“Someone will need to deal with the people he bit” I said to no one in particular, though Lily nodded and issued some instructions to one of the men I didn’t know. He nodded and called a few of his friends over and they began to check each of the bodies that lay on the ground before Eric’s cottage.
“Will you check inside?” Lily asked wearily. “I need to find Howard and get everyone calmed down.”
“No worries.” I said, “As long as someone takes that gun off of Rachel first, I don’t want to be shot by mistake.”
“Enough of that” Lily snapped and I grinned and entered the cottage.
Inside the cottage was pretty much as I remembered from my earlier visit. In Eric’s bedroom I found a young woman laying in a growing pool of blood that was leaking from the large hole in her throat. A discarded cloth lay beside an overturned bowl that indicated she was probably in the room with Eric to mop his fevered brow.
It was interesting to see how quickly he had turned and how spry he had been when a zombie. Perhaps because the infection had taken him before his body was damaged by death. I would have to try it again sometime to see if it had the same results.
Of course I would have to ensure it was less messy. Two people potentially infected and a couple dead outright and I hadn’t even been able to kill the zombie Eric. It was disappointing but at least I had removed Eric without actually killing him personally. It was a technicality but I was happy to think of it as the infection killing him and not me, so my promise was whole.
I chuckled softly and did a quick search of the kitchen. I found a wooden chopping board that, after a couple of hard swings, managed to crack through the skull of the dead woman and prevent her from rising as a zombie. I left the cottage and threw the now un-useable chopping board onto the bonfire.
“Everything go ok in there?” Lily asked as she left a shaken looking Howard and joined me as I stared into the roaring flames.
“Oh fine. One woman was dead and I made sure she wouldn’t come back.”
“Thanks.”
“What have you done with John and the other one that was bitten?”
“They are locked away in separate rooms at the moment. No guarantee either will turn but we will be prepared this time.” She said with a weary sigh.
“What about Rachel?”
“Pat is dealing with her.” Lily said and we fell into a companionable silence that I hadn’t felt since arriving here. It was pleasant.
“I’m sorry.” Lily said finally.
“What for?”
“For being such an idiot these last few days.”
“Oh right. Ok.” I said and could feel her glare.
“That is where you are supposed to tell me I wasn’t being an idiot.” She snapped.
“Sorry.”
“Forget it. Come on let’s get back to the cabin, I don’t think there’ll be a group meal tonight.”
“I like you too” I said quietly as she turned to leave. “I just can’t always express that and I don’t want you to keep hiding away from me.”
Lily looked across at me for what seemed an eternity before reaching out and squeezing my hand. “Glad to hear that.” She said with a smile and led the way back to the cottage.
Chapter 22
For once it seemed that I had said or done the right thing and Lily and I entered the cottage together. She didn’t immediately go into her bedroom which seemed to surprise Cass and Gregg.
“What happened out there?” Cass asked and Lily filled them both in on what had transpired.
“Ah, poor John. He was a nice guy.” Gregg said quietly when she had finished.
“Poor Liz too, she and he were getting close.” Cass added.
“Did anyone else notice how weirdly Eric was acting? Zombie Eric I mean.” Gregg said.
“He reminded me of the ones we saw in the first videos when all this started.” Cass said and Lily nodded. I had no idea what they meant as I had been somewhat busy with my own pursuits when everything was going to hell, so had not even noticed it was happening until Lily had turned up at my door.
“Well I think I managed to convince enough people that you weren’t the cause” Lily said with a smile to Cass.
The talk turned to how people were going to deal with the - possibly - infected people and the changes that would need to be made around the camp. I tuned out and relived in my mind, the carnage I had wrought with my actions.
A knocking on the door broke through into my thoughts and I looked around in time to see Gregg open the door to a tired looking Pat.
“Hey guys, can I stay here tonight?” he asked.
“Of course you can. Things not go well with Rachel?” Lily asked.
“Not really. She refused to believe she did anything wrong.” Pat said as he sat down beside me on the couch.
“What’s Howard doing about her?” Cass asked.
“Nothing at all. He told her not to fire the rifle in camp and that was it.”
“You’re joking.” Gregg said incredulously. “Someone needs to take charge here, Howard is a nice enough guy but sometimes hard decisions need to be made.”
“You should be in charge” Cass said to Lily. “You would be great at it.”
“No thanks.” Lily said, “I tried that on the journey out here and it ended badly. I don’t want that to happen again.”
I glanced at Lily and saw her wipe at her eyes with the back of her hand and I resolved to find out what had happened on their journey here. That would come at another time though. I agreed with Cass that Lily would be best suited to lead this group and I decided to make that happen.
It wouldn’t be a quick or simple process but I was confident that I could make it happen. I would have to eliminate a few people to do that and I was more than happy to do so. I doubted that she would agree so I would keep it to myself.
The group spent a little while longer talking before heading to their respective rooms to get some sleep. I retained my favoured couch and Pat took the other. Sleep was long in coming for me though. I had a great deal to think about.
A knocking on the door woke me the next morning and Pat who seemed to have been already awake was pulling open the door as I stood and stretched.
“Someone here to see you.” Pat said as he led a man I hadn’t previously met, into the room.
“Good to finally meet you” The man said. “I’m Matthew.”
He thrust his hand out as if he expected me to shake it and frowned when I didn’t. He was a tall man, well over six feet in height and I guessed he was in his fifties. Despite his age he was in good shape and still had a full head of hair though that was greying. His neatly trimmed beard reminded me that I hadn’t shaved for days.
“What can I do for you?” I asked.
“I understand you want to join my group of scavengers” Matthew said. “Eric seemed to be against it, but he isn’t here now and I have far too few people willing to risk themselves.”
“Well I would certainly be happy to help in any way I can.” I said with a sincere smile. The thought of getting out of the camp and possibly killing a few zombies was exciting.
“Good to hear. First thing we need is to clear up this mess here. I gather you saw what happened?” he asked and I nodded. “Good then you know we have two infected people here. We won’t be scavenging until that situation is dealt with and I am keeping some of my guys here to guard them.”
“So what would you need me to do?”
“The main duties of my people are to scavenge for goods, patrol through the woods to make sure we don’t have any zombies wander in and stand out on the roads and direct any survivors here.”
“Well since you aren’t scavenging, I assume you would like me to patrol or stand out on the road?”
“Not quite. I have been absent from camp lately because things are changing out there.”
“What do you mean?” Pat asked.
“Look, let me
show you.” Matthew said as he pulled out a map of the area and spread it on the table.
“This is us.” He said and pointed at a large red ‘X’ on the map. “From here we have the main road that goes directly past us to the town of Windermere to the north and directly south where the road splits. Past the road we have hills, woods and fields as well as more roads. You clear on that?” he asked looking at both Pat and I. We both agreed that we were.
“The undead have been turning up more often. Just a few at first, but lately we have been seeing more of them. We have seen them drifting in from all directions with the majority, the largest groups especially, coming from the east.” Matthew said.
“Where are they coming from?” Pat asked quietly. He seemed shocked by the news as though he had expected them to just never come out this way.
“God alone knows where they are coming from. We have Newcastle and Carlisle to the north and north-east, Leeds and Manchester to the south. That’s millions of people right there and the main motorways that connect them travel straight past us.” He paused and looked at each of us before continuing. “I think this is just the start, they are heading out of the towns and cities in search of more prey.”
“Damn.” Pat whispered.
“So what is your plan to deal with them?” I asked Matthew.
“Long term, I have no idea.” He said. “Short term I want you and a few others to be out there destroying as many as you can and leading away the larger groups.”
“What do you mean?” Pat asked.
“He means that if we see a large group, we let them notice us and run as fast as we can away from this camp with the zombies following us. Then we lose them and circle around, while the brainless undead keep going in the last direction they had seen us.” I said and Matthew nodded.
“I understand that you have used that tactic before and it worked.” He said.
“It worked though I can’t say it was a spectacularly successful tactic” I told him. “Who else will be doing this?”
“I thought the two of you and your friends Cass and Gregg to start with.” Matthew said. “Considering what happened yesterday it would likely be a good thing to have your friend stay noticeably distant from the camp.”
“You have to be joking.” Pat said with more than a little heat in his voice. “She had nothing to do with Eric.”
“Yes, you are probably right but we have a large number of people here who are already scared and I need them to feel safe here.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because our supply situation is pretty damn terrible around about now and I need people here to feel safe enough to let me send my guys out scavenging and not have them stand around camp to make the people feel safer.” Matthew said tiredly.
“He’s right” Lily said as she joined us with an unhappy looking Cass and Gregg in tow. “We need to gather enough food to last the winter before we can do anything else.”
“Are you ok with this?” Pat demanded of Cass and Gregg.
“Yeah mate.” Gregg replied, “It’s not great but we heard enough to understand why.”
“So the four of you will start out today then?” Matthew asked and we each nodded in turn. “You can take a couple of rifles and some ammo though that is really low right now.”
“Keep the rifles.” I said, “They will be more of a hindrance to us than a help.”
“Ok that’s fine. You four will go out during the day and I have another group that will head out at night.” Matthew said.
“I’ll gather them some food and water to take.” Lily said and with a nod headed out of the cottage.
“We will need some weapons. If you have any knives, they would be appreciated.” I said.
“Knives aren’t much use against the zombies” Matthew said, “I have a few that you can take your pick of though. Wait here and I’ll go get them you.”
As soon as Matthew was out the door Pat turned to me, “Why did you say no to the guns? We will need more than knives.” He demanded.
“The last thing we will want is to fire off a rifle and bring every damn zombie in the area down on us.” I said.
“I thought we were supposed to be making them follow us.” Gregg said.
“Throw a stone at one of them and you will get its attention. If you fire a gun you won’t know which ones you have alerted. You could easily find yourself surrounded. At least if you throw a rock you know which ones attention you are getting and can control the situation.” I said and the others fell quiet as they considered my words.
“Fair enough I guess. We will still need better weapons than knives.” Pat finally said.
“Look around you. We are surrounded by woods. With the right knife we can make our own weapons.” I said and when I saw their confused expressions I added, “Remember those books I took from the mobile library?”
“The ones that were left back at the stables” Cass said.
“Yes them. Well I had plenty of time to read them when I was stuck in the house when I hurt my ankle. I can’t remember everything in them, but I recall enough to make a spear or a bow.”
“What the hell kind of books did you have?” Pat asked.
“It was a book on the stone-age tribes of ancient England and it had examples of the weapons they used, what materials and that sort of thing. I have no idea where to find flint to make an axe head, but with the right branches, we could make an effective spear and possibly a bow.” I explained as patiently as I could.
“Would a spear of a bow be much use against a zombie?” Cass asked.
“I have been thinking about this. If we work in pairs, one person with a spear. You could pierce the skull but more importantly you could keep the undead at bay or even use it to knock them down. The other person could then use a club of some sort to crack the skulls.”
“It could work I suppose” Pat said though he sounded sceptical.
“We can give it a try at least. We will have some time to practice while we are out there keeping watch for the undead.” Cass offered.
The door opened and Lily walked in with a couple of heavy rucksacks and Matthew following behind. Lily placed the bags on the table and Matthew placed a holdall beside them.
“Food and some bottled water. Enough for a couple of days in case you need it.” Lily said.
“A selection of knives for you.” Matthew said with a gesture to the holdall. “Take what you need and then head out. Let me know how it goes when you get back and good luck.”
With a final nod to each of us, Matthew left the cottage and we began gathering our belongings and readying ourselves for the days task. I was rooting through the holdall when Lily pulled me to one side.
“Be careful out there please and look after the others.” She said.
“Oh I will. You be safe here. John and that other person will likely turn today.”
“I know” she said sadly. “I shall make sure they don’t hurt anyone.”
With a final squeeze of my hand she turned and went into her room. I saw the others were ready and I hastily pulled on my jacket and boots before grabbing a couple of sheathed combat knives that had likely been taken from a soldier’s body.
“All ready?” I asked and received acknowledgement from each person before leading the way out of the cottage with a grin.
Chapter 23
“You see anything?” Pat asked.
I glanced down to see him looking up at me from where he sat beneath the tree. A long and fairly straight branch lay across his legs and a small pile of wood shavings covered the floor from his attempts at sharpening a point on the branch.
“Nothing yet. It seems quiet and dull at the moment.” I said before turning back to staring across the hills.
We were high up into the hills and I was currently standing in the highest branches of a tree as I surveyed the land. Cass and Gregg had headed further to the south and we had parted ways two hours ago.
&nbs
p; If I turned around I would be able to see the woods that hid our campsite from view, while to the east I could just about make out the motorway and the town of Kendal. It was depressingly quiet and I was sure that I would die of boredom before too long.
I climbed carefully down the tree trunk. The last thing I needed was to fall out of a tree and break my neck. A somewhat ignominious end for me I would have thought.
“What do you think?” Pat said as I reached the ground. He was brandishing his spear and I made a momentary show of admiring it.
“It looks good to me, though you will need to harden the end.”
“How do we do that?”
“The book mentioned something about using a fire to do it. I will have a think, though if you find any flint we should be ok.” I said.
“What does flint look like?”
“No idea.” I answered with a laugh. “We will figure something out.”
“This is for you anyway.” Pat said and pushed the spear into my hands.
“What about you?”
“I have this” he said and pulled a lump hammer from the rucksack.
“Where on earth did you get that?” I asked as I inspected the hammer. It was essentially a small version of a sledgehammer. A short handle that allowed it to be swung one handed and a rectangular head of solid metal.
“Found it on a building site on the way here.” Pat said proudly.
“Well it will certainly do some damage.” I said and glanced around. “Which way do you want to go?”
“Too far to the east and we hit Kendal, too far north and we hit Windermere. We won’t be especially welcome at either.” Pat said.
“Why wouldn’t we be welcome at Windermere, I thought it had some people and soldiers?”
“Couple of thousand people there and no way of feeding them all for long. Matthew told me that when Howard suggested they brought our camp to Windermere they were told politely but firmly that they wouldn’t be room for them.”
“Have you spent much time with Matthew?” I asked curiously. “What is he like?”
Safety Lost (Killing the Dead Book 3) Page 13
