Killing the Dead Season 3 Box Set | Books 13-18

by Murray, Richard

  Even before my impending fatherhood, I’d had a strong urge to protect that innocence, to keep children safe. It was, likely, my one redeeming feature. As such. I despised those who would hurt them. Those who would kill them, and doubly those who would use them as food.

  “Gather everyone up,” I said in a voice so very cold as the man went away and the killer rose fully to the surface.

  I ignored the reply from Gregg, not really hearing it as I went back into the church, pushing the door open and slipping inside quietly.

  “Out,” I said. A single word that had every minion moving outside without a word of protest.

  “What’s going on, Clever Bastard?” Isaac asked.

  He took a step back, holding up both hands before him as I turned to stare at him. He looked back over my shoulder as Gregg followed me in.

  “Wait outside with the others, mate,” Gregg said, eyes fixed on the bound prisoners. “It’s for the best.”

  Isaac looked from me to the prisoners and back again.

  “Oh fuck,” was all he said before he headed for the door.

  I didn’t watch him leave. Didn’t even notice Gregg was still with me until he placed a hand on my shoulder, so intent was I upon my prey. My mind going through the many painful ways I could make them die screaming.

  “Remember Lily, mate.”

  A shiver ran through me at the sound of her name. A slight thawing of the ice that filled my veins, a light shining on the darkness that clouded my mind.

  “They have to die.”

  “Yeah, I know.” There was compassion in his voice, even then. He was a better man than me. “But make it quick, yeah.”

  Quick was too easy for them. Far, far, too easy. They deserved to spend their final days in perpetual pain as I visited upon them every violation they had performed on those children.

  But she wouldn’t like that. Gregg was right about that. She would understand the need for their deaths but it would have to be done humanely.

  “So be it.”

  I stepped forward, towards the men who shied away from the murder they saw in my eyes.

  Chapter 21

  Insistent barking woke me, dragging me up from the empty black of unconsciousness and I blinked, not quite sure what was going on. Jinx licked my face, tongue rough and as wet as the water lapping around my knees.

  “What..?”

  There was a sharp pain in my temple and I raised a hand to touch there only for my fingers to come away, wet with blood.

  “My Lady,” Lisa said, voice calm and steady. “Thank the creator.”

  The only light was coming from the torch she held and I looked at her, mind cloudy with confusion. I reached for the door handle and she grabbed my hand.

  “No. It won’t open.”

  “What happened?”

  She ignored my question as she reached forward to press two fingers against the neck of the driver and then the passenger. She shook her head and pulled the hood from her face. There was blood streaming down her chin from what I guessed was a broken nose.

  Outside the car was just an inky blackness, impenetrable and terrifying for some reason I couldn’t say. I pressed fingers to my temple again and winced. Everything seemed to be jumbled up in my head.

  “W-what..”

  I couldn’t finish the question as a wave of nausea swept over me and I sucked in a deep breath of air. Wondering once more why my feet were wet.

  “Don’t move, just wait,” Lisa said, voice muffled as she turned her head this way and that to look out the window.

  “Where are we?”

  She hesitated and then turned to look back at me. “Bottom of the river.” Her tone was matter of fact and I stared at her in shock.

  “What the hell happened?”

  “Someone stepped out in front of us as we were driving back. Natural reaction was to swerve and Mac took us right off the bridge.” She pressed one hand against the glass and twisted her head as though trying to see up through the water. “Best as I can tell, we’ve a good ten feet of water over us.”

  That was a problem. I pressed one hand against my stomach, hoping against hope that my babies were safe. I remembered getting in the car at the research facility, the wind and rain buffeting us as we headed back to town. After that, it was just nothing.

  “Someone will have gone to get help, yeah?”

  “No.”

  Just one word then. Not even an explanation. It would be like pulling teeth to get any answers out of her it seemed. She wasn’t even unique. Many of Ryan’s people had adopted his taciturn manner.

  “The other two?”

  “Mac, the driver, he’s dead. Alec is unconscious but alive.”

  “Shouldn’t you wake him?”

  “Using less air while unconscious.”

  That made sense. I rubbed one hand through Jinx’s fur and tried to think past the thumping in my skull.

  “What about whoever we swerved for. They’ll get help won’t they?”

  “No.”

  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 in 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.