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.
“Come on,” Cahz said, stepping over the broken glass.
Carefully treading through the doorway, Ryan followed close behind.
“You got that torch?” Cahz asked, his weapon pointing at the gloomy corridor ahead.
“Somewhere… Ah! Here.”
He hooked the handles of the plastic bag over his wrist and with the whir of the dynamo the dim yellow light started to dispel the insidious darkness.
Before them was a short corridor that led to a set of double doors.
With his carbine hard against his shoulder Cahz, cautiously moved forward.
“Follow my aim,” he whispered to Ryan.
The inadequate wind-up torch cast a pulsating glow of dirty yellow light over the desolate school. Impeded by the awkward position of the improvised papoose and the bag of cans dangling from his arm, the light dimmed and grew with Ryan’s ungainly cranking. With clumsy jerks Ryan frantically tried to illuminate Cahz’s sweeps.
It was a conflicting situation, the two men moving stealthily and with purpose while all the time the child strapped to Ryan’s chest wailed.
They reached the end of the corridor past the small reception area and restrooms unmolested.
Cahz stretched out with his left hand and opened the swing doors, his weapon still trained. The door swung to with a loud creak. He stepped through, using his foot as a doorstop for Ryan.
The light died as Ryan negotiated the door. When the puny light came back on, the corridor was just as empty.
“What now?” Ryan whispered.
“We check…” Cahz stopped whispering and spoke at a normal volume. “We check the classrooms. And there’s no point whispering with Rebecca crying.”
“It’s not her fault, man. She’s only a little baby. Every time you fire off with that thing you scare the shit out of her.” Ryan sniffed the air. “Literally.”
“I’m sorry I upset her, but I’m not going to fuck around. I know this can’t be any fun for her.”
“At least give me a warning in future,” Ryan said in a conciliatory tone. “I could cover her ears or something.”
“Let’s just find a room we can get comfortable in,” Cahz said. “And I’ll give you a hand changing her.”
“What if there’s pus bags in here?”
“If there were I’m sure they’d have come to greet us, or at the very least started whooping for joy. Now let’s get dried off as best we can and see about signaling the chopper.”
