Infection Z

by Ryan Casey

  He didn’t let Newbie or Sarah get a word in edgeways.

  He sprinted down the street. Bit into his lip as the pain from his fall crippled the left side of his chest. Clarice didn’t live far away. Less than a mile, but hidden in the maze of this awkward cul-de-sac.

  He swung the pipe at any zombies that came near. Cracked their skulls, pierced their necks, split their stomachs and sent their innards tumbling to the road. He wasn’t stopping. He wasn’t stopping for anyone, for anything.

  Please be safe. Please have got away. Please don’t give up on me. I’m coming for you. Don’t give up on me. Please.

  He reached Clarice’s house exhausted, out of breath, aching with pain and dripping with sweat.

  But he barely processed any of that.

  Not when he saw Clarice’s red Ka and his parents’ black Mercedes parked in her driveway.

  Thirty-Eight

  Hayden walked down his sister’s driveway as the burning orange glow of the setting sun illuminated the street.

  The dark wood brown door still had a wreath on it from Christmas. Typical Clarice. She was always a nightmare when it came to getting jobs done around the house, right from being a little kid, told off for refusing to clean her bedroom. The blue curtains in the living room were shut so Hayden couldn’t see if anyone was behind them. The bedroom curtains were shut, too.

  But his parents’ Mercedes was in the drive. Clarice’s Ka was in the drive. Which meant that they hadn’t left. They hadn’t departed for Riviera Hotel in Garstang.

  His parents had got to Clarice’s, but they’d never left.

  They were in this house somewhere, all three of his closest family, his closest friends. They had to be.

  Hayden walked up to the door. He could smell the strong odour of burning, and he could hear Sarah and Newbie battling their way through the remaining zombies on the street. A part of Hayden wanted them to just move on. As much as he was thankful for their presence, their support, he had to do this next part alone.

  He had to know his family was okay.

  He reached for the door handle. Part of him hoped it would just kick back, locked tight.

  But instead, it flopped right down and the door sprung open.

  Hayden lifted the bloody pipe. He peeked through into Candice’s hallway. There were suitcases right by the door. A big green suitcase with about four little padlocks on it that could only belong to Dad. A smaller, pink one that Clarice must’ve had since she was about sixteen.

  Hayden waited. Listened for a sound. Tried to see if he could hear anything from the lounge to his left, diverted his attention up the stairs.

  Nothing.

  Nothing but the sound of Sarah and Newbie fighting through the rubble-filled, air raided street.

  Hayden clenched his teeth and stepped into the hallway. He looked right into the open lounge door. A huge wall-mounted Samsung television hung above the fireplace—a certain hazard to anyone but Clarice. He stepped a little further in. On the glass coffee table in the centre of the room, there was a stack of Sight & Sound magazines. Hayden figured they must be Dylan’s, because his younger sister’s finest example of cinematic art came in the form of Grown Ups 2.

  Or maybe she’d changed since he last saw her. She used to change quite a bit when she was younger.

  Hayden stood in the entrance to the lounge. There was a dining area with a conservatory attached to it, and then a kitchen area to the left. He thought about calling out his sister’s name, but it was obvious that the downstairs was empty.

  But it was also clean. No sign of any fighting or any struggling. That was a bonus.

  Or at the very least, it was something.

  And right now he needed something.

  He turned around and walked back through the lounge towards the stairs. On his way, he stopped. Looked at the marble fireplace.

  On top of it, there was a photograph. It was of the whole family—Mum, Dad, Annabelle, Clarice and Hayden—on some English beach holiday back when Hayden was just a kid. He walked up to it and felt his cheeks wobbling. He’d completely forgot about that holiday. He forgot about a lot of things that happened before Annabelle’s death. They all kind of blurred together in some huge universal state of happiness, pissed on by the misery that followed when his older sister took her life.

  He looked at his smiling little face, and the way Annabelle was sat there with her mousy curls in her pink summer dress with ice cream smeared all over her lips. She was smiling. Laughing. She was so happy.

  Like so many times in his life, Hayden found himself wondering how the hell things had gone so wrong for his older sister; his first friend.

  He heard something bump upstairs.

  A tingling sensation rose up the back of his neck. He turned around slowly and looked at the lounge door. Through the corner of his eye, he could see Sarah and Newbie on the street outside. They were saying things—probably shouting at Hayden to get the hell on with whatever he was doing.

  But all Hayden could do was stand still. Stand still and listen. He’d imagined the bump upstairs. It was a figment of his imagination. It was—

  He heard it again. Only louder this time. It made a speck of crusty old white paint rain down from the ceiling.

  Hayden grasped the metal pipe and walked through the lounge towards the foot of the stairs. Every footstep felt heavy, like someone had wrapped weights around the bottom of his feet. His heart raced. There was somebody upstairs. Somebody in the room above him.

  It was someone he knew. It had to be.

  He got to the foot of the stairs just as Sarah and Newbie came storming through the door. Newbie panted and put his bloodied hands on his knees. “Street’s clear, but we’re not sure how long for. We’re gonna have to—”

  “Wait here,” Hayden said. “Just … just wait here. Please.”

  He put his foot on the creaky bottom step of the cream carpeted stair and walked up. Sarah and Newbie looked at one another and shrugged, but Hayden ignored them. This wasn’t their problem to solve, their dilemma to understand. This was something he had to step up to. He, alone, and no one else.

  So he climbed the stairs and ascended into the landing area, completely darkened by the lack of windows.

  At first, he tried to figure out which room he’d heard the thumping noise from.

  But when he saw the blood, he didn’t have to.

  On the cream carpet right outside the white door at the end of the landing area, there was a pool of red blood. It looked black in the lack of light. Specks of it had splashed up onto the door, too, dirtying the pure white paint, like some kind of twisted “X marks the spot.”

  He approached the door slowly. His breathing was heavy and quivery. A million scenarios pummelled through his head—his mum’s body lying by the door, or his dad bleeding out from a deep bite wound on his stomach, or his little sister, such a friend to Hayden all their childhood, her face mashed up by sharp, hungry teeth.

  No. He couldn’t think that way.

  He had to look inside the room. He had to see.

  He stepped closer to the door and he heard another thump.

  And then …

  Was that a voice?

  He swore he heard speaking. A woman’s voice. His heart raced a little faster. His mum? Or his sister? Were they okay? Were they alive? Where was the blood from? He had to know. He had to see.

  He grabbed the handle of the bedroom door. His fingers were like jelly. If there was a zombie inside here, then he wasn’t sure he was ready for it.

  He heard the noise again. But it wasn’t a thump this time. It was more of a … shuffle. Someone edging away.

  He licked his dry lips and tasted salty tears. He had to speak. He couldn’t just go in there and risk being attacked if his dad or his mum or his sister or her boyfriend were alive.

  “Clar … Clarice. Or—or whoever’s in there. It’s … it’s me. It’s Hayden. It’s … it’s me.”

  “Hayden?”

  The voice
threw Hayden off-guard. He could’ve sworn it came from behind him. And he was even more certain he recognised the voice from somewhere.

  He turned around slowly.

  A chill took over his body.

  She was standing by the bathroom door and staring at Hayden with her twinkling blue eyes. Her hair was short—shorter than he remembered when he’d last seen her—and cut into a bob that went to the middle of her neck. She was wearing a dark brown Parka coat with a fluffy hood, and blue jeans that were torn at the knees, seemingly through accident rather than design.

  Tears were rolling down her cheeks.

  But it was Clarice.

  “Sis,” Hayden said. He couldn’t think what to say. His throat welled up and his vision distorted. There were so many things he wanted to say. So many things he wanted to tell his sister. Sorry for not being there. Sorry for being so vacant for so long.

  She started walking towards him and he heard the bump behind him again.

  And then he saw the wide-eyed expression of fear in her eyes. It was a look that he knew right then would stay with him for the rest of his life, however long that may be. Instead of relief at seeing her brother again, there was fear. A detachment, as she looked at the bloodied door behind Hayden.

  “Don’t … don’t go in there, Hay. Please don’t go in there.”

  Hayden’s body tingled all over. He kept hold of the handle. He heard the thump again. He wanted to go over and hug his sister and tell her he was here now and everything was going to be okay.

  But something still hadn’t been answered.

  The blood on the carpet. The bumping behind the door.

  If it wasn’t Clarice, then who?

  “What’s—what’s in there, sis?”

  She approached him slowly, like a dog owner trying to get their mutt back on its lead. “I … I’m so happy to see—”

  Hayden lowered the handle.

  “Bro, please!” Clarice shouted. More tears dripped down her makeup-free face. “Please don’t. Please.”

  Hayden saw something else in the place of the fear on his sister’s face, now. He saw defeat. Acceptance.

  “You don’t want to see what’s in there,” Clarice said. She touched his arm and he felt a warmth trickling through his body.

  “It’s … it’s not about what I want,” he said. “It’s … it’s not about what any of us wants anymore. It’s about … about facing things. Facing up to things. What’s in here, sis? What’s in here?”

  She grabbed hold of Hayden’s skinny arm and stuck her forehead right into his biceps. She sobbed and cried right from the pit of her stomach, and Hayden felt her tears dampening his arm.

  He felt his eyes welling up too. On the stairs, he saw Newbie and Sarah standing with their heads bowed, giving Hayden and his sister their moment’s peace.

  “It’s okay, sis,” he said. “I’m here now. I’m here now. It’s okay.”

  He took a deep breath.

  Lowered the handle.

  Pushed open the door, his sister still crying onto his arm, her clasp tightening.

  And then he turned his head and looked into the room.

  He didn’t understand exactly what it was he was looking at at first. He didn’t understand what was in front of him. He didn’t know how to feel about it. A whole confusing, bewildering mixture of emotions.

  But when he understood, when he got a grasp on what it was, he felt his face drop, felt every muscle in his body loosen, and he dropped to his knees.

  Thirty-Nine

  Hayden sat on his knees and stared into the dimly lit front room upstairs in his sister’s house.

  He could hear his sister crying somewhere to his right. He could hear Newbie and Sarah saying things too, probably trying to reassure him.

  But nothing they could possibly say mattered.

  Not with what was in the room opposite him.

  He took in a deep breath and tried to process what he was looking at as tears rolled down his cheeks.

  His dad was leaning with his back to the curtained window. He was rocking backwards and forwards, shaking his body. The thump Hayden heard. That’s what the thump was—his dad.

  His dad, who was tied up to the radiator with a thick coil of rope.

  He looked at Hayden with his big, brown eyes, but there wasn’t the usual look of delight at seeing his son. There wasn’t a surprised, “Oh, Hayden!” along with a jolly big smile that Hayden had spent a lot of time picturing, hoping for.

  There was just a glassiness to his eyes.

  Blood drooled down from his yellow, cigarette stained teeth.

  On the bottom right of his black Iron Maiden T-shirt—like he’d really know who the hell Iron Maiden were—there was a gaping, bloody wound.

  Hayden’s stomach rolled when he saw it. He wanted to be sick. He wanted to throw up what little was left inside his nauseous stomach. He could see his dad’s intestines, all pink and chewed at. Blood and thick black bile had run out of his innards and stained the floor of the spare bedroom.

  But Dad just kept on shaking at that rope that was wrapped around him, grunting and gargling and trying to get to Hayden, but for the exact opposite reason Hayden had wanted.

  “Come on, Hay,” Clarice said. Her voice was quivery and shaky. He felt her hand touch his shoulder as he sat on his knees, but there was no warmth to her touch. Not anymore.

  Not with what was on the bed.

  She was lying under the white quilt covers like she was just taking a late afternoon nap. Her hair looked as shiny and immaculate as ever, and although her eyes were closed, Hayden swore she was smiling.

  “Mum?” he said.

  He stood up. Stepped into the room.

  It was when his sister yanked him back gently that he saw it.

  The bite marks on his mum’s soft, smooth neck.

  He felt his entire body cave in. He heard his heartbeat slow down but pound in his skull. He stared at the wound on his mum’s neck. It wasn’t too bad. It wasn’t too deep. It was manageable. She could survive it.

  He went to take another step towards her when he felt another hand grab hold of him.

  He looked around and saw it was Newbie. He looked washed out and drained. “Don’t go in there, man. For your own sake, don’t go in there.”

  Hayden wanted to fight. He wanted to tell Newbie to fuck off. That it wasn’t his family, and that he had no idea of the emotions Hayden was experiencing right now.

  But then he saw his sister’s terrified, tear-drenched face and he couldn’t bring himself to fight.

  He stepped out of the door and pulled it to.

  He didn’t look back.

  The four of them stood there in the landing area for quite some time. It was almost pitch black outside. Hayden held Clarice as she cried into his chest. But he found he couldn’t cry. He felt … numb. He felt betrayed. Betrayed by a cause he’d fought so hard for. A cause he’d lost.

  Betrayed by a fucking awful new world.

  Sarah looked at her feet. “I … I don’t mean to keep on going on about this, but we’re gonna have to make a move soon. It’s nearly dark. We dunno when the next military strike is gonna be. And I can hear them on the road outside. Lots of them.”

  She glanced at Hayden with a glimmer of uncertainty in her blue eyes, like she didn’t know how to speak to him properly in the circumstances, or how he was going to react.

  But Hayden simply took a deep breath of the sweaty air and nodded. “You’re right. We are.”

  He pushed his sister back slightly. Lifted her chin. “It’s … it’s okay to cry, sis. It’s okay to cry.”

  Her lips shook and she sniffed up. “I … I didn’t think anyone was going to come back. I thought—I thought it was over. I thought everything was all over.”

  “Is … Dylan. Is he …?”

  Her face went an extra shade of pale. She nodded and squeezed out some more tears. “He went out to try and start up the car. He … he didn’t make it. And then Mum and Dad arrive
d and … It was horrible, Hay. It was horrible.”

  He wrapped his arms around Clarice and pulled her close once again.

  Newbie bowed his head and sighed. Sarah wiped her eyes.

  “How long ago did … did it happen?”

  “Dad was … was a while ago. I … I had to tie him up. Me and Mum, we both had to, because—because no matter what he is, we can’t just … just kill him. We couldn’t do that, Hay. So we … we tied him. But Mum, she … he got her. He got her.”

  Hayden could picture the events clearly in his head. He thought he’d had it bad, but he’d been through nothing compared to his sister, his mum.

  “And you’re okay? You didn’t get bitten?”

  Clarice shook her head. “I … I had a few close calls. But—but no. I’m okay. Or, well. I’m not bitten.”

  Hayden felt the slightest relief at that. One positive in an awful world filled with negatives.

  “Mum called me,” Hayden said.

  Clarice nodded. “We … we were lucky. Got some signal. And … and then it happened soon after. We needed your help. I just wish … I just wish Dad and Mum had been … been here to see you show up.”

  A heavy lump formed in Hayden’s throat with those words. He felt more tears clouding his eyes. Remembered his sister’s words on the answerphone about Hayden letting their parents down—again.

  “I’m so sorry, Clarice,” he said. “For … for not being there. I’m so sorry.”

  Clarice just half-smiled. “Glad you’re here now. That’s what matters. You came back. I don’t know what I’d have done if you didn’t.”

  The two of them hugged again. Hayden introduced his sister to Newbie and Sarah. They took her hand, hugged her, told her how sorry they were for her loss.

  They walked to the top of the stairs and readied to descend, but Hayden didn’t budge.

  “There’s something I need to do,” Hayden said.

  Clarice frowned at Hayden. “What … There’s nothing left to—”

  “Mum’s going to come back. She’s going to come back just like Dad soon. And—and Dad. He’s suffering. I don’t want him to suffer.”