hayden swung the pipe at it.
Pierced its neck, pushed it to the floor. Watched as thick red blood waterfalled out of its jugular and all over Mum’s cream carpet.
He pulled the pipe away and swung it at the zombie’s neck. Hot tears stung his eyes. His heart raced. It had been racing ever since he’d seen who it was.
Or rather, who it wasn’t.
It wasn’t Dad. It certainly wasn’t Mum. It wasn’t his sister, either.
It was somebody he didn’t recognise.
Newbie and Sarah rushed inside. They looked at the mess Hayden had created from the bloodied zombie on the floor.
“Hayden, I’m—”
“It’s not any of my family. It’s not anyone I know.” He rushed through the lounge and into the kitchen. The back door was closed and the key was turned. Still no sign of anyone in here. “They … they’re alive. They’re in here somewhere. They’re alive.”
“Don’t mean to alarm you,” Sarah said, peeking through the front curtains. “Actually, that’s a lie. I do mean to alarm you. There’s a shitload of zombies and they’re coming right for this house.”
Hayden ignored Sarah and rushed back through the lounge and up the stairs. The front door was open, so maybe Mum and Dad had got away after all. Maybe they’d called when the zombie broke into their home and fought their way out.
The question was, where had they gone?
“Mum? Dad?” Hayden searched upstairs. Bathroom was empty. His old bedroom, which was now filled with storage boxes and coated in dust, was empty. So too was Clarice’s room, similarly boxed up, although not quite to the same extent. And Mum and Dad’s room was empty too.
Hayden stopped right outside Annabelle’s old bedroom. He remembered climbing the stairs and seeing her hanging from the top bunk. He saw it every time he climbed those stairs. It was why he didn’t come home much anymore. Because home was supposed to be safe. It wasn’t safe here. There was nothing but horrible memories here.
Reminders of the past. Constant reminders of all the horrible things this entire family had been through
.
“Hayden,” Newbie called. He was stood by the front door, pressed right up against it. Outside, Hayden could hear thumps and taps against the window, as well as that familiar guttural groan. “Gonna have to hurry, buddy. Not being funny, but you’re gonna have to hurry up there.”
Hayden held the handle to Annabelle’s old bedroom. He didn’t want to go inside. He didn’t want to be reminded of all the horrible things that had happened to his family over the years.
He didn’t want to be reminded of the lack of sympathy or understanding he’d shown his parents.
He tightened his grip. Readied himself to lower the handle.
Then he heard the light beeping sound from his parents’ bedroom.
He wasn’t sure what it was at first. Just that it sounded familiar. Something he’d heard, something that had annoyed him, many times before.
And then he remembered exactly what it was.
The answerphone noise.
Hayden took his hand from the handle as more zombies bashed at the front of the house. He could hear Sarah and Newbie slicing and swinging at them, doing everything they could to keep this dwindling fortress intact.
Hayden walked into his parents’ bedroom. The white bed sheets were made. The cream curtains were closed.
Dad only ever made the bed when they were going to stay away somewhere for a few days.
Hayden reached down for the phone and hit the answerphone button.
“Hey, Mum. Clarice here. I’ve got the Riviera booked for Friday so if you want to pop down to mine and meet Dylan before then that’d be cool. I … I tried getting hold of Hayden but … well, you know how he is. Safe to say he won’t be joining us. Don’t worry though. We’ll have fun. Happy anniversary.”
Then, the message cut to silence.
Hayden sat in the silence. Many things swam through his mind. First, the Riviera—the posh hotel down near Garstang. They’d gone away for the weekend. Gone away with Clarice and Dylan, who was presumably her boyfriend, for an anniversary celebration.
But it was his sister’s words about him that stuck with Hayden the most. The sheer disdain in her voice when she told her parents that he’d let them down—again. And she was right to feel that way. That’s what made it all even worse. She was right to view her brother as a layabout letdown.
But Hayden wasn’t going to settle for that version of himself anymore.
He was going to get to the Riviera and he was going to save his family.
He stood up and rushed to the other side of the room.
The first thing he heard was the sound of the lounge window cracking open.
The second thing he heard was Sarah’s voice: “They’re inside. Fuck.”
The third thing he heard was a loud screeching noise in the sky.
A screeching noise getting closer …
He didn’t have to hear the fourth thing.
It blasted him across the room.
Thirty-Seven
Hayden’s head spun. He lay on the floor of his parents’ bedroom. His ears rang from the sound of the blast of the explosion. He could taste coppery blood in his mouth, and the smell of smoke and burning was strong. He thought he could hear voices shouting out from downstairs, but they were muffled and impossible to identify.
He lifted his head and looked around the room. There was something strange about it. A draft blowing through one of the windows. But there couldn’t be a draft. Mum and Dad would never just leave a window open when they’d gone away. It wasn’t like them. It wasn’t …
He saw the gaping hole where the window should be. He could see right out onto the street, like he was on the roof of the house or something. Flames flickered around the brickwork where the window once was. He could feel the heat from them warming up the otherwise cool air.
And then he remembered the answerphone message from his sister.
Something about the Riviera hotel in Garstang. But also something about their parents going round to Clarice’s first and meeting her boyfriend, Dylan.
An anniversary treat that Hayden had snubbed. Unknowingly, but it didn’t matter how he’d snubbed it. Just that he had. That was bad enough in itself, he saw that now.
He pulled himself to his feet, wincing as a sharp pain shot through the left side of his chest. He bit his lip and raised himself further. He could hear the flames now, cutting through the fuzziness of the explosion. When he breathed in deeply, he coughed and spat out a large globule of bloody phlegm. The smoke was getting to him. He had to get out of this house. He had to get to Clarice’s house, and then to Riviera if he needed to.
He had to get there fast.
He staggered out of the bedroom door. His head spun, and walking wasn’t easy. Dust and smoke irritated his eyes. The temperature of the house felt like it was increasing by the second. He couldn’t bake in here. Not after how far he’d come. He couldn’t let that happen.
He couldn’t die without knowing what had happened to his family.
He couldn’t die without them knowing how much he’d fought for them, and how much he appreciated them fighting for him over the years.
He reached the top of the stairs. They were still intact, but there was debris at the bottom of the stairs blocking the way out of the front door.
Debris and flaming zombies.
They saw Hayden right away, and Hayden didn’t expect anything else. The zombie right at the bottom of the stairs was coated in flames. Hayden couldn’t tell what race it was, just that it looked like it might’ve been a man once upon a time. Its blackened skin crackled in the flames, like logs on an open fire. The smell of burning flesh reminded Hayden of a barbecue gone wrong. When the flames spread to the zombie’s eyes, they crumpled them up like little marshmallows on a campfire and then they burst and the gooey insides sizzled down the zombie’s face.
Hayden grabbed the bannister for support. He couldn’t see Sarah or Newbie anywhere—but he couldn’t blame them if they’d run away. He’d probably have done the same in their position.
But right now, all that mattered was that the front door was blocked by five burning infected, all of them stepping towards him, charred flesh crumbling away from their deep fried bones.
Unless …
He reached into his belt buckle. The sharpened steel pipe was still there, digging right into his arse. He reached it out and pointed it at the oncoming zombies. But they were coming up the stairs and bringing their flaming bodies with them. So he had to be more proactive.
He lowered himself down the stairs. The zombie in front of his was missing eyes, and its flesh was crumbling off its feet, arms and face like charcoal. Hayden pulled back the steel pipe and swung it at the undead zombie as hard as he could.
Its face crumbled away under the weight of his hit, and it went sliding back down the stairs and into its companions.
Some of its zombie friends fell over as it hit them. The muscles of their burning legs split away and then went falling down to the floor in a smouldering heap. There was so little skin left on them that there wasn’t all that much left for the flames to burn.
Hayden coughed as the smokiness inside the house got more intense. His head got cloudy and his vision got fuzzy. He could feel himself drifting away in the warm blanket of the smoke, the inviting arms of the flames …
No. Get a grip. Keep it together.
Hayden took a step down the stairs. The zombies were rolling around on top of one another—or at least, the brittle skeletal remains that were left of them. They weren’t burning quite as badly. He could climb over them. Get outside. Head down the street and get to Clarice’s house.
He had to. There was no more time to deliberate.
He descended further down the stairs, the steel pipe still raised in case one of the frazzled zombies decided to make a final stand.
And then he reached the bottom of the stairs. He peeked into the lounge. Still no sign of Newbie or Sarah. He could only assume they’d left. Which was a shame, but it was also life.
Survival. Just the way the world worked now.
He looked down at the burning mass of zombies under him. Some of them were still snapping away their blackened teeth, their bodies conjoined in some sort of barbecued, flaky mess.
He held his breath and lifted his foot over them.
Lifted his other foot over them.
And then he felt something grab his left arm.
“Hayden? Shit. We thought you were dead.”
Hayden’s heart raced. Newbie was standing in front of him. His long black coat had been torn, and he had bloody scratches on his cheeks. Sarah was behind him. Her dark hair was covered in ash, and there was a large, raw-looking sore on the side of her cheek.
“We need to get away from here,” Newbie said, dragging Hayden down the lawn of his parents’ house. “This place is gonna fall—”
“There’s something I need to do,” Hayden said.
Sarah rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Something else? Hayden, you’ve … you’ve been inside your parents’ place. You’ve seen the state it’s in. We need to get out of here before those planes come back. It’ll be dark soon, too, and I don’t want to be out here in the dark.”
“Then good luck,” Hayden said. He walked to the edge of the pavement. Flames were spreading across the neighbours’ gardens. The contorted remains of exploded zombies had been blasted across the road in a bloody mess. “I need to go to my sister’s. She only lives down the road. I just … I need to know they left for Riviera. If they left, there might be a chance they’re alive. If they left, they might’ve got out of the way and into the countryside before all this shit happened.”
“But your mum,” Newbie said. “What she said. About needing your help—”
“I’m going to my sister’s,” Hayden said, blotting out Newbie’s words. He had to stay hopeful. He had to keep the faith. “And I’m going to find them. I’m going to save them. I have to.”