Run. Run. Don’t look back. Just run.
Long grass whips at Jim’s legs. Branches pull at his arms as if the trees themselves are trying to stop him, trying to drag him back to the blockade. Run. Run. Pain stabs through his ankle, so sharp it chokes him. He would throw up if he had anything left in his stomach. If he had time. Instead he runs, terrified, desperate to get away.
He hears
them
behind him. The infected, so much stronger and faster than he’s ever been. He hears their voices over the rain. Guttural shrieks tear through his head, so close,
so close,
but if he can just lose them he’ll be safe. The soldiers didn’t chase him. They didn’t need to. There were always infected prowling the blockade. Driven out of Manchester by the fires. The soldiers didn’t need to lock him up because if he ran
the infected would find him.
And they will. They’re right behind him. They are going to catch up.
Run, run, run!
He stumbles. His foot slips in the mud, his ankle twists, and he screams, as his leg folds underneath him and he falls. He hits the ground hard. Pain lances through his arms. His hands sting. Blood runs down his face, mixing with rain as it starts to congeal, and he forces himself up onto the one foot that still works properly. If he stops now, he’ll die. They’re right behind him.
Run. Run!
Manchester. He has to reach Manchester. If he reaches the city he can find somewhere to hide, some hole to curl up in and wait until he heals. He just has to get there. South. Go south. He doesn’t dare stop to get his bearings, and he left the road behind a long time ago, trying to lose them in the underbrush—
His feet are going numb.
Something snarls behind him. Jim redoubles his pace, limping frantically through the trees despite every nerve screaming at him to stop. Everything hurts. His head throbs in time with his heart, in time with the pain that knifes through his ankle with every step. They’re coming. Don’t stop. They’re coming.
He isn’t going to reach Manchester.
He has a few more meters, maybe, before they catch him. A few meters before teeth sink into his skin and they turn him into one of them, a nightmarish creature consumed by blood and rage. Does it hurt? he wonders, but of course it does. He saw Mailer. He knows.
He isn’t going to make it.
Something growls right behind him. Jim skids to the side, through some horrid spiny bush, and he keeps running. He can’t feel his feet, but he keeps running, reaching further for every breath. Don’t stop. Don’t stop. A fence looms ahead of him. Please, please— Without a second thought, Jim dives to the ground and shoves himself through a gap. Wire rakes across his arms, drawing fresh blood. He doesn’t care. The infected don’t think. If he can get through the fence, then maybe, maybe—
He pulls free of it, free, and manages two more steps to the end of the trees before his legs give out and he falls flat on his face.
“There they are!”
A voice, a human voice closeby, and once that meant safety but now it makes Jim’s stomach clench with fear. He tries to stand up. Operative word, tries. His feet can’t take anymore and he falls again, on hands and knees this time, and he looks up just in time to see them. Two men. On the other side of the road. With weapons. The taller one raises a shotgun. He takes aim at Jim.
“Wait—!”
The word scrapes out of Jim’s throat, as painful as everything else. It’s too quiet. They can’t hear him. They’ll think he’s infected, with the blood all over his face, and Jim dragging himself along the ground like a wild animal. “Wait, please!”
Something shrieks behind him. Jim flinches. He feels the infected grab at him, and it is screaming and he is screaming and then all is drowned out by the roar of a shotgun.
When Jim comes back to his own head, he is curled up on the ground with his hands over his ears. There is a shadow. Someone standing over him.
He can’t stand. Jim remembers that, and drags himself onto his knees. He heaves with pain, as the bones in his ankle grind against each other. The man with the gun steps closer to him.
“Wait,” Jim says, his voice like broken glass. “Please.”
“He’s not infected,” one of the men says. He has a soft voice, or maybe he’s just scared.
“Not yet,” the other says, the one with the shotgun still trained on him. Jim cringes.
“Please,” he says again. By now it’s second nature. It never fixes anything, but if he rolls over and shows his belly maybe they won’t try to hurt him anymore. Maybe he can distract them. Mitchell always liked to hear him beg.
He presses his hands into the mud and slides them forward. He’s unarmed. They’ll see that. They’ll see it, and they won’t kill him.
“Holy shit,” someone says, and Jim flinches by habit. “Look at his fingers.”
“He needs help. We have to get him back to—”
“Wait.” The shotgun hovers a meter away, trained on Jim’s forehead. “Give it another minute.”
Rain patters on the ground. Jim closes his eyes. He doesn’t know what’s going on anymore. It can’t be good, but he can’t stop it, either. He’s tired. With the immediate threat of infection gone his body is crashing, and every injury from the past two days makes itself known with a vengeance. Everything hurts.
He sits like that, on the ground, for a while. A minute, maybe, or five. Rain soaks through his clothes again. It stings the cut on his head. He hears the gun shift, away from him, and when he opens his eyes it’s pointed at the ground. Two men look down at him. The one with the shotgun is blond, and young—close to Jim’s age. The other is older.
Jim shivers.
“Can you stand up, son?” the older man says. Jim takes a deep breath.
He tries. He already has his hands braced against the ground; he manages to get his good leg under him and balance on it, but he knows if he tries to take a single step he’ll collapse.
“Good,” the man says. He has reddish hair. A beard. A London accent that makes Jim tense. “That’s good. We’ll help you, come on.” He steps forward, his movements slow, and loops one arm around Jim’s shoulders. It hurts.
Everything hurts.
“Who are you?” Jim croaks. The man tugs him along, and keeps him upright when his bad leg folds.
“Frank,” the man says, more upbeat. “That’s Mark. And we have others, back at the house.”
A chill crawls up Jim’s spine. Back at the house. After clawing his way out of the mansion, past the blockade, through the woods—after all of that, he’s run straight into another prison.
“Do you have a name?” the other one, Mark, says.
“Jim.”
His voice is faint. Everything hurts, and it’s all Jim can do to put one foot in front of the other, even with Frank helping him along. He does his best to walk. He holds on as long as he can. But he’s crashing, as the adrenaline washes out of his system. He can’t keep his eyes open. Before he even has a chance to see the new hell he’s committed himself to, he blacks out, right there on the road.