“Possible, not sure how that will work out though.” I said.
The thud of a body hitting something in the room below us stifled any reply Lily might have made and we sat once more in a taut silence.
I sighed and stared at the opening I had cut into the roof, it was the only source of light and dim though it was, it was better than staring into the blackness of the attic. I allowed myself a brief fantasy of somehow rescuing the people at the apartments, arriving just in time to kill Rachel myself.
“Why are you so calm?” Lily whispered.
“It’s not the first time I’ve hidden in an attic.” I said.
“It isn’t?”
“No. Remember when we got separated right after I led those zombies away so you could rescue Claire?” I asked surprised at the slight sense of loss I felt when I spoke her name.
“I do.”
“Well I found myself trapped in a flat above a shop and the only way out was through the attic.” I said, “I made a hole in the roof and climbed through.”
“That must have been terrifying.” Lily said, “Being alone in the dark with those things below you.”
“It was different.” I said, “Though I have to admit your company makes this time somewhat more pleasant.”
“Charmer.” She whispered and I grinned.
“Only with you.” I said and she squeezed her hand in mine.
By mid-afternoon I was thoroughly bored, cold and hungry. I was in no mood to sit around any longer and resolved to do something, anything to relieve the tension in that small and dark attic.
“What are you doing?” Lily whispered as I rose to my feet.
“We haven’t heard too much noise in a while. I’m guessing the majority have passed.”
“Be careful.”
“Always.” I replied with a grin that I doubted she could see.
I waved away Pat’s offer to go with me and crouched beside the hole in the plasterboard and looked down.
The bedroom was a mess with all kinds of fluid smeared along the walls and furniture that the zombies had bumped into. Nothing seemed to be moving and placing one hand at each side of the hole, I slowly lowered my head through so I could get a better look.
Once satisfied that the bedroom was empty, I lowered myself through the hole and stood on the dresser as I listened intently for any sound of movement in the cottage.
Cautiously, I moved from the bedroom and into the living room to find more of the same carnage as I had found in the bedroom. The entire cottage stank of death and I doubted the smell would fade anytime soon.
I reached the curtains and looked out through the gap. Scattered around the clearing were a handful of zombies who had apparently drifted away from the pack. They moved desultorily around the clearing as though looking for some direction or purpose. It wouldn’t be hard to clear them out as they all seemed to be the shambling type.
As soon as the hands grabbed hold of my shoulder, I dropped and rolled to the side. The zombie immediately turned to follow me as I climbed to my feet and brandished my knife. It paused, eyes seeming to follow the knife with a certain animal cunning.
The fact that one had been hiding and had approached almost silently was yet another cause for concern and I would need to start seriously looking at how the damned things seemed to be evolving. That would come later though, after I killed the one before me.
I feinted with my knife, slashing to the left and then swaying to the right and lashing out at the zombie. My blade sank into its shoulder as it jerked backwards and took my knife with it.
Weaponless I backed away from the undead menace as I contemplated calling for aid. I decided against that as soon as I remembered the zombies outside the cottage.
My heel caught the edge of a unit and a quick glance back told me that I’d run out of room as I backed into the TV stand. The zombie seemed to be enjoying itself as it stalked towards me, apparently aware of my lack of weapon.
With little choice I turned and took a firm hold on the flat screen TV, no longer any use for entertainment - not that anything was on the air anymore – and swung around with it just in time to catch the zombie as it lunged for me.
The fragile TV screen shattered as it connected with the zombie’s skull and it reeled back as I made another swing that connected solidly with the hard plastic edge of the TV. A third swing put the creature down for good and I dropped the remnants of shattered plastic and regained first my knife and then my breath.
After a quick check on the zombies outside the cottage to make sure they hadn’t heard the fracas and a slightly more thorough check of all the rooms, I stood on the dresser beneath the hole in the ceiling and called for the others to come down.
We gathered together in the living room and kept a wary eye on the zombies in the clearing outside the cottage while we discussed our options.
“It’s likely that we’ll find zombies all the way north and south if they fall away from the main pack like they’ve done here.” Lily said.
“We can fight our way north if that’s the way you want to go.” I said, “It’ll be slow going and we really don’t want to be caught out in the darkness just now.”
“Is there any point in going north?” Cass asked despondently.
“What do you mean?”
“Why follow them north just to see everyone we know dead?”
“What other choice do we have?” Lily asked. “Walk away and leave them to their fate? If we can help then we should.”
“Yeah but we’ve spent most of the day hiding from them. What help can we give?” Cass asked with a catch in her voice. She appeared more shaken than anyone by the experience.
“Anything we can do, we will.” Lily said as she embraced Cass, a gesture of support and care that she sorely needed. “If it turns out we can do nothing, then at least we’ll have tried.”
Cass nodded and wiped at her eyes with the back of one hand and I watched fascinated by the overt display of emotion. I could understand fear and while I did occasionally feel it myself, I had often seen my victims experience a great deal of it before they died.
The other emotions such as compassion and empathy seemed utterly alien and one of the things about Lily that so appealed to me was the sheer depth of emotion in her. She was able to empathise with others and care about them. It was truly bizarre.
I readied my knife and saw that Gregg had his metal bar ready and held in both hands like a bat, while Pat had his lump hammer to hand. With a jerk of my head to the door I let them know that while Lily calmed Cass, we would go and have some fun.
As we left the cottage, we split apart into a rough arrowhead formation with me at the point and Pat and Gregg to my right and left respectively. We moved together with well-practiced familiarity and approached the first of the shamblers in the clearing.
The snow beneath our feet had long since ceased being pure and white after the trampling feet of hundreds of zombies but with the first stab of my knife, fresh crimson blood sprayed across the ground as my target fell silently.
We moved methodically from one zombie to the next, crushing, stabbing and bludgeoning with wild abandon. The thrill of violence committed filled me and I found myself once again enjoying the slaughter of the undead.
With my friends beside me, knowing who and what I was and not caring nor judging, I felt free. For less than ten minutes of hard effort, we cleared the area at the front of the cottage and soon stood panting in the snow, surrounded by the stinking corpses of the fallen dead.
I shared a grin and a rare moment of camaraderie with my friends before the tiredness came, that exhaustion that you could only feel after such a burst of adrenaline and all I wanted to do was sit down and rest.
“You guys had fun then.” Lily said as she tramped through the snow to join us with Cass following behind.
“A nice workout.” Pat grunted as Gregg laughed.
“We have a few hours of daylight lef
t at best.” Lily said as she gave my hand a squeeze and flashed that private smile for me alone, “We have to decide. Head out now or wait until morning.”
“As much as I dislike the idea of traipsing around the snow and zombie covered countryside in the dark, we can’t stay here.” I said with a nod towards the cottage. ”We barely managed to avoid being zombie chow today and I don’t like the idea of waking tomorrow with even more at our door.”
With murmurs of agreement from the others, Lily shrugged.
“Ok then, let’s head north.”
“I have an idea.” I said with a grin.
Chapter 9
Pat followed along behind me through the snow covered trees, our breath forming a mist ahead of us and the only sounds the crunch of the snow beneath our feet and the distant moans of the undead.
After no small amount of argument, Lily had agreed with my plan and she, Cass and Gregg had headed away to the northwest which would hopefully be a safer route. That left Pat and me trailing behind the horde of zombies with the intention of thinning out the pack as best we could.
My plan was audacious, dangerous and entirely too reliant on factors beyond my control, but it would certainly be a great deal more fun than arriving back at the apartments to find them devoid of life.
We found the first of the trailing undead as we scrambled up a steep wooded slope. The frail sunlight had long since disappeared behind a cloud but I could tell from the lengthening shadows beneath the trees, night was almost upon us.
I glanced back at Pat and put one finger to my lips, a warning to stay quiet that he most likely didn’t need. The look he gave me would certainly indicate that anyway. I grinned and raised my knife before creeping up the slope as swiftly and as silently as I could without slipping in the soft snow.
Typically my foot slipped just as I reached for the zombie and as I fell forward, my hand on the creature’s throat dragged it backwards. The carefully aimed knife blow missed and I fought back the sudden urge to pray to a deity I didn’t believe in that the zombie wouldn’t make a noise.
Pat was there with his hammer to cave in the side of its skull before it could let out a moan and I shrugged the stinking corpse off of my back from where it had landed, no doubt leaking all kinds of foul fluid over my clothes.
I gave a nod of thanks to Pat as I climbed to my feet and swore silently at the snow, the trees and life in general that saw me trying to ply my most favourite pastime in the midst of a snow covered forest.
We encountered another zombie as we crested the top of the hill and a swift strike with my knife ended its feeble excuse for a life before it could raise its voice in alarm. Pat struck down the next as it appeared from behind a tree.
For the next hour we moved through the trees and bushes as we searched for the solitary zombies that were trailing the main pack. The ones that were too damaged or stupid to keep up with the main horde.
It worked well enough until I was pulling my knife blade from the back of the skull it had lodged in just as a pair of zombies seemed to appear from the darkness that surrounded us.
Pat was fast enough to swing his hammer and connect solidly with the face of the first zombie, smashing what remained of its teeth and jaw whilst driving most of the bone of its septum into its brain with a fair amount of force.
The second undead creature let out a dreadfully loud moan that echoed from the trees around us and was soon answered from all directions. I stuck my blade through its eye before it could raise its voice a second time but the damage was done.
I shrugged in answer to Pats unspoken question and paused as I listened to the moans that were rising again and again around us. It seemed any direction would be as good and as dangerous as the next, so I set off at an increased pace to the east and towards the lake.
We gave up on the pretence of stealth and jogged through the woods, avoiding the denser undergrowth that could hide any number of monsters. Darkness had settled around us fully and the only light we had was provided by the glow of the moon and stars reflected on the snow. It wasn’t enough.
Every tree, every branch and every bush cast shadows that became monsters in our minds. The gentle wind that was blowing was enough to cause those branches to move which only made it harder to ascertain what was a real threat and what wasn’t.
Pat called out as what we had taken to be a fallen branch turned out to be the arm of a zombie that was crawling through the snowy undergrowth. He kicked out and I heard something break and could only hope that it was the zombies face and not his foot. Friend or not, I couldn’t carry him through the woods and survive myself.
I leapt to his aid and kicked out at the hand that was holding firmly to his leg. Several fingers snapped with an audible crack and I helped pull him to his feet. Ignoring the zombie that was already wailing the dinner bell, we carried on through the brush.
We rounded a tree and barrelled straight into a group of eight zombies, Pat collided with one and they both crashed to the ground taking another two with them. I slid to a stop and thrust my knife up beneath the jaw of the closest zombie, piercing the brain and ending its life.
As I retrieved my knife I lashed out with one booted foot and swept the legs out from beneath another zombie as Pat used a combination of fist and hammer to batter the skulls of those he had fallen amongst.
Another blow from my knife to the back of the head of a zombie that was trying to chew through Pat’s jeans with thankfully too few remaining teeth to fully accomplish the task in time, then I swung around to punch the next in the face.
Several curse words flew from my mouth as I felt something break in my hand from hitting the thick skull and I thrust my knife through the offending creature’s eye with all the irritated force I could muster.
Pat had extricated himself from the pile of corpses and with one hefty swing, caved in the head of the last remaining standing zombie while I pulled free my knife and turned to the one I had knocked to the ground.
It reached for me with claw like hands and I kicked them aside with a sneer for the pathetic creature that lay before me, barely able to rise from the snow. I ended its poor imitation of life with one strike from my knife and turned to Pat.
“Did it break the skin?” I asked with a gesture to his jeans where the zombie had been gnawing.
“I don’t think so,” He said as he felt at the material, unable to see in the dim light. “My leg hurts but I think you got to it in time.”
“Let’s hope so.” I said grimly and he nodded once. He knew what I’d have to do.
Drawing on what little energy we had left we continued on through the darkened woods, avoiding the thicker undergrowth wherever possible and careful to watch where we were going. We’d been lucky and that last group we had come across could have easily been the death of us.
We’d no further encounters by the time we met the lake shore and turned back to the north. My thinking being that if we found more zombies than we could handle we could always risk the freezing waters if nothing else.
The going was slow and when the road finally veered back towards the edge of the lake where we walked, we were fighting exhaustion from crossing the rough terrain.
“How far?” Pat asked wearily.
“Not far now.” I assured him, “This road leads straight to the apartments.”
“Looks like we aren’t far behind the main horde.” Pat said, with a nod towards the churned slush of the road that had been caused by the hundreds of undead feet. “They’ll still be there before us.”
“Well we can only hope that they have guards out.” I said.
The sky was lightening with the approach of dawn as we continued wearily along the road when we heard the first gun shots from ahead of us.
Pat and I both looked at each other and by unspoken agreement, drew on the last reserves of energy to increase our pace.
Behind us fresh moans could be heard in answer to the sounds of the guns and I knew that
however many had broken away from the main group would be drawn straight to the apartments. I swore as I realised that that would put us smack in the middle of two groups of zombies.
We began to find more zombies travelling singly or in small groups along the road as they hurried the best they could on damaged limbs towards the ever closer sounds of gunfire. We despatched each as we came upon them, fighting the exhaustion that returned with ever more force after each surge of adrenaline.
Pat’s hammer seemed to weigh him down and he frequently needed more than one swing to batter through a zombie’s defences while I had noticed my own, once efficient strikes were more often than not, off the mark.
I was no longer even sure why we were rushing towards the sounds of battle since we would be so exhausted once we arrived as to be nearly useless.
The road was fast becoming blocked by the shamblers as they walked along it, all the while keeping a respectful distance from the lakes edge. Rather than be noticed by them and quickly devoured, I led the way up the slope at the left hand side of the road and into the trees.
We shadowed the road as best we could all of the way to where the road split off towards the apartments and there they were, my former group mates under siege. I would have been inclined to gloat if I wasn’t all too aware that Lily would expect me to help them.
I glanced across at Pat and saw distress as he watched the people he had fought and lived beside, gathering behind their all too flimsy fence and preparing for the fight to come. He wouldn’t just let me sit and watch them die, so it seemed that I would need to come up with a plan.
Chapter 10
In just the few days since my exile from the group, things had changed significantly. The fence had been reinforced though I still had my doubts about its ability to hold off the horde that was swelling in number before it.
Someone had taken the bright idea of parking one of the abandoned cars behind it which served two purposes. It provided a great deal more stability for the fence and it allowed half a dozen people armed with the assault rifles taken from the deserters, to take shots at the zombies.
Killing the Dead (Books 4-6) Page 33