Killing the Dead (Book 8): Dark and Deadly Land

by Richard Murray

  I would be lying to myself if I said it didn’t scare me, these feelings I had for him. God! If someone had told me a year ago that the world would end and the man I loved and trusted more than any other was a serial killer, I would have laughed in their face.

  “Where’s Toby?” Gregg asked, his voice breaking into my thoughts. I shook my head to indicate I didn’t know.

  “He said something about looking at those tracks,” I said.

  “Ah right, as if our friend killing two people in the house wasn’t creepy enough we have that as well.”

  My gaze went to the gouges in the mud near the house. They just looked like small holes with a little left over rain water to me but according to Ryan, and Toby agreed, they were tracks left by someone or something that had crossed that area.

  Not usually anything to worry about but Ryan seemed to believe they were left by one of the feral zombies. Those undead creatures that were different to the usual slow, stumbling and above all, stupid zombie.

  The Feral ones were agiler and possessed a basic but malicious cunning. Also, if what the others had seen when they’d gone to Coniston was any indication, they fed on the other undead when no humans could be found.

  Ryan seemed to believe that the zombie he’d had locked in the cellar here had escaped and rather than rush in like any other zombie would have, it had waited close by and watched him. It had come to the house during the night when he slept and by all accounts, even attempted to use the door handle.

  He hadn’t seen it despite trying and since Toby was an excellent woodsman and tracker he had decided to take a look. To be fair he also preferred to avoid Ryan since their last encounter had been when Toby had tried to kill him and ended up with a nasty scar on his throat.

  Not that Ryan held a grudge. Weirdly, despite his willingness to kill and the pleasures he gained from that, he didn’t hold it against someone that they had tried to kill him. If they tried again he would no doubt stop them permanently but so long as they left him alone, he saw no real need in revenge for the attempt, so long as they were useful to him.

  At first, I thought it was because of the promise I’d made him make all those months ago. That promise not to kill anyone who was innocent, but I soon realised that in his mind, trying to kill him would make them far from innocent. It was just a quirk of his personality and one of those things that allowed me to love him. Without those quirks, he would be a monster, but for whatever reason he wasn’t quite there.

  Gregg nudged me and pointed to the back door of the house with his chin. “He’s here.”

  He walked through the doorway and out into the sunshine, raising one hand to shade his eyes for a moment as he took a cautious look around. A search for danger or potential enemies that he did even in the midst of our island where, until recently, no danger had ever come.

  His dark hair was in need of a trim and several days’ growth covered his chin. His eyes were the pale blue of summer skies and were usually kept guarded as though afraid of anyone seeing beyond them to the man who hid behind that charming and quiet exterior.

  Satisfied that no danger was nearby his eyes fell on the two of us and I like to think that the smile that formed was for me more than Gregg. He came towards us across the damp mud and grass, each step placed with care. Every time I watched him walk, his movements reminded me of a tiger I’d once seen on a nature documentary as it stalked its prey. Powerful and full of danger, muscles coiled as though ready to spring into action at any moment.

  A shiver ran through me. I could easily imagine how terrifying it would be to have someone like him hunting you and I couldn’t help but wonder if the danger was part of what attracted me to him.

  “All done mate?” Gregg asked as Ryan joined us at the wall. He nodded sharply, one simple movement that said so much and I shivered again at what I read there.

  His gaze caught mine and I detected a hint of, not quite concern but more curiosity as he noticed my reaction. I forced my lips into a smile and tried not to see the darkness that lurked behind his eyes.

  “Everything okay out here?” he asked, his voice low but somehow demanding a response.

  “It’s fine,” I said. “Been a rough few days is all.”

  “They… erm… did they turn?” Gregg asked.

  “Yes.”

  No more than that, just a single word that said they’d turned into zombies and he’d killed them for the second time.

  “So if we eat meat from animals that have eaten infected flesh,” I began. “We’re not going to turn into a zombie unless we die?”

  “Seems that way,” Ryan answered with a smile. “Perhaps given more time and a steady diet of the meat they would have turned anyway. I would suggest we keep a limit on how much we consume at any one time.”

  “Maybe the navy scientists will have answers,” Gregg said with a great deal more hope than I could muster.

  “If they’re even there,” I said.

  “You have doubts?”

  “Of course I have doubts,” I said. “Becky thinks they were landing in Scotland but that was months ago. Anything could have happened since then.”

  “Not to mention that a great many undead seem to be moving across the country,” Ryan added. “How many millions of them will the navy have had to face up there?”

  “I guess we’ll find out soon,” I said with a smile as I released Gregg’s hand and pushed myself up from the wall. “We should head back to the island, we’ll be moving out tomorrow.”

  “So soon?”

  “Afraid so. Becky is keen to get moving and to be honest, the supplies at the island are low. Those few survivors from Coniston don’t come near to making up for the number we lost to Marcus’s group but still, the sooner we can get some help the better.”

  “You think that’ll happen?” Gregg asked as he moved away from the wall. He very carefully avoided looking at Ryan. A fact that had been noticed and was likely the cause of the wry smile on his face.

  “No,” Ryan said and I looked at him sharply.

  “What do you mean no?”

  “If the Navy are indeed there then they will have been under siege for the past few months at worst. At best, they will have had hundreds of thousands, if not millions of refugees to care for. I highly doubt we will be welcomed.”

  “We need to do something.”

  “You won’t like it,” he said and I could feel a frown forming. He was likely right. “We go up there and if they are unwilling to help, we take what we need and come back.”

  “That won’t happen,” I said firmly. He just smiled and I swore quietly. “We’ll figure something out. There’s a long way to go before we get there anyway.”

  “Weeks of hiking and sleeping rough even before this,” Gregg said. “My mate did it once. Decided he wanted to do a walking trip. It was either down to Cornwall or up to Scotland. He chose Scotland.”

  “How did it go?”

  “A couple of weeks of constant walking and sleeping in a tent. He gave up around Glasgow but to be fair I think he got lost for part of it.”

  “Helpful,” Ryan said quietly and Gregg’s cheeks darkened.

  “It’s going to be around three hundred miles,” I said before Gregg could respond. “Rough terrain with only the food and water we can carry. We aren’t exactly well nourished after the winter and each day we’ll need to take the time to find somewhere safe to rest. Most days we’ll need to scavenge food and find water too. I would be surprised if we managed five miles a day.”

  “You’re joking,” Gregg said. His expression was the same look of shock I’d worn when it had been explained to me.

  “It took us nearly five days for the last round trip to Coniston,” Ryan said. “That village is around twelve miles away, though we went a little further up into the mountains and the return journey was well out of our way.”

  “Crap! What about cars?”

  “Roads packed with abandoned vehicles
and the undead, the noise alone would draw them in their hundreds and that’s if you can find one in working condition,” Ryan said.

  “Petrol will be going bad by now if it hasn’t already,” I added. “Diesel will last longer but unless it’s treated the fuel will be useless.”

  “Then why the hell are we going?” He said as he threw his hands in the air. A touch dramatic I thought but understandable.

  “Your sister needs a doctor,” I said softly. “A pregnancy is risky enough under normal conditions and these aren’t that. Not to mention she is immune to the zombie infection and we need to find out if they can use her blood to either find a cure or at least make a test so we know who else could be.”

  “Shouldn’t be too bad,” Ryan said. “A small group who knows what they’re doing. We can find some maps on the way. I know the area around Dumfries so if we can make it there I know a few places that will have maps.”

  “You know the area?” I said. He’d never mentioned that.

  “My grandparents lived in the area and I was required to visit quite often,” he said and I blinked.

  “I didn’t know that. Do you have other family there?”

  “Probably,” he said. “My brother worked in Dumfries. He moved up there with my parents when they went to look after my grandparents.”

  “You have family up there? We can check on them, see if they survived,” I said with rising excitement.

  “Why?” he asked with a genuinely curious expression. It was another reminder of how different he was and I was taken aback for a moment, rendered speechless as I struggled to express why it was important in a way he would understand.

  “Because… well, because…” I looked to Gregg for support but he just shook his head and looked away. “We just will okay.”

  “If you want to,” he said before he gestured back towards the house. “Toby’s back, let’s grab the pigs and head back to the island.”

  Gregg patted me gently on the shoulder as he walked past me and I knew that I likely looked a fool. Stood there with my mouth open and nothing coming out. He could have family who survived. The chances were low admittedly but still, how could he not be excited by the chance?

  More to the point, Dumfries was only about ninety miles from the island. Hardly far but he’d not once mentioned that his family might be so close. I shook my head and followed after them as they joined Toby. Whether he understood or not, I knew it was important to check. I just had to show him that.

  Chapter 3 - Ryan

  Upon our return to the island we called home, Lily had rather pointedly informed me that I stank. Fair enough I suppose, I had been living in a place that had housed a number of zombies for an extended period. That sort of odour had a tendency to sink into your clothing.

  Ever heedful of her ability to point out to me the things that normal people would consider ‘common sense’ but I would hardly even notice, I took a shower.

  While the island still had running water, the pressure was low and by my estimation, dropping lower. We did have a propane tank that allowed us to heat the water though, which more than made up for the poor pressure, even if we were allowed only a few minutes to shower at a time.

  Sticking to the rules was never quite my thing and considering my reputation and the fear my community viewed me with, I was sure no one would object to my taking longer. Well, no one but Lily and my friends. A downside to having them that I had not considered. They saw no harm in pointing out when I was doing something I shouldn’t.

  To save myself the admonishments that would surely have followed, I kept my shower to the regulated length and dried myself off with a towel that was still slightly damp from its last use and bore a slightly unpleasant musk of mildew.

  I’d used the en suite bathroom that adjoined the master bedroom. It was smaller than the house’s main facility but it saw less use. Perhaps because so many unpleasant people had taken the master bedroom for their own, few of my community seemed inclined to visit it.

  Clean and refreshed, I pulled on a spare pair of jeans and t-shirt. Neither of which could be considered clean but they were less foul than the ones I’d been wearing. A tattered grey woollen jumper followed and I was good to go. I left the bathroom and pulled up short in the bedroom when I found it full of people.

  They were crowded around the bed which had a number of items laid upon it. Gregg was at the far end talking rapidly with Pat. Or at least he was talking at Pat. That was a man who made me seem loquacious.

  He glanced up and caught my eyes and I saw a trace of the simmering anger that still burned in his. He ran one meaty hand over his shaved scalp and nodded at whatever Gregg had just said before he pulled himself upright.

  I gave him a wary nod of the head. He was an impressively muscled man and for some reason had seen cause to strike me during our previous excursion. His anger was palpable and though he appeared to be coming around a little, I guessed he still had something unresolved there.

  His girlfriend and Gregg’s sister stood beside him. Cass had the same dark skin as her brother and had cut her hair almost down to the scalp like the rest of us. Apparently with the pregnancy on her mind, she had no time to be worrying about trying to maintain her hair. No doubt the outbreak of lice had had something to do with it too.

  Lily was on the opposite side of the bed, her back to me and head turned to one side to speak to the final person in the room, Becky. She irritated me more than most. Her mousy hair was cut short and hung around her face. She was in her mid-thirties and would no doubt be considered striking by many. She had the confidence of one who usually got her way and when she looked at me I was sure she was seeing more than I intended.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “We’re discussing plans for leaving,” Lily said without turning round. “Supplies, routes and whatnot.”

  “Fair enough,” I wondered briefly why she was refusing to look my way but dismissed it as something she would tell me when she wanted me to know. Either that or it was for some reason that I just wouldn’t understand or care about anyway.

  “Where about near Dumfries is your family?” Gregg asked and jumped as Lily’s head shot up and he caught her glare. “What?”

  “We were supposed to be subtle,” Cass said as she rolled her eyes. “Idiot.”

  “My family?”

  Lily sighed and turned to me after one last shake of her head at Gregg to indicate her annoyance. “We’ve discussed it and we all think you should stop and see if your family are around as we head north.”

  “I don’t,” Becky said brightly.

  “She doesn’t, the rest of us do and outvoted her,” Cass added with a wide smile of her own.

  “Why bother?” I asked. “It will just add on more time and increase the danger.”

  “Mate,” Pat said in his usual quiet voice. It had some emotion behind it this time though, not that I could make out what it was. “All of us have pretty much zero chance of ever seeing any of our friends or family again. You have the chance, however small. We’re going.”

  He seemed to be taking a firm stance on the issue and as I glanced at my other friends and Becky, they all wore their agreement openly. Finally, I shrugged.

  “It’s a small place called Glencaple on the river Nith,” I said. “To the south of Dumfries itself.”

  “Show us on the map,” Lily said and waved at a large paper that covered a portion of the bed.

  I crossed over to join them and looked down at the map. It wasn’t the best I’d ever seen and looked like it had been ripped from an atlas. Few roads were shown and the majority of the names on the map were for cities and the occasional town. I found Dumfries on the map and located the river Nith which flowed down to the Irish Sea and pointed to a tiny dot next to the river just a short distance from the coast.

  “There.”

  The five of them all peered down at where I pointed and then exchanged looks. I considered reminding
them that I’d said it was pointless but thought it best not.

  “Will be awkward,” Cass said as she tapped at her chin with one finger.

  “We can follow the roads up through the Lake District easily enough,” Lily said as she traced her finger from where we were at Lake Windermere, all the way north to the edge of the district. “Keep going north to the coast will be easy. A lot of villages and small towns that we can avoid, plenty of countryside to walk through.”

  She stabbed her finger down at the place on the map where the land met the sea. “Here is the problem,” she said as she traced her finger to the east, following the coast until it curved back around.

  “We can’t cross the bay without a boat and that’s unlikely but if we follow the coast we’ll have to keep running into towns and villages, and here,” she tapped the point on the map where the coast curved around to the north before moving back west. “Carlisle.”

  “It’s not quite at the coast,” Gregg said as he peered down at where her finger rested.

  “Close enough that the area is likely swarming with the undead,” she said. “Then you have the river Eden that comes inland from the coast, forks in two. One of those forks goes straight through Carlisle, the other is north of that. Neither of them will be easy to cross and to do so we will need to be near the city.”

  “You know the area?” Pat asked.

  “I’ve been to Carlisle a few times,” she admitted. Her eyes met mine briefly before dropping back to the map. “My boyfriend was interviewing for a job at the hospital there so we visited to check the place out.”

  “How big a city is it?” Pat asked.

  “Hundred and ten to hundred and twenty thousand people,” Becky said and all eyes turned towards her. She grinned, “What? I was a journalist, there’s no end to the useless stuff I know.”

  “Easier to just bypass it entirely and go straight north,” I said.

  “No,” Lily glared as she shook her head. “This is happening so get used to it and help us figure a way to make it work.”

  “Fine,” I sighed. “We’re all happy that we can’t use the roads because they are likely swarming with undead. We’ve seen them growing in number since the winter weather changed to something milder, yes?”