But right now, adrenaline drugged Kingsley’s body, pushing him onwards. No hint of exhaustion as he took James by the arm and led him to a gap between two cars in the next lane.
Eric was behind them, kicking at the other zombie that had snuck up on them. It seemed they might have jumped out of the safety of the SUV a little too early in their eagerness to get away.
Sammy was trying to push a dead old woman away from her. She might have been in trouble, but Kingsley couldn’t help her right now. James was more vulnerable. He had been racked by bouts of dizziness as soon as he stepped out of the car. James’ balance was poor, his energy levels only a little better, and he kept muttering that they should just leave him.
Kingsley ignored the hero-sacrifice talk and nudged James through the gap in the lane. But his friend clearly didn’t believe he would make it, which meant he wouldn’t be putting all his effort into getting to the other side of the road.
“Seriously. I... I’m not gonna live through this, mate... I don’t have the strength. Please. Just leave me.”
“Shut up. We’re almost there.”
The divider and the other carriageway were just beyond this row of vehicles. They shimmied between the two cars and came out on the other side. Kingsley spun around, checking for any zombies lurking behind the line of cars.
There were none. The path to the trees was clear. They were going to make it.
As they stepped over the divider and began to cross the second carriageway, Kingsley looked back to see if Eric and Sammy were behind them.
He spotted Eric climbing over the hood of a car and heading towards them. But he couldn’t see Sammy.
Kingsley started to wonder whether they should stop and wait for Sammy to catch up with them, or just keep going. Suddenly, Kingsley felt like his lungs weren’t getting enough air.
His ears were ringing again – like they had when he’d stared at the wreckage near the campsite earlier, the memories assaulting him.
His arms tingled.
He had made that decision months ago to drive over the speed limit and had ruined Emma’s life for it. How would this decision that he had to make now affect his friends’ lives?
Kingsley felt glued to the spot. He wanted to act, but to act was to decide and to decide was to accept the weight of the consequences. Though he didn’t have to do anything because when Eric reached them, he grabbed them both by the arms and steered them toward the trees, mumbling, “It’s too late. We need to go.”
Kingsley, his ears continuing to ring and his arms still tingling, looked one more time over his shoulder to see the dead swarming between the cars on the carriageway they had just fled. It was overrun.
Sammy was—
“Wait for me!”
All three of them heard the cry, the voice immediately recognisable. And when their heads snapped round to see, their eyes confirmed what their ears had told them.
It was Sammy. Her hair and clothes were messy and her little pocket knife was dripping red, but other than that she was unscathed. In fact, Kingsley thought there was even a glow in her face, a spring to her step. Not happiness, but confidence for sure.
*
The four trudged along a dirt path, trailing through the fields that bordered the A120 leading to the suburbs of Braintree. Kingsley felt like he was sleepwalking, or just plain dreaming. As if he might wake up from this nightmare at any minute and find himself back at the camp, tangled in his sleeping bag and hungover.
Kingsley supposed they must all be feeling pretty detached right now. It was an uncomfortable sensation that he was familiar with: derealisation. The feeling of distance from your surroundings, of being spaced-out and running on autopilot, of seeing everything through some sort of intangible hazy screen.
Apparently, it was the brain's way of protecting you from the crushing weight of trauma and stress. Many people experienced derealisation after a traumatic event. But it was also a symptom that many anxiety sufferers had to deal with and could be brought on by recurring stress.
For Kingsley, it had plagued him for months after the accident.
If there was one person here who should feel more spaced-out than anyone else, it was James. Not only had he been right next to them through all the madness of the day, but he had also been bitten by one of the zombies.
And that was what scared Kingsley. James wasn’t in great health, which could simply have been from minor blood loss – the bite wound had bled quite a bit before Kingsley thought to bandage it with what few first aid supplies he had in his backpack – coupled with shock and the hangover from last night.
But there was another possible explanation for James’ illness. And James himself, who had stopped to vomit at the side of the path not long before and was struggling to continue, suddenly voiced the possibility as if reading Kingsley’s mind.
“Guys... I know none of you want to do it,” James choked. “I know that no one wants to be the one to make that decision... but you have to leave me. You know what the first rule of a zombie apocalypse is: don't get bit. Everyone knows it. And... well, look at me. I’m fucked.”
“Nothing’s certain,” Kingsley said. “That may be how it works in every film, book and video game ever, but that’s just fiction. That’s just an idea, one of many possible ways that a zombie virus could be spread. But we don’t even know if this is a virus. It could be a chemical agent created by terrorists, or a side effect of a radiation leak, or, I don’t know, God’s fucking punishment on the human race for all of our sins. And even if you are infected with some zombie virus, there could
