Once I was certain that all was empty, I joined the others in the kitchen. Jeremy looked up as I approached and shook his head glumly.
“No running water.”
“Damn,” I said as I turned to his wife. “Food?”
“Nothing but some tins,” she said. “The sort of stuff you’d only take if you had room.”
“Why would they have fled?” Jeremy asked. “I mean, this place is far enough out that they could have lived here a while.”
“Yeah, it’s the sort of place you’d generally flee to,” I agreed. “What exactly is in the tins?”
“Green beans, some pears, rice pudding…” I waved one hand for her to stop. I got the idea.
“Grab it all anyway,” I said. “Fill up your bags.”
“Not much use without water,” she said and I nodded. I knew that already. If the worst came and we were truly starving, I was pretty sure I’d happily eat one of them to stay alive. That wouldn’t help without water though. That would kill us long before we starved.
Georgia was coming down the stairs as I left the kitchen and she grunted as I told her about the food.
“Yeah, we figured about the water,” she said. “Tried the bathroom taps. There’s some water in the toilet cisterns but not much.”
“Well if we boil it, add a bit of bleach, we should be ok,” I said. “Don’t really fancy drinking it after it's been sat there for who knows how long.”
“So, what do we do?” she asked. “Wait out the zombies here or press on?”
“If we can’t find any water then we need to push on,” I said. “Must be a stream or something nearby. Hell, I’d even take a pond at this point.”
“Guys!” Lisa called from the kitchen. I glanced her way to see her pointing through the window. “There’s someone out there!”
Chapter 10
There was, in fact, someone out in the courtyard. A single man, with as shaggy and dishevelled an appearance as the rest of us. He stood before the three corpses and stared down at them as he hefted a long length of wood that looked to have once been the handle of a pickaxe.
His dark straggly hair was swept up into a ponytail and his beard was matted with sweat and grime. His clothes, covered in filth and what looked to be blood, were similar to our own, just jeans and a t-shirt. He carried a backpack that hung low enough on his back that I suspected he was carrying something heavy.
When he looked up, his eyes met mine and for an instant, something flashed there, something that I recognised. I knew immediately that he was a threat to us.
“Ahoy the house,” he called. His voice was strangely high-pitched, child-like even.
“What do you want?” I called back to him as I approached the window we’d broken to get inside.
“Just passing by laddie,” he said with a glance back towards the corpses. “Saw some of your handiwork, like, and figured I’d stop by and get the lay of the land.”
“Lay of the land?” I glanced at Georgia and gestured for her to get the others moving, gathering the items.
“Go empty the toilet cisterns,” she said to Abi who nodded, worry plain on her face.
“Well now,” the man continued. He hadn’t moved as though he knew that to do so would likely not end well for him. “I’m just down past Edinburgh, looking to keep on to the Southlands. The thought occurred that I could do with knowing the state of the roads.”
“No point going further,” I said as I watched the others pull the too few tins of food from the cupboards. “There’re tens of thousands of zombies not far behind us and they’re all heading north.”
“That’s… disappointing,” he said and scratched idly at his chin as he squinted and peered up at the sky. “I was fair hoping to find some people. Guess they’re all gone.”
“Entirely likely,” I agreed.
He paused, heedless of the flies swarming around him as he pondered his next words. There was a slight upturn to his lips before he spoke again.
“How’s about I travel with you a ways. How’s that sound?”
“Unpleasant,” I said quietly to Georgia who nodded agreement. She, it seemed, sensed the same about him as I.
“Just how many of you are in there?” he asked, scanning the windows of the house with his eyes as though trying to see within. “Any women?”
“Enough of this,” Georgia hissed. “Just kill him!”
I gave her a sour look at that. Why should I be the one to kill him? It wasn’t like she wasn’t capable and if anything, would be much more likely to get close to him than I could.
“Sorry,” I called. “Think we’ll go our own way.”
“Aye laddie, I thought you’d say that,” he said as he looked over to the far side of the building. I wasn’t sure what he saw but he nodded as his smile widened. “Doesn’t look like there’s another way out of that house now, so why not open the door and let’s be friends.”
“Fuck!” Georgia said as she drew her Hori Hori. “There’s more of them.”
“Did anyone find a cellar?” I asked and when no response came, swore softly and turned to Georgia. “Which is the most secure room?”
“Kitchen maybe,” she said. “Only one door in and out. Or one of the bedrooms that could hold us all.”
“Then it may be time to gather everyone in there.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Go out and talk to him,” I said with a shrug.
“He’ll probably kill you,” she said and then lowered her voice as she leant in close. “If we let him have the others, he might let us join his group.”
“That’s what you’d want?” I asked without even trying to keep the surprise from my voice. “I doubt it would be pleasant for a woman in their group.”
“Been in worse groups,” she said with a tight smile. “Long as you’re useful and don’t fight them too much, you get to live. Long enough to kill them all anyway.”
“And the others?” I nodded towards the kitchen. “What about them?”
“Save us killing them.” Her nonchalant shrug was wrong in some way and I couldn’t put a finger on why. Her disregard for them was irritating and more so because I didn’t know why.
“Just get them ready for whatever happens,” I said.
She nodded as I grasped the window frame, careful to avoid the sharp shards of glass still there and pulled myself up and out. The day's heat hit me as soon as I was out and sweat immediately dampened my skin. It didn’t help my mood which was likely going to be useful.
“Well now,” the man said as he eyed me warily. “Aren’t you a capable looking laddie? Army?”
I shook my head and he tilted his as he studied me, apparently seeing something in the way I walked as I approached him. He began to nod his head gently as he muttered under his breath. I spared a moment to scan the courtyard and grimaced.
At least another four men, all as dirty and bedraggled as the one I approached and each bearing some manner of weapon. Mainly clubs, stained with the blood of the undead, but at least one of them had a long-bladed knife in sight.
“Not army,” he said. “No, something else.”
I stopped several feet away from him as I noticed the way his body tensed and something inside of me told me that to go closer would be to risk attack. It was an odd feeling, but understanding was there without the need for words or the language of modern man. It was primal.
Like two apex predators we sized each other up. If I’d been a wolf, my hackles would have been up and instead of the steady smile I wore, I would have bared my teeth and readied myself for the fight. One of us would kill the other, that was inevitable and I knew that on some instinctive level.
“Amos,” he said with a nod of his head and a smile that didn’t touch his eyes.
“Ryan,” I said by way of reply.
I was aware of the movements of his companions as they slowly closed in around me. My fingers lightly brushed the handle of my knife as his hand tightened on the haft of his club.
<
br /> “You seem like you can handle yourself,” he said.
“Anyone who has survived this long can handle themselves,” I said agreeably.
“Aye lad, but killing them wee dead men is different to killing the live ones.” He paused and pursed his lips as he looked me up and down. “I think you know that, so you do.”
His accent placed him from Scotland which was understandable since he said he was heading south, but the burr on his words suggested the far north. He’d likely been hiding out somewhere up there since it began. Which probably meant that my former group was in for a rude awakening. If the Navy had a safe zone in the north of the country, I figured it was likely this fellow would have some notion of it.
“Perhaps I do,” I said. There was no change in my posture or smile, but I was careful to watch the movements of the shadows on the ground. The others were getting closer.
“How many people you got in there?” he asked with a tilt of his head towards the house. “Wanna share em?”
“Not really.”
“You know you can’t stop us, right?” he asked. “If there was another like you then they’d be out here with you.”
“Perhaps I am all that is needed,” I said and he bellowed with laughter, rocking back on his heels. His companions shared his humour though theirs was more subdued.
“Nae lad,” he said. “You cannae survive this if you fight us. I like you though, I really do.”
“I’m honoured.”
“That you should be, that you should.” He shared a glance with someone just behind me judging from the direction of his gaze, then said, “Can’t persuade you to join us, can I?”
My knife was out in an instant as I spun on my heel, the blade flashing in the bright sunlight as blood sprayed and the scruffy man behind me dropped his raised weapon and clasped his hands to his throat, voice failing him as pleasure surged through me.
Without stopping to admire my handiwork, I tucked my shoulder as I dropped into a roll, a swish of air coming from the space I’d just vacated. I rose from my roll and sank my blade into the belly of the bald man whose swing had missed the mark. He screamed and took another swipe.
I turned and the world shook, my vision blurring as something heavy caught me on the side of the head and I stumbled, off balance as I took a blow to my abdomen that doubled me over. A third blow, sent me to my knees as I gasped for breath. Too slow! I thought to myself.
“That was a mistake laddie,” Amos said. “Gonna make you hurt for that.”
Something heavy hit my knuckles and my hand jerked, opening reflexively to drop the knife to the dirt of the courtyard. The taste of copper filled my mouth and I probed at a tooth with my tongue. It wobbled with just a little pressure and I scowled.
“Hey!” a voice said. One of Amos’s people. “Look!”
“Oh hells,” a third voice added. “Kill him quick.”
“Another time,” Amos said to me and for a moment I was confused as I heard their footsteps retreating across the yard.
I looked up, vision clearing as they disappeared around the side of the barn and were lost from sight. Beside me, the man I’d stabbed in the stomach let out a moan of pain and misery and from the hills came an echo of a thousand voices and I stared up at those hills in growing alarm.
“Get moving,” Georgia called.
She dashed across the courtyard, rucksack on her back and eyes on the hills. She placed one hand under my arm and helped pull me to my feet. I made sure to grab my knife from where it had fallen before I glanced at her.
“Hope you’re happy,” she hissed, her eyes fixed on the horde of zombies as they made their slow descent down the hill. “We might have had a fighting chance with those guys.”
“I doubt it,” I muttered as I thought back to the fight.
While I’d fared poorly, which I put down to the effects of a lack of food and water, I had discovered one thing. My joy! It was back and I’d felt it keenly when I’d slit the throat of the first man and for the first time in several weeks, I was looking forward to the next kill.
That was if we survived the zombie horde that was following us relentlessly, I conceded as I looked back over my shoulder to the hillside that was blackened by the mass of walking dead.
Chapter 11
We followed the dirt track away from the houses. No point trying to run across the open hills and fields before we absolutely had to. Our energy levels were low and as soon as we had the chance I was damned sure we’d open those tins of food we’d found, regardless of what was in them and consume the lot. We badly needed something, anything, to keep us going.
The undead were not great on a surface that wasn’t level and I saw many of them slip and fall, sliding down the hillside. That wasn’t necessarily a good thing since it meant, more often than not, that they would simply get to the bottom of the hill faster. On the plus side, the guy I’d left with a stomach wound would occupy them for a minute or two and we needed all the time we could get.
Lisa and Abi each had a backpack apiece, taken from the wreckage of the plane, and carried whatever supplies we’d found. They walked together, Lisa helping the other woman when she faltered and I hung back a little. If one of them fell, I would gather their pack and leave them behind.
Jeremy, Marie and their child – whose name I still didn’t know – walked together. Faces set with fear that, I suspected, was more for their child than themselves. She’d stopped complaining and was lethargic, slumped against her father’s shoulder as he carried her. Not a great sign.
Georgia had the rucksack I’d been carrying and was clearly annoyed. She kept her eyes focused on the road ahead and didn’t so much as glance at me. Normally something I’d be happy about, but just then, I needed to keep her on my side lest she decide that I would be a fitting sacrifice to the undead. I wasn’t entirely sure I had the energy to stop her if she tried.
“They had no interest in letting us join.”
She didn’t so much as twitch at the sound of my voice and I wondered if she’d even heard me since I was keeping it low to avoid the others overhearing.
Finally, just as I was about to repeat myself, she said, “forget it.”
I gave her a shrug at that. Seemed like a good idea, though I had the vague memory of someone else saying that to me once in pretty much the same tone and then being peeved when I did what they said. It seemed likely that it was one of those things people say, but don’t really mean. I held back a sigh.
“Seriously,” I said with a glance back over my shoulder. The hillside was lost beneath a veritable sea of undead bodies. Many of them had reached the base and were headed towards the farm. “They were like us, or at least the leader was. He’d have killed me on principle.”
She frowned at that and looked my way, just for a moment, before turning back to the road ahead.
“Well damn,” she said quietly. “More like us huh? Makes sense I suppose.”
“Yeah.”
In a twisted sort of way, it did. I’d said all along that the ones most likely to survive the longest would be those most willing to put aside the thin veneer of civility that we all wore and unleash the inner monster. Those who had already done that back in the old world would have a distinct advantage in the new.
Many people, broken and corrupted by circumstance, would end up as killers, monsters of the worst kind. Like the cannibal group we’d run into. Forced into a choice of starving or eating their weak, they chose the latter and prospered.
Or those deserters, from so long ago now. They had given in to their baser instincts and when their army brothers and sisters had perished fighting the undead, they had fled and preyed upon the living to sustain themselves.
Every new day since the fall of the old world, it was a simple choice that had to be made. Kill or die. The strong survived and the weak didn’t. That was what would happen to every group of survivors in the world and it was something that my old group had fought so hard against.
They, fo
r some bizarre reason, had believed that the strong should protect the weak and that all should have the chance to survive. It was amazing that they’d lasted so long and that, in part, was due to me being the killer that they couldn’t be.
Which, I supposed made their point. They survived because I’d been willing to do what they hadn’t been able to back at the beginning and if I hadn’t been there, how many of them would have survived as long as they had? It was a sobering thought and one that I’d need to contemplate at a later time.
At that moment, figuring out a way to survive the endless flight before the swarming undead would be a better use of my energies.
“There’s a road up ahead,” Georgia said.
Her breathing was heavy and I wondered if I was supposed to ask if she wanted me to carry the bag for a bit. I didn’t bother though, if she wanted me to then she’d say.
“See any movement?” I asked as I peered ahead.
“Not yet, too far away, can see cars though.” She paused then added, “a lot of them.”
“Damn. Where abouts are we?”
“What?”
“Roughly? Anyone know?” I asked as I raised my voice so the whole group could hear.”
“South Lanarkshire,” Jeremy said.
“Okay, we know Edinburgh is north of us, roughly. Are there any major roads in South Lanarkshire heading…” I took a quick look at the distant road and made a quick guess at the direction. “North-west to the south-east.”
“Most likely the M74,” he said after a moment’s thought.
“You’re sure?”
“Only other one would be the A72 up by Peebles, but if we’d come to that we’d have already had to cross the M74.”
“Well that’s just great,” I said with a sigh and added when Georgia looked at me, “Motorways are full or vehicles to loot and massive numbers of zombies.”
“Damn!”
“Yeah.”
I took another glance back at the hill behind us. We’d made some distance but needed to make a great deal more before the end of the day. I made a decision.
“We’ll head towards the motorway and if it is that then we’ll see what it’s like,” I told the group. “If there’s too many zombies then we can turn north-west and head over the hills parallel to the road until we find somewhere we can risk spending the night.”
March of the Dead (Killing the Dead Book 11) Page 8