Killing The Dead (Book 15): The Gathering Storm Page 13

  “P-please…” she said, voice barely above a whisper and I yanked my arm to the side, blade narrowly missing her head.

  Sunken eyes that were not quite human stared up at me. There was dried blood around her mouth and chin. Dark veins ran across her too pale skin and the smell of death clung to her.

  “What are you?”

  “P-please,” she repeated. “N-no more.”

  No more what?

  She stepped towards me, hands reaching out and I moved back, not quite willing to let her get close.

  “What happened to you? Where are the others?”

  “Pleeeease!” Her voice rose to a shriek and for perhaps the first time in my life, I was unsure what to do.

  So I left her, backing away towards the door where Gregg waited. I risked a look back over my shoulder and cursed as I was almost blinded by the light of his torch.

  “The hell is up with her?” he asked as I reached him.

  I shrugged and gave the woman a hard look. She hadn’t moved from where I had left her, just stood there, arm reaching out imploringly towards us. I slammed the door closed and flashed a grin at my friend.

  “Right then. Better not go back in there just yet.”

  “Too bloody true.”

  “You stay and watch the door. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “Wait! What? You’re leaving me here. In the dark. Alone. With some weird woman behind a locked door that she can probably open from her side.” He shook his head. “Have you never watched a horror film before?”

  “You’ll be fine. Just don’t open the door.”

  I chuckled as I left him there. It was unlikely the door would open but if it did, I was pretty sure he could handle himself. Besides, he’d have company.

  “Head back and wait with my friend,” I told the girl.

  She nodded and hurried past me, a group of women, mostly around her age or a little older, following along behind her and giving me frightened looks. I watched them coolly, well aware of the abuses they had likely suffered and knowing the opportunity it gave me for murder.

  I hurried back up the stairs, barely feeling the aches and pains that had been accompanying me since my torture. That was temporary, I knew. But I had a small amount of time to accomplish my tasks before the adrenaline surging through my system gave out.

  From outside the building, I could still hear the occasional gunshot but they were sporadic as though the worst of the danger was over. I hurried along the corridor, so consumed with listening for those sounds that I didn’t notice the voices.

  I skidded to a stop and darted into an empty room as the two men turned the corner. As dirty and dishevelled as the rest of the people I had encountered there, they laughed loudly as they walked past the doorway to the room.

  Each of them carried a rifle resting on their shoulder and they stank. Tattoos covered their faces, crude and clearly homemade. At least one of those tattoos was red and inflamed which I guessed meant it was either new or infected.

  Not that it would matter. I grinned wolfishly as I stepped out into the corridor behind them. Moving swiftly but timing my steps with theirs to hide the noise of my movements. They turned a corner and I leapt forward.

  My boot slammed down on the back of the closest man’s knee and he fell forward with a cry. Before his companion could even react, I swept my knife up and around, slicing deep into his throat. He fell back with a yell, hands going to the wound as blood sprayed across the corridor.

  The other had turned onto his back, lifting his rifle. I kicked the barrel to the side and fell onto him, my knee striking his chest. One quick slice and his blood sprayed into the air and I gave a laugh of delight.

  I pushed myself up, almost giddy with the pleasure running through me and stepped back, away from their twitching bodies. Soon they would rise and wander the corridor, searching for prey. I quietly hoped they would be nothing more than a distraction for the other raiders as I very much wanted to kill them all myself.

  The next man died without even seeing me. He stuck his head into a room as he passed, calling out a woman’s name. I ended him as I would have a zombie, my blade buried in the back of his skull and he fell without a word.

  A scream sounded from outside and I stopped, frozen in place for just a moment before I turned and ran back to the room I had just passed by. Over to the window where I could stare out and curse loudly as a zombie tore at a man’s body as he screamed.

  Another of the raiders ran over, his rifle raised as he fired. The Reaper leapt almost six feet from where it had crouched, to crash into him. Clawed hands slashing at him, blood misting the air as he died.

  The broken jaw had healed crookedly and much of the flesh it stuffed into its mouth fell back out, but clearly, it could still feed, and heal. Another man died as I watched and I slapped my hand against the glass, cursing the foul creature for stealing my kills.

  It looked up, one good eye meeting mine for a moment before it threw back its head and howled. Behind it, the Shamblers began to fall over the top of the gate, the piled bodies making an effective ramp and I shook my head at the stupidity of the raiders.

  Or perhaps at myself for leading the zombies to them.

  No matter. The raiders were distracted, the zombies a threat that I could deal with later and the Reaper a rival in that moment. I couldn’t face it till the raiders were dead so it would be a race to see who could kill them first.

  I intended to win.

  Chapter 20

  Screams echoed around the building. Cries for help, for ammo, for salvation. They found none of that, just me.

  My blade flashed down and more blood sprayed across the floor. Another body fell lifeless at my feet and I held back my laughter, holding it close as my body almost trembled with the pleasure that filled me.

  Another man. Stopping to reload, had a moment to look up, confusion in his eyes. The life soon faded from them as I thrust my blade up beneath his chin and into his brain. I left him where he fell and moved on.

  The smell of cordite hung in the air, mingling with the stale sweat of unwashed bodies and most prominent of all, fear. It filled those corridors with its rank odour and I breathed it in. A Shambler lurched towards me and I slipped to the side, around it, my arm sweeping out, hand grabbing the back of its skull and driving it into the wall.

  Up the stairs, following a trail of blood. A young man lay at the top, whimpering softly. His greasy hair was matted with the blood that seeped from the wound in his skull. The claws of the Reaper if I were to guess.

  His eyes met mine, pleading, tears filling them. I smiled down at him and gently stroked his head, murmuring soft words as I slipped my knife across his throat. The betrayal filled his gaze as he gasped and choked on his blood and I held him there, feeling the life seep from his body.

  It was marvellous.

  I was in a kind of heaven. Chaos and death all around me and everywhere an enemy to slay. I was bathed in the blood of the raiders and I revelled in their deaths. It was something I had been missing for such a long time.

  The murder of the people in the bunker had been distant, cold and somewhat exciting. But nothing, absolutely nothing, could compare to the feeling I had as I used my knife. As I watched the life fade from their eyes, as they died in my arms.

  There was a connection there. One that I had found lacking in almost every other part of my life. As I killed, I came alive and I longed to keep that feeling alive for when I stopped, as the exultation died down, so would that connection fade.

  Once more, the world would be a place of emptiness. No colour, no life, no joy to be had. Not really.

  I craved those deaths and if I were to die, so long as it was with my knife in my hand and my enemies blood on my blade. I could be content.

  There was a kind of madness gripping me. I knew that. My thoughts manic and scattered, barely coherent as drunk as I was on murder. I struggled to regain control, to pull back, but I had the taste of death in my mouth and like a
man in recovery who had just tasted the finest whiskey, I needed more.

  I followed the sounds of gunfire and stepped out onto one of the flat rooftops. Four men crouched at the far side, firing down into the crowd of zombies below them. They didn’t look around or even notice me as I walked up behind them.

  He screamed as I pushed him over the side, into the grasping hands of the hungry horde. I couldn’t help the giggle that escaped me as I turned to the startled man beside me and smiled.

  “What the hell!-“

  My blade went through his open mouth and he had but a moment to register it before his eyes went dark and he fell back. A bullet grazed my cheek and I barely noticed the sting of pain so high on adrenaline I was.

  The man who had fired at me squeezed the trigger and heard only a click. My booted foot caught him in the chest and sent him sprawling into the man next to him. I leapt forwards, straight into the first man's foot as he raised it.

  I hit the roof, hard, and rolled, coming to my feet in a crouch, knife extended before me. I grinned at my enemies and darted in, blade slashing first left, then right. The butt of a rifle caught me in the face, blood splashing down into my eye from the cut it opened above it.

  It wasn’t enough to stop me and with a shake of my head, I ducked to the side, the second blow glancing off the side of my skull and hit the man in the stomach with my shoulder and all my body weight.

  He tottered for a moment and then, arms wind-milling, he fell backwards into the crowd below. The final man had reloaded and managed to fire once before I buried my blade in his chest. He fell back and I pushed myself to my feet, staggering as I pressed a hand against my side, feeling the sticky dampness there as my blood flowed over my fingers.

  Sobriety returned with a crash and I fell back against the wall, pain rejoining me with a vengeance. I cursed at myself for leaving my bag with Gregg and did a quick search of my pockets.

  “Gregg, I’m glad you’re with me,” I said to myself as I found the gauze patches he had insisted I carry for the next time I changed the dressing on my toes.

  I shrugged off the jacket and ripped at the already torn cloth of the prison coveralls I still wore. The wound was not terrible, though a chunk of my flesh looked to be missing. The bullet had entered my body close to the side and had burst out of the back after only needing to travel a short distance.

  Nothing serious had been hit, or so I thought. My biggest problem would be infection and blood loss. I slapped one of the gauze patches over each opening, front and back. They stuck there and I watched them darken for a moment before I pulled my jacket back on. Slowly. Wincing all the while.

  My head thumped back against the wall as I listened to the screams and I revised my options. I’d killed more than half of the raiders as I moved through the building and plenty of Shamblers too.

  The Reaper though, well, that I’d not seen again and though I knew it was somewhere inside, I figured it would be a better idea to let the remaining raiders thin the horde a little bit. Besides, as the adrenaline had begun to fade, much of my energy had gone with it.

  A man backed out of the doorway, the pump-action shotgun in his hands firing again and again at something I couldn’t see. He didn’t even notice me, so focused was he on his shooting. Zombies piled out of the doorway, their eyes fixed on him.

  He continued to fire and back up until his ammo ran out, then he used the shotgun as a club. The zombies died easily but there was enough of them that they soon overwhelmed him, piling onto his body and pushing him over the side of the roof and following after him.

  I gave a short bark of laughter at the absurdity of it and pushed myself to my feet. If Gregg had any sense he would have replaced the false wall as best he could and would be hiding there, in the dark. Just in case any of the zombies made it downstairs.

  Which made things easier as I was pretty sure he was safe. The last thing I needed was to have to explain to Lily and Cass how I had let him die. I shook my head to clear it and slowly crossed to the edge of the roof.

  No more zombies were falling over the top of the gate, which was a bonus, at least. That meant I only had to kill the hundred or so that were in the courtyard, plus any that had made it inside. Oh, and the Reaper.

  I glanced down at my knife and considered my options. I could feel that nihilistic pull, that craving to walk back inside and just lose myself in the creeping madness of murder and death. But I couldn’t. I had to maintain control and survive, to make it back to Lily and my unborn children.

  So, I had to be smart. I collected the guns that had been left by the raiders I killed and checked each. Only one had bullets loaded and not many of them. It would have to do.

  My blade sheathed once more, I held the hunting rifle with both hands and went back inside. My side ached and I had to keep wiping blood from my eyes. I made a mental promise to myself to take some time to rest when I finally made it back to the island.

  I fired once as a zombie turned the corner and caught sight of me. Then again as another followed it. I threw the rifle and the handful that came after and drew my knife, cursing myself for a fool for bothering with the rifle.

  My breath came in gasps and I staggered as the last one fell, but I managed to remain on my feet. I was in no condition to fight a Reaper though, that was for sure. Not that I’d have much choice.

  Bodies lay all around. Raiders and zombies both. Many had been killed by my hand and many more by the guns of the raiders. The last of them had barricaded themselves in what I guessed was their main storeroom.

  They fired into the crowd of zombies that were trying to get in and I leant against the wall a little way down the corridor, trying to regain my breath as I waited and thought of what to do next.

  That decision was made for me.

  A moan sounded from behind me and I let out a soft sigh as I turned to face the approaching zombie, my knife ready.

  Its skin was absent in patches, rotted clean off the body. The stench was overpowering and there was little left of its face for me to be able to even recognise it as the man it had once been. But still, it came at me.

  I took a step forward, pulling back my blade, ready to strike and stopped as a clawed hand tore its head clean from its shoulders. I looked up into the film covered eye of the Reaper and swore softly.

  A scream of pain was torn from me as I crashed into the piled chairs in the room. I rolled away from them, ignoring the pain as best I could as the Reaper came at me. I could feel its anger, its hate, rolling off of it.

  It had chased me clear from one side of the country to the other and it had a thirst for vengeance that it couldn’t ignore if it tried. I almost felt a kinship with it.

  That feeling disappeared as I ducked a swing of an arm that would have taken my head off and thrust my blade towards it. The other arm knocked my blade away, heedless of the deep gash I left in its flesh.

  The creature roared again, dark flecked spittle flying from its mouth and blackened tongue protruding grotesquely. I slashed at it again and then leapt back as it lashed out at me. Not quick enough I realised as it caught me squarely in the side, sending me flying over a desk to hit the floor once more.

  I couldn’t help the groan, nor the tremble in my arms as I pushed myself up. The scent of my blood seemed to be exciting it and with one hand it lifted the desk I had just been thrown across and tossed it to the side as one would a child’s toy.

  The strength of the thing was beyond anything I had experienced and I had the sudden realisation that I was about to die.

  It was not a pleasing one.

  Clawed hands lifted me as easily I would a small child. I thrust with my blade but it skittered across the bone plating surround the creature's skull and I could swear it grinned as that tongue extended out beyond its mouth.

  To my utterly disgusted surprise, the end of the tongue seemed to split, forming a smaller mouth like that of a leach or lamprey. It seemed to strain towards me as the creature pulled me closer. I pulled bac
k my knife and stopped as a clawed hand gripped my wrist.

  With little other choice. My left hand swept up and gripped that blackened tongue. The creature screamed and I grinned as I pulled back on it. It squirmed and struggled in my grip but I held on… until the Reaper threw me backwards.

  The breath left my lungs in one great gasp and I collapsed to the floor, sucking in gulps of air as the zombie ran at me, rage in its every movement.

  Marshalling my strength, I pushed up and forward, towards it. My blade slammed into its stomach as its claws sank into my back and it’s moan matched my scream of pain.

  I pulled the knife to the side, creating a wide gash from which no blood flowed. I reached in with my other hand and grasped the squirming red mass inside of it. The Reapers claws sank deep as I pushed my knife into the opening, stabbing wildly at whatever was inside of it.

  Black blood rolled turgidly over my hands and arms as the creature convulsed, losing its grip on me and staggering, stumbling and then falling. All the while, I held on to its insides, my blade cutting and slicing.

  As I pulled back, the Reaper flopped and twisted on the floor as though it had lost control of itself. I did the only thing I could think to do and knelt on its chest, holding its head still with my left hand as I used my right to send my knife blade directly through its eye and into its brain.

  It fell still and I fell off of it, to lie on the floor beside it in a slowly spreading pool of my own blood. I was distantly aware of guns firing in the distance but it began to fade as darkness closed in.

  Chapter 21

  “Another one,” Lou said grimly as bodies were loaded onto the back of the flatbed wagon.

  I nodded and reached down to pet Jinx once more. She had become my source of comfort and one that I truly valued. More so every day, it seemed.

  “How many in total?”

  “Eighty-seven dead and almost four hundred being given treatment.”

  Damn. That meant more of a burden on our medical teams. I looked over at Cass and she nodded and wrote on her pad.