Four of the infected had entered the street since I'd been watching, and he hid in the doorway as they lumbered past him oblivious to his presence. They didn’t have the dog-like sense of smell that used to be depicted in entertainment. The dead needed to see you moving to catch onto the fact that you were bite-worthy, and even then, you could still outrun them if you were fortunate enough to not be surrounded. They were lethal—and forgetting that could be a huge mistake—but their lack of speed meant you at least had time to strategise.
The man waited until they were gone, then slipped from the shadowed doorway and out into the burgeoning light.
As his features became clearer to me, I let out a breath, a sigh of feminine appreciation. He was strong and lean, with tanned skin and black hair that looked as if it hadn’t been cut in a while. He wore cargo pants and a grey henley, with an assortment of tools attached to his belt like an apocalyptic Batman. The small backpack he carried suggested he could have been staying somewhere nearby, but I wasn’t so sure about that. I’d never seen him before, and his quiet, restrained demeanour made me think he might be someone I wanted to know.
Before he could disappear for good, I opened the sliding door, then raced through the empty apartment and out into the hallway. With panting breaths, I headed for the fire exit and dashed down the concrete steps, stopping at the bottom to compose myself before I opened the door to the outside.
This part always frightened me the most. Blind spots made me vulnerable for a split second—just long enough to be surprised by one of the infected or grabbed by a not-so-friendly human. Strangely enough, humans scared me more. The dead were at least predictable, and they never tried to hide what they wanted from you.
I eased the door open and peered through the gap. When it looked to be all clear, I sidled outside, checking that the duct tape I’d secured over the latch was still in place before I shut it again. It was my only way back inside.
I waited and listened. A group of the dead in the distance caught my attention, but they were far enough away that I didn’t need to worry about them yet. As I counted the numbers—seven, with another two joining from a side street—the man I’d been looking for crossed the road and slipped into the cinema complex on the other side.
He hadn’t seen me. He didn’t even look in my direction, but his presence left me feeling exposed in my current position. With adrenaline coursing through me, I followed his path and hurried across the street, flattening myself against the brick wall outside the cinema. My backpack dug into my spine as I caught my breath and considered my options.
I’d already been through the complex about a year back to check for supplies. Like most of the commercial buildings in this area, it had long ago been stripped of anything useful, and the dead roamed the ground floor. Not in large numbers, but enough that playing dodgem posed a few challenges and would be unnecessarily risky given there was nothing of value in there.
He could have been staying in one of the theatres or using the building as a ruse so no one would know where he’d really been holed up all this time. The emergency exits in each theatre led to an alleyway on the left and another at the rear. The laneways housed small apartment buildings, two cafes with offices on the upper levels, a newsagency, and a backpacker hostel.
As a general rule, I avoided narrow streets unless it was obvious I had the all-clear. They gave me fewer escape options, and the idea of being trapped made me anxious—but I ignored the inner warning and zipped around the corner, diving straight into the alcove of the newsagency entrance. While I waited to see if he’d appear from an emergency exit, I slipped my knife from my belt and gripped the handle to stop my fingers from trembling.
Anticipation built inside me, and my breaths came faster.
Sweat dampened my t-shirt in the middle of my back. My limbs were taut with nerves.
I wanted to see him.
I didn’t want to see him.
Long moments passed before I heard another noise, and suddenly the thought of coming face-to-face with a human other than Haruto overwhelmed me. With my heart in my throat, I poked my head out from my hiding spot to look for the man—and met vacant eyes and rotting flesh instead.
A cry lodged in my throat, and I stepped forward to throw the infected woman off balance.
You needed to think fast and act without hesitation to avoid being overpowered and bitten. It took a blade through the eye, the ear, or up through the jaw to kill one of them for good—and a straight, driving motion to ensure your knife didn’t go off course and miss its target; the brain.
I grabbed the front of her filthy cardigan and yanked her toward me, sinking my knife into her eye socket. At first, I'd found it gruesome to end a former human in this way, but I’d done it so many times that I'd become accustomed to the sensation of decomposing flesh giving way to my knife or sword. As I eased her body to the ground, the smell of decay filled my nostrils, and I tried to stay as quiet as possible to keep my location secret.
I checked the alley in both directions and trained my ears for further sounds.
Nothing.
I waited a few minutes longer, hoping to catch another glimpse of him, but as my heart rate slowed, I pulled in a breath and shoved down my disappointment. He was either back in his hiding place by now, or he'd caught onto me tailing him and had decided to stay out of sight. I couldn't blame him if that was the case. It was impossible to know who to trust anymore. Taking a chance on a stranger could mean losing everything that mattered to you.
Telling myself I'd keep an eye out for him on my run, I turned to the door of the newsagency and pushed, figuring I'd pick up some reading material for Haruto while I was here. I’d been in the shop not long ago and there were no infected trapped inside at the time, but I still searched every aisle to confirm it was safe. Although the place had already been ransacked, looters were after chocolate bars and chips, maps and how-to books, not entertainment.
Haruto spent his working years as an architect, so I stuffed my backpack with a couple of home design magazines and a John Grisham novel, then slipped behind the counter to check the backroom reserved for staff.
A desk and an overturned chair were in the far corner, with a filing cabinet and a bookshelf along the nearest wall. People hid medication and valuables in the strangest places, and I pulled open the top drawer of the filing cabinet hoping to find something useful. It was crammed with suspension files labelled with neat plastic tabs, all of them so bulky there was no room for anything else. I closed the first drawer and checked the remaining two to discover the same contents. No secret stashes.
While I kept my ears tuned for movements in the main part of the shop, I checked the desk drawer, expecting to see stationery and miscellaneous junk. A bottle of medication rolled from the back to the front, and anticipation rushed through me as I read the label. I knew to look for names that ended inoneoreine, and I’d just hit the jackpot. With a silent cheer, I pocketed my find and thoroughly searched the rest of the drawer, resulting in a box of codeine tablets with a full blister pack still inside.
Now that I’d found a way to ease Haruto’s pain, I focused on my surroundings and took in every little detail. The second I let down my guard, all hell could break loose, and I didn’t want another surprise like the one outside.
I left the newsagency, spent a moment in the alcove assessing the area, then stepped over the woman’s body and hurried from the alley.
With the group of infected heading my way, I took off in the opposite direction and swept my gaze from left to right. I still needed to search for food before I went back home. More painkillers would be a bonus, too.
And with plenty of time left before I reached the two-hour limit I’d set for myself, I wouldn't forget my five-kilometre run. I hadn’t skipped a day since this whole mess started, and I refused to slack off now. If there was one strength I could add to the knowledge I’d gained pre-pandemic, it was speed.
