Dead Winter: A gripping crime thriller full of suspense (10 page)

Chapter Twelve

Day Six (26th December – 3:45PM)

Must be nearly there by now.

Let me backtrack a little more.

It had been awhile since the group and I had left the office complex, continuing our journey across the city. I had emerged from the main office a couple of minutes later, to the sight of raised guns and drawn weapons.

They must have been expecting me not to come out alive, there had been a sigh of relief when I had started walking down the stairs towards them as they put away their guns and knives.

We had stayed in the complex for nearly an hour, just talking and having a quick break from the world outside.

"Where'd you get the sword?" John had asked me, pointing at the katana strapped to my waist. I was surprised it had taken them so long to point it out.

"I took it.. from him." I had sighed, glancing towards the staircase leading up to the manager's office.

"So what happened up there?" Claire asked before taking a bite of her sandwich.

"Well, we talked, if you could call it talking. It was more he ranted at me and I questioned him. The guy was a nut-job." I'd stated, running my fingers along the hilt of my new weapon. It was a lovely piece of kit, well-balanced with a nice look to the eye.

I had to try it out. I remember feeling a strange desire to cut something, anything.

"So.. did he answer?" John asked, raising an eyebrow as I stared at my weapon.

"Yes." I'd said briefly, thinking back to the conversation I'd had with Lucas.

"And?" he continued, pressing for an answer.

"It wasn't him, he said something about it being the work of his 'predecessor'." I concluded. John had bit his lip and spat angrily for some reason upon my answer.

So we sat there for a good half an hour more before finally deciding to venture out into the streets once more. We went through streets and little side-passages, climbing over cars, trucks and bits of debris that littered the streets until we found ourselves back at the small park we had started in.

John was consulting his map again, pointing towards a street on the far right, the opposite direction we had ran in. Something seemed off about John at the time, he seemed somewhat depressed. Was my answer not enough for him?

Back to the present.

At last, we were nearing the edge of the city, still walking through a series of little roads and alleyways, avoiding the main roads as best we could. There had been a few infected along the way, but I had yet to try out my new weapon, John seemed reluctant to let me use it.

"So, do you mind telling me what all of that was about?" I asked, curiosity overloading my sense of reason.

"What?" John asked, making a sudden slashing movement with his hand as an infected leapt out of nowhere; it fell to the ground, slain in an instant.

"Why did you have questions for a serial killer? Who was the guy you were asking about?" I demanded, growing tired of John's vagueness.

"You really want to know?" he sighed, adjusting his hat as we walked, the others were nervously glancing around the area and behind themselves, expecting more infected.

There was a bitter breeze running through the streets that chilled me to the bone, making me shiver slightly as I nodded, waiting for an explanation. It looked as though it might snow again at any moment, I prayed that it wouldn't, the last thing I wanted to do was walk through the zombie apocalypse in the snow.

"Fine, I'll make it brief though." John uttered, glancing around the corner to the street beyond, which was apparently empty as he gave us the signal to continue.

"Are you sure?" Claire whimpered, tugging on John's sleeve, to which he nodded, exclaiming that it had to come out sooner or later.

"Well to tell you the truth, I'm not really a private eye. Well I am, sort of. But that wasn't my original job." he started as he fumbled with his ponytail.

"And what was?" Dave asked, glancing at the cleaver in his hands.

"You're not going to believe this, but I was a hit-man, a hired gun of sorts. Have been since I hit eighteen, it's kind of our family business." John continued, waving his arms around a little as he spoke, that was one of his habits.

"I'm ready to believe anything at this point." I said, glancing back at the group.

Paul's mouth hung agape as though he couldn't believe what he was hearing. It must have been quite a shock to be honest, having lived with them for several months.

"I'm from Australia originally, as I may have said before. My whole family was until we got connections over here and moved. Then one day, my brother disappears. Then he shows up a day or two later, dead." John said, turning his head back a little as he glanced at me.

"And you think that guy had killed him?" Dave enquired, no longer looking at his cleaver but instead, he had his gaze fixed on John.

"I had thought that. I know who killed my brother, but at the same time I don't." stated John, who begun to stare at the ground for a few moments while we walked. "All I know is that someone called 'The Executioner' killed my brother, down south in Exeter."

I sighed to myself, the memories of my brother coming back to me as I opened my mouth to speak. This sort of coincidence was eerie, what were the chances of meeting someone else who had suffered at the same hand as I.

"My brother was killed too, he was a detective working the case of the Exeter Executioner. He ended up being one of the last victims, strapped to a chair and poisoned." I said with a grimace upon my face, biting my bottom lip as I finished speaking.

"Huh.. What're the chances.." John muttered to himself, raising his head to examine the surrounding area.

And then, over the rooftops which were now growing steadily shorter, a bridge came into sight; it was the point where the city met the motorway. We were nearly there, the evacuation point must only be minutes away. I could almost taste my escape.

Turning the corner, my eyes were met with the sight of fences and sandbags piled high; this must be the evacuation point. We ran, waving our arms in the air as we made our way towards the gates. It was a small encampment set in the middle of an intersection.

But nothing happened as we ran. There were no shouts, no greetings and no people to be seen. We slowed down to walking pace as we reached the gates, which hung ajar.

Entering the encampment, I felt a daunting feeling wash over me. Was there really nobody here? My thoughts were cut short as I noticed a few people, staggering through the maze of sandbags and tents. I started walking towards them until I noticed the obvious.

They were infected, coated in blood and dirt, torn clothing. Several of the infected wore military uniforms and berets. I felt my eyes twitch as anger took me over; I let out a loud shout, spewing profanities at the sky.

The infected all suddenly turned to face me, beginning their mad dash around the obstacles that lay between them and us. In a moment of blind rage, I ripped my sword from its sheath and stepped forwards, slashing through the air as hard as I could.

We have just lost cabin pressure.

An infected soldier crumpled to the ground as his head went flying through the air, landing beside him. From the tents came more infected which ran towards us. We all pulled out our weapons and began the fight.

Slashing at another infected, I felt my balance give way as I was tackled by a rather large man with gashes on his cheeks. I covered my face with the hand holding my sword as I reached for my gun, pumping a round up from his chin and through his head. I swore loudly and threw him aside, clambering to my feet.

There was a shriek as an infected leapt from the fencing towards John, who side-stepped to avoid it. John wasn't about to fall for the same thing twice in the same day. Stepping forward, I lopped one of its legs off and shot it in the face as it turned its attention towards me.

I wanted to breathe smoke and spit fire.

Eventually, there were no more infected and I found myself falling into a slump against a pile of sandbags, gasping for air. Fighting was tiring work, to be honest.

"There's nobody fucking here! Nobody! What the hell happened!?" I shouted at the others, who looked equally as dismayed.

"Shit.. this place must have been overrun." sighed John, who patted me on the shoulder before glancing around at the many corpses that lay scattered across the small encampment. We'd just fought our way through what seemed like a small horde.

I felt strangely satisfied with how my new weapon handled, and even more so that I hadn't missed a shot with my handgun. Was I finally becoming used to handling weapons and taking lives? It no longer felt as strange to 'deal' with an infected.

The adaptability of the human race was staggering.

"What... do we do now?" I asked desperately, gasping for breath. I wasn't used to such strenuous activity, I worked at my desk most of the time for God's sake.

"I have.. no idea." Dave said, resting his hands against his knees as he also panted for breath.

John was striding over to one of the vehicles that had belonged to the military, pulling out a rectangular object from the boot. It was a piece of radio equipment with which he began fiddling, turning dials and flicking switches. Nothing but static came from the radio.

"It's just our luck.. Nobody here." I stammered, leaning against a fence-post before glancing down at Dave, who stood beside me with two cigarettes and a lighter in hand.

Taking one, I pulled my own lighter and stared at the sky as I lit my cigarette, taking a long drag from it before I breathed smoke into the air, which hung there for a moment before dissipating.

Chhkk-ome to Sanctuary.

I glanced down at the sound of the voice, which seemed to come from the radio that John had been playing with. He'd lost the signal and began backtracking until he found it again, we all huddled around him and listened.

"We are located just off of the motorway halfway betwee-CHHKK-nd Hull, we are a small safe zone. Anyone who can hear this, come to Sanctuary." the voice on the radio called to anyone who could listen.

"Hello!? Can anyone hear us?" I shouted into the receiver desperately before noticing that the cord that connected it to the radio had been cut; I sword loudly, throwing it at the ground.

"It's no good, Ethan. It's just a recorded message." John stated, jumping up onto his feet. "But now we know where to go next, at least."

"How do you know that this 'Sanctuary' isn't going to be like this place?" Paul asked. "And furthermore, how the hell do we get there? Are you seriously suggesting we walk?"

John merely nodded, shrugging Paul's questions off. As irritated as I was that the evacuation point had drawn a blank, I had to hold onto some kind of hope, some little hint that everything would be fine.

If there's no hope, what's the point?

Chapter Thirteen

Day Six (26th December – 4:56PM)

Over the rooftops, the sun was nearly set, casting a gentle orange glow down onto the city. However, it wasn't a warm light as it should have been, it was the final light of the day, darkness was inevitable now as we stood around the abandoned military evacuation point.

My mind was still surging with anger, pulsing with electric rage.

We had decided to leave the city behind and make for the countryside in-between the two cities, a concept which didn't seem to bother me one bit. I held no love for this city now, my memories buried in charred concrete and debris.

My surroundings were unfamiliar; I barely ever left the other side of the city, besides to go shopping in the centre. The only time I ever saw this side of the city was when I came here just over a year ago. Surprisingly, I hadn't left nor planned to leave the city at all this year, not even for Christmas.

I missed my life, my friends and my shitty little apartment on floor nine. I missed the tedious paperwork and the long nights sat at my desk, my face painted various colours from the glow of the monitor. It all seemed so warm in memory, so red.

The world as it was now was cold and cruel, full of screaming and blood; so much blood stained my hands now. I gritted my teeth together, shouldering my bag as everyone talked amongst themselves.

"We can't just leave the city as we are, can we?" Claire asked John, who seemed to be gazing at me for some reason, perhaps wondering what brought on my anger.

"I suppose not, we'll need more stuff." John muttered, adjusting his hat.

He was right, to survive out in the wilderness beyond the city, we'd need more supplies; we'd need tents, pots and pans, gas cookers. I had no idea where to acquire any of that, my mind drawing a blank as usual.

I felt kind of useless, to be honest.

"If I remember rightly, there's a camping and hiking store not that far from here, a few blocks that way, I think." Dave said, pointing to the left of where we stood.

We were currently in a fenced-off area just below the on-ramps that lead to the motorway connecting this city to other places. The sun hung very low in the sky as it slowly disappeared a little more each minute. Our valuable light time was running out.

"Let's make a move before the night comes." I said sternly, starting to walk off in the direction that Dave had pointed in; the others jogged a little to catch me up, John taking the lead once more.

Passing an empty car, I slowed my pace a little to match John's. This is the way we did things these days, nice and slow. Moving quickly made more noise, and noise drew the infected. And the last thing we wanted was another horde.

But it was kind of fun, slicing and dicing.

I dismissed my thoughts quickly with a shake of my head, focusing on the task at hand. Was I slowly starting to change? Why did it seem like nothing really mattered?

Several birds flew past us as we turned a corner onto another street, where they had seemingly been pecking at a corpse slumped against a wall.

It was a disgusting sight. The man appeared to be in his late thirties, dressed casually. His cause of death was suicide, from what I could gather, since there was a handgun in his hand and a large splatter of blood across the wall. John leant down and pried the weapon from his hand, handing it to Dave.

"Seems we're all getting one of these, one-by-one eh?" Dave chimed, examining the weapon in his hand for a minute as we continued walking, before placing it carefully into one of his pockets.

"S'best to be armed, mate. Anything beats a little knife, right?" John said, a look of concern still visible in his eyes.

"I guess. Don't know how good I'll be with it though." Dave sighed, taking out his cleaver as he paced forwards.

"It's not that hard, it's just point and shoot. Simple" I sneered, from what little experience I had with my handgun, I seemed capable of firing it accurately, despite never having used a gun in my life before this, besides the time I shot my dad in the foot with an air rifle by accident when I was a kid.

"For some, maybe. Hey, that's the place there." Dave said, pointing to a store across the road from us.

It wasn't the largest of stores, small with a blue sign spread across the wall above the door, which hung ajar ever so slightly as though someone had left in a big hurry.

SMITH'S CAMPING SHOP

Rather generic name, but it didn't matter in the slightest. From what I could see, the store was packed full of goods. It seemed that nobody had raided it yet, though not many other people would be leaving the city like this, so it made sense in a strange sort of way.

"Right, we'll do this quietly, in case there's some of them inside." John whispered as we crept up to the door, silently swinging it open.

We spread out across the store, grabbing big backpacks for hiking, portable gas stoves for cooking and other little things like sleeping bags and decent torches.

"Mmm.. This place has it all" John called, examining a cane that was probably used for hiking.

"We all need a tent, a sleeping bag and a torch, I'll deal with the cookers." Paul said as he cradled a set of boxes containing portable gas cookers, proceeding to look across the shelves for some gas cans.

After we had found what we'd been looking for, we set to work on putting everything in our new bags, which were decently sized; they were the sort you'd take on a mountain hike, with a section for tents underneath the bag itself.

Jamming my sleeping bag, food and water into my bag, I zipped it up and shouldered it as quickly as I could, climbing to my feet. John was busy stuffing his own sleeping bag into his bag, and Claire was checking our food supply.

"We've got beans, pasta, canned fruit and veg, spaghetti hoops and crisps. This won't last that long, we'll have to be careful with what we eat." She stated, lifting up the items of food as she spoke before placing them into her own bag.

A few minutes later, I was making my way back to the on-ramp with the rest of the group, the sun had pretty much set now and darkness was upon us. We switched on our torches as we stepped up onto the dual carriageway.

"So many cars, but we'll never get any of them past this gridlock." John said, casting a sad glances back to the rest of us, his face lit up by the torchlight.

"Just how far does this go on for?" Claire sighed, shining her torch into the distance; there were cars as far as the eye could see, some smashed into the others and some just sat there.

"Looks like everyone tried to leave the city in a rush." Dave said with a stern look on his face.

All this light, we were sitting ducks.

But what else could we do? Without light we were completely defence-less. But with light we ran the risk of attracting attention to ourselves, both from the infected and other people.

The infected weren't the only threat, we'd learned that the hard way with Lucas and the crazy guy at the police evacuation. People were hard to trust, at least with the infected it was simple. You just killed them or moved on, with people there was more to consider.

"And it looks like they didn't get very far before the infected got to them." I said coldly, pointing my torch at the ground, where a corpse lay across the tarmac, head split wide open. As soon as I pointed it out, the rest of the group suddenly became more alert, looking around for infected.

"You think there's some out here, Ethan?" Dave asked, raising his eyebrows at me.

"Almost definitely." I said firmly, glancing into a few of the cars as we passed them. As I peered into the inside of a car, an infected jumped up from the seat, pounding on the window.

"Poor bastard.." Paul whispered, grimacing.

"What do we do with him?" Asked John, looking at the rest of us for some sort of answer. Looking into the car a little more, I noticed that the doors were locked. There was nothing we could do for the guy without drawing attention to ourselves.

"He's locked in, we leave him." I said, walking away from the car. After a few silent seconds, I turned around to see the rest of the group staring at me.

"What?" I asked, raising my arms into the air a little, shrugging my shoulders.

"Are you okay, man? You've been acting weird ever since the thing with that guy." John said, walking forward a little.

"Yeah, Ethan. We're worried about you." Dave said, his tone of voice conveying his concern.

"I feel fine. Don't worry about me." I stated as clearly as I could, shrugging my shoulders again. To be completely honest, I felt fine; a little short tempered, but otherwise fine.

I suppose I had a lot on my mind with all that had happened.

Two miles down the road, the cars had thinned out a bit as we reached the end of the gridlock. Peering across the dimly lit road, I spotted a car similar to the one we had used to start our journey.

Jogging over to it, I shined my torch inside the car, looking for infected. Fortunately there were none in sight inside of the car. However as I turned around to look back at the group, I noticed an infected woman crawl around the side of the car, staring up at me.

"Son of a..." I muttered to myself, pulling out my cleaver. The sword wasn't suited to attacking something on the ground, I could damage it if I wasn't careful.

The woman growled loudly as she sped up her crawling, lashing out with her arms as she did. I quickly pulled out the cleaver from under my belt. Raising it into the air and bringing it down as quickly as I could, the blade went straight into her head, killing her pretty much instantly.

I didn't even need to think about it any more.

An hour or so later, we were stood around a small fire in the middle of a field, all of us except for Dave, who was busy setting up everyone's tents.

"This how you imagined living your life? Camping in a field?" John asked sarcastically, throwing a few bits of wood on the fire while Claire fiddled around with the gas cookers, pots and pans.

"Heh, Dave seems used to it." I sneered, glancing over my shoulder at Dave, who had just finished erecting the last tent and was making his way over to us.

We sat in silence for about ten minutes as Claire cooked up some beans. We had acquired some plastic bowls and cutlery from the camping store we'd looted earlier.

I wasn't particularly fond of beans, but they'd have to do.

Earlier, we'd found the keys to the car in the pocket of the infected woman I'd killed. We'd driven it through the little maze of cars strewn across the dual-carriageway, stopping every now and then to manually push cars out of our path until we reached this field.

"So Dave, you been camping a few times then, I take it?" John called as Claire dished out everyone's food, handing us a bowl one-by-one.

"Yeah.. Used to go out hiking with my wife and kid back in the day. Fresh air and all, good to get out of the city every now and then." he replied in a sombre tone, obviously thinking back on some memories. I patted him on the back briefly before tucking into my meal.

"You never done any camping, John?" Paul asked, also starting to eat his beans.

"Camping? Not that much, I did some survival training when I was a teen though, mate." he replied, looking up from his bowl.

"Survival training?" I asked after swallowing a mouthful of food.

"Yeah, you know.. A week in the woods, no food, no shelter. Gotta fend for yourself against the weather and wildlife." John said, having a mouthful before he finished what he was saying.

"It's a lot harder than what we're doing now though, this is like a walk in the park, even with the infected." he concluded.

The next day, we were on the road again. We had to drive pretty slowly to avoid all the cars, corpses and other miscellaneous objects that lay on the motorway in front of us.

Eventually, we came across a few cars that blocked the road ahead; Dave and I hopped out of the car into the cold wind to move the cars, pushing them as far away from each other as we could.