Iain McKinnon - Remains of the Dead

He took a deep breath and lowered the weapon.

“Do you even know where you’re going?” he asked, his voice flat, his eyes still on the barrel of his weapon.

“We’ll work it out, man,” Ryan said. “We’ll work it out.” He lowered his daughter back into the shelter of the papoose and pointed off up the path. “I think there’s a school this way; fences and a big flat playing field.”

Cahz took a snort of breath in through his nose and followed where Ryan was gesturing.

“Sounds like the best plan,” he said, his chest still heaving.

The dark rain clouds eradicated the last light of day and a hazy gloom reduced visibility still further.

Ryan’s thoroughly soaked jeans clung to his legs, chafing him with every step.

“How far have we got to go?” Cahz asked.

The pair were walking side by side. Cahz’s desire to distance himself had softened.

“Huh? Is that you whining?” Ryan laughed.

“No. I want to know if we’ll make it before it goes dark,” Cahz said.

“It’s just down this road,” Ryan answered.

“You said that ten minutes ago.”

“I know, I know,” Ryan said defensively. “Look, I don’t know this area that well. I only ever drove down here back in the day. It’s much further when you’re walking.” He scratched his chin. “Well, it’s not any further, it’s just taken longer than I expected. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah, I do. Me and Cannon walked over a hundred miles to get to safety when the whole thing kicked off,” Cahz said. “Some days you’d walk for hours, then you’d look at the map and you couldn’t see any progress.”

“You and Cannon been friends since the kick-off?” Ryan asked.

“Yeah, basically,” Cahz said. “A handful of us regulars managed to get out of Nelson.”

“Nelson?”

“Yeah, a pissant little town. Nothing there, but we’d been sent to set up checkpoints to test for infected. They were quarantining whole parts of the country, trying to stop the spread at that point. Well, the shit hit the fan, like it did everywhere. When we lost contact, our captain took the decision that we should bug out and head for a naval base on the coast. We took a royal fucking getting out of there and on the way out we acquired a bit of a following.”

“Pus bags?” Ryan asked.

Cahz sniggered. “Yeah, those as well, but I’m talking about civvies. Refugees spotted the uniforms and demanded we protect them. So the six of us that were left ended up escorting fifty-odd refugees all the way to the coast.”

“Was Cannon in your squad?”

Cahz looked across at Ryan. After a moment he faced forward again and said, “Cannon was one of the civvies. He’d been out of uniform a few years by then, but he still had the skills. We’d have lost a lot more people if Cannon hadn’t been with us. After that we kind of stuck together. It’s good to have a man like Cannon you can trust…”

Cahz physically stopped.

“What is it?” Ryan looked around nervously.

“I thought I could rely on him. I thought I knew him.” Cahz was breathing heavily. “I never thought he’d…”

Ryan waited for him to restart his sentence.

“Look, Ryan, there’s something I need to tell you,” Cahz said, his voice flat and serious.

“Yeah?”

Cahz spat a bitter mouthful of phlegm onto the ground. “I think I’ve been infected.”

“What?” Ryan was stunned. “When-I mean how?”

“Back in the plaza this morning,” Cahz said.

Ryan looked at either side of Cahz’s face. “Where? How?”

“Shot a W.D. point-blank and got a mouthful of junk,” Cahz admitted.

Ryan screwed up his face at the thought. “But surely you’d have…” He paused. “I mean…”

“I know most people succumb in a few hours, but then most people get bit or scratched. I ingested it. I’ve been feeling steadily worse all day.”

“But that’s the loss of blood from the dog bite.” Ryan looked down at the blooded bandage on Cahz’s arm.

“It’s more than that. I’m sure of it.”

“I’ve never known anyone who’s swallowed that stuff.” Ryan looked at the bloody arm and back up at Cahz. “I don’t even know if you can get it by eating it?”

“I don’t know either. I know you get it if it gets in your blood.”

“Surely you’ve have died by now and come back?” Ryan perked up. “It can’t have gotten into your blood or you’d be one of them by now.”

Cahz shook his head. “Ryan, I know what you’re trying to do. There’s no point-”

“Say it’s just the dog bite, right,” Ryan said eagerly. “It was a mangy thing and you’ve lost a lot of blood. It makes more sense it was the dog bite. All you have to do is hang in there. We’ll get picked up and you’ll get your rabies shots and everything’s okay.”

“What if it’s not?”

“Then…” Ryan thought for a second. “Then I’ll do what you did to Elspeth.”

Cahz gave a silent nod.

“School’s just down here,” Ryan said, changing the subject.

“Thank fuck. I’m soaked.” Cahz looked up at the black sky. “It will be good to get under shelter and dry out.”

They rounded a corner to see a squat-looking old brick school. Its tall, flat iron fencing skirting the main road marked the end of its large grass covered playing fields.

“Looks perfect,” Cahz said as he quickened his pace to the gates.

“Why the fuck are schools surrounded by this stuff? We never had this shit when I was a kid,” Ryan said, shaking a rusted post. “It’s like Guantanamo Bay.”

“It’s to keep the pedos out,” Cahz said as he stepped onto a litterbin and scrambled over.

Ryan sniggered.

From the other side of the fence Cahz stretched his hands up. “Pass Rebecca over first,” he said.

Ryan unfastened the makeshift papoose and handed the child over.

A familiar moan drifted across the derelict street.

Standing on top of the refuse bin Ryan turned round and looked back the way they’d come. Even through the grainy cloak of darkness he could make out shadows moving. He stood there like a sentry on his elevated lookout. As he squinted his eyes against the rain-veiled gloom, the shadows grew closer. The fleeting glimpses started to coalesce and out of the rain lumbered the silhouette of a zombie, the dark figure ambling past the wrecked cars and drawing closer. Emerging from the downpour a second wretched creature shuffled resolutely towards him, then a third and a fourth. More and more until a dozen shambling cadavers appeared.

“Jesus Christ, Cahz. Look at them.”

Not even the torrential rain could mask the cries now. Cahz looked through the railings to the platoon of drenched corpses shuffling their way towards them.

“Quickly, Ryan,” Cahz said.

“Yeah.”

He passed the strained plastic bag full of cans over to Cahz. Ryan grabbed the railing and vaulted over the top.

“Get inside and out of sight,” Cahz said. “If we stay out here we’re just going to rile them up.”

Ryan and Cahz ran through the weeds and long grass to the school’s entrance. Though the large glass fronted door all they could see was the pitch darkness of the hallway inside.

“Locked,” Cahz said, rattling the door handle.

“Try another door?” Ryan looked left and right trying to spot a second way in.

“Fuck that.”

With both hands Cahz swung his carbine round and battered the glass with its butt. The safety glass crunched with the impact but didn’t break.

“To hell with this,” he said as he swung the weapon into firing position and opened up on the pane.

Rebecca started bawling at the shock from the gunshot.

“Cahz!” Ryan protested as he tried to shield the child’s ears.