Last Days With the Dead Read Online Free

bad news was on the cards, but as a horde of the Dead hadn’t been following the cart up the lane, he knew whatever it was, could wait a few minutes.
    ‘Well, William and Damien will be on watch duty in about five minutes, you and Cam meet me in the Refectory, okay?’ said Patrick, pushing aside the canvas glove to glance at the old battered watch on his wrist.
    ‘If you hurry, Sister Rebecca will cook you both some breakfast,’ called Lars over his shoulder, while he led Delilah over to the water trough.
    At the mention of food, a loud growl emanated from Leon’s stomach.
    ‘Sorry ,’ he said, his hand moving to cover his stomach, ‘guess I could do with something to eat.’   
    ‘Right, see you in five minutes then ,’ said Patrick, slapping Leon on the shoulder before turning to climb back up onto the walkway to do another circuit of the walls. ‘Oh, and welcome home you two.’
    ***
    In the Refectory, Liz sat at one of the long wooden tables with Saleana asleep in her arms, watching Nadine and Jen with the small group of children. Her sister, Anne, as one of the older members of the make shift school, was normally well behaved, but today, Nadine was teaching them mathematics and it was clear that Anne was bored by the subject, and had decided to play up. Justin on the other hand, who was a few years older than Anne, seemed to relish the order and simple truth that mathematics offered him, and had been able to master the subject at an alarming rate. Perhaps in the years to come, he would be able to put to good use his skill and even learn from Duncan the wonders of mechanics. They would surely need all the help they could get if they wanted a chance of rebuilding the world. But at the moment, his studious attitude was being disrupted by Anne, who was pulling faces at him.
    ‘Anne ,’ Liz said sternly, hooking her finger back and forth, ‘come here.’
    ‘Now you’re for it ,’ said Nadine, nodding for Anne to cross the room to her sister.
    With a ‘humph’ sound, Anne pushed herself away from the table and walked over to Liz.
    ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ asked Liz sounding and acting more like Anne’s mother than her sister. ‘Do you want to be a dumbo all your life?’
    ‘But it’s boring,’ Anne whined . ‘Can’t I read instead, I like reading.’
    ‘What if we all only did what we liked, Anne ,’ replied Liz, ‘the crops wouldn’t get harvested and the Dead wouldn’t get killed, and then where would we be?’
    ‘You like killing the Dead ,’ Anne mumbled, absentmindedly kicking the leg of the table again and again.
    Anne had got her there. It was true; Liz did like killing the Dead. Well, not so much ‘liked’ but rather ‘needed’. She felt compelled to send these walking corpses back to the graves that had been denied them. She just knew it was her job to put down these creatures. They were simply wrong, their very existence at odds with nature and the way things should be. She felt this even more so now that she had given birth to a child. She refused to accept that her daughter was destined to live in a world where the Dead blossomed. Thanks to Avery’s anti-virus, the survivors at Lanherne may have miraculously been given the gift of true death, but to think of Saleana spending her whole life with the millions upon millions of walking corpses, tore at her heart.
    ‘Well ,’ Anne continued, breaking Liz from her thoughts, ‘Can’t I read instead? P.l.e.e.e.a.s.e.’
    Looking into the large blue eyes peering out from an angelic upturned face, Liz smiled, lent forward , and took her sister’s chin in her hand.
    ‘No!’ she said flatly . ‘Get back to your work and get on with it, or you’ll be cleaning out the pigsty for a week, and I’m not joking.’
    Anne scrunched up her face, spun on her heals , and stomped back to her seat by Justin. With Anne now dealt with, Liz gently readjusted Saleana in her arms and looked over at the collection of found