Free Killing the Dead by Richard Murray Page B

passed to them. They had a general air of fear that I was all too familiar with from my own victims. They were giving out bad news and were holding back worse.
    Throughout the rest of the day and long into the night I watched. Image after image would flash by on the screen. Stills captured from CCTV or uploaded from someone’s phone. Images of the dead attacking, ripping and rending flesh. The terrified faces of the people being killed preserved for us to see.
    Video clips would play of entire cities on the move. A terrified populace fleeing in their cars, packed full of all those precious items they held so dear. The same items soon abandoned as the roads became one endless traffic jam and beyond them the dead, following tirelessly desperate to feed.
    The scenes were repeated endlessly. The largest cities were the first to fall. Too many people packed together with nowhere to run. Entire city blocks became charnel houses, the streets were red rivers of blood and throughout it all one thing remained the same. If the dead killed you, you would rise. Born anew as a zombie ready to follow your undead brethren and feast on the living.
    Across the world the scenes were repeated. Ships at sea were left to float offshore, no safe harbour to sail into. Beleaguered armies were fighting and falling. The living, were fighting a losing war. Every man, woman or child who died would become another zombie to kill.
    Sometime around three in the morning the news reported that China had set off a nuclear device over one of their southern cities. More bombs fell through the night as the leaders of that nation tried desperately to halt the tide. It was a futile effort. If only half their population turned, they would still have more than five hundred million zombies. Our world was paying a harsh price for having a population of more than seven billion.
    I tried to get a few hours sleep in the flats tiny bedroom after I first pushed a chest of drawers across the bedroom door, it was better to be safe than sorry. Even so my sleep was still fitful. By seven am I had given up on sleep and was sat back on the couch eating some dry cereal and watching the TV.
    The rest of the day followed the same pattern. Eat and drink and watch TV. Occasionally during a period of the news presenters repeating the same things, I would stand at the window and look out at the world beyond.
    It was quiet out on the streets. A few cars went past and one coach packed full of people and their belongings headed towards the motorway. I didn’t think they would get far. The zombies were growing in number. Groups both large and small moved through the town, their bodies ranging from the barely touched to the falling apart at the seams.
    At one point I did see a helicopter fly over the town. It looked military and was headed north. No planes seemed to be flying anymore. Not long after the helicopter flew over a convoy of army trucks drove through the town. I had no idea where they were going but I heard no more sounds of gunfire afterwards.
    I spent a second night in the flat. I told myself it was so that I could rest though in truth I was feeling lost and unable to decide on a course of action. Since Lily knocked on my door I had been reacting. My decision to go to a library to gather much needed knowledge had ended badly, though I was still convinced I would need to go back at some point.
    Over the years I had grown used to working alone. It had never bothered me that I had few friends and no close family. I was fine moving through life dependent on no one but myself. At the start of this whole apocalypse though, my first instinct had been that I would need to be part of a group to survive. That initial group I had been trying to form had abandoned me. Sleep eluded me once more.
    The morning was cold and a light rain was falling. I took a hot shower and finished the last of the food I had found in the flats kitchen before dressing for the first time in days. I grabbed my