I took a moment to look back out through the window. The situation hadn’t changed other than to get worse. The Ferals swarmed across the hillside and far too many of them showed some curiosity about the plane wreckage where we hid.
While hiding might have been a good idea, I very much doubted that we’d have managed to get much further across the open hillside, it meant we were pretty much trapped. Judging by the numbers of Ferals that covered the hill, I doubted they’d be gone long enough for us to escape before their slower cousins turned up.
My grip on my knife hilt tightened as I watched them. The urge to kill wasn’t quite there, but there was something else. A nihilistic desire to go out and kill as many of them as I could before they tore me apart. An odd feeling to be sure.
The malaise that had cloaked me since leaving my friends was stifling. Perhaps Georgia had the right idea in pushing me to kill. Maybe, if I rediscovered my joy in that, then I would start to be more myself again. It was just a case of how then.
I was pretty certain that if I marched in and slit the throat of my victim then there’d be some kind of outcry that would alert the zombies. Even if we survived that, I would no longer be welcome and I would end up having to kill them all just to stop the whining. No. An outright murder in front of the others wouldn’t do.
Poison was one option of course and I hardly doubted that Georgia would begrudge me a little of her special herbs. But, I didn’t quite have her flair for using poison and I’d be just as likely to kill all of us as my target.
An accident then. Somehow, I would need to find some way for my victim to have an accident on a crashed passenger plane, surrounded by zombies and without alerting my companions to the fact that it was orchestrated by me. Oh, and all before the deadline Georgia gave me or she would kill the child. Should be easy.
Chapter 7
“What the hell are you doing?” Mark asked as he approached me.
I kept the frown from my face as I glanced at him for just a moment before returning to my contemplation of the ceiling.
“What do you mean?” I asked when he stopped beside the row of seats I was lounging on. He didn’t seem inclined to go away and leave me to think.
He gestured at the row of seats with one hand and I sighed as I tried to see what it was that was upsetting to him. Of the three seats in the row I was on, only two of them had been occupied, leaving the middle space free and I’d made sure not to move either of the bodies strapped into the other two seats. I knew people got offended if you did that.
True, I’d taken the tablet from the lap of the dead woman to my left, just to see if it had any power left. It hadn’t. I didn’t see why that would upset him. My gaze found the half-empty packet of peanuts in my lap and I lifted it up and shoved it towards him.
“I don’t want a bloody peanut!” He practically hissed the words at me from beneath clenched teeth. “What the fuck are you doing sitting there!”
“It’s more comfortable than the floor,” I said with a half-shrug as I picked a peanut from the bag and popped it into my mouth, chewing slowly.
“There’s dead bodies to either side of you!”
“I don’t think they want a peanut.”
“Get up and show some respect!” he snapped.
His face, flushed red and full of rage, was set into a scowl as he stared down at me. I simply stared back, my eyes fixed to his and he took a step back, his anger dying as he caught sight of something in my expression that gave him pause.
“What do you want?” I said as I chewed on another peanut.
“Most of the Ferals have passed, we’re going to have a look through some of the luggage in the overhead compartments and get ready to leave.”
“You don’t need my permission,” I said with a shrug. “Do as you please.”
“Look, you arse. I can’t say that I particularly like you but you’re part of this group and you’ll help out when asked to.”
“You haven’t actually asked,” I said as I came to a decision. “But, of course, I’ll help.”
He grunted a response as I rose to my feet, dropping the peanuts into the lap of the corpse to my right. His eyes bulged but he chose to say nothing at my casual disrespect and he gestured with a nod of his head towards the rear of the plane.
“We’ll start from here and make our way to the back,” he said. “You take this side and I’ll take the other.”
“What about the others?”
“They’re gathering as much food as they can find and will start checking luggage compartments from up by the cockpit and make their way to here.”
“Sounds good,” I said with a smile that didn’t seem to fool him.
We didn’t speak for the next hour while we opened the luggage compartments and pulled out various sized bags. It suited me well enough, I was never one for small talk and instead, preferred to concentrate on the task at hand.
It was simple enough work. Pull out the bag, open it and sort through the items inside. Anything that could be considered useful would be deposited on a nearby empty seat and the bag would be put back. After we’d finished checking them all, some bags would be emptied and we’d go down the rows collecting all the items we’d set aside.
Not that there’d be much of it, I thought as I rifled through the contents of the second compartment.
There was plenty of makeup, wallets and phones. All of which was useless to us, but considered essential to the people on the flight. There was some medicine, mainly over the counter painkillers, the sort of things people would carry with them just in case they had a headache.
Birth control pills were set to one side, I was pretty sure they would be useful. I doubted anyone wanted to get pregnant and no one spoke of it much, but each house we checked was always searched for condoms. I’d no idea what the sexually active members of our group were doing but I was pretty sure the condoms had all run out a while back.
Much of the clothing was left. As much as I hated not being able to change into something clean, it was too much to carry around with us when we had too little food to keep our strength up. I set aside several thick towels though. At such high altitude, the nights would get much colder. The electric razor I found was useless since it only had a plug.
And on it went. All too soon I realised it was a waste of time but I kept on anyway, dutifully searching bag after bag as I worked my way towards the gaping hole at the rear of the plane. I was careful to keep just ahead of Mark.
As I approached the far end of the plane, I stopped paying attention to the baggage and turned my focus to the ragged edges of the hole that had been left when the tail section was torn free.
Of the final row of chairs just on the very edge of the hole, two remained and one had fallen free. On either side of the compartment, the seats were missing entirely on that final row while wires could be seen trailing from the ceiling.
The floor looked sturdy enough and I edged closer and peered out. As expected there, were several Ferals sniffing the air beneath us, curious about the cargo bay where we had entered the plane. It was risky since it could mean drawing more of them to us, but it was the easiest option.
When I looked down the length of the plane I could see that Johnny and Lisa were searching the compartments much as we were. They were focused on their task and not watching us. I looked over to Mark. He wasn’t paying attention as he searched a black leather holdall.
I pushed past the first corpse strapped into its seat in the middle section. The next seat was empty and I edged past the third as I reached for my knife, eyes fixed on the far end of the plane and the other group members.
Which is why I was so surprised when a withered hand reached up and grabbed my arm. I recoiled, an instinctive reaction to being held, pulling my arm away and knocking my elbow painfully against the seat behind me.
As I swore, the zombie opened its eyes fully. Milky white orbs in desiccated flesh stared out at me and its mouth opened as a weak moan issued forth. I slammed m
y knife blade down into its skull as Mark whirled at the commotion.
“What the hell!”
“I thought you’d cleared these bodies!” I snapped and he looked at me helplessly.
“We did!”
“You missed one,” I said and glanced back towards the cockpit. They’d noticed and were looking our way, I waved irritably at them and they turned back to their work. Just what I needed.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Truly. We thought they were all dead.”
“Yeah, well, that’s not good enough,” I said as I stepped in close.
He took a step back and I followed, his eyes fixed on the blade I held and his face paled as he looked into my eyes.
“Now look…” he began. “This was an easy mistake to make.”
The edge of the hole was barely a foot away from him and I smiled as I took a moment to glance back over my shoulder. The others weren’t watching.
He wore a look of surprise when I pushed him. I doubt he’d really expected anything to happen and just thought I was pissed and needed to vent. He certainly hadn’t been prepared for it. His arms pinwheeled as he teetered on the edge, mouth opening wide as the sound of panic escaped him and then he was gone, over the edge.
A thump sounded from below and then a moan, followed by more as the Ferals noticed him. I risked a moment to peer over the edge just as he cried out in fear.
One of the zombies had hold of his arm as it bit down. Blood sprayed out and he battered at it ineffectually with his free hand. Right up until a second Feral took hold of it and tore away several fingers with its teeth. Then the screaming began.
I backed away from the edge, back into the deeper shadows as the sound of running feet came to me. I waved them back and prepared myself to look as distraught as I could. Not an easy thing to do since I’d only ever seen that look on others.
“What happened!” Lisa said, voice low though it was hardly necessary considering the noises Mark was making.
“Stay back,” I said in a voice that quavered nicely. “One minute he was standing there and the next, the floor gave way a little and he fell. I tried to grab him…”
“Shit man,” Johnny said. “Crap! That’s rough. Damn!”
“We need to get back to the others and keep quiet,” I said. “The noise will attract more of them.”
I didn’t need to see them nod agreement as I pushed past Lisa and headed back towards the front of the plane. Georgia met my eyes as she stood in the doorway between the first-class section and the one I was in. A slight smile played around her lips as she nodded, the barest tilt of her head.
Whatever response she might have been hoping for from me, she didn’t get. I just brushed past her like I did the others and found an empty seat to settle into. I’d not killed him myself but I had been the cause of his death and usually, that would have filled me with exhilaration.
But not then. There was nothing. No yearning to kill again, no rush of adrenaline, no surge of savage glee at his death. I was empty and alone and felt nothing but misery for the people I had left behind.
I sat in silence and ignored the others as they clustered together, fear rising from them. Georgia settled in a seat not far from me, a sense of contentment surrounding her. She’d got her way and seemed to think that she’d made a point. She hadn’t.
There was nothing for me anymore. The one pleasure I’d had for so many years had been killing and that was gone. My brief time with my friends had changed me and most of all, my feelings for her.
“Damn you, Lily,” I whispered as the screaming stopped.
Chapter 8
The Ferals surrounded the plane for most of the day and long into the night. We sat and listened to them as they banged around in the cargo bay, as their claw-like fingers scratched at the fuselage as they sought purchase to climb up.
At one point the little girl began to cry, her mother pulling her close and muffling her cries as best she could while the rest of the group glared. I watched them warily. They were trapped and close to panic and people in that kind of situation do stupid stuff in an effort to save themselves. If any of them tried to silence the child, I would end them first.
There wasn’t much of worth left to me, but I would not stomach the harming of a child. They had an innocence I could only marvel at and to destroy such innocence was worthy of a painful death on the end of my blade. Whether I enjoyed it or not anymore, I would do it.
As the Ferals swarmed around the plane wreckage, much like flies around a carcas, they brought with them an overwhelming stench that seemed to cling to everything. It was the stench of death and while we’d long grown accustomed to it, even a brief spell without the ever-present odour, meant that when it returned it was noxious.
“How long will they be out there?” Georgia said in a quiet voice as she stared out of the plane window, two rows down from where I sat.
I saw no real need to answer her question. They would be out there until they became bored and moved on. There was little we could do about it and it was pointless to worry about such things.
“Still can’t see any Shamblers,” she said in some inane attempt to force a conversation.
She sighed softly and turned to me, her face only partly visible in the darkness, lit on one side by the moonlight that filtered in through the shattered glass windows.
“You think we’ll get out of this?” she asked.
Her fingers tapped at the leather pouch she kept attached to her belt, near her Hori Hori. It contained her numerous small packages of herbs and I could tell what she was thinking. If we couldn’t escape, there was no reason not to kill everyone.
“Yes,” I said and could almost sense her confusion as she tilted her head to the side and stared at me.
“How?”
“I have an idea,” I said. “Not sure everyone will be happy with it, but it should work.”
“Tell me.”
“No.”
“Why not?” she asked in a voice full of hurt. It didn’t fool me for a minute.
“Because I have no interest in doing so.”
She sidled past the seats, brushing against the corpses strapped in there with as little care as I would show, and walked up the aisle to stand beside me. Away from the moonlight filtering through the windows, I could see little of her face and I braced myself in case she attacked.
“Why do you resist this so much?” she asked with what I took to be genuine curiosity.
“Resist what?”
“Us,” she said and slumped down onto the seat opposite mine. “We’re the same and you refuse to embrace that. You cling to the memory of…”
“Just because we are similar, it doesn’t mean I feel any need to do what you want,” I interrupted before she said something that would evoke a – most likely violent - reaction from me.
“I thought you’d be more fun,” she said. “We’d wander this world killing indiscriminately. Instead, you walk surrounded by this gloom you carry with you. You show no interest in killing and less interest in me. You’re being, emotional! Worse than that, you’re being boring.”
She had me there. I couldn’t really deny that I’d not been myself for that past couple of months. Ever since the death of my friend and my subsequent retaliation that had forever severed my ties with those people I cared for.
There was nothing I could do about that though. They’d changed me to the point where I was vulnerable in a way that I’d never been before. I didn’t like it, but there was little I could do about that.
“What would you have me do?” I asked with a sigh.
“Stop being so miserable for a start!” she said. “Think of how it felt when you killed Mark. That rush of adrenaline as you watched him fall, that feeling of power as you look into his eyes and saw the realisation in them that you were going to be his death!”
“I didn’t feel that though.”
“You didn’t?” she looked at me askance as she absorbed that. “Why not?”
“Who knows?” I said. “I certainly don’t.”
She sat silently for several long minutes as she thought and I, enjoying the silence, left her to it. I very much doubted that she’d come up with anything useful to say that would help me.
“Maybe you just need to keep at it,” she said finally.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you know.”
I shook my head to indicate that no, I didn’t know.
“You’ve had a bit of a break and that’s not worked, so maybe you just have to keep trying,” she said. “It’s like sex.”
“Sex?”
“Yeah, you have one night where you can’t get it up and it knocks you off your game. The next time you try it’s there in the back of your head, the memory of a pretty crappy performance and before you know it, you’re limp again and some poor girls gotta finish herself off.”
“Nice visual,” I said and she grinned.
“I’m right though, aren’t I?”
“Perhaps.” It could be worth a try I supposed. Not like there was any binding promise keeping me from doing as I pleased anymore.
“Then let’s start now,” she said, her voice gaining in intensity. “We’ll kill them all and then wait for the zombies to get bored.”
“No,” I said firmly. “If I’m going to do this, then I need to do it my way.”
“Fine,” she shifted her weight, crossing her arms across her chest as a petulant tone entered her voice. “But if you take too long…”
She didn’t need to finish that threat as I understood what she would do. If my plan worked, then it should satisfy her and allow the rest of us to escape.
For the next few hours, I sat in the dark as I listened to the incessant scratching on the fuselage. They couldn’t get up to us but they definitely knew we were there and they wouldn’t leave us be. It was no longer necessary then, to hide our movements and as dawn approached I rose from my seat and moved towards the cockpit.
“What…” Johnny mumbled as I rudely shoved him aside from where he’d been leaning against the door.
I ignored his questioning as I tugged at the door and even tried to slide my knife blade down the narrow gap between the door and the partition wall, to little success. The door was secure and reinforced, which screwed up that first part of my plan.
March of the Dead (Killing the Dead Book 11) Page 6
