Search for Safety: Killing the Dead Book Two (17 page)

“Have you got a car?”

“No I walked here.”

“John may struggle to walk. He lost a lot of blood.”

“Well we aren’t going anywhere very soon then.” I told her as I glanced through the bedroom window. “We may as well stay here till its dark. That may give us a chance to get past all the zombies out there. “

“Is it really that bad?” she said as she sat beside John on the bed to check his makeshift bandage.

“It’s probably worse. The whole countryside is teeming with them.” I pulled the bottle of water from my jacket pocket and tossed it to Lily who smiled gratefully before drinking.

“Oh I really needed that. We have been in here all day.” She said wiping the excess water from her lips with the back of her hand.

“You may appreciate these too then” I said as I passed over the biscuits I had brought along.

“Oh wow, you really do know the best presents to bring a girl don’t you” Lily said with a bright smile.

“Since we have to wait a bit, you may as well tell me what happened to you.”

“Well everything was going fine” she began, “John and I drove along the roads and saw a couple of zombies that seemed to be wandering aimlessly, nothing major until we met the main group as we expected.” She paused for a moment and had another swig of water.

“The problem was the amount of zombies. Eric and Pat went one way and John and I went another. We hit a few with the car as we passed, they weren’t all in a neat and orderly line. They were everywhere and we were fast becoming trapped.

John had to accelerate and take a couple of detours down side roads just to get us clear. I think that’s when we lost some of them. We still had plenty following us though and we slowed a little so they could keep chasing us away from the club house.

It didn’t take us long to reach the petrol station and that was when we found another group heading towards us. John tried to drive through them but there were just too many. The car ground to a stop and we had to jump out and run for the station entrance to try and escape them.

The door was locked and so john used the hammer he was carrying, to smash the glass. I mean this was some old petrol station in the Yorkshire countryside, we didn’t expect it to be the most state of the art security glass, but this stuff was cheap. The glass shattered and he was off balance, his arm went straight through the glass and he followed.

All I knew was that he was on the floor and screaming and then I saw the blood. He had caught himself on the glass and sliced deeply into his arm. I helped him to his feet and we ran for the back door. I heard more glass breaking as we went through the exit.”

She paused and I told her that the zombies must have just run straight through the glass windows as they were all broken. She continued, “We were outside the back of the petrol station and all the zombies were at the front. We saw a fence and John insisted he could climb over so we thought it would be the safest chance.

I made sure John climbed over first and had to help him because of his arm, then I followed. I must have scratched myself in a dozen places from the rose bushes.” She laughed and I did too. It was a pleasant feeling to laugh with her.

“We would have gone into the house but the door was open and I could hear moaning from inside. We went to climb the fence into the next garden and John was just climbing over the top when a couple of zombies came out and headed straight for us.

You won’t believe how fast I was up and over that fence.” Lily laughed again and drank the last of the water. “This house seemed ok, so we came in and I started to fill a bowl of water to wash Johns cut when some of the undead came at us.

We ran to the front door but that was locked so we came upstairs and barricaded ourselves in here. This is where we have been since then, with those damn things banging on the door.”

“Well you don’t need to worry about them anymore” I told her.

“Yes. Thank you for that.” She said with a smile and a gentle touch on my hand. “I’m glad you came but we do need to get John to Louise so she can treat his cut. I did the best I could, but I was limited.”

“The house is clear and we have maybe an hour to wait till its dark” I said, “It may be worth a look through the house to see if there’s anything we can use.”

“Do we really need to wait till it’s darker? Can’t we just go now?” Lily asked with a concerned look at John.

“There’s too many of them out there now. At least if it’s dark, we can try and avoid being noticed.”

“Ok I will check up here if you don’t mind checking downstairs.” Lily said.

“Sure” I agreed and headed back down the stairs, taking a moment to drag the corpse of Mother away from the bottom the stairwell so that we wouldn’t trip over her later.

The living room held little of use, just the usual magazines and ornaments that people filled their living rooms with. In the hallway I did find a new thick jacket that fit me quite well so I removed my battered and blood spattered coat and pulled on the new one.

My search through the cupboards in the kitchen revealed nothing that would be immediately useful. A few carving knives in need of sharpening, a number of pots, pans and plenty of machinery to aid in the production of beautiful meals. All of which required electricity.

I pulled a carrier bag from out of a drawer beside the sink and filled it with as much snack food as I could find. It wouldn’t be great to be eating that stuff long term but as an energy boost for the trek back to the clubhouse, it would do fine.

In a tool box beneath the stairs I found a number of tools. I discarded most as being impractical for fighting zombies but I did find a large and heavy wrench which would be very useful for crushing skulls if necessary.

Lily was sitting beside John once again by the time I had finished. I handed her the bag full of junk food and she picked a couple of items to snack on while we waited.

“How is he doing?” I asked with a nod at the sleeping form.

“Do you care?” Lily snapped.

“Sure. He will be a heavy load if I have to carry him back.” I replied with a touch of irritation entering my tone.

“Sorry, I’m just tired.” Lily said with a half hearted attempt at a smile.

“That’s understandable I suppose. Why don’t you have a nap? A couple of hours sleep will do you good.”

“Would you mind?”

“Not really. I can lock you in the house and have a look for a car I guess.” I told her as I moved across to the window. “Or maybe not...”

Moving along the road beneath the bedroom window was a seemingly endless stream of undead. They moved listlessly as though conserving their energy for when they sighted their prey.

Lily swore as she joined me and gazed out of the window at the march of the damned beneath us.

“Where have they come from?” she asked.

“We are about even with Halifax so they could have come from there.” I said absently as I looked over the zombies. They were a good number without any apparent injuries and they definitely seemed a lot spryer than their damaged brethren.

“Possibly from a hospital, was there a hospital just outside of the main town do you know?” I asked Lily.

“Yes why?”

“Most of those zombies down there look like they didn’t die from being attacked by the undead; most of them look fairly fresh. I think they were some of the ones who were sick and at a hospital for treatment when they turned.” I told her thoughtfully.

“What’s going on?” asked John from behind us before Lily could answer.

I waited impatiently as Lily explained what had happened while he was out of things and concluded with the zombies marching past our window.

John struggled to push himself to his feet and with a quick glare from Lily as motivation; I went across to help him. He moved – with my aid – to stand beside the window.

“This isn’t good” John said quietly.

“When they go past we can slip out after them.” Lily told him soothingly.

“It’s not that, if they follow the road they will eventually end up at the golf course.” John said in alarm.

I pulled out the map that Eric had given me and stared at it intently as I traced the route from the petrol station that Eric had marked and the club house. “It’s possible” I said to Lily, “This road will lead them in the general direction and if they don’t get distracted then they could well end up there.”

“We need to warn them. We need to get back and get everyone out of there.” Lily said.

“How do you propose to do that?” I asked, “We won’t be able to race along the road and get ahead of them.” I pointed at the roads marked on the map.

“One road leads between here and there. If we can’t take the road then it is a long walk cross country in the dark.” I told her firmly.

“It’s not the only way” Lily said after a quiet moment looking over the map.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“We can go back the way they came and into Halifax, from there we can swing around and reach the golf course from the other side.”

I stared at her and asked “Are you insane?”

“We could do it if we had a car.” John added.

“Shut up.” I snarled at him, “That town has, what? About a hundred thousand people and most of them are likely dead by now but you think you can drive through them all and remain unscathed.”

“John can you give us a minute?” Lily asked as she grabbed my arm firmly and pulled me towards the door. She led me down the hall and into another bedroom, this one was smaller and the bed had no coverings on it.

“I told you that this would happen.” She said calmly, “I told you that those people are my family now and I would die to protect them. I am doing this.”

“But why?” I demanded, “Why waste your life risking it when you have so little chance of success?”

“Because I care about them.” Lily said sadly. “I told you once that I thought that you would leave when things got too tough and you had to choose between yourself and the rest of us.”

“Goddammit Lily!” I had to struggle to keep from shouting at her, “It’s pointless to try when you don’t have a chance. I won’t throw my life away for no good reason.”

“You don’t have to.” She said softly. “This is our time to part ways I guess. I wish you luck Ryan.” She smiled and I saw tears in her eyes. “I owe you so much more than I can ever repay. I wish you well.”

Lily leaned in and her lips touched my cheek for the briefest moment, her scent filled my senses. She smelled of stale sweat and the dust and grime of a month fleeing from the undead and I so very desperately wanted to stop her and her foolish idea.

I watched as she walked from the room, she didn’t look back. For the first time in my life I was struggling with my instincts. I had so few people in my entire life that I had actually cared about. I had always been unable to become close to anyone.

Now it seemed that during the ending of the world I had finally found someone I actually liked enough that I didn’t want to kill them and they were going to throw their life away on the slimmest of chances.

It was so pointless and such a waste of the time and effort I had put into trying to fit into a group that had the chance to help keep me alive during this whole mess. I would have to start with a whole new group, I would need to find new people and start all over again with persuading them that I was just any other survivor.

Several minutes of swearing and one firm kick of the bed frame had just made my ankle ache and my mood was worsening rapidly. I stalked from the room and down the stairs. The zombies would still be walking along past the front of the house so I left through the back door and crossed the enclosed garden.

With a final look back at the house and a faint hope that Lily would have changed her mind, I climbed the back fence and dropped into the next garden.

Chapter 17

I stomped across the garden and through the side gate that led to the front of the house. I paused momentarily at the corner of the house to ensure I wouldn’t be walking into a hundred undead. The road was relatively clear, a couple of zombies were heading towards the end of the road to join with the mass of undead that I could see passing.

At the other end of the small road was a dead end, I was in a cul-de-sac, a dozen houses lined both sides of the street. Curtains were drawn in some of the windows, doors open on some of the houses and closed on others.

The whole cul-de-sac had an abandoned feel to it. No lights turning on as the nights grew darker, no smoke rising from chimneys and no family pets making their presence known. A car was parked halfway down the road and I cautiously approached, careful to not attract notice of the zombies passing the end of the road.

None of the doors would open to my tentative pulls and I resisted the urge to lash out and smash a window. It would do little but draw the attention of the passing undead and it was Lily who had the knowledge of how to hotwire a car.

I shied away from thoughts of Lily and looked at the houses around me. I would need a car if I wanted to keep heading north and away from the idiotic people who were determined to die in this town.

The houses in the cul-de-sac didn’t have garages so I would either have to move further into the built up area and risk meeting the undead, or I could check the houses around me for keys to the car that I was standing beside.

With little desire to wander further into zombie infested areas, I opted for the latter option. I chose the house that the car was parked beside as being the most likely place to look and walked over to the front door.

Of course the door was locked because nothing was going to be made any easier for me. I couldn’t force the door open with so many undead wandering past. If I made any noise that attracted them, I would be done for. Instead of striking the door and forcing my way in, I headed to the back of the property.

The back garden was paved with concrete block paving from one end to the other. A raised flower bed sat in the centre with a number of different plants neatly arranged to form an aesthetically pleasing view from the wooden benches that had been placed around the edges of the garden.

An expensive looking barbecue grill stood in one corner and I could easily imagine that the owners of this garden had been social people who held gatherings and parties often. They were the sort of people who would have irritated me because they would have been missed and I would not have been able to choose them as my victims.