The Cold

by Rich Hawkins

  “I don’t know,” said Miles, wrinkling his nose.

  Andy continued. “Maybe the Large Hadron Collider caused it. Fucking around with particles and all that stuff, opening up wormholes and god-knows-what. Maybe they fucked something up really badly.”

  “From Switzerland?” Miles asked.

  They each pondered the possibilities of scale for a moment, shaken by the thought of a global phenomenon. Seth tried to bring it back to a more manageable level.

  “Do you think the whole country is affected?”

  “We can’t say for sure,” Miles said. “That’s why we have to leave tomorrow – in case this is all confined to a small area.”

  Andy finished his cigarette and dropped it into the mug. “What if there’s some sort of quarantine?”

  “I don’t know,” Miles said. “We’re cut off. We don’t know anything about what’s happening.” He let out a ragged breath and rested the back of his head against the wall. “It’s probably best not to speculate until we know more about our situation. We should get some sleep, and then leave in the morning. It’ll be safer than travelling in the dark.”

  “I won’t be able to sleep tonight,” said Andy.

  “You should try.”

  “I’m fucking exhausted,” Seth said.

  Andy snorted. “Proper shit day. Worst day ever.”

  “Get some rest, fellas,” Miles told them. “You’ll be glad of it tomorrow.”

  Andy gave a small, sour laugh. “Let’s just hope the monsters don’t eat us in our sleep.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Seth dreamed of returning home to find everything covered in snow. Crows perched atop the roof of his parents’ house. Upon the snow, where the lawn should have been, were yellowed bones picked clean of their meat. And in the distance, black tendrils writhing and coiling, the immense form of a god-monster wailed to the sky and ruin of the wasteland.

  *

  They readied themselves in the first light of morning. Ruby sat nearby, eating a piece of chocolate Miles had saved for her, watching the men dismantle the barricade. Andy smoked one of his last cigarettes while he peered from a window and looked outside.

  “See anything?” Seth asked him.

  “Snow.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You OK?”

  “I think so.”

  Miles handed Seth the utility knife. “It’s not much, but it’ll be better than nothing when we’re out there.”

  Seth used his thumb to slide out the small retractable blade, which was slightly rusted but still sharp enough to be useful. “Thanks.”

  Miles hefted his crowbar. “No worries.”

  Andy stepped towards them, the dwindling cigarette in his hand. “Don’t I get a weapon?”

  “If you can find something.”

  “Yeah, I’ll find a broom handle or maybe a plastic fork…”

  Miles ignored him and looked at Ruby, who was just staring at the floor. “We ready to go?”

  Seth shifted on his feet and took slow breaths. “Not really.”

  “Same here,” said Andy. “This is a bad idea.”

  “Let’s just go,” Ruby told them. “There has to be help somewhere.”

  *

  They stepped outside, staying close together, the snow falling in silence around them. The white fog and snowfall brought visibility down to less than five metres all around. Their breath misted in the air. Wrapped in their coats and a few scavenged blankets, they glanced about, watching for movement in the car park as Miles led them on with his crowbar in both hands.

  They kicked through a thick layer of snow.

  “This is mental,” Andy said. “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

  “How far?” Ruby asked. Seth was helping her along.

  Miles pointed ahead. “Once we’re out on the street, we need to keep going straight through the nearby park, and then the police station is after that. It’s not even a mile away, if I remember correctly.”

  Their footfalls in the snow sounded clumsy and too loud in the absence of other noises. The shapes of buildings began to coalesce from the white fog and soon the group had made it through the car park and out into the street. When Seth looked over his shoulder, the train station had already faded into the falling snow. It was all he could do not to let out a pained whimper at being out in the open, vulnerable to creatures with sharp teeth and deep hunger.

  The group stood in the street, ankle-deep in the layer of snow, huddled like prey animals. The cold air gnawed at the exposed skin of Seth’s face and made his teeth chatter. He looked around. No animals or birds, and no sign of people. Parked cars lined one side of the street, and the group had to walk around a Toyota Yaris lying upon its side as they crossed the road. Much of the vehicle had been smashed and dented. He noted shattered windows. Dried blood inside the car.

  “No bodies left,” said Ruby. “Because they were eaten.”

  They clambered over the short fence that separated the street from the park and struggled along with aches and worried minds. The gnarled limbs of black trees were laden with snow.

  “Keep moving,” said Miles. “The police station isn’t far away.”

  “Stop,” Andy said.

  Miles looked back. “What?”

  Andy’s voice quietened. “Everyone fucking stop, please.”

  They halted.

  “What is it?” asked Seth. He pulled his hood tighter over his head.

  Andy pointed away to their right, where the large, ragged black shape of something on four legs emerged from the white fog, wheezing and baying. It must have been seven feet tall at the shoulder.

  “Look at that bastard,” he said.

  The creature was some kind of boar-like thing, standing on double-jointed limbs. It was a mangy, diseased beast. A row of spines ran down the centre of its back. Pallid udders hung from its underside.

  “My God,” said Miles.

  It opened its tusk-lined mouth and released a near-tortured wailing that reverberated through the air.

  They all dropped to a crouch as the creature stamped its hooves upon the ground, kicking up snow. It shook its head from side to side then raised its face to the obscured sky and let out another wail before it vanished into the white fog.

  Moments later some other creature screeched in the distance.

  Miles led them on again, through the park, and nothing else emerged to slow them down.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Through another silent street, one with several houses smashed to ruin. Damaged sections of walls or ceilings missing. Broken rooms within and glimpses of desolation. Scattered brickwork and toppled chimneys. Shards of glass gleaming in the snow.

  “Fucking hell,” Andy said, with awe and barely restrained terror. His face appeared slack and gaping.

  Ruby looked at Miles. “I thought you said the police station was nearby. Where is it?”

  “It’s close,” Miles muttered.

  “How close?” Ruby frowned. Her eyes were damp. “Are we lost?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure about that?” asked Andy.

  A street light lay across the road, bent and twisted at its base by the work of something immensely powerful. A telephone pole leaned crookedly, as if it’d been glanced by a truck or SUV. Or something else. Its wires hung slack and bowed.

  “Just keep moving,” Miles whispered, turning his head to watch their flanks. “Don’t stop.”

  Abandoned snow-covered cars hindered them as they walked along the road towards the police station, and Seth found himself looking inside each one as he passed, through open doors and smashed windows. He thought about all the people who’d lived here and what might have happened to them. He wondered if anyone was hiding in the town, in their houses or amongst the ruins of buildings, hoping for rescue or just trying to survive.

  “Maybe everyone was evacuated,” he said.

  Miles watched the road ahead. “Maybe.”

  “They’re probably all
dead,” muttered Ruby. She looked at the ground, shaking her head, and said nothing more.

  *

  They stood facing the police station, shivering in the cold. The front of the building was undamaged, its roof and windowsills covered in snow. The windows were intact. The front doors were closed.

  “Do you really think anyone’s in there?” Andy asked. He was hunched and cowed.

  Miles looked around. “Maybe some survivors are gathered here. It would make sense.”

  “Nothing makes sense any more,” Ruby said. She wiped her mouth. Her eyelids drooped. “I need to sit down.”

  It took both Miles and Andy to pull open the doors, due to the drifts of snow gathered at the front of the building. They went inside. The reception area was deserted, but untouched by violence, and in the cold morning light it was like a memory of an unchanged world.

  No one manned the counter that ran between opposite walls. There was a row of blue plastic seats on metal legs. A wall-rack of leaflets about crime and punishment, human rights, and tips on home security. A fake, smiling family gazed down at the group from a Neighbourhood Watch poster. Smears of dirt on the floor and the smell of old sweat.

  The door to the office area beyond the reception was hanging from its hinges.

  “Imagine the creature that could do such a thing,” Ruby said.

  “We have to check inside,” Miles said. “There could still be police somewhere here.”

  “It’s a bad idea,” said Andy.

  Miles glared at him. “Do you have a better one?”

  Andy looked away, gave a slight shrug.

  They followed Miles as he raised the hinged section of the counter and stepped through the wrecked doorway. He switched on his torch, directed it about the office area and over the shadows on the plush carpet. Nothing moved. No one waited for them at the few desks, where dead monitors sat among the personal effects of the people who’d worked there. Office chairs had been scattered. A filing cabinet lay on its side. The torch beam swept over framed photos and certificates on the walls.

  Andy flicked a light switch, but all remained dim and in half-shadows.

  “Everyone’s gone.”

  “We have to keep searching,” said Miles. “Andy, you wait here with Ruby, while Seth and I check the other rooms.”

  Andy and Ruby sat down in the nearest chairs. Seth gave Andy the knife.

  “Just in case something happens,” Seth told him.

  “Hurry up,” Miles said.

  Seth went with him, leaving Andy and Ruby behind, and stalked into the silent corridors that led into the building.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Seth and Miles found the mutilated corpse of a police officer sprawled on the floor in the interview room. A chair was lying on its side. Blood stained the walls and the floor in spatters.

  They stood over the body. The man’s hands were missing and part of his face had been torn away to reveal a fixed, bloody grin. His eyes were gone. Deep lacerations punctured his chest and stomach.

  Seth put his hand to his mouth. The stench of exposed intestines, mostly chewed and torn, was enough to make him step back to the doorway. Miles didn’t move; he appeared almost fascinated.

  “He’s been partially eaten,” Miles said.

  “Yeah, looks like it. Do you think whatever did it is still in here somewhere?”

  “You should have kept the knife, Seth.”

  *

  More broken and torn bodies littered the corridors farther on. The police officers had been slaughtered. Some of the bodies were missing their heads. Seth had to look away.

  “What the fuck did this?” he said, as they both moved slowly towards the holding cells.

  Miles kept the torchlight directed straight ahead.

  They reached the block of five cells at the back of the building. Each cell door was open. They checked each small room in turn but found nothing. Seth was quietly relieved.

  They were heading down the corridor to the locker rooms when Miles halted and put his hand out to stop Seth. They’d passed several pools of drying blood on the floor.

  “What’s wrong?” Seth asked.

  Miles stared down the corridor. He dropped his hand from Seth’s shoulder. “Do you hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  “Something panting. Like an animal. Something big. Listen.”

  Seth listened. At first he heard nothing, but then the sound of low grunting and huffing rose from beyond the turn of the corridor.

  “It’s getting closer,” said Miles. The light of his torch reached only several metres before succumbing to the dark.

  Seth wiped at his face and looked at Miles. The nausea he’d felt all morning was rising in his chest. “Let’s get back to Andy and Ruby. They’ll be wondering where we are.”

  Miles was still staring down the corridor, and when the sounds of movement grew nearer and louder, his face tightened. Seth didn’t want to look down the corridor, and in the end he wished he hadn’t.

  “Holy fuck,” he said.

  Caught in the torchlight, the creature – a tall, ape-like thing with a pot belly and spindly limbs – reared on its back legs and bellowed at the men as it pounded its chest like a gorilla. A crimson crest, pulsing wetly, topped its wide, solid head and reached almost to the ceiling. Its yawning, bloodstained mouth, crammed with shard-like teeth, was large enough to encompass a child’s head. Patchy grey fur over a creased hide of pale skin, all dry and scabbed. Thick hands capable of splintering bone. It was like some terrible subspecies of great ape, a mingling of breeds that had created something abominable. Something not meant to exist in this world.

  Seth and Miles winced as it roared inside the cramped corridor space. They backed away, slowly, while the ape-thing stared at them, snorting and wheezing.

  Then the two men turned and ran.

  *

  The creature was quicker, and before they reached the door at the end of the corridor, it was upon them. One second, Miles was running beside Seth, then he was gone. Seth looked back and saw the ape-thing lift Miles from his feet with one great hand and squeeze the man’s neck until his eyes bulged and his mouth gaped in agony. He dropped his torch, and when it hit the floor it threw jagged shadows of beast and man together.

  Seth slipped in a puddle of drying blood and fell to his knees. He looked back again, legs weak, vision swaying.

  After the crowbar was batted out of his grasp, Miles pawed at the creature, but his attempts were useless, and the creature bit off his left hand when it drifted near its mouth. Blood streamed from the stump of Miles’ wrist, and he screamed, but only for a few moments before the ape ripped his head from his shoulders.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Ruby and Andy were already on their feet when Seth staggered into the office. Andy’s face was all confusion and fear as he held onto her.

  “Move!” Seth said, pulling them both along.

  Andy looked over his shoulder and let out a cry. The terrible ape burst through the far doorway, dragging Miles’ broken remains in one hand. They blundered through the reception area and stumbled outside.

  The snow whirled all about them. Strange, terrifying noises drifting within in the wailing wind. Seth kept them moving, kicking through the drifts of snow along the road.

  Something else roared from a nearby street. Seth turned his head towards the sound and caught a glimpse of a shadowy, insectoid shape more than twenty feet tall loping behind cottages and bungalows. Then it was gone and there was just the falling snow.

  Andy was struggling to pull Ruby with him. “We’re gonna die out here! I won’t want to die out here, Seth!”

  “Keep moving,” Seth shouted. He looked back up the road to see the ape-thing shambling after them on all fours, bellowing and snarling as it went. He led Andy and Ruby through a passageway between two houses and across snow-shrouded ground that was once lawns and neat gardens, then out into the adjacent street to weave between abandoned vehicles.

  They stumbled
straight into the path of a towering, tumorous beast of quivering tentacles rising from around a dilating, slopping maw. Its lumpen, slavering mass scuttled on crooked legs that scraped through snow drifts and pushed aside derelict cars as it sensed new prey and turned towards them.

  They were rendered speechless by the sight of the monster, which possessed nothing that looked like eyes. It was a blind thing. But with the slavering and shuddering from inside its mouth, the creature seemed to be drawing in their scent, and it broke into a skittering gallop, its tendrils and damp limbs thrashing upon the ground, spraying snow into the air. Its giant mouth convulsed and undulated, and it uttered a piercing wail that filled the street.

  Seth stumbled away from a swiping tendril, losing his grip on Ruby, and ran through the charred ruins of a house. He tripped and flailed, somehow keeping his footing, and when he glanced around for the others, they were nowhere to be seen. The snow spat against his face, into his eyes, half-blinding him until he wiped them clean. He gritted his teeth, slogging through the snowfall and lungs straining with each breath, he let out a sob. He was alone and not long for the world.

  He collided with Andy as the man stumbled out from a partially-collapsed doorway. Sudden tangle of limbs as they flinched and slipped. They cried out, first in terror and surprise, then in relief, almost falling down together.

  Andy’s face was flecked with snow and taut with fear, his eyes loose and manic in their bone sockets. He gripped Seth’s shoulders and sobbed. Seth imagined that his own face appeared much the same to Andy.

  “Where’s Ruby?” Seth said.

  Andy’s mouth wouldn’t keep still. “I lost her. I couldn’t find her.”

  Seth looked him. “We’ll find her. Come on.”

  In the flailing snow and wind, they doubled back, watching for the beast or the creature that had killed Miles. Every movement around them was a threat with sharp teeth. Shrill, inhuman cries rose from somewhere in the town.