Dead Winter: A gripping crime thriller full of suspense

by Jack Parker

  At the direction of another sign, we turned off from the picturesque village road onto a narrow one which wound its way through the trees. Following the road for about fifteen minutes, we noticed something in the distance, something glinting in the dim light.

  "What's that?" Dave called out from next to me, rocking slightly as the vehicle moved over a pothole in the road.

  "Jesus, is that it!?" I heard John shout, his window still open.

  We slowed down to a snail's pace as we approached what looked like a large camp. It was completely fenced-off, either with chain-link fencing, sheets of metal or tall concrete barricades. We stopped about twenty-metres from the makeshift gate as a man appeared in a dingy looking watchtower of sorts.

  "Out of the vehicle! Hands where I can see them!" a voice blared out over a megaphone. It was the man in the tower.

  Taking quick glances at each other, we carefully climbed out of the truck and raised our hands into the air. There was a loud scraping sound as the front gates slid open, the man with the megaphone approached us with weapon in hand.

  "Just the four of you?" the man asked, stopping a few yards away from us with his rifle trained on John from his hip.

  "Yes." John answered, still taking the position of leader. He might as well, since I was certain that Dave didn't feel up to it, I definitely didn't.

  "Are you armed?" asked the man. I took the time to examine him.

  He was rather tall with short, light-brown coloured hair; thin stubble adorned his chin, most of it obscured by the straps for his helmet. His clothing suggested military, as it was plastered with desert camouflage patterns. I wondered whether he was actually a soldier, or if he'd merely taken the uniform from somewhere.

  "Yes, we are. Do you want us to leave our weapons?" John questioned, directing his speech solely to the soldier, who nodded. We slowly drew out our weapons, placing them in the back of the truck with the rest of the supplies before raising our hands into the air again.

  "I'm going to search you, just to be sure. Don't make any sudden movements." the soldier called to us, lowering his rifle. I recognised the weapon immediately, it was a SA80 bullpup assault rifle, standard military issue at the time.

  He looked as though he was in his mid-twenties, barely that much older than I was.

  One at a time, we were padded down by the soldier, who was clearly checking for concealed weapons. Satisfied that we were indeed clean, he stood back in his original location.

  "Alright. They're clear. Do we let them in?" the soldier asked, speaking into a walkie-talkie that had been attached to his belt.

  "Go ahead, Shaun." issued a voice from the device.

  "Okay, if you'll follow me to screening.." Shaun said, directing us inside the encampment. Huddled together, we made our way through the open gates, following Shaun towards a large tent; someone had painted a white circle with a red cross on the wall of it.

  "What about our weapons?" John asked quickly, his head pointed towards the soldier known as Shaun.

  "Someone's already on their way to collect your supplies, they'll be kept safe in our armoury, only certain people can carry weapons here." the soldier stated, as a couple of men dashed past us towards the truck.

  Honestly, I didn't like the idea of not having something to defend myself with.

  "I'd feel safer with my weapons." John said bitterly, stealing the words right from my mouth as I had nearly opened my mouth to speak.

  "I assure you, you're plenty safe here, sir." Shaun said casually, waving to another uniform-clad man, who was busy walking past the fences. He was probably doing a perimeter search, I thought to myself as the man waved back.

  "That's Ed, we arrived here together." Shaun called to us as he stepped into the medical tent, which was huge and only had three walls.

  "What now?" I asked, as a gruff looking man approached us, examining us slowly as he paced back and forth in front of us.

  "We'll take a small blood sample from each of you and ask you some questions." said the man, who I assumed was the doctor of this camp.

  Needles. Oh joy.

  "Take a pew, ladies and gentlemen." Shaun joked, waving his arm across the tent at the several chairs laid throughout it. The four of us took a look at each other before sitting down on the chairs closest to each other.

  There was a muffled roar as the truck we'd arrived in drove past the tent, heading over to an open section where several vehicles lay. The two men driving it hopped out and began to sort through our bags and tents, calling over to a small group of people for help.

  The doctor took a small sample of blood from each of us as he asked our names, which he scrawled on the label of the vials before placing them in a little fridge, there were several small trays of blood samples already in there. There must be at least thirty people here, if not more.

  "Now, the questions. Firstly, how did you hear about this place?" the doctor asked us. Shaun had taken to leaning against one of the posts holding the tent up with his eyes closed.

  "Over a radio, repeated message at an abandoned outpost." John briefly stated, the doctor seemingly taking notes on a clipboard.

  "And where did you come from?" he asked sternly, peering into John's eyes from behind his thick-rimmed glasses.

  "The city where this shit came from." John answered, crossing his arms after he'd finished speaking.

  "You came from the city!? How the hell did you get out of there alive?" Shaun suddenly spat, opening his eyes in apparent shock.

  "We got lucky, I guess." I said, nervously glancing at the rest of my small group.

  "Shaun here came from the city too. Barely made it out alive, apparently." the doctor said, his voice calm and low as he looked over at the soldier, who was now looking curiously towards me.

  I had a sneaking suspicion that I knew where Shaun had come from.

  Resisting the urge to ask him outright in the middle of our interview, I instead turned my attention back towards the doctor. He was rather elderly, his hair almost perfectly white.

  "That pretty much answers my next question, which was if you'd encountered any infected. So I'll ask the next, have any of you come into contact with the blood, bite or bodily fluids of any of the infected?" the doctor went on, checking boxes on his little list.

  We all shook our heads, except for John, who leaned forwards in his seat and looked deep into the eyes of the doctor.

  "I got bit a few days back." John said calmly.

  "But you're...fine. John, right?" the doctor asked, his calm tone of voice shattered for a moment as he looked over at John in concern.

  "Yes. Nothing out of the ordinary has happened to me since, besides the bite hurting like hell when it happened." John continued. I was quite worried that they'd either shoot him or lock him away in quarantine.

  "So you're immune. We have another guy like you in here." the doctor proclaimed, sighing in relief. So it wasn't just John who was completely immune. Could I be too?

  "So what are you going to do with me?" John asked sternly, almost standing up from his seat.

  "Nothing, my dear boy! If you haven't shown any symptoms now, you're not going to. I'll take a look at your blood though, to be sure." the doctor said, adjusting his glasses. He opened the fridge and poured a drop of John's blood onto a slide, which he put under a microscope.

  "Fine.. fine.." the doctor muttered under his breath as he peered into the microscope. We sat there in near silence for a few minutes until the bearded doctor looked back up at us, throwing the used slide into a yellow bin to his side.

  "Your blood is fine. I couldn't see anything in it but... blood, really! I'm not a biologist, but I think you're okay!" the doctor said, laughing humorously at the end of his sentence, brushing his hand against his beard.

  I could hear people chattering away in the distance, I wondered how big this camp really was, itching with anticipation at the thought of having a look around. Across from us were a series of tents, lined up neatly as though we were merely at a
camping ground.

  "That's all. Welcome to 'Safe Zone 01', or as we like to call it: Sanctuary!" the doctor said joyfully, getting up out of his chair to walk towards us. He shook our hands one at a time, ushering us out of the tent.

  Such a strange name for a camp.

  Shaun had followed us out of the medical tent and began motioning for us to follow him through the rows of tents until we reached an open spot, where a small group of people had already began assembling ours, hammering the pins into the ground.

  "You'll be here. Right, I've got to report to the boss, so I'll be leaving you here." Shaun said quietly, thinking to himself as he span around and walked away in the opposite direction, rifle slung over his shoulder.

  Five minutes later, our tents were all set up next to four little camping chairs, which we gratefully sat down on. As we began to take in our surroundings, I heard the unzipping of one of the tents adjacent to us and looked at it just in time to see a pair of eyes peering out through the gap.

  "Newcomers!" a voice called from inside the tent. After a few seconds, a pair of heads appeared from inside the tent, stepping out onto the grass.

  "Hello there!" said one of the people, a petite woman with short blonde hair. John gave a tired wave as we greeted our neighbours.

  "I'm Annie, and this is Steve." the woman said, motioning her hand from herself to the man next to her. They were married it seemed, as I noticed they were wearing matching rings.

  "We're from the village nearby." Steve said, stifling a yawn as he looked around at the four of us.

  "We came from the city." I said, yawning loudly as the lack of sleep started to gradually hit me, bit by bit.

  "From the city? Jesus.. Daniels says it was overrun by the time he left, and that was only a few days in." Steve blurted, rubbing his eyes as he spoke.

  "Daniels?" I asked curiously, the name rang a bell for some reason, but I was getting too tired to recall properly.

  "The soldier that guards the front gate. I think his first name is Shaun or something." Steve went on, describing the man who had led us here.

  I vaguely recalled where I'd seen the name 'Daniels' before. Shaun had a name tag on his uniform that I'd noticed back during the screening process. Yeah, that must've been it.

  "You know it's rude to call people by their surname, Steve.." Annie shot at her husband, who shrugged his shoulders.

  After a few minutes, I bade farewell to everyone as I crawled into my tent to get some much needed sleep, praying that it would be nightmare-free as the quiet chattering continued from outside these thin walls.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Day Nine (29th December – 6:33PM)

  Tiny embers sailed through the air as I sat beside the fire, the tongues of flame licking up at the air. The chattering had died down somewhat, with only a whisper or a muffled voice audible every minute or so.

  "So what's your story?" I asked the man opposite me. He leaned forwards in his little camping chair, his face illuminated by the fire between us. Dave stifled a little yawn from beside me.

  "Me? I was just a teacher at one of the schools on the edge of the city. P.E and the like, y'know?" Nate said quietly, trying to keep his voice low so he wouldn't wake our neighbours up.

  "How'd you get out of the city?" Dave asked as he tried to hold back another yawn. Dave hadn't slept the entire day, nor the last unlike John and Claire, who were both sound asleep in their tents.

  "That's the thing. I got out as soon as this shit started, grabbed a cricket bat and ran for the roads as fast as I could." replied Nate, making a gesture as though he were swinging a bat through the air. The man furthest away from the fire was muttering to himself again, staring up at the sky.

  What was he looking at?

  We'd met Nate only a couple of hours ago. Nate was just a nickname of sorts, apparently; his real name was Nathan Graves. He'd been sleeping in the tent next to Annie and Steve when we arrived.

  "And you?" I called, my question aimed at the mumbling man, who shot a bewildered look over at me before shuffling his chair closer to the fire.

  "Yes?" he stammered, running his fingers across his chin stubble.

  "What's your story?" I found myself asking again. The man fumbled around in his bag for something before pulling out a little bottle of pills. He took one out and downed it with a sip from his water bottle.

  "I'm Nicholas, but call me Nick. I like Nick." the man said to us, glancing nervously at each of us in turn. He had a shifty look to him, something didn't seem right at all with this one.

  "Okay, Nick. Where did you come from?" I asked calmly, slowing my speech ever so slightly as Nick looked at me. As he moved closer to the firelight, I noticed just how dark his eyes were; coal black, with deep bags under them.

  "From the city, like you. Yes." Nick said, stuttering slightly with his words, as if it were hard to speak. He waved his arms around slightly as he spoke, making strange gestures.

  Next to me, Dave was lighting up a cigarette. He began taking long puffs from it, staring up at the star-strewn sky before letting out little rings of smoke. I'd always liked the ring trick.

  "Was in a hospital, I think. Memories are hazy. Nurse came to give me my medicine when they got in. Attacked her." Nick said, continuing on from his vague answer. It sounded as though he were an escaped mental patient of sorts, I felt strangely uneasy for some reason, reminded of the man in the police evacuation.

  "And then?" I asked, interested in his story.

  "Turned on me, beat them down with a fire extinguisher. Then I grabbed what pills I needed and escaped. Wandered alone through the woods for a few days. Found this place." concluded Nick, still detailing the circumstances of his escape from the city.

  There were a few of us from the city here.

  I was surprised, honestly. From the way the doctor had been talking, I'd assumed there weren't that many people from the city in here. Although everyone we'd met so far had been on the edge of the city, next to the motorway.

  We'd already explained to Nate how we'd made it through the whole city, fighting infected and people alike just to survive. He'd stared at us with disbelief when we told him about the things we'd seen.

  "I'm lucky then, I guess. Haven't run into one of them yet." Nate said, sighing in relief.

  "It's not just the infected that you should be careful of." Dave interjected, taking another drag from his cigarette.

  "How do you mean?" Nate asked curiously, his interest seemingly piqued.

  "We had a run in with a group of hunters before we got here. There was five of us originally. They took us prisoner and were probably going to kill us until we escaped." Dave explained, and my mind was drawn back to the actions of that night. I felt a small pang of guilt as I remembered what I had done.

  "Hunters?" Nick enquired, tilting his head slightly as he tried to understand what Dave meant. In the distance, I thought I heard someone walking.

  "That's what we called them. I dunno what else to call them. Raiders? Bandits? They weren't nice people, let me tell you that!" Dave finished, taking a swig from his water bottle before placing it back on the ground.

  The sound of footsteps grew ever closer as we talked, my attention was split between our conversation and the sound of whoever was walking nearby. The sound grew louder with every passing second until a figure appeared from behind one of the tents.

  A gun-toting silhouette.

  "Howdy, guys." Shaun said, cutting in as he crouched down near the fire. Dave yawned loudly next to me, declaring that he was finally going to go get some sleep.

  "Hey, Shaun." I said, motioning over to an empty chair next to me. Shaun shook his head briefly before speaking.

  "Can't, on guard duty. Just wondered if you wanted to come with." Shaun stated, his gun still slung low over his shoulder.

  "Sure." I said, glancing at Nick and Nate, the latter of which shrugged casually as he unwrapped a chocolate bar. On that note I picked myself up from the awkward little chair into a stan
ding position and started to follow Shaun, who had begun to walk the way he came.

  "We'll do a sweep of this side of the wall, then go up to the guard tower." Shaun called at me from over his shoulder, pulling out a torch as we made our way through the tents, crates and vehicles.

  We walked for a minute or so until we reached a corner, where a bit of fencing and a concrete blockade met. At this point we started to walk slowly along the fencing.

  "So, tell me about yourself, Ethan." Shaun asked of me, peering through the gaps in the fencing towards the trees beyond, looking for any sign of life, infected or not.