Among The Dead (Book 3): Dwell In Unity

by Colley, Ryan

  With the grave filled, we stood there a little longer, dwelling in our own thoughts while the sun baked our necks. One by one we all headed in, Keith first, followed by Kirsty. I stared at the grave for a few more moments by myself.

  “I’m sorry, Steph,” I whispered, tears flowing again as I turned away and headed inside. The sky was clear, the sun was beating down, but none of that stopped the cold growing inside me.

  The rest of the day was a flurry of actions, none of which I processed. I couldn’t. I remember sitting on the sofa and attempting to clean the bathroom. I remember breaking down and Kirsty holding me. I went to bed when it was still light and just let the tears stream from my eyes.

  CHAPTER 30

  The day ended and darkness fell upon us. I heard everyone retire to their beds – Kirsty to her own, of which I was glad. But I’d had enough of my bedroom – exhaustion wasn’t enough to make me sleep. I didn’t want to be there, or anywhere for that matter. I just wanted to be alone

  When I was certain that doors had been closed for the day, I left my room and headed for the back garden. I walked silently by Keith’s room, the light still on beneath the door. I didn’t know how anyone could sleep after the events of the last … however long it had been. I passed the sofa that Stephanie had called a bed and my hair stood on end as a pit filled my gut. I just couldn’t believe she’d done it. I hurt, on a psychological and physical level. I held back tears unsuccessfully and continued on.

  I made my way outside and sat on the decking in a plastic garden chair. I hadn’t even noticed the decking before. I wasn’t surprised about that fact – I’d been so lost in what had happened that there could have been a few elephants hanging around and I wouldn’t have seen them. I admired the wood, the joints were seamless and the varnish had protected the deep brown colour well. I listened to the world, there weren’t any sounds of movement or the moaning of the undead. It was blissful. Somehow I felt more comfortable outside than in a bed. The comforts of life, that I’d so readily relied on before, felt like a false sense of security. I had to remember the world was still dangerous. Bad things still happened even when we were safe. I sighed. But then there was something else on my mind, something I hadn’t expected to ever be an issue and felt selfish to even think about – something unexpected between Kirsty and myself. I’m not sure how it happened, but something had grown between us – fuelled by fear and death. I felt confused. Guilty. And … a little happy? I shouldn’t have been. My thoughts returned to Stephanie and anything to do with Kirsty was chased from my mind.

  Once my eyes had adapted to the gentle glow of starlight, I stood up and paced around the decking. I didn’t have anywhere I wanted to go to, I just needed to move. Hell, I hadn’t even brought a weapon with me. Where we were, even with everything that had happened, we felt far removed from the reality of the world. If I saw any zombies, I’d deal with them. Until then, I just wandered like a restless dog.

  I circled the house, passed the van and carried on walking until I ended up at Stephanie’s grave. Maybe I was guided there unconsciously, or maybe it was because it was significant, but all I could think was that we should have buried her deeper. I knew we couldn’t have – no matter what we did, it would have never been deep enough. No matter how much ceremony we’d given her, it didn’t change the fact that we’d buried our friend in an abandoned garden in the middle of nowhere by some stupid tree. It just wasn’t fair.

  “Goddamn,” I sighed, tears falling onto the grave. I should have done more to help her. Kirsty had pulled through to the other side, why didn’t Stephanie? Was it something I’d said in our last interaction? Maybe. Couldn’t I have–

  “Trouble sleeping?” Keith said from behind, startling me as I span on the spot.

  “Hey,” I replied, feeling relief when I saw his face. It was strange, less than three days prior, Keith was my prisoner. Now he was a trusted ally. “Yeah, you?”

  “Sleeping is fine, it’s resting I can’t do. But guess that’s the norm now,” he laughed. He stood beside me at the grave. “Thinking about Steph?”

  “Yeah,” I sighed, returning my gaze to her final resting place.

  “I’ve lost friends too,” he replied solemnly. I turned to look at Keith fully. “Hazard of the job.”

  “Which was?” I asked absentmindedly. I didn’t care much for the answer – would have killed for that information before. I just wanted to be left alone, but I couldn’t even have that. I could never have that.

  “Military … special forces,” he replied shortly. I smiled. I hadn’t been wrong after all.

  “SAS?” I questioned after a few moments of thoughtful silence. What did it matter? I was thankful for the distraction.

  “Not confirming that,” he laughed, before quickly turning sombre again and said, “I’ve lost a lot of close friends on duty. It’s something you never get over and I’m not going to lie, but it’s always there. The pain that is. It hurts a little less each day but never truly goes away. It changes shape with time.”

  I thought of the emotional tenderness I still felt about James, and I believed Keith. It still hurt, even if it felt like a lifetime ago. Would that happen every time I lost someone? I didn’t want to fall victim to the pain – I had to be strong.

  “Bad things happen in this new world. Gotta learn to deal with it,” I replied coldly. I didn’t mean it, Keith knew that, but he didn’t say a thing. He knew that my statement was a push at self-preservation.

  “What else is bothering you?” Keith finally asked after another long silence.

  “Long version or short?” I questioned, turning away from him again

  “Short,” he replied.

  “I killed someone,” I replied shortly, almost shrugging away the explanation. He already knew that, but it still bothered me.

  “Long version now,” he added without a moment’s hesitation.

  “Those people in that store … they weren’t bad people. They were just trying to survive. They were like us. Just like us. We won and they lost and now we’re here,” I explained, he nodded. It was then I realised what was missing from our ‘Killers Anonymous’ meeting – emotion. Before I’d just stated the facts, too numb to truly experience what I felt.

  “But that’s not the part that’s bothering you, is it?” Keith stated wisely. He was observant and my attempt to be vague wasn’t working.

  “No, it’s not,” I said fidgeting on the spot. I couldn’t stay still as it was, and the interrogation wasn’t improving things. “I’ve gone all this time without killing another living person. I’ve shot at them, and my actions may have even caused some of their deaths. Yet, I’ve never been the one to pull the trigger directly. I never liked shooting the undead but I knew it had to be done. I hoped to avoid the living, so the conflict at that store threw everything I knew on its head.”

  “What about back at the container site?” he asked in response, referencing another life or death battle with the living.

  “Didn’t kill any of the living,” I replied simply, shaking my head. “The girls did all that. I managed to slip through it all unscathed. Even before that, I managed to avoid confrontation by talking my way out of it.”

  “So, what changed this time?” Keith asked.

  “I was scared,” I said smiling weakly. “Thought I was going to die. I was afraid to do so. So I retaliated. The target of my retaliation was the first person I saw. I attacked that girl … I killed her, and I held her while she died.”

  “That’s awful,” Keith said patting me on the shoulder. It sounded like a patronising gesture, but it was never meant that way. “A lot of shit happens in combat – some of which you never get over.”

  “Thought you were gonna comfort me,” I laughed, tears coming to my eyes again. He said he wasn’t going to lie to me, but I wished he’d left room for hope.

  “There’s no such thing as a good killing,” Keith began, “but there is such a thing as justified and unjustified killing. Which do you thi
nk you done?”

  “Unjustified,” I replied instinctively.

  Keith pursed his lips and said, “Thought you’d say that. Why?”

  “I killed an innocent person,” I shrugged without a second thought.

  “Let me tell you a story,” Keith replied, stretching with a yawn. “A few years back, I was posted overseas. It was a fairly easy gig compared to other jobs. We were in a compound in the middle of nowhere. It was boring, but it was easy. We just had to wait there until further orders. Saw absolutely no conflict while there. Most people would have called that a dream job. There was a small village not far from us and the locals were friendly. There was this lone tree midway between our compound and the village – the only place which offered shade in the heat. Village kids used to hang out there. A load of little ones and a couple of teenagers.”

  “Sounds like hell,” I replied honestly, thinking of the unrelenting heat.

  “I’ve served my time in hell, and that wasn’t it,” he replied sternly before continuing with his story. “Every day, this little girl about eight years old would stand by that tree and watch us. We thought she was a spotter at first, relaying observations back to whoever. After about a week of doing this, she’d get closer and closer each day. I made a game of trying to catch her before she saw me. She knew what I was doing. She would laugh and run back to the tree once she’d been caught. Eventually, she worked up the courage to come all the way to our perimeter. She couldn’t speak a word of English and would talk about god knows what. I would nod and smile and laugh and she loved it. She came back every day for a month. I would give her little things which wouldn’t be missed. Some pens, some paper. She came back one day with a drawing for me. She was so proud of it … she let me keep it. I gave her a bar of chocolate which I’d been sent from home. She ran back to sit under the tree and eat it. I watched her eating it through my scope. She was so happy. Then one of the older boys came up to her and tried to take it. She held onto it and wouldn’t let go. So he pulled a knife out and stabbed her three times in the stomach. I remember it so vividly. Stab. Stab. Stab,” Keith paused, a haunted look on his face. “He took the chocolate and walked away laughing. I came so close to putting a bullet through his head. And it would have been so easy … I wanted to run out of our compound and help her. I couldn’t though. I wouldn’t have been allowed. So I watched her squirming in the boiling heat and the dirt as she bled out alone and scared.”

  “Goddamn, man,” I breathed as his story came to an end. “Are you … are you okay?”

  “No, and I’ll never be okay. But I didn’t tell you the story for sympathy,” he replied, staring me dead in the eyes. He had tears in his eyes but he never wiped them away. “Did you kill the girl in the same manner as that scum I told you about?”

  “No,” I replied honestly.

  “His was an unjustified kill. There was no need for it. It was selfish and evil. He did it simply because he wanted her chocolate. Yours was to survive. They attacked and you responded as such,” he explained, desperately trying to make me understand. He put his hands on both my shoulders and looked at me. “You killing that girl wasn’t good, but it was justified. It will hurt you and you’ll probably feel like part of your soul has been stained, but there was no way around it. You needed to survive.”

  “Right,” I nodded. Did I agree with him? No. Did it make me feel better? Yes. “Thanks, Keith.”

  “Not a problem,” he smiled. “Thanks for not blowing my brains out when you discovered me in your van.”

  “Didn’t want to be complicit in a lynching. I had to step in,” I replied honestly. Keith smiled and patted my back.

  Interlude Seven – Keith

  Keith didn’t like talking about his training days. I don’t think it was because he had a bad experience, but because large elements of it were shrouded in secrecy. I imagined any official documentation regarding it had huge swathes of black ink obscuring everything. Despite the end of the world and the dismantling of an organised military force, Keith wouldn’t reveal details – like there was an unspoken code of honour to not spread information about what went on. What he did say was how hard the training was. Everyday pushed his mental and physical limits. He wanted to scream and cry, but he knew that if he did that then that would be it. So he held it in and persevered. It made him tougher and hardened because of it. He felt like a warrior.

  He never revealed which branch of the military he was in, but what he did mention was that only about ten per cent passed selection. That meant ninety per cent either dropped out or failed – which is insane! Whoever made it through truly must have been the best of the best. It made me appreciate what a tough guy he was. I doubted he would have got as far as he had in an undead world without that hardness behind him.

  The ones who made it through selection became brothers. They’d been through hell and back together, and it showed. He said he trusted those men with his life and, on some occasions, he needed to. He’d trained and fought alongside those men, and he could not think of a better group of people to consider friends. It was amazing how brotherhood could be forged through trial, as opposed to blood.

  CHAPTER 31

  Keith and I spoke all night, our conversation only coming to an end when we heard bird song of the morning. We’d learned a lot about each other. More importantly, it reaffirmed what I hoped all along: Keith wasn’t a bad person. He wasn’t a pushover either. He told me his fair share of stories involving heroics and antics while he was deployed. Yet, he refused to tell me who he served with, batting it off with a smile and a wink. Based on where he’d toured and his caginess, my money was on the SAS. I wanted to tell my mum. She’d love that – she’d always found the SAS interesting. I missed her. I’d had so much excitement around Keith and his background, but no one to discuss it with. A cruel loneliness washed over me.

  Eventually, we retired to the house. We didn’t need to sleep. We were pumped – I hurt inside, but also felt alive. Freud was right, death was a huge drive to making people want to stay alive. It brought everything into perspective. I knew my life wouldn’t end by my own hand, no matter how much pain I was in. I was too afraid for that.

  Before long, Kirsty came out and we all gathered in the kitchen. None of us wanted to spend any longer in the house than we had to. Stephanie’s death stained it. Kirsty looked like she’d been crying all night. I closed the gap between us and hugged her, which she returned.

  “Should we go?” Kirsty asked when we finally broke contact. She didn’t say another word and headed outside for the van. Keith collected his things and followed. But I remained, almost unable to leave the house so unceremoniously. So, I did something that I felt would honour the loss of our friend. I put her DVD on – the one she said was her favourite and selected play. It would play in the house forever – until the solar panels gave in anyway. If her ghost was there, I didn’t want it to be bored.

  “Catch you later, Steph,” I said to no one and left, scooping the jar of coffee up on the way out. We’d all need it for the day ahead.

  I walked outside, sealing the house preserving Stephanie’s memory inside. Turning to my companions, I saw the two dead bodies on the grass that we had killed when we first arrived. Things seemed simpler then. Easier. I ignore them and continued onwards, only stopping when I heard a weird chittering noise. I looked around and didn’t notice anything. No birds, no animals. Nothing. I carried on walking until I heard the noise again. That is when I looked down and saw the head Kirsty had cut off previously. It was facing away from me, but its eyes were twisted to the corners of its sockets and staring at me. Its mouth kept snapping and gnashing its teeth at me – almost like it was trying to bite me. I couldn’t believe it was still active. It was madness. I approached the head carefully and crouched down to get a better look at it. My face twisted in disgust as I explored with morbid curiosity. The strange activity, despite being without a body, told me something important about the undead. It was the brain which kept them mo
ving, not some sort of supernatural force – not that I ever suspected that to be the case. It made sense that a headshot killed a zombie, as you were essentially turning off the signal to the body. I suppose that, if the spine was damaged at the hip height, then anything below that stopped working – like paralysis. The brain sent a signal along the spine, and any damage to the spine would stop that signal. I almost wanted to experiment to see if that was the case. The more you know about your enemy, the better. Least we didn’t have to deal with headless corpses wandering the land. I smiled to myself and walked on to the van.

  “You both ready?” I asked Keith and Kirsty. They nodded and Kirsty climbed in. Keith began to climb in the back but I stopped him.

  “What is it?” he said, turning to face me.

  “You can sit up front with us,” I replied simply.

  “No, I’m alright in back,” he said, shaking his head. And I think he was right to do so. It wouldn’t have felt right for someone to sit where Stephanie had.

  “Well, you’ve gone from prisoner to passenger,” I said, making an effort at humour. Neither of us smiled. It wasn’t the time for it. We stared at each other for a moment, before separating and climbing in the van.

  We sat there in silence for far too long. The van felt eerie. Without Stephanie … it just wasn’t right. It was horrible. I wouldn’t mind hearing her terrible music a thousand times over if it meant she could be there. But no amount of bargaining would fix that. It was praying to the ether. I might as well ask the sun for her return. And that’s when I realised where my anger was directed. God. If God was real, he could have saved her. If God was real, he’d been absent Father. He had a lot to answer for.