Charlie adjusted a control and the image zoomed in on a section of the barricade and I clenched my hands and bit my lip to keep from swearing. There were people huddled beside that barricade. Men, women and children, all tied to it by lengths of rope and keeping a watchful gaze over them were people wearing the CDF uniform.
“Human shield,” Charlie said as she scratched behind Jinx’s ear. “Nasty bitch that one.”
I had no words to express my disgust and with one last look at those miserable people sitting in the mud, hugging each other for warmth or comfort, I turned to the next screen.
“What’s this?”
The video had been recorded during the day by one of the drones that was flying along the coast and for a moment all I could see was endless waves. I glanced at Charlie who gestured me back to the screen and I turned back just in time to see it.
“What was that?”
It had lasted barely a moment, a flash of movement in the water as something emerged and then disappeared from view once more.
“My best guess, submarine,” Admiral Stuart said thoughtfully. “Can’t see enough of it to get an ID but judging by the wake, it was moving fast. That means it’s manned.”
“Which means people,” I said, suddenly breathless. “More survivors.”
“Not necessarily friendly,” Samuel said. “They could be trying to see if we are friend or foe or they could be scouting for someone to take over.”
“Great.”
“Next problem,” Charlie said with a grin. “And my frikken favourite. Please turn your attention to monitor number nine.”
I gasped and clutched my stomach protectively. It was another pre-recorded video and I stared at the screen as Charlie spoke.
“Our longest-range drone can just about get in sight of the mainland, though not for long. It does, however, have a pretty damned cool camera that I added myself.”
Her self-satisfied smile faded away when no one seemed inclined to exclaim over her achievement and she continued in a less cheery tone.
“That means if you get high enough you can zoom in and see what’s happening on the coast. Which, in this case, happens to be a shit load of zombies all marching north.”
They weren’t just marching north, I realised, they were making their way up the coast and gathering every zombie in the area they could find and adding them to their horde.
“Best estimate is around fifty to sixty thousand. Mostly Shamblers with approx. four thousand Ferals and one ugly ass looking Reaper leading them.”
“An army,” I said, amazed that my voice was remaining steady. “A king leading an army and looking to conquer.”
“Gets better,” Charlie said with a grin as she fiddled with her controls.
The picture shifted and it was clearly later. The mass of undead was further along the coast and there was a light rain falling. I watched, breathless, as the horde moved towards a town.
“Shit…”
I clamped my hand to my mouth and gave an apologetic shrug as the admiral looked my way, but my eyes didn’t leave the screen.
Another pale, tall, figure came out of the town. It stopped some distance from the horde and while I was unable to make out much, I could see it raise itself up to its full height, and throw back its head and roar.
They poured out of the town, a seemingly endless wave of zombies. Running, shuffling, walking, all moving towards the new horde that at a wordless command form their own Reaper, had begun an advance of their own.
My hand trembled and I pressed it down against the desk as I watched two zombie hordes tear each other apart. I was suddenly glad that we couldn’t see much detail as it allowed me to keep my sanity.
Memories were pushing in, intruding and bringing with them the remembered fear and panic that I had felt as large groups of zombies had come at me, hands grasping, teeth seeking flesh. A shudder ran through me and I almost wept as Samuel placed a comforting hand on my shoulder.
The image cut out and I wiped away a tear I hadn’t realised had formed as I glanced at the others.
“Drone stayed and filmed as long as it could,” Charlie said, almost apologetically. “Longer than it should have. Things at the bottom of the fucking sea now, but I reckon it was worth it.”
“That it was,” Admiral Stuart said.
His eyes were distant and his tone thoughtful as he considered the implications of what we had just watched.
“This is good news, yeah?” Charlie said. “Those undead fuckers will wipe each other out and leave us alone.”
“No.” I somehow knew that it wasn’t and I couldn’t quite articulate why, but fortunately, the admiral could.
“When two hordes clash, one must remain victorious,” he said. “That one will be bigger and stronger. We’ve faced disorganised groups before and won but when we first went up against a Reaper we lost a lot of good people.”
“That Reaper had a few hundred zombies under its control. We have no way to fight an army of them fifty thousand strong, not when they are led by one of them.”
“Worse than that,” Samuel added. “These creatures fear the sea. The movement of the waves, the sounds, or perhaps a hunger greater than their own, it gives them pause. Why then was that creature following the coast?”
“Looking for a way across,” I said, eyes widening as realisation came. “It knows we’re here!”
“That would be my guess.”
I felt like I’d just been punched in the gut. A horde of zombies twice the size of our entire island population with its sights fixed firmly on us. That was something that would bring bladder loosening terror to even the bravest of our people. If the main population heard, it would bring panic.
“The last screen,” Admiral Stuart said. “I don’t want to know what is worse than what we have just seen but I think we have no choice.”
Charlie gave me an apologetic look and pressed another control. The monitor she directed our attention to lit up and we watched in silence as the recording played and then was repeated.
“Well, damn,” the admiral said softly.
I didn’t look at him, didn’t respond, just kept looking at the white-haired man in a pale green suit sitting behind a desk on the screen, reading aloud from a piece of paper he clutched in his hands.
“Is this real?” I asked. “I mean, is it new or old?”
“You tell me,” Charlie said. “Networks went all to hell not long after things went to shit. Some thought it was the government shutting things down, others thought that it was hackers or some fringe nutjobs taking advantage of the lack of people to stop them.”
“Those networks have all been offline since then until two days ago when one started broadcasting again.”
I nodded and turned my attention back to the screen as the message played again.
“If you are listening, if you can hear this, know you are not alone. We are working to get help to you, to get you to safety. For now, stay where you are and wait for us to come to you. If you have access to a radio, broadcast your location so that we can find you.”
“On behalf of the government of Great Britain, this is Prime Minister Harold Stokes telling you that we are coming to save you.”
“Well,” I said into the silence. “Looks like I had the shortest reign in history.”
Chapter 6
I let out a grunt as a meaty fist hit my jaw for the second time and tasted copper in my mouth as blood filled it. I spat it out onto the loam covered earth beside the road and narrowed my eyes as I glared up at Jer.
He raised his fist again and I dug my fingers into the dirt as I braced myself for the impact.
“That’ll do,” Isaac said.
His voice had a bored tone to it that almost irritated me. I spat once more and flashed a bloody grin at the younger man, then grunted again as his booted foot caught me squarely in the ribs.
“I said enough!”
“This prick got Neil killed! He deserves more than a few bloody punches.”
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“Aye, and when we get back he will face a lot worse. So, will you if they have to wait for his jaw to heal up enough that they can question him.”
That seemed to give the younger man pause and I wondered once again, just who ‘they’ were. I was definitely interested in finding out and knowing that Isaac wanted me to get to them alive, I figured I could probably get away with killing Jer before we got there.
Maybe.
My hands were bound behind my back, making things a little more difficult but not impossible, and we had stopped only briefly so that they could, as Isaac put it, teach me a little something about actions having consequences.
Isaac gestured and Dawn slung her weapon over her shoulder and lifted me surprisingly easily to my feet. I dribbled blood down her camouflage netting and gave her an apologetic shrug as she glared.
They guided me to the truck and lifted me into it with little care for my comfort, giving me another reason to add to my already long list of reasons why I would kill them all.
“You drive,” Isaac said to Jer. “Cool down a little. Erin, take shotgun.”
The taciturn red-head just climbed into the truck and rested her sniper rifle across her legs without any argument and that left Dawn to climb up and take her seat against the backboard once again. Isaac climbed in and seated himself beside me.
Each of them kept a careful watch on the surrounding trees as memories of the previous nights encounter weighed on their mind. It was clear they weren’t entirely familiar with the Reapers and I grinned at the thought that it might kill them before I could.
“That was a stupid thing you did,” Isaac said to me as the truck started up and set off once again along the road beside the loch.
“I’ve done stupider, I can assure you.”
“Yeah, I don’t doubt it,” he replied with something akin to amusement in his voice.
I lifted my shoulders in a half shrug as I affected nonchalance and worked my jaw from side to side, wincing at the burst of pain. The blood had slowed at least and I only needed to clear my mouth a couple more times before it stopped.
With little to do but sit and stare at the countryside as it passed by, I soon grew bored. It had always been a problem of mine, that rapid boredom I found with life and the meaningless things people did to pass the time.
No matter what new thing I tried, I would soon grow bored and move ever onwards, looking for something new to amuse me. That was until I found murder, of course. After that, well, I could find nothing else to salve my need than the death of another.
It was a singular thrill and one that I had yet to tire of. Even if my appetites had changed somewhat through my association with Lily.
Still, as I lay there in the back of the truck, watching the hills grow higher around us, the undergrowth wilder and the cars on the roads less frequent, I found a need to do something other than ponder my predicament.
“How far is it to your bunker?”
“Shut it,” Dawn snapped.
Isaac merely shook his head, a smile growing on his wide face.
“You shouldn’t be in such a hurry to get there, mate. It’s not gonna be pleasant for you.”
“Hardly as painfully dull as this journey I’d wager.”
“Aye, well that’s true enough. It will be anything but dull.”
He shared a brief smirk with Dawn and I hid the shiver of excitement that ran through me. The kind of people who would torture another were the kind I could exploit for my own ends. More to the point, they were the kind I could kill without breaking my promise to Lily.
“A lot of people there then, at this base?”
“Shut…”
“Ah let him talk,” Isaac interrupted. “God knows there’s bugger all else to do but watch for that bastard zombie.”
“Very kind of you,” I said as I offered him a bland and totally insincere smile.
“To answer your question, yes, there’s a few of us back at the base.”
“Boss…”
“It’s hardly gonna make a difference,” Isaac said. “Who’s he gonna tell?”
“A good point,” I said with another smile at Dawn. She ignored me and gave her leader a hard look. “No, I’m pretty sure it will be torture then death for me. I’m not sure why though?”
“You’re not?” Isaac grunted a short laugh. “You’re the leader of a death cult and part of a large group of survivors who seem to be actually prospering. Why wouldn’t they want to question you?”
There was that ‘they’ again. The way he spoke seemed to indicate that he didn’t consider himself to be part of this mysterious group. A true mercenary then and one who could, perhaps, be bought.
A sideways glance at Dawn told me enough to know that while she may be a mercenary she definitely had a foot in the other camp. She wouldn’t betray them, that I was sure of. Which meant I was definitely free to kill her.
“Fair enough,” I admitted, a little grudgingly. “How about you lot though? You seem to be doing okay.”
There was a tight-lipped silence to that and I had to smile.
“Doing so well, in fact, and so very well prepared,” I said with a tilt of my head to the truck we were in. “That one would almost think that you knew it was coming. Maybe not a zombie apocalypse, but something bad.”
Isaac gave me a stony stare and didn’t answer but that was fine. I was pretty sure I was right and while I was willing to skirt the edge of what I suspected, I didn’t want to reveal too much too soon.
“You’re preppers, right?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
Something like that indeed, I thought with a smile. I’d heard about preppers, who hadn’t? Those people who built hidden bunkers in their garden and stockpiled supplies convinced that the end of civilisation was coming.
I’d laughed at the notion back before the apocalypse began, and I doubted that I was the only one who had. They’d had the last laugh though, sitting safely in their bunkers while the world went to hell.
One thing about preppers though, even those who had built bunkers for more than just themselves. They didn’t hire mercenaries.
No, whoever Isaac and his team worked for, were preppers of a different kind and must have had a great many resources before the end of the world along with the foresight to plan ahead. That made them formidable and the sort of people who wouldn’t give me much chance to escape.
That could be a problem.
“Boss!” Erin called, a sense of urgency in her voice.
I twisted my head to look ahead along the road as Isaac rose to his feet and stared over the cab of the truck as it slowed to a stop.
Along the road, just crossing a stone bridge over a wide river, was a small group of people. Not zombies, which was a surprise, but actual people. Five of them. Two men and three women, all fairly young, around college age and wearing well-worn clothing.
They all had brightly coloured rucksacks on their backs and each of them carried a club made of rough-hewn wood. At sight of the truck, they had begun to wave excitedly and increased their pace along the road.
Clearly, they had not met many people during the apocalypse.
“You,” Dawn said to me in a low voice that was almost a hiss. “Speak a word and I will beat you unconscious.”
“Consider my lips sealed.”
She scowled but didn’t immediately attack me so I gave her a grin and pushed myself as best I could into a position that would allow me to see what was about to happen. It would tell me a lot about the people I had been captured by.
“Orders?” Erin asked.
“Follow protocol three.”
Protocol three?
I wanted to ask but one look at the scowling visage of Dawn was enough to warn me off of that.
“Hello!” A young woman called out.
Wheat coloured hair framed a pretty face that was covered in dirt and thin with hollow cheeks and dark rings around the eyes. Enough to tell me they had probably been hiding out
for the past year and forced to move when already short rations ran out.
“Hey there, miss,” Isaac called out, his voice jovial and seemingly friendly.
I cast a look his way and almost spoke but stopped myself in time as Dawn raised herself from her seat and shifted her grip on her assault rifle.
“Thank God! We thought there was no one left!” she said, voice thick with emotion.
“Don’t you worry, lass, there’s plenty of us still holding out. Where’ve you been hiding away?”
Smart man, he had clearly seen the same as I had. I couldn’t quite decide if that was something to admire or to be concerned about.
“Cairngorms national park,” one of the men said. “We were camping when everything went to shit.”
“Ah, I know that place,” Isaac said. “Up in the mountains to the north-east. Plenty of places to set up camp where you’ll not run into anyone.”
“Yeah.”
“How’d you survive? Must have been tough during the winter.”
“We had a small cave,” the girl said. “It… wasn’t ideal, but we had plenty of wood to keep the fire burning and managed to stockpile some food.”
“The was a stream nearby,” the other man said. “We managed.”
“What brought you out?”
“End of winter,” the girl said. “Figured we couldn’t last another there and hoped someone else had survived.”
Isaac nodded slowly and scratched at his chin as he squinted down at the group. They had begun to look a little nervous as they seemed to see the weapons the others hadn’t quite managed to put entirely out of view.
“Well, you’ve been lucky,” he said finally. “You’ve clearly met some of the undead judging by the stains on them clubs of yours, but there are worse things in the world these days.”
“Like what?” the first man said, glancing nervously at his friends.
“Like us,” Isaac said with a sigh.
His first shot hit the girl square in the centre of her forehead and she fell without a sound as her friends screamed and scattered. Two more shots and one of the men was down the other scrambling over the wall beside the road. He didn’t make it.
“Erin,” Isaac said as he holstered his weapon.
Killing the Dead Season 3 Box Set | Books 13-18 Page 22