Killing the Dead (Book 8): Dark and Deadly Land

by Richard Murray

“Ah. Yes, I suppose it was.”

  He looked at me and I couldn’t see his features, just a dark shape moving in the night.

  “You sure you’re ok?”

  “Just thinking,” I said.

  “Care to share?”

  “Not really.”

  “Well do so anyway, I’m bored,” he said and I could hear the humour in his voice.

  “Very well,” I said with a sigh as I pondered how best to say what I wanted to. “I was just considering how very different things would have been for me, had I not met Lily and the rest of you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, your acceptance of my… eccentricities.”

  “Yeah well, that weren’t easy.”

  “I understand. I know that you found it hard at first, but still. You did accept it.”

  A cold breeze touched my skin and I pulled my coat tighter around myself. Off in the distance, thunder rolled across the blackened skies.

  “We did yeah,” Gregg agreed. “Not sure if we would have back in the old days, but still, times are different now.”

  “Many wouldn’t have,” I said slowly. “The people we left at the island were proof enough of that. They allowed me to stay because I was useful and because of the rest of you. They feared me though.”

  “For most people, they haven’t caught on that the world's changed,” Gregg said. I heard the scuff of his feet on the concrete as he shifted his weight. “This world's gone to hell and it’s adapt or die time.”

  “Indeed,” I agreed. “Regardless, I have never told you that I appreciated your friendship.”

  “No, you haven’t.”

  I could sense his amusement as he waited for me to actually say it. He knew it wasn’t easy for me. My friend.

  “Very well. I appreciate your friendship,” I said and he laughed. Low and full of genuine amusement.

  “Yeah mate. I love you too,” he said.

  “What’s going on?” Pat asked as he stepped out of the tent he shared with Cass. His voice was weary and he stifled a yawn as he joined us.

  “Ryan was just saying how much he appreciated me.”

  “Good to know,” Pat said and paused. “Well, you got anything to say to me?”

  “I wish I’d stayed in my tent,” I muttered as the two laughed. Once, not that long ago, their laughing at me would have been cause for my reaching for my knife. Now, I just felt at ease in their company. “I appreciate you too Pat.”

  “Back at you mate,” he said.

  We sat in comfortable silence for a while, each lost in our own thoughts as the gentle patter of the rain hitting the thin warehouse ceiling increased in tempo.

  “Going to be a tough one tomorrow,” Pat said.

  “We’ve faced worse,” Gregg said.

  “Have we?” he asked. “I dunno mate, we’ve faced small groups before but this one feels different.”

  “How?”

  “Like we might not make it,” he said with a rustle of clothing that told me he’d looked back at the tent that contained his pregnant girlfriend.

  “We will do,” Gregg said, his voice full of confidence and bravado. “We have a serial killer on our side and we’re fairly handy ourselves these days.”

  “Against the dead maybe,” he said. “Not so sure about this.”

  “I imagine that the plan we came up with will work,” I said. “This Ben and his group will die and we will get passage on the boat as agreed.”

  “Don’t get cocky,” Pat murmured. “Too much can go wrong.”

  “Then we’ll die,” I said and silence fell once more.

  A short time later, Pat let out a low laugh and I looked over to him in the darkness. But of course, he couldn’t see my questioning glance.

  “What you laughing at?” Gregg asked.

  “Cass told me about your conversation,” he said to me and I frowned in the darkness. “She said it was painful but she was so happy that you actually tried.”

  “Small talk is not something I am comfortable with,” I admitted.

  “Yeah, she gathered.”

  His laughter was infectious and I allowed myself a smile as the talk turned to other things. I was, surprisingly enough, enjoying sitting with my friends as they talked. I even spoke myself on occasion.

  For the first time in such a long while, I felt at ease. For perhaps the only time in my life, I felt comfortable with other people. It was a strange feeling for me and one that brought with it a touch of sorrow.

  Part of what had made me so effective a killer had been my isolation from others. I’d never had to worry about ensuring the safety of anyone else. I’d never had to be concerned about their deaths.

  I was still entirely sure that if they died my life would proceed much as normal, I hadn’t changed that much that death had any real meaning to me. But, at the same time, I didn’t actually want them to die as I was enjoying having them around.

  Which meant that going into danger, into battle where they could be hurt or killed was suddenly not as pleasing as it had been before. That was almost as irksome as the damned crying that could still be heard faintly above the sound of the rain.

  It was another sign that it was time for me to leave. Caring for others was a burden too much for me. I couldn’t be the killer with that weight hanging around me. More so when it came to Lily. While these others, these friends had begun to chip away at my defences, she was already inside those great armoured walls around whatever tattered scrap of a soul I might possess.

  She was inside those defences and changing me. I didn’t like it. Six months ago when the world went to hell, I wouldn’t have saved anyone unless I saw some benefit for doing so. When I’d joined up with Lily, it had been for a clear purpose, to ensure my survival.

  Pushing Cass from the path of those Ferals had almost meant my death. Too often now, I had risked my own life for others with no clear benefit to myself other than the fact that I liked those people.

  Lily loved me. She was kind, compassionate and full of empathy. The exact opposite of me. Placing those two opposites together meant that eventually, one would begin to take over the other. One side was stronger and by the looks of things, Lily was winning.

  That she didn’t know she was winning was no real comfort. She probably didn’t even realise that war between our natures was even going on, but I did. Worse though was the fact that I was pleased she was winning. I didn’t want her to become like me. That would destroy her as much as my changes were destroying me.

  “I’m going to take a walk,” I said.

  “It’s pissing it down mate,” Gregg said as I pushed myself to my feet.

  “Perhaps so, but I feel the need for some air.”

  “You want some company pal?” Pat asked and I paused. I almost said yes.

  “No. You guys get some rest. Tomorrow will be a busy day.”

  I left them there, sat before the tents and stepped out into the rain. The soft click of claws on the concrete came from behind me and I turned to see Jinx following. She stared at me with those dark eyes of hers that seemed to share some understanding of our natures.

  “Come on then,” I said. “Let’s go have some fun.”

  Chapter 16 - Lily

  The tent was cold when I woke in the early hours of the morning judging by the darkness that still filled the warehouse beyond the open flap of the tent. I could just hear some voices talking softly above the sound of a thunderstorm.

  I let out a yawn and stretched, feeling the kinks in my muscles straighten out. I would have killed for a king size bed with a soft mattress. Hell, anything would be better than the hard concrete floor but a soft bed would be heaven.

  As I pushed my way through the canvas flap of the tent, a flash of lightning illuminated the open space and revealed two people sitting together in front of the tents. Neither of them was Ryan and I wondered where he was. Jinx was absent from our tent too.

  “H
ey guys,” I said as I joined my friends. “Where’s Ryan?”

  “Went for a walk,” Pat said.

  “In this weather? When did he go?”

  “A while back, not sure of the time,” Gregg said.

  My hand touched his shoulder briefly in thanks as I passed him by. If Ryan had gone for a walk and not returned then either he’d found something to do that he shouldn’t or he’d finally followed through on his intent to leave for good.

  Both options raised worry in me and the latter was frankly terrifying. I mean, not to sound like a clingy psycho girlfriend, but if he left me I honestly didn’t know what I’d do. Maybe a little bit like a clingy, psycho girlfriend then.

  I poked my head out into the rain and failed to see anything in the darkness and the rain. With nothing else to do, I set out to my right, towards the wall and the zombies crowded beyond. I was soaked in minutes and stuck to the side of the building as best I could.

  As I passed a stack of crates, a hand reached out to grab my arm and I yelped as I was yanked to one side.

  “Hey,” Ryan said as I pulled my arm free.

  Jinx sniffed at my leg, at least I hoped it was Jinx as I looked around the shelter he’d found. Someone had left a board over two stacks of crates to make a shelter of sorts. No idea why, but it had another crate that Ryan was sat on as he watched the rain falling.

  “What’re you doing out here?” I asked as my heartbeat slowed to normal. He hadn’t left me.

  “Thinking.”

  “About what?”

  He sighed and I looked at him in the darkness. I couldn’t see much of his expression but I could see enough to know his brow was furrowed as he thought of what to say.

  “I was on my way out,” he said finally and my stomach sank. He was leaving me.

  “Why?” I asked, afraid to hear the answer.

  “My intention was to go and kill those people for you and then just keep on going,” he said.

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I couldn’t,” he said and I could hear the confusion in his voice. “Something kept me here. Someone.”

  “That someone better be me,” I said and I could feel his brief smile.

  “Of course.”

  “Then why were you leaving?”

  “Because I’m changing and I don’t like it,” he said. He shifted on the crate and patted the top to indicate I should sit with him. I climbed up next to him and pressed close, his body warm next to mine.

  “Don’t like it? Why not?”

  “Because I think I’m starting to understand what it means to fear losing someone,” he said and I held my breath, afraid to breathe. Afraid to move, to do anything that would distract him from continuing to speak.

  “I’ve never cared about the loss of anyone,” he said. “Never, yet now I don’t want my friends to die. I don’t want to ever lose you and that is… odd to me.”

  “Odd?”

  “Yes,” he didn’t seem inclined to elaborate. “I’m not sure I could be who I am if I stay with you.”

  “Everyone changes,” I said quietly.

  “Not me. I’m constant and always have been.”

  “Change can be good,” I said as I tried a different tack.

  “Again, not for me. Not when it means I can’t be me.”

  “Caring for others doesn’t mean you can’t be you.”

  “What if I start to care for strangers?” he said in all seriousness. “How can I kill people if I care about them?”

  I couldn’t stop the laughter that came. “Oh my god! Is that really what’s worrying you?”

  “Yes,” he said somehow managing to sound hurt and lost at the same time.

  “You are so broken,” I said as I gave him a nudge with my hip. “You cared today didn’t you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When you killed that bastard Aiden, you cared about those kids he hurt?”

  “Yes, I suppose I did.”

  “There you go then,” I said cheerfully. “You had a reason to kill him because you cared about what he had done to those children. Caring for others can be a strength. You can use it to empower you to do things you wouldn’t normally.”

  “Like when you killed those men on the island?” he asked.

  I sucked in a breath as just the mention of them brought unwanted images to the forefront of my mind. I counted my breaths as his hand found mine and I clung on for dear life.

  “Yes,” I said when I felt it was safe to do so. “To protect others, because you care about them is something that I can understand.”

  “Even if I enjoy it?”

  “Yeah, even then.” I squeezed his hand in thanks for that needed comfort and considered how best to say what I needed to so that he’d understand. “You remember the promise you made me?”

  “No killing innocents, only the bad people,” he said with a wry smile. “Yes, I recall it.”

  “You’ve stuck to that and still managed to find people to kill.”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t think that I could ever cope with you becoming the sort of monster Aiden, Marcus and those others are. But, this world's gone to hell and it's bringing out the worst in people.”

  He seemed to be paying attention, well at least he was staring straight at me in the darkness which could mean anything but I chose to believe it meant he was paying attention.

  “There will be a lot of people in this world that deserve to die,” I told him. “I don’t think I can do it, at least not right now, but I have no objection to you killing those kinds of people at all. As long as you stick to that, you can care about the good people, the innocents that wouldn’t be the sort of people you’d target anyway.”

  “And when all those bad people are gone?”

  “That’ll never happen,” I said with a touch more bitterness than even I expected. “Focus on that, on killing the living monsters out there and don’t worry about those feelings of care you have for your friends, for me. Because ultimately, even just choosing the bad people means you’ll never need to stop killing.”

  “You’ll be fine with that?” he asked. His voice soft and holding just a touch of concern. “Sharing your bed, your life with a killer? A murderer?”

  I studied his profile in the darkness, remembered the feel of the knife in my hand as I killed those men, that cold and dark place it had taken me. That emptiness I’d barely touched on that he lived with daily. Then I thought of the others.

  Emma, the little girl cut down by men who wanted what little we had, Jenny and Leon held captive and abused, the children Aiden had spoken of abused, murdered and finally eaten. I thought of those and all of the others who wouldn’t live because of the evil of human monsters. Then finally, of Cass and the new life she carried and the world I wished for her child to grow up in. The answer was simple.

  “Yes.”

  ****

  It was almost dawn when the rain began to ease a little. Not too much, which suited me well enough since heavy rain seemed to confuse the zombies, which would make it all the easier to accomplish our task.

  We strolled, hand in hand, back to the warehouse where our friends were gathered. Emily had stopped crying by the sounds and I knew she’d likely not want to see any of us again but I’d still need to go and check on her.

  “You two look like a pair of drowned rats,” Gregg commented with a burst of laughter.

  “We ready to go?” Ryan asked without preamble or responding to Gregg.

  “Just about mate,” Pat said as he held up a bowl of something that steamed faintly in the early morning light. “Eat first.”

  “What is it?” I asked as I took the bowl gratefully. It smelled delicious.

  “Cinnamon and honey porridge,” Becky said. “Apparently they found a shed load of the stuff in one of the shipping containers. It’s good.”

  “Would be nice with some sliced banana on top,” Cass added as she sc
ooped a spoonful from her own bowl.

  We sat and ate as the conversation around us turned to the more mundane matters of what would be needed to accomplish the task. The plan we’d worked on yesterday wasn’t perfect by a long shot.

  I had the sudden urge to laugh at the absurdity that my life had become. Sitting in a filthy warehouse, eating scraps of food and planning a raid on a factory occupied by cannibals. If anyone had told me just a year ago, what I’d be doing now, I would have laughed myself silly.

  Fighting the undead, travelling across England in the hopes of finding somewhere that may have a chance of restoring the country to what it had once been. In love with a serial killer who had only the barest understanding of his own emotions, let alone mine.

  It was absurd. Hell, it was beyond absurd but it was my life now. I’d survived the fall of our civilisation, attacks by the undead and the living too. If I chose not to look too far ahead to what the future might hold when the world was once again right. Well, that was okay too.

  I watched Ryan from the corner of my eye and smiled to myself. If it was a sad kind of smile, well, no one seemed to notice. Any future we had together would be difficult. I’d do everything I could to make it work though and that was all I could do really.

  “When do we leave?” Becky asked. She sounded nervous and her hand clutched at the backpack that contained her metal box with its precious samples and data. She was clearly concerned about what we had to do and perhaps lacked faith in us. She’d learn, when it came to surviving, we knew what we were doing.

  “Half an hour for us,” Pat said in his quiet voice. He reached out and grasped Cass’s hand in his, holding on to her as long as he could. “The rest of you will leave an hour or so after.”

  “I still don’t think this is the best plan,” Cass said with a fond look at her partner. “So much could go wrong and there’ll be a large group there. We should all stick together.”

  “Don’t worry sis, we’ll be fine.”

  Cass shook her head at her brother, “You can’t know that.”

  “They’re only people,” Ryan said. His voice cut through the sudden silence as all eyes turned to him. It was one of those things he seemed able to do. When he spoke with such confidence, everyone listened. “Not trained, not soldiers or predators. Just desperate people who killed to stay alive.”