Dead Winter: A gripping crime thriller full of suspense (11 page)

"Man, this is tough. This one's barely budging, give me a hand will ya?" Dave called over to me after I had moved a small car out of the way.

"Sure, where do you want me?" I asked him, glancing at the car, which was also similar to the one we were using.

"I'll push from the back, you open the door and steer while pushing." he requested of me, to which I nodded and walked over to the drivers side, opening the door and grabbing the wheel.

On Dave's signal, the two of us began to push the car into a better position, a sizeable gap opening up between the cars. We'd been at this for a few hours now, only getting a few minutes of driving time before we had to get out and push other vehicles out of the way.

"Alright, alright. Back in the car, for another few bloody minutes." Dave muttered between breaths, clearly becoming tired with all the physical exertion we'd been doing over the last few hours.

We'd slept in a bit longer than we'd wanted, due to not having an alarm. John had awakened three hours later than he usually did and it had taken us another hour to eat breakfast and pack our stuff into the car.

The sun was already on its way down to set once more as we drove slowly along the road. Trees and small fields passed us by at a snails pace.

"We need to find somewhere to rest. Somewhere near trees, we need wood for the fire." John said, turning the wheel slightly to steer the car around a car that lay on the road.

"That's true, there was barely anything but twigs in that field." Dave said from the passenger seat at the front. It was me, Claire and Paul in the back of the car.

We drove for about twenty more minutes until we found a little exit from the motorway onto what appeared to be a field surrounded by a forest.

It was ideal.

So we set up camp and got a small fire going to keep us warm through the cold winter nights. I felt worried again that the fire might draw attention to ourselves. We had found ourselves on a hill of sorts, and the city could be seen in the distance, distinguishable from the darkness by the small lights scattered across it, buildings burning and lights flickering.

Talking for a couple of hours around the fire, we sat and ate again; this time was spaghetti hoops instead of beans. Great, something I could actually tolerate.

I crawled into my tent after putting out the fire and slid into my thick sleeping bag. My mind filled with thoughts about this 'Sanctuary' place.

What would it be like there?

Was it safe?

Was it.. still there?

And with that last thought, I fell into a sleep haunted by the events I had experienced over the last week. People laughing and infected screaming, shadows playing across the walls and burning red eyes.

Chapter Fourteen

Day Eight (28th December – 7:35AM)

Freeze frame.

I'm falling in slow motion, the wind coursing through me as I plunge into the darkness, the sky fading away above me. Everything's black for a moment until I drag myself to my feet and take in my surroundings.

The building above me is crumbling to the ground, chunks of concrete and glass rain down around me as I turn around on the spot, observing the spectacular destruction before me. I'm back home, watching it burn once more.

Finishing my rotation, I'm met with a distorted face, barely distinguishable from the darkness around us. It bares its teeth at me and begins to swipe at me with its hands, seemingly elongated into claws. I leap back to avoid the furious attacks, planting a kick firmly to the stomach of the infected man; turning around, I start to run away from the crumbling complex through the ever-so-familiar streets.

What was I doing here again? Where were the others?

"Dave! John! Where are you guys!?" I shout at the top of my lungs as I speed down a street, side-strafing to avoid another infected, who stares at me with his red eyes as my own finally begin to adjust to the low level of light.

Behind me, the two infected were in pursuit, sprinting as quickly as they could. But I was quicker, my body felt insanely light and easy to move as I ran down the street, avoiding a couple of infected pounding on a door.

"Guys!? Anyone!" I shouted again, calling into the night.

The moon hung low and large over the darkened cityscape that I found myself traversing once again, a labyrinth of long roads and short alleyways, winding through the darkness towards who knows where.

Why on Earth was I here again? Why was it so dark? These were the questions that burdened my mind as I kept my legs moving. I caught a glimpse of the moon above me, burning deep scarlet. It almost looked like an eye, shifting its gaze to stare deep into my mind.

It was terrifyingly intoxicating, dark thoughts flooding my mind.

Behind me now was a small group of infected that I had passed by, all in hot pursuit of me. I turned a corner quickly and entered a side-passage to give them the slip, it seemed to work as I peered around the corner from behind a waste bin. The infected horde dashed past me, seemingly oblivious as to what I had done.

Chuckling to myself, I turned around and began to walk down the alleyway as a strange sensation came over me, a presence of sorts. I turned the corner and found myself in a dead end. The walls melted and merged into each other behind me, blocking my only exit.

Standing there, I suddenly felt nerve-piercingly cold as I heard a cold voice issue from the rooftop above me. I glanced up at it just in time to see a silhouette jump straight down, landing in a crouching position in front of me.

"Hello again, Ethan. How have you been?" the figure said with a hint of a familiar sing-song tone.

"What is this?" I blurted out, desperate for answers.

"What do you think it is, psycho boy?" Lucas said to me, raising an eyebrow. Who the hell was this guy calling a psycho?

Him of all people.

"Did you enjoy it, kid? Did you enjoy the moment you put a bullet in my skull?" Lucas jeered, a callous grin appearing on his face as he came into better light.

He looked exactly the same, wearing the same clothing and everything, with one difference. There was a small hole in the centre of his forehead with a trickle of dried blood running from the hole down his face.

"Of course I didn't! I did what I had to do to survive!" I shouted at him. As I did, writing began to appear on the walls in a luminous red, burning across the brickwork, small scribbles forming words.

I did what I had to.

"And then you went on a little rampage, didn't you, boy?" sneered Lucas, raising his hands to the sky as an object began to materialise in them.

Shadows danced around his hands, forming a sword. I glanced down at my own hand and was taken aback, a gun now in my hand. Raising it to point at his head, I closed my eyes and pulled the trigger, the gunshot nearly blowing my ears out.

"Not this time." he said, bursting into laughter as a barely audible tinkle of metal on the ground came to my ears.

Opening my eyes a little, I was just in time to see the sword coming down at me. The last thing I saw was his glowing red eyes, burning brightly until it felt like mine were on fire.

I jolted awake, breaking into a cold sweat that I quickly wiped from my head, scenes from the nightmare flashing through my head. Was this guilt, or something else?

As I climbed out of my tent, I slid into my jacket and shivered slightly, looking for the rest of the group, who were huddled around the fire, just recently relit.

My mind went back to the previous night, to a conversation I'd had with John before I went to sleep. As I had made my way over to my tent, he'd pulled me to the side to talk.

"Look mate, you're a good kid. But I can tell there's something bothering you." John had whispered to me, trying not to get the attention of the rest of the group, who were climbing into their own tents.

"Whatever gave you that impression? I'm fine." I spat bitterly, denying every thought I'd had since then.

"Don't bullshit me, I know that look. I'm sure it's got something to do with what happened with that guy." John had said to me, taking his hat off to run his fingers through his hair.

"You expect me to be fine? I shot a guy through the head! He wasn't infected! I mean sure he was going to kill me if I didn't but I still feel like shit over it. Not everyone is like you!" I'd ranted, my hands forming into fists as I felt my anger rise a little.

"I know that, it wasn't always easy for me, y'know. I didn't want to do this originally, I was born into it. You wanna know what I wanted to be when I was a kid?" John continued, glancing over his shoulder at the rest of the group.

"Humour me." I'd said coldly, staring down at the frost-covered grass at my feet.

"I wanted to be a baker, or a hairdresser, not a fucking hired gun!" he concluded, chuckling slightly as his own words.

I'd snickered to myself as he spoke, humoured by his words. The image of John cutting someone's hair brought a brief smile to my face. A couple of birds were chirping amongst themselves in the trees nearby as John patted me on the shoulder and began to speak once more.

"But look, I know how it must feel, having to kill someone like that. And I can't help but think it's changing you, Ethan. And I'm not sure what it's changing you into." he had said, his tone of voice indicating his concern for my state.

"I don't know, man. I just.. When all this started, I was so scared. Now I can't feel a thing when I kill one of those things, like it comes naturally to me. It feels too natural." I said, sighing before I spoke.

"People adapt to situations in strange ways, just try to put it out of your mind, I guess. I'm no good at advice, mate. But I'm trying, because we're friends, right?" John finished, extending his hand towards me.

I'd taken his hand, shaking it firmly as I clarified the answer to his question. We were friends, I suppose. We'd met in strange circumstances, but we sure as hell weren't enemies, so friends we must be.

Back to the present.

John wasn't present at the fire as I sat down next to Dave, who handed me a cup of coffee, which I happily sipped at.

"Where's John?" I asked, nudging Dave slightly.

"I think he's over by the car, sorting out the stuff." Dave replied, taking a sip of his own coffee, which seemed a lot darker than mine.

Several minutes later, John appeared from behind the shrubbery, a look of dismay plastered across his face as he walked towards the four of us, still practically hugging the fire for warmth.

"Guys... We have a problem. A BIG problem." he sighed, motioning for us to come and see. We all reluctantly climbed to our respective feet and followed John to the car.

At the first glance, I couldn't see anything wrong. But on further inspection, I noticed something.

The tires were flat, deep gashes run through the side of them as though somebody had taken a knife to each one of them. Muttering to myself, I walked around the car, examining each tire. Somebody had cut all of them.

"What the fuck?" Dave groaned sleepily, raising his free hand to his face in disbelief.

The fuel cap was off too, as though someone had syphoned what fuel we had left and taken it away.

"That's right, kid. The fuel's gone too. Someone is toying with us." John stated, narrowing his eyes in irritation as he looked at us all.

"Did anyone hear anything last night? Any voices, or something out of the ordinary?" he asked as we glanced nervously at each other, shaking our heads. None of us had heard a thing.

Why couldn't anything ever be simple here?

"Are we in danger?" Claire stammered, looking to her older brother for reassurance, which was clearly not going to come.

"For now? I think we best assume so. We're going to have to walk from here." John said, his voice still ripe with annoyance and anger.

Downtrodden and depressed, the five of us began to gather up our weapons and supplies, which had surprisingly not been taken. All that had been taken from us was our vehicle, which we had to abandon.

For hours we slowly made our way down the seemingly endless stretch of motorway, stopping every now and then to look inside cars for supplies or a working vehicle. But each and every time we were disappointed, all the cars we'd found had been stripped of fuel or just weren't working.

Every now and then, I thought I heard a sound from behind the trees to my left. Tiny whispers or cracking twigs, but every time I peered into the expanse of trees and bushes, or climbed over the railings to get a closer look, I found nothing.

I thought it eerily familiar, this sensation of being hunted. Wondering to myself whether or not I'd make it till tomorrow. We were all on edge, weapons drawn and at the ready, just waiting for someone to show themselves.

The infected truly weren't the biggest threat in this world.

We lived in fear of what the people amongst us might do.

As the sky went dark, we made our way over the crash barrier into a small clearing in the trees and set up camp, slowly pitching up our tents as we glanced over our shoulders into the trees around us.

"Right, someone's going to have to stay awake while the rest of us sleep tonight." John stated to the rest of us, adjusting his hat slightly as he made his own tent. We all agreed with him and decided that we'd take it in shifts, two hours at a time. We'd also decided that Claire wouldn't have to take guard duty, being so young.

No matter where I went, everything still looked the same, all the same colours with barely any variance in the environment, just like the city, which lay a fair few miles in the opposite direction.

So I slept for a couple of hours while Paul took the first watch, if you could call it sleep. I practically just laid there with my eyes closed.

Then, it was my turn to take watch, I crawled out of my tent onto the leaf-covered grass before getting to my feet, strolling over to Paul to relieve him of his job.

"Alright, man. Get some sleep." I said to him as he glanced over his shoulder at me, nodding. He was clearly exhausted from all the walking we'd done today.

There was a brief rustle in the bushes behind us, and the sound of a stick or twig snapping rang through the camp as a voice called through the darkness at me, I reached for my handgun.

"Surprise, motherfucker! Hands in the air or I'll blow them off!" a rough voice shouted at the two of us. I felt my heart sink from inside my chest at the sound, slowly moving my hand away from the handle of my gun, raising them into the air.