The boy peered out from the shadows of the storm drain, squinting against the brightness. He waited, listening carefully, but heard only birdsong and the sound of the river meandering past a couple of metres below him. He crept forward out of the culvert and for the first time in months felt the sun on his face. In the past it might have been a wonderful feeling, but now it was doing nothing to stop the clammy chill slowly creeping across his body. He tried hard to ignore the voice at the back of his head telling him that this was more than just an infected wound, that the Drone had done something to him, something bad. He scrambled up the riverbank and at the top lay flat, peering across the park. He normally preferred to use one of the less exposed exits from the sewer system, but today he needed what was on the other side of the park. It was one of the largest hospitals in London – one of the places that he tried to stay as far away from as possible. It was a magnet for Walkers and where there were Walkers there were always Drones. His body was suddenly shaken by another coughing fit and the burning pain in his chest drove him to his feet.
He made for the hospital’s main entrance. The doors were open and there were multiple trails of muddy bootprints leading inside. Walkers had definitely been here, but he had no idea how recently. He crept into the gloomy reception area. His own breath seemed impossibly loud as he listened carefully for sounds coming from further inside the building. He heard nothing but the smothering silence that he had become used to over the past months. The boy read the signs on the wall and quickly spotted what he was looking for. He headed off down the corridor to his left, following arrows to the pharmacy. A couple of minutes later he was at the top of a flight of stairs that led down to basement level. He peered into the darkened stairwell and pulled the torch from his backpack. Without any electricity the only light inside the building was what bled in through the windows, but down there it would be pitch-black. He made his way down the stairs, shining the torch on the ground just a metre ahead of him. The muddy bootprints headed towards the pharmacy and the boy realised with a sense of creeping despair what that meant. The pharmacy would be empty.
He continued to follow the signs on the wall and the bootprints on the floor until he arrived at a small waiting area lined with tired-looking plastic chairs and a serving counter sealed by a rolling steel shutter that was set into the wall. Further along the corridor was a door that led into the dispensary area. It had already been forced open, the frame around the lock splintered and cracked. He pushed the door further open and peered inside. There was nothing here. He made his way to the rear of the room, hoping that something might have been missed. He found several shelves still filled with medical supplies, but could not find the antibiotics he needed. He did, at least, find a couple of large plastic tubs filled with painkillers and after popping a couple of pills in his mouth to try to deaden the pain in his chest, he shoved the rest into his backpack. He took several packets of bandages and other dressings and tubes of antiseptic cream, anything that might prove useful in the future. It struck him as odd that these shelves had been left untouched by the Walkers.
Heading back to the counter he looked around for anything that might give him some clue to where he still might be able to find the medication he needed. He spotted an empty trolley off to one side with a clipboard hanging from its handle. He picked it up and read the top sheet of paper. It was a list of medicines to be distributed to various departments of the hospital, and as he read it he saw that the majority of the antibiotics were sent to either the children’s ward or the geriatric ward. That made sense – the very young or the very old would be most vulnerable to infection. He just hoped that the Walkers hadn’t looted those wards as efficiently as they had the pharmacy.
He hurried back up the stairs, grateful to leave the darkness of the basement, and headed towards the reception area when he heard a sound that sent a chill down his spine. At first it was hard to make out, but slowly it became clearer. It was the sound of marching boots and it was getting louder with each passing second. That sound could only mean one thing: Walkers were coming. The boy looked around desperately for somewhere to hide. He hurried to the glass wall at the front of the reception area and looked outside. There, just a couple of hundred metres away, a column of marching people was entering the hospital car park. Their bizarre assortment of dirty clothes and long ragged hairstyles gave them a dishevelled appearance that was at odds with their strangely disciplined lockstep march. The boy knew that the other thing they would share was a haunting, vacant expression that showed no hint of the personalities they had all once had. There was nothing behind a Walker’s eyes, no indication of the humanity that had once been there.
He ran back into the shadows, leapt over the counter and tried to slow his breathing. As the noise of marching feet filled the reception area, the boy could make out another sound – a low, throbbing hum. He wasn’t surprised, every group of Walkers he’d seen had been accompanied by Drones, but he’d been very careful to never get this close to a group of them before. Suddenly, as a high-pitched, almost ultrasonic, whine filled the air he felt something he had not felt in months – a bizarre, uncomfortable sensation in his head, like having an itch in the middle of his brain that he couldn’t scratch. A second later it stopped and the sound of marching started again as the Walkers headed further inside the building, presumably to continue stripping the hospital of any supplies that they might need. The boy rubbed his forehead as the irritating sensation inside his skull faded. He still had no real idea what it was, but it certainly brought back unpleasant memories of the day all those months ago when the world had changed for ever.
The boy could still hear the Drone hovering somewhere nearby. For some reason it wasn’t following the Walkers into the building. In fact, it didn’t seem to be moving at all. The boy dared not risk sneaking a peek over the counter to see where it was; he knew all too well that if he could see it, it could see him and that would be a very bad thing indeed. He had learned a painful lesson the previous night about just how dangerous it was to not maintain a safe distance from those floating nightmares. He had no choice but to wait and hope that it would eventually move away.
For several long minutes the boy crouched, praying that the Drone would follow the Walkers further into the building. Just as he was starting to think that he might have to take a huge gamble and make a break for it, the pitch of the throbbing sound from the Drone increased and it began to move. For a few terrifying seconds the noise got louder, but then it began to diminish, heading further away.
The boy took a deep, relieved breath and, without warning, his chest convulsed as another coughing fit struck. He clamped his hand over his mouth, trying to stifle the sound, but it was too late. The hum of the Drone grew louder again as it returned, attracted by the unexpected noise. The boy darted out from behind the counter and sprinted towards the front door, all hope of remaining hidden gone. The Drone rounded the corner behind him and emitted a horribly familiar shriek as it spotted its prey. A short black tube on the top of the hovering creature swivelled towards the boy, and with a flash and a crackle fired a searing bolt of green light at him. The boy dived forward through the doorway as the energy blast struck the glass directly behind him. The huge sheet of toughened safety glass shattered into millions of tiny pieces all around the boy. He leapt to his feet and began running across the car park, dodging between the rows of dusty, abandoned vehicles as the Drone streaked across the reception area in pursuit, the low throbbing sound of earlier replaced by an angry-sounding whine.
As the boy reached the street, his chest felt like it was on fire, his lungs fighting desperately to suck in enough air. Another green energy bolt sizzled through the air, missing the boy by inches as he frantically zigzagged down the street, trying to keep the creature from drawing a bead on him. He ran behind a bus and down the pavement, cutting left into the entrance of a shopping mall. The sound of the pursuing Drone was getting louder all the time and he knew with a horrible certainty that he was never going to be able to outrun it. He certainly couldn’t fight it; his only choice was to hide. He ran into the central atrium of the shopping centre. Escalators on both sides led up to the upper levels and the whole area was brightly lit by daylight pouring in through the glass dome roof high overhead.
The boy was blown off his feet as a large map displaying the mall’s floor plan exploded right next to him. He tried desperately to force himself to his feet, still deafened by the ringing in his ears, but could do little more than roll over and crawl backwards, away from the hovering Drone. There was nowhere to run; he knew he was finished and he couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of relief that at least the nightmare he had been enduring for all this time was now, finally, over. As the Drone floated towards him, the boy closed his eyes, hoping that it would at least be quick.
The rattling sound of automatic gunfire suddenly filled the air and the boy’s eyes flew open in shock as the Drone was struck by a hail of bullets that tore ragged holes in its metallic skin and sent oily dark green liquid spurting out. It floated backwards, screeching as another burst of fire struck it and knocked it out of the air.
The boy watched in astonishment as a figure in black body armour and wearing a gas mask walked down one of the nearby escalators. The soldier raised an assault rifle and fired one last burst into the wounded creature, leaving it twitching on the ground in a pool of green fluid. Walking towards the boy, the soldier pulled off the gas mask. Beneath the mask was a girl who looked to be about the same age as him with long dark brown hair, pale skin and blue eyes. She offered him a hand and pulled him to his feet.
‘My name’s Rachel,’ the girl said in a soft Irish accent, a tiny smile tugging at one corner of her lips, ‘and we’ve been looking for you for a long time.’
The boy just stood there, his mouth agape. It was the first time he’d heard another human voice in over eighteen months. The boy’s mouth moved silently, struck dumb as he tried to pick which question to ask out of the thousand that had just sprung into his head.
‘So, do you have a name?’ the girl asked.
‘Sam,’ the boy replied in a whisper, feeling a dizzying combination of overwhelming relief and utter bewilderment. ‘Sam Riley.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Sam,’ Rachel replied, rolling the dead Drone over with her boot. ‘Now tell me, can you run?’
‘I think so,’ Sam replied. His head was still ringing from the explosion that had knocked him off his feet and the wound on his chest still felt like it was on fire, but he knew they had to get out of here as quickly as possible. Where there was one Drone, there were bound to be others. A sudden roaring sound made them both look up at the glass dome as a huge triangular black object cruised past overhead.
‘Good, because we need to move fast or we’re both dead.’