Killing the Dead (Book 7): Burden of Survival

by Richard Murray

  Her gaze met mine and a smile formed briefly before she turned back to the rest of the council seated around what had once been a dining room table. Gregg sighed behind me as he saw his sister was safe and ducked back out of the room at her frown.

  I leant back against the wall and waited patiently for them to continue. Gabby looked at me but seemed to deem it not worth the effort to raise a fuss about my presence.

  The fourth member of their council was Jim, the deeply religious fellow we’d first met when we sought refuge at a club house on a golf course so many months ago. He’d spent the time since then keeping to himself and praying with the others who felt a need for some deity to protect them.

  He didn’t particularly like me but then it seemed few did these days. He at least spoke respectfully to me and no longer tried to involve me in any religious ceremonies he held which suited the both of us fine.

  The fifth and final council member was Jonathan, a broad chested farmer who was instrumental in keeping track of the fishing and the communities’ future vegetable gardens. He barely glanced at me as he stroked his thick beard of coppery coloured hair.

  “What are we going to do about it?” Jonathan asked.

  “We need to find out who sent them,” Lily said patiently. “They didn’t build that raft themselves.”

  Raft? I’d missed something for certain.

  “At least we hope they didn’t,” Cass added. “That’s too scary to consider.”

  “Toby should go,” Lily said and it was Gabby’s turn to frown.

  “He’s going to Coniston we settled that.”

  “That was before we were attacked,” Cass said.

  “Ryan and the others can go check on Coniston,” Lily said. “All being well they’ll find them there with some simple explanation for their being late to visit us. Toby is the best suited to find out where that raft came from and who sent it. He’s the best woodsman and tracker here.”

  “But we discussed…” Gabby began.

  “Lily can go to Coniston,” Cass said. “Either her or you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes,” Cass agreed. “You’re the one who raised the concerns. Pat and my brother will go too so you’ll all be safe. You can be in charge and make sure everything’s done right.”

  I wasn’t sure exactly what they were talking about but it was clear that it involved me in some way. It was also clear to see that at least one person at the table had issues with trusting me. I flashed my best grin at Gabby which she did her best to ignore.

  Lily looked over and frowned so I shrugged apologetically and winked at her. She shook her head and turned back to the others. No doubt I’d hear about that later.

  “Who else will go with Toby?” Gabby asked as she gave in.

  “Best to ask him,” Lily said. “If he feels it’s safe enough to go alone and that will be the best way for him to work, then that’s up to him. We need to make sure he has a strict time to be back though so we can know to go looking for him. I don’t want to lose any more people today.”

  Someone died? I was really starting to become annoyed that I’d missed the first real excitement in weeks.

  “What do we tell everyone?” Jonathan asked.

  “We can’t keep it secret that we were attacked,” Gabby said. “Best thing to do is let everyone know what’s happened and increase the number of people on guard. Safety is our first priority.”

  “Knowing someone is out there that means us harm,” Jim said in that gravelly voice of his. “How safe will it be to send groups out to scavenge?”

  “We don’t know yet,” Lily said.

  “What’s the inventory like?”

  “Low,” Lily said. “Seventy four people eat a lot of food. Seventy one now I suppose.”

  “We’ll meet again tomorrow,” Gabby said. “We can discuss the supplies status when we have an idea of what we’re up against. Anything else or are we done?”

  “I will hold a funeral for those who died earlier,” Jim said. His tone was suited for the downcast expression he wore. He took no delight in the deaths, something that I found difficult to understand. “There will be a prayer meeting with readings from the good book after for those who choose to join us.”

  “I’ll let everyone know,” Cass said as she pushed herself to her feet. “I need to go find Pat before he leaves.”

  She shared a look with Lily that seemed to speak volumes and I briefly wondered what was going on as everyone filed out of the room leaving just Lily and me.

  I watched her as she stared into space, mind far away. She had fresh stains on her clothes and I gathered that whatever had happened she’d been in the thick of it. Her eyes met mine and a smile formed, her lips curving up just slightly.

  “What happened?” I asked quietly.

  She crossed the room to me and I knew enough now to know she needed some kind of comfort so I wrapped my arms around her. She laid her head against my chest and spoke quietly of what had happened.

  Her body trembled as she recounted the fight and how close she had come to death. While a cold rage grew inside of me when she spoke of the raft that had brought the undead to our home and the people that must have sent them.

  “I’ll go with Toby,” I said. My voice was cold and I willed myself to calm, to quench that silent rage that was only helping to grow that need to kill that I carried.

  “No,” Lily said. “Go to Coniston. Protect Gabby and the others, make sure she comes home safe.”

  “Why?” I demanded. Let me find those who threatened you.

  “The people here need to know you as I do,” she said. “They need to see you as a protector rather than just as a killer.”

  She looked up at me, her eyes shining with unshed tears of frustration? Perhaps fear or maybe anger. I wanted to ask but knew she’d be annoyed.

  “Those people from Coniston have never been late before and I’m worried somethings happened to them. Coming so close to the attack on us, they could be connected.”

  “Fine, I’ll go,” I said with poor grace. I hesitated as I considered telling her of my growing need but decided against it. She had enough to concern herself with and I didn’t really want her to think I couldn’t control myself.

  “Make sure Pat comes home,” she whispered.

  “Of course,” I said. “He’s my friend.”

  “He’s going to be a dad,” lily said.

  I looked at her in surprise. That was something I hadn’t expected. She didn’t seem especially pleased at the news and I smiled at her as I realised she saw the potential problems that would bring.

  “He doesn’t know?” I asked though I knew the answer. If he knew he’d have been acting differently.

  “She’s telling him now,” Lily said before adding. “I’m scared.”

  “You are?”

  “So many things can go wrong with a pregnancy and it’s not exactly the best situation we’re in right now,” she said. “Then on top of that, someone out there wants us dead.”

  “Nothing new there,” I said with a grin and she smiled back at me.

  “True.”

  “We’ll deal with the people who want to hurt us,” I said and her smile widened.

  “You said ‘we,’” she said. “Normally you say ‘I’ when you talk.”

  “Slip of the tongue,” I said.

  “No,” she smiled as she looked at me. “You’re starting to feel a part of this group.”

  “Not all of them,” I said uncomfortable with the talk and eager to end it. “Just you and perhaps a few others.”

  “It’s a start,” Lily said.

  “We’ll need medical texts,” I said.

  “And medicine,” Lily replied with a look that said she knew why I was changing the subject.

  “There’s bound to be a hospital somewhere nearby. I’ll speak with Toby, he knows the area.”

  “One thing at a time,” Lily said.

&nb
sp; “Sure,” I replied with a grin. “Coniston today and then we’ll see what tomorrow brings.”

  She nodded happily, pleased to have even a rough plan of action and I returned it, though my pleasure was for the potential violence to come and the lives I would get to take to protect her.

  Chapter 8

  Lily

  I let him go reluctantly and though he smiled as he left, it was distracted, his mind was already elsewhere. No doubt lingering on the people he’d get to kill.

  It was disturbing to me to see how easily I’d come to accept that part of him. The killer, hell, the serial killer. Where once it had been a source of quiet terror held in check only by my need to stay alive, now it was just something to be channelled so that I didn’t lose him to it.

  Jenny stepped out of the shadows by the door as he passed and followed behind him. It was done so quietly that I didn’t think he’d noticed until he turned his head and said something quietly to her. Of course he’d noticed.

  Gabby and the others were moving through the crowd to tend to their various tasks and I knew that I should join them in helping to keep everyone calm but I just couldn’t. Not yet at least, I needed some time to myself to get a handle on what was happening.

  The roundhouse of Belle isle was an old building, or at least the bones of the place were old. In my explorations of the house I’d found a marker that detailed the original house had been built more than two centuries ago. A more recent marker had told how the original had burnt down and been rebuilt just twenty years past.

  It had been built in such a way as to make it stand out above the trees that surrounded it. Which meant that anyone who climbed to the domed roof would have a grand view of the surrounding lake. I felt the sudden need to take in that view.

  I made my way through the house, avoiding actually stopping and speaking to the scared people gathered there. A pat of the arm, a smile and a nod, a wave. Anything to avoid being drawn into conversation that I just wasn’t ready for.

  My life had almost ended when I so foolishly charged at those zombies invading our island home. If Ryan had done that I would have been justifiably upset, so why had I done it?

  Something was wrong, I wasn’t myself and I knew me well enough to know that. What I didn’t know was what that was.

  My footsteps echoed off of the scuffed and stained wooden stairs. The owner of the huge house had likely taken pride in how those stairs looked but with so many people using the house, they had long since ceased to be well tended.

  I passed the rooms on the next floor where Jenny and Leon had been held captive. Those rooms at least had been thoroughly stripped and scrubbed with every cleaning fluid we could get our hands on.

  Jenny still avoided the second floor whenever possible and while others had settled into the rooms, it had been done only when all other space had been taken.

  Beyond them was the room where the leader of the army deserters had been killed. I couldn’t remember his name but I could vividly recall the look on his face as the knife held by both Ryan and myself had plunged into his chest.

  That was something I didn’t regret. He’d killed my friends and brought about the death of the bright little girl, Emma. Her death had raised such fury in Ryan which had been terrifying to behold considering how controlled he usually was.

  No, the deaths of those deserters had been well earned by their own actions and I had no regrets or bad memories of that. It was the same with all those other deaths over the previous months. They’d been necessary to protect our community and as such, I lost no sleep over them.

  Why then was I so out of sorts? It wasn’t like me at all. I should have been happy for Cass. Suitably worried of course but happy none the less. All I could think of was the extra burden a baby would be.

  I reached the short ladder that led up to a wooden hatch set into the roof and pushed it open, the blast of cool spring air did much to blow away the darker thoughts I’d been dwelling on. Though they didn’t go away completely.

  The woman set on watch waved a greeting as she moved slowly around the domed roof. She was bundled up in several layers of clothing and a long woollen scarf was wrapped around her head over the hijab she wore.

  She’d not seen the raft coming and I wanted to know why. It could have been that she was facing the wrong way or it had crossed under cover of darkness but whatever the reason, people had died and I wanted to know why. When I looked to the north I saw the problem.

  Belle isle lay at an angle in the lake. While the southernmost point was less than fifty metres from the mainland on one side, the northernmost part was almost four times that distance on the same side. Add to that the large number of trees growing tall and blocking the view and it was easy to see how something could be missed in the darkness.

  Most of the attention would have been on the east anyway and the town of Windermere. At some points it was only fifty metres or more from the island and as I well knew from visiting there, it was well and truly full of the undead.

  Worse than that was the large numbers that we saw arriving. Those numbers had slowed during the worst of the winter but I could see groups making their slow way along the roads. Many of them seemed to be coming from the east and south.

  I dismissed them from my thoughts as I turned back to the north. The zombies weren’t a threat to us while we had the water between them and us. The unknown people who had sent the undead to us on a raft however, were very much a threat that I wanted to deal with.

  The woman on watch offered me her binoculars when she passed and I took them gratefully as I struggled to remember her name. So many new faces and I’d been so busy that I hadn’t met many of them. That would have to change, but later.

  There was little to see through the binoculars as I scanned the shore to the north-west. I made a point of checking the opposite shore though I doubted I’d see much considering the proximity to Windermere.

  Grass, mud, trees, zombies… that was about it. Nothing out of the ordinary. No plume of smoke from a camp fire, no one conveniently standing beside the lake at just the right moment for me to catch them. No sign of anyone at all.

  I looked to the west, towards Coniston but the ground rose to become tall hills and obscured my view. A sigh escaped me as I handed the binoculars back to the woman. She smiled and carried on with her duties as I slumped back against the roof.

  An hour later I was still sat there with my mind a million miles away when I was joined by Becky. A slim woman in her thirties she walked easily along the narrow walkway that surrounded the roof. Her mousy coloured hair had been cut short and hidden beneath a thick wool cap.

  She seemed at ease with the height and I figured that was probably a good thing considering she was a qualified pilot. Her leg seemed totally healed after the vicious break she’d had when her plane had crashed last year.

  “Hi,” she said by way of greeting.

  “What do you want Becky?” I asked with a sigh. I knew what she wanted, what she always wanted when she sought me out.

  “Do you have to ask?”

  “It’s considered polite I guess.”

  She flashed a smile that showed straight white teeth and tsked as she lowered herself against the damp and dirty roof beside me.

  “Did Gabby speak with you?”

  “She did,” I said. “Though perhaps considering what happened this morning, now is not the best time.”

  “It’s the damned apocalypse darling, never going to be a good time.”

  I smiled faintly in acknowledgement. She was right after all.

  “What is it you want? I was under the impression Gabby was going to find out what you needed to make your journey.”

  “Yeah well she did that earlier,” Becky said. “I let her know that Harry will be coming with me of course.”

  Her silent companion, the other survivor of the plane crash. It made sense he’d go with her and I wasn’t upset that he was leaving. I had a di
squieting feeling about him and considering my boyfriend… well, anything that raised feelings of unease was something I took seriously.

  “Anyone else?”

  “Haven’t asked anyone yet,” Becky said as she pulled her coat tighter around her to keep out the cold wind. “To be fair though I don’t think anyone will volunteer.”

  “Likely not,” I agreed. Who would leave a place of safety to travel through the unknown?

  “Gabby was very generous with the supplies she said we could have,” Becky continued.

  “Get to the point,” I said with a sigh. She wanted something and I suspected I knew what it was. “What do you want from me?”

  “My trip is important,” Becky said. “Save the world kind of important.”

  She turned her head towards me as she spoke and I could feel her eyes boring into the side of my head like tiny little augurs.

  “With just Harry and me. Well we won’t make it.”

  “No, you won’t.”

  “I want you to come with us.”

  “Me?” I was actually surprised. I thought she’d be wanting Ryan.

  “If you come then so will your friends and that boyfriend of yours.”

  Ah.

  “Why would we want to give up a place of – relative – safety?” I asked as I turned to look her in the eye.

  “Your friend is immune and pregnant,” Becky said and smiled as I looked at her in surprise. “Yeah, nothing stays a secret here.”

  “She can give you blood samples,” I said.

  “That could be lost, go bad or be destroyed,” she countered. “But all that aside, the navy will have medical facilities on hand for her to give birth safely.”

  I had to admit that was an intriguing thought. It would be a difficult journey but if she could give birth safely, that would be hard to turn down.

  “Your other friends will be more than capable protection for us too,” she continued. “Who knows what we’ll face out there.”