Safety Lost (Killing the Dead Book 3)

by Richard Murray

  They came at a brisk walk and without a word I led them through the park to pause by a large caravan that sat on the very edge with its door hanging open.

  “We can stay in here tonight.” I told the others as I climbed the three steps to the door.

  “Will it be safe?” Julie asked with a glance at the opening.

  “Yes I already checked it, get in and I will secure the door.” I said irritably, “Get a candle lit and we can at least have some light in there when it gets dark.”

  Julie and Emma disappeared into the caravan and I had one last look around to make sure we were alone before following them in and closing the door behind me.

  The last resident of this caravan had left in a hurry. The cupboards had been ransacked and one quick look in the fridge was all I needed to know that anything in there had spoiled a long time ago. The tanks still held some water and the beds had pillows and duvets which was a bonus. It would be a cold night.

  I found some towels in one of the bedroom cupboards and passed them around before vigorously drying myself. The rain water had soaked through to the skin and I was beginning to doubt the original sign that had stated the clothes I had taken from the outlet store, were waterproof.

  “So what now?” Julie asked as she finished drying Emma’s hair.

  “Now we wait until morning and then carry on.” I said with a weary sigh. “Hopefully the rain and wind will let up by then.” I added and sat back on the seat that filled one side of the caravan’s living space.

  Julie tried to spark a conversation a couple more times and received just a curt single word answer from me when I bothered to reply. After a few attempts she gave up and started to play some word game with Emma and left me alone.

  I sat with my head back and listened to the rain as it bounced off of the caravan roof. It was relaxing and much needed. The euphoria had worn away and I was left with the feeling of emptiness that followed a kill.

  For the last few weeks I had been so busy with simple survival that I had been able to avoid the melancholy and it was with me now with a vengeance. I had wanted to kill the old woman so very much and may have done so without realising that she had a child with her, which would have left me with another child to look after.

  It was only due to the small voice within that insisted on reminding me of my promise to Lily that I had paused long enough to realise that it would have been a mistake. I was left with the worrying thought that my careful control was starting to slip, much as Lily had feared those many weeks ago.

  My thoughts were growing darker and when a timid knock came at the door I was actually glad of the distraction. With a worried look from Julie, I crossed the room and picked up my crowbar before opening the door to reveal the old lady from earlier.

  “I saw you come here with your family and I thought you might be hungry” She said and held up a covered pan. A small face peeked out from behind her waterproof jacket and with the prospect of having to eat cold beans I stepped aside and waved her in.

  “Oh aren’t you pretty” she said to Emma as she placed the pan on the kitchen work surface and removed the lid. Steam immediately rose from the open pan and a pleasant odour filled the room.

  “This is Mark” she said with a nod to the young boy who was staying close to her. “I’m Helen.”

  “Julie, Emma and I’m Ryan” I said eager to get the introductions out of the way.

  “I didn’t know if you had any bowls so I brought some” Helen said as she reached into a carrier bag that was hanging from her wrist and pulled out a half dozen plastic bowls.

  “Hot food really will be welcome.” Julie said as she passed a bowl of what looked to be vegetable soup to Emma.

  “Well I still have enough propane to cook a few more meals” Helen said and passed another bowl to Julie.

  After she had filled a bowl for me, she filled two more and sat down with the young boy and urged him to eat. Despite my hunger I waited until everyone else was eating before taking a tentative taste myself. I had been drugged once and I had no intention of allowing that to happen again.

  “So is Mark your grandson?” Julie asked as she finished off the soup.

  “Yes, he was visiting me when everything went bad.” Helen said with a fond smile down at the young boy. “I don’t know what has happened to his parents but I fear the worst.”

  “Where do they live?”

  “Manchester” Helen answered and silence fell as Julie realised what that likely meant. “What about you? Where have you three come from?”

  “Colne” Julie said, “Things were really bad there too.”

  “How did you survive here?” I asked curiously.

  “We were just lucky.” Helen began, “We were inside when the screaming started. I saw out of the window what was happening and I had been watching the news, so I knew enough to close the curtains and lock the doors.

  When the screaming stopped we saw those things wandering around and we stayed hidden. We barely moved for three days. We stayed in my bedroom and crept to the toilet as quietly as we could. When I thought they had moved far enough away to not hear us, I started using the stove to heat food but that was about it.”

  “You were fortunate” I agreed and mentally retreated from the conversation as I lost interest. I was lost deep in thought and it took Julie several minutes to get my attention.

  “Huh?” I said.

  “I was just telling Helen she should come with us to meet your friends.”Julie said brightly, “It will be much safer than staying here alone...” she trailed off as my expression darkened.

  “It’s ok” Helen said quickly, “We will be fine here.”

  “No, it’s fine. Really,” Julie said.

  “It is?” I asked.

  “Yes it is. We can’t leave them here alone.” She said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s dangerous, if not for Helen then it is for Mark.” Julie said with a sharp nod towards the boy.

  “Fine, bring them along but if they slow me down, I won’t be stopping for them.” I said with poor grace. I wasn’t in the mood for an argument and to be absolutely honest with myself, I wasn’t sure what would happen if I continued to argue in my current mood.

  I had very little morality at the best of times, but I had made a promise and I tried to keep my word whenever possible, though I may try and work around it. If I broke my promise by killing a bunch of people who did nothing more than annoy me then I would be unable to return to Lily.

  “It is time for me to get some sleep and I suggest you all do the same. We will be leaving early” I said and left them to talk in the living room.

  Chapter 15

  We left after a less than hearty breakfast of porridge heated in Helen’s caravan. The rain had let up during the night around the time the temperature plummeted leaving us with dangerous ice patches to navigate. Knowing my luck Helen would slip and break a hip and I would have to carry her.

  I was carrying the rucksack still, though we had left the bikes back at the caravan. They would be impractical as a means of transport on the ground we would need to cover.

  With the tide on its way out, we left the more solid ground to cross the sandy mud flats. The journey was long and tiring, the gritty mud sucking at our feet. The retreat of the ocean waters had left all manner of detritus in its wake.

  Seaweed covered the ground which gave us a choice of sinking into the soft mud or slipping on the slimy weed. Small crabs were picked over by the birds that scavenged for food in the area. Mark and Emma loved seeing the myriad sea creatures caught in small pools and Helen seemed to enjoy pointing them out just as much.

  Despite the unpleasantness we were able to make good time and traverse quite a distance without seeing a single zombie. As the day wore on and we rapidly approached lunchtime, Helen pulled me to one side.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Up ahead is Grange-over-Sands” she sa
id pointing ahead of us. “It’s not big but we may want to avoid it.”

  “Well that’s fine; we can just keep following the coast.”

  “If you want to go to Lake Windermere, we can keep going north past the town and almost straight cross-country to the southernmost point of the lake.” She suggested.

  “How many people in Grange-Over-Sands?” I asked thoughtfully.

  “Resident... a few thousand, no more than five or six thousand anyway.”

  “That’s still quite a number.” I said.

  “We can get up to solid ground past the town though and that should help.”

  “Ok we can give it a try.” I agreed. I was eager to finish the journey now and with a quick word to Julie we carried on walking straight north.

  The town was coming up on the left hand side and the going was increasingly difficult over the mudflats and rocks that had been left either by the sea or the River Kent that deposited much of the mud and silt that we were walking across.

  We were almost at the slope that led up to solid ground when Emma screamed. I swung round with the crowbar raised, seeking the source of danger and saw her struggling to pull her foot out of the grasp of the hand that was sticking up through the mud.

  I dashed across to her and swung the crowbar down hard on the arm. Bones cracked and Julie was beside me, pulling at Emma as I swung a second time. The child came free of the zombies grip and we moved away from the arm that was twitching feebly as it tried to grab her again.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Julie demanded.

  “No idea... watch out.” I yelled as a pair of arms reached from the sandy ground beside her. “Run” I shouted as more zombies rose from the loose mud that had buried them.

  Julie needed no further urging and ran full tilt to the north with Emma in tow. Helen attempted to do the same with her grandson holding tight to her hand but fell as one of the undead rose before her. She screamed as its teeth found her flesh and Mark added his own cry of terror and despair to hers.

  She was already dead whether she knew it or not. I picked up Mark as I ran past and kept on without even a glance back at the old woman. All around us the dead were literally rising out of the ground and I felt an almost hysterical urge to giggle at the absurdity.

  I swung the crowbar and caught the temple of a zombie as I careened past it. I was breathing heavily and just about ready to drop the rucksack full of food as I made it up the slope and onto the solid ground once more.

  “What happened to Helen?” Julie asked tearfully.

  “What do you think?” I said as I put down Mark and turned to watch as the undead tried to make their unsteady way over the mud and sand towards us. “Let’s go before they reach us. Try and keep the kids quiet.”

  Julie gave me an exasperated look but did as instructed and tried to calm the sobbing children as I caught my breath. We looked to be alone aside from the zombies that were struggling to cross the uneven ground.

  A set of railway tracks followed the coastline behind us and beyond those were woods. With each of us taking the hand of one of the children we set off into the woods and the mudflats were soon lost from view behind us.

  “What were they doing in the ground?” Julie asked as we walked through the silent woods. The children had quietened and the only sounds were those made by the snapping of twigs as we walked.

  “They probably came from the town and were crossing the mudflats when the tide came in and caught them. They could have been there days or even weeks with nothing to do but lay in the dirt until something came past and caught their attention.” I said after a few moments quiet thought.

  Julie shuddered with revulsion. “I am so sick of running away from those things.”

  “Well, we will be somewhere safe soon enough.” I said with more conviction than I actually felt. I was as weary of running as she was. I was also unconvinced that we would really be safe when we reached the lake, or even if Lily had made it there safely.

  We continued walking in silence, broken only occasionally by the weeping of one of the children. Julie tried her best to comfort both of them and each time, I waited tensely for the crying to stop before we could continue.

  As we approached the lake we began to encounter the occasional camp ground, mostly devoid of life. We saw no undead which provided some hope that they hadn’t made it out this way yet.

  “We are here” Julie said as we stepped out from beneath the barren trees and onto a road.

  “Here?” I asked as I looked around. The area seemed no different to any of the others we had passed through. Thick stands of trees lined the sides of the road and a short distance to the north a car sat unmoving.

  “Just past those trees is the southernmost tip of the lake,” she said pointing, “So what do you want to do now?”

  “I guess we follow the road” I said, “We are looking for a group of holiday homes surrounded by woods and beside the lake. That’s all I remember.”

  “Ok then, let’s head north along the road and see what we find. We will need somewhere to stay soon though.” Julie said with a look to the kids who were sat tiredly beside the road as we talked.

  We set off walking, Julie holding tight to Marks hand and for some reason Emma still insisted on holding my hand as we walked. I gave the car a cursory look as we passed but it was clear that it had been abandoned due to lack of fuel and anything of use had been stripped from it.

  A light rain had begun to fall as the sun made its way towards the horizon and we were spending more time looking through the trees beside the road for anywhere we could shelter, than we were watching for trouble which is why I was so surprised when two men stepped into the road in front of us.

  “Hold up a second folks.” The taller of the two men said. He was dressed in a dark windbreaker and jeans and had several days of beard growth. He was also carrying what looked, to my untrained eye, to be a hunting rifle.

  “We’re just looking for someplace to stay, we don’t want any trouble” Julie said nervously as I continued to assess the men.

  “We aren’t going to hurt you” the shorter man said. He was wearing similar clothing to his companion though had found the time to shave. He also carried a rifle.

  “You aren’t?” Julie said with more than a hint of doubt.

  “No” the taller man said with a chuckle. “We are here to make sure none of those zombies find our camp and to direct any one we do find to it.”

  “Why would you be doing that?” I asked politely as I considered how quickly I would need to move to cross the dozen feet of space between us and ram my crowbar through his throat.

  “Because that is what we were told to do.” Shorter man said. “Head up the road for another half a mile or so and you will find a turn off to the left. Head down it and you will find our people. They will feed you and give you somewhere to stay for the night.”

  “Sure, we’ll do that” I said and the men nodded and stepped back into the trees as we walked past them. I glanced back over my shoulder more than once as we continued along the road, sure that they would try and shoot us in the backs as we walked, but the men just leant against the trees and watched the road.

  “Should we trust them?” Julie asked in an overly loud whisper.

  “I don’t think it would be a good idea.” I said.

  “So what do we do, it’s going to be dark soon and we will need somewhere to stay.”

  “Heading down a road towards a camp that has people with rifles doesn’t sound like a clever idea though does it?” I asked sarcastically. “I tell you what, when we reach the road you wait and I will go and check out the camp. See what kind of people we are dealing with.”

  Julie nodded her agreement and we continued on. I scanned the trees around us as we walked. The lack of undead and the relative quiet had lulled me into a false sense of security. I had not been paying attention and being surprised by the two men had annoyed me.

  B
y the time we reached the road that led to the camp the men has spoken of, I had been brooding long enough to be in a killing mood. I left the rucksack of supplies with Julie and the children before heading off through the trees with just the crowbar in hand.

  I tried to move as stealthily as possible through the woods but I was an urban creature. I was not comfortable with nature and I still made too much noise for my liking as I approached the camp and crouched in the bushes at the edge.

  A dozen cottages stood around a clearing. They were all single storeys and made of wood in what I could only imagine to be, an attempt to give them a rustic feel. Each of the cottages had decking along the front and one side and several cars and a blue transit van were parked between them.

  Someone had built a bonfire in the centre clearing and sturdy wooden chairs and tables had been set around it. Several men and women sat at the tables and I couldn’t see, but could hear some children playing nearby.

  It looked safe enough but I had to consider the motivations of people who would actively encourage people to join their camp. With winter setting in and no ready access to supplies it seemed like a foolish waste of resources to my suspicious mind.

  I was debating what I should do when I felt something hard press against my back and a deep voice told me to drop the crowbar and slowly stand, which I did with a sigh.

  “Turn around” I was instructed and I did so, to see two people standing before me. The first man was holding yet another rifle aimed directly at me. I had only a moment to wonder where they were getting all the rifles before the second person leapt on me and engulfed me in a hug.

  “What...” I began.

  “Hi Ryan” Lily said with a wide smile.

  Chapter 16

  “Lily” I said and tentatively returned the hug. It was not something I was comfortable doing and a year ago I would likely have been in a killing mood from the very thought of someone touching me uninvited. Now though I found that I was genuinely glad to see her.