Free Search for Safety: Killing the Dead Book Two by Richard Murray Page B

stockpile including some more bottles of water that would be needed at some point. Apparently the three men had a great deal of alcohol and cigarettes as well. It seemed both Claire and Rachel were smokers and were more than happy to have those.
    Pat had found a number of knives and another hand axe that would help arm nearly everyone and then he brought out the guns.
    “What do you think you will be doing with them?” I asked him.
    “Well... shoot zombies.”
    “Do you even know how to use a rifle?” I asked as I looked at the hunting rifle he held.
    “Well you just aim it at a zombie and pull the trigger.” He said with a laugh.
    “These undead seem to head towards noise. You fire that and you will have them coming straight at you.” I pointed out.
    “No it will be fine. You’ll see. We can actually get rid of the bloody things without having to get close enough to be bitten.”
    “How many guns are there?” asked Claire.
    “Two hunting rifles” said Pat, “Oh and a couple of boxes of bullets for each.” He added.
    I shook my head at his excitement. Firing one of those would be a death sentence if you did it in the wrong place I was sure. He didn’t want to listen though and the others all seemed equally excited at the idea of being able to protect themselves from a distance.
    Everyone helped to unload the van and store all the belongings in the living room and kitchen while I sat on the couch feeling rather useless. When the van was unloaded Claire fed those people that had just returned before taking Maggie up to bed. Cass excused herself to check on her brother and Pat and Rachel laughing playfully went up to their room.
    Lily had been checking on Liz throughout the day and now sat in the living room with the wind up radio from the house where the old man had died a few days before. She didn’t seem to want to speak to me so I continued to read through my stack of books as she wound up the radio and fiddled with the dials.
    The radio crackled to life and a faint voice could be heard speaking through the static. I put down my book and stared at the radio in Lily’s lap. I knew the UK didn’t have an emergency broadcast system, so if anything was still on air, it could mean that civilisation still existed somewhere.
    Her hands kept turning the dial as she tried to get a clear signal but after a few minutes the signal was gone and static was all we could hear.
    “Perhaps it’s someone trying to contact other survivors” I said.
    “It did sound like one person repeating a message.” She agreed.
    “If it is a group of survivors they may be trying to save power and only playing the message for a short time. We should keep trying during the day to see if we can pick it up again.”
    “Well that’s worth a try I suppose. It was a faint signal though, so it could be a long way from here.”
    “I thought you would be happy to find other people.”
    “I am... it’s just the few people we have met since leaving the refugee centre, have generally been the worst kind of people.” Lily said with a glum expression.
    “Not everyone will be like that.”
    “No, just the ones who are most likely to survive the longest though.”
    There really wasn’t much I could say to that. In truth it was likely that the ones most willing to kill and prey on other survivors would survive longest. I took a moment to really look at Lily as she busied herself once more with the radio. She looked tired, dark circles beneath her eyes and a frown that seemed to be permanently etched onto her brow.
    I realised that she had been making a lot of decisions for the group lately. She asked my advice and usually acted on it, but she directed the others, she led the discussions. The strain of trying to look after the people here was taking a toll already. It occurred to me that if she collapsed from the strain the group would struggle. I certainly didn’t want to deal with all the minor problems.
    “You need to get some rest” I