Search for Safety: Killing the Dead Book Two (8 page)

“Sure. I still doubt anyone would last too long alone.” I replied.

“It isn’t just about working together though. You have to care enough about people to want to fight your hardest to survive.” She looked at me sadly, “I genuinely think that once things get really hard you will disappear on us when we need you most, because you don’t care about other people. You don’t care about us unless we have some use to you.”

“That isn’t true.” I said and raised a hand as she was about to speak. “You are right that I don’t care very much about most people. I can’t relate to them, I don’t know how to and I am fine with that. The people here though...” I broke off not quite sure how to put into words what I meant.

“I have chosen to be with all of you and while I may struggle to communicate that, I am here by choice.” I said.

“I wish I could believe you. I want to believe so much.” She said putting her untouched drink on the coffee table. “I care about the people here Ryan, we are all we have now and I will fight to the death to protect them. Can you say you would do that?”

The idea of fighting to the death to protect anyone was a bizarre idea. Surely it would be better to live to continue fighting. My confusion must have been plain for her to see as Lily smiled sadly and said “I thought so.”

“We have had this discussion already. I cannot change who or what I am. If you want me to pretend then I will do so, I passed as normal for years before this happened and I can fake it again if you want but I cannot be something I am not.” I said hotly.

“I know” said Lily as she stood up. “It’s my fault for thinking you could be. Goodnight Ryan.” She said as she left the room.

“I’m sleeping down here then I guess” I said to the empty room. I was annoyed, with myself as much as with Lily. I didn’t know why she cared so much all of a sudden but it was becoming a problem. The injury to my leg and the vulnerable position it left me in was enough to tell me that I needed other people. I sighed and closed my eyes, with any luck an answer to my problems would appear in a dream as I slept.

Chapter 8

I awoke the next morning just as the first rays of sunlight were coming in through the window. My sleep had been unpleasant and I had woken often with the pain of my ankle. I needed a shave and a wash and I wanted very much to relieve myself.

With an effort I managed to rise off of the couch and hobble through to the hallway. Lily was heading to the kitchen and curtly informed me that the house had a downstairs bathroom where I could freshen up.

In a short time I was back on the couch, feeling a little better about myself. I pulled off my sock and inspected my ankle as best I could. I didn’t think it was broken or at least I hoped it wasn’t broken.

“Put your foot on the table and keep it elevated” Lily commanded as walked into the room with a steaming bowl of porridge which she passed to me with an instruction to eat.

“It looks like you’ve sprained it. You will have to keep off of it for a few days and then you should be ok to get around a little.” She told me as she pulled a small pack of pills from her pocket. “Painkillers” she said as she tossed them to me. I eagerly swallowed two with a spoonful of porridge.

“So what is the plan?” I asked her.

“Well since we have a few people who aren’t ready to travel yet, we are going to have to stay here for a bit.”

“It can’t be too long, we need to keep moving.”

“I know. This place has its own gas supply and we have enough food to get by for a little time.” Lily said.

“Someone needs to head back to strip that farm, from what I saw they had a nice supply of things we could use” I told her waving an arm in the general direction of the farm.

“Pat and Rachel are going in the van this morning. Cass said she would go with them to get her and her brothers stuff too.” Lily said, “Cass told me what you did for her.” She added.

“What do you mean?”

“Rescued her and let her come here. Why did you do that?”

I shrugged at her and ate some more porridge. I wasn’t in the mood to get into another argument about why I did something. Lily sat for a moment waiting for a reply before the sound of Maggie and Claire noisily descending the stairs distracted her. She left to dish out breakfast and I was alone once more with my thoughts.

Pat was down stairs a short while later to unload the various supplies we had stored in the van. I was delighted to see him bring in the two bags of books that I had taken from the mobile library. At my request he dropped them on the couch next to me and I began to sort through them.

I had tried to pick and choose books for their use to me in surviving but in my haste I had picked a few items up that would be no use at all. I immediately discarded the ‘How to crochet’ book. The book on sign language I put on the pile I had designated as possibly useful. Having some basic signs we could use when speaking was dangerous could be useful at some point.

I had found several books on the plants and wildlife you would find in the UK, one at least was a very basic introductory guide but a couple of the others had plenty of pictures of the plants and where to find them along with their various uses. Those books went into the definitely useful pile.

The rest of my morning was spent sorting books. The several biographies by various TV survivalists went into the possibly useful pile, they would need to be read fully to see what information they contained. The basic medical reference books went into the definitely useful pile, I hadn’t expected anything more than a basic ‘how to bandage’ yourself book so that was a really nice find.

A few books on farming and animal husbandry and one on the Stone Age tribes of England. That was mainly a book for the kids to look through and learn some interesting things, but it did have the benefit of explaining how those ancient tribesmen made their traps and weapons from local materials.

My most useful find were several books in the ‘back to basics’ genre that went into detail about the arts that had been lost to most people. In the few books of the series I had were the instructions on how to build a basic shelter and forage for food. Preserving food, fishing and rafting were included. All subjects that I knew little about.

      
I sat on the couch for the rest of the day reading and attempting to think of ways to survive this apocalypse. Claire made an evening meal which Maggie brought into the living room for me. She was still quiet and shy around me but didn’t seem scared which was an improvement.

According to the clock on the mantle it was after eight when Pat, Rachel and Cass returned. They were all excited and had the van loaded with all kinds of useful things. They had left the clothes of the dead men as no one wanted to wear anything those people had been wearing.

They had a great deal more food to add to our stockpile including some more bottles of water that would be needed at some point. Apparently the three men had a great deal of alcohol and cigarettes as well. It seemed both Claire and Rachel were smokers and were more than happy to have those.

Pat had found a number of knives and another hand axe that would help arm nearly everyone and then he brought out the guns.

“What do you think you will be doing with them?” I asked him.

“Well... shoot zombies.”

“Do you even know how to use a rifle?” I asked as I looked at the hunting rifle he held.

“Well you just aim it at a zombie and pull the trigger.” He said with a laugh.

“These undead seem to head towards noise. You fire that and you will have them coming straight at you.” I pointed out.

“No it will be fine. You’ll see. We can actually get rid of the bloody things without having to get close enough to be bitten.”

“How many guns are there?” asked Claire.

“Two hunting rifles” said Pat, “Oh and a couple of boxes of bullets for each.” He added.

I shook my head at his excitement. Firing one of those would be a death sentence if you did it in the wrong place I was sure. He didn’t want to listen though and the others all seemed equally excited at the idea of being able to protect themselves from a distance.

Everyone helped to unload the van and store all the belongings in the living room and kitchen while I sat on the couch feeling rather useless. When the van was unloaded Claire fed those people that had just returned before taking Maggie up to bed. Cass excused herself to check on her brother and Pat and Rachel laughing playfully went up to their room.

Lily had been checking on Liz throughout the day and now sat in the living room with the wind up radio from the house where the old man had died a few days before. She didn’t seem to want to speak to me so I continued to read through my stack of books as she wound up the radio and fiddled with the dials.

The radio crackled to life and a faint voice could be heard speaking through the static. I put down my book and stared at the radio in Lily’s lap. I knew the UK didn’t have an emergency broadcast system, so if anything was still on air, it could mean that civilisation still existed somewhere.

Her hands kept turning the dial as she tried to get a clear signal but after a few minutes the signal was gone and static was all we could hear.

“Perhaps it’s someone trying to contact other survivors” I said.

“It did sound like one person repeating a message.” She agreed.

“If it is a group of survivors they may be trying to save power and only playing the message for a short time. We should keep trying during the day to see if we can pick it up again.”

“Well that’s worth a try I suppose. It was a faint signal though, so it could be a long way from here.”

“I thought you would be happy to find other people.”

“I am... it’s just the few people we have met since leaving the refugee centre, have generally been the worst kind of people.” Lily said with a glum expression.

“Not everyone will be like that.”

“No, just the ones who are most likely to survive the longest though.”

There really wasn’t much I could say to that. In truth it was likely that the ones most willing to kill and prey on other survivors would survive longest. I took a moment to really look at Lily as she busied herself once more with the radio. She looked tired, dark circles beneath her eyes and a frown that seemed to be permanently etched onto her brow.

I realised that she had been making a lot of decisions for the group lately. She asked my advice and usually acted on it, but she directed the others, she led the discussions. The strain of trying to look after the people here was taking a toll already. It occurred to me that if she collapsed from the strain the group would struggle. I certainly didn’t want to deal with all the minor problems.

“You need to get some rest” I said.

“I can rest later,” she said without even raising her head.

“You will be no use to the group exhausted.” I pointed out to her, “These people look to you and if you wear yourself out you will be helping no one.”

“I can’t rest. I have too much to do to keep us safe.” She said, finally raising her head to glare at me.

“If you don’t get some rest you won’t be keeping anyone safe, and if you are too tired to look after them, then I will have to do it. I think we both know how terrible I would do.” I said with a smile and was rewarded with a slight upturn of her lips.

“There’s just so much to do, so much to worry about.” Lily said with a sigh.

“Those worries will still be here in the morning the difference will be that you will have the energy to face them.” I paused and then added “You are not alone in this. The whole point of being in a group is to have people who can help you, so you don’t have to do it alone.”

“Did the terrible loner just offer to help someone?” Lily asked with a genuine smile.

“I wouldn’t go that far.” I replied with a grin.

“Ok. Point taken, I will get some rest. Tomorrow is a new day.” She put the radio down and stood, taking a moment to stretch. “Goodnight Ryan,” she said with a gentle touch on my shoulder as she passed. It seemed that I had said something right to thaw the chill. I wondered what it was for a moment before going back to my reading.

Chapter 9

The next two days passed quietly with little excitement. I rapidly grew bored of my forced rest but by the end of the third day of my recovery period I could walk around easier with only slight pain in my ankle. I wouldn’t be running any marathons but I could at least be useful.

During this time Pat had taken to walking in the hills with Rachel and taking the hunting rifles for practice. They had wanted to set up a range behind the stables but I had insisted that they practice far from where we were staying.

Gregg had recovered enough that he was mobile and willing to help out. He still had a number of nasty cuts and bruises but the swelling had reduced enough that he could see. Liz was still in her room and wasn’t ready to leave it.

Claire and Lily had a complete written inventory of everything we would be taking when we did leave and a separate list of items we would still need to find. Maggie had read several of her own selection of books and was going stir crazy at being forced to stay inside with little to do.

We had heard nothing else on the radio since the brief message Lily had picked up. Ideally we would be better suited to find a much more powerful receiver and preferably a transmitter so we could speak with anyone else out there.

On the morning of the fifth day at the stables we were all sat in the living room eating the last of the breakfast cereal when Pat announced that he wanted to take the van and the rifles into the nearby village to have a look for some more food.

“Is that a good idea?” Claire asked. “There’s probably several thousand undead there.”

“That’s why we’ll take the guns. We can protect ourselves better and we will be careful.” Pat said confidently.

“Who is ‘we’?” asked Lily

“Well Rachel and me and anyone else who will come.” Pat said, looking around the assembled group.

“Yeah I’ll go” said Gregg. “Need to be doing something y’know?”

“Well if Gregg goes, then so will I” said Cass.