The Cold

by Rich Hawkins

  All of it had happened in seconds.

  Eve screamed, glared at them with wild eyes, ready to attack again.

  Beckwith raised his rifle and shot her twice in the head. At such close range, the back of her skull exploded, spitting blood and brain. She toppled over, dropping the knife onto the reddening snow.

  No one said a word. The reports echoed in Seth’s ears. Beckwith crouched next to Dahl, but the man was already dead; his arms lay loose at his sides. Eyes open. His mutilated throat glistened.

  “Mate,” Beckwith whispered as he bowed his head. “That fucking bitch. I’m sorry, mate. I’m so sorry. Stupid crazy fucking bitch.” He stood and looked back at Seth and Hanso, but their attention was taken by several dozen human figures standing some distance away, at the coiled base of their God. Men, women and children. They cried out as they stared up at the God, then stepped forward as one, and disappeared into its immense bulk, as though they’d been absorbed. Their cries fell to dreaded silence.

  “We shouldn’t have come here,” said Beckwith.

  The ground began to rumble, and the respirations of the God-thing paused. The snow thickened in the air.

  A deep, reverberating wail fuelled by cavernous lungs broke the silence and had the men covering their ears. They staggered away from the God as its immense cry rose into the air and echoed throughout the abandoned community. Houses shook on their foundations. Windows shattered.

  The drifts of snow upon the monster’s coils shifted and fell away as it began to emerge from its slumber with elongated tendrils writhing. The sound of grinding rock and earth. Tremors in the ground.

  Seth could only stare in horrid fascination, before Hanso and Beckwith grabbed him and pulled him away.

  The God rose from its nest.

  CHAPTER FORTY FOUR

  Beckwith blew the gates open with one shot from his grenade launcher, and the men fled Moresby, kicking through the snow in a panicked, terrified fugue. Seth glanced back at the terrible place as the black shape of the God seemed to dominate the sky. It was enough to bring him close to madness and tears.

  “Oh Christ,” he muttered, panting and gritting his teeth. “Oh fucking hell.”

  “Keep moving,” Hanso said, pushing him on. “Stop looking back!”

  The wailing of the God scraped at the insides of Seth’s skull. The world was all blaring sound and terror. Beckwith was shouting, his words inaudible, his face wild as if rage and hysteria filled his blood. Hanso wheezed and grunted with exertion, urging them onwards.

  The ground trembled, shook the men off balance and sent them staggering through the veils of falling snow. They stumbled and flailed, afraid to even slow down, all the while expecting the God to bear down on them and crush their bodies into red pulp.

  And they kept going, never stopping, never looking back in case the looming bulk of the serpentine God was the last thing they ever saw.

  *

  They stopped twenty minutes later and hid in the enclosed garden of a bungalow not far from the road, crouching behind a wooden fence as the bestial cries of the God echoed all around.

  “I don’t want to die out here,” Beckwith whispered, hugging his rifle tight to his chest. Hanso looked at the sky, his eyes full of despair, his mouth open in shock.

  *

  They walked again, and eventually returned to the house they’d sheltered in on their way to Moresby. As before, they set up camp in the living room as the darkness moved in, wrapped in their blankets, eating their meagre provisions. They said nothing for a long while. Seth was glad of the silence; it felt as if his mind was recovering from merely being in the presence of the God. His body shivered with aches. Lactic acid broiled in his limbs.

  They were all distraught and exhausted.

  “All this way for nothing,” said Hanso. “Just to lose Dahl. For nothing.”

  “He was my mate,” said Beckwith, staring at the floor, chewing his food slowly. His eyes were distant.

  Hanso nodded. “He was a good soldier. A good mate. We’ll drink for him when we get back to the bunker.”

  “How many lads have we lost, Sarge?”

  “Too many,” Hanso said.

  “How long do you think we have left?”

  “Don’t talk like that.”

  “Why not? It’s inevitable, isn’t it? Surely the only choice we have is how we die? There’s nothing else left.”

  Hanso looked away, unable to answer. Seth glanced at Beckwith, saw the dampness of the soldier’s eyes and the frailty of his mouth. Maybe Beckwith was right.

  *

  In the morning they left the house. They walked in silence, ever watchful, hunching over like miserable vagrants. Each breath scraped itself from Seth’s chest and his legs felt heavy. A damp knot pulsed behind his sternum. His stomach ached. It was all he could do just to put one foot in front of the other. Hanso helped him on while Beckwith took point.

  The snow fell heavy and fast.

  No monsters came for them, but the keening of the God drifted to them from an unseen place far away, a reminder that this world now belonged to beasts of nightmare and fevered visions.

  *

  It took all day to reach the bunker, and by the time they were allowed entry by Captain Miller, they were miserable and beyond exhaustion. Seth had to be helped down the ladder shaft and half-carried to Medical, where he passed out.

  CHAPTER FORTY FIVE

  His dreams were of fear, pain, and immense shapes that burst from drifts to rule the world. He saw mountains of bones stretching toward the horizon underneath a sky of darkness, where a weakened sun bled out the last of its warmth. There was nothing but the cold and the new Gods of the dying Earth.

  He woke to faint echoes of screams, gunshots and panicked cries. Doctor Felton stood over him. He sat up, panting. The dampness had cleared from his chest. He was wearing a fresh t-shirt and underwear, but the smell of his stale sweat was pungent. He looked around. Much of the medical equipment in the room was scattered over the floor, along with sheets of paper and shattered jars.

  The doctor was scratching at his wrist, face slack and clammy with terror. The walls of Medical shuddered and dust fell from the ceiling. It sounded as if the bunker was caught in an earthquake, but of course it was something else. The realisation was almost enough to almost stop his heart.

  Felton wiped at his damp mouth. His hands trembled. “It’s broken through the top of the bunker already. I saw it take some people; just snatched them up through the ceiling.”

  Seth looked at the doctor, grimacing as the room shook again. “It must have followed us back here.”

  “Why would it do that?”

  “We rejected it. It’s a God. Maybe it’s got a fragile ego. I don’t know.”

  “We can’t stay here,” Felton said, grabbing several satchels of medical supplies and slinging them over his shoulders. He winced and straightened out the straps. “The civilians are heading to the lower levels. We need to go, Seth. There isn’t much time.”

  Seth climbed out of the bed and dressed in the clothes that’d been piled beside him. He pulled on the thick coat and boots last. “How long has it been, since we returned?”

  “Two days. Sergeant Hanso told us what happened at Moresby. A wasted effort. Such a shame. But now we have to go.”

  “It’ll kill us all,” said Seth.

  “The soldiers are fighting it.”

  “It won’t matter.”

  *

  The corridors were busy with people fleeing towards the lower levels. Some of them were staggering with injuries, while others carried bags of food and water. Shocked, frantic expressions on every face. A man cried with nothing but a photo album in his hands. The corridor juddered. The lights flickered. Distant grinding sounds, the twisting of metal, all became louder until they were drowned out by rapid gunfire from the direction of the upper levels. Seth looked that way then back to Felton, flinching at a detonation from one of the levels above.

  “Where are An
dy and Ruby?” Seth asked the doctor.

  He didn’t look at Seth. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen them. Come on, we need to leave.”

  Part of the ceiling above them shattered and collapsed, concrete and rubble raining down. It separated them. Dust billowed, scratching Seth’s throat. Felton shouted something but Seth had fallen into a fit of coughing. He only noticed the black tendrils bursting through the hole at the very last moment. They were swift and sleek, grasping blindly for him.

  He retreated in slow steps, keeping his breathing low, his eyes trained upon the tendrils, then he pivoted and ran with all the strength he could gather.

  The walls shook with violent tremors.

  CHAPTER FORTY SIX

  A few minutes later, Seth encountered Hanso and another soldier moving along one of the corridors. They were the first people he’d seen since fleeing from the tendrils. Both soldiers appeared exhausted and harassed, sweating in their thick coats as they reloaded their rifles.

  “You’re still alive then,” Hanso said to Seth, with a curt nod.

  “Only just,” Seth replied, glancing back the way he’d come.

  Hanso gave a grim smile. “The God of the Wasteland has come for us all. Those fucking tendrils are everywhere.” He took his pistol from its holster and handed it to Seth. “You’re in the army now, lad. You remember your training?”

  Seth looked at the gun in his hands then back to Hanso. “The important bits, yeah.”

  “Good.”

  “Is this wise, Sarge?” the other soldier said.

  “Yes, Marwood.” Hanso fixed the private with a hard stare. “We need all the help we can get. Is there an objection?”

  Marwood shrugged, glanced at Seth, and then made a show of checking his rifle. “Not at all, Sarge.”

  “Good. Let’s go.”

  “Where are we going?” Seth said.

  “To find Captain Miller.”

  They moved through the corridors while the walls shook and a great shrieking echoed through the bunker. The gunfire died down for a little while, and then started up again in short bursts. Seth’s heart jolted when the lights flickered; the thought of facing those squirming tendrils down here in the dark made his bladder tighten. He struggled to gather saliva in his mouth, and the taste of something sour on his tongue made him queasy.

  He noticed more jagged holes and rents in the ceilings, and kept his eyes on them as he passed beneath, fully expecting writhing horrors to fall upon them.

  The bunker shuddered within the earth.

  *

  Moments later they rounded a corner in the corridor and halted before the sight of a beetle-like creature the size of a large pig, feeding on a dead man’s entrails. His body was covered in puncture wounds from the beetle’s pincer-edged mouth.

  The creature hadn’t noticed them, and continued to dine on the man’s spilled guts. It perched upon the man’s chest, its jaws snapping and pulling at coils of viscera.

  “Where did that fucking thing come from?” Marwood whispered.

  Hanso levelled his rifle at the creature. “Must have come through one of the holes. Means we might have more than those tendrils to worry about.”

  Marwood wiped his greasy lips. “Fuck’s sake.”

  The beetle jerked its head upwards and hissed.

  “Ugly bastard,” said Hanso, and fired a three-round burst at the creature.

  The beetle flew backwards and landed on its back upon the floor. Its legs twitched and kicked for a moment before Hanso walked over and finished it with one bullet to its gore-soaked head.

  They continued towards the distant sound of gunfire.

  *

  People stumbled past them in the corridors, too terrified and panicked to stop. Parents dragged at crying children. A woman clutched one side of her face as she sobbed and staggered into the shadows of an adjoining corridor. Screams echoed past shaking walls. Seth noticed cracks in the ceilings, and shuddered at the thought of being buried alive down here, trapped and helpless, as the God’s tendrils snaked towards him. He would be a small meal.

  The sound of gunfire grew louder, and the numbers of fleeing civilians dwindled until it was just Seth, Hanso and Marwood moving along the corridor.

  Moments later, they found Captain Miller and four other soldiers – Beckwith, Rourke, Bright, and Leeds – fighting a rearguard action against a swarm of black tendrils spilling forth from the doorway of the communal canteen. Their rifles barked fire, raking the tendrils and delaying their incursion deeper into the bunker. But the bunker was already breached in numerous places, Seth realised. It was futile, no more than an annoyance to the God.

  Empty shell casings littered the floor. The smell of gunpowder was thick and acrid. And beneath that, the stink of the oily tendrils was ever-present, like the taint of sewage and rotting things.

  Hanso and Marwood joined the others, and at a distance of less than thirty yards opened fire upon the doorway as the black tendrils squirmed and slithered outwards. Seth watched the wretched appendages sway and flap down the corridor, crammed together, all slick and vicious, sharp tips arrowing towards the men.

  Miller ordered them to fall back. Leeds and Marwood grabbed Seth and pulled him along, while Rourke, Beckwith, Bright, and Sergeant Hanso provided covering fire. Seth glanced back to see the black tendrils closing upon the men, barely held back by the hail of bullets.

  Rourke’s rifle ran empty and, as he attempted to reload a whip-thin tendril snapped forward to coil around his right ankle. He was yanked off of his feet, his rifle spilling from his hands, and he screamed as he was dragged into the frothing wave of tendrils, never to be seen again. He was shredded and torn into slopping parts. His blood and intestines coated the tendrils, and their darting movements were galvanised.

  Hanso’s rifle went empty in his hands as he backed away. He let it swing from its strap to free his hands then grabbed a grenade from his belt. He pulled the pin, glanced back at Seth for a second, and lobbed the grenade into the writhing mass.

  Pounding feet on the floor as the men fled. The scraping sounds of the tendrils writhing through the corridor, towards the meat they craved.

  The detonation in the enclosed space was thunder and metallic screams.

  CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN

  Hanso slammed the door on the smouldering corridor and then piled two wooden chairs against it. He turned back to Seth and the others, his face grim as he reloaded his rifle. They said nothing. Seth’s ears were ringing.

  Captain Miller stood in the middle of the corridor, sweating and panicked. His icy eyes had turned to water. Marwood and Leeds were staring at the barricade, rifles raised. Distant crashes echoed from somewhere in the bunker.

  “What are your orders, Captain?” Hanso asked.

  “We fall back and hold those things at bay,” muttered Miller. “Protect the civilians.” He couldn’t hold Hanso’s gaze.

  “This place is infested,” said Seth. “We should evacuate.”

  Miller snapped at Seth. “If we abandon this place, we’ll die out in the wastelands.”

  “Sir, with respect,” Hanso said, “Seth might have a point.”

  Miller raised his voice. “It’s out of the question.”

  “Why?” Seth asked.

  “Because there is nowhere else to go.”

  Hanso stepped forward, moving away from the barricaded door. There were no sounds from beyond now. No scraping or scratching in the adjacent corridor. The grenade had apparently done its job.

  But it was a minor victory, Seth knew. They all knew.

  “We can’t beat this thing,” Hanso said. “We can hold it off for a while, but it’ll get through to us in the end.”

  “We are not abandoning our post,” said Miller. A muscle twitched in his face. “My orders were to hold this bunker, to keep people alive. The line must be drawn!”

  “Madness,” murmured Seth.

  Miller regarded Seth with something like his old, cold fury. “You’re a civilian; you
have no idea what you’re talking about. We will repel this monster and it is not up for fucking discussion!”

  Thick cracks appeared directly above Miller, and the stretch of ceiling exploded. Black tendrils fell swiftly and snatched Miller. He only managed to fire a single burst from his rifle before he was pulled through the pitch black rent. His screams were heard for several seconds after he had vanished into the darkness above.

  Hanso and Beckwith unloaded their magazines into the cavity hoping to spare his suffering.

  The sounds of the bunker’s destruction were loud and terrible around them.

  *

  They moved through deserted corridors. Hanso took charge and led from the front. Seth stayed alongside him, holding the pistol in shaking hands. He kept it pointing downwards, just as Hanso had taught him.

  The plan was to evacuate the bunker and escape.

  They found a few civilians hiding in darkened rooms; traumatised people who regarded the soldiers with slackly staring eyes and bloodless faces. Clutching bags and belongings, wearing winter clothes. They thanked the soldiers and joined the group, huddling together for protection.

  Farther on, the group stopped at the sound of familiar voices in a storeroom. Seth’s heart swelled for a moment as he opened the door. Then he saw the blood.

  Delia was sitting with her back against the far wall, her hands held over a glistening wound in her stomach. Her face was white, her mouth open, each breath pulled slowly from her chest with damp rattling.

  Andy and Ruby crouched nearby. Ruby held Jack in her arms.

  Seth went inside, closely followed by the sergeant. Andy stood, gave a small nod and sad shrug of his shoulders. His face was bloodless. Ruby made comforting sounds to Jack.