Dead Winter: A gripping crime thriller full of suspense (20 page)

Chapter Twenty-Six

Day Sixteen (5th January – 1:27PM)

The wheels of fate are turning now, as we make our way towards the stretch of road between our past and our hopes. Origin and destiny linked by a stretch of motorway.

We've lost too much to go back now.

If we were to fail, it would all be in vain. We'd have lost so much to gain nothing, so much for equivalent exchange. My thoughts lay ahead past this winding road towards the hope of freedom in the water. This really was my last hope, without it I had no direction. Without this hope, I was nothing.

"There's more cars as we get closer.." Shaun sighed from the driver's seat, turning the steering wheel ever so slightly to careen around one of the many vehicular obstacles that littered the expanse of tarmac as we grew closer to our destination.

"Bound to be, everyone tried to get out at once." Vincent mumbled, glancing up from his rifle for a moment, which he was seemingly performing maintenance upon, examining the weapon for any sign of dirt, scratches and general wear and tear.

"So how did you get out?" Shaun asked curiously, glancing over his shoulder at Vincent.

"I started first, simple." he responded coldly, not even moving his eyes from his weapon.

"Huh.." Shaun mumbled, manoeuvring the minibus around a couple of cars, one of which was turned over and its side. I thought I spotted an arm poking out from underneath it, but it went out of sight before I could confirm my suspicions.

This was a strange minibus. Usually they just had a few rows of seats, with a sliding door to access them. But this bus in particular instead had an aisle running through the middle of it for some reason. Shaun was driving, while Vincent was in the front passenger seat, on the left. Claire was next to me on the third row while the rest were in the back of the bus.

"Yes.. I know, I know." I heard a voice mutter behind me. Turning to look over my shoulder, I noticed Nick talking to himself, staring at an empty bottle of medication. I felt strangely uneasy around him, like he could snap at any moment and turn on us.

"Are you okay, Nick?" Annie chimed from beside him, catching Nick by surprise. He stammered for a moment before responding in a strange tone of voice.

"I'm fine, miss. Nothing to see here." Nick said, seeming completely out of character. Nick's speech was usually all over the place, but he seemed relatively composed, which only fed my uneasiness. My brother had those moments too; first he'd be rambling to himself, then suddenly he'd come to in a rather creepy fashion, like nothing had been wrong at all.

Can't think about that now, nothing matters but the goal.

"Do you think there'll be many of them in the city, Ethan?" Claire said beside me, toying with the edges of her jumpers as she spoke.

"Probably.. I'm trying not to think about it." I responded, gazing out of the window at the blue sky above us. There wasn't a cloud in sight as far as I could see, which meant it wasn't going to snow again any time soon.

"But it can't be worse than where we came from, right?" Claire nervously enquired, biting her bottom lip.

"It's a bigger city, it's a likely possibility." I stated, my voice sounding overly monotonous to the point where even I could hear it.

"You're not good at comforting people, are you?" she said, sighing deeply as she turned to stare out of the window with me. We were turning a corner now, moving along the side of a forested area.

"Not my division." I stated, pulling out my handgun to examine it. I slid out the magazine and made sure it was filled with as many rounds as it could carry. I didn't want to run out in the middle of a fight.

We were approaching the side of the river now as we turned onto a straight stretch of motorway. Finding our path blocked by a couple of cars, myself, Vincent and John hopped out of the bus into the bitter winter breeze to begin moving the cars.

"Oh man, there's one in here!" John called as he examined the first car we had to move. Walking over, I took a look into the car, where an infected popped up and began clawing at the window.

"I'll let you deal with it." I said, returning to the back of the car with Vincent. John pulled out his blade and opened the door to the sound of maniacal shouting, but all was silenced in a couple of seconds until all that could be heard was the sound of water flowing alongside the rumble of the bus' engine.

"Why do I got to do all the work, man?" John sighed, wiping the blade off on the coat of the infected before sheathing it.

"Huh.." Vincent mumbled to himself. I took a glance at him and noticed immediately that he was looking through a pair of binoculars that he had brought with him.

"What is it, gramps? Seen a bird?" John joked, moving to the back of the car to start pushing it out of the way. Joining in, we quickly disposed of the obstacle as Vincent continued to examine something in the distance.

"There's people on the bridge. Call me that again and you're dead." Vincent grumbled, lowering his binoculars to look at us.

"Bridge?" John asked, raising a finger to his chin as he looked over in the direction that Vincent had been looking in.

"Over there, the Humber Bridge." Vincent responded, passing the binoculars over to John, who fiddled around with the zoom dials before letting out a quiet gasp.

"Holy shit.." he said, passing the binoculars over to me. I took a look behind me at Shaun, who was visible through the windscreen of the bus. He shrugged at me as I took the binoculars to my eyes and looked over in the direction they were pointing.

There was indeed a large suspension bridge in the distance as I looked through the lens', zooming in to get a better look. From where I was standing, I could make out tiny figures moving across the bridge, along with objects that looked like tents and makeshift huts. A few vehicles with large, cylindrical objects on the back were moving across the bridge as I watched.

Was there a settlement on the bridge?

"What should we do?" I asked, handing the object back over to its rightful owner.

"Pay them a visit! They have to know about the boat, right?" John exclaimed, clapping his hands together in excitement.

"I guess.." I sighed, moving over to the second car. The others followed me, assisting me in the struggle to move it out of the way. After a few seconds, the car finally budged, rolling slowly towards the hard shoulder.

Climbing back into the bus, I sat back down next to Claire, who had taken my window-side seat while I was outside. She was twiddling her thumbs as she looked out of the window at the mass of water beside us.

"What were you looking at? Shaun said the three of you were looking at something." Claire asked, her gaze not moving from the window.

"We think there's a settlement on the Humber Bridge, we're going to investigate." I stated, glancing down the aisle at John, who was busy talking to Shaun about what we had seen.

Taking a turn off of the motorway, we made our way through a junction of sorts, making turns and manoeuvres that would have been considered illegal in the former world as we tried to get onto the road that lead to the bridge. Finding the right road, we slowly began to approach the toll-gates for the bridge and stopped the bus about a hundred metres from them.

"We'll approach by foot, keep your hands in the air at all times and your weapons holstered." Shaun demanded, raising his hands into the air as he started to walk towards the gates. We all followed suit, our hands raised into the air.

Walking through the gates, I spotted a couple of people further ahead, sat on a couple of cars on the bridge itself. I felt a bit queasy as I walked onto the bridge, which felt as though it were swaying in the wind.

"Who goes there!?" a voice shouted at us, electronically enhanced by a megaphone of sorts. In the background, I could hear a light droning sound, like a plane or something.

"Friendlies! We need to tell you something!" Shaun shouted, his arms still firmly held in the air above him as we slowly approached the two men, who were holding rifles in our direction.

We were fully on the bridge now, amidst a ruin of abandoned cars, bikes and trucks that littered the expanse of wire and concrete. From what I could make out, there was a small settlement on the centre of the bridge, with lookouts on both sides. It seemed like a relatively easy place to fortify, with only two entrances.

"Stay where you ar- What the hell is that sound?" the man called, cutting himself off to talk to the man beside him, his voice still catching on the device.

A black object became visible in the distance, with a small trail of smoke coming from behind it. The droning noise became a groan that became a roar as the object neared us. It was a plane of some sort, but unlike any aircraft I'd ever seen before; and it was heading right for us.

Caught in the wire.

In a series of tense, slow-motion moments, the plane slammed into the side of the bridge, sending flaming debris flying across the expanse of concrete as the plane exploded, causing the bridge to shake wildly. But within another moment, there were a series of huge explosions as the flaming debris connected with the fuel tankers, tearing them asunder as their contents ignited.

"Holy fuck!" Shaun exclaimed as he fell to his feet, his loss of balance caused by the shaking of the suspension bridge. I felt very unsteady on my feet as I also picked myself up, shouting to the others.

"Run!" I called, turning tail and fleeing as fast as I could. The sound of panicked screams came to my ears as I ran towards the entrance.

A tremendous noise filled the air as the bridge continued to shake and sway, a section in the middle freeing itself from its steel wire bindings as it fell from the rest of the bridge into the icy waters below, sending a fail of debris, cars and people into the depths.

The wires that had formerly supported the bridge were swinging wildly as the force of the concrete slabs falling away gave them momentum. I thought I saw someone get whacked by a stray support wire as I looked over my shoulder at the disaster.

We continued to run as the bridge gave way, piece by piece. Noticing that everyone had overtaken me, I was shocked to notice that Nick wasn't amongst us. Glancing over my shoulder again as I jogged, I spotted him back where we had been stood, just in time to see him disappear as the ground caved in underneath him.

Thunderstruck, I stopped running and stood still, watching as a travesty of carnage, destruction and death folded out before my eyes, reminding me vividly of the collapse of my home, I felt strangely detached from reality, as though I were merely watching a film.

I was forced back to reality as the ground began to crack under my feet, so I turned around and began to run towards John, who had stood to stare at me. I tripped up on one of the cracks, soaring through the air as the concrete below me disappeared. I found myself clinging onto the part of the bridge that wasn't hanging, holding on for dear life.

"Shit! Hold on!" John shouted, himself and Shaun running over to me. With an arm under each shoulder, they lifted me up from where I dangled, pulling me onto the cold ground.

"What... was that!?" Shaun exclaimed, stamping down at the ground, clearly frustrated by the fact that he couldn't save Nick, or any of the other residents of the bridge for that matter.

"No idea, but we nearly just bit the bullet, lads." John said, letting out a deep breath.

"You alright, kiddo?" Vincent growled beside me, crouching down to stare me in the eyes.

"Yeah... just lemme catch my breath." I panted, still shell-shocked from the whole ordeal. It was over so quickly, unlike the apartment complex back home. At least I didn't get myself knocked out again.

Rolling onto my back, I took a look at what remained of the bridge; there were wires dangling from the framework above, with little to no actual bridge left. In the water below was a slurry of vehicles and debris, washing away with the current.

What the hell just happened?

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Day Sixteen (5th January – 3:31PM)

"I've never seen anything like that, have you?" Claire said beside me, nudging me on the shoulder. We were back on the bus after the travesty that had occurred on the bridge.

I remember picking myself up from the ground after I'd been pulled up, turning the face what was left of the bridge. Glancing down into the river below, I'd saw huge chunks of concrete, bits of plane and corpses, barely visible as they were washed downstream by the unrelenting current.

"Yeah, I have. That's the second time I've nearly died like that." I responded, taking a trip down memory lane towards a scene of chaos, destruction and fire; I was of course remembering my escape from the apartment complex I'd once called 'home'.

"Do you actually remember any of that? You hit your head pretty bad, if I remember correctly." she said, turning to face me.

"I remember it all. Every little detail, etched into my memory. I remember the ground shaking and the ceiling caving in around my head." I muttered, taking a glance over my shoulder at the rest of the group. Steve and Annie were in the back row, talking amongst themselves. They were probably talking about the loss of Nick.

They'd known him more than I, I barely felt anything over it all. Was something wrong with me?

"I remember feeling like my life could end at any moment, snatched away from underneath me, or raining down from above." I continued, taking a look down the aisle where John, Shaun and Vincent were muttering to each other.

She'd taken my window seat, again.

"Poetic." Claire remarked sarcastically, giving me a funny look before returning her gaze towards the window, where a few abandoned cars zoomed in and out of view.

"Hardly. Oh, right.. That's when I met my first infected." I said, my mind still lost in memories of days gone by.

"I'd ask if you made it out of that alright, but the answer is quite obvious." she said, her sarcastic wit was sharp today, and I wondered what I'd done to deserve it.

"Fucking thing chased me through the streets until I was FORCED to turn on it, then I met Dave." I concluded, swearing that I'd told this story before, though I couldn't remember when. There was an unpleasant sensation in my head, like a pulsing pain that grew a little stronger as every minute ticked by.

The minutes went by in relative silence, broken every now and then by one of the two groups talking amongst themselves, I only heard snippets of their respective conversations, which went in through one ear and immediately out through the other. Nothing was registering right now.

This sensation reminded me of my days of insomnia, which I'd pretty much forgotten until now, having slept quite well these past sixteen days. Funny how a zombie apocalypse fixes your priorities in way you wouldn't expect. Honestly, the thought of zombies crawling around outside would usually keep me up at night, but I'd found myself exhausted after each day.

There was a distance to everything right now, like a barrier between me and the world. Everything was really far away and tuned out of focus and hearing. I couldn't touch anything, and nothing could touch me.

Look at me, repeating my thoughts.

"I think we're nearly there, I can see buildings and stuff." Claire said from next to me, snapping me back into reality.

"Folks! We're here!" Shaun shouted from the front seat. Standing up from my seat, I walked down the aisle towards the three, John looked up at me and Vincent continued to examine his rifle; I'd honestly say that he was obsessed with it.

"We shouldn't just go straight in." I stated. John nodded next to me and opened his mouth to speak.

"That's what we were saying just a minute ago. I see a pretty tall building over there." he admitted, glancing out of the front window as we started to move towards an intersection, turning off of the motorway onto a spacious road that went through an industrial estate of sorts before we could approach the building.

"So we'll go and have a look from the rooftop?" I asked as the bus gradually came to a stop outside of the building and the doors slid open.

Pulling out my gun, I braced myself and walked down the awkward little steps onto the concrete ground outside of the bus, littered with tiny shards of glass and little stones.

"Yeah, we've got Vincent's binoculars for that. Everyone out!" Shaun said from behind me, suddenly raising his voice to call to everyone still inside the bus.

One-by-one, the rest of what remained of our group filed out of the bus, a couple of them shivering slightly in the winter breeze. The building stood at a modest five floors, and the sign above the door indicated it was the headquarters for some local glass company.

Myself and Shaun proceeded to plant our feet firmly through the double glass sliding doors, as the power for the area was clearly out, since the doors would not open. It rained glass for a second, and the patter of shard on shard could be heard as we stepped into the lobby of the building.

"I can hear one of them up there somewhere. Stick together." John said, pointing his index finger towards the ceiling. Listening closely, I could hear faint sounds of movement coming from the next floor and pulled out a knife I had been keeping under my belt. Guns were too loud and I hardly had the personal space to swing my sword around, as much as I'd enjoy that. There was a certain sense of satisfaction in cleaving an infected in two with the sword, of which I had been trying to name recently.

I couldn't decide on a name, I was terrible at this sort of thing.

Making our way through the ground floor of the building, we carefully tread up the stairs onto the first floor, where the sounds of activity grew louder with each steady step. John opened the door in front of us, leading into an ever-familiar maze of office desks and computer screens.

The infected could almost be seen from where I was standing, at the side of the door, and John took it in stride to approach the man, whose rear could be seen poking out from behind one of the many cubicles.

I took the time to get my bearings as John took care of the infected, a short series of thumps became audible as my eyes scanned the room, and I wished that the computers actually worked; I really did miss my old friends amidst all of this chaos. I wondered if this really was just an isolated case, or if the infection had spread beyond this tiny, diseased little island.

"Oh, fine. Just leave me to it! I'm fine, thanks for asking!" John said mockingly, noticing that I was looking around the desks in the opposite direction.

"You've got nothing to worry about." I said coldly, envious of the fact that John was immune. I seriously hoped that I was too, but I'd rather not find out the hard way. If only there were some simple test I could take, like peeing in a jar.

"Still, a little concern would be appreciated!" he called to me, as I started walking towards the next set of stairs. Everyone followed me until all that could be heard was the gentle sound of footsteps on carpet.

"I'm more concerned about whether this boat is going to be there." I muttered, looking over my shoulder at John, who was adjusting his hat.

"It'll be there!" he exclaimed, the look on his face indicated that he honestly believed it would be there. I'd learned to take nothing for granted in this world.

Getting my hopes up only gave the world a chance to smash them down.

"How do you know?" I sneered, noticing the coldness in my voice. I was rather taken aback at how callous I had become as of late.

It felt as though nothing really mattered to me, like there was a distance between myself and my feelings. Everything felt methodical and automatic, like I was some sort of machine just doing its job.

"I've just got a good feeling about this." John stated firmly, crossing his arms over his chest as we walked up the flight of stairs onto the next floor; the expanse of cubicles and desks seemed completely deserted, but we decided to take a look around the office anyway, just in case.

Several minutes later, we were on the last floor before the rooftop. There had been a single infected from the second floor till now, and I'd had my turn at dispatching it, displaying efficiency with my movements as I had executed the female infected with my kitchen knife.

"You've got no flow! It's all calculated with you, isn't it?" John sang, questioning me about the style of my movements when it came to dealing with infected.

"The less I move, the less energy I use up and the more I can keep going. Not everything has to be stylish, John." I said, uttering the last part under my breath. It was no matter, as he had heard every last word.

"At least I look good doing it!" John protested, his arms still firmly locked across his chest. This was practically all the confirmation that I needed; John truly did enjoy what he did, and how he did it.

I pretty much knew this already.

"Right, to the roof!" Shaun cut in, taking the lead with his assault rifle in hand. Dashing up the final flight of stairs, we burst through the fire door that lead to the rooftop, the slowly setting sun coming into view on the horizon to cast a warm-looking orange glow that spread across the sky.

There was no threat to be seen on the rooftop itself as we spread out across the expanse of concrete. Vincent quickly took out the pair of binoculars from the inside of his bag, putting them to his eyes and gazing towards the city. He grunted incomprehensible words to himself as he examined the streets.

"Bollocks..." he grumbled, finally uttering a word I could understand. He lowered the binoculars from his eyes and handed them over to Shaun, who took a quick look at the streets before showing a similar reaction.

"They're everywhere.." John said as he scanned the streets with the binoculars after they had been offered to him by Shaun. In the distance, I could see little black figures moving around the streets nearby, even without the binoculars I could tell that they were infected.

"Here, man." John said to me, placing the binoculars in my hands. Raising them to my eyes, I took a good, long look at the streets beyond us, noticing infected after infected; they were merely wandering aimlessly through the streets, bumping into one another, throwing a quick swipe at one another before resuming their previous action.

The infected were a strange existence, completely detached from who or what they used to be. In essence, they all acted the same now, pursuing the same actions of wandering and chasing down those unfortunate enough to draw their attention.

"We'll stay in this building for the night, then make our way through that in the morning, no point trying to make it now." Shaun said, shouldering his rifle as we made his way back towards the stairs.

"We'll need to barricade the front door." John suggested, still standing beside me as I continued to look through the binoculars.

"I saw a bookshelf and a couple of sofas, that should do it!" Shaun exclaimed, judging by the sound of his footsteps, I assumed he was making his way down the staircase.

"We'll have to get up pretty early, just in case." Vincent grumbled, the sound of footsteps filling the rooftop once more as he trudged across the ground in his heavy boots.

Scanning the distance, I tried to locate the port we were trying to reach, but found what I assumed was the place obscured by a few tall buildings, and all I could see was a couple of cranes and several storage containers; there wasn't a ship in sight from where I was standing.

That troubled me.