Infection Z (Book 4) (19 page)

T
errance Schumer felt
the rough concrete underneath the soles of his bare feet and knew there was no escaping his new reality.

He walked. The afternoon sun was baking hot. The warmest day of the year by far. Not a cloud in the blue sky.

Just typical. Like the gods above were laughing at him. Like they too were punishing him for the things he’d done. For the actions he’d taken. For the lives he’d cost.

He looked ahead at the long, ever-stretching road. It used to look distant from up in his tower where he was most comfortable. But out here, out here on the other side, it dragged on even further. Every step just stretched on and on. Danger lurked behind every unmanned car. Beneath every partly open manhole cover. Over the top of the embankments beside the road.

The weight on his back didn’t help.

He tensed, dragging his package even further. The package they’d attached to his back. The people who’d forced him out; forced him away. Told him to take it with him. Take it with him and get it out of sight. To take it far away, where it was nothing more than a memory. A dark memory of events that’d unfolded in New Britain.

A reminder of what he’d done.

A literal weight on his shoulders.

A weight he couldn’t escape even if he wanted to.

The sickly stench of rot came to him in droves. Reminded him of what he was dragging along. Of what he was carrying with him. He tried not to look back at it. Because it brought back too many memories. Too much guilt.

He just had to get somewhere safe.

One of his old prisons. Lock himself in a cell.

Or get to a town. Somewhere where somebody would take him in. Because that’s what he needed. Refuge. Forgiveness.

But the package attached to him would never go away.

The taste of death pumping around his taste buds would never go away.

He heard something. Heard a shuffling over to his right. He turned. Caught a glance of the package behind him. Heart racing. Sweat dripping down his head, the sun beating down, muscles weak.

He looked over the embankment. Looked over to where he’d heard the shuffling.

Nothing.

He took a few deep breaths. Closed his burning eyes. All in his head. Just a figment of his imagination.

Had to keep on walking.

Had to keep on moving if he wanted to survive.

Had to—

And then he heard the shuffling again.

This time, from directly behind.

His body froze. The pain in his shoulders intensified. The pain he was doing everything he could not to focus on.

He clenched his teeth together.

Turned around.

The first thing he saw was the package.

And when he saw it, he felt that wave of nausea, that wave of realisation, hit him again.

Attached to his back by six solid nails into his skin, into his muscle, glued and stitched back in place, was a net.

Inside that net, remains.

Remains of people he’d killed.

Remains of the refugees he’d had butchered in the street.

Loose heads of children.

Arms poking out the side.

The smell intolerable.

Flies swarming.

But he didn’t focus on the package for long. Not this time.

Because all he could focus on were the three figures behind it.

The three figures approaching it.

Slowly.

Terrance turned around. “Fuck.” He moved a little faster. Not much faster, but as fast as a man with a bunch of human remains tied to his back could manage. He knew he was leaving a trail of blood behind. He knew he was walking bait.

But he had to keep moving.

He had to get somewhere safe.

He had to…

He saw the movement up ahead and stopped in his tracks.

In the distance, four more figures. All of them staring at him blankly. Not making a noise yet, but watching him. Heads twisting in the air. Like they were sniffing at it. Trying to weigh Terrance up.

He stood there, totally still.

Then, when the first of the zombies groaned, Terrance made a break for the embankment hill.

He collapsed onto it. Tried to drag the package up the grassy slope. It was too heavy. Way too heavy. No chance he was getting up there with this on his back. No chance he was getting anywhere with these nails in his skin.

He looked at the nails rammed into his left shoulder. Looked at the congealed blood underneath the glue, between the staples. He saw his skin going purple. Saw puss seeping out. If the dead didn’t get him, infection would.

But fuck it. He’d rather take a chance with infection.

He reached his hand over. Grabbed the first of the nails. Just touching it sent burning agony through his body.

He clenched his teeth together. So hard he felt them going wobbly.

The groaning mass of zombies edged closer.

Terrance stuck his fingers into his skin. Ripped away the staples, each one of them splitting away making his head throb, his consciousness drift.

But no. He had to keep on going. As fresh blood trickled onto his right hand, he knew he had to keep on going.

He cut through the glued skin with the tips of his bitten-down fingernails. Got a grip on the head of the nail.

Felt tears rolling down his cheeks as the growls edged ever closer.

He held his breath.

Gripped the nail tighter.

And then he pulled.

The pain wasn’t so bad. Not at first.

Not until the nail got about halfway out of his shoulder.

And then he couldn’t help but scream. Couldn’t help but cry out.

Yet still, he kept on pulling.

Still, he kept on ripping the nail from deep within his flesh.

Blood splattering down his arm, onto his neck.

He got a grip of the next nail as he pulled it away. His pulse blasted through his skull. He felt cold. Icy cold. And he knew what was happening. He was going to die. He was going to pass out and he was going to die.

He’d never wake up.

No. No, he would wake up.

Just not as himself.

Not anymore.

He yanked the nail further out of his flesh, well aware of how on the brink of death he was.

Something different happened this time.

The nails came free of his skin.

The rope dropped to the ground.

He looked down at the bunch of nails. Looked at the sinewy pink flesh clinging onto their rusty exteriors. His head spun. His muscles were weak. But he had to keep on going. He could make it now. Now the nails were free he could make it. He could…

A sudden sickness hit him square in the middle of his chest.

He still had to get the nails out of his right shoulder.

He turned. Looked at the wound where the nails were slammed in last night. Sweat poured down his face as memories of the last extraction swirled around his mind.

The pain.

The dizzying agony.

He couldn’t do it.

He couldn’t…

No.

He had to.

He took a deep breath.

Put his shaking, blood-soaked fingers on the head of the nail.

And then he heard the grunt.

Right above him.

He looked up. Didn’t want to, but nothing he could do about it. Nothing he could do to control it.

He saw the decaying face of the first zombie.

A man. Ginger. Five foot something.

And a blonde woman. Thin hair. Chunks of her scalp dangling loose onto her face.

And more of them, too. A whole crowd of them. All of them staring down at Terrance. All of them groaning.

Terrance let his grip of the nail go.

Smiled.

Wiped the tears from his cheeks.

And as the zombies surrounded him, he knew what this was.

Justice.

Justice for the people he’d let down.

Justice for losing himself in self-interest, self-preservation.

Justice for—

He didn’t have any more thoughts.

Just agony as the zombies sunk their teeth into his body.

Ripped the flesh from his bones.

Tore him to pieces in the blazing sun.

S
helly Bellamy took
a deep breath of the warm summer air as she walked through the New Britain Park.

It was an afternoon, and a beautiful one at that. Inside the park, which had just recently been reopened, Shelly saw families. Families with their children by the pond, feeding the ducks. Families playing with footballs. In the distance, families throwing frisbees to one another.

Happy families.

Hopeful families.

She listened to the sound of the laughter and felt a warmth inside as well as out. The smell of freshly cut grass. The whiff of the hot dog stalls, making her salivate at the thought of delicious cooked onions.

She used to be able to close her eyes tight and convince herself she was still in the old world. Before everything went to shit.

Now, she didn’t even have to close her eyes.

She just had to keep her gaze away from the fences.

That was enough.

She walked down the pathway past a young couple on one of the benches. They smiled at Shelly, and Shelly smiled back at them. There was a gratefulness about the place since Terrance Schumer had been ousted. Since word of his lie spread. Using a weaponised distribution of the virus to keep people out of New Britain, to keep the fences filled with the kind of people he wanted here.

Xenophobia. Engineered fear.

But that was all gone.

That was all different now.

Shelly walked through the middle of the tall oak trees. She could see the memorial in the distance. The memorial had only opened three days ago, marking three months since the Great Shift—the name they used for the transition of power from Schumer to the Wider Council. Shelly had been too busy looking after Paul to visit. He’d been sick. Not infected sick, no, but getting skinnier and skinnier for weeks now.

But he was feeling better today. He was feeling perkier. So Shelly figured it made sense to get some fresh air herself.

She saw the memorial up ahead as she waded past the last of the trees. Saw the headstones in the ground. But most of all, more than anything, she saw the tall rock in the middle. The tall rock dedicated to the man who’d made the greatest sacrifice of all. The man who’d put other people ahead of himself. The man who’d shown New Britain what leadership really was.

Hayden McCall.

She stopped when she saw Miriam beside the memorial. She didn’t know Miriam all too well. Just that she got on well with Hayden. Something between them.

She looked absorbed in her thoughts. Like she didn’t want to be interrupted. So Shelly turned and started to head back to another section of the memorial.

“Jeez. You scared me then.”

Shelly stopped. Turned. Saw Miriam looking at her.

She was wiping her bloodshot eyes, but she was smiling.

Shelly nodded. “I can… I can give you some time. If you—”

“Time? God no. I’ve spent more than enough time at this place.” Miriam backed away from the memorial stone. “Shelly, right?”

Shelly nodded. “Miriam?”

“That’s the one. So. What d’you make of what they’ve done here?”

Miriam observed her surroundings. The headstones. The names etched into them. Some of them left anonymous, for the people who’d sneaked in, who died unknown. “It’s… It’s nice. A good tribute.”

“I think it’s a bit fucking creepy if I’m completely honest.”

Shelly couldn’t contain herself from smiling. “I suppose it is.”

A pause in speech between them.

“He was a good man,” Miriam said, breaking the silence. “Not… not to piss on everyone else’s parade. But he deserves this statue. Deserves this memorial.”

Shelly nodded. She remembered the moment Hayden convinced her and her husband to flee back towards New Britain that very night they were trying to escape. “He saved my life.”

“He saved all our lives,” Miriam said. “And for that I…”

She stopped. Her voice broke. Fragility in her tough exterior.

She looked back up at the statue, wiping away her tears. Took an audible deep breath. “I thank him. Because I see what he did now. I thought he’d failed. I thought we’d all failed. But he didn’t. He didn’t fail at all. He did exactly what he had to do. For all of us.”

Shelly looked back at the tall rock. Looked at Hayden’s name etched into the concrete. “He’s loved by a lot of people.”

“You got that right,” Miriam said.

Her voice broke again. She exhaled. Looked down at the grass.

“Say, do you fancy a beer?”

Shelly smiled. “I… I guess.”

“Seems weird asking that question even though it’s been three months since ‘normal’ came along. Right?”

“Right.”

Miriam smiled. Walked away from the memorial stone. Shelly walked beside her.

“I don’t know how long this’ll last,” Miriam said, as they exited the park, the fences looming large around the outskirts. Manned by guards. Guards to take out the oncoming zombies. Guards to let people inside. Guards to control the future.

“But I’m not sure it even matters right now,” she said. “As long as we’ve got ‘right now’. That’s the most important thing.”

Shelly inhaled the sweet summer air deeply.

Listened to the sounds of laughter.

The sounds of happiness.

The sounds of normality.

And then she walked away from the park. Away from the memorial. Towards the city. The normal city. The new reality.

Hayden McCall’s sacrifice never left her mind.

Hayden McCall’s sacrifice never left anyone’s mind.

B
ack at the Bellamy household
, Paul coughed up blood.

D
eep in the labs
, outside of view, He heard a muffled voice above. A woman’s voice. A familiar voice.

“He’s awake.”

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