Dead of Winter Collection

by Benjamin Knox

  “Ja,” he says in his curt fashion. “Just a few bruises and scratches, but she's evidently experienced a trauma.”

  “Yes, that room...” I start and can't find the right words to convey the grotesque scene within. Not sure I want to.

  Herryk merely nods in understanding. We've all witnessed horrors since the dead began to hunt the living. Then changing the subject to more pressing matters, “More proof that our position here is increasingly untenable.”

  I know what he's going to say next, the same thing he's been preaching since I got here.

  “We need to leave.”

  I've heard his argument dozens of times. And there is merit to it. In my view however the major populated areas will only be worse. And the trip to Bergen risky. Too many things could go wrong. I don't bother reminding him that we've secured and barricaded the lodge and more importantly that we have enough dried and canned food to last us several months. Perhaps even enough to make the whole winter.

  I don't bother because he's already made up his mind.

  “You want to leave Herryk, no one is going to stop you.” I sigh knowing he is not alone in his desire to leave. Many here are worried about their loved ones in the cities, and with no connection to the web and the phone-line down, there's no way of checking the situation. No way of knowing whether it's safe out there. Perhaps it is. Or perhaps it is much worse, and what we've had to deal with so far is merely the tip of the iceberg compared to what is going on elsewhere.

  Now that we’d been to the cabin there was nothing stopping the inevitable.

  The rest were waiting to continue the debate.

  To take action.

  Herryk moves to head back to the main area of the lodge. I follow, a sinking feeling deep in my gut.

  *

  It's the same arguments again and again. The same reasoning we've had since I got here, and probably a little before.

  Stay or go.

  The remaining survivors, except the little girl and Brigid, stand in the central lobby area of the main building as we discuss this issue again. The only difference now is that things have reached boiling point. There were twelve survivors here when I got arrived, now there are seven. Erik and Kristen who agree with Herryk and want to leave for the closest city, Bergen; then there is Lars, Brigid, the girl and myself.

  So few left.

  The dead are appearing in greater numbers as well.

  At first it was those that stared too long at the Aurora, driven mad. Most either killed themselves in acts of brutal self-mutilation or became so fixated or disorientated that they wandered outside too long and froze.

  Each disappearance of the four people since I arrived has been completely different, the threat so varied.

  Brennen was torn apart by creatures laying in wait under the snow; Bjonnir seemed to go utterly insane; his wife murdered by him rose from the dead a ghastly monstrosity. Then there was Mité, a twenty-three year old woman who worked here alongside Brigid and Brennen. She was on guard duty one evening, all we found were her shoes on the roof and no other sign of her. She was just gone.

  Lars stands in the corner only half paying attention to the others as they argue. I'm trying to be the voice of reason but their minds are made up, have been for some time.

  “We've no idea what it's like out there!” I tell them.

  “We can't stay here. In five days we've lost four people, it's getting worse,” Erik insists.

  “Ever since you came here people have been dying,” Kristen adds pointing an accusing finger in my direction.

  “What?” I say incredulously, “People were dying well before I arrived. I've been out there, the weather's too severe and the dead are everywhere, you'll never make it.”

  “You've cursed us,” Kristen says. “We were fine until they pulled you out of the snow and since then the storms have been worse and the dead have found us. You lead them here.”

  “That's insane,” I retort.

  Erik steps between us before Kristen does something foolish, “It doesn't change the fact that we want to leave. It's just not secure here anymore and we've no communication with the outside world. No way of knowing where is safe. But we have loved ones and family back in the cities, we have to go back.”

  Erik's words are heartfelt and sincere. I can see real concern in him, not just blind fear.

  “I agree,” says Herryk, “As much as you may be able to weather the winter, you've enough dried and tinned food and if you use the generator sparingly it might last you, but that doesn't change the fact that we need answers. You might be happy to stay here, you've no one left.”

  That one stings.

  I can see that Herryk didn't mean it personally, he's merely being his cold pragmatic self, but that statement cuts.

  “My husband might be dead, but I've still got family– ”

  I don't get to finish before Kristen cuts me off, “Abroad. We've no idea whether this is happening anywhere else.”

  I try to explain to her about the voice message I received while in the remote cabin with Mark, a message from my mother telling me not to come back, that it was too dangerous. I remind Kristen, and the others, of the news feed before everything went dark – the Aurora phenomenon reaching southwards all along the Arctic Circle, down as far as London some nights.

  “News that only you saw. We've no way of confirming your ramblings.”

  Erik takes Kristen over to the corner by the barricaded front entrance to cool off leaving Herryk, Lars and myself to finish the conversation. But there's little point.

  “We'll take only enough food to get us to Bregen, maybe for a few nights more to guard against unseen eventualities. We'll need the snowplow to get us out, or the snowcat. It's a long trip back to civilisation.”

  Lars nods, unhappy about letting them take one of the few vehicles left. “We'll give you as much gas as we can spare. We can always use logs to warm us later in the winter,” he says.

  “Thank you,” Herryk nods to the other.

  “Is there nothing I can say to get you to reconsider?” I ask.

  He shakes his head.

  “Okay then, I'll help you pack–”

  Again I'm interrupted, this time by Erik calling to us from the entrance.

  “Hey, you need to see this. We've got company.”

  Erik is staring through a gap in the boards nailed over the windows.

  Over the white downward expanse a horde of figures and vehicles filling the road. Lars had the foresight not to plough the narrow access road that joins to the Lodge. This means that there is two hundred meters of snow between us and the vehicles. There's no chance they can push through, but the figures waste no time in climbing over the rise and making slow shambling progress across the snow.

  They're too far away to make out details.

  “Are they here to help us?” asks Kristen.

  “No.” Lars has a set of binoculars up.

  He passes them to me.

  The night is clear again, the earlier storm having died down, the Northern Lights glowing so brightly I see for myself the heavy trucks fitted with plough-blades, figures in rags hanging off the vehicles. Some of the figures have clothing, others are in various states of undress, covered in torn and stained rags. They carry hand-made weapons, baseball bats studded with nails, lengths of heavy chain, knives, hammers. They are not dressed for the cold, they are dressed to intimidate.

  “Shit!” is all I can think to say. “Why are they out here?”

  They look like they've come from the cities, a mass exodus of what looks like post-apocalyptic raiders, but what I know is a mix of the insane and the dead. All exposed to the eerie power of the Northern Lights.

  Herryk now has the binoculars and passes them to the others as he slumps to the floor.

  “We should have left when we had the chance,” he says in a small voice.

  “You'd only have met them along the way,” Lars tells him moving quickly, with purpose. I snap to it as well. The
y're coming, and we've only so much time to prepare.

  The rumble of one of the trucks sends ice-water through my veins. A quick look confirms my suspicion. Out by the road the horde is bringing the truck with a plough to bear.

  They'll be through that snowfield in no time.

  We have mere minutes.

  *

  Lars makes his way to the Viking infowall and has seized the replica axe. I waste no time in snatching the sword off the wall too.

  “Someone needs to tell Brigid and the girl,” I say.

  Herryk appears from the kitchen carrying a crate of aquavit he's converted into molotovs, “I'll go. There's another batch of these back in storage, I'll inform Brigid while I fetch them.” He hands off the current batch to Erik before leaving at a run.

  Erik has already armed himself with a homemade spear – a carving knife bound with electrical tape to the end of an extendible vacuum cleaner rod. It's one of many constructed by the group to keep the dead at bay.

  Kristen, to her credit, is moving furniture in front of the boarded windows and entrances. Even if they break through these will slow them down.

  “How many shots have you got left in that rifle of yours?” Lars asks.

  I check.

  “Four,” I give him an optimistic look.

  “Better make them count.”

  “For all the good they'll do,” I retort. Bullets are nearly useless against them.

  Outside the truck is grinding ever closer. We can hear the engine growl as the heavy machine ploughs through the field of snow three feet deep.

  High pitched mechanical whining approaches. We don't need to look to know what it is. Snowmobiles.

  The dead are riding trucks and snowmobiles.

  This is insane!

  “We got incoming!” cries Erik from the windows.

  Lars hefts the axe making his way to where the ladder stands by the roof access, “How many?”

  “Four snowmobiles, couple of riders each. Some are making it across the snow on foot. And the truck...”

  Lars cuts Erik off to quell the young man's panic, “Four snowmobiles means a maximum of eight, let's deal with them before we think about the others. Kristen, help me with the ladder.”

  Kristen rushes over and the two of them get the ladder in place.

  “Go,” says Lars pointing upwards, “I'll pass the crate up.”

  While they do that I help Erik with the last of the furniture, making sure to pile it high. I can see between the boards; a tide of bodies have surged from the cities and come north. Like...

  Like they've been summoned.

  The snowmobiles race around the lodge looking for a weak point, but the lurching forms of those slouching across the field are close enough for me to make out the hideous details. These city-born monsters have warped and twisted themselves. Every one of them seems to have disembowelled themselves, hollowing out their torso. I suppose they've no use for the organs anymore. Wasted space.

  Many have bound themselves in barbed wire, fixed spikes and other objects to themselves, turning their bodies into weapons. There is a cruel logic to this. To make their entire form dangerous.

  In the deep trough cut by the truck-plough other vehicles file in – between them the space is packed with the lurching, wailing dead.

  We are so very outmatched.

  I look back at the sound of Herryk returning with more molotovs. Lars has gotten the first crate up to Kristen in the crawlspace above us.

  Brigid and the girl appear too, hair still damp from bathing.

  Before any of us can bark orders at them a crash makes the building shake as a snowmobile collides with a barricade at full speed. Wooden boards shatter as the vehicle tumbles inside, a blind juggernaut. Thankfully it misses everyone, instead careening into the piles of clothes and keepsakes of the gift shop, shattering display glass as it goes. The rider has fallen off just after breaking through and lays among the shattered debris.

  The creature sits up. It is dressed in motorcycle leathers, face hidden behind a helmet. It's entire body is studded with nails.

  Before it can rise any farther it erupts in flames as a molotov breaks over it. I waste no time rushing forward, bringing my sword across in a low arc while at a run. I catch the zombie just below the helmet, the dull blade cutting by sheer force. I stop a few feet away, boots steaming from having quickly stepped through the pooling blaze. My blow tore open the monster's neck but failed to sever the spine, so instead of decapitating it I've managed to make its head loll backwards loose like a ball on a string.

  If I needed proof this thing was dead I have it; there is no blood, only a few glops of dark semi-frozen mush coming from the wound. Had the same been done to a living person the hot spray would have practically covered me.

  Lars hacks the head free with his axe and boots the head back outside through the rent in our defences.

  The flames of the molotov are melting the leather, peeling it back to reveal raw tissue. Still the body flails trying to wound us.

  Lars dashes away from a blow, then steps back in for a double handed overhead swing at the monster's spine. A sickening crack tells me he's successfully broken the spine. Keeping my distance from the flames I use my sword to bite at the prone figure's heels, attempting to cut the Achilles tendon, or at best hack away its feet.

  I manage to slash away one foot and maim the other before I have to step away from the flames.

  Lars removes one of the zombie's hands before he too must retreat – his clothing singed by his proximity.

  The dead biker-porcupine is still moving, though now the flames are doing the real work, consuming flesh, tightening muscle, burning the damn thing away.

  One down.

  A horde to go.

  *

  The warm firelight of the burning corpse and the sinister glow of the aurora shining off the snow outside clash, setting a harsh contrast. There is no time to catch our breath as a second snowmobile roars into view making a beeline towards the hole that now gapes in our defences.

  I drop to one knee and sling my rifle around from my back. I have only a few seconds before that snowmobile is inside. I aim, breath out long and slow, and fire.

  Three bullets left.

  I hit my mark and the rider's head snaps back violently causing the snowmobile to veer slightly at the last moment and hit the wall rather than the open window. The impact shakes the lodge. A crack appearing in the thick wooden wall. The two undead on the vehicle probably aren't destroyed, but they won't be an immediate threat.

  “Argh! Get off me!” Erik shouts from the barricaded entrance on the other side of the lobby. Withered arms strain between the boards across the windows snatching and clawing at him. He fights to break free using the blade of his spear to sever fingers. Yet he is too close to use the weapon with any ease.

  Herryk attacks the arms with a sharpened shovel, using the weight to break bones and hack away whole hands. A few swings from the scrawny man and Erik is free.

  “Shit, that was a close one–”

  A snowmobile crashes through the narrow window at full speed ramming into Erik and crushing him beneath its weight. The force of impact sends Herryk reeling back and to the ground, scrambling to move away.

  Erik is screaming from under the snowmobile, blood spilling from his lips.

  The snowmobile has two riders; the rear one gets off and strides towards the prone Herryk, while the other pulls a wicked cheek-splitting grin at Erik below him before revving the engine. The motor growls as the treads spin and grind. A hot spray erupts from the rear of the vehicle as the treads tear away at Erik's flesh.

  Erik screams as his blood sprays everywhere, steaming in the cold air.

  My rifle is up and ready to fire again. The previous cartridge still bouncing across the floor catching the eerie green and hellish orange light. I aim for the rider's head – the shot should incapacitate it long enough to close the distance – but there is little point. Erik has stopped screamin
g. His body torn apart below the sternum, only a slick pool of blood and rent organs remain.

  The snowmobile has dug through him and is beginning to move and slide through the torrent of gore.

  A molotov bathes the rider’s vehicle and Erik's body in cleansing fire. The rippling light throwing shadows dancing everywhere, as though they're excited by the carnage before them.

  Herryk throws the molotov, having used his shovel to cripple the dead that had come for him.

  I have to give the man credit.

  Looking at him you'd never believe he was capable of such effective violence. For all his drinking and cynicism Herryk means business. He turns back to the revenant he has crippled. It is dragging itself along the ground, knees broken backwards.

  With a sneer the thin man, the closest thing we have to a doctor, brings the shovel blade down, hard, spearing the creature's head. A sickening crack as the blade hits the back of the skull where the spine meets it, followed by a thack as the shovel hits the floor, neatly severing the head. The lower jaw is still attached to the main body. The tongue lolls as dark semi-coagulated sludge oozes from the neck stump.

  With a flick Herryk sends the head rolling off.

  Moments ago I could hear Kristen cursing as she hurled molotovs from the roof but now her voice is absent.

  I race to the ladder as Lars keeps watch on the hole.

  Staring up I can see Kristen standing on the roof beside the hatch. Just standing there gazing upwards at the whirling, writhing green of the night sky.

  “Kristen! Don't look at it!” I scream.

  She shows no sign of recognition. Merely keeps staring up.

  More arms burst between boards. The dead have crossed the snowfield, the truck won't be long behind.

  Turning to Lars and Herryk I shout, “We can't stay here!”

  Herryk runs to join the large man, “We need to fall back, barricade ourselves in!”

  “The science team,” Lars says, “They've food and equipment. A satellite phone. We must go to them.”

  “We'll never make it that far,” Herryk retorts.

  “With the snowcat we can. We just need to fuel her up with the gas we keep for the generator.”