Free Family Matters: Season 2 Book 3 (Killing the Dead 9) by Richard Murray Season 2 Book 3

change.” She paused and wiped at her own eyes and I was reminded that she had lost a brother she had only just found out had survived the apocalypse just a few days before.
    “Ryan tried to get through but he was surrounded by them. Your friend Gregg, he ran off to help. The last Gabe saw of them, hundreds of zombies were around them, all reaching for them.”
    Hope surged. I knew it shouldn’t, it was beyond foolish but it was there. A bright spark of hope that helped hold back the darkness. “He didn’t see them die?”
    “Gabe couldn’t bear that. He didn’t see them fall but he was sure of the numbers against them, the chance of them surviving are tiny. They were lost to sight beneath a crowd of hundreds of undead.”
    “You don’t know them,” I said as my eyes closed. “They didn’t die, not like that.”
    I didn’t hear her reply as the darkness took me but as I sank deeper into it I knew that I would wake at least once more. I had to know for sure they had survived.
     

Chapter 10 - Ryan
    My knife came free of the corpse with a sucking sound like that of mud as you pulled your booted foot free. Not the most pleasant sound even to me, but one I had heard often throughout the day.
    Jinx gave a silent snarl as tore at the back of a downed zombie’s neck, her teeth tearing through the flesh to chew on the spinal cord. I wasn’t entirely sure she would be able to chew right through it in any efficient time frame but I admired her determination.
    Another zombie made its way up the last few steps and I kicked it in the chest, sending it falling back against the others. Gregg pulled on my arm and I sighed as I looked back at him.
    “Help me with this one,” he said as he hauled up a corpse, his hands under its armpits.
    I grabbed the dead body’s legs and together we lifted it over the railings before letting it drop onto the other undead that were trying to climb the stairs.
    He wiped his forehead with one arm, leaving a streak of bloody grime. Hardly worth mentioning since the both of us were covered quite liberally in blood and other fluids I didn’t want to think too much about.
    “This is getting us nowhere,” he said and I shrugged. “We must have killed hundreds of the bloody things and there’s no end of them in sight.”
    “Sixty-three,” I said as I watched another making its way around the bend in the stairs. It stumbled over the bodies that already littered the steps and I knew it would take a few more minutes to make its way up to us.
    “What? You’re counting them?”
    “Aren’t you?” I asked as I turned to him. He shook his head, eyes wide with… something I couldn’t identify. I need to start learning to read people's expressions , I thought since it seemed ever more likely Lily wouldn’t be there to help me with that kind of stuff.
    “No mate,” he said. “Who the fuck has time to count how many we kill while trying to stay alive.”
    “Keeps the mind occupied.”
    “It should be occupied with staying alive!”
    I shrugged. It wasn’t up to me to tell him what he should be doing during a fight for his life, but being focused on staying alive was severely limiting. I mean sure, staying alive was useful and often necessary to allow you to continue the real fun, like the actual killing itself. It wasn’t the end goal though.
    Well perhaps not for me, I thought as I looked over at my friend. He was staring aghast at Jinx who seemed to be crunching on the zombie's spine as it thrashed weakly beneath her.
    “Does it bother you?” I asked and he looked from the dog to me.
    “Does what bother me?”
    “Dying.”
    “What?” he raised one eyebrow and tilted his head as though unsure what he was hearing.
    “Does the idea of dying upset you?”
    “Of course it upsets me!” he snapped. “Are you saying it doesn’t upset you?”
    “Not really,” I said with another shrug. The zombie was almost half way up the stairway and another was rounding the bend behind it. I