Burden of Survival: Killing the Dead : Season Two (7 page)

Grass, mud, trees, zombies… that was about it. Nothing out of the ordinary. No plume of smoke from a camp fire, no one conveniently standing beside the lake at just the right moment for me to catch them. No sign of anyone at all.

I looked to the west, towards Coniston but the ground rose to become tall hills and obscured my view. A sigh escaped me as I handed the binoculars back to the woman. She smiled and carried on with her duties as I slumped back against the roof.

An hour later I was still sat there with my mind a million miles away when I was joined by Becky. A slim woman in her thirties she walked easily along the narrow walkway that surrounded the roof. Her mousy coloured hair had been cut short and hidden beneath a thick wool cap.

She seemed at ease with the height and I figured that was probably a good thing considering she was a qualified pilot. Her leg seemed totally healed after the vicious break she’d had when her plane had crashed last year.

“Hi,” she said by way of greeting.

“What do you want Becky?” I asked with a sigh. I knew what she wanted, what she always wanted when she sought me out.

“Do you have to ask?”

“It’s considered polite I guess.”

She flashed a smile that showed straight white teeth and tsked as she lowered herself against the damp and dirty roof beside me.

“Did Gabby speak with you?”

“She did,” I said. “Though perhaps considering what happened this morning, now is not the best time.”

“It’s the damned apocalypse darling, never going to be a good time.”

I smiled faintly in acknowledgement. She was right after all.

“What is it you want? I was under the impression Gabby was going to find out what you needed to make your journey.”

“Yeah well she did that earlier,” Becky said. “I let her know that Harry will be coming with me of course.”

Her silent companion, the other survivor of the plane crash. It made sense he’d go with her and I wasn’t upset that he was leaving. I had a disquieting feeling about him and considering my boyfriend… well, anything that raised feelings of unease was something I took seriously.

“Anyone else?”

“Haven’t asked anyone yet,” Becky said as she pulled her coat tighter around her to keep out the cold wind. “To be fair though I don’t think anyone will volunteer.”

“Likely not,” I agreed. Who would leave a place of safety to travel through the unknown?

“Gabby was very generous with the supplies she said we could have,” Becky continued.

“Get to the point,” I said with a sigh. She wanted something and I suspected I knew what it was. “What do you want from me?”

“My trip is important,” Becky said. “Save the world kind of important.”

She turned her head towards me as she spoke and I could feel her eyes boring into the side of my head like tiny little augurs.

“With just Harry and me. Well we won’t make it.”

“No, you won’t.”

“I want you to come with us.”

“Me?” I was actually surprised. I thought she’d be wanting Ryan.

“If you come then so will your friends and that boyfriend of yours.”

Ah.

“Why would we want to give up a place of – relative – safety?” I asked as I turned to look her in the eye.

“Your friend is immune and pregnant,” Becky said and smiled as I looked at her in surprise. “Yeah, nothing stays a secret here.”

“She can give you blood samples,” I said.

“That could be lost, go bad or be destroyed,” she countered. “But all that aside, the navy will have medical facilities on hand for her to give birth safely.”

I had to admit that was an intriguing thought. It would be a difficult journey but if she could give birth safely, that would be hard to turn down.

“Your other friends will be more than capable protection for us too,” she continued. “Who knows what we’ll face out there.”

“It would take weeks during normal conditions,” I said. “Without transport and with however many millions of undead between here and there along with the other kind of monster… No, it’s too dangerous.”

She sighed and pushed her hands deeper into her pockets. I could tell she was disappointed but at the same time, my people needed me here.

“I’ve heard the rumours about your boyfriend,” she said.

“Haven’t we all,” I replied with a shrug.

“The thing is, I’ve been watching him.”

I felt the frown form as I stared at her. She’d been watching him?

“Do you know what I did in my former life?”

The sudden change of tack threw me a little and I shrugged. When she didn’t respond I answered in a quiet voice.

“No.”

“You recall my brother was a scientist?” she waited until I nodded before she continued. “His notes and samples are what I need to get to the naval forces in Scotland.”

I knew all that. She’d told us when we first rescued her, how her military scientist brother was one of many working on finding a cure for the virus.

“Well I was a journalist, a damned good one too. I had a blog and a fairly regular column.”

“So?”

“I was working on a story when things went to hell,” she said. “I was even going to make it part of a series that would become a book.”

“What story?” I asked though a feeling of dread was slowly making its way through me.

“It was a story about the serial killers of England,” she said. “I’d already written about the famous ones, Sutcliffe, the Wests and so on. I wanted to focus though on the ones that hadn’t been caught.”

If any deity had been listening my glare would have cut right through her. I could see where she was going with this and I wasn’t amused.

“There’d been rumours of people going missing in a town in the north of England,” Becky continued as she ignored my glare. “With some investigation online and after speaking with the local police I found the names of five missing people who I believe were murdered.”

Seven
I thought to myself. He’d killed seven people before I’d met him.

“The thing is,” she said. “After speaking with your friends, I learned that you all met up in a refugee centre in that same town I was getting set to visit before it all turned to crap.”

“Coincidence,” I muttered.

“Possibly,” she agreed. “A hell of a coincidence though. Especially when you hear the other tales being told about your boyfriend.”

“Get to the point,” I snapped.

She looked at me, eyebrows raised in exaggerated surprise.

“The point darling, is that I think I found the serial killer.”

“Good luck finding any police to listen to you,” I said as I pushed myself to my feet and brushed off the seat of my pants.

“Oh no,” Becky said. “You misunderstand. I don’t want to see him brought to justice, far from it. I want to warn you.”

“Warn me?”

“Yes,” she said with a look of pure malicious joy. “Haven’t you noticed he’s getting bored?”

Chapter 9

Ryan

The mud stuck to my hiking boots and coated the lower part of my jeans. I couldn’t help but look back on my life before the apocalypse where I’d led a neat and ordered existence.

Pat seemed indifferent to the mud as he tied up the boat on the lakeshore, his movements not hampered by the large rucksack he carried on his back. He had a faraway look and faint smile as he worked. Greggs’ grin stretched from ear to ear and I guessed he’d been told about his sisters’ condition too.

Jenny was standing close by and tried to keep her face expressionless. For some reason she seemed to be trying to emulate me. I couldn’t complain, she’d proven useful and was fast becoming adept at slaying the zombies we encountered. When it came to live people though, she still showed reticence.

The final member of our party was Gabby. She was irritatingly chipper more often than not and though she claimed she’d not known her loyal hound Toby had been sent to kill me by Rachel, I wasn’t so certain.

“It’s about eight miles or so to Coniston so we should be there before it gets dark,” Gabby said.

“That’s if we follow the road,” Gregg said pointedly. “That’s likely not the safest route though.”

“Why not?”

“Have you forgotten the zombies?”

“We’ll see them coming and can leave the road if needed,” she protested.

I caught Pat’s eye and he nodded in understanding before moving to stand between Gabby and me. With her distracted I set off at a brisk pace towards the road.

Once there, I clambered over the moss covered drystone wall and began to climb the hill. It was steep but not so steep as to leave me winded. One of the few benefits of my post apocalypse life was the chance to do a great deal of cardio. I was in better shape than I’d ever been.

Jenny followed along behind, her hand on the carving knife handle sticking through her belt and head turning constantly as she searched the undergrowth for any signs of a threat. I nodded approvingly, if she was going to stick near me then it was good to know she wasn’t going to get me killed by being stupid.

The faint sounds of Gabby and Gregg’s argument could still be heard as I crested the hill and crouched down beside a birch tree. I breathed in deeply, senses alert for the stench of death that accompanied the zombies.

From my vantage point I could just make out the road winding through the trees a short distance away and beyond that, the small cluster of houses that made up the village of Near Sawrey. We could bypass those houses, they’d been picked clean by us long ago anyway.

Some way beyond that village was the smaller lake of Esthwaite water. We’d need to go around it to the north, through the town of Hawkshead. Another place we’d picked over quite completely over the winter months.

The road from Hawkshead led straight through to Coniston though and that would be the quickest way. I hesitated at the thought of using it though. Even if we walked the road until we reached Hawkshead, it made sense to duck into the woods wherever possible as we approached our destination.

If anything had happened there, then I didn’t want to blunder into it. Far better to take a little longer and approach cautiously. The people from Coniston were never late and like Lily, I was convinced that the reason for their not turning up was a cause for concern.

Behind me the raised voices were moving closer and I looked back to see a red faced Gabby clambering up the hill. She was wittering on at Pat who responded in his usual monosyllabic way while Gregg followed behind keeping his eyes open for danger.

They at least knew what they were doing and I could trust them not to screw up. The vet on the other hand was a problem.

“What do you think…” she began.

“Shut up,” I said. My voice was quiet and calm, no need to raise it yet. She stared at me in shock, thankfully silenced by my rude interruption.

“Don’t you tell me…”

“If you want to alert every zombie in the area, keep talking,” I said. “Just let the rest of us move away so that we don’t die with you.”

The red in her cheeks darkened as she flushed and she pulled herself upright and tilted her head back as though to stare down her nose at me. I just smiled and she wavered.

“You haven’t been on any scavenging trips have you?” I asked.

“In Windermere,” she said. “Not since then though, no.”

“We have,” I told her with a pointed look at each of my companions. “We know what we’re doing and how to survive. If you wish to be in charge of our little expedition that’s fine, I have no problem with that.”

“Do not think for one second though that I will blindly follow your orders and end up dead. If you tell me to do something stupid, I won’t do it.”

“Well, I am in charge…”

“Yes, good for you,” I said and flashed her a quick mocking grin. “If you want to survive though, you should listen to us.”

“Fine,” she snapped. “What do you suggest?”

“Well first of all I would suggest you keep your voice low. Less chance of being noticed.”

She nodded curtly as she crossed her arms across her chest. She wasn’t going to be easy to work with but if she became a real liability, there was nothing to say I needed to expend energy to keep her alive. I just couldn’t outright kill her.

“The one thing you should have done before arguing about taking the road or the overland route, is take a look first,” I said as I pointed down at the road in the distance.

Gabby followed the direction my arm was pointing and blanched as she saw the distant figures moving slowly along the road. Not many of them were in sight but one thing I’d learnt was that where there was one, there were others.

“So not the road then,” she said.

“Staying off the road will be safer,” I agreed. “Not by much though. You’ll need to stay alert.”

She nodded and patted the heavy lump of wood that had been shaped into a rough club. Her fingers were white where she gripped the string wrapped handle and I saw her fear. One of the few emotions I did recognise and only because I’d seen it in my victims so often before.

We set off walking down the hill and through the great old trees. Away from the lakeshore the ground hardened and we were able to walk over grass and heather rather than mud. It made the going a little easier, though not as much as a solid road would have.

I took the lead with Gregg the rear, Pat and Jenny to either side while the less experienced Gabby stayed in the centre of our diamond formation. That satisfied me since I knew the other three would alert me to any danger and Gabby wouldn’t get me killed.

Two hours of travel and we finally reached a point where we needed to come out from the cover of the woods and into the open. It was clear that our cross country route was a great deal slower than I’d imagined. At the rate we were going we’d be lucky to reach Esthwaite water before dark.

Pat tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to the road that ran along the far end of the open space. I gave a nod to let him know I’d seen them and settled back as he hefted his heavy lump hammer.

I glanced at Jenny and caught her eye before pointing to the right. She nodded and tugged on Greggs arm before dashing along the edge of the open area, keeping low to the ground. I set off to the left with Pat following. Gabby tagged along behind us.