Fear the Dead 2 Read Free Page A

ahead.
     
    “It’s the same everywhere,” I said,
“Nothing but desolation. This is the world now, everything we have here.
There’s no green grass on the other side Moe; just a fucking load of infected
waiting to kill you.”
     
    “We ain’t even got grass here, only a
foul-smelling town full of people waiting to die,” said Moe. “Appreciate what
you’re trying to do, but it’s misguided. We’re running out of booze, and I
haven’t had a smoke in days.”
     
    It was so stupid, I could have
laughed.“So you gotta forego some things. Wouldn’t you rather stay
alive than have a smoke?”
     
    Moe looked at me. His eyes were
squinty black balls. “You’re not living, Kyle; you’re surviving. The people
here don’t wanna count down the minutes until doomsday, they want a little
pleasure in their lives.”
     
    I couldn’t understand him. Sure, we
were out of alcohol, and I knew that sometimes you had to let off a little
steam. But this was the safest place for miles, and I’d travelled enough to
know that for certain.
     
    In the Wilds you were lucky to find a
place to sleep that wasn’t the hollowed out trunk of a tree, and even if you
did find somewhere to rest, you did it with one eye open. The infected were bad
enough, but at night the stalkers left their nests. They were more terrible than
the infected could ever be.
     
    I wasn’t a fan of Moe, but he had a
lot of friends here. He’d been at Vasey since the beginning, and his word
carried respect. If he left, others would join him. I could make something of
Vasey, I was sure of it, but I needed people to do that. If they left with Moe,
everything was over.
     
    I changed my tact. “I’m the leader
Moe. The people voted me in, and what I say goes. We’re not going anywhere.”
     
    The corners of his wrinkled mouth
turned up. “You’re not going anywhere, but I am.”
     
    When the votes were taken and the
people of Vasey elected their leader, lots of residents wondered why Moe had
never put himself forward. There was a good reason that he didn’t; he was just
too damn selfish to think of anyone but himself.
     
    We walked on, nothing but the whisper
of the wind playing in our ears. A shiver ran through me, and the sour smell of
the air got stronger. There had to be something I could do to get him to stay.
At least until I got more of the people on my side.
     
    “What about the broadcast? Don’t you
want to know more about that? There could be a cure out there.”
     
    Moe sneered. “There’s no damn cure,
and I don’t give a shit what the fella on the radio says.”
     
    We walked on to Moe’s house. It was a
three bedroom terrace that pre-dated the Second World War, like most of the
houses in Vasey. Unlike some parts of England, Vasey had escaped the bombing of
the Germans though sheer obscurity.
     
     He turned to the door. “You’re
not persuading me, Kyle.”
     
    I nodded. For now at least, he was
right.
     
    Moe unzipped his coat. “You’re so
damn naïve.”
     
    I bit my tongue, stopped the angry
words coming out.
     
    Moe carried on. “What you did today
was stupid.”
     
    The wall of patience I’d stacked up
so I could deal with Moe without wanting to punch him started to crumble. I’d
carried a lot of anger in me since Clara had died, during all those nights
travelling on my own. I couldn’t afford to go back there.
     
    “You mean Harlowe?” I said.
     
    Moe nodded. “He should have died,
Kyle. You know that. If people steal from us, they have to die. We can’t do
half a job. That’s why your Vasey will never work. You can’t do what
needs to be done.”
     
    Moe opened his front door, and a
musty smell drifted out. He stepped inside and shut it behind him.
     
    I stood on the doorstep and felt the
wind blow against my bones. The cold seeped through my layers and made my hair
stand on end. I wondered if Moe was right.

 
    2
     
    The sun hung onto a precarious
position in the sky. Soon it would start to