I sprinted over to the collapsed shelves. My heart juddered like a drill, and the adrenaline shot that had been dumped into my bloodstream was so intense it felt like I was on speed. Just before I reached the shelves I heard a voice above me. I looked up.
In the ceiling, his head poking out through an air vent, was Justin.
I opened my mouth to speak.
“I’ll explain later,” he said, cutting me off. “Meet me out front. And don’t forget the food.”
I found the crate of tins on the floor and heaved it onto my shoulder. My body was so jacked up that I felt like I could have carried six of them. I left the moans of the infected and the cries of the hunters behind and ran toward the manager’s office. As I grabbed the door handle and started to turn, I heard a familiar voice.
“Didn’t expect this to be over so soon,” he said.
I span round and saw Torben stood there, his gun pointed at my chest. Behind him was the body of the giant hunter who I had let get attacked by the infected. The monster that had bitten his shoulder was dead, its head completely crushed, but two other infected had taken its place and they dug through the hunter’s stomach with their hands and shovelled parts of him into their mouths.
Torben stood in as casual a posture as you could imagine, oblivious to sounds of the monsters eating his friend and the danger of the other infected that moved through the darkness.
“How about we pause the game,” I said, knowing I didn’t have many options open to me but to buy a little time.
Torben raised his rifle at my face. He was fifteen feet away, and something told me that there was no chance he’d miss.
“I think not. I promised I’d hunt you down, and I’ve done it. I hope the boy isn’t dead yet though; he looked like he had potential.”
He moved his finger to the trigger and was about to pull it, when the driver ran up to him. His shoulders were tight and there were beads of sweat on his forehead.
“Torbs – we gotta get out. Mick and Bailey are dead, and there’s about forty of the fuckers coming in.”
This was my chance to leave. The manager’s office was behind me, and through it there had to be an escape. As I was about to turn I heard a gunshot and felt the impact of something hit the front of me, knocking the wind out of me. I dropped the crate of cans to the floor. I couldn’t breathe, and for a second, I couldn’t even think. I’d been hit. This was it.
Only, I wasn’t dead yet. And while I was still living, I wouldn’t let him get back. I turned and stumbled into the office, slamming the door behind me. From the warehouse I heard the cries of the infected and Torben’s gun fired again, but this time it wasn’t in my direction.
In the manager’s office I stopped to catch my breath. I looked down at my chest and expected some gaping hole from the gun shot. Instead, I saw red spaghetti stains splotched down my shirt. Torben’s bullet had hit the food crate.
I let out a long sigh, and then collected myself.
I followed a series of doors that took me out of the manager’s office, and sure enough they led me out of the warehouse. When I got outside and the sunlight hit my eyes I felt a wave of relief. I squinted and let my eyes adjust to the sun shine.
“Kyle!”
I looked up. Justin was perched above me on a ledge about thirty feet in the air. His eyes were wide, and he shook slightly as he stared at the ground.
“Get down, we need to move,” I said.
He held the ledge tightly. “I can’t do it,” he said.
I didn’t have time for this. Right now, the hunters were occupied by the infected. This was the best chance we would have to get out of here.
“Kid, get the fuck down or I’ll leave you. That’s your choice – jump or die.” I turned my back on him and started to move away from the warehouse, my pulse racing and my lungs struggling to take in enough air. I had to get away.
I heard Justin let out a cry behind me, and then there was a thud as he hit the floor. He screamed. I snapped round, and saw him on the floor.
He led on the floor like an injured footballer, clutching his ankle and groaning.
“Can you walk?” I said.
He put his hand on the floor and tried to move his weight onto it. I walked over, put my hand under his armpit and pulled him up. He tried to take a few steps on his hurt ankle, but he winced with each one.
“Think I’ve done it in,” he said.
I looked at Justin nursing his ankle and I wondered if things could get any worse. The hunters knew exactly where we were, we were leaving without any food and after his injury Justin was going to slow us down even more.
The world had it in for me.
Chapter 13
Waves rippled out from one end of the reservoir to the other. The water beneath was murky and gave no clue as to the depths it held, and the darkness inside it seemed to hold the promise of dark secrets. I wouldn’t have liked to swim in there.
The path to David’s ran alongside the reservoir and span out into a country side full of knobbly hills and, further on, patches of forest. This particular route had once been used by seventeenth century merchants who shipped wool across Lancashire, and years ago, Clara and I had walked it on sunny Sundays afternoons when we wanted to get out of the house.
Justin sat by the smouldering fire. The smoke drifted up into the sky in patches, and the embers glowed red. He had his right legged crossed over his left and he was tying a sock around his ankle.
“What the hell are you doing?”
He looked up at me and blinked. “It’s for support.”
I had to take a deep breath. For the last two days since leaving the wholesalers it had been tough to keep a handle on the burning feeling that rose in my chest. My fists were constantly clenched and my whole body was so tense I felt like I was going to snap in half.
Back at the warehouse Justin had done what he swear he wouldn’t; he’d gone against my instructions and done his own thing. I told him to stick with me and we’d escape, but instead he climbed to the top of a twenty foot shelf to get food and tried to be a hero. Now he’d screwed up his ankle and he was walking like a damn cripple, and the journey to the reservoir had taken us two days when it should have taken six hours.
I should have just left him. Why should I support him and set myself back days because hop along can’t match my pace anymore? He did this to himself.
But I couldn’t leave. He knew where the farm was, and I wasn’t giving up.
My face was starting to get red again. I walked over to the fire and stomped on it. The embers hissed under my boot and sparks shot out from the side. I ground my teeth and then spoke, trying my best to keep my tone level.
“What did I tell you, Justin? What did I make you promise to me?” I said, losing the fight to keep the contempt out of my voice.
He lifted his head a little. He looked ashamed. “To listen.”
“So why didn’t you do that, damn it?”
I took a deep breath. I curled my hands into a fisted and pressed the middle of my palm with the tip of my fingers. It was a technique Clara had shown me to calm me down, but this time it didn’t work. I looked at the kid in front of me and all I could think was how he’d broken my GPRS and forced me to take him along, about how he’d ignored my instructions at every turn and got us in such a mess that we weren’t getting to the farm this side of Christmas. I looked at the boy and all I saw was someone who was ruining everything for me. A stupid little kid who didn’t know what he was messing with.
Everything I did was for my promise to Clara, and he was fucking it up.
Who the hell did he think he was?
My veins pulsed, and my skin felt hot. I started to feel my head go fuzzy and knew I wasn’t going to be able to think properly because the anger was taking over. I raised my right boot in the air.