The Zombie Saga (Book 3): Burn The Dead: Riot (15 page)

But I get up
—
and I keep running.

And I won’t rest until the ground stops shaking. Until my skin stops burning.

I’m alive. I don’t know what happened to the Necs, how I managed to slip past them—but it doesn’t matter.

I’m out.

Lungs at bursting point, I start to slow down, until finally stopping when I reach a small playground. I hold onto a picnic bench, trying to catch my breath; too exhausted to feel any relief or sadness.

I glance back towards the stadium, but it’s too far away to see the devastation. All I can make out is a giant cloud of grey smoke.

It’s over.

I start moving again, out of the park, holding my injured wrist against my chest.

The hospital can wait. The only place I want to be right now is home. To Wendy.

I made it.

As I come to a narrow footpath, leading onto Holloway Street, something sharp pierces the side of my right shoulder. The morning sun suddenly brightens, becoming a fusion of colours.

I can’t remember where I am.

The ringing sound buried in my eardrum disappears.

I don’t feel the pain as my head smashes into the hard gravel.

I don’t feel anything…

EPILOGUE

The sound of something beeping disturbs my dreams.

But at least I’m dreaming.

Or am I?

What if I’m dead? How the hell would I know?

I see Natalie. I see her standing by the bar, smiling at me with those pearly white teeth. And then I see us kissing in the VIP suite. At that moment we were somewhere else, miles away from danger; on a first date, sitting in a restaurant, or at the cinema, watching some chick-flick.

But then I see her disappear, swallowed up by a flock of Necs.

I hear a voice.

A woman. It’s soft, but confident. Like a schoolteacher.

Wendy?

Light begins to seep through my heavy eyelids. I resist at first, but then open them. Vision cloudy, I try to focus on the room. The walls are white, and there’s a small window directly in front. It has bars over the glass.

Bars? Where the hell am I?

“Can you hear me?” the woman asks. I slowly turn my head to face the figure standing over me. It’s not Wendy. Who is she? I blink my eyes a few times, and the fog begins to lift. The woman looks old, maybe fifty. She’s short, with tied-back brown hair, wearing a long white coat. She must be a doctor.

“Alfie,” the woman says, “my name is Doctor Hughes. Can you hear me?”

As the disorientation clears, the ringing sound in my eardrums returns. So does the pain in my wrist. I’m lying on a hospital bed. There are four other beds here, without any patients. Stuck to my bare chest is a series of grey pads with wires attached, leading to a beeping computer monitor. And there is a plaster cast over my left hand, up to my forearm. I go to move my other arm but can’t. I try again, only to find my wrist handcuffed to the railing of the bed.
What the hell is going on?
I yank my arm as hard as I can, but stop dead, wincing, when I feel a sharp sting in my right shoulder. There’s a large white plaster stuck to the side of it. What the fuck is
that
for? But then the memory of getting shot seeps through the haze.

I start to panic.

Need to get out of here now!

I try to move, but my legs aren’t working.

“I’m paralysed!
” I mumble in horror, pulling the blanket to see if my legs are still attached.

“You’re okay, Alfie,” Doctor Hughes says calmly. “It’s just the after-effects of the tranquiliser. It’ll wear off soon. Apart from a few burns, a broken wrist and mild concussion, you’re fine. You were lucky.”

Lucky.
How the hell am I lucky? Everyone is
dead
.

“I’m sorry about the shoulder, boy,” another voice says in the distance, this time coming from a man. “But I had to take you down. Just in case.”

There’s a stocky man with a shaved head sitting down on a chair to the right of me. He’s in his late thirties, early forties, dressed in a white overall with a military-style combat vest. And attached to his hip is a holstered gun.

“
You
shot me?” I ask; my mouth dry, my words croaky. I cough to clear my throat.

“I had no choice,” the man replies. “You could have been a Nec.”

The doctor gestures with her hand over to him. “This is Andrew Whitt. He’s a Cleaner.” He gives a slight nod and a half-smile. “He and his team were partly responsible for keeping the outbreak contained.”

I tug again at my restraint. “Am I under arrest or something?”

The doctor shakes her head. “No, of course not, Alfie.”

“Then why the
fuck
have you handcuffed me to a bed?” I ask, my head and shoulder aching as I clench my body in anger.

“It’s just a precaution,” the doctor replies.

“For what? Can’t you tell that I’m not infected? Haven’t you already tested my
fucking blood?
”

“Yes, of course we have.”

“Then what the
fuck
am I doing here?” I ask, thrashing hard, trying to somehow break the handcuffs. “Answer me!”

Andrew gets up off the chair, his hand hovering over the gun.

“What the hell are you gonna do with that?” I ask the Cleaner, sitting upright, a brave smirk on my lips. “You’re gonna shoot me?
Again?
”

Doctor Hughes puts out her hand for Andrew to stand-down. He hesitates at first, but then reluctantly sits.

“You’re currently in foster care. Is that right, Alfie?” The doctor continues. “In the care of a Philip and Wendy Egan?”

“Yeah. So? What’s it got to do with you?”
Jesus Christ, Wendy probably thinks I’m dead!
“Does she know I’m alive?”

“Don’t worry,” she replies. “They know you’re safe.”

“I want to see her,” I say, frustration building as I keep pulling on the handcuffs. “Where is she?”

“You’ll be able to see her soon enough. But I need to ask you a few questions about your biological parents.”

“Well that’s easy: I know
fuck all
about them! Now let me go, you stupid bitch!”

“You need to calm down, Alfie,” the Cleaner says as he marches over to the bed, his hand by his gun again. “Doctor Hughes is here to help you.”

“Help me?” I snap. “All my friends are dead! I watched you blow up a stadium full of innocent people! And now I’m a prisoner, stuck in a room with a trigger-happy
prick
. So thanks. Thanks for the
fucking help
. Much appreciated.”

“Alfie, I’m sorry about your friends,” the doctor says. “But they had no choice. They had to destroy the stadium. There was just too much risk of the infection spreading to the city.”

“But there
was
no risk,” I say. “The Necs were calm.”

“What are you talking about?” Andrew asks, a deep grimace across his forehead. “Necs are a lot of things, Alfie.
Calm
is definitely not one of them.”

“Well how do you think I got out in one piece?” I ask. “They let me pass.”

The doctor just stares blankly at me for a moment, as if deep in thought. Does she think I’m lying? What the fuck is her problem?

“I don’t want to alarm you, Alfie,” she says, “but we found Necro-Morbus in your blood.”

My stomach roils when I hear the words. What the hell is she talking about? How can I be infected? “That’s impossible. I’ve never been exposed in my life.”

“We believe,” the doctor replies, “that there is a strong possibility you were born with the virus.”

“What the hell are you talking about? I’m completely fine.”

“Yes, you are fine,” the doctor replies, a hint of excitement in her tone. “But that’s what makes you so special. And valuable. We believe that your immunity is the key to creating an antiviral or a vaccine. Maybe even a cure one day.”

“This is bullshit!” I blurt out. “Run the tests again!”

“It’s true, Alfie. I promise you. We’ve run the test several times, and we get the same results.”

“I don’t give a
shit
what some stupid tests say! I ain’t no fucking Nec!”

“We know you’re not,” the doctor says. “You’re still you. And seeing as you’re seventeen years old, there’s no reason to think that anything will change.”

I start to thrash again, the noise of the scraping metal echoes around the room. “Then let me out of these handcuffs!”

“
Hey
, come on now, boy,” Andrew says, sternly. “Just relax.”

“Don’t tell me to relax!” I scream. “You’re not the one with a fucking zombie virus.”

“But you’re immune,” the doctor points out. “You could potentially save millions of lives. This is a good thing, Alfie. A
really
good thing.”

I keep tugging at the chain, trying to block out the room, her words. This is just a dream. No, it’s a nightmare. I feel sick. It’s not true. It can’t be.

Please, God. Don’t let it be true!

The room falls silent as I process the news. I feel like I’ve just been told that I have terminal cancer, and I only have a week to live. But this is worse than cancer. Worse than dying.

After about a minute, I finally start to calm down, the rage in my stomach settling. My head is pounding, blocking out the ache in my wrist. It’s all too much to take in. I start to see images of Ginge being attacked, and Natalie having to see her brother as one of those creatures. Is that what I am? Am I one of those
stinking monsters?
I glance down at a bulging vein in my left arm. The thought of Necro-Morbus coursing through my blood makes me want to claw at my vein, tear it wide open, and drain every last drop all over this mattress.

They should have just let me
burn
with the others.

“Is that why they didn’t attack me?” I ask, my voice low.

Doctor Philips nods. “Most likely.”

Her bleak words spark off a vision of Ted, how he suddenly stopped eating Adriana the moment she turned. It’s all beginning to make sense now.

Necs don’t eat one of their own.

But wait! There were lots of times when the Necs attacked me.
On the concourse.
Didn’t they? And in the corridor, when Ginge got killed. I’m sure they were chasing me too.

Doubt starts to force its way into my head, invading my memories.

But Adriana! She definitely went for me.
I remember.

No, she didn’t.
She went for Jonny.

So what! Those are just coincidences. That’s all.

They must be.

I suddenly feel lightheaded, queasy. I lie back, trying to process everything, thoughts of the stadium swirling around my head.

I turn to the doctor, my insides twisted with dread. “Why am I tied to the bed?” I ask, my voice weak, calm, as if finally accepting my fate.

The doctor looks down at me, her eyes swimming with pity.
How can this get any worse?
“Because there is a strong risk,” she says, struggling to look me square in the eyes, “that you’re still a carrier.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I ask. But I know exactly what it means.

Andrew leans over the bed, his hand still floating by the gun. “It means that you could be highly contagious.”

I want to scream at him, at her and tell them that it’s all bullshit, some government scam. But I don’t. Instead, I just close my eyes tightly and try to clear my mind of everything. The senseless death, the explosion, this hospital room. But most importantly, The Farmers Arms yesterday, and the fight I had with that Cardiff wanker. He deserved everything he got. At least I didn’t stab him.
I could have
. Maybe I
should
have. He was trying to choke me. It was self-defence.

Nothing more.

It’s not the worst thing I’ve ever done.

All I did was bite him on the hand.

COMING SOON
FROM STEVEN JENKINS

THEA
A Vampire Story

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Steven Jenkins was born in the small Welsh town of Llanelli, where he began writing stories at the age of eight, inspired by '80s horror movies and novels by 
Richard Matheson
. 

During Steven's teenage years, he became a great lover of writing dark and twisted poems—six of which gained him publications with 
Poetry Now, Brownstone Books
, and 
Strong Words
.

Over the next few years, as well as becoming a husband and father, Steven spent his free time writing short stories, achieving further publication with
Dark Moon Digest
. And in 2014 his debut novel,
Fourteen Days
was published by Barking Rain Press.

You can find out more about Steven Jenkins at his website:
www.steven-jenkins.com
www.facebook.com/stevenjenkinsauthor
twitter.com/Author_Jenkins