Contamination

  Contamination

  Surviving the Virus, Book 2

  Ryan Casey

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  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

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  Chapter One

  Azi ran as fast as he could and tried not to think about the dead bodies.

  It was hot. So hot that it hurt to breathe. Sunshine reflected off the tall buildings either side of him. He could smell sweat in the air. Sweat, and something else, too. Something like when Mum kept some old chicken too long and it went all stinky. He didn’t like to think about that. The whole house smelled for weeks after that.

  And he knew why it was.

  Dead meat.

  The same dead meat lining the streets right now.

  He held the bottles of water in his shaking hands as he rushed down the street. His feet were bare. He tried to dodge fallen litter and broken glass as he ran down the road, past the stationary cars. All around, he could hear unfamiliar sounds. Not the usual sounds of the market that filled the city of Lagos at this time of day on a Saturday. But the sounds of shouting in the distance. Of screaming.

  And of gunshots being fired.

  There was another sound, too, as he raced down this street. He looked over his shoulder. Looked between the buildings. Over the litter, past the smashed-up cars, he could see people running after him. People chasing him. The people from the store. He’d sneaked in there because he’d heard they had water there, and he needed some. His mum was sick—not sick with the virus that everyone else had, at least he thought not anyway. But she needed water. She was starting to smell the house out. He was worried about her. Something was wrong. Something was changing.

  But she was okay.

  She had to be okay.

  Just the flu.

  Nothing more than the flu.

  So he’d come out here, and he’d sneaked into the store via the back. He knew he couldn’t go through the front. The people there weren’t the police. They were bad people. They asked for favours in return. One of his friends once told him what they meant by favours. And sometimes they wanted those favours from children.

  The thought of it made Azi feel a little sick.

  But he just clutched on to those water bottles and ran as quickly as he could.

  He raced down the street, took a right into an alleyway. He saw a woman lying there. A big woman wearing a headscarf. At first, he thought she was dead. Then he saw blood trickling from her lips, her eyes rolling back into her skull, her nostrils twitching. She looked like a ghost Azi saw on a horror movie Mum was watching once. It scared him when he saw it. He wished he could unsee it, wished he could stop thinking about it, but he always saw that pale, bloody face and those empty eyes staring back at him at night.

  He crept past her. Kept his head down. He didn’t want to look at her. He could hear more gunshots over his shoulder. More shouting. This place falling apart.

  Azi remembered the first time he’d heard about this virus. It was all over the news. It was strange because stuff like that usually started over here, on this continent. It only seemed fair that the Europeans were getting their dose of it for a change.

  He was fourteen, but he was a bright kid. He wanted to grow up and be a doctor one day, so he wanted to go over to England and study. So he was a little worried when he heard about people dying in the streets over there. People turning violent. Even their prime minister died.

  And then everything went dark in so many countries.

  The news went quiet. Everything went quiet.

  Like someone was trying to hide the truth.

  Nobody knew what was happening. Nobody knew how bad it was. But it still seemed so distant. It still seemed so far away. Like it would never reach Azi’s home at all.

  And then it hit here. Slowly, at first. Then quicker. Neighbours. Friends. People in school. Teachers. The police. Some of them dropping dead. Healthy people. Young people.

  Others getting violent.

  The police rounding people up. Ordering them not to leave their homes.

  And nobody knew what caused it.

  Some people died right away. Others stayed alive but then died later. Others lost their minds. Others ... they seemed to be okay. But all of it seemed to be spreading so fast. So suddenly. He’d seen outbreaks before. But usually there was time to send cities into lockdown. Usually there was time to introduce measures to curb the spread. But this was different. Nobody knew what it was. Nobody knew what they were dealing with.

  But if one thing was for sure, Azi knew things weren’t good. They didn’t get television anymore. WhatsApp wasn’t working. The police had fallen. Food was scarce. So many bodies lined the streets, and the bad people had taken control. He heard rumours that the government had closed the internet and television because they didn’t want to scare people.

  But what could possibly be scarier than what was already happening?

  He crept down this alleyway, towards this spluttering woman. He didn’t want her to notice him. He didn’t want her to think he was ignoring her, either. He just wanted to get past her. To get home. To get—

  “Some water, child. Please.”

  Azi froze.

  He looked around at this woman. Her eyes weren’t in her skull anymore. Blood oozed down her face, like face paint melting away in the heat. She stretched out a shaking hand, desperately clawing towards him.

  “Some water. Now. Please!”

  And then she lunged towards him.

  Azi stumbled back. Dropped a couple of bottles of water in the process. Struggled to stay on his feet.

  He wanted to pick those bottles up again because he needed them for his mum.

  But then he saw the woman grab hold of them. Saw her paw them open, saw the water dilute red as she glugged it back.

  And then he heard the movement at the end of the alleyway, and he knew he had to be fast.

  He turned and clutched on to the two bottles he’d still managed to keep. Ran again. Ran as quickly as he could. He felt something dig into the bottom of his foot. A sharp pain, almost flooring him. He looked down. Saw he had glass in his foot. Bleeding. Shit.

  But he cou
ldn’t stop.

  He had to keep going.

  He reached the end of the alleyway on the other side when he heard something behind him.

  First, a begging cry.

  And then a crack of gunfire.

  Azi shook. He looked at the fence before him. That poor woman. Because he was afraid of her. He was scared. But at the same time, he felt so bad for her. She didn’t choose the virus. She didn’t choose to be in such pain.

  He clambered over the fence. His bleeding foot stung with pain. He reached the top, rolled over it, landed on the other side with a thud.

  He turned over onto his side.

  And then he saw them.

  Three people on the other side of the alleyway. All looking at him. Rifles in hand.

  The people from the store.

  He turned again, and he ran. He ran as quickly as he could. Past more bodies. Past people slamming their doors shut, locking their windows. Past the smell of rot. The sour taste of decay. All of it getting worse with every passing breath.

  He ran—or limped—across the marshlands where he used to play football with his friends. The goalposts were all rusty. The grass was patchy. An old, flattened football rested in the middle of the pitch.

  He wanted to go back to those days. Days of laughter. Days where his mum would watch from the side, cheering him on. Even though he pretended it embarrassed him, it made him proud to see her so happy. So proud.

  He reached the other side of the football pitch, and he saw his home.

  A small house. One floor. Two bedrooms. Sometimes it flooded in stormy seasons. And it always smelled so bad when it did.

  But it was home.

  It was safe.

  He raced towards the front door when he saw them standing outside.

  Mum sat on her knees.

  Her nose was bleeding.

  She was crying red tears.

  “Please,” she begged, hands pressed together. “Just let me go. Just let me—”

  And then it all happened so quickly.

  The man with the mask lifted his gun and shot her dead, right there.

  Azi tried to keep his cool.

  He tried to keep his composure.

  He tried not to scream.

  But the water bottles fell to the ground, right as his mother’s head cracked open.

  As her body went limp.

  He stood there on the edge of that football pitch.

  Blood pasted across the entrance to his home.

  His lifelong home.

  His happy home.

  And as footsteps got closer and closer somewhere behind him, Azi dropped to his knees, and he screamed.

  Chapter Two

  “ You sure about this place?”

  “Do you have any better ideas?”

  “No. But I just have a bad feeling about—”

  “We’ve watched it for six hours now. There’s nobody about. The plan’s simple. We go in there. We take anything useful we can. Prioritise canned foods. Supplies that’ll last. And then we get the hell out of there. And if we do run into anyone... I’m willing to do whatever I have to do.”

  Noah looked at Jasmine, and he nodded. They stood in the trees just opposite a small supermarket on the edge of town. It wasn’t one of the big places. More a convenience store in an industrial estate for locals passing through on their way home from work or whatever. For that reason, Noah figured they might have more of a chance gathering a few supplies here. The bigger supermarkets in the more populated areas were already bereft of supplies. Those places would have been hit first. And the few supplies that were left—the few supplies that were actually replenished in these last few days—would be guarded by looters and all kinds of bad people.

  But they needed supplies. That was for sure.

  So they had to do something.

  Even though Noah and his group had been shielded from the worst of society these last few days, he’d still seen some pretty rough stuff. Hoarding. People fighting over shit like toilet paper and cans of beans. And as much as he hoped the supply chain would be renewed, this virus seemed to have other plans. It was so quick, so sudden, and so unpredictable that people had barely had the chance to get back on their feet. It’d punched the entire nation in the gut. Some dropped dead on the spot. Others showed signs of psychosis. And others—people like Eddie and Kelly—for some reason they’d recovered from it. As for Noah and Jasmine… seemed like there was no catching it even if they tried.

  But he knew all that could change very fast. There was nothing at all predictable about this outbreak.

  He looked into Jasmine’s dark brown eyes. It still amazed him that they’d found themselves reunited, even though a week had passed already. It still felt surreal. And not entirely in a fairytale way, either.

  It dug up old issues.

  Brought old insecurities raging back to the surface.

  But he didn’t have time to dwell on those now.

  He looked at this store across the road. A few cars in the car park. Every now and then, they’d see cars on the roads, but it wasn’t exactly easy to manoeuvre with all the accidents on the road and all the disarray.

  But this store. The windows totally intact. The lights inside totally dark. The pub around the corner looked empty. The roundabout, similarly abandoned.

  It was like a ghost town. Crows swooping down, cawing. A cool breeze cutting through the warm summer’s air.

  And yet Noah still maintained the sense that something didn’t seem right here. Even if they’d been on watch for six hours.

  “You need to get a grip,” Jasmine said.

  “Get a grip? You need to start being more careful.”

  “I am being careful. But there’s being too careful, too. Being too careful sees us dying. You have to be willing to do whatever you have to do. After Colin, surely you realise that.”

  Noah thought back to Colin. The lunatic who’d followed them back to Kelly’s country home and attacked them. He remembered taking him out, together with Jasmine. Burying his body. And as much as he knew he’d done the right thing—the only thing—Colin’s vacant eyes still stared back at him at night, whenever he tried to sleep.

  “Let’s just get this done with,” Noah said. “The sooner we get in there, the sooner we can get out.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Jasmine said.

  He stood up. Walked out of the safety net of those trees, down that grass verge, and to the side of the road. He stood there a few seconds. Looked down the road. Silent. Empty. Totally vacant.

  “It’s weird, isn’t it?” Jasmine said.

  Noah didn’t have to ask what was weird. He knew what Jasmine was on about. The quiet. They didn’t come out here much. They hadn’t needed to. They had supplies back at Kelly’s. Enough to get by, at least for now.

  But all supplies ran out at some stage. And that’s when the problems really started.

  Noah pulled the empty rucksack over his shoulder and nodded. “Come on. Let’s get on with this.”

  He walked across the empty road, towards the entrance to the supermarket. Entering the car park, he got a strange sense that he was being watched. That eyes were staring back at him from the darkness behind those doors.

  He looked either side. Then over his shoulder. Then back ahead. That unavoidable sense that he was being watched following his every step.

  “We’re alright,” Jasmine said. “We’re alone. We’ve got this.”

  She smiled at him.

  But then he caught a glance of the long knife she carried, and the hairs on his arms stood on end.

  He knew everyone had to be armed. He had a knife himself. One of the many weapons they carried when they were out and about.

  But seeing Jasmine carrying this blade, he couldn’t shake the feeling it looked a part of her.

  Like she was comfortable with carrying it.

  Like it belonged to her.

  He turned around to the supermarket doors. Pushed them gently aside. Heard them creak,
echoing right through the store.

  The air inside the store was thick and clammy. There was a sour smell to the air. The smell of rot and decay.

  He walked into the store. Dropped change clinking underfoot. Money rendered useless. On his right, he saw a television lying on its side, screen smashed to pieces.

  “Let’s get to it, then,” Noah said.

  They walked together down the aisles. A lot had been taken already, unsurprisingly. Didn’t look like any of the shelves here had been replenished. But there were still a few gems left. A couple of cans of tinned tuna. Some cheap peanut butter. Dental floss, which came in handy for all kinds of purposes. A few tinned potatoes, which didn’t look great, but beggars couldn’t be choosers in this environment.

  He threw the supplies into the rucksack. Kept on going. Optimism growing. But urgency growing, too.

  They had to get what they needed, and then they had to get out of here.

  He filled his rucksack and turned to Jasmine. Saw her throwing anything she could into that rucksack.

  “Jasmine?” Noah said.

  She turned. “This place is a goldmine.”

  “We need to stay focused. Only what we need. And then...”

  He reached the end of the aisle, and he saw something that made his body turn cold.

  A man lay back against one of the aisles.

  At first, Noah thought he was just sleeping.

  But then he saw the blood streaming down his face, and he knew he was dead.