Infection Z 3 Read Free Page B

seemed to be.
    But when he looked closer, he saw the tears rolling down her cheeks. Her bloodshot eyes. Snot dripping from the end of her nose like a leaky tap.
    There was a complete stillness to the grounds of Riversford as Sarah led Hayden outside. A stillness, a complete silence but for the cawing of birds, the scraping of tree branches in the breeze, and the shakiness of Sarah’s breaths. The moment Hayden saw the blood on her hands, he knew something was wrong. He knew some kind of accident had happened.
    That accident lay on the concrete six metres away from him.
    Tim’s body was completely rigid. In fact, it was so rigid that he looked like he was playing a game of musical statues. His right arm was pointing up into the air, his fingers twisted like he was reaching out for something way beyond his grasp. His eyes were wide open—really wide, wider than any eyes Hayden had ever seen. And as Hayden stepped closer, as Sarah’s shaky breaths became sniffs and Amy’s sobs grew louder, Hayden noticed the paleness of Tim’s skin. His cheeks were a pasty yellow colour, but thick blue bruises under his eyes contrasted it like the difference between day and night.
    And then there was the blood. The blood that had streamed out of his nose, his ears, his mouth. His black hair was caked with sweat and grease. His white v-neck T-shirt was covered in so much blood that it looked like Tim must’ve had some kind of accident with paint.
    Hayden stepped over him. His mouth was dry and tasteless. He stared down at Tim’s body and a lump welled up in his throat. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t understand. All he could think of, his heartbeat pumping gradually faster, was how this had to be one of Tim’s infuriating little pranks. He’d been alive. Less than an hour ago, Hayden had climbed up the wall of debris and dragged him down. He’d had a stern word with him, then gone inside and spoken to his parents.
    And now he was …
    “Is he—is he dead?” Amy spluttered, tears dripping onto the dusty ground beneath.
    Hayden crouched down beside Tim. Tim’s body was so cold that Hayden didn’t even have to touch it to know there wasn’t an ounce of life left inside. But he reached for Tim’s wrist, and then for his neck. He held his hand there in hope that this was all just some kind of messed up joke; all some kind of nightmare that he was going to wake up from soon, like the nightmare he had about his dead family biting one another and laughing and gasping and …
    “He’s gone,” Hayden said.
    He stood up. Wiped his eyes with his sleeve and looked back down at Tim. He couldn’t shift his eyes from him. He couldn’t understand. Something had happened. Some kind of accident had to have happened.
    “Oh no no no,” Amy said, crying more freely now. Her sobbing turned to wailing, and soon Gary and Martha emerged from their respective hangars and came running over to see what the hell was wrong.
    “Shit!” Gary said, stumbling when he saw Tim’s body lying on the ground. He backed away a little, and the colour seeped from his cheeks. “What’s … what’s …”
    “Amy?” Martha said, running up to her daughter and wrapping her arms around her. She was a curvy woman who looked older than the forties she was in. Her hair was dark and frizzy, and she always wore a navy blue coat and khaki jeans that looked a couple of sizes too skinny for her. “What’s happened?” she asked, clutching the back of her daughter’s head and staring wide-eyed at Tim’s body. “What … Is he …”
    “I don’t know what happened,” Sarah said. Her speech was slurred, distant, like she couldn’t catch up with her railroad of thoughts. “I—I just came out here. Saw him on the ground next—next to Amy.”
    “What happened, Amy?” Martha asked, pushing her daughter away and rubbing up and down her arms. “Tell your mum. What happened?”
    Amy sobbed some more. “He—he just fell. We—we were playing and he just