Surviving The Evacuation (Book 2): Wasteland Read Online Free PDF Page B

the same kind I had found in the cottages at Grange Farm next to the former police sergeant who had died from the vaccine. I knew the theory well enough, but except for firing a shotgun at clay pigeons, theory was all I knew.
    “Swap?” I suggested.
    The hatchet was heavier than the gun, but it was a reassuring, almost comforting, weight. We left the room, closing the door quietly behind us. Now that we were inside the Manor silence descended and with it came a realisation of what it was I was about to do, what I had to do.
    I have killed the undead, and these days I have few qualms about it, for I no longer see Them as human, but I have not killed another person. Until a few months ago it would have been unthinkable, since then I have had neither the reason nor the opportunity. Inside my head played the perennial parliamentary debates about reasonable force, and the differences between self-defence and murder. I shook my head, trying to rid it of those unhelpful thoughts. I tried to focus on the journey, on moving stealthily, on each step, one at a time, and not on its terminal conclusion.
     
    Halfway along the corridor Kim pointed at a section of wall. I looked back at her, puzzled. It seemed identical to all the others, until she pushed at an otherwise nondescript wooden panel. A door swung open revealing a hidden staircase. I was almost shocked. I'd always taken the stories about the secret passages to be no more true than those of the monster which lived in the lake.
    Kim raised her finger to her lips, pointed at the stairs, then raised a hand with all fingers extended, then lowered it, then raised it again another eight times, then once with only three fingers showing. Forty eight stairs. She turned off the torch.
    I stepped in front of her, to go up the stairs first. Though it was almost impossible to see in the near darkness I think she rolled her eyes when I took the lead. As we climbed, I began to hear more clearly the sounds from the sniper's nest. There was a click-clack each time the gun was reloaded. There was an odd muffled bump of wood against wood, an occasional flat tinkling as a spent cartridge fell to the floor, all against an incongruous, off-key humming.
    I had to feel for the stairs with my hands. We reached a landing. The stairs twisted and climbed once more. Another landing, another twist and with each step upwards the noise from the room grew. After the last twist, the stairway was illuminated by the thin ray of light flickering through the gap in the door, now only a few steps away.
    Kim tapped on my ankle, once, twice. I don't know whether she was indicating that she was right behind me or telling me to hurry up. I ignored her.
     
    I waited until I heard the soft thud of the rifle's recoil and a triumphant hiss. Then I pushed the door open and half fell, half ran into the room.
    In such a silent world I'd misjudged how far those little sounds had carried. The bedroom was far longer than I had thought. Sanders, half turning towards me, was still a good dozen feet away.
    His expression, illuminated by a sputtering oil lantern on the floor, seemed determined as he swung the rifle towards me. I was ten feet away when he levelled the barrel of the gun at my chest. Eight as his lips curled in sneering triumph. Seven when he pulled the trigger. Six when he realised the gun wasn't loaded. Five when I twisted my arm behind me. Four when he let go of the rifle and reached for his belt. Three when my arm reached the top of its arc. Two when it came down on his neck.
    His scream was terrible. The wound was fatal. In our old world it wouldn't have been, but here, now, where medical treatment is limited to bandages and antiseptic, he would die a long slow death. I remember thinking that, as I stared at him screaming and convulsing on the floor. The axe had dug into his shoulder, breaking the bone. From the way the blood was bubbling up around the blade, it must have nicked his lung.
    There was a concussive