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

by Richard Murray

  I pushed myself up from the tall grass and brushed the fallen leaves and muck from my clothes as best I could as I walked back to the car. The rest of them remained hidden amongst the stand of trees atop the hill, watching the town for any sign of life.

  My thoughts were troubled. It wasn’t easy to admit to myself but there it was. My talk with Lily the night before had untapped some forgotten corner of my mind and released memories that had long since been cast aside.

  The long talks I had with my sister all those years ago had been almost forgotten. They had been useful and even interesting at the time. She had been one of the only ones who had tried to understand me and as I thought back, it became clear that her talk had been directed to guide me.

  Perhaps she suspected what I would become or had the potential to become and was protecting me. Whatever the reason, without those long conversations I would never have been able to find a way to hide among the people of the world and avoid detection for so long.

  It was an interesting idea and one that meant little now, since she was as likely dead as everyone else I had once known.

  “Penny for them,” Cass called as she returned to the car. I frowned at her but she just smiled prettily, apparently unconcerned that she had disturbed my thoughts.

  “What?”

  “Penny for your thoughts. That’s what my Nan used to say when we were wool-gathering.”

  “Just wondering what our options were,” I said. “Can’t drive through that place.”

  She glanced back over her shoulder at my gesture, though the town was hidden from view by the hill. Her smile faded and was replaced by a grim look that was perhaps worry as her hand pressed against her belly in an unconscious gesture towards her unborn child.

  I exhaled a sigh as I felt a twinge of something. Not sure exactly what it was but it prompted me to try and ease her worry.

  “We’ll be fine,” I assured her. “A quick drive around the town, stick to the backroads and we’ll be by the coast before you know it.”

  Her lips turned upwards in a faint smile. Perhaps she recognised the effort I was making. Perhaps not, but she seemed appreciative anyway.

  “Aye maybe.”

  We stood in silence for several minutes as Pat’s words echoed in my mind and I resolved to try a little harder to be part of the group. As irritating as that would no doubt be.

  “It will be pleasant to see the ocean,” I said.

  “Will it?”

  “Yes…” now what do I say? Conversation was hard and I was fast remembering why I hated it. “Do you like the sea?”

  “I do,” she said as her smile widened. She seemed amused by something though I didn’t think I’d said anything especially funny.

  “That’s… good?”

  It sounded awkward even to my ear and I cast around for anything to talk about. I glanced up to the sky and saw a few grey clouds moving in, I supposed that the weather was a topic people usually spoke of.

  “Looks like rain.”

  She nodded as she covered her mouth with one hand and that ended that line of conversation. I looked down at my feet, at the car, at the field we were parked beside and up to the hill where the others were with a desperate hope that they would be on their way back to end this nightmare I was enduring.

  “Do you like flowers?” I asked.

  “Flowers?”

  “Yes… like those,” I said with a wave at the yellow petaled plant growing beside the road.

  “That’s a weed,” she said in a strained tone. No doubt as upset by the forced conversation as I was. She turned away as her body shook silently. Yes, definitely as stressed by the awkwardness as me.

  I sought desperately for something to say, anything to make things easier and came up with absolutely nothing. Pregnancy perhaps? I was sure that I’d read somewhere that people liked to talk about their offspring.

  “Do you like being pregnant?” sigh.

  A giggle burst from her lips and she nodded vigorously. It seemed she felt the conversation was as awkward as I did. As I opened my mouth to speak, I saw the others headed down the hill and breathed a sigh of relief.

  They seemed to be staring at us and they began waving their arms as they increased their speed. I had a moment to wonder what they were doing before comprehension dawned and I reached for my knife as I spun around.

  The first Feral was already leaping at me as a second was approaching Cass from the other side of the car. I threw my arms up and felt it slam into me as I twisted and pushed it away from me. It rebounded from me and slammed into the car as the other one jumped at Cass.

  I reached out and pulled her back, away from its leap and it flew past her to land on the road, losing a fair bit of skin on the rough surface.

  Hands grabbed my leg and pulled me down as I pushed Cass away from me, away from the threat with one clear instruction leaving my mouth. “Run.”

  My legs kicked as I tried to dislodge the feral that was clawing its way up me, grasping my clothes and pulling itself over me as I pushed myself backwards over the road in a desperate attempt to get away from it.

  Its fingers dug painfully into my skin as it gripped my leg and its mouth opened wide. I glimpsed stained teeth and caught the strong odour of rot for just a moment before I finally managed to pull free my knife.

  I slashed the blade across its face, blood spurted as flesh parted but it was unconcerned by the damage. I struggled to reach a position here I could put enough force behind a thrust to get through its skull. Then the second zombie was on me.

  As its face came down towards mine, my knife thrust upwards and into its eye socket. I gagged as cold blood and whatever foul liquid was in its eyeball splashed across my face and hoped that I had no open cuts there.

  My head cracked loudly against the roads surface as the zombie fell over me and I had the unpleasant experience of having its foul body pressed up against my nose and mouth, then it was pushed off of me by the other zombie, eager to reach my flesh itself.

  I stabbed my blade deep into its side, its shoulder, its neck. Again and again, as I tried to reach a position where I could plant my blade in its skull but it was pressing down against my knife arm and my other hand was pushing it away from me with all the strength I had.

  A furious growl came as Jinx joined the fight, gripping one undead arm in her teeth as she pulled and yanked at it. The Feral moaned and I risked my fingers by stabbing my blade up through the open mouth and into the soft palette, straight into the brain as more blood covered my head and shoulders.

  It fell against me, lifeless at last and I groaned. The only movement came from the arm that Jinx refused to release.

  Then the weight was lifted from me and the faces of my friends stared down at me. I turned my head to the side and spat out a thick gobbet of the Ferals blood and gagged at the foul taste.

  “Get some water for god’s sake,” someone called. I think it was Lily.

  A water bottle was thrust towards me and I took it gratefully as Gregg helped me to my feet. I swished the water around my mouth and spat it out several times but the taste remained. With my tongue, I probed the inside of my mouth in search of any cuts and was pleased to find I had none. I took another swig of water.

  Lily pressed a wet cloth to my face, wiping at the thick blood that covered it. I remembered the first time she had done that, back after the refugee centre as she so very carefully wiped away the blood of a zombie I’d killed.

  “You think I’m infected?” I asked as I spat once again to clear my mouth.

  “Maybe,” she said. Her voice was full of fear for me and I marvelled once again at how she could feel such a thing for another. “Did you swallow any blood?”

  “No.”

  “Blood to blood is the easiest method of infection,” Becky said. “Obviously I wouldn’t want to test it like you just did and it will be best to rinse your mouth and eyes but, I think you’ll be okay.”

 
; “Of course he will,” Lily snapped at her before turning to me. “You will.”

  “We’ll likely find out one way or another,” I said with a ghastly grin that by the reactions showed teeth still reddened with zombie blood. I rinsed again.

  “There’s a river to the north,” Gregg said. Can wash your clothes there but we should find somewhere safe in case… you know?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Wash off what we can and I’ll find some fresh clothes at the next house we find. Let’s just keep going.”

  “Why so calm?” Gregg said. “Seriously mate, freak out a little. Its fine, no one will think any less of you.”

  “What’s to ‘freak out’ about?”

  “How can you not freak out?” he countered.

  “We know the signs of infection. Sitting around waiting for them to appear will accomplish nothing and if those signs do show up, we can take measures then.”

  “Take measures,” Lily said flatly.

  “Yes. Restrain me and when or if I turn, kill me.”

  “How can you be so calm about that?” she hissed and I looked from her to my other friends to see similar expressions.

  “Whatever happens, I can’t change it,” I said. “If I’m infected then I’m infected already. Why waste time and energy worrying about what will happen when I have no control over the outcome?”

  “You’re impossible,” Lily hissed and I grinned at her.

  “I’m also right.”

  “Let’s go,” she said as she waved the others into the car. “A couple of hours and we’ll be at the coast.”

  “Should we tie him up?” I heard Becky ask Gregg as they walked away and from the angry look that Lily flashed her, I gathered she heard too.

  I poured the last of the water over my head and washed out as much of the blood as I was able to before settling for shaking off the water in lieu of a towel. I was walking around the car as a hand grabbed my arm and Pat leant in close.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I saw you push her to safety. That means a hell of a lot mate.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said. His anger of the previous few days seemed to have dissipated. It was a curious thing, more so because I couldn’t even say why I had pushed her away from the danger. I shrugged to myself as I climbed into the car. It was a mystery for another time.

  For now, I could concentrate on myself. If I was infected then no doubt the transition would be extremely uncomfortable but also interesting. I’d never turned into a zombie before and experiencing it first hand, while not being my first choice of how to die, would at least not be too boring.

  Chapter 12 - Lily

  My relief when he didn’t seem to be showing any sign of infection was tempered by my confusion over his disappointment. I didn’t believe he wanted to become one, but I think on some level he was curious about it.

  When I’d seen the two Ferals approaching the car as we descended the hill, my heart had almost stopped. Concern for my friend and her baby had warred with that for him. I needn’t have worried. While it was not his most elegant fight, he’d still managed to kill them both and more to the point, his first reaction had been to push Cass to safety.

  We’d grown complacent over the winter. The zombies we’d encountered had been mainly the Shamblers and we’d all become better at fighting them than we had been back at the beginning. We’d had the advantage of surprise on our side all too often, we’d had our weapons and if we were honest, we’d had Ryan.

  He’d always been the first into the fight. He’d kill his share and usually more and he’d do it with a smile on his face. It was a boost to the morale just to be there with him, seeing him do what he did so well.

  From the stories our two newest group members had told, not everyone else had had the same result when encountering the undead. Outside of the lakes, with wide open spaces and plenty of room for the undead to roam, the fights had ended differently.

  Towns and villages had fallen, people fleeing in their hundreds of thousands had been trapped on the roads and killed, adding more numbers to those of the undead. Those few who had survived the initial attacks had fallen to the undead during the winter or more often, to starvation from lack of food.

  I’d held out some hope that those in the villages on the coast would have fared better. With access to boats and the chance to fish the sea, they’d surely have had more chance to survive. Judging by the first village we found, we were so very wrong.

  Allonby was a small fishing village. It had a single road through the centre the village and had little in the way of shops. When the end had come they had survived the initial spate of infection and had barricaded themselves in as best they could with a ring of cars, tractors and wagons around the houses.

  The mounds of zombies we’d seen on the edge of the village were all old and the scattered bones found at the farms around the village told us all we needed to know. The zombies had run wild over those wide open spaces and slaughtered every living creature they could get their hands on. Cows and sheep, in their walled in fields and barns, had been easy prey.

  Cut off from any source of food other than that provided by the sea, the residents had survived for a time. But the few boats they had, weren’t enough to provide enough to feed everyone and those who saw that first had loaded their families on their boats and sailed away.

  Those many people who remained had run out of supplies sometime during the winter. Besieged as they were by the zombies, they had slowly starved. As we searched through those cold houses, we’d found ample evidence that many of those people had opted to take their own lives.

  The few remaining people then, with waning strength brought on by slowly starving and lacking significant numbers, had fallen to the zombies. Ryan had, with an almost preternatural understanding, explained in detail what had happened.

  He’d shown us where the zombies had finally broken through, pointed to the last stand and the panicked flight that because of their weakened state hadn’t gone far. He’d seen the cloth wrapped bundles placed on the village green, the shovels and half dug holes and understood that those many, many dead bodies had died by their own hands.

  Ryan had noted the lack of boats at the tiny wharf and offered an explanation for what had happened. We could think of no other way to make sense of what we’d seen there and his explanation included an insight into the darker side of humanity. The need to protect yourself above all others.

  We’d spent the night in one of the houses there and I’d wept silently for the dead and for the man I loved as we waited to see if the infection would take hold. When morning came and he was still alive and well, I’d wept again and felt no remorse for the joy I felt.

  And so it went, as we travelled along the coast. There was little talk and less to say, each of us burdened by the scenes we had borne witness to.

  Gregg who I had found weeping in a child’s bedroom, two small bodies holding hands and looking almost peaceful. The empty bottles of pills on the bedside beside them and their mother in a chair in the corner, a note in her hand with a single sentence etched in crayon. Two words, ‘forgive me.’

  Pat who had entered one room and immediately turned around and closed the door behind him. He’d stood glowering with his arms crossed and a look that dared anyone to try to pass him. His whispered words to Cass in the night when he thought we were all asleep, his body shaking as he recounted the horror he’d seen.

  Cass, silent and refusing to cry as she pressed her hands to her belly and dropped her head in silent prayer over the massed bodies in the village centre. Her words were full of anger as she chastised her God for his abandonment of this world.

  Not one of us left that first village with anything but dark thoughts and a slow draining of hope of the world ever returning to normal. Well, none of us but Ryan. He’d seemed curious about the reactions of those around him and had tried to hide how little it mattered to him. That worried me more than anything else
. He was slowly going back to the man he was before, hidden behind a carefully crafted personae while the real man waited to be unleashed.

  The next village was much the same, the one after hadn’t made it past the first panicked flight. No boats floated in the waters and the undead stalked its streets. We wasted two hours driving back the way we had come to find an adjoining road that would let us drive around it.

  Midway through our second day driving along the coastal roads we came to Silloth. As a town, it wasn’t especially large, barely three thousand or so people though we did learn that at its height during the summer months when the tourists came, that number could easily treble.

  We didn’t expect to find much there, the towns were harder hit than villages after all but much to our surprise, as we drove along the road that ran between a golf course and a holiday centre, we came upon a barricade with living people behind it.

  I brought the car to a slow stop and glanced at my friends. “Worth getting out or driving away?”

  “Should be safe,” Becky said. “Surely.”

  “What about you two?” I asked Aiden. “Is this one of the places you spent the winter?”

  “No, we didn’t make it this far west.”

  “Ryan?” I asked. He nodded slowly as he watched the excited people behind the barricade. His hand moved unconsciously to the knife on his belt and a slow smile formed on his lips.

  “Should be safe,” he said. “Men and women both on the barricade.”

  “So what?” Becky asked.

  “The sort of people who would be the most dangerous to us, would tend to have men on guard with the women safe in the camp where they can’t get away.”

  “Fair enough,” she said with a deep gulp.

  “Pat, take my place,” I said as I opened my door. I wasn’t surprised when Ryan climbed out of the other side and I made no objection as we walked towards the barricade together.

  There were half a dozen men and women behind that barricade and fresh stains on the road showed they’d used the rifles they held so casually. I watched them as we took the long walk for that hundred metres or so between the car and them.