Killing the Dead (Books 4-6)

by Murray, Richard

  “Well as long as we aren’t around when they do.” I said with a small grin that he ignored.

  We found the wholesalers towards the end of the street. It was a single storey building with whitewashed walls and two sets of double doors at the front of the building beneath a large sign advertising the company name.

  To the left of the building was an open structure with a half dozen white vans with the company name and logo parked beneath. To the right was a second building that had been added to the main one, with several stacks of pallets and a forklift truck parked up. I guessed it was the main warehouse for the store.

  The section set aside before the shop for parking was full of cars, several had their doors or boots open and all around them lay discarded goods that had been dropped and abandoned as the undead attacked.

  “Any that are left will be inside.” Toby said quietly as I looked the place over.

  “What about that place?” I asked and pointed to the building opposite that was all gray stone and no windows, just a large blue sliding door.

  “That’s a dairy.” Toby said, “Lots of bottles but any products have long since gone off.”

  I shivered as a particularly large clump of falling snow fell between my collar and skin.

  “Want to go inside?” I asked eager to get out of the cold.

  “We wait.”

  “Fine.” I said and rolled my eyes theatrically.

  To keep moving while we waited I inspected the parked vans. Any one of them would be useful if we could get it through the town. It was something worth mentioning to the others since while the roads were packed with vehicles it wasn’t like we’d have to avoid pedestrians so driving on the pavements may work.

  It would of course work better if we had people with us who knew the town and could direct us safely back to the boat house while avoiding the main roads and the traffic nightmares they now were.

  “They’re here.” Toby said right behind me and I admit that I jumped a little. He was certainly better at sneaking around than I had expected.

  “Let’s get started then.” I said with a grin.

  We gathered together before the main doors and discussed the plan. It seemed everybody had come along except for Dale who was still almost catatonic and one of the other group called Tameka, an older woman close to her fiftieth birthday and reading between the lines, more of a hindrance than a help.

  The idea was to split into two groups. One would enter via the main entrance and the other through the warehouse. This would hopefully split the attention of any undead inside the building and allow us to attack from two sides.

  It seemed fine in theory but I knew that things never worked out as planned. My own group have proven themselves to me time and again. I knew they would be able to adapt to whatever happened but I had concerns about the effectiveness of the others.

  Toby would be fine, Gabby seemed capable but the others... well the red head looked like she had been in a bar fight or two in her youth and seemed less unsure than the others. Karam was a young man, he’d barely started college when everything turned and he seemed more the studious stay at home type than the active.

  Brett was my chubby guide from the night before, a onetime lawyer who had a fondness for alcohol and cigarettes. He was already sweating from the short walk from the Taxi place and he held his metal pipe in such a manner that I was sure it would fly from his hand if he tried to hit anything with it.

  Then there was Melody, the dark skinned girl who had been an electrician in her past life. She had been capable when it came to wiring up the radio to a battery and from what little I had overheard when people were chatting; she had survived on her own for quite a while before being found by the group. If nothing else it would be fun at least.

  “So you guys know what you’re doing?” Gabby aked, and I blinked as I came crashing back to the world and realised I hadn’t been listening at all.

  “Sure.” Lily said, “You guys get ready and as soon as we hear the signal we’ll move in.”

  “What signal?” I asked as Gabby led her group to the warehouse.

  “Seriously!” Lily said crossly, “You weren’t listening?”

  “He was away with the fairies.” Gregg sniggered.

  “I was...” I trailed off as I really had no excuse. “Yeah, I wasn’t paying attention at all.”

  “Just follow the rest of us.” Lily said shaking her head.

  Gregg grinned at me and I smiled back, he seemed to be warming to me again and that wasn’t a terrible thing. I’d meant what I said back at the lake when he had tried to kill me. I held no grudge but if he showed signs that he would try again, I’d have to take care of him.

  A sharp whistle came from the side of the building, loud enough for us to hear but not so loud as to alert every zombie in the surrounding area. It may well have alerted those inside though.

  I pulled free my knife as Pat led the way inside through the double doors, Gregg followed close behind and then Cass and Lily, I was relegated to last place again.

  Chapter 15

  As a child my grandparents would take me to church with them. I think that they understood that I was different to other children in a way that my parents couldn’t or perhaps wouldn’t. It was, I think, their desire to fix me with religion.

  On the whole it was very dull and the priest’s sermons on morality, love and compassion were lost on me. When they began to speak of hell and the torments that evil doers would receive my grandmother would look at me sternly as though warning me to pay special attention.

  Being a dutiful child, I did pay attention and I have to say, I couldn’t understand what the big deal was. It really didn’t sound that terrible a place but then I walked through those doors, knife in hand and received a glimpse of what they meant when they spoke of hell.

  The stench came first. The rotting produce, fruit and vegetables that had been on the shelves for months, the meat and fish adding their own particular odours to the mix and mingled with it all the death smell that came with the undead.

  It was thick and cloying and I could taste it in the back of my throat as I struggled to keep down the small amount of food my stomach contained.

  In the dim light that shone through the front doors we could see blood and gore splashed over everything. It hadn’t just been a few people dying in that place, it had been hundreds. Their deaths had been violently brutal.

  As I moved forward I kicked something on the floor and when I looked down I saw an arm, no hand or torso, just the arm. Beside the checkout counters was a magazine rack, the latest editions of the fashion magazines and tabloids splashed liberally with blood and adorned with someone’s entrails.

  It was carnage. I couldn’t see a single patch of floor that wasn’t stained with the life fluids of the people who had died there. I was thankful for the cold that was the only thing keeping away the insects that would have made it even more intolerable.

  Lily looked across at me, face pale and eyes searching my face. Perhaps she wanted to see some compassion or distress or maybe she just feared to find the delight of a sadist but my face was still except for perhaps a faint distaste at the mess and odour.

  “Do we go on?” Cass whispered hoarsely.

  “Split up.” I suggested quietly. “Separate aisles.”

  “We should stay together.” Lily said and I shook my head.

  “Stay together and we get in each other’s way, the aisles are too narrow for that. If we get surrounded we are dead. If we separate and one group is in trouble, the other can come help.”

  “Ok, makes sense.” Lily said and when the others nodded agreement she told them, “You three go that way.”

  She pointed to the left hand side of the shop and then indicated that I should follow her along the right.

  Unlike a supermarket the wholesalers had racks up to the ceiling, filled with pallets of goods. The idea being that you bought boxes of items rather than s
ingle pieces. While that was great in theory, in reality it meant that we couldn’t see much further ahead into the shop.

  Which is why, when we walked around the side of some racking it was straight into a group of undead. They were standing still and silent until we appeared and then immediately raised their ruined voices, eager to taste our flesh.

  The moans echoed around the building and were answered by so many others that I truly felt that we had come to an end. There were obviously a great many more undead in the shop than we had expected.

  I looked at Lily and saw fear plain on her face and for some inexplicable reason that enraged me. If nothing else were to happen that day, it would not be that she died at the hands of the zombies.

  My blade stabbed and sliced, thrust and parried their flailing limbs. I was determined to kill them all, my fury was unflinching as I faced them and then she was there beside me. Her fear tempered, calm and controlled she struck out at the zombies.

  She was the calm centre of my furious storm and together we killed and it was glorious. I revelled in each death, each blow struck against dead flesh, a savage joy welling up within me and a desire for violence that I could not hold back.

  A fifth zombie fell, then a sixth to my blade, a seventh to her hammer. We inched backwards as the mass of undead before us pushed against us. Their numbers were in our favour, they were no unified force, they were a ravenous plague of creatures each so eager to reach us that they frequently got in each other’s way.

  My jacket tore as ruined hands gripped tight and wouldn’t let go, hands clutched my ankle and broken teeth tried to bite through the shoes leather. I kicked out and felt bone break before I stabbed the zombie holding my jacket through the eye. It wasn’t enough, we were being pushed back.

  Lily screamed as she fought to shove away the gnashing teeth of a zombie that had gotten far too close. I left my knife embedded in the side of its head and clenched my fists ready to crack the skulls of as many as I could before they took me down.

  We had reached the racking and had nowhere else to go, our backs were pressed up against the cold metal beams and I struggled to stay upright as the undead hands tore at me.

  I had no room to kick or swing a punch, it was all I could do to hold them back and I risked a glance to Lily and caught her eye. In that briefest contact a wealth of feeling was shared that I regretted I would never have the chance to understand.

  Then the pressure was easing, the zombies were being pulled away and our friends were there, covered in the vile blood of the undead, weapons crushing skulls and fear plain at what they may find.

  “You ok?” Pat grunted as his lump hammer caved in the side of a zombie’s head.

  “Surprised to be alive.” I gasped, as I saw Gregg and Cass pull a lifeless corpse away from Lily.

  “Are you bitten?” Cass asked her and then looked at me, the same question expecting an answer.

  “I’m not.” Lily said.

  “Told you we should have stayed together.” Gregg grinned as he offered a hand to me.

  “I don’t think I’ve been bitten.” I said as I accepted his hand and he pulled me to my feet. “Point taken though. You were right.”

  “Damn right I was.” Gregg said. “Jesus! How many did you two kill.” He asked as he stared at the trail of corpses.

  “Not enough if we needed your help.” I said before adding, “Which was appreciated none the less.”

  “Yes, thank you.” Lily said as she squeezed my hand.

  “Grab your weapons.” Pat grunted. “More coming.”

  I reluctantly released Lily’s hand and searched the corpses for my knife as she reached down for her hammer. I was surprised to still be alive and when I had the time to do so, I knew I had some things to think about.

  “You were damned lucky there.” Cass was saying to Lily, “It was only because there were so many that you weren’t bitten.”

  “That doesn’t make sense sis.” Gregg said and she snorted.

  “It means that every time one came close to biting us it was pushed aside by the others. Too many all trying to bite the same area.” Lily said. “We were lucky.”

  “More coming.” Pat interrupted quietly and I looked up to see another mass of them moving down the aisle.

  We let them approach us, stumbling and falling over the still bodies of the ones we had already killed and then we were on them, weapons rising and falling as we struck.

  My breath was coming in gasps as I struggled to maintain the fight. Too little food and too little recovery time for me to be doing so much fighting. I had been convinced that I was ready, eager to kill and unwilling to admit that I was fallible.

  It was a mistake that I would rectify. Due to the aid of my friends I knew that I would at least have the time to do so.

  The last zombie fell to my knife and we stood amidst the carnage breathing heavily and silent, each of us staring around us at the dead.

  Fresh moans could be heard from the back of the shop and I looked towards Lily. She looked back and smiled, momentarily banishing the fatigue.

  “Sounds like Gabby’s crew needs help.” she said.

  “Come on then.” Pat said with a crooked smile of his own. I could swear he was starting to enjoy the fighting.

  We moved along the aisles as quietly as we could, wary of running into any more groups of undead though it seemed most of them were at the warehouse doors.

  They were pushing against each other as they tried to get in, moaning their outrage at being unable to reach the flesh they craved.

  “I can’t see them.” Cass said in a whisper.

  “They must be there or the zombies wouldn’t be trying so hard to get in.” Lily replied. “Everyone ready?”

  With weary nods we followed Pat as he led the way once more. I was becoming somewhat tired of his taking the lead when it came to the violence but I was too tired to make an issue of it right then.

  We struck out at the rearmost undead. They were so focused on trying to push through the mass of zombies that we had killed a dozen before the first one turned on us and tried to fight back. Then it was a bloody skirmish of flailing limbs and weapons with blood splattering us all.

  I tried to keep an eye on Lily and more than once I caught her doing the same with me, we shared a momentary smile before our attention was pulled back to our respective enemies.

  My hands and arms were coated with the dark almost clotted blood of the undead and the ground beneath our feet was slick. We had to kill quickly but carefully to ensure that they were truly dead before we moved on to the next. The last thing we needed was to have one latch on to our legs.

  “I can see them.” Gregg called as he swung his metal bar at another zombie.

  Knowing that our allies were so close at hand we renewed our assault on the undead and I was soon able to see Gabby through the gaps, swinging her own weapon with a look of intense concentration on her gore spattered face.

  In short time the last of the zombies had fallen and we faced Gabby and her group over a pile of the dead. We each watched the others silently, neither side with much energy left to speak.

  If we looked anything like them, we would be a mess. Clothes, skin and hair covered in the dark blood of the undead and exhaustion plain on faces.

  “Don’t lick your lips you idiot.” Cass snapped at Gregg as she slapped him on the shoulder.

  “I didn’t.” he protested and the silence vanished between shared mirth.

  “We all need to get cleaned up.” Gabby said.

  “Yeah, we brought these.” Karam said as he reached into a satchel and pulled out packs of antiseptic wipes. “Not perfect but we can clean hands and faces at least.”

  I accepted a pack of wipes gratefully and after cleaning my knife as best I could and sheathing it, I started to scrub at my hands. I couldn’t do much about the blood caught beneath my nails but as long as I didn’t scratch myself and cleaned them before eating then
I should be ok.

  “Here, let me clean your face.” Lily said as she pulled a wipe from the pack. “Then you can do mine, best we can do with no mirrors available.”

  She wiped carefully around my eyes and mouth first before setting about cleaning off as much of the gore as she could. I endured it silently with my eyes closed and still surprised to not be hating the touch of another person.

  “All done.” she said and I opened my eyes to see her smiling.

  I pulled free a handful of wipes and she closed her eyes as I returned the favour for her. I had never cleaned blood from another live human before and it was a strange experience. I wiped as carefully as I could as I tried to ensure I removed every last bit from around her mouth and eyes.

  The thought of her becoming infected because I had failed to clean her face properly after she had survived the onslaught we just had, was not at all pleasant.

  “Done.” I said and let my hand fall as she opened her eyes.

  “I thought we were dead for a moment there.” she said quietly as she gazed at me. Her blue eyes bore into mine and I realised I should say something.

  “I’m glad you didn’t die.” Oh smooth.

  Lily smiled prettily as she leant forward and brushed her lips against mine. “I’m glad you didn’t die too.”

  Chapter 16

  We moved wearily through the rest of the wholesalers in groups to ensure we had cleared out all of the undead. Then once that was assured, Toby went out to survey the outside and make sure we hadn’t attracted the notice of any nearby zombies.

  The rest of us gathered in the centre of the shop to discuss our options. I resolved to pay a little more attention than normal.

  “So we suddenly find ourselves with a surfeit of food.” Gabby said with a happy yet weary smile.

  “This will go a long way to helping out our group.” Lily said and had to try once more, “Pooling our resources would be the right thing to do.”

  “I’m sorry Lily but we’re fine where we are.” Gabby told her and the rest of her group seemed to agree.