Family Matters: Season 2 Book 3 (Killing the Dead 9) (4 page)

They were talking and one said something that raised laughter from the other. Neither seemed concerned about the handful of emaciated corpses that littered the road around them. Dark spatter covered the tarmac around each of those bodies’ heads.

“What’s wrong?” Gabriel asked in a too loud whisper.

“Two people,” I said with a gesture for him to scoot forward and look.

My brother peeked around the corner and let out a laugh, “Ah it’s just Dennis and Lewis.”

“Who?” I asked as he stepped around the corner, arm raised in greeting. I glanced back at Gregg who wore the same wary look as me and I reached into my pocket and pulled out the claw bladed knife, pulling the blade open and holding it down against my leg, hidden from view as I followed my brother. A gesture from me before I turned the corner had Jinx settle onto her haunches and wait.
No need to reveal her just yet.

“Alright laddies?” he called as he approached the two men.

“Long time nae see,” the shaven-headed man said in a thick accent. It sounded more like ‘Lang time nae see,’ to my ears.

“How are you?” the other asked and again, his accent made it sound like ‘Hoo are ye?” I could see that it would quickly become irritating and Gregg was looking from one to the other with incomprehension plain on his face.

“Not so bad lad, not so bad,” Gabriel said as he approached. “How’s things around here?”

“All quiet around here like,” the shaven-headed man said. “Me and Lewis here was just about to head home.”

“What’re you doing here?” Lewis asked before Gabriel could ask another question. I glanced at Gregg and caught his eye before gesturing for him to move to the other side of my brother with just a slight tilt of my head. He nodded, a quick bob and slowly moved into place.

“We’re headed up to the town,” Gabriel said his eyes narrowing at the tone of the other men's voices.

“Not this way you’re not,” Dennis said as he lifted his baseball bat from his shoulder and held it loosely in one hand.

“Why not? C’mon lads, you know me.”

“Nah, we knew you once,” Lewis said. His jaw clenched as he looked from me to Gregg and back again, sizing us up. “You’se a stranger now.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“We have to protect our family,” Dennis said. “You understand that.”

“But we just want to go through the village,” Gabriel protested as my hand tightened on the claw blades handle and I estimated the distance between me and Lewis.
Five feet.
Gregg has his club to hand and Gabriel carried no real weapon.
No use there then.

“I dinnae care…” Dennis began as I leapt forward, my left hand flashing out to leave a red line across Lewis’s throat. “What the fuck!”

My combat knife was in my hand as I dashed towards the shaven-headed man, leaving the other man to gurgle and thrash on the road as he died messily. I ducked beneath the first swing of his baseball bat as Gregg approached from the side and thrust upwards with the knife.

Dennis jumped back with a curse and raised his bat overhead to swing down towards Gregg who leapt to the side away from it. I seized the chance and sank my combat knife into Dennis’s chest and for good measure, swiped the claw blade across his throat.

The whole thing had taken less than a dozen seconds and both men were dead. Gabriel looked at me with eyes wide and mouth open as I turned to Gregg. “Help me get these out of sight.”

As we stooped to pick up the first still twitching body, my brother bent over and was noisily sick on the road. Gregg and I lifted the body and dumped it over the nearest garden wall before going back for the second.

“What’ve you done?” Gabriel cried as we lifted the second.

“These weren’t your friends,” I said as the body fell against the other. “They weren’t your neighbours, your countrymen or anything else. They were a threat that were going to stop us reaching our destination and accomplishing what we need to do to keep Lily alive. I won’t allow that.”

“You killed them,” he stammered as he turned to Gregg. “You can’t agree with this.”

“They weren’t going to let us pass,” Gregg replied with a shrug of his shoulders as he picked up the baseball bat and gave it an experimental swing. Satisfied with his new weapon, he let his own club drop to the road. “We’ve met their kind before. They’d have taken our belongings, beaten us, killed us or just driven us off. At best we’d have been forced to go around the village and add a load of time to our journey. Time we don’t have.”

I let out a low whistle and Jinx trotted around the corner, pausing to sniff at the dead bodies on the road. Gabriel seemed dumbstruck as he stared from Gregg to me and back again. He shook his head and mouthed something that I had no interest in trying to catch.

While it was clear he was having trouble dealing with what had just happened, I had neither the time nor the patience to wait for him to grasp the realities of this new world. I tilted my head to Gregg and set off through the garden of the nearest house towards the rear.

My reasoning was simple. If they had chosen to protect themselves towards the far north of the village, then they would have done so in one of the larger houses to the left-hand side of the road that I could see in the distance. They backed on to the river and provided somewhere for them to have easy access to fish while watching the road.

The homes to the right then were likely the best ones to use to shield us from the road and allow us to head straight north towards Dumfries.

A quick glance behind showed me that Gregg was following close by, head swivelling as he watched for danger and weapon to hand. My brother hesitated but followed along, eyes carefully averted from the dead bodies we had left behind the wall.

I held back my grin as I turned back to the path. Their ‘sanctuary’ must have been sheltered from the worst. They’d already admitted that they avoided killing the zombies unless they really had to, which would only be possible if they had only ever had a few pass them by at a time.

It was also beyond clear to me that they had not had to kill the living. My brother's reaction was evidence of that and it was a testament to their luck. With the Irish Sea behind them and Carlisle to their south-east to provide a buffer, along with the motorways that headed right past… well, like we had in the Lake District, they had weathered the worst by not being found. That would change.

My thoughts drifted away as I approached a tall wooden fence. It was half painted and long dry tins of paint sat on the damp grass at its base. I peered over and once sure that there was nothing to notice us, I clambered over and grinned at what I took to be Jinx’s look of disgust at having to be lifted over the fence by Gregg.

The next garden had a hedge that bordered the garden and a two storey property that sat dark and empty to the side. A quick look at the lock revealed it to have been broken but the door was closed anyway to protect the interior. Smart thinking to not leave it open to the elements after looting. Someone was thinking ahead.

We passed four more houses without notice and reached a stone walled garden that had open fields beyond and another two guards standing beside the road that led out of the village. I sighed and crouched down beside the wall, safely hidden from sight.

“We need to get rid of those guys,” I said to Gregg and he grimaced but nodded acceptance.

“What? Why?” Gabriel demanded in a too loud whisper that caused me to frown at him.

“We can’t cross the open fields without them seeing us and if they do, they will wonder why their friends hadn’t stopped us coming this far. It won’t take them long to put two and two together and set off after us.”

“No,” he said as he looked to Gregg for support. “No more killing. These are people Ryan.”

“I know that.”

“Do you?” he ran one hand through his thick mop of dark hair and his eyes narrowed as he sought for the right words. “You treat them as though they were the undead. As though they were of no consequence, but these are good people.”

“So what?”

He stared at me aghast, as though seeing me for the first time and shook his head once more. “How far have you fallen brother?” he asked sorrow colouring his tone.

“If we leave them alive then they will be a threat to us in the future. It’s as simple as that.”

“No,” he said. It was matter of fact as though it were the simplest thing in the world to understand and only a true fool would miss its meaning. “How can we rebuild this world if we become so much less than what we are?”

“You’re an idiot and I have no time for this nonsense while Lily lays dying.”

I readied my knives, the claw blade in the left and the combat knife in my right. A quick glance over the wall and I had the approximate positions of the guards set in my mind. I could dash silently past the house, keeping low, and be on them before they knew it as they faced outwards looking for threats.

“Is saving one life worth the loss of so many others?” he asked as he grabbed my right arm in his hand. In a split second, I had the claw blade pressed against his throat as his eyes widened.

“She is worth more to me than anyone else,” I said. It was a struggle to keep my voice low and to hold back from digging the blade into his flesh. My arm trembled with the strain and Gregg inched closer, though whether to stop me or my brother, I couldn’t say.

“You’ll need to kill me before I let you take another life,” Gabriel said. “Could you do that brother?”

“Gabe…” Gregg began but a single look from me silenced him before I turned back to my brother, a grin forming on my face.

“Yes,” I said as I sank the blade into the flesh of his throat.

Chapter 6 – Lily

I was in a room, an office of some sort. It had a window set into the old stone walls and a door that was closed. Little else though other than boxes and an office chair. A woman sat in that chair, reading a book to a small boy with dark hair, big blue eyes, and a face still chubby with puppy fat.

My throat ached and my skin seemed to be radiating heat in waves. I half expected the thin sheet that covered me to burst into flames such was the heat. Something was on my head and I reached up to touch a damp cloth before my arm fell back to the bed. It had taken all of my strength to move just that far.

The woman stopped reading and leaned down to whisper to the boy who giggled happily and ran to the door, pulling it open and disappearing through it as the woman stood and smoothed down the front of her plain blue dress.

She set the book to one side and picked up a plastic cup of water from the floor beside me and crouched down. It occurred to me that I was lying on something low, a camp bed perhaps. It was hard to focus or to move my head.

“Drink,” the woman commanded as she placed the cup to my lips and tepid water filled my mouth, spilling out down my chin. I shifted on my bed and moaned as pain stabbed through my stomach.

“Wh-where?”

“Don’t talk just yet,” she said as she wiped at my chin with a clean looking white cloth. “Drink first.”

I did as she said and managed to swallow more of the water. It stung my throat for a moment before salving it. A cough shook me and pain once more bloomed in my gut.

“Try not to move around, you’re in a bad way.”

“Ryan?” I asked and hated how my voice sounded so weak and feeble.

“He left hours ago.”

“Left?”

She looked from me to the door and chewed absently on her lip as she thought. Finally, she said, “He left with your friend, Gregg?” I nodded and she continued, “And Gabe.”

“What happened?”

“You were stabbed and I won’t lie, you’re not in a good way.”

“Hot…”

She nodded, “That’s the fever from your infection. I gave you the last of our Ibuprofen and we’ve been cooling you as best we can with what we have.” A look of worry crossed her face before she continued, “The fever’s retreated a little but I fear it’s merely a lull and without more medicine, it’ll be back stronger than ever.”

“I’m dying,” I said and knew that I was speaking the truth. I could feel it, the heat was robbing me of my strength and threatened to pull me back into a slumber from which I doubted I would ever wake.

“If they can make it back with some medicine, you’ll have a chance.”

She sounded so hopeful but so forlorn at the same time, I wanted to pull her close and tell her it was okay but the little strength I had was needed to keep my eyes from closing. I’d survived this long against all the odds and it was just death finally catching up with me. I wasn’t particularly religious but knew that if I faced judgment afterwards, well, the things I had done, the lives taken, were for a good purpose. I would face whatever judgment came with head high.

“They’ll make it back, I’m sure they will,” she said and I managed a wan smile for her.

“You’re a doctor?”

“Not really,” she said. “Well, not a medical one anyway. Psychiatrist by trade and co-opted doctor by default because I was the best choice they had.”

“His sister,” I said and my smile widened.

“Evelyn,” she replied with a nod and a smile of her own.

“I was looking forward to meeting you.”

“And I, you,” she said. “Anyone who can affect him in such a manner… well, you must be an impressive woman.”

“No,” I said. “Just able to see him for who he is and not what he’s done.”

Her gaze narrowed at that and she opened her mouth as though to speak but closed it again as a knock sounded on the door. She stood up as it opened and Cass poked her head through. Her eyes were red as though she’d been crying and I could see how tired she was, but her face lit up as she saw me.

“Hey,” she said as she entered the room with a nod for Evelyn. “How’re you doing?”

“Been better,” I said. “You? Pat? The Baby?”

“All fine,” she said as she settled down next to me. Evelyn picked up the cup and filled it from a plastic jug before pressing it to my lips once more. I managed to drink without spilling and smiled my thanks.

We spent the next ten minutes speaking of inconsequential things as Evelyn replaced the cloth on my brow with a freshly dampened one that felt incredible as the coolness seeped into my skin. She lifted my arm and placed her forefingers against my wrist as she kept her eyes on a silver watch, counting the beats of my heart with a frown furrowing her brow.