Dead Frost - 02 (20 page)

Susie could see the
doors, the only way out. How could they have been so stupid? They
had been living in a prison of their own, not realising that if the
worst happened – and now it had – they would be trapped.

Six of the lurkers
were busy feeding, tearing chunks out of screaming people, but two of
them remained on their feet as if they were unsure of what to do
next.

The trouble was:
they were standing between Susie Bloom and the door. As soon as she
stepped away from the wall she would become a helluva lot more
enticing to them; for the moment, they hadn't even seen her slipping
along, but they would...

She was at a loss;
everything was going to end – how had Maggie Cox put it? - so
fucking bad!

'Come and get me,
you filthy motherfuckers!' somebody screamed. 'I hope you choke on
my arthritis.'

Susie turned to see
Maggie standing in full view of the confused lurkers. She was at
full-stretch, her arms in the air.
Shit
, she might have even
mustered up the strength to get onto her tiptoes.

The two lurkers
didn't need a second invite and rushed forward as fast as they could,
snarling, snapping at the air like rabid dogs at a barbecue.

'That's right!'
Maggie screeched. 'If the bones don't choke you, then the morphine
will.'

Susie couldn't
believe what she was witnessing. The old lady went down beneath the
creatures, but she seemed unperturbed,
confident
even. It was
insanity...

Susie turned away
just as Maggie began to scream. She lunged for the door, out into
the corridor, through an adjoining room, anywhere but
there
.

The old lady's
screams stopped after awhile, but the images would forever be
tattooed on Susie Bloom's brain.

What if there were
more of them, other lurkers that had yet to discover the screeching
buffet camped out in the main hall? The thought made the hackles
rise on the back of Susie's neck as she headed for the only secure
place she knew of.

She pushed the door
open and almost spilled into the room. Kelly shifted position
against her, but there was no chance of her taking a peek at what was
happening or where they were.

Susie kicked aside
a bucket of gas-masks and lowered her daughter into the corner.
Kelly panicked as she realised her mother was about to let go of her.

'It's okay, shhhh
shhhh,' Susie said, trying to regulate her breathing. She flicked on
her torch – a tiny pink Mag-lite that she never thought she
would use, and said, 'We'll be safe in here; you just need to promise
Mommy that you'll be quiet.' As she spoke, she struggled with a box
heavy with ammunition cases. She pulled it across, blocking the door
on the inside. Since the door opened inwards, there was no chance of
the lurkers getting in.

And no chance of
them getting
out
, either. It was a trivial afterthought,
something that Susie Bloom would figure out once she had regained her
bearings.

'I promise, Mommy,'
Kelly whispered, sobbing helplessly and trying to stifle herself on
the already sodden sleeve at the end of her arm. 'Are we going to be
eaten?'

Susie shone the
torch on her own face so that her daughter could see that she was
telling the truth when she replied. 'Don't you ever think that,' she
said. 'We're in the safest place we can be right now. We just need
to be extra quiet and hope they go away.'

The meek, trembling
voice in the darkness said, 'The old woman's dead, isn't she? I
heard her dying.'

Susie sighed, a
tear rolled down her own cheek. 'She died saving us. That woman was
an angel in disguise.'

When Susie turned
the torch on her daughter, she saw a smile appear at the corner of
her lips. 'She really was,' she said. 'But she smoked too much.'

Susie lowered
herself to the ground; it was a tight fit in the stockroom, so tiny
that any sleeping would have to be done sitting.

Still, sleep would
be seldom, so it didn't really matter.

'Try to get some
rest, baby,' Susie said, pulling her daughter in. She placed hands
over Kelly's ears so that she couldn't hear the screaming from down
the corridor.

She wished she had
more hands, for the torture continued for an eternity, and she heard
every single second of it.

TWENTY-FOUR

She listened
closely, hoping that her assumptions were correct; it had been quiet
for almost ten minutes, now, or at least the ten minutes she had
counted in her head. Her stomach ached from consuming so much junk,
and she really needed to go to the toilet. She knew if it came to it
she would just go, right there, sat on the floor of the
store-cupboard; she would have no choice. She didn't want to risk
moving, and she especially didn't want to do anything that involved
removing clothes. It was warm, but in such a confined space she was
apt to clatter something in the darkness.

But she hadn't
pissed herself for years, and now she would have to do it on purpose,
something that you could never mentally prepare yourself for.

Listening for
movement on the other side of the door, she knew that she couldn't
spend forever hiding from them. She had her machete, she just needed
to catch them when they least expected it.

They're
dead
, she thought.
If
ever there's a time to catch somebody off guard it's after they've
died.

The
problem she had, though, was numbers. She had no idea how many
zombies were shambling around the museum. Ten she could deal with,
but if there were twenty, thirty, a hundred, it didn't bode well.
What good is a machete if you ain't got room to swing it?

She felt the
first warm drops of urine coat her pants, and realised that she had
had very little choice on the matter; when you've got to go,
apparently, you've got to go.

She just hoped
that they couldn't smell her through the door. Not only was it
embarrassing, but it could leave her with a serious case of Death.

She cringed as
the piss dripped from her. This was the thing, the straw that broke
the camel's back.

She would give
it another few hours and then she was out of there.

If there were
thirty of them, then they had better watch out.

Hell hath no
fury like a woman covered in her own piss.

*

Terry woke to find
Marla and Shane sleeping across the other side of the room. They
were interlocked, the way lifelong lovers might sleep, but there was
nothing there but innocence. The room was cold, and body-heat was
all they had to work with. If Terry had known how cold it was going
to get, he would have joined in.

A threeway cuddle.

He left them where
they lay. Sleep was hard enough to come by, and by God they deserved
a few hours.

He was surprised
that he had managed to get any at all. He had seen some of the most
horrific things imaginable that day, enough to drive a man to
insanity, and yet he had slept. He felt a momentary pang of guilt as
he turned to see the covered cadavers in the room. They had at least
moved Jared away from the lurkers; it was the least they could do.
He didn't deserve to lie with them, stacked up like something from
the aftermath of the Black Death. He had been a true friend, a good
cellmate, and despite the fact that he had been weak and vulnerable
in life, he had died a hero.

Terry couldn't
stand still; he needed to take a walk. He knew, however, that
leaving the group was something that he would never usually
contemplate. He had seen enough mistakes made since the outbreak,
and he was loath to follow suit.

He picked up the
shotgun from the corner and headed out through the door, quietly
closing it behind him.

The silence that
filled the school was eerie, but not unwelcome. It meant that he was
safe, for now. Providing he didn't open any shut doors without being
prepared first – God Bless you, Jared – he knew he would
be just fine.

He ambled silently
down the corridor, the Remington ready and willing to do any work
needed. He reached a T and decided to take a left. There was no
rhyme or reason for it; it just felt
right
.

There must have
been some sort of school-play at around the time of the outbreak;
there were posters everywhere, beautifully drawn pictures of elves
and a massive green castle. It took Terry a while to realise that
they weren't elves at all, but munchkins. The play had been
A
Wizard Of Oz
, and should have been performed on the 28
^th
October 2011, about a week after all hell broke loose in Jackson
State Penitentiary.

The play that
never happened
, Terry thought. Poor kids didn't even get a
chance for one final dress-up. Proud parents would have been eagerly
waiting for their offspring's fabulous portrayal of a munchkin or a
flying monkey, only to find that the final-act had already played.

Terry pushed on,
ignoring the remaining posters with everything he had. The last
thing he needed right now was more misery, and thinking about those
poor kids – even the ones that had chewed up Jared so damned
good – was intolerable.

He pushed open the
door at the end of the hall to find that it was still snowing. He
was staring into the night, which meant that he had located the
back-entrance to the building. Good job, too, since it had been left
wide open. Any number of lurkers could have crawled through it
before now; he was just grateful that they hadn't.

The snow had eased
somewhat, but it was still sticking, piling on top of what was
already there. Tomorrow would be a nightmare. They still had forty
miles to cover.

Terry stepped out
onto the snow, which crunched beneath his feet like a sea of crabs.
He took another step, and then another, and then he saw something
that suddenly changed his mood for the better.

A school-bus.

Big, yellow,
reliable, wheels bigger than the Snatch; Terry wasn't sure if it was
real, or if he was still dreaming.

He walked around
the bus, checking it for punctures or damage that would render it
useless. Satisfied, he stepped back and gave it a cursory glance.
It was a godsend, an actual sign from the Lord that they would reach
Jackson the next day.

Terry smiled.

Not everything was
shitty.

'Move, old man, and
I'll make sure you chew this bullet before you swallow it,' a voice
said.

Terry lowered the
shotgun to his side and slowly raised his hands.

He stared to the
heavens.
First you giveth, then you taketh away.

Mysterious ways
didn't even begin to cover it.

*

Victor Lord couldn't
believe their luck. What were the chances of finding them so easily?
Though, a lot of that had to be accredited to the inquisitive ex-con
who had decided to go for a middle of the night stroll.

'So, you thought
you'd go in search of that prick's family, did you? You stole my
property, and the crashed it in the process. Do you have any idea
what you've done?'

Terry shook his
head. 'We were only gonna be gone for a few days,' he said. The
snow was falling thick and fast, now. He stared towards the
school-bus and began to wonder whether it would have been much use,
after all. 'It was a deer,' he said. 'Fucking thing came out of
nowhere.'

Moon winced at the
mention of the animal. It must have been the very same deer that had
torn Randall's head from the rest of him and proceeded to race
through the snow with it dangling from its maw.

'I don't give a
fuck whether it was aliens,' Victor snapped. 'That vehicle was worth
more than all of you idiots put together, and it sure as hell was
worth more than some fucking woman and kid who're probably already
turned.'

Terry didn't have a
response; in fact, even if he had, it was too cold to venture into
details. He was biting his bottom lip to stop his teeth from
chattering, and it was all he could do just to stay on his freezing
cold feet. The Captain and his minion, on the other hand, were well
prepared for the weather; their long padded coats were doing a
bang-up job of protecting them from the elements, and they were
wearing gloves thicker than the jacket that Terry wore.