Killing the Dead (Season 2 | Book 2): Dark and Deadly Land (2 page)

I held him as he died and while I felt less joy with his death than I had at Amy’s, I did feel a great deal of satisfaction.

Chapter 2 - Lily

“How bloody long does it take to do… that,” Gregg muttered for the seventh or perhaps eighth time.

He glanced again at the house, up to the rooms where those two who had hurt so many of our people, were being kept prisoner. His leg was shaking, his shoe beating against the ground as he chewed on one nail.

“It’ll take as long as it takes,” I said as I laid my hand on his arm and gently pulled his hand away from his mouth. Not the best idea to be chewing on your fingernails these days when you spent your days elbow deep in infected zombie blood.

“Dunno how you can be so calm about it.”

I shrugged and threaded my fingers through his, a convenient way to keep his hand away from his mouth and provide comfort at the same time. “It’s pretty amazing what you can get used to.”

“Maybe.”

The sun was well above the horizon and for once we had no rain and almost clear skies. We were midway through February and spring seemed to have come a little early. Fresh flowers poked through the grass, bright specks of colour amidst the dull green and yellow of the grass that covered the hillside. It was pleasant, almost enough to make me think that the world hadn’t ended last year.

“Fuck man,” Gregg said. His palm was damp despite the still cool days we had and he seemed to be looking everywhere but at me.

“What’s wrong?”

“This!” he said as he waved his free hand at the house. “What he’s doing in there while we sit out here with nothing but the pigs and the stench of death.”

I glanced back to the two remaining pigs that were wallowing happily in the muck of their improvised pen that had once been the garden of the house. The wooden shed at the far end of the garden was missing its door and its straw covered floor had been where they slept at night.

“Why is this a problem now?” I asked. “You know what he is.”

“Yeah but, I dunno,” he exhaled and his shoulders slumped as he stared down at the ground. “Sometimes you forget, you know?”

He’d always been the one who’d struggled most with finding out who or perhaps more appropriately, what, Ryan was. His sister Cass and our friend Pat had both adapted quickly to the idea of his being a serial killer. They’d seen the benefits of having him on our side during the zombie apocalypse. Gregg though, well his reaction had been coloured by the obvious crush he’d had on Ryan.

“I understand,” I gave his hand a quick squeeze and he glanced up at me. “Even at his most dour he can be charming and you forget about this side of him.”

“I’ve seen him kill people…”

“It’s different though,” I interrupted gently. “Seeing him kill during a fight is one thing. Knowing he is up there, with two bound and helpless prisoners…. Well, it’s a whole different thing.”

“And when you know he’s enjoying himself,” Gregg said with a shudder. “I can’t understand it. I know it’s necessary and I like the guy… but… this is just too fucking weird.”

My smile slipped a little and I forced it back onto my face. That the two people in that house needed to die was not in question. The things they had done, the people they had killed, it was more than justified. I just wished he didn’t take so much pleasure in it.

The next sigh that sounded was mine. I’d been forced to kill to defend my people. Worse than that I had killed sleeping men, held them down and sliced my blade across their throats. I wouldn’t ever tell him, but every night since then I’d woken up in a cold sweat as I saw their faces in my dreams.

I’d touched - oh so briefly - that cold and dark place that you needed to be part of to be able to kill someone in cold blood. To be able to murder someone. Frankly it scared the hell out of me and the fact that Ryan lived in that place, it was part of him all the time. Well, that scared me even more.

No wonder he found pleasure in those deaths. Every time he killed he was allowed out of that darkness and into the light. All too brief to be sure, but for that short time after a kill, he was alive.

I would be lying to myself if I said it didn’t scare me, these feelings I had for him. God! If someone had told me a year ago that the world would end and the man I loved and trusted more than any other was a serial killer, I would have laughed in their face.

“Where’s Toby?” Gregg asked, his voice breaking into my thoughts. I shook my head to indicate I didn’t know.

“He said something about looking at those tracks,” I said.

“Ah right, as if our friend killing two people in the house wasn’t creepy enough we have that as well.”

My gaze went to the gouges in the mud near the house. They just looked like small holes with a little left over rain water to me but according to Ryan, and Toby agreed, they were tracks left by someone or something that had crossed that area.

Not usually anything to worry about but Ryan seemed to believe they were left by one of the feral zombies. Those undead creatures that were different to the usual slow, stumbling and above all, stupid zombie.

The Feral ones were agiler and possessed a basic but malicious cunning. Also, if what the others had seen when they’d gone to Coniston was any indication, they fed on the other undead when no humans could be found.

Ryan seemed to believe that the zombie he’d had locked in the cellar here had escaped and rather than rush in like any other zombie would have, it had waited close by and watched him. It had come to the house during the night when he slept and by all accounts, even attempted to use the door handle.

He hadn’t seen it despite trying and since Toby was an excellent woodsman and tracker he had decided to take a look. To be fair he also preferred to avoid Ryan since their last encounter had been when Toby had tried to kill him and ended up with a nasty scar on his throat.

Not that Ryan held a grudge. Weirdly, despite his willingness to kill and the pleasures he gained from that, he didn’t hold it against someone that they had tried to kill him. If they tried again he would no doubt stop them permanently but so long as they left him alone, he saw no real need in revenge for the attempt, so long as they were useful to him.

At first, I thought it was because of the promise I’d made him make all those months ago. That promise not to kill anyone who was innocent, but I soon realised that in his mind, trying to kill him would make them far from innocent. It was just a quirk of his personality and one of those things that allowed me to love him. Without those quirks, he would be a monster, but for whatever reason he wasn’t quite there.

Gregg nudged me and pointed to the back door of the house with his chin. “He’s here.”

He walked through the doorway and out into the sunshine, raising one hand to shade his eyes for a moment as he took a cautious look around. A search for danger or potential enemies that he did even in the midst of our island where, until recently, no danger had ever come.

His dark hair was in need of a trim and several days’ growth covered his chin. His eyes were the pale blue of summer skies and were usually kept guarded as though afraid of anyone seeing beyond them to the man who hid behind that charming and quiet exterior.

Satisfied that no danger was nearby his eyes fell on the two of us and I like to think that the smile that formed was for me more than Gregg. He came towards us across the damp mud and grass, each step placed with care. Every time I watched him walk, his movements reminded me of a tiger I’d once seen on a nature documentary as it stalked its prey. Powerful and full of danger, muscles coiled as though ready to spring into action at any moment.

A shiver ran through me. I could easily imagine how terrifying it would be to have someone like him hunting you and I couldn’t help but wonder if the danger was part of what attracted me to him.

“All done mate?” Gregg asked as Ryan joined us at the wall. He nodded sharply, one simple movement that said so much and I shivered again at what I read there.

His gaze caught mine and I detected a hint of, not quite concern but more curiosity as he noticed my reaction. I forced my lips into a smile and tried not to see the darkness that lurked behind his eyes.

“Everything okay out here?” he asked, his voice low but somehow demanding a response.

“It’s fine,” I said. “Been a rough few days is all.”

“They… erm… did they turn?” Gregg asked.

“Yes.”

No more than that, just a single word that said they’d turned into zombies and he’d killed them for the second time.

“So if we eat meat from animals that have eaten infected flesh,” I began. “We’re not going to turn into a zombie unless we die?”

“Seems that way,” Ryan answered with a smile. “Perhaps given more time and a steady diet of the meat they would have turned anyway. I would suggest we keep a limit on how much we consume at any one time.”

“Maybe the navy scientists will have answers,” Gregg said with a great deal more hope than I could muster.

“If they’re even there,” I said.

“You have doubts?”

“Of course I have doubts,” I said. “Becky thinks they were landing in Scotland but that was months ago. Anything could have happened since then.”

“Not to mention that a great many undead seem to be moving across the country,” Ryan added. “How many millions of them will the navy have had to face up there?”

“I guess we’ll find out soon,” I said with a smile as I released Gregg’s hand and pushed myself up from the wall. “We should head back to the island, we’ll be moving out tomorrow.”

“So soon?”

“Afraid so. Becky is keen to get moving and to be honest, the supplies at the island are low. Those few survivors from Coniston don’t come near to making up for the number we lost to Marcus’s group but still, the sooner we can get some help the better.”

“You think that’ll happen?” Gregg asked as he moved away from the wall. He very carefully avoided looking at Ryan. A fact that had been noticed and was likely the cause of the wry smile on his face.

“No,” Ryan said and I looked at him sharply.

“What do you mean no?”

“If the Navy are indeed there then they will have been under siege for the past few months at worst. At best, they will have had hundreds of thousands, if not millions of refugees to care for. I highly doubt we will be welcomed.”

“We need to do something.”

“You won’t like it,” he said and I could feel a frown forming. He was likely right. “We go up there and if they are unwilling to help, we take what we need and come back.”

“That won’t happen,” I said firmly. He just smiled and I swore quietly. “We’ll figure something out. There’s a long way to go before we get there anyway.”

“Weeks of hiking and sleeping rough even before this,” Gregg said. “My mate did it once. Decided he wanted to do a walking trip. It was either down to Cornwall or up to Scotland. He chose Scotland.”

“How did it go?”

“A couple of weeks of constant walking and sleeping in a tent. He gave up around Glasgow but to be fair I think he got lost for part of it.”

“Helpful,” Ryan said quietly and Gregg’s cheeks darkened.

“It’s going to be around three hundred miles,” I said before Gregg could respond. “Rough terrain with only the food and water we can carry. We aren’t exactly well nourished after the winter and each day we’ll need to take the time to find somewhere safe to rest. Most days we’ll need to scavenge food and find water too. I would be surprised if we managed five miles a day.”

“You’re joking,” Gregg said. His expression was the same look of shock I’d worn when it had been explained to me.

“It took us nearly five days for the last round trip to Coniston,” Ryan said. “That village is around twelve miles away, though we went a little further up into the mountains and the return journey was well out of our way.”

“Crap! What about cars?”

“Roads packed with abandoned vehicles and the undead, the noise alone would draw them in their hundreds and that’s if you can find one in working condition,” Ryan said.

“Petrol will be going bad by now if it hasn’t already,” I added. “Diesel will last longer but unless it’s treated the fuel will be useless.”

“Then why the hell are we going?” He said as he threw his hands in the air. A touch dramatic I thought but understandable.

“Your sister needs a doctor,” I said softly. “A pregnancy is risky enough under normal conditions and these aren’t that. Not to mention she is immune to the zombie infection and we need to find out if they can use her blood to either find a cure or at least make a test so we know who else could be.”

“Shouldn’t be too bad,” Ryan said. “A small group who knows what they’re doing. We can find some maps on the way. I know the area around Dumfries so if we can make it there I know a few places that will have maps.”

“You know the area?” I said. He’d never mentioned that.

“My grandparents lived in the area and I was required to visit quite often,” he said and I blinked.

“I didn’t know that. Do you have other family there?”

“Probably,” he said. “My brother worked in Dumfries. He moved up there with my parents when they went to look after my grandparents.”

“You have family up there? We can check on them, see if they survived,” I said with rising excitement.

“Why?” he asked with a genuinely curious expression. It was another reminder of how different he was and I was taken aback for a moment, rendered speechless as I struggled to express why it was important in a way he would understand.

“Because… well, because…” I looked to Gregg for support but he just shook his head and looked away. “We just will okay.”

“If you want to,” he said before he gestured back towards the house. “Toby’s back, let’s grab the pigs and head back to the island.”

Gregg patted me gently on the shoulder as he walked past me and I knew that I likely looked a fool. Stood there with my mouth open and nothing coming out. He could have family who survived. The chances were low admittedly but still, how could he not be excited by the chance?

More to the point, Dumfries was only about ninety miles from the island. Hardly far but he’d not once mentioned that his family might be so close. I shook my head and followed after them as they joined Toby. Whether he understood or not, I knew it was important to check. I just had to show him that.