Chapter 3 It Knows My Name

The first rule of surviving Greyhaven was simple.

If the dead followed you, don't lead them home.

Nyra Kane had broken that rule before sunrise.

She kept moving along the narrow street, her backpack digging into her shoulders and the folder from Blackridge tucked beneath her jacket. The police station was behind her, but she could still remember the infected standing outside its doors, waiting as if they knew exactly where she was.

She had seen infected gather around noise.

She had seen them follow blood trails.

She had never seen them wait.

And she had never heard one speak her name.

The memory made her walk faster.

At the end of the street, she stopped beside an overturned bus and studied the road ahead. A faded sign pointed towards the old northern highway. If she followed it, she could reach the outer checkpoint leading to Blackridge before nightfall.

That was the plan.

Unfortunately, plans rarely survived contact with the dead.

A metallic crash sounded behind her.

Nyra turned.

Three infected had emerged from the alley she had just passed. One wore a torn hospital gown. Another dragged a leg that bent at the wrong angle. The third was a young man with blood dried across his forehead.

They hadn't noticed her yet.

She ducked behind the bus and waited for them to pass.

The hospital patient shuffled towards a broken shop window. The limping infected followed. The young man stopped in the middle of the road.

He turned his head.

Nyra pressed herself against the bus.

The infected stared at the empty street for several seconds. Then he walked towards the vehicle.

Nyra reached for her knife.

The young man stopped on the other side of the bus, separated from her by a thin sheet of rusted metal.

She could hear him breathing-or making the wet, broken sounds that passed for breathing among the infected.

Then his hand touched the metal.

Three taps.

Nyra's blood turned cold.

She backed away slowly, trying not to make a sound.

The hand followed her movements, dragging across the surface.

Then a voice came from the other side.

"Nyra."

She nearly dropped her knife.

The voice was rough and uneven, as if the word had been forced through a damaged throat. But it was unmistakably her name.

"Who are you?" she whispered.

Silence.

She knew she shouldn't engage with it. She knew she should run while she still had the chance.

Instead, she leaned towards the gap beneath the bus.

"What do you want?"

The infected crouched on the other side.

Its pale eye appeared beneath the chassis.

For a moment, neither moved.

Then the creature spoke again.

"Don't... leave me."

Nyra's fingers went numb.

Those words belonged to Kael.

They were the last words he had shouted when the guards closed the gate at Blackridge. She had heard them in nightmares, during sleepless nights, and in the moments when hunger made her weak enough to remember the brother she had abandoned.

She had never told anyone about them.

Not Raven.

Not the survivors who had shared her shelter.

Nobody.

"Where did you hear that?" Nyra demanded.

The infected tilted its head.

"Leave... me."

Its jaw jerked. A dark line of saliva slipped from its mouth.

Nyra stepped backwards.

The creature suddenly slammed its head against the underside of the bus.

She jumped.

A second blow followed, then a third. The infected began crawling towards the gap, its fingers scraping against the pavement.

Nyra ran.

She sprinted across the road, vaulted a low wall, and landed in a courtyard littered with broken furniture. Behind her, the infected screamed.

Other voices answered from the nearby buildings.

She didn't stop until she reached a ruined apartment block and climbed three flights of stairs.

From the landing, she watched the street below.

The infected had emerged from beneath the bus.

It stood in the road, looking towards the building.

Then it did something that made her stomach twist.

It raised its hand and pointed directly at her window.

Two more infected stepped out of the alley.

Then another.

They were gathering around it.

Nyra retreated into the apartment and blocked the doorway with a broken wardrobe. Her heart hammered against her ribs.

She needed to understand what was happening.

The message had led her to Blackridge. The records had led her to Helix Station. Kael's voice had confirmed that he was alive.

Now the infected were repeating his words.

Was Kael somehow connected to them?

Or had the people at Helix Station discovered a way to extract memories from the dead?

She thought of the phrase written in the restricted file.

ABNORMAL MEMORY RETENTION.

The words had sounded clinical when she first read them.

Now they felt like a warning.

Nyra searched the apartment for a working radio or a telephone. She found neither, but beneath a collapsed bookshelf lay a small emergency receiver with a cracked screen.

She switched it on.

Static filled the room.

"Come on," she muttered, turning the dial.

A voice emerged from the noise.

"...Helix observation wing. Report immediately..."

Nyra adjusted the frequency.

"...subject has repeated a name not listed in the experimental records..."

Her breath caught.

The voice continued.

"Repeat the name."

A pause followed.

Then a second voice answered.

"Nyra Kane."

She dropped the receiver.

It struck the floor with a sharp crack.

For several seconds, she couldn't move.

They knew her name at Helix Station.

That wasn't impossible. Kael might have spoken about her. He might have told the researchers everything about his family.

But why had the infected outside the police station spoken it too?

And why had the researcher sounded so alarmed?

Nyra picked up the receiver with shaking hands.

"Who is this?" she said into the microphone. "What have you done to my brother?"

Only static answered.

She tried again.

"My name is Nyra Kane. I'm coming to Helix Station. If you're listening, tell Kael I'm coming for him."

She released the button.

The receiver remained silent.

Then a faint clicking sound came through the speaker.

Three clicks.

Nyra stared at the device.

A man's voice emerged, barely audible.

"Don't come."

It was Kael.

"Kael?" She pressed the receiver against her ear. "Kael, can you hear me?"

His breathing crackled through the speaker.

"Nyra, listen carefully."

"I'm listening. Where are you? Are you hurt?"

A long pause followed.

"I'm still here," he whispered. "But I don't know for how long."

Nyra swallowed hard.

"What does that mean?"

"They say the infection remembers things. They say it keeps pieces of who we were."

"Who is they?"

"The people who brought me here."

A loud bang sounded somewhere near Kael.

He gasped.

"They're watching me. I can't talk for long."

"Kael, I'm coming to get you."

"No!"

His sudden shout made her flinch.

"Don't come through the main entrance. Don't trust the commander. And whatever happens, if you hear my voice outside..."

The transmission broke into static.

"Kael?"

Nothing.

"Kael!"

A final whisper slipped through the interference.

"If I call your name, don't answer."

The receiver went dead.

Nyra remained on the floor, holding it against her chest.

Outside, the street had become unnaturally quiet.

She approached the window and looked down.

The infected had disappeared from the road.

For the first time since entering the apartment, she felt a small measure of relief.

Then she noticed the writing on the glass.

Someone had scratched it into the dust from the outside.

The letters were uneven, as if they had been written with a trembling finger.

WE REMEMBER YOU.

Nyra stumbled away from the window.

She had been alone in that apartment for less than twenty minutes. The glass was three floors above the street, and there was no balcony beneath it.

Whatever had written those words had found a way up.

A low groan came from the stairwell.

Nyra grabbed her pipe.

Another groan followed, closer this time.

She backed towards the opposite window, searching for a route down. The drop was too high, and the fire escape had collapsed.

The apartment door shuddered.

Something struck it from the other side.

Nyra tightened her grip on the pipe and planted her feet.

She wasn't going to die here.

Not when Kael was alive.

The door shook again.

Then a familiar voice spoke from the hallway.

"Nyra?"

Her blood ran cold.

It was Kael's voice.

Exactly as she remembered it.

Young. Frightened. Desperate.

"Nyra, please."

She stepped away from the door.

The voice came again.

"Open the door. I'm scared."

Tears blurred her vision.

Every part of her wanted to believe it was really him. Every part of her wanted to throw the wardrobe aside and pull her brother into her arms.

Then she remembered his warning.

If I call your name, don't answer.

Nyra covered her mouth with one hand.

The handle began to turn.

And from the other side of the door, her brother's voice whispered something that made her blood run cold.

"Nyra, I know you're in there."