Family Matters: Season 2 Book 3 (Killing the Dead 9) (12 page)

“Go on,” I said.

“Well since wherever I go I tend to visit the hospital thanks to my accident,” she patted her legs and tilted her head to one side as she looked at me. “I spent a lot of time at that place.”

Her smile widened at my frown as though she could read my mind and see that I was starting to grasp what she meant.

“I know that place like the back of my hand. I was there when the first people were getting sick and I was there when the soldiers came. I know how to get in and where to go and I also know where the most of those sick patients were.”

“If you slow me down I’ll leave you for dead,” I said and she laughed as she knew she’d won. Gregg had the foresight to turn away to hide his smirk. “If you help me accomplish my task though, I’ll get you back to the Sanctuary.”

“Right on,” she said before looking at Gregg. “You wanna go get your boyfriend out of bed and tell him we need to gather our stuff.”

“Will do,” he said and almost ran up the stairs as she turned back to me.

“You need to help me get back up the stairs.”

“I knew you couldn’t do it yourself,” I said with a scowl that only made her laugh harder.

      
      
      
      
      
****

The scrape of her chairs wheels on the tarmac soon began to grate and I had frequent cause to scowl in her direction. Not that she seemed to care, chatting quietly with her friend as they walked, she ignored me.

To be fair, being ignored didn’t bother me. Having to potentially save her life because she brought the attention of the zombies on us, was. It didn’t help that the road we walked along was mostly empty of people, living or undead.

Fir trees, tall enough to hide pretty much everything from view, lined each side of the road. On our left, a fence made of iron poles prevented us leaving the road while on the right, a wooden fence stopped us wandering into the grass covered fields beyond.

Occasional cars, covered in dust, old leaves and other debris, were common and the closer we went to the town centre, the more cars we saw. Most of them had been abandoned, a few had been parked at the side of the road as though the owners thought they’d come back for them. Or perhaps they just hadn’t realised it was a habit that was no longer needed in the new world.

I kept ahead of the two younger members of our group, though that meant I had to walk quite quickly since Charlie could move at a fair pace in her chair. Gregg kept up with me and seemed happy to walk along in silence though he did keep looking at me from the corner of his eye when he thought I wasn’t watching.

“What?” I asked after he looked at me once more.

“Nothing,” he said and fell silent once more as I sighed.

“You clearly have something to say,” I pointed out quietly as I looked into a car we passed. Nothing exciting had been left, empty bottles and food wrappers, the usual. “So say it.”

He hesitated and said, “You think we should see if we can find a car that works?”

It was clearly not what he’d been meaning to say and I glared at him. I really wasn’t in the mood and besides which, he knew as well as I did that the chances of finding a working car was possible but not relevant at that moment.

“Fine,” he said and looked away. “Back there…”

“At the hotel?”

“Yeah, when you saw me in the room with… you know, Reece.” He glanced back over his shoulder to make sure we were far enough ahead that they couldn’t hear. He still lowered his voice further. “Thanks for not making a big deal of it.”

“About what?”

“You know,” he said and looked at me expectantly as though I would have any idea about what he was trying to say. Not for the first time since leaving the castle, I wished Lily was with me to decipher this nonsense. If he was about to talk about his feelings there was a very real chance that I would lose my temper.

The darkness was there, just below the surface and it ached to be released. For me to draw my knife and spill the blood of the living, to feel that surge of joy at the taking of a life. I exhaled slowly and unclenched my fists before turning my mind away from that dangerous line of thinking.

“I really don’t know,” I admitted. Up ahead a couple of figures were moving between the cars with the familiar disjointed walk of the undead.

“Oh for fu…” he paused before he finished and looked back over his shoulder again before back at me. I looked at Jinx who was walking along silently beside me but she was no help. “About me sleeping with Reece,” he hissed.

“Why would I care who you slept with?”

His laughter caught me by surprise. It was low and filled with bitterness, which was one of those rare things I could recognise. Of course, I had no idea why it was full of bitterness but at least it was a start.

“Some people would,” he said. “Fuck! It’s, I guess it’s just good to know that you really don’t.”

“Okay,” I said and hoped that he was finished. The zombies were moving closer and soon they would notice us and I would get to kill them. I pulled my knife out ready. Gregg noticed and lifted his bat from his shoulder.

“I’ve lost friends before because they couldn’t handle that I was gay,” he continued and I held back a sigh. Jinx looked up at me and seemed to be wearing that canine equivalent of a grin at my plight. “My best friend, he…”

“One minute,” I said as I dashed forward and ran straight at the zombies. The dog stayed close to me and as we reached the undead, she leapt at the throat of the first, bowling it over.

I hopped over the two of them and grabbed the second by the throat, driving my knife down into its skull, blood spurting to cover my already soiled clothing. The one Jinx had knocked to the ground was struggling beneath her as she tore at its throat and I swiftly ended its faux life.

Gregg arrived a moment later and the others were coming close behind. I waved the dog away and turned to my friend, Pat's words of warning echoing through my mind. A reminder that I had agreed to at least try to be a better friend to them, which doubtless meant listening to their inane chatter when I really didn’t care.

“You were saying,” I said to him.

“It doesn’t matter mate,” he said with a sideways glance to the other two as they arrived. “Just glad you’re my friend is all.”

“Oh,” I said and turned to Charlie. “Good. Right then, how much farther to the hospital?”

“Those houses to the left of the road up ahead,” she said and pointed. They were about a hundred and fifty metres away. “Keep going past them for a few hundred metres and we’ll come to the driveway that the ambulances used to get to A&E and the eastern car park.”

“We don’t want to use that driveway since that will lead to where the undead are,” I pointed out and she grinned.

“Cut through the gardens of those houses and over the fence, then you’ll be on that open stretch of grass that surrounds the landing pad.”

“Okay,” I said as I considered our options.

Gregg was fine, he had his bat and I could trust him in a fight. Reece, the sandy-haired student had a butcher's knife in his hand and I had no idea how he would react or if he was any use. That, of course, meant that to me, he wasn’t.

Charlie was an immediate problem since she had limited mobility due to the chair and carried all of her belongings in a heavy duffel across her lap. No weapon in sight so not sure how well that would work for her but again, I couldn’t trust her in a fight just yet anyway. I did need her to get me to the drugs in the hospital though.

“This isn’t going to be easy and we’ll need to get the lay of the land first,” I said. “Gregg and me, we’ll clear the houses first to make sure we’ve no surprises and a direct route back. You two check the fence. See if you can make an opening and get me a count of any zombies on the landing field.”

“Sir, yes sir!” Charlie said and threw her hand up to press fingertips against her temple in a mock salute.

“Just great,” I said as I glanced at Gregg who shrugged.
I could really use Lily right now.

I stalked past them towards the houses and ignored the giggles and chatter from behind me. If they weren’t going to take it seriously then that just made it easier for me to leave them when the time came.

Just because I couldn’t specifically kill them, didn’t mean I couldn’t abandon them in the middle of a zombie infested hospital as soon as I had what I wanted.

We reached the houses in short time and I watched Reece and Charlie head around back while Gregg moved to the first door and twisted the handle. He shook his head to indicate it was locked and moved on to the next.

It didn’t take long to check the three houses. They were all single storey and we chose to ignore the first which had the locked door. The second was empty of life and even absent the stains and gouges in wood and plaster that had become so familiar. Whoever had lived there previously had taken all of their food when they left and anything else remotely useful to us.

As we walked through the door of the third house, Jinx bared her teeth in a silent snarl and I nodded to Gregg. With bat held ready, he took up position to protect my back as we moved through the house. The living room door hung open and I pushed it inward with one foot before stepping through and that’s where we found the zombie.

Emaciated, slow and utterly pathetic. It lay propped against the wall with wasted limbs and sunken cheeks. Its greying skin was torn in places and tiny gouges covered its bare flesh. The dark stain of old blood was around its mouth and covered its chin and it held something in one hand.

The creature seemed to struggle even to look at us and when it did, empty eye sockets were all we could see.

“It’s blind,” Gregg whispered and I nodded slowly as I crept closer. I waved Jinx back and she stood, hackles raised by the door with eyes fixed firmly on the undead creature. She obeyed though and that was what mattered.

I reached out with my free hand and my fingers hovered just over its skin. Closer to it, I could see that the gouges on its skin were bites and I suspected what had made them had fled at our entrance. My gaze moved over its tattered clothing, across its torn flesh, and down its arm to its hand and what it held.

Lightning fast my arm shot out and my blade sank into its already empty eye socket. Gregg jumped at the sudden movement and I held back a grin as I pulled clear the knife and stood.

“Let’s go,” I said.

“What the hell was that?” he demanded as I led the way back through the front door and pulled it closed behind me.

“Probably been there since the start,” I said. “No food, growing weaker as the winter wore on. It settled there and was too weak to do anything.”

“About what?”

“The rats,” I said as I thought back to the broken fur covered rodent body it held in one hand. “Judging by the number of bites and its missing eyes, I’d say a lot of rats.”

“Oh hell,” Gregg said, a look of horror crossing his face. “I hate rats.”

“Yeah well that house is probably full of them and they’ve just started feeding on that zombie. Given some time, they’ll get bigger and meaner as they look for more food. I don’t want to be around when they do that.”

“Crap,” Gregg said with a shudder. “Please tell me they aren’t zombie rats now.”

“No, just normal ones. Though I suspect we’ll start seeing much larger numbers of them now the undead are weakening.”

“Crap,” he repeated and I grinned back at him as we turned the corner to the rear of the house. My grin faded as I saw what lay beyond the fence.

Bones. Hundreds, thousands of them, spread across the field and bare of flesh. Scattered around the fire-ravaged remnants of the helicopter that lay on its side on the landing pad.

“What the hell…” Gregg said and turned to look at me as though I would have answers.

Charlie and Reece were beside the wooden fence, staring dumbfounded at the scene before them. Here and there, small shapes moved amongst the bones and carrion birds lingered in the fields, picking at remnants.

“Make a gap in the fence,” I instructed the two young students. Reece looked at me with mouth agape while Charlie snorted.

“Why? I can’t get across that field in this chair and to be honest I really don’t want to.”

“They’re bones,” I said and didn’t bother to hide my exasperation. “They won’t hurt you and we can make a path for you as we go.”

“More bloody rats,” Gregg muttered as he watched the small rodents dart around the field.

“It will be fine, they’re more scared of you,” I said before pointing at the nearest fence panel. “Now get that down now. Time’s moving on.”

Slowly at first, the Charlie and Reece set about the task. Once I was sure they were doing as they were told, I nodded my head back the way we had come and indicated Gregg should follow.

He did, with a perplexed look on his face and as soon as we were around the corner, I pulled him close.

“This is a problem,” I said and his eyes widened.

“You just said…”

“I know what I said, but rats didn’t leave all those bones.”

“Then what did?”

My voice lowered even further. No need to spook the newcomers since I still had need of them and I doubted they’d come with me if they suspected what I did.

“Either a lot of the undead were devoured by other zombies out there on the field, refugees were killed and eaten, soldiers shot and killed a load of the undead that were then eaten by vermin or some of the zombies got to the stacked bodies of the dead and began eating them.”

I risked a quick look around the corner to see the two students had almost pulled the panel free. “No matter which of those scenarios it was, the likely result is the same.”

“Ferals,” Gregg said and visibly wilted before me.

“Yes. If they’re eating their own kind then this place would be a banquet hall for them. All the dead bodies and the undead… it won’t just be one or two Ferals, it will be a lot more.”

“Oh fuck me,” he said as he pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers and squeezed his eyes shut. “This gets better and better.”

“Could be worse,” I said with a widening grin. “We could be stuck with two people we barely know and can’t trust in a fight.”