Killing The Dead (Book 16): Infected

by Murray, Richard

  Again, just another one-word answer with no explanation. I might not have been her boss but I deserved a little more than that. I opened my mouth, ready to berate and then yelped as a hand pressed against the glass of the rear window.

  It was flat against the glass and Lisa cursed as she turned in her seat to stare. Through the murk, a body took shape as it moved closer and closer, then the face pressed up against the glass and I shied away.

  Even in the murky water, I could make out the pale skin and eyes filled with tormented pain. His lips twisted in a smile and no air bubbles escaped as his mouth opened in mocking laughter. I stared in horror as he formed a fist and pulled his hand back before slamming it forward.

  “Oh, God!”

  That was why no help was coming. It was one of the infected that had caused the car to swerve. I shuddered as another realisation came.

  “The infected aren’t afraid of water.”

  “No, My Lady.”

  Lisa pulled the knife from her belt and held it thoughtfully for a moment before passing it over to me and pulling a second, smaller one from a sheath in the small of her back.

  “When the glass breaks, water will rush in,” Lisa said, voice still calm. “I’ll hold it back as best I can while the water fills the car. Once it does, smash the window beside you and swim out. Head to shore.”

  She turned her head to give me a steady look. I was amazed at how calm she appeared as though not scared in the slightest. I’d been in a number of tough spots and I’d faced down armies of the undead but I was still terrified before every fight.

  Somehow, she wasn’t, and it was then that I realised what Ryan had. The people who followed him, the death cultists, really did consider themselves already dead. There was no fear because it could do nothing to her other than make her body match her spirit which had died long before.

  I wanted to weep for her.

  “Don’t swallow any water,” she said as the infected man’s fist slammed against the glass again, a crack appearing.

  “What?” I was saying that a lot and I blamed the head injury.

  “I’m gonna make it bleed. No way to avoid that and we’ve no idea what will happen if you swallow its blood.”

  Christ!

  “Yeah, I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

  I pulled Jinx a little closer and just hoped that she would follow me as I swam to safety leaving the others behind.

  “The other guy, Alec.”

  Lisa looked back at the two men in the front seat and grimaced. Her hand moved before I could cry out and embedded in the back of the skull of first Alec and then the driver, Mac.

  “Why?”

  “No way we could bring them with us and they would turn. It’s for the best.”

  It upset me that her words made sense. A distant part of me could remember a time when I would have been horrified at the very thought. Pragmatism, though, was the one thing we had all adopted during the apocalypse.

  The only way to survive was to know when you had to cut your losses. When you had to accept you couldn’t save someone. It still hurt that I wouldn’t be able to even try though.

  Another crack appeared on the glass and I pulled Jinx close as I readied the knife in my hand. A shiver ran through me and I couldn’t say whether it was due to fear or the cold river water that was slowly rising.

  The car shifted and I reached out to steady myself while looking questioningly at Lisa. She grimaced again.

  “River’s running high and fast. When you get out, head for shore straight away. Be careful or you’ll be swept out to sea.”

  I closed my eyes and swallowed hard, wishing that Ryan was with me and furious that he wasn’t. I needed him and he wasn’t here. Any number of things could go wrong with a pregnancy at the best of times and we certainly weren’t living in the best of bloody times.

  “Be ready,” Lisa warned as a sharp crack sounded.

  Another crack and then another, water spilling through. The infected man pulled his hand back and slammed it forward one final time and the rear window shattered. Water hit me like a hammer, pushing me back as I sucked in a deep lungful of air that I knew might be my last.

  I held onto Jinx and hit the window beside me with the pointed blade. Once, twice and then a third time. It shattered and more water rushed in. Cold, so very cold. I wanted to gasp for breath but couldn’t.

  The infected man was half in the car, hands reaching for us. Lisa, true to her word was doing her best to keep him at bay with her knife. The torch beam providing the only light as it illuminated the water around it.

  Then there was no more water rushing in, pushing against me, and I could reach up and grab the rim of the door and pull myself out. My lungs ached and I kicked out to shore but was immediately swept along by the current.

  I lost my grip on Jinx, my body being turned about by the sheer strength of the rushing water. I struck out for what I hoped to be the surface and burst free, gasping for breath.

  Icy rain stung my face and I began to swim, aiming for the closest shore. My arms and legs were like lead and the cold felt as though it was reaching all the way to my bones. I wanted to stop, to cry, to give up.

  But I couldn’t. I wasn’t just saving myself, but my children too. They were what mattered. I pushed on, dredging up the last reserves of energy. My fingers hooked onto a branch that reached out over the water.

  I scrabbled at it, fingers slippery and wet. But I lost my hold and was swept on, the currents taking me further away. I was well aware that at any moment the river would widen as it moved ever closer to the sea and my chances then would be next to nothing.

  Tears mixed with the rain and river water as I kicked out once more. My energy almost gone, the cold numbing my body. Then I had it, a grip on a large rock that had likely been in that spot since before I was born. Permanent and immovable, impervious to the demands of the raging river.

  I clung on for dear life, limbs shaking and body numb. In the darkness, with the rain and the wind, I couldn’t see. I could have been a thousand miles from safety for all I knew. If I released my hold on the rock, I could have let go my last chance to survive.

  But if I didn’t, I’d definitely die. The cold waters would drag me down and I would turn, becoming a zombie floating out at sea. That thought terrified me more than anything else.

  I pushed away from the rock, reaching out my arms as I sought to grasp anything that would let me know the river bank was close. That I was safe. That I would live.

  Something wet and warm gripped my wrist and I jerked back instinctively, only to get a soft growl in response.

  Laughter burst from me, full of relief and love for the beautiful Alsatian that helped pull me on to the banking. I dragged myself from the water and wrapped my arms around her. She licked at my face and shook herself, spraying water in all directions.

  “T-t-thank y-you,” I stammered, as shivers overtook my body. I couldn’t seem to stop shaking.

  Jinx licked me once more before her jaws closed on my collar. She tugged at my coat, pulling me insistently as if to say it was time to move.

  “P-point m-m-made.”

  It was a short walk up to the road which was good since I had little energy left. My limbs didn’t seem to want to obey me and I had lost the feeling in my extremities. I went to the first house I could see and pounded on the door.

  No one answered.

  Body shaking, I stumbled, falling to my knees, head pressing against the rough stone of the wall. I pressed my hands against my stomach and began to weep for the children that I had failed.

  Jinx pulled at my collar and whined. Her tongue licked out and I wanted to reach for her, to rise to my feet, but I couldn’t. I had nothing left. Darkness edged my vision and the last thing I heard as the darkness dragged me down was a howl that split the night.

  Chapter 22

  I was swept along on a current of rage and fury. I wore the blood of the dead and I very much intended to drown their subterranean home i
n more of it.

  In the chapel behind me, a chapel the villagers had still used frequently by my guess, good god fearing folk that they were; I had begun to let loose. Their blood stained the stone, their eyes staring sightlessly at the god that they had forsaken.

  That thought might have amused me if I were not so very furious.

  Isaac didn’t look at me as I brushed past him and I ignored Gregg’s hurried words with the big mercenary as I gathered my minions to me and laid out my plan. In moments, we were off, racing through the village towards the northern fields.

  Through the first, smaller of the two, and into the second. I stuck close to the leftmost wall keeping a careful eye out for signs of a trapdoor. It didn’t take long to find it.

  Buried in the tall grass, a simple wooden board with some attempt to camouflage it with clods of grass and leaves. It was almost insulting to think that it would fool anyone. But then, I guessed, that wasn’t the intention.

  No, they just needed it to not be noticeable to the undead. They’d not expected more living people and any they thought might have survived would be few in number. Their guards would see anyone going straight for the village, not the empty field above it.

  With a jerk of my head, I gestured for a minion to open it. He grasped the edge of the board and heaved it up and to one side, letting it fall once the opening was clear.

  The edges of the hole were rough-hewn, the dirt showing signs of the tools that had cut through it. I guessed that the mines had been closed up for some time and the villagers had cut into one of the tunnels.

  “Radio, mate,” Gregg said as he pointed at the offending item on my belt.

  Without bothering to reply, I pulled it from my belt and tossed it to him. He caught it with one hand and shook his head as he thumbed the button to answer.

  I waved aside the minions and grasped the edge of the hole, lowering my legs down and dropping the four feet into the tunnel. I pulled a torch from my pocket and flicked it on, shining it along the tunnel to both sides of me.

  It was small enough a grown man would need to crouch to walk through it and that would make things awkward. Not that I expected much real resistance. They had attacked other villagers and not warriors like my people. They had certainly not faced any real killers.

  Adrenaline was rushing through my body. The urge to maim, to kill, almost overwhelming me. I was well aware of how many I had killed in the past couple of months and the effect it had on me. Leaving me wanting more and more of it, like an addict.

  I needed it like most people needed the air they breathed. I wasn’t sure I could ever give it up for anyone or anything. Not really. I gloried in every murder. I wanted to scream with joy as my bloody blade cut through flesh.

  No. I could not, would not give it up.

  My minions began dropping into the tunnel behind me and I led the way. Crouched over, almost double, we scurried like rats through the tunnel in search of people. They were down there and I was sure they wouldn’t have moved down to other levels.

  No, they would stay on the topmost one as it was safer. They wouldn’t risk going too far in. They were pathetic creatures. Not warriors, not soldiers, nothing but prey.

  “You’re back! What did you get-“

  His voice cut off as I slammed my blade into his throat, enjoying the feeling of the warm blood as it rushed over my hand. He reached up grabbing my wrist with his hands, eyes wide as they stared into mine.

  I wanted him to see me. To see his death reflected. I really wanted him to know why but that could wait for the next one. For that man, stinking and covered in dirt, I just wanted to see him die.

  As the life left his eyes, I pulled my blade free of the prison of his flesh and reached out a hand to steady myself. So many deaths in such a short time. I was staggered by it. Drinking in each one of them, faster and faster, the urge for more unending.

  I pushed on, following the side tunnel the man had come out of. There, it was up ahead. I could hear it. The sound of voices, the sound of my enemies talking in hushed tones, worried about the loved ones they had sent out in the night to murder us.

  My disgust grew and with it, the darkness that filled me, obscuring the man I was. There was nothing of him left, just the killer and I was about to unleash my rage upon them all.

  “Ryan!”

  The voice sounded distant to my ears, but insistent none the less. I looked back over my shoulder, irritation clear on my face.

  “Ryan! Mate!”

  “What?” The words were drawn out of me, voice so very cold as the death I craved was, oh so very close by.

  “It’s Lily,” Gregg said. “She’s been hurt.”

  I stared at him for a long moment, his words barely registering. Death was within my reach and I hungered for it. I looked back to the tunnel ahead, full of darkness with prey waiting at the end of it. I could go that way and kill them all. I could drench myself in their blood and feed that insatiable hunger within me.

  Lily was hurt! It was a distant part of my mind, a quiet voice yet insistent. It didn’t belong to the killer but the man and it wouldn’t be silenced.

  I was stuck. Life on one side and death on the other. I could go and kill them all anyway. It wouldn’t take long and then I could go and see to her. But that wasn’t enough, I knew that. She was hurt and that meant our children could be in danger too.

  For the first time in my life, I had a decision to make that I had once thought impossible. Which meant more to me. Lily and my children or unleashing the murder and mayhem that I craved so badly.

  It was a question that I had long suspected would come, but I’d expected it to be Lily to give me the ultimatum. Choose her or my life as a killer. In my mind, I’d never had any doubts. The killer was who I was.

  There was no one else without the serial killer. It was very much like I was two people. The killer and the man. Often, the killer was there, beneath the surface, waiting. But on occasion, he would rise up fully and seize control and wouldn’t leave until sated.

  I needed to kill those people. Needed them to die for what they had done, but mostly, because I really, really, just wanted to kill them. I wanted to feel their blood run over my skin, to watch the life fade from their eyes.

  It was a drug. One that I could not ever truly give up. It was a part of me. But, so was Lily.

  “Go and kill them all,” I told the closest minion. “Once you’re done, return to the main force and wait for instruction.”

  Her fist slammed against her breast and she scurried off down the tunnel, the rest of my minions following behind. Gregg stared at me, eyebrows rising in surprise.

  “Don’t say anything and just let’s get out of here,” I said, with a rumble of anger in my throat. “I’m going to need a boat.”

  “Charlie said one’s already on the way. Can meet us off the coast in ten minutes.”

  I nodded brusquely and pushed past him, closing my ears to the distant startled cries as my minions set about slaying those people. They had damned themselves with rape and murder, long before they had tasted the flesh of the children.

  There was no remorse for their deaths but a part of me longed to be the one killing them.

  Isaac grabbed my arm and helped pull me from the hole. Both he and Erin had the same look of surprise that Gregg wore.

  “If anyone says anything, I’m not sure what I’ll do. Just give me space.”

  “Whatever you need, mate. C’mon, boat will be here soon.”

  I walked ahead of them, through the field of tall grass and weeds, swallowing back my disappointment and stuffing the darkness back down where it belonged.

  Whatever had happened to Lily, I was sure I would find an appropriate way to vent my anger and assuage my desire for death.

  At least I hoped so.

  Chapter 23

  The boat glided in towards the docks and before the crew even had time to tie it off, I jumped over the railing to the wooden boards of the dock. A black-garbed minion was t
here to meet me and saluted with fist to the breast.

  “Where is she?”

  “Hospital, My Lord Death.”

  There was fear in his voice, which I could understand. I had given them all one very explicit order and that was to protect her. They’d failed.

  Gregg and the two mercenaries ran alongside me as I jogged to the small hospital centre to the east. The streets were unnaturally quiet with few people out on them and those mainly CDF or the Dead.

  Drones flew overhead in a searching pattern and my mood darkened even further. Something had clearly gone badly wrong and I would make someone pay for it. Lily was hurt!

  The entire ride over I had been unnaturally pensive and far more irritable than usual. I’d been left thankfully alone by the others and had waited with little patience for the boat to make its way back to the Isle of Lewis.

  A journey that had not been made any more pleasant by the rain and wind that still persisted, souring my mood even further.

  There were a handful of CDF troopers outside the hospital entrance, their faces set and eyes alert as they watched over those people within. A fist of my own minions crouched nearby, looking to most like they were lounging around.

  I knew differently. They were just as alert as the troopers, if not more so. They would also stand and die before any enemy entered that building. They saluted as they saw me but didn’t move from their posts as I walked straight past the guards without challenge.

  The hospital was much as before. Overcrowded and smelling of the antiseptic they were using everywhere in a poor attempt at keeping it somewhat sanitized. Nurses ran this way and that, on some errand or other and medics tended to the waiting patients

  One of the nurses stopped as she saw me and simply pointed down a corridor. I nodded my thanks and ran that way. It didn’t take long to find the room Lily was in. The two minions standing guard by her door was indication enough.

  I didn’t even look at them as I pushed past and into the room. There she was, in a bed, eyes closed and unnaturally pale with a bandage wrapped tightly around her head. I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off of her as I stepped forward, towards her.