Killing the Dead (Book 13): War of the Dead

by Murray, Richard

“Fucking nutter,” Dawn snapped. “Kill him and let’s get out of here!”

  Isaac grunted and lifted the walkie from his belt. He gripped it tight and spoke just three words.

  “Light it up.”

  I gave him a quizzical look and it was his turn to smile. I opened my mouth to ask what he had just ordered and then stopped as the air cracked with the sound of an explosion.

  “What did you…”

  “One of your ships is either sinking or just flaming wreckage,” Isaac said.

  “You have a rocket launcher?”

  Okay, I had to admit that I was impressed by that.

  “Call your people off or the second one will sink too. I’m guessing you won’t be getting back to your people without one.”

  “Guess I’m not the only clever bastard,” I grunted as I considered my options.

  The crunch of feet on gravel came to me and I smiled as I realised my people wouldn’t be dissuaded by a little thing like a ship sinking. But still, they were right that I needed the other.

  “Fine. You can leave,” I said as I lowered the assault rifle. “But I would like to see you again sometime and finish this conversation properly.”

  “Oh, that’ll happen,” Isaac agreed. “No fucking doubt about that.”

  “You sure about this?” Dawn asked. “They won’t like it.”

  “The way this has gone to hell we’re already fucked, so I don’t give a damn whether they like it or not.”

  “Who are these, ‘they’ that you keep speaking of?” I asked, not really expecting an answer.

  “Pray you don’t find out,” Isaac grunted.

  I held up one hand as the first of my people rushed into the room, knives drawn. I didn’t look their way, just said, “Let them leave and gather our people up.”

  “My Lord Death,” the minion acknowledged my command with a fist pressed to his chest.

  “Oh and see if any of these others are still alive.”

  Another fist pressed against his chest and I let the assault rifle drop to the concrete floor. I wasn’t a particular fan of guns anyway and preferred my knives. Much more fun.

  I waited for the three mercenaries to file out and crossed to the still weeping woman. I considered it best not to mention her children until I knew whether they were on the ship that had just been sunk or not.

  All in all, not the best day, I had to admit but there had been some wins and I’d been able to kill someone. That always put a little something extra into my step. Even if there was a mystery still waiting to be solved and an elusive Reaper out there somewhere.

  I pulled a minion to one side and issued a quick instruction. She nodded and ran off, taking another with her. With any luck, they would find out where the mercenaries were going and report back to us.

  If not, I was pretty sure I would meet them again and in truth, I was looking forward to it.

  Chapter 22

  The four CDF troopers took us along a corridor, past the labs and offices, towards an elevator. I was pretty sure I knew what was coming next and made sure I was at the front of the line as we stepped inside.

  That put me with my back against the rear wall of the compartment with Cass in front of me and Lou beside her. The four guards took up positions in the corners of the elevator and the one nearest the control panel pressed an ID badge against it and we began our descent.

  I reached my hand behind my back, fingers searching for that hidden pocket and once found, dipping in to grasp its contents. Cass already had hers to hand and I sucked in a deep breath and counted silently to three.

  “Sorry,” I couldn’t stop my self from saying as I pulled free the razor blade and slashed it across the neck of the guard to my right.

  I reached across with my left hand, grabbing the cattle prod from his hand as he reached up to the wound that was spraying blood across the elevator. In one smooth motion, I spun on my heel, slamming the two prongs against the side of the trooper to my left and pressed the triggered.

  He cried out as his body spasmed, thousands of volts of electricity shooting through him. The soldier beside Cass reacted first, lifting his own cattle prod towards me. He dropped it with a cry as Cass slashed her own razor blade across his arm.

  Lou, lacking a weapon, fell back on his years of military training which proved to be more than a match for the part-trained CDF trooper. Two quick blows and he was down, slumped against the wall of the compartment.

  The whole thing had taken less than three seconds.

  I jabbed the wounded trooped with the cattle prod and he fell silent as the doors opened. Cass turned to me, wide-eyed and covered in blood spatter.

  “Just like old times,” she muttered.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Had to be done.”

  She looked down at the carnage. The man I had slashed across the throat wouldn’t make it but the one she had slashed likely would. I could see the question building and I reached out and gripped her arm.

  “This is the time to be firm. They knew what was going on here and didn’t speak up. They are complicit.”

  “They’re still people.”

  “Any that survive will face judgment. Until then, we can’t spare our time on them.”

  “You’ve changed,” she said as she looked up at me, unshed tears in her eyes. “I’m not sure if it’s for the better.”

  “Ladies! We can discuss this later, for now, we should go!” Lou said.

  He had a cattle prod in one hand and stood in the doorway, stopping the doors from closing and keeping a watch for trouble.

  I grabbed the key card from the trooper and gave Cass a sad smile before I set off along the corridor.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To free your brother and the others. We’ll need help!”

  She was right. I had changed. I’d decided that I would save those people who wanted and deserved to be saved. Those who actively harmed others would receive nothing but my disgust. If that made me harder, then so be it. Perhaps that was what we needed. Someone to make the hard choices.

  I raced along the corridor and used the key card to open the door at the end, pausing only long enough to confirm that the Reapers were all in their cells. Into the next room where the men in butcher’s aprons were still working away as I pushed inside the room and the cages were much as they had been a short while before.

  The electronic lock on the cage was opened with the key card and I breathed a sigh of relief. It figured that the people with access to that basement would be the ones who would take the prisoners to be killed.

  Cass entered the room, a look of horror on her face that turned to something close to joy as Gregg staggered out of the cell.

  “What the hell is going on in here?” Lou asked as Cass ran over and embraced her brother.

  “No time,” I said. “Get everyone out of the cells.”

  “What’s the plan boss?”

  “If I’m right, those arseholes are going to release all the Ferals from their cages and direct them into the town.”

  “What! Why would they do that?”

  “You said it yourself,” I told her. “There are too many people for the island to support. This is their way of dealing with that and at the same time, they will be able to blame Ryan’s people and get rid of a potential threat to them.”

  “Christ! So what do we do?” she looked around at the naked men and women who had been prisoners just moments before. “They don’t have clothes, let alone weapons.”

  “They do,” I said with a nod towards the butchers.

  “But still…”

  I waved her to silence and turned to look out over the growing crowd. They were people who were bruised and battered, stripped of their clothes, their dignity and about to be stripped of their lives.

  That wasn’t acceptable. The undead were loose on the world and the few remaining survivors needed to band together, to work together if there was to be any chance of survival.

  “Everyone!” I called out. �
��Listen up.”

  All eyes turned towards me and the babble of voices dropped low, then stopped. I walked over to one of the butcher’s slabs and climbed up, ignoring the blood and gore. The large man in the apron just stared, afraid to speak or move.

  He knew he would face judgement when this was done.

  “We survived hell! Each and every one of us survived the end of the world. When the undead came for us, we fought them. We stayed alive when many others, even those we loved, didn’t.”

  Not a sound could be heard from them as they stared at me, unblinking, unwavering.

  “We survived to reach this place. An island where we could finally be safe, away from the threat of the undead. A place where we could finally have a chance to mourn those we had lost and rebuild something close to civilisation.”

  “That didn’t happen. You were taken, arrested for the smallest things and brought down here, to die and be nothing more than food for the undead that were never supposed to be on this island!”

  I scanned the crowd, looking at as many of the faces as I could, seeing the anger there and the fear.

  “Now, those same people who did this to you are going to unleash those zombies onto the island. They want to reduce our numbers! To make life easier for the few who will remain! All so they can hide away on this island and forget about all those other people out there in the world who are dying at the hands of the undead!”

  “That will not happen!”

  “What can we do?” a voice called from the crowd.

  “We can fight,” called another.

  “With what? They have guns and knives!”

  “And we have numbers!” I called out. “The people who want to do this are few in number because it is a monstrous act and for that, you need monstrous people!”

  “We,” I continued. “Can use anything we can get our hands on as a weapon and overrun them. We can stop them from committing a new atrocity! From unleashing a fresh hell onto this island that is our only home!”

  I looked around, hoping against hope that my words had moved them. That I wouldn’t step down and face the enemy alone.

  “Whatever else happens,” I said, my voice dropping low. “No matter if I do this alone, I will fight. So that each and every one of you has a chance to live as real people like you deserve.”

  With that, I jumped down from the table and reached for the butcher’s knife still embedded in the torso of what I hoped to be a particularly small man and not a child. The butcher wouldn’t meet my eyes and I turned towards the elevator.

  “You won’t be alone,” Cass called after me.

  I looked back, tears shining in my eyes as she jogged over to me, her all too naked brother following close behind.

  “Hey, I’m with you as always,” he said. “Though I would appreciate a moment to find some pants.”

  “Together then,” I said with a smile. “Like old times.”

  “Not quite,” Cass said as she glanced behind her.

  To my amazement the crowd were moving, their faces full of determined anger. All of them.

  “All of us, together,” I whispered and turned to take the fight to Shahid and her cronies.

  I left Lou in charge of the elevator, bringing people up from below while I rushed ahead with the first group. Gregg had taken a moment to take one of the dead trooper’s trousers and raced alongside me, a cattle prod in his hand.

  We burst through the doors into the warehouse that held all the cages and I skidded to a stop, stomach lurching as I realised we were too late. The cages were all open and so were the doors at the far side of the building.

  “They just released them…” I said, shock filling my voice. “They were going to take them to the other side of town to attack the sports centre.”

  “Mustn’t have had time,” Cass said. “They moved their plans forward because of us.”

  “But they’ll hit the west side of town.”

  “Which means they’ll grow in number by the time they read the Dead and overwhelm them.”

  “Cass,” I said, thinking fast. “Gather some people and go get your baby. Then get as many people as you can to safety.”

  I turned to Gregg.

  “You get your ass to Charlie. Have her contact the fleet and tell the admiral what’s going on. They’ll need to come help us.”

  “What about you?” Cass asked.

  “I’ll see if anyone is left here then I’ll lead anyone who is willing down to the fight.”

  “Good luck,” Gregg said, grabbing his sister's hand and pulling her away.

  She gave me one last agonized look and turned to run alongside him. The need to protect her daughter outweighing her need to help me. I gestured for the group of naked people to go with them and turned to the stairs.

  I was through the door into the well-lit offices and labs before I found anyone else. The trooper turned towards me and had the barest moment to register surprise before I sank the cleaver into his skull.

  The lab techs he was waiting on stopped what they were doing and stared at me, surprise and horror on their faces.

  “Shahid, where is she?”

  “W-we don’t know,” one of the techs said.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Orders. We have to leave and head to Laxdale.”

  “What the hell is Laxdale?”

  “Village to the north of town. That’s where we’re supposed to wait until we receive more instructions.”

  Made sense. She was moving all of her loyal people to a place that was safe and I bet that the colonel was surrounding the town with his CDF troops. They would contain the zombies while they did their task of cleansing the town of all Shahids undesirables.

  “Fuck!” I screamed and ran.

  The meeting room where we had first been escorted to was empty and I passed it without so much as a glance. I was out of the front door, running at full pelt and straight into the arms of a black-clad man. He held me as I staggered and I gaped at him in surprise.

  “Samuel sent us,” he said. “To make sure you were safe.”

  Ten of them stood around the driveway, surrounding the parked trucks that were filled with the men and women who worked in the labs. Several CDF troopers were kneeling on the wet grass, their hands on their heads and more of them lay in pools of blood.

  “You need to get word to Samuel,” I said. “There’s a hundred or more Ferals heading into town.”

  His eyes widened beneath his mask and I saw a flash of indecision in them as he looked at me.

  “This is what Ryan, your lord-bloody-death, wants you to do,” I snapped. “Protect the living people in that town! They come first.”

  “It’s fine, we’ll keep her safe,” Lisa called from behind me.

  She trotted out of the building, still wearing black but without her hood. She had blood on her face and kept one arm pressed to her side. Ben came out after her and I held back a sigh as I realised that if Mark wasn’t with them, he had likely been killed when we were taken.

  “Go!” I said to him. “Get word to Samuel and save the people of the town.”

  He slammed his clenched fist against his chest and with a wave, gathered the others to him. He issued a few instructions and I closed my eyes tight as the knives came out and the trooper’s lives were ended.

  “They were damned by their actions,” Lisa said softly and I nodded.

  One fist of the Dead climbed aboard a truck and it set off, towards the town and hopefully to Samuel. The other stayed there on the grass, watching me.

  “Your orders?” Lisa asked and I looked at her in surprise.

  “I’m not your leader.”

  “Today you are,” she said with a salute. “Command us.”

  I looked around at them and at those naked men and women coming out of the building behind them.

  “Gather your weapons and prepare to fight.”

  Chapter 23

  We raced away from the holding facility, up the small hill and then
stopped at the top. Standing in the long grass, the chirp of crickets and buzzing of flies all around me, I felt my heart sink. The Ferals were already at the town.

  Chaos reigned in the streets as the undead chased down the fleeing people, rending their flesh with claw-like hands and feasting on their flesh. It was eerily reminiscent of those first days of the apocalypse.

  “My Lady?” Lisa asked.

  I looked at her, eyes full of fear and doubt before I sucked in a deep breath and forced those deep down inside of me leaving just a resolve to do what needed to be done. My stomach lurched as I forced myself to make that hard choice.

  “Anyone bitten will be given the final death.”

  “As you command.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  The cleaver was heavy in my hand and the thick grass pulled at my legs as I pushed through it. A river separated us from the town and on the narrow bridge, there were undead feasting. They were the first to feel our rage.

  My cleaver sank into the back of a Ferals skull and I paused only long enough to set my feet and pull it free then I was onto the next. Arm swinging and face blank, empty of all emotion as I struck out again and again.

  Lisa and Ben were lethal, even without the knives that had been taken from them when captured. They used heavy stones taken from beside the road to club the zombies to the ground before crushing their skulls.

  The other Dead who had followed me, knives in hand, leapt headlong into the fight. They thrust themselves into the forefront and where those men and women, naked and armed with whatever they could find beside the road, were faced with a threat, the Dead stepped in.

  A woman fell, scream ripped from her throat as clawed hands raked her arm. The Feral reared back, mouth opening to reveal blackened gums and tongue with foul, broken teeth. Then a man dressed all in black stepped between it and her.

  The claws that would have torn her flesh ripped into him and though he grimaced, he bore the pain as it allowed him the chance to strike and another zombie fell. He took a moment only to help her to her feet and then he was off, to kill another zombie, to save another life.

  They cared little for their own, for the pain and the blood that leaked from their wounds. Their driving urge was to destroy the undead and save the living. I fought back the tears as one of the acolytes fell, no scream leaving his lips as two Ferals tore chunks of his flesh from his body.