At her age, and especially after Imran's passing, Hina had thought of her mortality often. With Imran gone, and her children more a distant memory than a real family, she did not have too many things or people to live for, and on the occasional lonely night, she had wondered if she could bring herself to end it all. A bottle of sleeping pills perhaps. But now, faced with a horde of attackers beating down her door, she realized that she wanted to live. Whether or not she had anything to live for, she did not want to go like this. Most certainly, she did not want to become the kind of monster Mr. Patel had become. The door was now ajar and she saw a foot slip in. The yellow, bloody leg looked incongruous in a Gucci high-heeled sandal, but Hina did not have any time to contemplate that as she got up, looking frantically around for some way to defend herself.
Mayukh's car was now bobbing and weaving around the cluttered street, and in other circumstances, he would almost certainly have been stopped on suspicion of drunk driving. But now, all the cops around were either dead or had joined the marauding bands that were rampaging through the city. He braked hard when he saw a body lying just in front of his car. Both he and his mother looked at it, wondering what they should do. Even though it looked dead, Mayukh could not bring himself to run over another human being. He began to reverse his car so he could drive around it, when the body sat up.
It was a young man, perhaps not much older than Mayukh himself. Except that he was now one of them. He launched himself at Mayukh's car, his fingers smashing into the windshield, creating a spider web of cracks inches from Mayukh's face. He then began clawing at the glass, trying to get through.
'Drive!'
Mayukh hardly needed the encouragement from his mother. In blind panic, he floored the gas and their Honda City sped forward, carrying their unwelcome passenger with it. With his view blocked by the man hanging onto the windshield, Mayukh had now way of knowing what lay ahead, but he hoped that as he picked up speed, the man would be thrown off his hood.
Hina's door was now wide open, and she saw several figures crowding the doorway. It was pitch black outside, the streetlights having all gone off some minutes ago. Her lights were still on, driven by an old diesel generator, and seeing the shadows entering her house, she knew that her time was up. She closed her eyes, and began praying when she heard an ear-splitting crash.
She tentatively opened an eye and saw a sight that she had never imagined. A car had come to a halt just outside her house, and had plowed through the creatures trying to get to her. Some of them were lying scattered out on the street, and one seemed to be trapped under the car. The back door of the car had been flung upon in the crash, and the driver was revving the engine, trying to get away. Without thinking too much, other than the fact that she was finished if she stayed in her home, Hina ran as fast as she could toward the car and dove in through the open back door.
Mayukh had just started the car and was about to get away from the carnage when he sensed someone enter the car behind him. He spun around, his gun in hand, only to see a thin, old lady. He had no idea who she was, but she was not one of them. Relieved, he stepped on the gas and the car sped ahead. They drove in silence for some minutes, each of them still too shocked by what they had endured in the last few hours. Finally, Hina took the initiative and introduced herself.
'I'm Hina Rahman. I am, well I guess I was now, a Professor.'
Mayukh just nodded at her and told her his name. His mother said nothing. Mayukh looked at his mother, to see what shape she was in. She was continuing to try and call his father on her mobile, but all the networks seemed to be down. Her hands shaking, she finally threw the phone hard against the floor and began sobbing.
Hina reached out and held her shoulder, and this simple act of kindness seemed to make his mother further collapse into loud sobs. Mayukh's mind was blank. At one level, he was more terrified than he had ever been, but at another level, he still had hope. Hope that this was somehow all a bad dream he would wake up from, hope that there surely was some government in control somewhere. The world as we knew it couldn't all just end, could it? He looked at his mother.
'Mom, we just need to get to the stadium. The Army will be there. Whatever this infection is, they will contain it and get a cure. All we need to do is get to the stadium and we'll be okay.'
His mother seemed to take some heart at his words and they drove on in silence, their car's headlights providing the only illumination in the dark streets around them.
David had taken a bike he had found abandoned on the roadside and rode it, hoping that the US Embassy could offer some sanctuary. Given the chaos all around him, there was no way to be sure of that, but it was not as if he had any better options. After ten minutes of riding, he realized that it would be suicidal to continue riding in the darkness. They owned the night, and all around him, he could see groups of the infected gather, and while he could outrun them, with none of the streetlights on, it was but a matter of time before he stumbled into one of them.
He stopped his bike near what appeared to be a cluster of shops. With his small flashlight, he saw a broken sign saying 'Khan Market'. Not seeing anyone around David figured his best bet was to hunker down for the night, and then proceed in daytime. That was unless the creatures were now active in the day as well. He walked around the shops cautiously, using the night scope on his M4 to watch for any sign of trouble. The market seemed totally abandoned. After a few minutes of walking, he came upon, of all things, a McDonalds. He realized his stomach was growling with hunger, and the prospect of eating something other than MREs made up his mind for him. He kicked in the door and went in, sweeping the room in front of him with his rifle. There was nobody there, but it looked like the staff had left in a hurry, as food littered the kitchen.
David barricaded the door with tables and then went upstairs, where he finally took a breather after a day where he had spent every single minute trying to stay alive. He bit into a burger, and looked out the window. He was done with running for now. He would spend the night here, but there was going to be precious little rest. He couldn't afford to let his guard down, so he ate a couple of burgers, drank some Coke and then unslung his backpack. He set his rifle against a window that offered the best view of the road outside. He knew that he would have to conserve the batteries for his night vision scopes, so he turned the scope on his M4 off, planning to turn it on only if he really needed to. He saw a group of the infected, perhaps twenty strong, walk on the main road, some five hundred metres away, before they ran into one of the housing complexes nearby. He heard screams coming from the darkened houses, and he tried to block them out. He spent the next few minutes just staring out the window, hoping that none of the mobs came towards him. As much as he tried, fatigue and stress got the better of him, and he fell into an uneasy slumber.
Mayukh had never seen the city so dark before. All the streetlights were off, and none of the houses or shops lining the road had their lights on. Even if some of them had generators, Mayukh guessed the occupants were trying not to draw attention to themselves by keeping all the lights off. That was the dilemma in which he found himself. Without his headlights on, he could barely see what was on the road ahead of him, yet he knew that his headlights would be a magnet for any of the marauding bands of the infected now rampaging through the city. He didn't even know what he should call them. Were they zombies? He shook off the thought, reasoning that giving them a name would only make this nightmare more real. His mother had dozed off, the stress proving too much for her, and the Professor in the back seat had also not spoken for many minutes, realizing that she was better off letting Mayukh concentrate on driving in the darkness.