Burden of Survival Page 12

  “Why…” I said.

  “You can’t be sure she was immune,” Marcus said. “It could just be slower acting in her. Best just to get it over with.”

  I stared at him in shock and didn’t know what to say. Cass stood close by with an expression of horror on her own face, soon replaced by fear.

  “Why didn’t you just send her away?” I asked.

  “Simpler to just kill her now,” he said.

  In stunned silence I watched as his men restored order amongst the gathered people and in short time the woman went back to her task of sorting through them. More were sent to the left, mainly the younger children and oldest people. I couldn’t help but notice it was mainly men.

  Cass had her arms pressed to her belly in a subconscious urge to protect the life growing there and the woman noticed. I tensed as I waited for her to call out to Marcus or raise her gun but instead she just gave her a look of distaste and sent her to the group on the left.

  When they were done, eighteen of my community, my people were stood to the left while the rest were on the right. Marcus, our new leader stood between the two groups with a wide smile on his face. He still had hold of my arm.

  “Those of you to my left,” he began. “Will leave here and go to the mainland. Once there you will get as far from here as you can because if we see any of you after this day, we will kill you.”

  Cries of fear were raised and many tears were being shed openly from both groups. The children especially looked terrified.

  “While you lucky people on the right,” he said. “You get to serve my men and me.”

  He shared grins with his men and from the looks of despair on the faces of the people to the right, they suspected what he wanted from them. He apparently knew that too.

  “Worry not, none of my people will force themselves on you,” he said. “Each day you will be assigned a task. For some of you that will be to cook, to clean, to gather supplies or to provide… entertainment.”

  My heart sank as he confirmed what I’d suspected.

  “If you do these tasks you will be rewarded with food and shelter,” he continued. “If you refuse your task you will not eat. If you refuse a second time you will not only go without food but you will sleep outside, away from our protection. If you refuse a third time, well then we will have no need for you.”

  He turned back to me as his men chivvied the group on the right back inside the house. They were for all intents and purposes prisoners.

  “You’re just like all the other monsters,” I whispered and his smiled faded.

  “I’ll not force anyone to do something they don’t want to,” he said.

  “No, you’ll just give them no real choice.”

  “There’s always a choice.”

  “What if they want to leave?” I asked. “Will you let them?”

  “Of course,” he said. “That too will be their choice. To stay and serve or to leave with nothing.”

  “Then I’ll leave,” I said.

  “Oh no,” he shook his head as his smile returned. “We watched you people for days as we prepared the rafts. I saw you leading these people and I have no intention of letting you go.”

  “So much for choice.”

  “Very well then,” he said with a smirk. “Your choice is simple. You can stay here or you can leave. But know that if you leave, I shall execute five people.”

  “What!”

  “A simple choice,” he said. “Do you care more for yourself or for the people here?”

  It was no choice at all and he knew it. For whatever reason he wanted me to stay, I was stuck there and he smirked triumphantly.

  “Will you at least let me say goodbye to my friends?”

  “But of course,” he said. “I’m not a total monster after all.”

  I pulled my arm from his grasp and went to the group that were being forced to leave. Cass watched me with wide eyes as I approached.

  “How did this happen?” she whispered and I shook my head.

  “No time,” I said. “Go to the house, stay there and watch the roads for the others return. Tell them what’s happened.”

  She nodded and stepped back as two of the armed men approached. One of them pushed me aside as they shooed the scared group towards the docks and the moored boats. I watched helplessly as they were forced off of the island and turned my thoughts to how best I could save my people.

  Chapter 19

  Ryan

  Inside the hotel everyone was busily gathering their belongings and whatever supplies they had on hand. I noted that they all seemed to at least be dressed appropriately for the journey, no doubt one of the benefits of living in the area. They’d have had those clothes to hand.

  Gabby gestured us over to her and introduced the bearded villager who seemed to be in charge of the group.

  “This is James,” she said. He held out his hand to each of us in turn and didn’t seem perturbed when I ignored it.

  “What’s the plan?” Pat asked.

  “We can’t go back the way we came,” Gabby said. “Not with all these good people. The route passes too close to the village and there’s no way we could avoid all the undead.”

  That made sense though it limited the chance for violence and death.

  “So what then?”

  “We go up the hill,” James said. His voice was gruff and he wheezed in between words. His round face was pale and sagged as though he’d lost weight recently, which he likely had. “Once over the crest we can join one of the trails that takes us back down to the east and away from our village”

  “I mean no offence,” I said. “But are you sure that all of your people can make that journey?”

  James looked around at his friends and neighbours. Too many of them were young children and at least two were seventy if not older. He nodded slowly.

  “Aye, they’ll make it.”

  “If you say so,” I said. I was already eyeing up the ones who were most likely to slow us down and considering ways for them to have accidents.

  “We don’t want to be out in the open when it gets dark,” Pat said in his quiet voice. “Too many things to go wrong.”

  “There’re some farms out that way,” James said. “My people know this area, we’ll get there just fine.”

  “Your funeral,” I said with a grim smile at his look of consternation. Gabby was clearly annoyed and gently steered James away from us. Her last look over her shoulder was disapproving.

  “You really should work on your people skills mate,” Gregg said with a snigger.

  “Aye, I’ll do that sometime.”

  I left them to do the planning and organising of the villagers and wandered through the hotel until I found Jenny. She was staring out of the window, her forehead creased in a frown and her eyes unblinking. She didn’t even turn as I approached.

  “What do you see?” I asked.

  “Not sure, something was out there though. I know it.”

  “Did you see it or is it just a feeling?”

  She spared me a quick glance, barely more than a flick of her eyes and her frown deepened.

  “I felt someone watching us as we climbed.”

  “Not to disparage your ‘feeling’ but you can see all the way down the valley,” I said. “If there was anyone following us then we’d be able to see them.”

  “No, it’s there.”

  As much as I distrusted feelings and hunches, likely because I preferred to rely on what I could see and touch; I had a vague feeling of disquiet at how fervently she seemed to believe it. In a world where the dead walked, it wasn’t such a bad idea to discount such feelings without giving them due attention.

  “Perhaps we should take a walk,” I suggested. “If anything’s out there I’d rather it not sneak up on us when we are herding this lot up the hill.”

  She nodded and the faintest trace of a smile formed on her lips.

  “I’ll let Gabb
y know.”

  With perhaps just a touch of paranoia, I kept watch through the window as Jenny sorted out the details. If someone or something was following us, then I wanted to kill it.

  Jenny finished speaking with the others and together we left the hotel. I had no real idea of where to start but figured the initial path we’d followed would be best.

  “They’re going to set off along the trail,” she said. “It goes up a way and then around the mountain. She said we had an hour and then we needed to set off after them.”

  “Well let’s make use of that hour then,” I said.

  The problem was that while technically I was right, we could see all the way down the valley, it wasn’t quite as simple as it sounded. The land rose and fell with crevices, dips and rises that provided ample places to hide even with just the short grass that covered the land.

  We set off walking back along the way we had come but after ten minutes, it was clear that if anything had followed us then it only need step off the path and it would effectively vanish from sight. More to the point, anyone could step off the path and make their way around to get ahead of us.

  Added to that I too had begun to get the feeling that something or someone was watching us. It left me feeling distinctly like prey and I didn’t like that one bit. One look at Jenny revealed she wore her unease plainly on her face and her head swivelled this way and that as she watched for attack.

  With knife in hand I gestured for her to follow and set off back towards the hotel. At least there we had a clear space where we could see anything approaching and if we followed the trail after the others, then the sides were far too steep for us to be followed by anything other than the path.

  I could admit to myself that in my eagerness to kill something, I’d made a mistake. We should have stayed with the group.

  As we arrived back at the hotel all was quiet. The trail that led up the hill was empty and I gathered that the villagers and our group had moved out of sight. Each of the vehicles were still in place and the door to the hotel was closed but something seemed off.

  “What is it?” Jenny asked as I slowed my pace.

  “Not sure,” I said.

  The hillside was silent, just the wind blowing through the grasses and the light rain falling. No insects, no birds and no moans of the undead. It was eerie in a way that I rarely felt, as though we were poised in the calm before the storm. I readied my knife and Jenny watching closely, raised her own blade before her.

  With slow and cautious steps I walked past the closest car, a dark blue Range Rover. I held up a hand for Jenny to pause and I crouched to look beneath. Seeing nothing, I rose back up and moved on to the next.

  By the third car a faint sheen of sweat covered my skin, chill where the wind touched it. Something was off and my heart was beating faster as my muscles tensed, ready for any kind of action.

  I paused by the front of the final vehicle. If anything was hiding it would surely be behind that one and I was ready for it. With a sudden burst of energy I leapt forward with knife raised and stopped when I saw nothing there.

  Feeling somewhat foolish for my nerves and annoyed at giving in to Jenny’s ‘feeling’ I lowered my blade and turned to her.

  “Nothing here,” I snapped.

  “Still…”

  “No, we’ve wasted enough time on this nonsense. Let’s catch up with the others before we run out of daylight.”

  I was irritated more with myself than her but the anger in my tone was hard to miss and she flinched away from it. Despite my irritation though I could still feel the strangeness in the air.

  The trail turned upwards a short distance from the hotel and I led the way towards it. My feet crunching on the gravel as I passed the building. I kept my knife to hand since anything could be waiting around the corner but I didn’t really expect there to be.

  Jenny screamed as the glass from the window she was passing exploded outwards as a body burst through it. She fell to the ground, arms pushing against the zombie that was doing its best to reach her.

  Before I could render aid, another window, this one in front of me, shattered as another zombie hurled itself through. It landed on all fours and seemingly without much effort it sprang straight at me.

  I leapt to the right, away from the wall with my knife lashing out at it as we passed each other. I landed with a thump and a crunch of gravel and pushed myself to my feet, spinning to meet the threat.

  My attacker was on its feet and coming at me, a crimson line crossing its cheek where my knife had connected. I kicked out with one foot and lost my balance as it darted to the side away from me. Before I could recover it had hold of me and I was pushed back down to the ground.

  One of my elbows caught it in the ribs and something cracked as I did my best to roll over to get its weight off of me. My trusty combat knife was lost somewhere and I had a moments doubt as I realised the danger I was in.

  With a surge of adrenaline I raised up and flipped over, using all of my weight to slam it into the ground. Its grip on my coat loosened and I wriggled free, legs scrambling against the gravel to put some distance between myself and it. Somewhere close by, Jenny screamed.

  I grabbed a handful of gravel as I surged to my feet and turned to fling it at the zombie that had attacked me. It caught it full in the face and distracted it for precious seconds while I leapt to where my knife lay. I scooped it up and swung around to the zombie.

  It collided with me and I had a brief glimpse of broken teeth in a foul smelling mouth before I slammed my knife into the side of its skull. It dropped without a sound as a burst of euphoria swept through me and I looked to Jenny.

  She was struggling beneath the zombie, it was on top of her and fresh blood dripped from the flap of skin between its teeth. Her cheek was red and she was desperately trying to stop it from taking another bite.

  With one quick strike I stuck my blade through the back of its head and shoved it off of her. She lay there panting heavily as blood ran down her face to pool beneath her head. Her eyes met mine, they were full of fear.

  “Get up,” I said as I held out a hand to her. “Bandage it as best you can, we need to catch up with the others.”

  “What’s the point,” she said. “I’m already dead. I can feel it moving through me.”

  Probably I thought. I needed to get her to the others though. After our most recent talk there was no way they’d believe I hadn’t killed her myself unless she was there as proof.

  “You could be immune,” I said with a shrug. “Cass is.”

  She pulled a tattered cloth from a pocket on her jacket and held it to her cheek. She looked at me despairingly and then down at the dead zombies. They had grey skin and clumps of hair missing from their skulls. What clothes they wore were stained and ripped which told me they’d been undead for a while yet were still fresh.

  “What the hell happened?”

  “These were not typical,” I agreed. “We’ll need to tell the others, come on.”

  I led the way past the hotel towards the trail. I was moving swiftly and keeping an eye on my surroundings but in truth my mind was elsewhere.

  The zombies were not right, they were fresher than the usual and didn’t have such a strong odour of death about them. They were fast and agile, they’d hidden inside the hotel and waited for us to come to them.

  They were different and that excited me. More to the point that brief scuffle had left me with a feeling of pleasure that I’d not felt for a long time. I’d enjoyed killing them and I could only assume it was because they were more challenging.

  With a greatly improved mood I glanced back at the dead zombies, my gaze taking in Jenny’s forlorn expression. If she wasn’t immune, which she likely wasn’t then I’d probably get to kill her too without breaking Lily’s rules. All in all, it looked to be a not unpleasant day after all.

  Chapter 20

  Lily

  The invaders had chosen rooms on
the second floor for themselves. Marcus, the leader of the murderous band had decided that I was to be the go between. He’d passed instructions that everyone else would sleep on the ground floor but guards would be on the entrances.

  His next order had been to clear away the dead bodies that littered the open area beyond the house. With little choice my people set to the grisly task and before long several pyres had been raised, the sickly sweet stench of human flesh filling the air.

  I moved from person to person, trying to reassure and allay their fears. It wasn’t easy since I had my own fears to deal with. Cass was gone with all of the children under thirteen and a couple of the older men. It wasn’t hard to see what was in store for the women who remained.

  Late in the afternoon he appeared in the doorway to the roundhouse and once he saw that I’d noticed him, he gestured once for me to attend him. With a sinking feeling in my stomach I jogged across the muddied ground to him.

  “Almost done?” he asked.

  “Just about.”

  “Then come with me.”

  He went back inside the house and with no other option, I followed him. As he walked he spoke about the things he intended to change. Minor things such as making the place a little more secure so that a takeover like the one he’d orchestrated, wouldn’t happen again.

  I listened and nodded along when he seemed to want a response but my mind was elsewhere, trying to think of some way to rid us of him and his followers without causing more harm to my people.

  “Where are you from?” he asked suddenly and I blinked rapidly as I realised I’d not been listening at all for the last few minutes.

  “A town near Leeds,” I said. “You?”

  “London most recently,” he said. “I was there for the end.”

  He glanced at me and I nodded attentively but refused to ask any further questions about him which raised a knowing smile on his face. His eyes studied mine and he seemed to come to some decision.

  “You have no reason to be afraid,” he said. “I’ll not harm anyone here unless I have to.”