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

seemed excited by the news and ran off to tell the girls while I went in search of Pat. I eventually found him standing on the small dock and staring out across the still water. He didn’t seem to notice my approach until my feet made the wooden boards of the dock vibrate. He glanced back over his shoulder and saw that it was me.
    “Not in the mood mate,” he said quietly. “Not now.”
    “In the mood for what?”
    “For you,” he said. I could detect some anger in his tone and I wasn’t sure what the source was.
    “Why not?”
    “Oh for fu… fine. You want me to tell you,” he snapped as he twisted to face me and jabbed at my chest with one finger, his face screwed up in anger. “I’m still pissed at you.”
    “You are? What for?”
    “Really? You really don’t get it do you?” he shook his head and spat onto the boards at our feet. “That nonsense back on the trip to Coniston, leaving Jenny in the woods tied up and alone. For being the world’s biggest prick who doesn’t even see how much people give a damn about him. Take your pick.”
    “Jenny was infected and looked like she would turn anyway,” I said. “We were attacked by hundreds of zombies, what would you expect me to do?”
    “That’s the thing you’re confused about?” he visibly uncurled his hands that had formed into fists and stepped back away from me. “I get it mate, I really do. You’re a killer and that’s what you bloody love to be.”
    “Yes,” I wasn’t sure of the point he was making so I tried to pay attention and concentrate on what he was saying.       
    “That’s what you care about and not the rest of us. You think of yourself and that’s it,” he sighed and looked away. “You never think to ask any of us about what we want do you? About what we’re concerned about.”
    “Gregg is so fucking miserable these days that he volunteered to go and babysit a cellar full of zombies for you. Lily, the woman who loves you, is tearing herself up inside trying to forget the men she had to kill, Cass is pregnant and terrified of what that will bring and me… I’m going to become a father in the middle of the zombie bloody apocalypse and I am beyond terrified.”
    He looked at me again and his eyes were red-rimmed and I was fairly sure it was turning from anger to upset. I had a brief wish that Lily was with me, she understood this sort of thing in ways I couldn’t. She’d know what to do.
    “I need a friend,” he said. “We all need a friend. You go around as if you don’t have a care in the world except for when you can’t find someone to fucking kill. Our world has collapsed around us and you’re having fun. It’s not good enough anymore, I’ve had enough of it.”
    “What are you saying?”
    “Of course, I need to bloody explain it to you,” he said. “You need to do more for us. You need to work on being part of the group. We appreciate your ability to kill the zombies and believe me when I say we are grateful for the times you’ve saved our lives. It can’t continue though.”
    He seemed to be genuinely upset so I considered my words carefully before I spoke. I needed to say something that would bring him back on side. The last thing I wanted to be bothered with was all this emotional nonsense every five minutes.
    “You’re right,” I began and he blinked, apparently surprised at the admission. “I’ve never had friends before so I don’t know how to be a good one. This emotion stuff… I can’t always grasp and by the time I figure it out, it’s well past the time it would have been useful to know.”
    “This new world is fun for me,” I paused and reconsidered what I was about to say. “Not just because of the killing but because for the first time in my life I can be the real me. More to the point, I don’t have to hide who I am around the rest of you and that, to me is something incredibly precious.”
    I risked a glance at him, a flick of the eyes to gauge his reaction and as