Killing the Dead (Book 10): Feral

by Murray, Richard

The ground beside the road rose several metres to form an embankment and along the top of that were the train tracks that ran parallel to the road. A low barbed wire fence was the only barrier between the road and the tracks through the tangled grass, weed and scrub bushes that ran the length of the embankment were almost as high as the fence. I couldn’t see what was on the other side of the embankment and that immediately set my teeth on edge.

  A quick check of my weapons, combat knife in its sheath and the horseman’s axe I’d appropriated from the museum back at the castle, and I was good to go. I dropped lightly to the road and ignored the curious looks and my idiot brothers attempt to describe his plan as I climbed awkwardly over the fence and pushed through the weeds towards the rail line.

  “See anything?” Pat asked in a too loud whisper as he clambered noisily up the slope behind me. I grunted a quick reply as I waved him to silence and focused on the other side of the embankment.

  More fields and what I presumed to be the river Annan that wound its way towards the coast in the far distance. Perhaps a kilometre away was a large industrial type building situated alongside the river. No idea what was produced there but I could just about make out the shapes of abandoned cars around the building and what I assumed were undead standing around them.

  Since the land was reasonably flat, I could trace the open fields all the way back to some kind of forest to the west and to the east, on the other side of the river was the town of Annan. The tail end of it anyway, as the majority of the town seemed to be on the northern side of the tracks.

  Closer to hand, a few scattered groups of shamblers appeared to be moving sluggishly through the mud-choked fields. None close enough that I needed to use my axe on them and certainly none close enough to actually notice us. Slightly disappointing but I imagined that the town would have ample undead for me to amuse myself with.

  “Road curves to the north and swings back round to the east as it enters the town,” I said to Pat. “These tracks cross the river and heads straight through the town with one station there.”

  “Yeah, that’s what Gabe just said, what’s your point?”

  “Either way we travel we’ll need to cross a bridge to get in or out,” I continued without glancing his way. “The rivers too wide to wade and no telling what’s beneath those murky waters.”

  “Okay…”

  “The point,” I said as I finally turned to look towards him. “Is that once we enter the town we’ll have two ways out only. That’s going to make it very easy to get trapped by the undead.”

  “Bugger!” he sucked in a deep breath as he grasped my meaning. Finally. “So what do we do?”

  “Train tracks look clear at least until they enter the town proper,” I said and raised one arm to point along the tracks towards the clusters of houses at the edge of town. “Can just make out the back end of a train just beyond the houses.”

  “I see it.”

  “My suggestion would be to check out the state of the bridge to the north and if clear, we enter there and move southwards through the town towards these tracks to give us a clear exit back across the river if we need it.”

  “Sounds like a plan but why tell me?”

  His face bore such a look of confusion that I couldn’t help the smile that formed. He was a good friend and fierce fighter when required, but he wasn’t a great thinker.

  “My brother distrusts and dislikes me. If I suggest it to him then he will immediately argue or do the opposite just to prove some point. Likewise, if it came from Lily. Her closeness with me immediately diminishes the value of her advice to him.”

  “That’s messed up mate,” he said and scratched at the back of his head with one large hand as he glanced back down at the gathered people. “Won’t that be the same for me though?”

  “No,” I said and narrowed my eyes as I met my brother’s gaze. He flushed and quickly glanced away. “Say it loud enough around the others and explain it as I have just done. They will see the value of it.”

  “You think?”

  “Of course,” I said. They would listen and be open to the idea because it came from Pat. The pleasant natured man who rarely had a bad word to say about anyone and was always the first to offer help when needed.

  Since the fight in the castle courtyard, he’d used his strength and almost endless stamina to help clear the corpses. For days, he fed the pyres and worked tirelessly to secure the castle once more. Even one as dense to such things as I was could see that the people respected him in a way that they never would me.

  No matter what I did, the people I saved, the enemies I killed, I simply wasn’t the type of person one could easily trust. More than once I’d heard the whispered conversation stop as I came close, the sideways looks and the fear in their faces.

  Once upon a time I’d been better at hiding my true self, I’d lived amongst the sheep, hidden in plain sight and preyed upon them at my leisure. Since the fall of that old world, I had let my true nature come to the fore and it seemed that no matter how I tried to hide it, some part of me was always visible. The persona I’d created as camouflage for the old world, no longer suited the new and my difference was being noted more often.

  My brother saw it, I was sure. His behaviour around me was not just due to his shame at having abandoned me to die. No, there was something else in his eyes when he looked at me. The same thing that lurked behind my sister’s gaze.

  I descended the embankment and clambered once more over the fence as Pat finished his pitch. Lily glanced my way, a smile coming easily to her lips as her eyes met mine and I responded in kind as I crossed to join her.

  “Makes sense,” someone said as Pat stopped speaking. He held himself rigid, looking at my brother and clearly avoiding looking at me. Duplicity was not his strong suit.

  “Who knows the town?” Cass asked as she looked around at the gathered people. A few hands were raised and she pointed at one of them, a tall fellow with ridiculous dreadlocks that were bound to get him killed when we engaged in battle. “What do you think?”

  “Well,” he said shyly as he scratched at his grey stubbled jaw. “There’s an industrial estate behind the train station, swimming pool beside it and a school opposite it.”

  “What’s on the industrial estate?” Cass asked.

  “Royal mail sorting centre,” he replied. “Not sure what else.”

  “Could be useful to check that place out,” Lily whispered to me and I nodded.

  “Just over the bridge into town though,” the other man continued. “There’s a pharmacy, medical centre, restaurants, cafés and bars. Even a bank, though that’s probably no use to us now.”

  A few chuckles were raised with that and I felt a frown form before I stopped it. Why was that funny?

  “There’s also a supermarket,” he said.

  “Then Pat’s right,” Cass said firmly. “We need to go that way and work our way south.”

  “What was it like when you came through Martin?” Lily asked the dreadlocked man. I barely blinked at her use of his name. Of course, she knew who he was. She had this habit of finding out things about people because it interested her for some bizarre reason.

  “Bedlam,” he said and his eyes took on a distant look as though he could see once again that time. “The roads were blocked with cars and people were screaming and running everywhere. Trying to get out, trying to be safe. Those… those… zombies,” he almost spat the word, “wouldn’t let up and it was a slaughter.”

  More than one of my companions looked down or away, anywhere but at each other as they all seemed to struggle with their own memories dredged up by his words. I held back a sigh and pushed back down the flash or irritation.

  “Then the undead will be thick in that area,” Gabe said with a touch of smug superiority in his voice as though he thought he’d won. “We start and the south end and work our way slowly along the edges.”

  “Where we’ll have to settle with lootin
g houses,” I snapped. My fingers twitched against the handle of my knife as I rested my hand against it and the urge to strike at something, anything, was almost impossible to ignore. “A pointless endeavour and total waste of time that we do not have.”

  “What do you suggest then?” he replied with anger adding force to his words. “Walk into the town and just try and kill everything? Grow up! We can’t take on thousands of them.”

  “How about,” Lily said as she stepped forward, purposefully putting herself between him and me. “How about, we let Charlie use her drone to get us a clearer idea of what we face?”

  All eyes turned to the dark skinned girl in the wheelchair who clasped her cloth covered burden tightly and shrugged. “There’s fuck all sunlight to recharge it and the camera will be crap in the rain. If we use it now, we won’t have much power left for emergencies.”

  “Use it,” Lily said and was immediately overruled by my brother.

  “Wait,” he said with a look to Lily that had my fingers curling around the knife hilt. “You’re not in charge here. You don’t get to just give orders.”

  “Really?” she said and smiled sweetly at him. “Do please forgive me. What do you think we should do? Walk in blind or take an advanced look before we rush in?”

  His eyes darted from face to face of the people around us as though gauging their mood. Even I could see that more than one face bore amusement and his cheeks flushed as he realised he was stuck. Issue the same command as Lily had or let everyone know his pride was worth putting them in danger. Either way, his authority had just taken a large hit and he wasn’t happy about that.

  “Just bloody do it,” he snapped at Charlie and turned away.

  “Yes sir, boss man,” she replied with a cheeky grin flashed to Lily who at least had the good grace to keep her own amusement from her face.

  The girl carefully unwrapped the drone, all the while muttering to herself as she looked at the overcast sky. Flying it in the rain wouldn’t be great but it had at least let up a little so that it was just a light shower and not the downpour of earlier.

  She tapped Gregg on the arm and he nodded morosely as he picked the drone from her lap and set it on the road before gesturing the people around to move back to give it space. Once he’d done that, he stuck his hands in his jacket pockets, baseball bat cradled beneath his arm and steadfastly refused to look at anyone. I idly wondered what his problem was but quickly dismissed the thought. If it was important then Lily would deal with it.

  Charlie lifted the controller and the drone whirred to life. The quad rotors audible even over the hushed murmurs of the expectant group. With her tongue protruding from between her lips and eyes fixed on the display screen of the controller, the drone shot up into the air.

  With deft hand movements she guided the drone towards the town and since there was little to see from my position, I turned away, already bored as the others crowded behind her in an effort to see what the camera mounted beneath the drone sent back.

  I scanned the area around us, head swivelling in an almost automatic way, barely requiring conscious effort to keep a watchful eye on my surroundings. Nothing in sight. No zombies wandering our way eager to feast, no ragged survivors trying to steal our belongings, nothing of interest at all. I held back a sigh and then I noticed it. A palpable change in the air and I turned back to the group.

  Lily glanced up and her eyes met mine as she gestured me to her side. Then she went back to watching the display that seemed to have everyone’s rapt attention. With a growing curiosity, I pushed through the crowd, for once pleased with the unconscious way people moved away from me since it meant I had an unobstructed view of the controller in the girl’s hands.

  “Well isn’t that interesting,” I said as I leant forward to better see.

  “That’s not the word I’d bloody use,” Pat said and my lips formed a silent smile as excitement grew within me.

  “You know what this means?” I asked and I could practically feel the fear rolling through the people around me.

  “Ferals,” Lily said softly and I uttered a low laugh as I watched the camera feed as the drone flew over an almost endless carpet of bones that filled the road.

  Chapter 6 – Ryan

  The town was a mausoleum for the dead. Greystone buildings, once filled with life, had become tombs. That wasn’t to say that there were no undead shambling around its streets and gardens. No, it was just that the main road through the town was filled with bones and not a zombie in sight.

  Charlie had used the last of the drone’s power surveying the town. In fact, she’d used so much of the power that she’d been forced to land it outside the supermarket that was our goal rather than bring it all the way back to where we waited.

  What she had seen during that flight was a whole lot of bones and not a single Feral. Many of the homes to the south still had their undead occupants. Their gardens and suburban streets had undead shambling along in that quiet, aimless way they had when no prey was in sight. What she didn’t find was the living.

  As best I could tell from the images I’d seen, many of the people who had died and been reanimated back when they were all rushing to get out of town, had, in fact, stayed in the same place. Lining the roads between the cars and abandoned belongings. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them had waited for some signal, some sign of prey, to get them moving. I guessed that signal had never come.

  Instead, something or perhaps some things had slaughtered them where they stood and feasted. One of the girls, I didn’t know nor care to know, her name, had asked with a tremor in her voice if perhaps it had been the army who had come through. Some of the others had latched to that thought and held on to it right up until we crossed the bridge and beheld those first teeth gnawed bones. That’s when they’d wanted to head back.

  “These bones are old,” I said as I let the skull drop back to the ground. Most of the flesh had been stripped from it and the eyes had gone along with the lower portion of the jaw. From what I could tell though the skull was intact and I couldn’t help but wonder if that meant the brain was still active.

  “How old?” Becky asked. Her nasal tones had become particularly grating since she’d begun spending her nights in my brother's bed. She was firmly on his side and considering what she knew of me, I had to wonder what she’d told him.

  “Old enough.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “From before the snow last year,” I said with a shrug and rose to my feet as I brushed my hands against my jeans. “It must have been early on because they didn’t have time to wander.”

  “We should head back,” one of the girls said. Short hair and dimples with a burn mark just visible on her neck beneath her collar. Nat, I think she’d been called.

  “She’s right,” Becky said and I glanced at her from the corner of my eye. She had a firm grip on my brother’s hand and I shook my head slightly.

  “Leave now and we delay our departure north,” I said before adding, “or does that no longer matter to you?”

  Her flush was momentarily satisfying and I didn’t need to turn to feel Lily’s look of annoyance. It always irritated her when I goaded the others and try as I might, I couldn’t quite stop. They irked me and I was looking forward to a time when we would be just a small group once again.

  “There’s a Farm Direct just up the road,” Martin said. “We can check that out at least and see if they have anything left.”

  “Pharmacy too,” Pat said with a nod to a building a hundred feet from where we stood. The windows were broken but there was a good chance it hadn’t been looted if there were a load of zombies standing around outside it since the town fell.

  Gabe chewed his lip as he stared along the road, indecision plain on his face. Lily was entirely better suited to lead and it was bothersome that she seemed inclined to let idiots take charge. Her ability to act under pressure was admirable. My eyes met hers and I tilted my head towards my
brother. She rolled her eyes but she understood.

  “There’s a pub here,” she said and pointed to the building just behind us. Its sign said it was “the Blue Bell” and one side faced the road while the other, the river. The doors were open and we’d taken a brief look inside to ensure it was clear before gathering outside it.

  “We use this as a base of operations,” she continued. “Close enough to the bridge that we can get out and from here we can head outwards looking for supplies. At the first sign of trouble, we can be across the bridge.”

  “Makes sense,” Cass agreed loyally and several heads nodded their own agreement.

  “Fine,” my brother said though his lips pursed as though he’d tasted something sour. “We’ll try it.”

  “Sooner we get this done the better,” Georgia said. “This whole place stinks.”

  As if to emphasise her words she wrinkled her nose and pressed the back of her hand over her mouth. A little theatrical but it made the point I supposed. She wasn’t wrong either. It was surprising how soon you became almost used to the ever present stench of rot and decay that accompanied the zombies but in Annan was another odour, one that stung your nose with every breath, the taste of it lingering in the back of your throat.

  I’d smelt it before, back at the hospital, the foul odour of thousands of rats. The evidence of their presence was everywhere and I guessed that they had feasted on the fallen zombies as much as any Feral’s had. If nothing else, it meant that we’d need to be extra careful. The diseases they carried with them were bad enough when you had access to ready medicine and antibiotics. In our current state, it would be deadly.

  “Okay then,” Gabriel said. He stepped forward as all eyes turned to him and he looked round the group, lips moving as he counted heads. “Charlie and Becky can stay with me here.”

  I glanced at Lily who shook her head as her brow furrowed. I closed my mouth and swallowed back what I had been about to say as he continued.

  “Martin and Zak, you two go back and get the truck. Bring it as close as possible to the bridge. In fact, take Leo too and shift some of these cars if you can.”