Dead Frost - 02 (18 page)

Jared was across
the room reading something that adorned the wall; a poem, maybe, by
one of the unfortunate children, one of the missing, or maybe the one
that Marla had stamped on so hard that her foot had disappeared into
its face.

Without thinking –
the poem seemed to have mesmerised him, relieved him of his senses –
he yanked open the door in front of him. It led to a store-cupboard,
the kind that contains the chalks, paints, blank textbook.

Only this one had
something extra.

This one contained
death.

'Jared!' Marla
screamed, but it was too late. She could only watch as he
disappeared beneath infected children. Limbs flailed, black goo flew
through the air, and Jared howled as teeth sunk into his neck,
shoulder, legs.

Shane whirled on
the spot – he had still been thinking of Megan when the attack
happened, which was partially the reason why Jared was now beneath a
sea of bloodstained uniforms. There was no way he would have allowed
Jared anywhere near the shut cupboard had he been focused. His
reverie had sentenced a man to death, and he knew it.

The creatures
didn't seem to realise that there were others in the room. They had
what they wanted, and it was more than they had expected.

How long had they
been in the storeroom? How long had they been waiting?

As Shane tossed one
of the miniature wooden desks aside, he noticed the completely
consumed cadaver lying on the floor of the store-cupboard.

Mrs Beetham.

She had been
stripped, as if she were nothing more than a bargain-bucket. Bones
and tattered dress were all that remained.

Terry unleashed
with the Remington, tearing the head clean off the first creature.
It fell to the side, revealing Jared's partially chewed face. Holy
shit, was his eye out? It was, it was dangling from the socket,
dancing around on top of a flap of loose skin.

The remaining two
lurkers paid no heed to the shot fired, nor the headless creature
that had been feasting with them. They buried their own heads deeper
into Jared, chewing through him, trying to reach the prize that lay
within.

Shane rushed
forward and with one kick managed to take the little girl lurker out
of the equation. She squealed –
dinnertime over
–
as Shane fired two rounds into her face. As she fell back, he saw
Megan again. Though this creature was the farthest thing from his
daughter, and its eyes – black, cold, dead – snapped him
out of his misery.

Marla screamed.
'Holy shit! Shane, watch out!'

The second
creature, who was fatter than any child Shane had ever seen before in
his life, turned its attention to Shane's ankle. As it moved,
supernaturally fast, Shane dragged his foot out of the way and fired
once into the top of Billy Bunter's head. There was an audible
squelch as the bullet travelled through hair, skull, brain, jaw and
out into the ground.

It fell off,
thumping the bloodsoaked carpet like a sack of potatoes.

Marla was still
screeching. Shane wondered whether she even knew she was. Probably
not.

Terry was loading
the shotgun, maniacally, but there was nothing left for him to shoot
at, at least for now.

Shane dragged
Fatboy off of Jared and instantly wished he hadn't bothered. Their
friend was hollow; everything from the neck down missing or lying
next to him in a steaming pile. Shane wanted to scream so hard, but
something caught in his throat. He soon realised it was vomit as he
rushed across the room and upchucked until his stomach was raw.

Marla cried, sobbed
her heart out. Her legs gave way and she crumpled to the ground as
if made of paper.

And the night
hadn't even begun, as the gloom outside lit the room in a haze of
nightmare and despair.

*

He woke to find that
he couldn't move. He was paralysed, both with fear and injury, and
as he tried to blink the pain away, all he could remember was a horse
– no, not a horse, but something like it – hovering over
him. It was strange, really, because he had no idea why he was met
with such a ridiculous image. Perhaps he was a horse-rider and he
had fallen off, that would make sense, though he had no recollection
of ever sitting on a horse, let alone racing one.

'Where the fuck did
that come from?' a voice bellowed. He knew the voice, he'd heard it
before, but couldn't put a name to it.

Another jockey
,
he thought. Yeah, that was it. He had fallen off his horse and was
going to be surrounded any minute by the concerned faces of other
riders.

But that wasn't it.

Not even close.

'Is he dead?'
another voice asked. 'Check him.'

He tried to move,
tried to give the concerned party a sign that he was, indeed, still
alive. Nothing. He blinked, but even that seemed to hurt.

'If he's dead,
Captain, we're well and truly fucked.'

Captain? Did
they have captains in horse-riding?

The dim light above
him gave way to darkness; somebody was standing over him. He
couldn't see a face. He couldn't see anything, for that matter.

'He's not dead,'
the voice said. 'But he might as well be. He's bit.'

A moment of panic
washed over him as he tried to fathom what the looming shadow was
suggesting.

Bit? Bit by
what? My own fucking horse?

'Shit!' the second
voice hissed. 'Shit, shit, shit!'

He was obviously in
trouble. If something – his
horse
– had bitten
him, it was bad. He could hear it in the second man's voice.

Not a horse
,
he thought, and then it all came flooding back to him, all at once
which made his head pound and his heart race.

Lurkers. Zombies.
A
deer
...

The outbreak...the
virus that had brought the world to its knees.

He was bit, and he
knew what happened to people who had been bit.

'What do I do?'
the shadow above him asked. '
Fuck
, Captain, what do I do?'

No, he thought.
Please, no, I'm not infected, not yet anyway. Maybe I'll be
okay...maybe I'm
immune...maybe...

'We fucking don't
have a
choice
,' the second voice sneered. 'Just get it over
with. Shit! We
are
fucked!'

No...pleeeeee....

*

This, Freddie Dewson
thought, is beyond me. He looked at the generators as if they were
alien creations, something which had been built for no other purpose
than confuse the hell out of people.

Why had he even
volunteered to take a look; he was not an engineer. In fact, he had
almost electrocuted himself changing a plug not long ago, which
should have been enough of a reason to keep his big trap shut.

'You're just too
damn nice,' he muttered into the darkness.

The real reason why
he had opted to take a look was this: Maybe, just maybe, the switch
had tripped. If it was something so simple, and he fixed it, then he
could go back to the main hall and people would admire him for his
fine work.

That was it.

The reason why he
now stood in the dark, scratching his head, and hoping that the
gennies just decided to work again of their own volition.

The temperature was
still dropping; he could almost feel it gradually dipping, although
that probably had something to do with the fact that he had been
standing stock-still for almost five-minutes, staring at the hulking
machines in front of him as if they had said something derogatory
about him.

'Fuck this!' he
said, swivelling on the spot. They would have to freeze, in the
dark. Options were nonexistent, and if any of them thought they
could do any better, then let them fucking try.

As he took one step
into the darkness, something made him stop. For a few seconds, he
had no idea what was happening, but for some reason he couldn't move.
And then all there was was pain.

His head flipped
backwards – like a pez-dispensor – and fell off his
shoulders. His body went the opposite way, thudded against the side
of an obsolete generator, and landed, still spraying from the stump
at the neck.

Stepping from the
darkness, Henry Colburn glanced down at the twitching body of a man
he had never spoken to, and thanks to the fire-axe in his hand, never
would.

He was a man on a
mission.

That mission was
destruction.

TWENTY-TWO

The pilot was dead,
shot because they had no other choice. An infected deer, if you
could believe it, had torn the head from Stewart Randall while he had
been taking a piss, raced up the embankment, and lunged straight for
the only man who knew what to do with the helicopter.

Of course it had.
Victor Lord expected nothing less from the craziness that was now
more commonly known as “everyday life”.

'Captain, I'm
hungry,' Moon said, his rifle slung over his shoulder like a 'Nam vet
emerging triumphantly from the rainforest.

The look that
Victor Lord gave the soldier could have – and probably should
have – killed him where he stood.

'What the fuck do
you want me to do about it?' Victor snarled. 'I'm not your Mommy,
and I don't have any candy, either.' The truth of the matter was,
Victor was also starving, and the mere mention of food made his mouth
water and his stomach somersault.

Walking through the
snow, which had now turned into a blizzard the likes of which Victor
had never seen before, was hard. For every three steps forward, you
were lucky to cover one normal step. Beneath the snow it was
slippery as hell, like climbing Everest without snowshoes.

And to top it all
off, Victor was constantly plagued by stupid demands by a man twice
his size. It was ridiculous.

'If we make it to
Sandown,' Moon said, as if there was no chance of such a thing, 'do
you think there'll be something to eat.'

Victor sighed. It
was all he could do not to just put a bullet in the idiot's head, or
his own.

'I forgot to check
the Good Restaurant Guide before we left the barracks,' sneered
Victor. 'How silly of me. Now, if I were you, and thank God I'm
not, I'd shut the fuck up, don't say another word until we get to
where we need to be. You're really starting to piss me off, all this
nonsense about fucking food. I'll tell you what,' he said, stopping
for a second to get his breath back. 'I'll buy you an ice-cream when
we get there. Huh? How does that sound, you fucking moron?'

The expression on
David Moon's face was pure comedy, or would have been under normal
circumstances. He looked like a child who had just been reproached
for shitting himself.

He didn't speak,
didn't offer an apology – although that might have been his
dumbness coming through once again. He waited for Victor to start
moving again, and then did the same.

Sandown was close.

There'll be food
there
, Moon thought to himself.
Lots of it.

*

Through the first
door, then a second, Henry Colburn knew what he was about to do was
insane, but he had no choice. Victor Lord would crucify him when he
returned; his failure to make the old woman disappear was enough to
send the Captain over the edge. His promotion was already nothing
more than a pipe-dream, now.

Might as well go
out with a bang.

The third door was
concealed by a large aluminium locker. Scratched onto the front of
the locker were the words: Army Life 4eva. The irony was not lost on
Colburn.

He pushed the
locker aside, knowing that he was only feet from destiny.

He needed to be
quick, otherwise what was the point? If he were to die alongside the
rest of them, the object would be severely defeated.

The door was
unlocked; the locker had been enough to keep them safely
incarcerated. For all Colburn knew, they hadn't even attempted to
escape, instead settled in and enjoyed the daily menu which had been
brought to them.