“I won’t accept that.”

  “Then you’ll die here,” Riley said. “Your call.”

  There was another silence amongst them. And for all his attitude and determination, James didn’t seem to be going anywhere without the rest of the group.

  Hassan sighed. Shook his head. “There’s a fire escape. Only problem is it’s locked on this floor.”

  “A locked fire escape?”

  Hassan scratched at his head some more. “Yeah. I… I meant to get it seen to. But—”

  “Don’t even bother making an excuse for that,” Riley said.

  Another few seconds of silence.

  “So there’s a fire escape. We get through the locked door and head down to the bottom. Then what?”

  “It should take us out of the back of this apartment,” Hassan said. “Might not be much good. Might lead us right into the path of the zombies. But I figure anything’s better than going through… well, those.”

  He pointed to the floor.

  Riley heard the creaking footsteps.

  The groans. The snarls.

  “Can’t help but agree,” Riley said.

  Jordanna raised her eyebrows. “There’s a first for everything, you two.”

  Riley didn’t laugh. Neither did Hassan.

  Riley turned to face the door. To face James. He felt the responsibility of leadership seeping into his consciousness once more. The perils of attachment growing ever larger.

  He didn’t like the feeling of attachment. Especially not to people who’d fucked him over. People like Jordanna. People like Hassan.

  But he didn’t have much of a choice but to escape with them.

  He didn’t have much of a choice but to lead them, once again.

  “We go through the fire escape. We… we try and get towards the west wall. There’s vehicles by the gates there, right?”

  Hassan shrugged. “Hopefully. If somebody hasn’t already—”

  “It’ll do,” Riley said. “Jordanna. James. You’re both armed, right?”

  Jordanna looked down at her pistol. “Not got much ammo. But—”

  “Something’s better than nothing.”

  Riley didn’t hold eye contact with Jordanna. Not for longer than a few seconds.

  He couldn’t.

  He turned back to the door. Walked up to James. Looked him in the eye, nodded.

  James didn’t nod back at him. Not like he used to.

  His eyes were still watery. Bloodshot.

  Filled with pain.

  “You ready to do this?” Riley asked.

  “Can’t wait to see the back of this place.”

  “Good. Good.”

  Riley walked past James.

  Stepped out into the corridor.

  He started heading towards the stairs when he saw movement.

  He couldn’t work it out at first. Couldn’t work out whether it was another person, or whether it was just a trick of his eyes, or…

  Shit.

  Shit.

  “Back up,” Riley said.

  “What—”

  “Back the fuck up.”

  He moved back. Moved back towards Hassan’s apartment. Back towards the room he least wanted to be in right now, but the only room he could be in.

  The creatures were flooding up the stairs.

  Looking at Riley, James, Jordanna and Hassan.

  Then, hurtling in their direction.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Riley didn’t expect to be back inside Hassan’s apartment so soon after he’d left it.

  He crouched behind the door. Behind him, Jordanna, Hassan, James. They’d thrown bedding over Cal’s body. Didn’t want to look at it. Didn’t want to be reminded of what’d happened.

  But blood seeped through the white sheets.

  That sweetness clung to Riley’s nostrils.

  And the sound of the creatures staggering along the corridor outside the door wasn’t exactly helping, either.

  “So what’re we gonna do now?”

  Jordanna’s voice filled Riley with disappointment. Mostly because he didn’t want to have to answer that question. He didn’t want to be in a position where it was his responsibility to answer questions, not anymore.

  They were trapped. The four of them were trapped in Hassan’s apartment.

  Which meant they had to do something.

  Riley looked back. Saw Jordanna staring into his eyes. Just for a moment, though. Her gaze soon dropped. She looked at the floor. Clearly wasn’t comfortable holding eye contact with Riley.

  Couldn’t blame her.

  Hassan walked around the back of the lounge. He looked at the window. Looked down towards the road. Outside, Riley could still hear the creatures lurking around.

  They were penned in.

  Trapped.

  Completely.

  James exhaled loudly. He walked towards the door, rifle in hand.

  “James, what—”

  “Somebody’s got to clear them out.”

  Jordanna shook her head. “Not like this. You’ll… you’ll kill yourself.”

  “Do you see any other way right now?”

  Riley saw the pain in James’ eyes. And it reminded him of something. Two moments in his life, actually.

  The first moment it reminded him of was the look in his rear-view mirror before he ploughed his car into a wall.

  Intentionally.

  The second moment was of Chloë. The look that girl had in her tear-filled eyes after she’d put that band around her neck and jumped from a tree.

  He hoped she was okay now. He hoped wherever she was in the world out there, she’d found her place. She’d found her happiness.

  Or at least, something close to happiness.

  “Jordanna’s right,” Riley said, standing. He walked over to James. Put a hand on his shoulder. “You’re not just killing yourself if you go out there. You’re killing all of us.”

  “I don’t…”

  James stopped. Lowered his head.

  Riley heard the croakiness in James’ voice. He heard the shakiness.

  He knew what James wanted to say.

  I don’t care.

  “You do,” Riley said. He squeezed James’ shoulder. Pulled his hand away. “You do.”

  Riley walked away from the door. Back into Hassan’s dimly lit lounge. Hassan was still over the other side of the lounge, investigating the window. He was muttering stuff under his breath. Not the reaction Riley had been expecting from a guy who always seemed so composed—

  “Riley.”

  Riley stopped.

  Looked to his right.

  Jordanna was looking him in the eye this time. Only unlike before, her gaze didn’t drop. Her eyes just stayed on him. Stayed focused.

  And looking into them sparked mixed emotions in Riley.

  Disgust. For what she’d done behind his back.

  But also sympathy. Because he knew he’d put her in that position. He’d forced her into a corner.

  Most of all, he felt love.

  “We can talk some other time,” Riley said.

  “We might not get another chance to—”

  “We need to figure out how to get out of here.”

  “Riley,” Jordanna said. She grabbed his arm. Lowered her voice. “I think… I think there’s something wrong. With Hassan.”

  Riley narrowed his eyes. He could see something else on Jordanna’s face now. Something… off.

  A look of fear.

  He turned. Looked over at Hassan.

  He was still by the window.

  Still investigating.

  “What d’you mean ‘something wrong’?”

  Jordanna looked over at Hassan. Then back at Riley. She moved closer, so she didn’t have to speak too loudly. “Before—before Cal got here. He was acting…”

  A smash.

  A smash against the wood.

  Against the door.

  Riley swung around.

  Saw a flailing hand working its way through the crack in the door, reaching around for anyone, anything.

  He saw the mass of creatures outside the room. Heard their groans grow louder. Smelled them, their stench overpowering the sweetness in the room.

  Another hand shot through the crack.

  Split away more of the wood.

  Then another.

  And another.

  James took a few steps back. Joined Riley and Jordanna as they stood there. Stared.

  “Stay quiet,” Riley whispered. “Stay very…”

  He didn’t finish his sentence.

  He didn’t bother.

  The mangled face of a creature appeared through the crack, right outside the door.

  It took one look at Riley, Jordanna, James, Hassan.

  And then it reached both its hands in through the crack and ripped more of the door away.

  Dragged itself inside.

  CHAPTER THREE

  James watched the creatures drag themselves through the growing hole in the door, into Hassan’s apartment.

  He watched the skin of the undead strip away from the flesh, the flesh from the bone, as they wormed their way inside. They were like water, or insects. Find the smallest crack and they’d work their way in. Reminded him of a time he had a carpet moth problem. Sprayed the eggs a fuckload, killed so many of the little fuckers before they were born.

  But until he blocked that tiniest of cracks in the brick wall, the shits just kept on coming.

  Except carpet moths were harmless.

  These motherfuckers had teeth.

  “We need to grab the drainpipe,” Hassan shouted.

  “Fuck that,” Riley said.

  “There’s no other way.”

  “There has to be another way.”

  “There’s—”

  James didn’t hear the rest of Hassan’s words, or the rest of the exchange.

  He open fired on the first undead cunt to drop into the room. It was a man. An ugly man with a bald patch. His chubby face was covered in acne.

  The side of his flabby body was covered in bite marks.

  James sent him flying back onto the floor within an instant. Burst his skull, sent cool blood all over the fat shit’s companions. Hoped to build a tower of the dead to block themselves in. Maybe that’d work. Maybe.

  But where there was a crack, there was always a way for them to find their way inside.

  James heard more arguing behind him as he fired at another zombie. And he couldn’t help feeling annoyed by it. ’Cause what did it matter what they decided? What did it matter if they took the window, if they grappled down the drainpipe, if they somersaulted headfirst towards the road below?

  What did any of this matter?

  They were gonna die anyway. Sometime, probably very soon, they were all gonna die.

  Might as well go out with a bang.

  “If you’re so sure then you go first,” Riley said.

  James heard tutting from Hassan. Heard more cursing.

  “I’ll go.” Jordanna.

  “No,” Riley said. As too did Hassan, at exactly the same time. Cute.

  “Fuck you both. Somebody’s gonna have to go out there. And if none of you two want to go, it’s gonna have to be me.”

  James didn’t hear the rest of the exchange.

  He just focused on the creatures ahead of him.

  At the bloodbath splattering all over Hassan’s walls.

  The taste of death building in the air.

  The redness of the blood took him back to the moment of his discovery. The moment he found Tamara’s body.

  There were still gaps in his memory. Still… still blocks, of some sort.

  He remembered going to bed.

  And then he remembered other things. The redness of the moon. Being outside. Being cold.

  Other things.

  Painful, blurry memories.

  Memories he couldn’t decipher.

  And then before he knew it he was back in his home, back in his bed, and Tamara was gone.

  But deep down, deep inside, James knew right then something was wrong.

  He hadn’t told anyone that, but he had a sense. A sense that something awful had happened to Tamara. A sense that something terrible had happened to his baby.

  Like he knew.

  Like he’d seen it already.

  He hadn’t told anyone about the blood he found on his leather jacket, either.

  And like the knowledge that something had happened to Tamara, he had a sense of where that blood had come from, too.

  He just didn’t want to face it.

  Didn’t want to accept it.

  “James!”

  James heard Riley’s voice but it sounded distant, muffled, distorted. He kept his attention on the growing mass of zombies. The door was pretty much non-existent now. And behind the putrid pile of rotting corpses, more of the undead worked their way in.

  Like water through a crack.

  Like insects through a hole in the wall.

  “James!” Riley shouted. “We’ve got to go. They’re gonna overrun this place. We’ve got to—”

  “Then go,” James said.

  He’d never pictured himself uttering those words. Never thought he’d ever find a moment in his life where something was more important than living itself.

  And a part of James wanted to believe that’s what this was. He was going down in a blaze for his friends. He was sacrificing himself, for them, because that’s what he was supposed to do. That’s the part he was supposed to play.

  But really, he knew the truth. He knew why his supposed role was such a cliche, too.

  It wasn’t because he wanted anyone else to survive. It wasn’t even because he was supposed to give a fuck about anyone else.

  It’s because he didn’t have anything else to live for.

  It’s because he wanted to die.

  More than anything, he wanted to die.

  He heard the blast of the gunfire transition to silence. The cries of the zombies, some of them on their knees after he’d shot their legs to pieces, edged closer.

  He went to reload the rifle. His trusty rifle he’d been keeping under the bed for months, just in case of emergency.

  No ammo.

  “James, quick!”

  James looked up at the zombies. Saw four of them pushing their way through the fallen mass of meat. Covered in blood. Red.

  Red, like the moon.

  Red, like Tamara’s death.

  Like his baby’s death.

  No!

  He tossed the rifle aside. Raised his fists. He’d punch them if he had to. He’d beat the fuckers if he had to.

  “You go,” he shouted.

  He heard Riley say something back to him. Heard the tension in his voice. The fear.

  But he didn’t hear the exact words.

  He just focused on the zombies stumbling towards him.

  Focused on their snapping jaws.

  Their vacant eyes.

  “Be with you soon, Tamara,” James muttered. He felt tears building up behind his eyes. His fists weakened. His heart raced. “Be with you soon.”

  He closed his eyes.

  Held his breath.

  He kept his fists raised until he felt the hand grab him.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  With the amount of times Riley had dangled outside of high windows since the apocalypse broke out, you’d be forgiven for thinking he was an adrenaline junkie.

  He wasn’t.

  He really fucking wasn’t.

  He looked down at the road below. He knew that was pretty much the first rule of climbing: don’t for the life of you look down. But he couldn’t help it.

  Not with the carpet of creatures covering the road.

  Swarming through the MLZ.

  Riley saw Jordanna and Hassan further below. He saw them working their way down the pipe. They were looking down, too. Which told Riley maybe he wasn’t so mad. Maybe he wasn’t the only one.

  From above, he heard banging. Banging against the windows. He knew what the banging was. The creatures. The ones that’d broken inside Hassan’s apartment.

  He knew exactly what they were because every now and then, one of them—

  “Head’s up!”

  Riley turned.

  Looked up.

  He saw James climbing down right above.

  And to James’ left, a creature.

  Dragging itself out of the window.

  No care or regard for the way the smashed glass ripped away its flesh.

  No care or regard for anything other than a meal.

  A blood meal.

  Riley held onto the drainpipe even tighter. His hands were sweaty. He could taste a growing tang of vomit. He hoped he could hold it in. Now was really not the time to throw up.

  He watched the creature fall away from the window. Watched it tumble down beside him, stretching out its fingers as it hurtled towards the ground below.

  He watched it splat against the road.

  Watched its legs break.

  Its ribs crack.

  But still, the creature kept on wriggling.

  Kept on groaning.

  “So,” James said. “The fuck we gonna do now?”

  Riley took a few seconds to compose himself. It’d been a mad few minutes. One second, he was climbing out of the window and onto the drainpipe. The next, throwing himself back into Hassan’s apartment. Lunging towards James. Dragging him away from the approaching creatures.

  He knew what he did was risky. He knew what he did was suicide.

  But he was still here. And so was James.

  Maybe suicide wasn’t always such a terrible option.

  “So now we’re on the fucking pipe,” James shouted, his voice barely audible over the echoing mass of groans. “How in the name of fuck are we supposed to get off it?”

  Riley looked down. Saw Hassan and Jordanna trying to open a couple more windows on the lower floors. Jordanna shook her head. “Locked.”

  “Of course,” James said. “Of course they’re fucking locked. We’re in the middle of an attack, after all. It makes perfect fucking… heads up!”

  Another creature fell out of Hassan’s apartment window. This one scratched Riley’s left arm as it fell, a matter of inches away from dragging Riley down with it.

  He listened. Listened for the crack. The crack of the creature hitting the road below.