Killing The Dead 9 (Season 2 | Book 3): Family Matters

by Richard Murray

  We’d done a cursory search earlier but that had been to check for any potential threats more than anything else. In our haste, we’d not gone through personal belongings in search of items that may be of use if getting us out of the building and while I doubted that I would find anything really useful, I was out of options.

  A quick but thorough search of the rooms that were open yielded little, though we would at least be able to change our clothes should the need arise. Besides the clothes, there were electronic devices such as phones, tablets, and laptops but none of those were any use at all.

  Books, magazines, a large quantity of pornography in one room that I could only assume belonged to someone who hadn’t discovered the internet and enough condoms to ensure no new children need ever be conceived until the zombies were all gone for good. Nothing of actual use though.

  I moved to the first closed door and turned the handle to find it locked. As expected. Still, these were student accommodation and the locks were on the doors more for privacy than any real security, so I leaned back and kicked with as much force as I could.

  The flimsy lock broke easily and the door swung inwards revealing a neat room with a single bed, wardrobe and small chest of drawers. Another quick search found much the same as the other rooms and I began to realise that perhaps my expectations were way higher than they should have been.

  For the next hour, I moved from room to room, breaking in and searching for anything of use as the light dimmed ever more. Before I finished, I had my flashlight to hand as I moved through the building. At least I had found plenty of batteries, so had no need to worry about being without light at a crucial moment.

  Gregg walked along the hallway as I left the final room and nodded amiably at me. “Anything useful?”

  “No,” I said and frowned. “Shouldn’t you be watching the stairs?”

  “Nah, a few more made it up and I finished them off. I managed to drop them over the railings on my own,” he gave me a slightly accusatory look and I shrugged. “Seems there’s enough down there now to stop any getting through.”

  “Great, we’ll have some peace and quiet to slowly starve up here then,” I said.

  “Could be worse,” he replied with a wide smile that showed straight white teeth. “We could be stuck on the roof out in the cold.”

  “True,” I agreed as I followed him along the hall to the far window. It was quieter there, even with the undead gathered on the lawns outside and the echoing sound from those downstairs.

  I glanced through the window, out into the dark of evening and swore. The numbers had, if anything, grown. Down on the lawn surrounding the building were hundreds of dark shapes that moved slowly and moaned their hunger at the night.

  “Well, I guess that’s it,” I said. “We’ve failed and all we can do now is decide on how we die.”

  “Speak for yourself, I don’t want to die.”

  “We seem to be stuck here,” I pointed out slowly as though I were speaking to a small child. “We can’t get past that many, we can’t kill them all though I will be happy try and there’s no help coming. I suggest we go down the stairs and kill as many of them as we can.”

  “Might not have to,” Gregg said as he looked through the window, staring at something off in the distance. He turned to me as he raised one hand to point at one of the other buildings. “Is that a light?”

  Chapter 11 – Ryan,

  Much to my surprise, it was a light. I glanced at Gregg who shrugged to indicate he had no idea what it was either and I looked back through the window. “It’s getting closer.”

  “What is it?” he asked as we watched the light approach.

  Whatever it was it was coming towards us at a fair speed and seemed to be in the air, just above the height of the window we were looking out of. The light itself was a neon green that shone brightly but didn’t provide a huge amount of illumination.

  As it came closer the noise from below the window rose in volume, the undead clustered there had apparently noticed it. I lifted the handle of the window and pushed. The window opened several inches before stopping as the window stop prevented it opening further. A no doubt necessary device to add to a second-floor window in a halls of residence full of often drunk and still teenage students. The university wouldn’t want anyone to fall out but that didn’t help us.

  “It’s coming close,” Gregg said. “Turn your torch on.”

  I flicked the flashlight on and the bright beam immediately filled the hallway with shadows. I pointed it at the window but the glare on the glass obscured more than the light revealed so instead I held it so that the end fit through the gap in between the window and the frame and managed to get a look at what was outside.

  “A drone,” I said and Gregg looked at me blankly. “It’s a drone, a quadcopter that people could buy before all this began.”

  “Ah right, yeah I remember them. What’s it doing here?”

  I shook my head as I studied the drone. It was plain white and quite large, hard to gauge the size accurately but it was certainly one of the larger models. It hovered before us and I could see that the bright light we’d seen came from the LED lights mounted beneath each of the four arms that held the rotors.

  “Looks like it has a camera,” I said as I nodded towards the drone. On its underside, a small lens could just be seen hanging below the belly of the drone. It was immediately obvious that it had some range of movement as the camera moved from side to side as though trying to get our attention.

  “You think someone's controlling it?”

  “Well, I very much doubt the machines have gained sentience since the end of the world began,” I said with an exaggerated eye roll. Gregg at least had the grace to look embarrassed as he shrugged and muttered almost too low for me to hear.

  “Might have happened.”

  I grinned at him and he smiled back. “Well it has our attention and the zombies, so what now?” I mused.

  “Guess we’ll find out,” Gregg said as music burst from the drone, loud enough for me to recognise the obnoxious sounds of a manufactured pop group that had been popular before the fall. I couldn’t recall the name but doubted it mattered as the drone dropped low, below the level of the window to hover just above the massed undead.

  “Clever,” I said as the drone hovered long enough to get the full attention of the undead and then moved slowly away, drawing a great many of them with it. “Get the blankets and sheets from the beds,” I instructed Gregg. He blinked once and then nodded before dashing away.

  While he gathered the blankets together, I dug the blade of my combat knife into the PVC frame of the window, just above the screws that held the window stop in the frame. A few minutes work and I had broken enough away that I could pull the Stop free and push the window fully open.

  I leaned out and looked down, judging the height. We were on the second floor and the ground floor was already raised above the level of the ground outside, so I estimated we had a good fifteen feet between the edge of the window and the ground.

  “Got a load,” Gregg said as he dumped an armful of blankets and sheets on the floor beside me.

  “Get more,” I said as I pulled two of the bed sheets from the pile and tied the ends firmly together.

  It wouldn’t be ideal and to be fair was something I’d only ever seen done on TV shows and the occasional cartoon when I was a child, but the principle was sound. Each blanket and bed sheet could be tied, end on end to each other. Once we had enough, we could tie one end to the frame of the bed in the nearest room and let the other end hang down through the window. We could then, in theory, climb down without injuring ourselves.

  I glanced at the dog and a frown appeared on my brow as she stared back, tongue lolling from one side of her mouth. She obviously couldn’t climb down so would either have to be carried down or left. No doubt Lily would be annoyed if I left the dog and to be fair, she had proven to be useful. As Gregg returned with more sheets I decided to figure out a way to
get her down with us.

  In a few short minutes we had all of the blankets and sheets tied together and after a few experimental tugs, I was happy that they would hold. Gregg tied one end of the improvised rope to the leg of the nearest bed and I tossed the other end out of the window.

  “Pull the bed towards the door,” I said as Gregg came back out of the room.

  “Why?”

  “Because as soon as I put any weight on this rope, it will drag the bed across the room and I’ll drop several feet. I’d rather the bed was pulled up against the doorframe so that it can’t move any closer and it’s secure.”

  “Fine, ok,” he grumbled but did as requested and a moment later I heard the scrape of the bed being dragged across the wooden floor. When he couldn’t pull it any closer he nodded and I grabbed the end of the rope.

  “I’ll go down, then you bring it back up and make a harness for the dog,” I said. “Lower her down and then you follow.”

  “Aw, you do care about her,” Gregg said with a quick flash of teeth as he laughed.

  “Shut up,” I replied as I made sure my rucksack was secure and climbed out of the window. His laughter followed as I moved down the improvised rope. I hope she bites him.

  It was slow going, I had to wrap my legs around the blankets and cross them together to help provide support while gripping with both hands. Then, I would have to release one hand and grasp the rope further down, before releasing the other and sliding down to grab another handhold.

  All the while, I could hear the moans of the zombies. Not all had followed the drone and several that had been at the edge of the building were wandering close. It was only their poor eyesight that prevented them from seeing me in the darkness.

  I reached the bottom and gave the blankets a sharp tug. Gregg popped his head through the window and seeing that I was clear, began pulling the improvised rope back up. I pulled out my knife and crouched low.

  As Gregg cursed and a low growl came from above, I stalked forward and thrust my knife into the back of the skull of a zombie that was facing away from me. It dropped silently and I pulled free the blade and moved swiftly to the next. It was just turning slowly as I slammed the knife up to the hilt into its temple, the bone breaking with an audible crack that was fortunately not loud enough for the other zombies to hear.

  The third died as silently as the other two had and I looked back to see Jinx being lowered through the window. She didn’t look happy at all as she made a slow stuttering progress down the side of the building.

  I jogged back to the side of the halls of residence and as she reached the ground, I untied the knotted blankets and unwound them from around her. She’d been held snugly enough and seemed none the worse for wear, though the way she looked at me seemed to indicate her dignity had definitely been ruffled.

  Gregg came next, moving down the blanket rope with an agility I would struggle to match. He dropped the last few feet and landed with a soft thump beside us. Jinx bared her teeth and he held his hands up to her and took a step back.

  “Tell her I had to do it,” he said and it was my turn to grin.

  “Oh she probably realises that but just likes to scare you,” I said as I set off across the lawn. Jinx followed close behind and a wary Gregg brought up the rear.

  None of the undead were close enough to note our flight and after a few minutes, we were clear of immediate danger. With few options, we headed straight for the building we had first seen the drone come from.

  Someone there had noticed the zombies and sent aid. They would deserve my thanks for that at least as they had helped me in my task to get the medicine for Lily.

  ****

  The cool night air chilled my sweat-streaked skin as I ran alongside Gregg. Even with the backpack he wore that contained the same amount of stuff that my own did, he barely seemed winded. It was annoying.

  Jinx, of course, was silent and seemingly tireless as she ran alongside us. Her paw seemed to be giving her no further trouble and her eyes were fixed on the building ahead of us.

  Rather than being another halls of residence as I’d suspected, it was actually the holiday inn that my brother had mentioned. It was two storeys like the halls we’d just been in and built with the same red brick that seemed the norm in this area.

  It was shaped much like a letter ‘L’ that had fallen on its side and had parking spaces at the front and rear. It also had a fence made of tall spires made of wrought iron. Most of the ground floor windows I could see were boarded over from the inside.

  As we approached, a tall sandy haired youth poked his head out of the front door and gestured us over. I glanced at Gregg who shrugged back and headed towards him.

  Without speaking he moved aside to let us inside and closed the door behind us, sliding shut a large iron bolt before giving the door an experimental push to ensure it was secure. He turned to us, his form just a shadow in the dark room and I kept my knife unsheathed.

  “Follow me,” the young man said in a surprisingly deep voice. “No lights allowed down here but there’s some upstairs in our rooms.”

  “Was it you who sent that drone?” I asked and saw the shadowy form of his head move from side to side in the darkness.

  “Can talk in a minute, let’s just get upstairs first.”

  He fell silent and I nudged Gregg, hopeful that he would understand to be on his guard. He shifted in the darkness and I assumed he was readying his bat. Jinx followed as silent as ever and I considered her placid acceptance of the youth as positive. Even so, I held myself ready for an ambush.

  We followed along in a silence that seemed brittle somehow, as though our rescuer was afraid to break it. Curious.

  After a short walk through the building he knocked once on a door and it swung open, light spilling out into the hallway, illuminating the torn carpets and dark stains that ran along the walls. I smiled grimly as I imagined the chaos and death that had been wrought here.

  The youth gestured us inside and I took the lead, stepping through the door with knife held ready and Jinx close behind. A quick scan of the room was all I needed to lower my guard as I nodded to the dark skinned woman in the wheelchair.

  She smiled a greeting as she ran one hand through thick curls and gestured Gregg and the other youth inside. “Hey guys, glad you could make it,” she said in an overly cheerful tone. I disliked her straight away.

  “Hey,” Gregg said as he brushed past the other young man whose smile widened as their eyes met and something passed between them. Even curiouser.

  “You can put your knife away dude, you won’t need to protect yourself from us,” the girl said and her smile widened as she gestured down to the chair she was sat in. “Not like I’m gonna jump at you is it?”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me if you did,” I countered as I slid the knife back into its sheath. I doubted I’d have any trouble with the two of them if they did turn out to be a threat. “You the one who sent the drone?”

  “That’d be me,” she said and waved at a controller set beside the window. It had a tablet attached to it that was receiving the feed from the camera.

  “Then we owe you thanks,” I acknowledged. “You saved us having to kill them all.”

  “Kill them…” she said as her mouth hung open. “Dude! If you think you could have killed all those, then I can walk again.”

  “Why can’t you walk?” I asked.

  “Mate!” Gregg said, tearing his gaze away from the other man. “You can’t ask stuff like that.”

  “Why not?” I asked. “We need to know and it’s pointless dancing around the subject.”

  “Nah man, it’s fine,” she said though she smiled and winked at my friend. She tugged on the bottom of the chequered shirt she wore, straightening it and tapped on her legs with one hand. “Had an accident a few years back. Car crash after a friend of mine took some ‘E’ without telling the rest of us.”

  “Any feeling or completely paralyzed?”

  “I can still feel shi
t, just can’t move them,” she said and grinned. “Anything else you want to know? I can still have sex if you’re curious.”

  “Why would I need to know that?” I asked as Gregg had a sudden coughing fit.

  “Well, I was hoping that I might have finally met someone interesting,” she said before she nodded to her friend. “My buddy Reece over there is as queer as they come. Just my luck to be stuck with a homo for the last few months.”

  “You love me really,” Reece said as he settled onto the edge of the bed.

  “Sure do sweetie,” she replied. “But for a long time, we were thinking we were the only two people left and repopulating the world would have sucked for both of us.”

  The banter between them showed a familiarity and ease with each other that I doubted I could ever have with anyone. I felt at once, irritated and very much alone. Gregg seemed at ease with them as he leaned against the wall, his gaze flicking often to the sandy haired Reece.

  They seemed so very young though and I would have little patience for their banality at the best of time, even less so when I had a task to accomplish.

  “Well the help was appreciated,” I said in an attempt to drag the conversation back on topic. “But we need to be moving on.”

  “You just got here dude. May as well stay the night,” she said as she reversed her wheelchair across to the desk beside the window. She pulled on the curtains and peeked through the gap before letting them close again. “Can’t see shit out there anyway and we have a ton of booze from the bar downstairs.”

  “Not been much else to do but drink,” Reece agreed. He was pretending not to look at Gregg while he sat, head tilted to one side so that he could actually see Gregg, a smile playing around his lips. I had no idea what was going on but I had no intention of staying.

  “Appreciate the offer,” I said. “We have to go though.”

  “Mate,” Gregg said and I looked over to him. “We won’t get far in the dark and if we leave as soon as it gets light we can be back to the others by tomorrow evening.”