Killing The Dead | Book 22 | Fury

by Murray, Richard

  “No,” Cass said. “Though if you had told me this over the radio your journey would have been unnecessary, and we could have used the time to prepare the supplies you need.”

  The two of them seemed unsure of how to respond to that and I tapped lightly against the wooden surface of the table with my knuckles to bring their attention back to me.

  “We have no problem with offering help to anyone who survived the end of the world. How much you may or may not have been involved in that end doesn’t matter anymore. We need to survive together so as long as you don’t try to do anything that harms others, we will offer what aid we can.”

  “Ah… thank you.” Eunice lifted her chin and brushed absently at her blouse with one hand, smoothing the material. “Your graciousness is unexpected but welcome.”

  “There are some things you can do for us,” Cass added, and the two exchanged another look. “No need for those looks. If you refuse, we will still provide you with the aid you need.”

  “What then would you have us do?”

  “We need any data you have on the parasites and the location of any you have found. We need to be kept aware of these so that once a way to kill them is found, we can destroy them.”

  “You believe you can find a way when we have failed?”

  “Someone already has,” I said with a grim smile. “All we need to do is find out how.”

  “How would you propose to do that?”

  “I have a few ideas.”

  Not that I was willing to share them, not right then. No, as Cass adeptly changed the topic of the conversation to a discussion on what they needed versus what we would like from them, I settled back and glanced over at Isaac.

  He glowered at the two scientists and I wondered if he had known them when he was employed by Genpact. There certainly seemed to be more than the usual animosity on his face and I realised that Eunice had noticed it too as her gaze kept flicking to him.

  A mystery and one that I was not willing to leave to fester and potentially bite me in the ass later. I cocked an eyebrow his way as I asked him directly.

  “You have a problem, Isaac?”

  “Aye.”

  “What is it?”

  “You can’t trust them, lass. Snakes, all of them.”

  Eunice’s lips pressed tightly together as she refused to be baited and I chewed on my lower lip as I considered. It wasn’t just a matter of distrust, I was sure of that. But, if he wasn’t willing to say it out loud then it was likely personal.

  I trusted him to put the safety of our people first, so I had no worries about that, but I was concerned for him.

  He carefully avoided my gaze and I settled back, only half listening as Cass haggled over the terms with the Genpact people. I was fairly sure that if I spoke to him alone he would tell me what the problem was, but to do that we would have to be alone together.

  Probably not the best idea.

  Still, he was a friend and despite the kiss we had shared on our ‘date’ I wanted him to remain that. I wasn’t ready for anything else, even after five and a half years or so. Which meant that no matter how awkward it would be, it was time to talk to him about it.

  Something that could be arguably more unpleasant than haggling over food quantities with the architects of the world's destruction.

  Chapter 9

  “You have to admit it’s time to stop, yeah?”

  I didn’t immediately reply to my friend as I wiped rainwater from my face. It didn’t make much difference as the rain was falling in torrents and I was soaked through to the skin. My waterproof clothing had long since given up on trying to keep me dry.

  He had a point, though I wasn’t quite willing to admit that to him. His attitude as we had made our way into the City of Birmingham had been less than pleasant and I had found myself responding in a childish manner by ignoring him and sulking.

  I’d never really had a friend, and certainly not when I was a child, so I had no real way of understanding how to heal the rift that had grown between us. Instead, I retreated back deeper into myself, drawing back the man that Lily had found hidden within.

  Soon there would be nothing but the killer and my rage.

  “Mate?”

  He shifted, turning to look at me with his one good eye, the crunch of gravel accompanying the movement.

  “It’s not time.”

  I didn’t want to argue about it and raised the binoculars to my eyes and looked down at the enemy.

  The city was drab and grey, with streets filled with abandoned cars and rubbish. What greenery there had been was overgrown and habitat for insects and small animals, while desiccated corpses and piles of bones were all that remained of the zombies.

  Faded and filth streaked signs sat above shops that would never reopen, and much of the glass that had filled the windows had been shattered and strewn about. Fresh graffiti had been painted in places and it hadn’t taken us long to realise that it was a form of signage directing travellers through the city towards what had become the enemies base.

  I had to admit that it had been a smart choice. A teardrop-shaped island surrounded by the Birmingham Canal. There had been a central road that crossed over it and some enterprising soul had managed to destroy it, cutting it off completely from the rest of the city.

  One half of that island was filled with apartment buildings that formed a half-circle which had, I guessed, had parking for the tenant's cars in the centre. Raised beds formed neat rows with the green of growing things in them.

  The other half of the island was smaller homes, each with a neat garden and ample parking spaces. Like with the apartments, raised beds filled every available space and people moved with purpose as they went about their daily tasks.

  With boats tied up beside the canal, and newly made bridges of timber and salvaged metal that were guarded by at least two raiders, it was clear that getting into the base would be difficult. Not to mention that there were considerably more people than I had originally suspected.

  To the south were some multi-storey buildings that overlooked those houses and their gardens. One of those buildings was the national Sea Life Centre, and to the north was the Birmingham Arena. There were multi-storey car parks on both sides and more apartments to the west.

  Having a good vantage point to watch the base was not the problem, but for the life of me, I couldn’t see an easy way in. Ordinarily, I would have considered just swimming the canal but they had erected a barbed wire fence all around the sides of their island and patrolled it with some regularity from what I could tell.

  “Easily five hundred people,” I mused, half to myself. “Probably a lot more too.”

  It was hard to get an accurate count but from just the number of people walking around, and the lights in the windows on a night gave me a rough idea. I wouldn’t have been surprised if there were double that number.

  “They can’t all be slaves?”

  “None are,” I replied, staring through the binoculars once more. “There’s laughter and people talking their time about their work. No one is being assaulted or watched by the guards. They are all looking outwards.”

  “Which means?”

  “They aren’t concerned with the people inside the base but want to make sure no one from outside gets in.”

  That told me that the raiders were guarding their families, their friends, their community. With so many to feed it was no wonder they were taking from others in nearby communities. There was only so much they could grow and fish from the canals.

  I wondered idly if those men and women I saw walking around without armour knew what the raiders got up to when they were away. Or if they even cared. Somehow, I doubted it was something they would ask themselves so long as they were being cared for.

  “You can see that this is impossible,” Gregg pressed. “Even if you could get in there and kill this leader, you aren’t going to get gratitude.”

  He sucked in a deep breath and squinted up at the falling rain befo
re running a hand down his face to scrape off as much of the rainwater as he could.

  “We need to get to the island and come back with an army.”

  At one time I might have listened to him, but when I looked at those people dressed in their silly armour and carrying swords made of beaten metal, all I could feel was a burning hot rage. Their very existence mocked the promise I had made to protect the innocent.

  No, I couldn’t leave them be to continue on as they were. There would be no army to fight at my back and no one to know who it was that had cleansed the place of their filth, but I would know. I would know that the world the woman I loved was raising our children in, was that little bit safer.

  I would not wait.

  “Go back to the others,” I said, voice cold as the killer came to the fore. “I have some work to do.”

  “Christ, mate! Don’t bloody do this!”

  “Leave if you have not the stomach for it.”

  “I’m not gonna abandon you, not now, not after all we’ve been through!”

  For a moment I considered and then I did look at him. There was no way for me to determine if he were telling the truth or merely saying what he thought I wanted to hear so that I would do as he wanted.

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re my friend you, daft sod!”

  Was I though? I honestly wasn’t sure. His behaviour towards me had been cold for some time and I could recognise anger at least. He was not happy with my methods or the task I had set myself, that was for sure.

  How then could I trust what he said? I had not the skill in such things to be able to determine the truth and any method I might employ to get that truth would certainly destroy any friendship that might still be there.

  The strange thing about it all was that I wanted to believe him. I wanted him to still be my friend.

  That disturbed me.

  “I have a task to do here and I need to figure out how to accomplish that. You can either help or you can go, as you so choose.”

  His lips twisted as he scrunched up his nose, something unreadable passing on his face, and he shook his head, turning away from me.

  “You’re being an idiot. All you can see is the chance to kill people and whatever reason you might think you are doing it for, you are just doing it so that you can keep killing.”

  “Oh, how well you know me,” I sneered.

  “I know you well enough, mate.” His voice rose in anger and I looked over at the enemy base to ensure no one had heard. “You’re terrified of going back to the island and finding out Lily doesn’t want you anymore! So all you are going to bloody well do is drown out that fear in the blood of others.”

  My hands tightened around the binoculars and I had to force myself to stillness. The killer was too close to the surface to risk my lashing out in anger at his words. I pushed myself up and stormed across the rooftop to the door that led to the stairs.

  Thirty flights of stairs gave me more than enough time to try to calm myself as I descended from the roof of the hotel down to the ground floor where the others waited. Part of me could admit that I was angry because he was right, but I wasn’t ready to confront that fact, not just then.

  Instead, I seethed and focused my thoughts on what I would do to the next raider I caught. I needed to send a message to the leader of their group and I wanted them to know true fear.

  “Everything okay?” Two asked as I pushed through the door into the lobby where they waited.

  “Yes.”

  “Looks it,” she murmured as Gregg came out of the stairwell behind me, wearing his anger openly. “Had a falling out?”

  “They patrol the surrounding area with some regularity,” I said, ignoring her comment. “In an hour, they will pass through a street a short distance from here. We will be there first and we will be ready.”

  “How many?”

  “This close to their base, they patrol in pairs.”

  “Easy then.”

  I gave a curt nod but my attention was on Gregg who had leant in close to speak to Abigail. Whatever he was discussing he kept his voice low as his cheeks flushed and he held his arms rigidly to his sides.

  What would I do if he decided to leave? He would go to the island and there would be no way he could hide the fact that I survived. I couldn’t let him do that but at the same time, I couldn’t hurt him.

  He was my friend.

  “We’re good to go,” Two said, and I snapped my attention back to her. “Good. No killing this time, I want them both taken alive.”

  “Whatever you say.” She paused. “You not coming with us?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I have a task of my own to accomplish.”

  Two shared a look with her sisters before she shrugged. “Whatever you say.”

  I gave them directions and the four set off. They were capable enough to take down two lone raiders and I would need some time to prepare. I looked over at my friend, brow furrowing.

  “You should head back to the safe house.”

  “We will,” Abigail said with a sneer as she looked down her nose at me. “There’s no need for us to see what you are going to do.”

  The two of them gathered their backpacks and turned to go. Gregg didn’t look my way and there was a peculiar feeling in the pit of my stomach as he walked towards the door.

  “Will you be there when I return?”

  Gregg stopped and half-turned his head towards me though he carefully avoided meeting my eyes.

  “I’m not ready to give up on you yet, mate. We’ll be there.”

  For some inexplicable reason, that made me feel better and I watched them leave in silence, my gaze distant as I tried to understand the strange feeling that I carried. It had always been something I had relied upon Lily to explain to me and without her, Gregg had often been able to. With him not talking to me, not as he used to, that left me to figure them out by myself.

  Something I was definitely not equipped to do.

  “My Lord Death?”

  “I told you to stop calling me that.”

  “Apologies, My-ah, Ryan.”

  “What is it?”

  “You have a task for me also?”

  I glanced at her then, Emma, the former follower of Sebastian. On our long journey, she had told me all that she could of what had happened on the island in my absence and all it had done had increased my desire to ram a blade through this Sebastian Cho’s throat.

  “Yes.” I forced a grin that was more like a grimace. “Come with me, we have much to prepare.”

  There wasn’t a lot of time and I was fairly sure that the raiders would notice when two of their number didn’t return. Their patrols were always the same and regular enough that someone would then come looking.

  I certainly hoped they would because, if I couldn’t get to them in their base, the only thing left was to have them come to me.

  Then I would kill them all.

  Chapter 10

  The fire engine had careened off of the road, crashing through the tables and chairs set up outside the small café and stopping only when it had collided with the long line of parked cars. Those cars, unable to stand up to the force, had crumpled, spilling petrol all around which had then ignited.

  No doubt the noise along with the general chaos had drawn the undead to the scene where they had set upon the panicked people heedless of the flames they walked through. The heat had been intense as evidenced by the desiccated bodies that had seemingly fused with the melting tarmac as their own flesh burned.

  I stood amongst the remnants of that night's drama and laughed softly to myself. The bodies were contorted comically as the zombies had tried to pull themselves free but had been unable to do so. More of their kind had come along later, hungry for any flesh, even dead and rotting, judging by the torn and chewed remains.

  “My-ah, Ryan?”

  A heavy sigh escaped me as I glanced at the young woman who had found her faith anew
in being near me. I knew that she read to the others, snippets of that idiotic book of my life that she carried around with her.

  She struggled with not using the title that had once so amused me and I found that to be quite irritating.

  “You can move the ladder?”

  Emma, standing atop the fire engine gave a quick nod of her head and then began to move it. I watched it inch its way out over the road and raised a hand when it was in the position I wanted it. Another grin found its way to my face as I pictured what would come next.

  She crouched down, knowing that she would be needed soon enough, and we waited in silence for the others to return with the raiders.

  We didn’t have to wait long before the four women came into view. They wore wide smiles as they pushed the raiders on ahead of them. At least one of the women had blood on her jeans, so they had needed to overpower the raiders it seemed.

  Both those raiders were young men, barely out of their teens with patchy growth of beard on their faces and fear in their eyes. They wore the beaten metal breastplate and rubber vambrace and pauldrons that seemed to be standard for the raiders and their swords were carried by, Two.

  “Was easy,” Five said, flashing yellowed and crooked teeth. “Nearly wet themselves when we leapt out at them.”

  “Not the type that came to the camp back at the airfield,” One agreed. “These are soft.”

  I could see immediately what she meant. Those two young men wore the raiders armour but were not seasoned fighters. It was hard for me to measure such things but I highly doubted that they would be able to intimidate a child, let alone a community.

  Which presented a problem. If they had never killed nor raped the innocent, they were not the type of people I could kill without breaking my promise. A problem that I had not really envisaged when I set out about my task.

  Though I could argue that just being part of the raiders was enough for a death sentence, I could not decide whether or not Lily would have agreed. Even though I would never see her again, I would do all I could to keep that promise for it was all I had remaining of her.

  “So, what we gonna do?” Two asked, tilting her head and narrowing her eyes as she watched me. “We kill them, right?”