Free Killing the Dead (Season 2 | Book 2): Dark and Deadly Land by Richard Murray Page A

zombie making its slow way along the road, I swerved to avoid them.
    After an hour and a half of driving, we came to the edge of Keswick. A not too small town that was surrounded by open fields. Far to the east beyond the houses would be the long road full of the undead and I hoped they were far enough away that by the time they were aware of us, we’d already be gone.
    The road we followed went through the west edge of the town and the buildings that lined the road were once homes to the now deceased population. I drove forward carefully and the tension in the vehicle increased as weapons were made ready.
    I saw the first signs of the panicked flight as we came upon cars, abandoned on the road. Suitcases, clothing and other assorted personal belongings littered the street and gardens while the undead stared hungrily from the windows of houses as we passed.
    Without needing to stick to the road, I was able to drive around most of the empty vehicles. Few of the undead were out on the street and we progressed in silence, no one wanting to speak as we lost ourselves to the memory of our own flight back when this nightmare had begun.
    Ryan wound down his window as we passed a long line of cars, his arm striking out at a zombie just as it lurched towards us between two cars. It fell silently and he settled back with a faint smile on his lips.
    Cass cried out as the houses fell away and we passed a primary school, small bodies straining against the steel bars of the gate, high pitched moans of hunger that turned to fury as we passed them by. Not even Ryan could look at those torn bodies for long before turning his face away.
    I tried to focus on driving and pushed away the images that assaulted me. Eyes fixed on the road, but it wasn’t enough. I still saw the horrors of that town, could still smell that odour of death that blanketed it, could still capture those small glimpses of the despair faced by the initial survivors.
    The weathered blankets hanging limp from windows with entreaties for help, for food, for hope scrawled across them. The blackened shells that were all that remained of homes once full of life and laughter. Those bones that littered the ground, telling a tale of a last stand. It was all I could do to keep focused on the road ahead.
    No matter what, the horrors wouldn’t end. Someone was crying softly behind me at the sight of a stained pushchair torn almost to pieces. A body on the flat roof of a building, no sign of injury but the few zombies still waiting patiently in the parking lot below told the tale of a slow death while waiting for rescue that would never come.
    Words scrawled in blood on an upstairs window, a car crashed into a lamp post with four zombies held in by seatbelts, a body hanging from a tree just visible in the back garden of a house with high walls and a solid gate. Endless scenes of death and despair and oh so many bones spread across the town.
    It was a mausoleum now, a monument to death and one that would be repeated across the UK, across the world even. The urge to shout, to scream out my rage and the utter devastation I saw around me was almost overwhelming and my knuckles whitened as I gripped the steering wheel tight, desperate to hold on to something real and safe.
    One of the undead staggered out of a garden ahead of me and I caught it with the corner of the range rover, knocking it to the ground and felt the car rise as the wheels went over it. A small spark of satisfaction came to me as I managed to inflict some small damage on the undead that had overwhelmed this place.
    A faint humming came to me and I glanced across to see Ryan with the faintest trace of a smile on his face as he looked out over the town. No upset for him, no loss, no care for the horrors that seemed to psychically resonate through the town. I could have almost hated him then.
    “Possible survivors,” he said and I blinked, unsure if I had heard him right.
    “What?”
    “Back there, I saw something