Dead Winter: A gripping crime thriller full of suspense (8 page)

Day Six (26th December – 9:04AM)

Like a track stuck on repeat, my mind was replaying the scene from the previous night. After the news-anchor on the television had finished speaking, we had all stopped what we were doing.

"An evacuation?" Dave had said to himself, his eyes fixed on the screen.

I'm backtracking again.

I vividly recalled John's expression, full of surprise as he placed his glass of whiskey onto the table while listening to the woman speak.

"Well what do you know? They haven't forgotten about us after all." he'd called, raising his voice over the noise of the television. It had seemed as though John thought that the military and the government had completely abandoned us.

Over the next couple of hours, we had begun to discuss our options. We finally decided that we would emerge from our temporary respite and venture out towards the promise of evacuation. We planned out our course through the city on a large A-Z map, deciding that we would head out in the morning.

Back to the present.

I raised my hand into the air above me, bringing it slowly down onto my face before I turned to glance at my watch for the time.

9:04AM

The promised time was upon me as I lifted myself up from the bed and changed into my clothes, fortunately they were fresh out of the wash. Heading downstairs to help everyone prepare for the trek across the city, I grabbed my bag and began to sort through our assortment of weapons.

"Mornin' Ethan, once we're all packed we'll be heading straight out." Dave called from the kitchen towards me, busy packing his own bag.

"Okay. Lemme just gather up all my things." I replied, placing items into my bag; magazines, my butterfly knife, my cleaver and some food and drink.

This was an incredibly risky ordeal.

Several minutes later, we were ready to leave. I had to say, I found that I would miss this house and its comforts, even though I had only been here for a couple of days. I wanted to stay here forever and never have to deal with the hardships out in the cold.

"Ready?" John said to the rest of us, all shouldering our bags with a weapon in our hands. After a moment, we all nodded and John swung the door open, locking it behind us after we had left. He span the keys around on his finger for a moment before sliding them into his bag.

I couldn't help but feel like we'd never return to this house.

The wind-chill was bitter as we stepped out onto the pavement and walked towards the car. Climbing in, I shivered slightly as I shut out the cold, the engine roaring to life.

As the vehicle smoothly made its way through the streets, I stared out of the window at the buildings passing me by. Eventually, we would find ourselves unable to travel by car, I just knew it.

I thought I saw someone on the rooftops for a moment, but my view was obscured by trees as we turned a corner. I had that daunting feeling once more, as though someone were watching my every move.

"Something wrong, Ethan?" Paul asked me, looking up from his book. How anyone could read in a moving car was beyond my comprehension.

Several minutes of monochrome buildings and corpses later, we arrived at a dead end of sorts, the road ahead was blocked by a rather nasty looking pile-up of cars. As I had thought, we would have to walk the rest or backtrack, though I doubted the car had enough fuel left in it.

"Well, shit." John sighed, pointing at the fuel gauge on the dashboard, which was blinking red.

"We'll have to walk, I guess." said Dave, moving his hand over to the door handle.

We all agreed that it was the best course of action and proceeded to climb out of the vehicle; stepping foot onto the road, I pulled out my cleaver and anxiously glanced around the street. It would only take an hour or two to pass through the city normally, though in these circumstances it may take even longer.

Nothing is as easy as planned.

We shouldered our backpacks and made to climb over the wreckage of the cars that had blocked our path. The winter wind whipped at my hair for a moment as I hopped over the bonnet of the last car, peering across the corner as I waited for John to take the lead.

John was as good a leader as any, he certainly seemed to act like a leader, to say the least. It was unofficial, but he certainly would get my vote if we had one. There was just something about the way he handled himself that I couldn't put my finger on.

"Fellas, it's this way!" John called to the rest of us, pointing around the corner I had previously been peering at.

To my complete lack of surprise, there was an infected shuffling across the pavement further down the road. John briskly walked towards it, holding the map in one hand and his kukri in the other.

With one fell slash, he planted the long blade into the skull of the infected man, almost lopping part of his head off before the blade stopped. Pushing against the man with his foot, John quickly yanked the blade from his head and a small trail of blood flew through the air as the infected fell to the floor.

John made it look too easy. At least he was wearing the hat.

There had to be some sort of catch, some detail that portrayed him in a different light. I was tempted to consider the possibility that he might be with the military, part of some strange special operations unit; but that seemed highly unlikely. I mean, he'd have told us, right?

"Something the matter, Ethan?" he said to me, whipping the blade through the air to get rid of some of the blood trickling down it.

I shook my head quickly, trying to repress the thoughts and questions I had regarding John's identity and his past. This wasn't the time nor place for such talk.

"The road ahead is blocked again, we'll have to cut through the side-streets for this block." John sighed, pointing with his kukri towards a fuel-tanker blocking the way ahead.

"Always seems to be something in the way.." Claire chimed miserably from behind me, she was examining her pendant nervously.

"Too bloody right. I'm sick and tired of all these obstacles." Dave cut in, sharper than John's knife could ever be.

"Calm down, ladies. It's just a little detour. What? Are you tired already?" John said snidely, the sarcasm was razor sharp.

Once more, I thought I heard something as the five of us wandered along the street; turning my head I noticed a shadow flicker out of sight on the rooftop of a nearby block of flats, I was sure this time.

Something, or someone was watching us.

It couldn't have been a figment of my imagination, something was definitely up there. Though for all I knew, I could have been going insane; more than enough had happened for that. But I felt strangely fine with everything that had happened over the last few days.

I had to be honest though; I missed my crummy, little apartment on the ninth floor. I missed John's house already too, anything that wasn't the bitterly chilly world out here.

It could be worse though, I thought to myself as we entered the alleyways that lead through the block of stores to the left of the fuel-tanker.

"I've always hated alleyways, man." said Dave, sighing to himself as he gripped the handle of his cleaver a little tighter.

"Why? They're mighty convenient." John sang, keeping an eye out for danger as we slowly paced through the first alley, step-by-step.

The light was sparse in these alleyways, shadows played tricks with my eyes as I crept slowly towards the corner. I thought I saw something smeared across the wall, but it was too dark to tell.

"They're just.. creepy, y'know?" said Dave in response.

He was right, there was something about dark alleyways that really filled me with a sense of dread. You never knew if you'd be fine or get stabbed while walking through one in this city.

"I guess I see what you're getting at." John said, clearly still a little confused as to what was wrong with alleyways.

There was a large dumpster blocking the rest of the alleyway, though it looked small enough to simply climb over, just like the cars before. One by one, we clambered over it and dropped down onto the alleyway beyond.

How much longer do I have to walk in the dark?

From around the corner came another infected, crawling across the floor towards us. John didn't seem to want to kill it this time, as he motioned for someone else to perform the action of ending a life. I thought it strange.

Sighing, I stepped forwards with cleaver in hand and stared down at the infected woman, who kept trying to get to her feet but seemed unable to. Our eyes met for a moment in the faint winter light before the woman shrieked at me, quickening her pace towards me.

Kneeling down on the ground, I raised the cleaver into the air and brought it down onto the head of the infected like a guillotine; she ceased movement immediately, letting out a brief sigh of pain as her arms went limp.

I just couldn't get used to ending a life, it always left me feeling sick. Though I suppose it wasn't something a person should have to deal with.

"Not so hard, is it?" John chimed darkly, clearly amused at my reaction to killing a person. His complete disregard for life irked me some. I doubted deep down in my heart that I would be able to end the life of someone who wasn't infected.

I stood up and brushed the dirt from my trousers before looking at the corner of the alleyway ahead, there was light sifting through from what seemed like the exit. We slowly made our way towards it.

Turning the last corner, a sickening sight fell upon our eyes. There was a corpse slumped against the wall, but that wasn't all. It was missing its head, which lay in the melting snow to its side; blood merged with the water on the ground to create an eerie, pink solution.

For a moment, I thought I saw John's eyes light up in the strangest of ways as he examined the scene. Something was on his mind and it became clear as a smirk crept across this face as he pointed to the wall above the corpse, where writing was visible. I felt my heart sink as I read it.

'The Executioner'

It had clearly been spray-painted on the wall by somebody, and my mind raced back to weeks before this had even began and a realisation dawned upon me.

We had to leave, NOW.

Chapter Nine

Day Six (26th December – 10:20AM)

This couldn't be real. Not now.

The five of us stood there, huddled around the corpse on the floor as we shivered slightly in the cold. We stared at it, and the message it had brought with it. Both Dave and Paul seemed confused as to our reactions, as if this meant nothing to them.

"The hell is this?" exclaimed Paul, raising his hand to his mouth in shock, clearly distressed by the mutilated body.

"I'll tell you, but we gotta keep moving, we can't stay here!" I hissed, ushering the rest of the group towards the end of the alleyway. Only bad things awaited us if we stayed here for too long, and I really didn't want to have to deal with that right now.

John idly examined his map again, pointing ahead down the street we had entered. The smirk on his face hadn't fully disappeared yet and I wondered what he could possibly be so happy about in the situation.

John never ceased to surprise me.

"So tell us! What the hell was that?" Dave uttered, still tightly clutching the handle of his cleaver.

"Okay, okay! You're telling me that you've never heard of 'The Executioner''?" I questioned, anxiously glancing at the rooftops ahead for any sign of movement, the culprit had to be in the area still.

"That name does ring a bell, sort of.." answered, rubbing his chin in contemplation before glancing at Paul, who nodded.

"Wasn't that the name of a serial killer down South?" Paul whispered, casting a worried look towards me as I looked over my shoulder at him. "You know, the one who killed criminals?"

"That's right. Or that's how the story used to go." I said, pondering several facts in my head as we walked.

"Used to?" Dave enquired, deathly curious.

"Ever since October, the guys victims stopped being criminals for some reason. And they started happening more often!" I continued, explaining the characteristics of the serial killer.

"But that was way down South! What's he doing here?" Dave stammered, shivering as a brief, yet strong gust of wind swept through the streets.

"Something else changed as well. His methods. Originally, he 'executed' his victims in a way that suited the crimes they had committed." John cut in, continuing where I had left of, he clearly knew the stories as well as I did. "But ever since October, the victims have all died in similar ways, just like the guy we just saw."

"Like, with a knife?" Claire questioned, a puzzled look creeping across her face. I found it odd that Claire didn't know the story, even though she lived with John.

"Not with a knife. A knife couldn't make those clean cuts. It was a long blade." John stated, as if he knew all about it.

"A week ago, the police found a body on the other side of the city. It was cut apart, and there was the same message on the walls." I concluded.

We turned a corner onto another street, littered with cars and bits of paper which floated slightly in the breeze; there were still little piles of snow compacted against the walls, puddles here and there along the bumps in the road.

The Executioner had moved North.

John snickered to himself suddenly, lowering his head for a moment before looking up at the rooftops. I felt slightly concerned for his sanity.

"Oh man! I've been waiting for this!" he sang, slashing his kukri through the air a few times.

"For this?" I enquired, confused as to what he meant.

"Yes! For this moment!" he continued, still speaking in a rather vague manner.

John span around on the spot, holding his arms apart as he went to speak once more. But as he did, there was a shriek from somewhere above as a blur of colour fell from the sky, landing on John.

He was sent straight to the ground. Swearing, John raised the hand that held the kukri and made to swing at the head of the infected that had pounced him, but found his blade spinning through the air as the man knocked it out of his hand.

John yelled for a moment as I dashed towards him with cleaver in hand. But too late, as the infected bit down onto his wrist.

"Get the fuck off of him!" I shouted, trying to get the attention of the infected, who raised his head to face me. Climbing to his feet, he left John who began clutching at his arm in panic. As soon as the infected stood up, I swung wildly with my cleaver as hard as I could, actually lopping off a part of his skull.

The man fell to the ground moments later, blood gushing form the top of what was left of his head. John slumped against the wall, motioning for the rest of us to stand back.

I didn't want this to happen.

"Well, I'm done for.." John sighed, wincing in pain as he stared at the bite marks on his wrist, which had visibly pierced the skin. It was only a matter of seconds before he would start twitching as the infection took him over.

"There's got to be something we can do, right?" Claire said, holding her head in her hands, turning away from John. She clearly didn't want to watch what came next.

That's how the infection spread; either through bites or getting infected bodily fluids in open wounds, eyes or your mouth. It usually only took ten seconds for the victim to start showing symptoms of the infection, then another ten for the victim to be totally taken over.

John waited, breathing heavily as he tried not to think about what was going to happen; but then, after about twenty seconds, nothing happened. A minutes passed us by as John waited, but still nothing happened.

"I don't understand, I feel fine. I mean, my wrist bloody hurts! But other than that, I'm fine?" John stuttered, raising his wrist to the light in order to examine it further.

We waited for a few minutes, watching John intently. Surely it should have happened by now, he wasn't showing any symptoms at all. Dave walked forwards with first-aid kit in hand and began to dab at the wound with an antiseptic wipe, slowly wrapping a bandage around the wound. He tied the bandage rather tightly around his wrist.

"What does this mean?" Dave questioned as he finished tending to the wound, placing the first-aid kit back in his bag.

"I could be like that girl back at the supermarket, I guess/" John said, a sombre expression on his face as he climbed to his feet, snatching his kukri up from the ground.

"Just, if I start to turn, shoot me." he concluded, making a motion with his hand that resembled shooting himself in the head.

We resumed walking, but all of us had our eyes on John, who was still taking the lead ahead of us. I found it extraordinary how nothing was happening, as I had witnessed first hand what a single drop of infected blood could do to a person. I was of course thinking about the lunatic back at the police evacuation centre.

"I've never seen an infected move like that, though.." John called from in front of us, talking of the man who had pounced him. He was right, the most I had ever seen an infected do was climb a fence, not leap through the air.

There was something different about that one.

We walked for about an hour through the streets and alleyways that lay beyond, passing monochrome building after building; office buildings, shops, gyms and schools passed us by as we made our way through the heart of the city.

There were infected, of course. Quite a lot of them actually, but John dispatched them before we even had a chance, grunting angrily as he lashed out at them, clearing venting his frustration upon them.

Every now and then, I thought I heard a shout come out from over the rooftops, but I failed to make out a single word. I could have merely been a scream from another survivor meeting their end. It was hard to think positively in this situation.

A quiet clicking sound came from behind me, I turned my head curiously and spotted Dave lighting a cigarette as we walked across an intersection, passing the street that lead to the main road.

"We'll keep to the side-streets. The main roads will be crawling with them, I bet." John said, still wincing every now and then from the bite on his wrist. He still hadn't shown any sign of infection.

We passed a series of little shops, and I examined their contents. There were clothes, sofas and televisions. The window had been broken in and someone had helped themselves to a TV.

How stereotypical.

"How far are we now?" I asked John, who began to consult his map with one hand.

"There's still quite a bit to go, but I'd say we're about halfway there." replied John, pointing to another corner that we had to turn.

Walking onto the next street, we noticed a decent number of infected scattered here and there across it. John motioned for us to get down and one-by-one, we assumed a crouching position behind an overturned white van, waiting for John to say something.

"Shit.. There's a lot of them." Dave cursed, flicking his cigarette across the road, where it hit a puddle and fizzled quietly. This action had seemed to have given John an idea, as he grabbed a relatively large stone from the ground and lobbed it over the van.

There was a loud smashing noise as the stone found its way through a large window, the sound was followed by a shrill alarm which blared out, echoing through the street. Peering around the side of the van, I saw all the infected dash over to the source of the noise, climbing into the store.

John suddenly dashed from car to car, motioning with his free hand for us to follow, and we made our way over to him, stopping here and there as John made sure the coast was clear. We were still crouched down low, to avoid bringing any unwanted attention to ourselves.

It was still there, that feeling of being watched. That presence.

Turning the corner onto a square park area, there were buildings visible beyond the trees. There wasn't a single infected in sight as we tread our way across the muddy grass, towards a couple of benches in the middle of the park. We decided to take a little break and relax on the benches.

"We must be more than halfway now, I think." John said first, pulling back his sleeve to examine the bandages around his wrist, where little spots of blood could be seen, having bled through the cloth.

"I hope we all, it looks like it could snow again." Dave sighed. The last thing we wanted was to have to trek through more snow, it wasn't exactly the best terrain to fight your way through the zombie apocalypse on.

We sat there for a few minutes, chatting casually. We pulled out drinks from our bags, cracking one open, I began to sip at it and turned my head to face Paul as he spoke.

"I remembered this park, always seemed out of place to me." he said, taking a swig of his water, before placing it back in his bag.

"What can you expect from this city? It's not exactly the heart of architectural design." John stated, wiping the blade of his kukri with a piece of clothing he had found on the floor, wiping the blood away.

"Not really the heart of anything." I muttered, my distaste for the city was apparent in my tone of voice.

That's when it happened. Out of nowhere, a voice called my name, echoing from above. A few birds flocked out from the trees, flying into the sky above us as the voice called again. I looked around to determine the source of the noise.

And then I saw him, a black silhouette on top of the building at the end of the street, he was waving around a thin object in his hands, but I couldn't make out what it was. I know who it was straight away, but had no idea what his motives were.

All I knew was that the 'Executioner' wanted me.