Free Fear the Dead 2 by Jack Lewis Page A

have to do something you
don’t want, to get something you do want.”
     
    A bird flapped its wings above us and
then flew under the glow of the moon. The grass swayed in the fields
surrounding the house, and something barked in the distance. I thought of the
collie again, of its cold, dead eyes and its dismembered head. Sickening as it
was, I admired Faizel for what he’d done. If he hadn’t had killed the dog, we’d
have had a few dozen of infected on us in minutes. It was a horrible thing to
do, but he’d stepped up.
     
    The rumbling sound of a car engine
cut through the silence of the night. Faizel turned round. I got to my feet. My
left leg ached, and standing up so suddenly made my head light. I walked over
to the balcony and leaned over.
     
    A van pulled into the middle of the
high street and stopped. The driver cut the engine, got out and shut the door.
I couldn’t see much of him from here, other than he was of average height and
he wore a black coat that reached to his waist, and the lapels of longer coat
trailed out below. It was white, and looked like some sort of lab coat. He held
a long metal pipe in his right hand.
     
    An infected saw the man and shifted
in his direction, dragging one lame leg behind it and fighting to stay
balanced. As it got closer, the man swung his pipe. It connected at the
infected’s knee, twisting the cartilage so badly that I could almost hear the
sound of the gristle popping. The infected swayed backward, and the man gave it
an awkward kick and sent it to the floor.
     
    There was a sense of panic in his
movements as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a rope. He tied it
around the infected’s arms and legs, staying as far away from its straining head
as he could.  When this was done he opened the back of the van doors,
heaved the infected into the back of the van and then shut them again.
     
    More infected had heard the struggle
by now, and they moved toward him. He got in the driver seat and the engine
came to life. He turned on the headlights and drove away.
     
    Faizel and I had kept quiet out of
instinct, but as we saw the van drive away from Stowham, I turned to him. For a
second his eyes held the faint glimmer of surprise, but then the slate was wiped
and his face lost expression.
     
    “Who the hell was that?” I asked,
knowing that Faizel didn’t have an answer.

 
    10
     
    A voice cried out from inside the
house, but the volume was blunted by the door behind us. I got up and opened
it.
     
    “Kyle!” said Justin.
     
    I ran inside the house, Faizel
following me. There were so many rooms upstairs that it was hard to locate
Justin at first, but we eventually found him in what looked like the master
bedroom.
     
    There was a king sized bed, one of
the biggest I’d ever seen, and a large built-in wardrobe full of dozens of
shade variations of the same suit on one side and an array of party dresses on
the other. On one end of the room there was an ensuite bathroom. Justin stood
next to a pastel green wall with a wooden dado rail running along it,
terminating in a door-shaped opening that didn’t belong there.
     
    “Check this out,” said Justin.
     
    The door was painted the same shade
of green as the wall, and the handle was disguised under the dado rail. This
was a door that was not meant to be found.
     
    The commotion brought Alice and Ben
into the room, the kid rubbing his sleepy eyes. Dan followed them and a sour
whiskey aroma trailed in with him. His cheeks were tinged red.
     
    Faizel ran his hand along the side of
the door. “Clever,” he said.
     
    Justin stepped inside the room beyond
the door. “You gotta see this, Kyle. I can’t believe it.”
     
    Me, Faizel and Dan walked into the
room. When I followed them, my jaw almost dislocated from shock.
     
    It was a windowless room only
slightly larger than a shoe cupboard. A dark brown rack was fastened to one of
the walls, and dozens of shotguns and rifles hung off it. Underneath each