Dead Winter: A gripping crime thriller full of suspense (21 page)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Day Seventeen (6th January – 7:30AM)

Breakfast is served, another course of beans and spaghetti hoops. Dessert was a can of tinned peaches that tasted way too sweet. Wolfing all of this down as quickly as I could, I took a look at the rest of my group.

"We've only got one shot at this." John said to the rest of the group, finishing off his portion of food.

"Got about six hours to get through this mess." Shaun lamented, the seriousness in his tone was unmissable.

"I hope that'll be enough, Shaun." John sighed, clearly starting to doubt that we'd make it in time.

"It's gonna have to be!" Shaun exclaimed, jumping to his feet in a single motion before striding over to his bag, which he promptly swung over his shoulder.

I'd had another one of those dreams last night; one of the ones that haunted my sleep lately. Again, I'd been ridiculed by the people I had to 'outlive'. Though towards the end, I had found some comfort in the form of Dave, who tried to assure me that I had done the right thing. I'd woken up in a sort of daze that morning.

We were on the fourth floor of the office building, deciding to take higher ground while we rested up for the trip today. Vincent and Shaun had taken it in turns to guard the group over the night, the latter of which looked a little tired.

I walked over to the windows on the far side of the room, taking a good look through the grimy glass towards the streets beyond. From where I was standing, I could almost make out little figures in the streets, aimlessly wandering to some unknown destination.

"You alright, Ethan?" Shaun called over to me. Casting a glance over my shoulder in his direction, I nodded slowly, not uttering a single word more than I had to.

"Probably just got the jitters." Vincent put forward in a slightly mocking tone of voice.

"Haven't we all? This is some serious shit." John put in, finishing his breakfast before he too jumped up to his feet.

After we had all finished eating, we packed away all of our supplies into our bags and shouldered them as we made our way towards the stairs. We'd decided to take the bus as far as we could into the city, that we'd keep on driving until we couldn't any more.

I lent a hand to Shaun and John, who were busy removing the barricade we had place in front of the main doors on the ground floor. Sliding a sofa out of the way while John and Shaun dragged a large bookcase towards the wall it had come from, I let out a quiet sigh as the light beamed in through the doors.

This was our last hope.

Ten minutes or so later, we were all in the bus, navigating our way through a maze of little roads and an obstacle course of abandoned cars. Gazing out of the window, I saw a flock of birds circling around one of the many tall buildings in this city.

"I wish I could just fly away." I found myself saying to Claire, who as usual was sat beside me. I wondered why she always chose the seat next to me.

"It'd be nice, wouldn't it?" she remarked, busying herself with examining her weapons. After making sure that everything was correct with them, she put them away and looked towards me.

"Yeah.." I mumbled, tearing my gaze away from the window to look down the aisle as I often did these last couple of days.

We were travelling quite slowly, the reason was simple; there were too many obstacles in our way to travel quickly. We had already found ourselves having to take a slight detour as we'd found one of the streets blocked up with cars, turned over on their sides or simply just sitting in the way with no room to move them.

"I wonder how much farther we can go." I heard John question from the front of the bus. He had a worried expression playing across his face as he brushed his hair out of his face, adjusting his ponytail before donning his hat.

"Probably won't be much further. But if we get stuck, it's a longer walk to the docks than it was before." Vincent said, gritting his teeth. Vincent was a strange person who always seemed bitter for some reason, like he was simply tired of everything.

It made sense to me.

"We're going to have to walk sooner or later." Shaun said, his tone of voice suggesting irritation as he turned the bus around another corner.

"Well, there it is." Vincent remarked as the bus turned the corner and a maze of vehicles faced us, blocking the path ahead.

"Ah, shit." Shaun said, sighing heavily as he stopped the bus a little behind the blockade of cars and trucks. It seemed we would be going no further on our set of wheels and I promptly picked up my bag and weapons and made my way towards the front of the bus as the doors opened.

"Steady, Ethan. We don't know what's out there." John said, holding me back for a few seconds as everyone else got themselves ready to get off of the bus.

"I do. It's several thousand infected." I coldly remarked as I climbed down the stairs of the bus onto the road below.

"Several thousand infected that I'd rather avoid.." John began, following me off of the bus after everyone else had disembarked.

The wind was blowing every so slightly, a chilly breeze that made me shiver slightly where I stood on the tarmac. Around me were tall buildings and little shops with flats above them, which was pretty common in cities like this.

One at a time, we climbed over the little blockade of cars, sliding over the bonnets onto the road ahead. From around a corner at the end of the street, I noticed a couple of infected wander onto our road. At the same time, they both turned their heads to face us and began their relentless sprint across the tarmac.

Unsheathing my sword, I stepped forwards at the same time as John, and we both kicked out with our legs, knocking the two infected back as we plunged our blades into their heads. It was over in a matter of seconds, and they moved no more.

"There'll be more, I guarantee it." John said beside me as we wiped the blood off of our blades onto the clothing of the infected. In the distance, I could hear what sounded like gunshots and screams, echoing through the streets and alleyways from them to us.

Airborne nightmares.

We walked through the streets for an hour or two, fighting off the endless litter of infected that seemingly patrolled the streets, until we found our path blocked by an overturned truck, it's charred white container taking up most of the space.

"We'll have to take the side-alleys. Man, this is not going to be good." Shaun lamented, raising his rifle as he started to walk to a nearby alleyway between an office building and a four-floor shop. The ground was littered with bits of paper, torn pieces of clothing and a splash of blood here and there.

"What's that sound?" Vincent asked, looking up at the building to our right as we walked through the alleyway.

Stopping for a moment, I listened intently to the sound of someone hammering on a window a couple of floors up until there was a loud smash as a body fell out from the window, landing a few feet ahead of us.

The infected slammed into the ground, not moving for a few seconds before it tried to pick itself up from the ground, but found itself unable to move its legs properly. Stepping forward, I took its head clean off as it looked up at me.

"Hide!" Shaun hissed as the alleyway was filled with the sounds of rambling and unsteady footsteps. It seemed that the infected in the area had heard the loud noise of the window shattering and were moving towards us to investigate.

Glancing around the corner, I spotted at least five infected moving along the road in unison, they moved past the alleyway without noticing us, so we decided to keep moving.

The alleyway stunk of something rotten, the smell permeating the air around us until I could smell nothing else but this foul stench. There was a trail of blood running along the wall and as we turned the corner, we found the source of the smell; a rotting corpse lay across the ground, its blood lay all around us as if it had been spraying out, though it had all dried up at this point.

"That is NASTY. Poor basta-" John began to say, before cutting himself off as the sounds of infected filled the alleyways again.

Instead of being unsteady, the footsteps were quick and grew louder with every second. Little shadows flitted into view from the corner we had come from as several infected appeared.

Shaun raised his assault rifle and took aim as one of the infected leaped onto Annie, taking her down to the ground with tremendous force. Forced to fire his gun, Shaun pummelled the infected with several rounds of burning hate, the noise echoing throughout the streets.

Taking a quick look at Annie, who had seemingly hit her head on the corner of a stair, he grimaced briefly as he pointed out the trail of fresh blood oozing out of her head.

"Fuck.. FUCK!" Steve roared. But there wasn't time to mourn as more shadows appeared from both sides of the alleyway.

"Run, RUN!" Shaun and John bellowed, the former of which raising his rifle again as we moved through the alleyway. He shot off a few more rounds into a couple of infected that came from the direction we were heading. We started to sprint as quickly as we could out of the alleyway and onto the road as the infected behind us came into view as I glanced over my shoulder.

The street we had ran onto was littered with infected, who were already dashing towards us, drawn in by the sound of gunfire. Taking up our weapons, we began to beat down and fire upon the infected, whose forces seemed endless as they streamed out from around the corners and out of the windows.

Covering Shaun as he reloaded, I decapitated two infected that had tried to dash at him, their heads rolling across the ground as I took out my handgun and fired upon another infected who had jumped out of a window.

"There's no end to them!" John shouted in a state of panic, ripping his kukri out of the head of a fallen infected.

"Keep moving!" Shaun demanded, opening fire once more on the approaching horde, taking down at least half of it in one burst as the bullets tore through the bodies of the infected, stopping them dead in their tracks.

Claire sunk her kitchen knife into the chest of an infected woman, letting out a little cry of panic as another one came up behind her, only to be cut up by John, who was behind her.

Turning to my left, I was greeted with the face of an infected, middle aged man who had sneaked up on me. Letting out a panicked gasp, I punched him in the face and proceeded to impale him on my sword, which I had trouble getting out of the man.

As I tried to free my sword from the chest of the infected, I heard a shrieking sound followed by a dull sensation of being violently moved. I felt my body hit the ground below me as an infected leapt onto me. Trying to push it off with my hands, it grabbed my wrist and sunk its teeth firmly in, drawing blood in a matter of moments.

"Ethan!" Shaun roared. He dashed over to me and kicked the infected in the face, sending it back a bit as he raised his rifle, firing hell into its body.

Everything tuned out at that moment as I gazed around the street and observed everyone wielding their weapons and taking down what remained of the infected horde, which had seemingly ended, with only a few infected left. Time seemed to pass by at an incredibly slow rate as the last infected fell to the ground. I looked down at my wrist, failing to take in what had just happened as my eyes looked over the bite.

This isn't real, right?

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Day Seventeen (6th January – 11:12AM)

Tiny drops of blood began to ooze from my wound, trickling across the skin as I raised my arm to the light in order to examine, everything felt hazy and far-away as I stared at the bite mark the infected had given me. The area around the wound was red and delicate as I ran my finger across it, feeling every indentation that the teeth had left.

So this is how it ends?

Assuming a sitting position, I continued to gaze at the bite; in the corner of my eye, I could make out the rest of the group observing me in near silence.

One bite to the wrist and I'm fucked?

"Five.." I heard Shaun mutter to himself, counting up to ten. Ten seconds; that's usually how long it took for the infection to take over a host. Once you got bitten, you had ten seconds to say goodbye before you turned into a livid monstrosity

I took a second to look at my comrades, all of them displaying a similar expression that I could only describe as deep concern. John was counting to ten with his fingers alongside Shaun, who was vocally counting.

"That's ten. How do you feel?" Shaun said finally, after finishing his counting. He waited for another ten seconds or so as I thought of something to say, still observing me before he extended his hand into my reach. Taking it, I was pulled to my feet and began to speak.

"My arm hurts like hell, but I'm fine." I grimaced, wincing slightly at the pain in my wrist as my clothing covered the wound.

I heard a little clicking sound and turned my head just at the right moment to see Vincent pointing his rifle at me with a deadly serious look painted across his face.

"Woah, woah! Put it down!" Shaun roared at the man, pushing the rifle down to point at the ground in a display of desperate dominance.

"But he's been bitten! He's gonna turn!" Vincent choked, lowering his rifle to point at me.

"Listen! It takes ten seconds normally, sometimes you don't even turn, like John!" Shaun explained.

Was I going to be fine?

I felt okay for now, my wrist was throbbing but I wasn't feeling any strange symptoms that might indicate that I was properly infected. I couldn't drag my attention away from the pain the pulsed across the wound.

"At this point, he's either immune or resistant." John put in, shooting a look of concern in my general direction. I kept my distance from the rest of the group as we began walking very slowly down the street.

"Resistant? That's possible?" Shaun asked, having clearly never seen what happens to those who are resistant.

"Yeah, we met a girl who was what I assume resistant to all of this, back at the start." John explained, mentioning the girl in the supermarket that we had encountered all those days ago.

"What happened?" Vincent asked, intently curious.

"She was in some serious pain, kept switching between normal and infected. It almost looked like she was switching between personalities or something." John continued, seeming to be having trouble finding a way to explain what we had seen.

"And then?" Shaun enquired, his face was out of my vision, so I could not tell what expression he was wearing.

"She asked me to end it, so I.. did." John said in a sombre tone, lowering his head as he spoke.

We walked for several minutes down the street, taking a turn through some alleyways as we encountered another overturned truck laying in our way. I grew weary of all these detours, wondering if we'd ever reach our destination.

"Watch out, got a rambler over there." Vincent warned us, pointing to the corner of the alleyway, where a person could be seen. They were simply standing there, as though they were merely waiting for someone.

"Rambler?" I enquired, curious as to why he'd chosen that word out of all the possibilities. The word 'rambler' brought back a couple of memories from our encounter with the hunters, who has also called them by that name. Vincent merely shrugged and watched as John moved towards the infected, weapon in hand.

Sneaking up on the infected, John prepared to take a swing at it with his kukri. As he was about to deliver the attack, the infected turned to face him, letting out a growl which could only be heard for a second as he planted the blade in its skull.

"That's that, street ahead looks clear from where I'm standing." John said, swiping off some of the blood that had gathered on the blade of his weapon. John had a clear view of the street ahead from where he was standing.

I caught Claire staring at me for a few seconds, her face full of concern and fear. Though the moment I noticed her looking at me, she quickly turned away and started to walk over to John, who had begun to move into the next street.

We weaved around car after car, abandoned vehicles were extremely common in the cities it seemed. The pain was growing more and more intense as I walked and I suddenly found myself losing my balance a little as we walked. Slowing down, I fell behind the rest of the group as an ungodly amount of pain erupted in my head. It felt like my very mind were on fire as I ceased to walk, staggering across the tarmac.

"We're nearly the- Ethan?" Shaun said, cutting himself off as he glanced over his shoulder at me. On those words, everyone turned to face me, walking back over to where I was stood.

"I'm... fine." I muttered, finding my voice. The pain grew only more intense as the second ticked by. Clutching my head, I swayed on the spot as my balance was snatched out from under my feet.

"You.. don't look fine." John said very slowly as I walked towards a wall and leant against it, my hands still firmly placed around my head. Every word and little sound resonated in my head to excruciating effect.

My body felt hot, but freezing cold at the same time, constantly switching between the two extremes as the pain only got worse. My left eye suddenly felt very hot and began to tear up, so I rubbed at it. In the distance, I swore I could hear laughter.

What the hell was this?

"Your eye, Ethan.." Claire stammered, pointing at me with her index finger. On her words, I gradually made my way over to a nearby abandoned car and examined myself in the wing mirror.

My left eye had gone completely bloodshot with not a dot of white in sight, and the warmth in it could only be related to the amount of blood flowing through.

This was it, I was infected. Red eyes were one of their most distinguishable characteristics.

"I knew it, he's infected!" Vincent roared, staring into my eyes as I glanced at each of the group in turn. I suddenly felt very queasy, and proceeded to vomit all over the side of the car, swaying on the spot as I wiped my mouth clean.

"Resistant at the very least.. He doesn't have very long.." John mused, rubbing his chin in contemplation.

"What do we do?" Shaun demanded, his hands instinctively grabbing the rifle that was slung over his shoulder. Was he going to shoot me?

My eyes swept across the street, examining every little detail in everything before returning to the faces of my group. My left eye still felt very warm, and continued to stream for some reason. I let out the deepest sigh I had ever done in my entire life and proposed my own ultimatum.

"Leave me.." were the words that I uttered, speaking as clearly as I could so nobody could misunderstand. My balance was slowly coming back to me, but the sickness remained.

"What? You want us to just go!?" Shaun asked, his expression was priceless, pure shock.

"Yeah, leave me. They won't let me on the boat like this." I said, my voice coming out in a very monotone fashion. I had to think logically on this one, my heart demanded that I continue and escape from this hell, but my mind knew better.

"We can't just leave you here, man. You'll be done for!" John exclaimed, making wild hand gestures as he spoke.

My thoughts were electric, every word surging through my mind at a thousand miles per hour. I felt like I was burning out, breaking up in the atmosphere as I plummeted to Earth, I even felt like I was actually falling for a second as everything went black for just a single moment before returning to normal. It was starting.

"You can, and you WILL!" I spat, pointing to the street ahead of us, in the direction they had to go in order to finally escape.

"No!" Claire said defiantly, crossing her arms in panic.

"I will NOT be responsible for all your deaths!" I roared, finding myself grow intolerably angry for some reason, as though every emotion in my being were amplified to the extreme, my fuse felt very short right now and I was so close to snapping.

"What will you do?" John asked me very carefully, he was being very delicate about this whole ordeal.

"I dunno. Take a nice stroll? Take in the sights and then kill myself. Sounds good." I said, my tone rife with sarcasm. I felt my brow furrow as I found my vision go slightly blurry and I tried to compensate by narrowing my eyes.

"That's.. We just can't leave you, man.." Shaun sighed.

"You will. GO!" I demanded, my headache growing a little stronger with all the stress. Shaun seemed taken aback by my tone of voice, and we started unzipping his back, taking out the spare assault rifle that he kept in there. I thought I saw Vincent's eyes widen at the sight of the gun, which Shaun proceeded to hand to me.

"You'll take this. If you're going down, take as many of those fuckers with you as you can. I hate this, but if you're insist we leave, I guess we must." Shaun said in defeat as I took the rifle from him. It was unexpectedly heavy as I slung it over my shoulder, staggering back a little from the weight.

Motioning for them to leave, they slowly turned around and began to walk in the direction that lead to the port. I sat down on the curb for a few minutes, disturbed only once as everything went black, and then red before my vision returned to normal and I found myself stood up a few metres away from where I had been standing.

I'm all alone again, winter had never felt so cold.

I began walking back the way we came, wandering aimlessly through the streets as my symptoms only grew more severe as time went on. I stared up at the sky, but saw nothing but static in the air, obscuring most of its usual magnificence as though I were watching the world through an old television set.

"What the hell.. am I going to do?" I said to myself, taking the rifle in my hands as I trudged down the road, bumping into the sides of cars that were in my way, losing my balance every now and then.

"Kill yourself." I heard a voice say to me from through the din, I looked around wildly to identify where the voice had come from, but found nothing.

There was a presence on this street. And with the presence, I turned around in time to see a man leap down from the top of a car, he began to stride towards me. As he did, his features came into view and I realised who it was. It was none other than the 'Executioner', Lucas.

I swiped at him with my free hand, finding my arm go right through him. His being vanished for a moment, before reappearing to my left with a massive grin stretching wide across his face.

He looked like the Cheshire Cat.

"Great. Not only does my head hurt, but now my conscience too?" I spat, continuing my journey to who knows where. I had no destination, no great goal, I was merely drifting through the last moments of my life, trying to find a good place to die.

And then everything went red. I wasn't full unaware of what was going on around me, but I couldn't really see anything either. From the deafening haze came sounds reminiscent of rambling and shouting. This continued for a minute before my senses came back to me, and I found myself at the end of the street.

"Looks like this is the end for you, kiddo. Was it fun?" Lucas chuckled, walking backwards in front of me.

"You know the answer to that, bastard." I growled, continuing my non-existent quest.

"Not even a little bit? A teensy-little bit?" Lucas exclaimed, a look of apparent surprise visible on his face. Why was he even here? It was bad enough with him haunting my sleep, but now he was in my reality too?

"What do you want from me?" I asked, looking up from the ground to gaze into his eyes as we walked, his mocking grin irritating me to the extreme. I raised the heavy rifle and pointed it at him.