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

With thick woods to the south and east and open fields on the other two sides, the triangular red stone castle was surrounded by a wide moat. It had a wooden bridge that led across the moat to the wide gates at the front that I assumed had been closed.

From where we had left the woods, we could see the rear of the castle. One of the two remaining towers on the south-west corner and the crumbling wall that would have made up the southern defences. Thick reeds and grasses formed a screen of sorts and from what I could see, the inhabitants had erected a wire mesh fence where the wall had fallen.

Gabriel led the way with a smile fixed on his face. It was clear to all that he was pleased to be home and though his eyes would shift towards me and that smile would falter, a weight seemed to have lifted from him.

“You’ll love it here,” he said to Becky who smiled back at him. “The undead don’t seem to like the water and they can’t get through the front gate.”

“Where do you all sleep?” Cass asked as she eyed the ruined rear wall. We could see that the south and eastern rooms were empty shells.

“In the main hall. The guard towers to the north are still solid and that one there,” he said with a gesture to the south-western corner tower. “Well, we use those to keep watch on the area.”

He paused to wave and I saw movement on the tower as someone waved back. We kept walking towards the moat as he resumed speaking.

“There’s a well inside and a kitchen of sorts for the tea room that was there for visitors. It was a fairly popular tourist site before this all happened and it had a restaurant and gift shop, toilets and a small museum to display all kinds of things.”

“Weapons?” I asked and he frowned.

“Aye, some of those and armour too.”

“Have you made use of them to fight the undead?” Cass asked.

“Nah lass,” he replied with a shake of his head. “We tend not to kill them when we can.”

“Why not?” I asked and he stopped to turn to me.

“You know why brother. They were still people once and unless we have no choice, we leave them be.”

“Have you had many attacks by them then?” Cass asked before I could speak.

“Nah, we’re reasonably out of the way of the main roads here so the few that wander by soon lose interest.”

Voices came from across the moat and I looked over to see two men lowering an inflatable dinghy into the water. They’d pulled back the wire mesh fence and one of them climbed down into the dinghy while the other held it steady. He began to steadily row across the twenty metres or so of water.

“Joel!” Gabe called as the dinghy approached.

“Good to see you lad,” the older man called back. “We thought we’d lost you.”

My brother stepped into the water to grab the front of the inflatable craft and hold it steady. He gestured Pat forward. “Only a couple of people at a time, so you take her in first.”

“She’s not been bitten has she?” Joel asked. His face was red from the exertion of rowing across the moat and he scanned our group with a frown wrinkling his forehead as he did a count and realised how many more trips he’d need to make.

“No, no,” Gabe said with a wave to the other man. “Knife wound and she’s in dire need of some help. We need to get her to my sister.”

“Your sister?” Cass asked. “I thought she was a psychiatrist?”

“Aye she is…was, but she had some medical training at Uni and she’s the best thing we have.”

“She was with your mam and dad,” Joel said. “Up in the main hall.”

“I’d best go too,” Gabe said with a sideways glance to me. “Can you fit the three of us in?”

“Course I can lad, in you get.”

The grey haired man shifted in his seat to make room as Pat laid Lily gently into the boat, he looked back at me questioningly and I shook my head and gestured for him to go. I had little interest in meeting my family and less so in hearing that she couldn’t be saved. Better for everyone if I hold off on that for as long as possible.

Cass laid her hand gently on my arm as I watched the inflatable dinghy make its way back across the moat. The grey haired Joel puffing and panting as he worked the oars. I glanced at Cass and she squeezed my arm as she looked at me with eyes that welled with unshed tears.

“They’ll help her,” she insisted in a low whisper meant for me alone. I opened my mouth to speak, to tell her she was a fool for believing it, to warn her to get as far from me as she could… but instead, I raised a thin smile and nodded my thanks as together we waited for the dinghy to return.

Chapter 2 – Lily

Death wanted to take me, a dark shrouded being reaching out its skeletal hands. The undead that walked the world were his agents. When they had failed to take me for him, a young deaf girl had taken their place. Eyes full of hate, fear, and regret as her hand flashed forward. Searing pain and a descent into darkness for the first time.

Darkness became light, became darkness once again as I drifted in and out of consciousness. A hazy recollection of being on a boat at sea, disjointed sounds, smells, and images that soon faded back into a seemingly endless night.

Movement, fresh pain from my gut where I had been stabbed and an aching need to scream out as heat filled me, burning me, yet despite that I couldn’t stop the shivering. I was dying.
Ryan where are you?

The world was on fire, no, that was just me. Shivering as I burned from the inside out. My throat was dry but I had no voice to call for water to quench my thirst and the very thought of drinking anything made my stomach heave in a way that only worsened the pain.

I could hear them talking. My friends, my family, my lover. Endless words that were absent of any real meaning to my ears. Sounds that washed over me, ethereal and hard to cling on to. I was lost in a sea of darkness that wanted to drag me beneath those dark waves to where death waited to embrace me.

A flash of light and the world came into focus. A striking woman staring down into my eyes, a frown marring her face as she shone a too bright light at me. She seemed familiar though I’d never seen her before.

“What do you think?” a male voice asked from somewhere behind me. A voice I thought I knew or should know.

“Fever for sure,” the woman replied as her hands pressed down against my stomach. I sucked in a deep breath of air and didn’t even try to stop the scream that drowned out the rest of her words.

“…infected,” she continued. “…medicine we don’t have.”

“…can’t let her…”

“…Not much I can do…”

The words kept fading in and out of my hearing, hard to understand though I knew they were talking about me.
Ryan, I need you.

“
…Is this her…” a new voice, older, comforting. I clung to it as fingers probed the inflamed flesh around my wound, until another scream drowned out the voices and their words.

“…Waiting…”

“…Won’t listen…”

“…So angry…”

“…Who is she to him…” I saw the woman's lips move as she asked the question to someone I couldn’t see. An answer came and her frown deepened. “Not possible,” she said as she looked back down at me.

“…I swear…I saw…”

“...Bring him here…”

Then silence followed by the distant sound of a door closing and the woman watched me, face full of sorrow and fear that deepened as someone entered the room.

“Wait…” she said and I felt a hand take mine, holding me gently as though afraid that I would break.

“Can you help her?” a voice, Ryan, so cold though and distant. I struggled to focus, to hear what they were saying.

“I don’t know,” she replied and flinched at what she saw in his face.

It was the hardest thing I had ever done, just moving my head enough that I could see him. My Ryan, my love. His eyes were dark, the man I loved gone and the killer in his place. She had
seen
the killer like I did and it scared her.
Who is she?

He felt my hand move against his and his gaze dropped to mine, the killer retreating and the man returning.
Too slow!
As though the killer refused to leave.

“Hello Lily,” he said and I heard the strain in his voice.

I tried to answer, to reassure, to tell him I was still here, fighting to stay alive but nothing came. He saw my struggle though and saw my pain, saw that I was dying.

“Save her,” he said as he looked at the woman and her eyes widened at the sound of his voice. It wasn’t a command, wasn’t a request, it was a plea and the first I had ever heard from him. Then darkness swept me away.

Chapter 3 – Ryan

The door slammed closed behind me and I stared into the faces of my friends as they each looked back at me with hope clear on their faces. I clenched my jaw and willed my fists to uncurl before I pushed past them without a word.

I stalked along the corridor, their voices raised with questions I couldn’t answer, drowned by the thunderous beating of my own heart. A shiver ran through my body and my breathing deepened as I pushed through a plain wooden door at the end of the hall and stepped into what had once been a gift shop.

Glass cases full of useless tat that commemorated the visit to the castle, filled the walls while metal stands with shelves full of stuffed toys, ornaments and the usual magnets with a crude image of the castle on it, dotted the floor.

She’s dying!
My hand trembled as I raised it to press against my temple. A headache was coming and a need was growing within me.

It seemed such a betrayal. That one thing I had enjoyed more than anything in my otherwise miserable life was marred by her. She had changed me in such a way that I had restricted myself. I had moved away from being me, from being the killer. I had been becoming something different, perhaps even something better. Now she was dying and I couldn’t find any joy in that.

The urge to sweep up the nearest stand and use it to wreak total and utter destruction on the grinning animal soft toys around me was almost overwhelming. To hear the shattering of glass and breaking of wood. To mindlessly destroy something that others cared about as I unleashed the rage that seemed to twist my insides. To allow me to feel something other than that nameless feeling that surged through me when I thought of her dying.

A whump of warm air hit my hand as my dark furred shadow pressed her muzzle against me. I glanced down into those dark eyes that stared back with an apparent understanding of my pain. For once, I appreciated the gesture and scratched absently behind her ear as I pushed back that weakness that threatened to overcome me.

“Ryan?” Cass said gently as she laid one hand on my shoulder.

“Leave me alone,” I commanded as I used all of my will to keep my hand away from the knife on my belt.

“No.” Her voice was low but firm. A simple refusal to do as I said in her tone and so reminiscent of the one Lily would use. I was almost undone.

“She’s dying,” I said.

“I know.”

“This is new to me.” I refused to turn, to look into her eyes and see the pity she must be unable to hide at my pathetic emotional response. A response that would have never happened before I’d met
her
. “I don’t know what to do.”

“There’s nothing you can do,” she said. Her voice barely above a whisper as a tremble ran through my body. I hoped she was alone, if anyone else was to see my shameful response, I would kill them all. “She needs medicine, antibiotics. Without them, the infection will win and we don’t have any.”

“Less than ten miles.”

“What?”

“The distance between my grandparent’s home and the hospital in Dumfries,” I said. “They went once when my brother had a fall. I remember the signs along the side of the road.”

“What does it matter?”

“There might be a chance that the drugs we need are there.” I turned to her and saw a brief look of hope appear on her face before it quickly faded once more.

“No,” she said as she wiped at the tears that shone in her eyes. “The hospitals were the worst places to be. All those sick people who turned there at the end. Add to that the population of the town along with however many more zombies have arrived up the A75 road.”

“It was on the southern edge of town,” I said. My tone was insistent and I could see she was starting to consider it by the way her nose crinkled and her brow furrowed.

“You should stay with her, be here for her for when…“ She couldn’t finish and a sob escaped her as the tears fell.

“No. I can’t do that,” I said and hated the emotion that coloured my tone. Emotion, that less than a year ago I hadn’t even comprehended that I would ever be able to feel. “I need to do something. To try.”

“Even if you made it there, found some medicine and made it back in time, there’s still a chance it will all be for nothing.”

“I have to try.”

She stared at me, her eyes boring into mine and something she saw there finally caused her to nod her head. “Fine then, we’ll try.”

      
      
      
      
      
****

Cass left and returned a short while later with the rest of my friends and without preamble, I explained what I needed to do.

“Shouldn’t we talk to Gabe?” Becky asked, her eyes wide and fearful.

“I’m in,” Gregg said and was echoed by Pat.

“You need to stay here,” I said and raised one hand to forestall any objections. “You too Cass.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Try and make me,” Pat added.

“Someone needs to stay here with Lily,” I said and looked directly at Cass. Lily would kill me if she found out I had been the cause of anything happening to her friends and that was something I wasn’t going to risk. “And you’re the best choice.”

“You,” I said as I swung my gaze to Pat. “Need to stay here to protect them because from the little I’ve seen of these defences, anyone serious about getting inside the walls will do so without any problems.”

“What about me?” Becky asked. Her fingers tapped out an impatient rhythm on the backpack she held close. The one that contained her brother's data and samples.

“Stay here,” I said.
Not much use to me anyway.
“If all else fails, you still need to travel north.”