Family Matters: Season 2 Book 3 (Killing the Dead 9) Read Online Free Page B

sides. “Have undead wandering them. At least one of your people is dead in there and that wouldn’t have happened if you’d cleared them out or taken basic precautions.”
    “Here now, you can’t just turn up and tell us we’re doing everything wrong.”
    “I’m honestly surprised you’ve survived this long,” I said as I looked back over my shoulder at the ruined rear wall. “A toddler could break into that place and slaughter you all.”
    “Aye well you’d know about that kind of thing wouldn’t you?” he snapped back. “We’ve tried to maintain some of our humanity.”
    “And what does that mean exactly?” I asked with one eyebrow raised sardonically.
    “Does it matter?” Gregg interrupted. “We’re wasting daylight.”
    I held up one hand to silence him as I stared at my brother. “Can we rely on you to fight when required? To kill the undead and even the living?”
    He blanched and he grimaced but he nodded. “I’ll fight the undead and do what I need to do to save a life. If we meet a living threat… I’ll not take a life if I can avoid it.”
    “As I thought,” I said with a sneer and turned away.
    We set out walking around the edges of the forest and north towards the road. Once past the trees, it was open grassland for two hundred metres and then a scraggly hedge barely four foot high with plenty of gaps in its length.
    The road was barely wide enough to fit two cars going in opposite directions and had nothing but a shallow grass verge at either side. In most places, that grass verge had been driven over and had been churned up by tyres, leaving muddy gouges full of rain water.
    In silence, we followed the road, each lost in our own thoughts. Every so often in the distance, across the fields, we would see an occasional zombie making its slow plodding way to whatever destination its withered and rotting brain had in mind. Not worth the effort to chase down and kill.
    As the road turned north we passed the entrance to a camp site and I glanced at my brother who shrugged in return. “Was closed for the winter, nothing there of use. We checked.”
    I gave it one last look and then turned back to the road and continued on my way. The day was wearing on and if we were lucky we’d reach Dumfries before darkness fell. That way we could scout the hospital and plan out what we were going to do.
    While I had every intention of getting the medicines we needed as quickly as possible, trying to do so at night or while facing a horde of the undead would likely result in my death and then Lily’s. I had no intention of that happening.
    The road north was flanked by open fields on the right and on our left, trees provided a screen before the stinking salt marsh and mudflats beyond that led all the way to the river. Occasionally through the gaps in the trees, I would see a struggling figure stuck in the mud. It didn’t bear mentioning and I ignored them.
    By mid-afternoon, the distance between the road and the River Nith narrowed until it was barely a dozen metres. That’s when we came upon the village of Glencaple.
     

Chapter 5 – Ryan
    The road that led through town was lined on the right by the empty homes of the former inhabitants. Several smaller roads branched off to the right, leading to more streets of empty homes. Abandoned cars and personal belongings littered the road, evidence of flight.
    “Things happened fast here,” Gabriel said softly. I glanced at him and was surprised to see a look of sorrow on his face as he looked over the buildings with their broken windows and dark stained walls.
    “You were here then?” Gregg asked.
    “Oh aye laddie, we were in a house up past the hotel and out towards the school,” he pointed roughly north-east and grimaced. “All the wee kiddies were at school like, when the first person must have turned.”
    “What happened?”
    I shook my head at the stupidity of the question. It was clear what had happened, the same as everywhere else. Someone