I shrugged at that, having no other response to offer. I cared little, truth be told. I walked on without another word, following the back of the person in front of me until we stopped, and word was passed back.
“What is it?” I asked impatiently as the minion before me turned back.
“A group of zombies, My Lord Death.”
“How many?”
“Enough to fill the next street.”
By my best estimation, we were still a good couple of miles from the start of the docks and the sky had already begun to darken as evening approached. It would take us the better part of another day to reach the docks at the rate we were going.
If we had to find alternate ways around each and every pack of undead that we met, we would be out of food before we even got there. I almost growled in frustration.
At some point, we had moved from those large, detached houses of earlier, and were surrounded by semi-detached houses and rows of terraces with little way through. If they continued to be the same further into the city, and I had no reason to suspect they wouldn’t, we would find ourselves boxed in with no way to go.
That was unacceptable.
“Your orders, My Lord Death?”
We could be cautious or we could be fast, not both at the same time. I had not the patience to wait, so I flashed my minion a grin.
“We go through.”
Chapter 19
I spun, blade slicing through rotting flesh like a hot knife through butter. There were no screams of pain, no attempt to avoid it, just a seemingly endless wave of undead, eager to die upon my blade.
My left blade slammed through the thin bone at the temple of a half-rotted zombie, while my right swung up beneath the chin of another. The flesh burst apart like over-ripe fruit as my knife-blade broke through the soft palate and into the brain beyond.
There was no time to spare them a glance as they fell. I was on to the next, and the next, knives moving without pause and every strike placed without wasted movement. Even so, my chest heaved, and my breath came in gasps as I dealt death to the walking corpses.
All around me, my minions fought in silence, their arms rising and falling as they cut methodically through the zombies. There was a competent skill in their efforts, but they didn’t come close to my own artistry.
If I were a painter, their bodies were my canvas, their fouled, black, blood, my paint. My knives were the brushes and they spread that blackened fluid across the snow-covered street. I was in my element and I knew it.
Gregg moved carefully, his own knife striking true as his long practice with fighting the undead kept him alive and free of panic. Isaac, meanwhile, was like a man possessed. He seemed determined to match my own number of kills, though where mine were neat, methodical and sublime, his were coarse and messy.
He used his thick mallet with ruthless efficiency, making up for lack of skill with strength and stamina. He refused to back down, refused to stop fighting while any zombie remained. I could almost admire that about him.
Their stench hung heavy in the air and their flesh fell away at the slightest touch, but even so, through sheer numbers alone they were a danger. A minion went down, withered fingers clawing at his clothes.
He moaned as the first teeth pierced his skin and yet he still continued to fight, still tried to do the duty he had sworn to do. Another minion paused long enough in the fight to end his pain and stop him from rising again, and then she moved on, killing another zombie.
Then, I struck down a zombie that reared up before me and found myself without another to kill. I looked around, head turning this way and that as I sought another enemy to sink my blade into. But it was to little avail as we had killed them all.
Gregg wiped sweat from his face and even the indomitable Isaac’s shoulders sagged as he lowered his gore covered mallet and looked around.
“Everyone okay?” he called, quietly.
“One lost,” a minion replied as he cleaned his weapon.
“No time to dawdle,” I snapped. “Keep moving.”
The source of my irritation was clear to me and I tilted my head to, first, one side and then another, as I attempted to ease the tension in my neck and shoulders. It had been a less than satisfying encounter and while I had killed many zombies, they were the slow and stupid variety.
No challenge and therefore, no thrill.
My only consolation was that they hadn’t raised too much ruckus which meant our real enemy was likely still unaware of our presence. I would get to kill them, lots of them, and that might just satisfy the darkness I carried.
We left the bodies where they lay. No doubt the snow would soon be falling once more and they would be covered over until the spring brought enough warmth to melt it. Which was likely when the rats and other vermin would feast.
When we turned the corner, we were faced with another, smaller, group of zombies. They had clearly heard the altercation as they were headed straight towards us. They died quickly, bodies falling to the snow as my minions killed quietly and efficiently.
At the end of that road, there was a roundabout. Small, but open with four roads connecting to it and a large block of flats overlooking it. The houses we had been surrounded by, gave way to a car dealership, a bar and grill, as well as the usual chemist, post office and corner shops.
With just a glance from me, my minions split up into smaller groups, hugging the sides of the road and moving cautiously. Being so exposed on a wide, open, road that lead straight into the heart of the city, had my neck hairs standing on end.
Then we were past them with no incident, moving off into a side street that ran alongside a football club. The terraces stood empty, the snow-covered field untouched for some time. I paid it no mind and continued on.
Further along, we came upon a twin set of railway tracks. Trees and bushes provided a screen of sorts for the homes that had been built alongside the track and they were down a low embankment. I glanced at my friend who shrugged in response.
“Seems as good a route as any, mate.”
Isaac grunted and scrambled down the embankment. He stood at the bottom peering first one way and then the other. Finally, satisfied, he waved for the rest of us to join him and with a simple gesture, my minions headed down.
The going was easier and there was less chance of meeting any zombies, but before long the tracks began to curve to the east, away from the docks. I tried to picture the rough map of the city that the drone had shown me as I had flown it overhead earlier and began to frown.
We passed one bridge and then another, both built of old brick and rising high above the tracks. Houses filled the area to either side of the tracks and I realised it was time to head back up, into the city.
Another command and we began to climb the embankment, moving slowly in the snow but eventually we were all up, crouching in the bushes as one of the minions scouted ahead.
A signal was given and I rose up, joints aching from the cold, and pushed through the bushes. Gregg’s hand on my arm gave me pause and I looked back into his concerned face.
“We need to rest, mate.”
I looked around at my minions, but their faces were covered in their black hoods. Their posture, however, spoke of exhaustion and so I nodded.
“Find us somewhere suitable.”
It didn’t take long, a large house with a handful of zombies lingering on the street in front of it. I didn’t bother joining in the fight, letting my minions kill them because I simply couldn’t be bothered. It was a chore, nothing else.
When the last zombie fell, we headed up the short path to the house and tried the door. It opened straight away, and I led the way inside, pulling a torch from my pocket and shining the beam before me.
Black mould covered the walls and ceiling of the hallway and just a quick glance through the first doorway I came to was enough to show it wasn’t suitable. Water had seeped in through a cracked window and mould covered everything.
We filed back out and move
d on to the next house. It too was unfit for habitation and it was with a growing irritation that I realised that it would be the norm. It had been two years since people had lived in the houses and it was showing.
With no one to maintain them, they were already beginning to crumble. It would make things all the harder for any survivors left after the zombies had died off.
The next building along was a police station. Small, merely a local station for the bobbies on the beat to begin and end their patrols. A place they could take their breaks, catch up on paperwork and do all the other myriad community policing things that they used to do.
Unlike the houses, the doors were firmly locked, and it required more than a little of Isaac’s strength and a fair bit of effort to get inside. But, once in, it was dusty but dry and there was ample space for us to settle in.
If it had been a real police station we would have needed better tools than we had. Being a local place though, it had been staffed most hours and only had the basic locks on the front door.
“Bloody cold,” Gregg muttered as he settled into a nearby corner, shivering.
He wasn’t wrong and if not for the very real risk of alerting any nearby enemies, I would have been of half a mind to start a fire. As it was, the best we could do was huddle together to share body warmth as we wrapped our sleeping blankets around ourselves.
There was little to say, and no one really had the energy to bother anyway. Even the relentlessly chatty Gregg was quiet. Which made it all the more alarming when a knock sounded on the door.
I was on my feet in an instant, knives in hand and I reached the door before any of the others. I grasped the handle firmly in one hand and swung it open, stepping to one side to avoid any potential attack.
When none came, I hesitated and then risked a look outside.
A figure stood there, snow settled on her slim form. Black lines covered her pallid, corpse grey skin, but eyes that shone with intelligence looked up at me as a smile twisted her lips.
“Hello,” Briony said, calmly, confidently. “We need to talk.”
Chapter 20
There was little I could do about pirates. Not right then, anyway, but even so, just knowing about them meant endless meetings and discussions about what should be done. Not just with the Admiral, but with the full government too.
Or at least as many of the government as were on the island.
I had little to add during those initial meetings, merely taking it all in and listening while considering all the options available to us. Everything I had heard about them, everything Commander Lowery had been able to transmit, painted a picture I was not pleased with.
Of course, it didn’t help that we still had a Genpact mercenary running around the island causing havoc. While there hadn’t been another attack since before Ryan had left, I couldn’t shake the feeling that one was coming.
We had guards at all of the food distribution centres, the medical centres, power and water plants and anywhere else we could think of. Nearly every available man and woman of the CDF were standing guard in shifts.
Drones flew constantly overhead, with techs sleeping at the command centre. I had been there just an hour before the current government meeting and it was starting to get a little pungent. Too many unwashed bodies and no real air movement because it was too damned cold to have the windows open.
“Enough!” Shepherd snapped, banging the walnut desk of the council chamber with her open palm.
The sound, loud enough to silence the rest of the ministers, echoed through the old room. It had been the seat of government for the island for a long time and there was a wealth of history hanging on the walls and in the polished furnishings.
I could look up from my place at the head of the oval table and see any number of past politicians staring down at me from their paintings. I couldn’t help but feel they were judging me for the poor job of running the island.
“What do we know about this pirate fleet?” Shepherd demanded.
Minister Jones nodded his support at her question, though he had little to add. I suspected that he was more than a little intimidated by some of the larger personalities in the government and he often remained silent at meetings unless you spoke to him directly.
Admiral Stuart rifled the papers in front of him, stony-faced. Something about Minister Shepherd seemed to rankle him and they had been not so polite opponents since the very beginning.
“The fleet consists of one hundred and forty-three ships of varying sizes, at least seven have been identified as military ships, equipped with a great deal of firepower.”
“Though we don’t know if they have ammo, right?” Cass asked, looking around the table. “I mean, how likely is it they still have ammunition?”
“They have been raiding up and down the coasts of many countries, ma’am,” Admiral Stuart said. “We have to assume that they have the ordinance.”
That was a sobering thought, to be sure. Our own fleet consisted of two destroyers and one submarine with precious little ammunition between them. We had a number of other seafaring craft, but they were not armed.
“How many people?” Samuel asked. “How many fighters?”
“Hard to get a count. A good estimate would put them at somewhere between five and six hundred.”
“Great,” Cass muttered. “We could beat them if they came ashore but they could sink our fishing fleet and then sit out at sea and bombard us.”
“Effectively blockading us, yes.”
With no access to the sea, we couldn’t fish. Without the fishing to help bolster our supplies, we would be back to half rations and potential starvation.
“What do they want? Could we bargain with them?”
“Bah!” Shepherd snapped. “Pay them off you mean.”
“Yes,” Cass admitted. “Pay them off. If that means we don’t lose what we are building here-“
“It won’t matter,” I said, cutting my friend off with an apologetic smile. “From the reports we have seen it is clear that they would want more than just food and water. I won’t send any of our people over to them.”
“People? What do you… oh!” Cass said back, mouth forming an ‘O’ of surprise as she realised what I meant.
It was easy, sometimes, to forget how bad it was out in the rest of the world. We’d not had a rape in months nor a murder since well before we’d come over to the Isle of Man. The work Evelyn was doing, training people to help support those traumatised survivors, it was making a difference.
Well, that and the Dead walking through the streets. Anyone who stepped out of line too far, ended up being given the choice. Join the Dead or be executed for their crimes. It only happened for the bigger crimes, but it seemed to be quite a deterrent. Many people seemed more frightened of facing Ryan’s acolytes than of dying.
“So,” I said, quietly. “We can’t fight them at sea. If they besiege us, surely our supplies would last longer than theirs?”
“We have warning of their approach. We can begin stockpiling, cut back on the rations a little bit and, yes, we could try and wait them out,” Admiral Stuart said and then hesitated, while I waited for the other shoe to drop. “But, while we have more soldiers we would be spread around the entire island and they could hit any place.”
Ah, there it was.
“Then, Admiral,” I said coolly. “What do you propose?”
“We need military craft,” he said. “Weapons and ammunition. I propose that we acquire some and prepare to defend ourselves. We have approximately a month.”
“Just like that!” Shepherd said with a sneer and another slap of her palm on the polished wood. “It’s that easy?”
“Potentially, yes.”
“Please explain, Admiral,” I said and raised my hand to forestall another comment from Shepherd.
“Many bases and airfields were overrun early on. People went there looking for safety and brought the undead directly to them. Because of the sheer number of undead that ended up aroun
d those bases, we could not approach.”
“But now the zombies are dying off…” I said with a flutter of hope. “We could find a lot of weapons and equipment.”
“Not just that,” he added. “Many bases had a large supply of foodstuffs. That would go a long way to helping us ride out these next few years while we build up our crops.”
“Then why are we waiting?” Cass asked. “Let’s get to them before someone else does.”
“Not that easy,” I said, and the Admiral nodded, a look of approval on his face for my understanding of the situation.
“Why not?”
“Because we can’t defend the island, loot a load of military bases and attack Genpact all at the same time.”
Silence fell around the table as that sank in. We were about to be beset on two sides. One from Genpact and the other from pirate raiders. We couldn’t fight both at the same time without weapons and ammo, but we couldn’t get those needed supplies without leaving ourselves open to attack.
It was an unwinnable scenario and I honestly wasn’t sure what to do. Unfortunately, I had been elected to make the hard choices and that meant it was up to me. Much as I might hate that fact.
I had little real choice when it came down to it.
“Prepare a plan for the defence of the island and your proposal for the salvaging of the military bases.”
“And Genpact?” Cass asked.
“Ryan will stop these boats coming. That will buy us some time to prepare. Once the raiders are done with, we can proceed with the attack against them.”
I looked around the table, making sure to meet the eyes of every person there. It was a tough choice to make, Genpact had committed an atrocity by unleashing the zombie plague upon the world. Every person on the island had lost people they cared about because of that one act.
To take a step back, to not be seen to retaliate against them for the current attack at least, would upset a lot of people and I would undoubtedly hear about that sooner rather than later. But, it needed to be done.
“I want the fishing boats out as much as safely possible. We will need every bit of food we can scrounge together because as soon as that pirate fleet comes near, we will pull up the drawbridge and hunker down. We’ll be under siege.”
Killing The Dead (Book 17): Siege Page 12