Read Infection Z (Book 5) for Free Online

blood in us. So you aren’t as important as you think, you skinny runt. Now tell me. Tell me what happened.”
    “Nothing—”
    “Tell me what the fuck you did to her!”
    Hayden was sure Gary was about to punch him. He was getting ready for a scrap. Bracing for the impact of a fist, or a knee, or skull against skull.
    But none of that happened.
    None of that.
    Because, outside, down by the wall, Hayden heard a blood-curdling scream.

Chapter Seven
    H ayden knew the scream was bad news the second he heard it.
    He stepped out of the pub. Turned in its general direction, over at the wall by the gates. The sun was bright and blocked his vision down past the terraced houses and towards that entrance area. There were people outside their houses. People looking to see what was going on, what was wrong.
    A scream outside the walls? That wasn’t exactly normal anymore, not since they’d rolled out the immunisation.
    But a scream inside the walls?
    That was unthinkable.
    Hayden could hear muttering. He heard the door of the pub creak open behind him, and he knew Gary was following him. They’d had their row in there, their confrontation. But it didn’t matter. Not anymore.
    The only thing that mattered was that scream.
    Hayden walked down the road. Walked towards where he’d heard the scream. He could see someone standing right inside the wall. Right in front of the main gates. He wasn’t sure who it was. Wasn’t sure he recognised them.
    But the closer he got, the more realisation built inside Hayden.
    Whoever it was, they were covered in blood.
    More people gathered in the streets. Some of them kept their distance from this mysterious figure. Others went up to them, tried to talk to them.
    As a cloud covered the sun, sending an autumnal chill through Hayden’s body, he saw who it was. He saw exactly who this person was. Where the scream had come from.
    It was Colin. The missing survivor of Amanda’s group.
    The group that were attacked by the infected.
    A mixture of emotions came over Hayden. Colin stood there, wide-eyed. He was covered in blood from head to toe. He looked terrified. His lips were moving but no sounds were coming out. It didn’t look like he’d been bitten, not from this distance, but it was hard to tell under all the blood.
    Part of Hayden was relieved to see one of his people alive. He was relieved that Colin had survived out there, and regardless of what’d happened, he’d made his way back home.
    But another part of Hayden made him put his hand in his back pocket. Reach for the knife that he always kept in there.
    If Colin had been outside, then something could’ve happened to him.
    The infected were changing, again. So Colin could be a risk.
    Hayden thought back to little Tim back at Riversford the closer he got to Colin. He never found out what happened to Tim. Never found out why he’d died, how the infection had passed on to Karen. Why she’d turned without any bites. As much of an invention Terrence Schumer’s “airborne virus” was, Hayden couldn’t pretend to understand all the mysteries of the infected. It would be naïve to assume that the virus didn’t have different ways of transmission; that people were susceptible to infection by various means.
    But Colin. He was supposed to be immune. He wasn’t supposed to even be recognisable to the infected.
    And yet his group had been hunted down.
    Hayden couldn’t run the risk of this man just walking back inside New Britain like everything was normal.
    “What’s he saying?” someone to the right of Hayden asked.
    “Something’s not right,” another voice said.
    Hayden just kept his focus on Colin. Kept his hand on his knife. If he had to kill him, he would, because his main priority was keeping New Britain safe, keeping the people he cared about safe.
    If he had to put him down, just like he’d put Amanda down, he would have no hesitations.
    The future of humanity was more important than the future of one, two humans.
    He