Like a man that had been stretched, the too tall creature, rose up to its full height, towering over the few zombies that followed in its wake. Its grey skin was dry and cracked, with dark stains around the chin and chest from its last feeding.
Bony ridges surrounded the skull, forming a crown of sorts that protected it. I knew from experience the soft palette of the mouth had similar protection and the forearms had bone growth that seemed designed to tear at your flesh if it caught you in passing.
It took two steps forward, face turning towards us and I let Briony’s leash drop as I pulled both knives from their sheaths.
“Nothing’s ever fucking easy with you, is it, Clever Bastard?” Isaac muttered as he readied his heavy mallet.
I leapt to the right as the Reaper rushed in, the thick snow barely slowing it. Much to my surprise, it ignored the glancing blow from my knife and me, entirely. Its attention was focused fully on Briony, who bound and blinded by the hood she wore, couldn’t do much to protect herself as it hit her full force.
Like a cat with a mouse, it picked her up and flung her, blood spraying across the snow. The Reaper howled and leapt at her again.
“Deal with them,” I instructed the others as I nodded at the approaching group of undead.
While they moved towards them, I ran at the Reaper. There was no way I would allow it to destroy my best chance of getting through the city of London.
My knives sunk deep into its back, and I was forced to leave one behind as I rolled to the side, away from its grasping hands. I landed in the snow beside a bloodied Briony and with one quick slash of my blade, I severed her bonds.
“Kill the Reaper if you want to live,” I snarled as I snatched free the hood and leapt away from the sweeping blow of the Reaper.
I hit the snow hard and rolled, trying to create as much distance as possible from me and the zombie, before I came to my feet, knife ready.
Briony, without hesitation, pulled back her arm and flung it forward with all her strength. The powerful blow crushed the creature’s chest, but it barely paused as it raked its claws down her face.
She shook blood from her face and swung again, and again. Her blows, while powerful, were ineffective. It was clear to see that she was no natural fighter and despite her enhanced state, was woefully unmatched.
I risked a quick glance to my rear to make sure I wasn’t about to be devoured. Isaac was making wide, sweeping, swings of his mallet, dozens of corpses already at his feet. Gregg, meanwhile, was slower but no less effective.
He killed with a calm, efficiency born of long practice but from the stillness of his face, there was no joy, no passion in the task. It was merely something he needed to do. I could almost admire him for that.
Despite how much he hated it, he still came, because he knew that it needed to be done regardless of his own desire to be anywhere else.
A howl brought my attention rapidly back to the fight between Reaper and Infected. Briony practically flew across the tracks to crash against the rear of the overturned train carriage. Blood streamed from multiple lacerations and there was a hint of panic in her eyes as she realised just how outmatched she was.
The Reaper, sensing victory, hissed, black tongue protruding from its mouth grotesquely. Then it ran at her, dropping to all fours to pick up speed. She leapt aside, but one clawed hand tore open a fresh wound in her leg and she shrieked her pain and misery in one long cry.
I waited, gauging how long she would have left. It needed to be done at just the right time to have maximum impact. Adrenaline was rushing through my body and it was almost painful to hold myself back.
But, still, I did. I watched as the Reaper leapt onto Briony’s back as she tried to crawl across the bloodied snow. I waited as it tore fresh furrows in the flesh of her back, seeming to instinctively know that biting her would not turn her.
She twisted beneath it, panic rising as she swung wildly at it, her weakening blows ineffective. A smile rose to my face as that smug confidence she had was ripped away by the Reaper. Briony was, once more, vulnerable, alone and very, very, scared.
I could work with that.
With knives in hand, I crossed the distance between us in the time it took to draw breath, blades flashing in the weak sunlight, and blood flowed freely from the Reapers desiccated flesh. I leapt, up and over it, body twisting as I avoided the swing of one clawed hand.
My knives sank down into the flesh of its back as I landed, spinning on my heel and kicking out. A booted foot caught it solidly in the jaw, cracking the bone audibly. I laughed aloud as I pulled free my knives and danced away.
It wasn’t enough to just kill it, I had to defeat it and do so easily. I had to show her that I was the more powerful, I was the apex predator, I was the one she should fear more than the hordes of undead that still filled the towns and cities.
The Reaper, one hand pressed down firmly against Briony’s chest, holding her in place, turned its face to me and hissed, hate seeming to fill the sound. My laughter simply increased as I taunted it.
A wild swipe, easily sidestepped and then I darted in. The knife in my left hand tore a great hole in its cheek, while my left sliced away an ear, and then I was away and out of reach once more.
Briony watched me, eyes glittering with fear and hate, and I made sure to meet her gaze for just a moment, long enough for her to see the real me and know true terror.
Then I slipped past another outthrust clawed, hand. The blade in my left aimed for its throat, slicing deep and letting the blood spurt out, over the captive Briony. The creature roared its hatred, pulling back its head just enough for me to send the blade in my right hand through its eye with simple precision.
The Reaper collapsed onto her like a marionette that had just been cut free from the strings holding it in place. I grinned down at the Infected woman, letting her see me, the killer. Letting her take in just how easy that had been for me.
Months of training on the island. Hours upon hours each day spent in fights with multiple opponents. Soaking in every combat skill I could learn from those around me as I honed my natural ability.
I was in the best shape of my life, despite the limited foodstuffs we had at times. I was fast, I was strong, and I was in my element. I stared down at Briony, matching her gaze until she was forced to turn her face away.
“Do it then!” she snapped, and I laughed, glancing over to see my friends and the pile of corpses that surrounded them.
“A bargain,” I said, and she turned back to me once more.
“That worked so well for us the last time,” she spat.
“I need you to accomplish my goals and as you have just seen, I have no reason to fear you.”
The hate was palpable, but she grasped the Reaper’s shoulders and shoved it violently to the side and off of her.
“Speak then.”
“We work together to get into the Genpact base. You can turn however many of them as you please, but the leader is mine to kill. Once done, the base will be yours to do with as you will.”
“Why should we trust you?”
“What choice do you have?” I asked with a wide grin.
Chapter 6
The images on the screen flickered and danced, moving from still images to video footage and back again. There was little sound available, but that seemed to give them an extra level of terror to add to what was already there.
A day and a night. That was how long they had been showing and already people were in full panic mode. The admiral had quietly increased the patrols in town and village alike, providing a comforting presence for the majority of the people while their representatives clamoured at my door.
What could I tell them? How far could I stretch and bend the truth to save them from the full weight of the knowledge of what we faced? How would they react if they understood just how hopeless a position we were in?
My eyes were drawn to the TV once more as the cycle of images began again. The room around me was silent as th
e technicians split their attention between their work and the images they could see on any of the dozen screens that had been set up around the room.
It was Genpact sending them, I knew that; much as I understood the implicit threat in each and every image. Not that I could ignore the gloating that seemed to seep from the very screen as one image moved to the next.
Images of bodies scattered about. Before and after shots of small enclaves that had been hit and devastated by raiders. Those very raiders that were headed our way. Satellite images, looking down on those small communities that bustled with life. They were then followed by the same community with the buildings ablaze and bodies strewn around.
I couldn’t take my eyes from the video footage they had managed to obtain. A vast fleet of ships of all sizes and shapes, the decks filled with men, their skin tanned by the sun from the warmer climes they had been in. They laughed and they joked with one another as they took turns with the captives from those same communities we had just seen destroyed.
The video skipped stretches of time as night turned to day and back to night again. Days of torment and horror for those poor souls held captive. Men, women, children, there was no discrimination, all were used for the foul pleasure of the raiders and when days had passed, when the elements, the lack of food, the abuse, became too much. They were simply cast over the sides into the freezing ocean, discarded like garbage.
That was what was headed our way and we were being shown that we couldn’t stand against them. It was a warning and a threat to us. We were next.
Another still image followed that video, the fleet cutting across the Bay of Biscay towards the English Channel, earlier than expected by almost two weeks. The time we had to prepare had just been cut down to a week at best. Which made it all the harder to view the next video.
A ship, carrying a mixture of black-garbed acolytes and CDF soldiers, headed up and around the coast of Scotland to one of the military bases in search of supplies and weapons. A ship carrying our hope of surviving what was to come.
It cut through the dark waters, snow obscuring much more than the dark shapes of the men and women on deck. There was a silence to the video that was unnerving and made the sudden bloom of fire all the more unexpected as the ship rocked back from the explosion.
Another rocket, fired from somewhere behind the camera, sped across the waves to strike the ship just above the waterline. Another explosion, the silent cries of the men and women as the ship listed to one side, water spilling in through the open hull.
We watched in silence as our hope died with those brave men and women. I strained to see their faces, to search for those I knew, for Samuel who was my friend. Some made it into the water, others to the emergency inflatable rafts.
It didn’t matter. Tracer fire flickered across the distance between them, peppering those rafts with bullets and killing all they touched.
My tears would make little difference to those people, but they had them anyway. I wept for their loss, for their pointless deaths and for the madmen who were determined to take away any hope of our survival.
Another image, one that made my heart ache even more. A helicopter, black smoke wreathing it, lay broken upon the roof of a carpark. Zombies covered the streets around it, drawn there by the crash.
It could only be Ryan. There was no other reason for them to show such a thing. A helicopter on its own meant nothing to us or our survival, but the only people who could have been in one were Ryan and Gregg.
I had to ask myself how many times I could imagine my love dead or dying without driving myself insane. I refused to believe it, refused to think that he would have finally failed to live up to his promise to return to me.
But I couldn’t help myself and my eyes weren’t the only ones that were wet.
Another video, this one of a dark pit with a steel gantry surrounding it. Men and women wearing white walked around it with tablets in hand, conversing and gesturing to what lay below. As the image moved, that fresh horror was revealed.
Dozens of monsters, creatures that would haunt nightmares with their appearance. Once men and women, their bodies stretched and altered as the zombie parasite worked through them. The scurried about, hunched over, hands trailing along the floor as they sought fresh meat amongst the scattered bones at their feet.
I had seen their like once before in the aftermath of the slaughter at the medical centre. It had taken a strong force to take down that one creature and before us were dozens. A shutter door began to open, light filtering in and a screaming child hanging from a hook before the open back of a container.
The zombies rushed for the child, seizing it and dragging it down into the back of the container with them as they squabbled over the feast. The doors slammed shut and our last image was one of a truck driving away with the container on its back.
They were headed for us, I was sure of it. Any that survived the raiders would face the undead threat. There was only so much we could take, only so much we could survive. Not that it mattered.
One final image, one final threat implied in it. The image stayed on the screen far longer than any of the others and it was clear for any to understand. A missile in a silo, lights illuminating the serial numbers stencilled on the side, and the yellow trefoil symbol for radiation.
“Tell me you’ve found a way to stop this broadcast,” I said to Charlie as I wiped my eyes with my sleeve, uncaring for those that could see my tears. “Tell me anything.”
“We can’t raise the Valiant on comms,” she said softly. “There was no time for them to get off a distress call.”
Samuels boat, the one in the video. Not that I thought they had faked the video for even a minute, but still, I had hoped.
“The Admiral?”
“Speaking with the sub, trying to confirm the location of the fleet.”
They should have given us a warning. Their one task had been to follow the raider fleet and provide a warning. It was they who had told us we had two weeks. Either they had been disastrously wrong on they were no longer to be trusted.
I nodded in reply and went back to staring at the endless loop of images and video on the screens as if I could discern some meaning, some way or getting out of our predicament. I didn’t have an answer.
“Ma’am.”
I turned to Charlie and she swallowed past the lump in her throat. She was the one person who I couldn’t remember ever trying to be respectful to me in any way. She was irreverent by nature, brash and carefree. She didn’t care what others thought and she spoke plainly.
To see her so obviously terrified, it scared me a little.
“Yes?”
“W-we’re gonna get through this, yeah?”
I searched her face, hoping to find something there that would allow me to answer truthfully. All I found was fear and a desperate need for hope. No one could watch those videos, see those images, without fearing for their own future.
“Yes,” I said, raising my voice so that all in the room could hear. I didn’t believe it, but they needed to. “We will get through this. We will survive and more than that, we will keep as many of our own people safe as we possibly can.”
One by one, I met their eyes. There was fear there, an understandable need for reassurance and hope, but they weren’t defeated. They had faith that we would have some answers for them, some way of getting through what was to come. They had faith in me.
“We are already working on our response to this horror we are seeing and very soon, we will address the good people of this island. But first, I want you to know one thing, to take one truth away with you today.”
The room was silent, all eyes on me. Behind the crowd, a grim-faced Admiral Stuart entered the room. His eyes met mine for just long enough for him to shake his head and my heart sank.
“We will survive this, and we will come out stronger. We will prevail!”
I just wished that I wasn’t lying.
Chapter 7
Briony squatted
down before the fire, chewing on the bloody strip of flesh that had been torn from one of the zombies we’d killed. The rancid meat stank and yet still leaked dark blood when she tore a chunk off with her teeth.
Gregg, sitting opposite put down his half-eaten vegetable soup and looked away, while Isaac just did his best to ignore her whilst supping on his own meal. There was a tense silence that stretched over our entire group, leaving even me uncomfortable.
The fire crackled and popped, the wood not quite as dry as I’d hoped. Thick grey smoke rose up through a hole in the ceiling of the old building we had taken refuge in. Outside, across the river, hundreds more of the zombies still milled around.
“We should leave before it gets light,” I said, with a nod of my head towards the window that overlooked the river. “Or before the river freezes over again anyway.”
With an overwhelming number of zombies spilling out onto the train tracks we had taken the sensible option and retreated. Frozen and weary, our energy levels already low, we had no chance of killing them all.
Briony’s presence had given them pause, but not much. The scent of blood was in the air and that seemed to overwhelm even their natural desire to stay far away from her. Fortunately, we hadn’t needed to go far before we came to the river.
It had frozen over and while it creaked alarmingly beneath our feet it had held. The same couldn’t be said for the hundreds of zombies that all seemed inclined to cross at the same time to chase us down.
Scores had been lost as the ice gave way all along the river and we had taken the time to duck into one of the old industrial buildings. I’d no idea what they had been used for in the past, but they were dry and clear of zombies, so we decided to set up camp for the night.
“Where to then, in the morning?” Gregg asked, doing his best to avoid looking at Briony.
“Clacton-on-Sea,” Isaac said before I could reply, and we all looked at him.
“Why?” I asked, struggling to think of anything I knew about the town.
Killing the Dead Season 3 Box Set | Books 13-18 Page 86
