The Final Winter: An Apocalyptic Horror Novel

by Iain Rob Wright

  Nigel started to creep up the stairs, making sure the women followed. He kept his steps slow so that Jess couldn’t fall behind and whisper something to Steph without him hearing. When they reached the top, he stepped aside and ushered the women past him. From behind, he moved them into the candlelight of the bar and was immediately hit by the sub-zero temperature. It wasn’t even biting cold any longer, but a far deeper sensation that his very blood was turning to ice in his veins. “Come on,” he said, “let’s get over to the fire.”

  The women walked ahead and he kept close behind, rubbing his palms against his arms to try and generate some friction and heat – but the only thing getting him hot right now was watching Steph move. He thought about all the things that he could do to that sexy, slender body that would warm him up for the rest of the night. The only thing left to figure out was the best way to take Jess out of the picture. For now he’d let things play out and wait for an opportunity to present itself. The flick knife in his pocket made Nigel consider just stabbing the girl and being done with it, but that would be a waste. He had to have his fun with her first. If Steph was going to be the main course, then Jess would be dessert. I’ll eat her nipples as cherries, Nigel thought as he let slip an excited laugh. He quickly stifled it when the women looked at him.

  “Something funny, Nigel?” Steph asked.

  He quickly shook his head. “Just the craziness of tonight making me a little loopy. I get the giggles when I’m nervous.”

  “And why would you be nervous?” Jess asked in a tone that he didn’t like at all. It was almost goading.

  “Well,” he said, “there’s a lot to worry about tonight, isn’t there, sweetheart?”

  Jess took a step backwards and was nodding as though she knew a punch-line to a joke that no one had told. Nigel felt his blood pressure rising as he fought the urge to rip into the girl and punish her insolence. She kept her eyes fixed on him as she continued stepping backwards. Steph was watching from a few feet away, visibly unsure of what was about to unfold. Nigel took steps of his own, keeping pace with Jess.

  Like a predator stalking its prey.

  “Or are you nervous,” Jess said, “because you lied about Peter being awake? Look at him, he’s still unconscious.”

  Nigel grinned. Of course Peter was still unconscious; the kid was as good as dead. He looked down at the boy and had to stifle another laugh. Pity he isn’t awake. He could have watched while I fuck his girlfriend.

  Jess took another step backwards, placing herself up against the wall beside the fire. No more space to retreat. Nigel continued approaching.

  You’re trapped now, bitch.

  “Or,” Jess continued, “are you nervous because I know that you’re the one that tried to rape Steph?”

  Nigel looked at Steph and watched the sudden shock wash over her. She took a sharp intake of breath. Jess’s revelation had sucked the wind out of him as well. He’d expected her to try and blow his cover, but the fact that she’d done right in front of Steph hurt him. Nigel hadn’t wanted Steph to know the truth about him until the very last moment.

  Nothing to be done now though. Time to start ripping flesh.

  Nigel lunged at Jess like a snake uncoiling. Such momentum did he have that he was powerless to change direction as the teenaged girl swung at him with the fire poker she’d somehow grabbed from its rack without him seeing.

  The last thing Nigel thought as the steel rod arced towards his skull was…

  Chapter Thirty

  “You want another piece of me, huh? Well, if it’s Mortal Kombat you want then that’s exactly what you’re going to get, you cross-dressing freak.”

  Harry managed to reach out and grab Jerry just before the lad ran off to his peril. “Hold it,” he said, clutching the boy by the collar.

  Jerry struggled to get free. “Dude, not cool. Let go of me. Him and me have got a date with destiny.”

  Harry shook the lad. “This isn’t Star Wars and that’s not Obi Wan Kenobi.”

  Jerry looked outraged. “Obi Wan is one of the good guys, you dork!”

  “Yeah,” said Harry, “I’m the dork.”

  “Fellas, while I’d love to have a discussion on the many wee sides of the force, I think we should get going, pronto.”

  Harry nodded to Lucas and then looked into the distance at the approaching figure. “Okay, let’s get back to the pub.”

  Everyone agreed. They turned, ran…

  …and stopped in their tracks.

  “Holy shit!” Jerry cried out as ten foot flames exploded from the snow before them, cutting off any chance of escape. Harry felt the heat spread out in a wide semi-circle around them, leaving no place to go but towards the tall, hooded figure.

  Jerry put his fists up. “Time we entered the Thunderdome.”

  “You reckon we should fight?” Harry asked.

  “You got a better idea?” Kath queried.

  “Don’t suppose anybody has a fire extinguisher?” Lucas asked, fanning his hands against the fire behind them.

  Harry took several steps forwards. It was probably a stupid idea. “What do you want from us?” he demanded. The hooded figure stopped moving, still too far buried by the blizzard for Harry to make them out clearly. Despite that, he could feel the stranger’s stare boring into him, digging out the corners of his soul. “I said, what do you want?”

  Silence.

  Then: “WE HAVE COME FOR…THE SINNER.”

  Harry shook his head. What the fuck is with this guy? Did he overdose on bible studies as a kid?

  “Who exactly is the sinner?” he asked.

  More silence.

  Then: “YOU ARE, HARRY JOBSON.”

  Harry fell down, for no other reason than his knees had ceased function. He flopped, face-first into the snow like an awkward clown, dreading he would never get up again. He was the sinner? He was the cause of this madman wreaking havoc tonight? It seemed insane, but…

  He knows my secret; knows what I’ve done. He’s right…I am a sinner. But how did anybody ever find out?

  “Come on, Harry Boy, time to go.” Lucas lifted him up, and at first Harry thought it was to turn him in to the hooded stranger, but it wasn’t. Lucas gained assistance from Jerry and the two of them dragged Harry through the snow, aiming for a small gap between the semi-circle of fire and the hooded figure. Harry had every confidence that Kath was not part of his attempted rescue, yet he could hear her crunching footfalls following beyond.

  Trying to keep her safety in numbers.

  “What are we doing?” Harry asked wearily as they dragged him along by the armpits. His legs trailed along behind him like boneless chickens and he felt dazed.

  “Running for our lives,” said Lucas. “What in the blazes do you think?”

  “The supermarket must be nearby,” said Jerry, struggling with Harry’s weight. “At least I hope so.”

  “It is,” said Kath. “We’re here.”

  Harry looked up to see the dim shape of a building present itself through the snow, only twenty yards away.

  We’re going to make it…

  Harry craned his neck to look back behind him, but his joints would not allow sufficient movement to see anything clearly. “Where is that…thing?”

  Lucas and Jerry continued to drag him, their speed increasing as the sight of the supermarket spurned them on. Kath overtook them all and started searching her pockets frantically, no doubt for the building’s keys.

  Harry repeated himself. “I said, where is it?”

  They reached the supermarket’s locked fire door and dumped Harry down. Lucas stared down at him and offered his hand. “I don’t bloody know where it is. We lost it on our way here and I was in too much a hurry to keep looking back, so get up and get ready in case it comes back.”

  Kath pulled her keys from her pocket and started sifting through them. “I can’t see a thing out here.”

  Harry managed to stand, his legs solidifying from jelly to gradually-setting cement, not
yet firm but getting there. He looked back in the direction they’d come from, and found his heart stopping in his chest. “You best hurry up and get us inside, Kath. I mean right NOW!”

  Harry waited anxiously while the others turned and saw for themselves. Coming through the snow, with a steady and methodical purpose, was the hooded figure again; only this time, on either side of him, were others. Dozens, in fact. Their ghostly visages seemed to melt into the background of the thick, whirling blizzard that could have hidden an endless legion of them for all Harry knew.

  Kath frantically tried keys on the lock. Lucas fell to his knees, muttering. Harry thought he heard the Irishman say something about ‘an army of Christ’, but there was no time to ask about it; the hooded figures were approaching. Urgently, Harry turned to Kath at the door. “How’s it going?” he asked her.

  The chinking of keys. Kath fumbled with the lock. “I’m trying,” she said, sounding close to tears. “I’m sodding trying.”

  As if things could get any worse, Harry heard a sound that chilled his blood several degrees beyond the ice that already flowed through it.

  Growling.

  The sound was so guttural that it could have emanated from a pack of rabid wolves. Or a dozen beasts from hell, thought Harry. Alongside the hooded figures appeared several other beast-like shapes, moving faster and more erratically than their two legged companions. They seemed like over-sized dogs, just as Jerry had described them. Harry wished he’d paid more attention

  “It’s the hounds of hell,” said Jerry. “The ones I saw earlier with Jess. Believe me now?”

  Harry clutched the chef’s knife tightly in his hand, but had a horrible feeling that it would prove to be as useful as a handful of wet spaghetti. “Jerry,” he said. “If we live through this then I will be the first in line to apologise for not believing you, but now’s not the time for humble pie.”

  Jerry seemed buoyed by the vindication and actually began to smile. He moved over to Kath and picked up the baseball bat that she had propped against the supermarket’s door.

  Lucas was still on his knees, but had stopped his incoherent rambling. He fixed his gaze on Jerry. “What the b’jaysus are you doing, lad?”

  Jerry narrowed his eyes at the man. “I’m getting even.”

  With that, Jerry trudged through the snow at a speed that was as close to running as was probably possible given the terrain. He held the baseball bat high above his head as if it were a holy sword of Justice. The strange army of unearthly figures continued approaching, led by the more quickly moving ‘hounds of hell’. Jerry didn’t seem concerned by any of them and picked up speed.

  “Jerry, get back here!” Harry shouted, but his words were wasted and almost faded into the blizzard.

  Moments before Jerry was set to collide with one of the hounds, he stopped in his tracks. Harry watched the boy stick out an arm and make a beckoning motion with his hand. “Let’s go, Cujo!”

  Jerry swung the baseball bat from over his head in a downwards arc. It connected with the skull of his closest attacker. With a snarling whine, the beast shot sideways into the snow, which quickly begun to melt around it. Jerry swung the bat again and it connected with the beast’s hindquarters, causing it to yowl in agony. Before he had time to swing again, it got to its feet and fled. Jerry held the bat above his head triumphantly. “Flawless victory, motherfucker.”

  Harry watched the surreal image of the spotty, teenaged boy taking on a pack of hell beasts with a decrepit baseball bat and wondered whether he was stoned. Had his drinking progressed to drug-abuse and he was now just lying somewhere, hallucinating the whole thing? It was a thought he would’ve liked to have held on to very much, but he knew it wasn’t true. They were all in very serious danger and none of this was imaginary. It wasn’t a movie.

  “Jerry! Get your arse back here, now!”

  Harry’s warning was too late. He and the others watched in horror as a wave of dog-beasts swarmed over Jerry’s scrawny frame. Harry was unable to take his eyes away as flesh and fat were shorn from teenager’s bones like meat from a turkey, razor sharp fangs piercing every inch of Jerry’s skin. Harry thought his ears would explode under the force of the boy’s agonised screams and was grateful that they only lasted a few seconds as the exertion eventually ripped free Jerry’s vocal cords.

  Harry sobbed.

  “Thank God!” Kath said finally, unlocking the door and pushing it open so hard that she fell to her knees on the other side. Harry himself did not move, too transfixed by the pack of wretched beasts that feasted on Jerry’s still-twitching body as though it were a packet of raw meat. Despite everything that had happened that night, Harry was only now realising the situation they were in. “They’re going to kill us all, aren’t they?”

  “Maybe,” said Lucas, pulling him backwards and through the door. “But there’s no reason for us to make it easy for them, is there?”

  Finding a defiance inside of himself that he did not know existed, Harry closed the supermarket’s door behind them. “No,” he said, “That’s the last thing we’re going to do.”

  Kath locked the supermarket’s door while, outside, a dozen hooded demons surrounded them.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “Damien…

  “Damien, wake up.”

  Damien opened his eyes, expecting light to stream in and burn his retinas; but there was only darkness. Gradually, he remembered the evening’s events. The unending snow, the power cut, and everybody freezing. He could remember no more than that at first, but when he found himself tied to a chair he began to panic. It all came flooding back to him.

  “Steph!”

  “I’m here, Damien. I’m going to untie you, but you’ve got to stay calm. We need your help.”

  “That son of a bitch knocked me out. Harry, I’m going to kill you.”

  “Damien, I can only untie you if you calm down. The only reason Harry hit you was because he thought-“

  “I was going rape you.”

  “Yes,” said Steph. “We got it all wrong. It wasn’t you, it was-“

  “Nigel!” Damien could remember; remembered finding the sick pervert about to stick it in an unconscious woman. Not just any women either; it was Steph. Damien was a lot of things, but a rapist he was not. Sex offenders and nonces were a whole other level of scumbag; subhuman slugs. He pulled at his wrist restraints, furious when they would not come off. “Where the hell is that fucker?”

  “I’m here princess, and guess what? This time you get to watch.”

  Damien strained in the darkness to see what was happening. He heard Nigel speak and the girls cry out in fear, but his eyes were still too unadjusted to the lack of light. He could only make out vague, shifting shapes in front of the fireplace. He struggled at the ropes around his wrists. Come on, come on. Need to put a stop to this before it gets nasty. Motherfucker needs to pay.

  The ropes were tight, too tight in fact, and the skin around Damien’s wrists was abraded and sore. Nevertheless, he began sawing his arms back and forth, trying to create some slack that could set him free. In front of the fire the struggle continued, punctuated by a wet slapping sound.

  Damien flinched as a body fell down in front of him. Steph lay crumpled on the floor, dazed and semi-conscious, blood seeping from a wound on the bridge of her nose. She murmured something to Damien but it went by him. It sounded like the word ‘poker’. Damien continued rubbing his wrists back and forth and felt the ropes loosen a couple of millimetres.

  Yes, come on.

  At his feet, Damien could feel Steph squirming on the floor, slowly moving past his legs. At first he thought she was making a run for it, but a tugging sensation at his wrists made him realise what she was doing: untying him.

  He felt the ropes loosen.

  Damien’s eyes adjusted to the scene in front of him. Nigel had Jess up against the wall beside the fire, struggling back and forth as the girl held onto his wrists, keeping his hands away from her. Jess obviously put up more
of a fight than Nigel expected. Damien almost smiled as he watched her spit and bite at his face, doing anything she could to defend herself.

  Girl’s a fighter!

  Damien felt the ropes come free from his wrists and, with a jolt that emanated from his knees and spread through his entire body, he shot up and leapt towards Nigel, landing hard against the man’s broad back. It felt like hitting a barn wall, but the blow was enough to send Nigel face first into the wall. Unfortunately, Jess was in the way and got squashed in between. The air exploded from her lungs in a great ‘whooof!’ as she fell to the floor like a puppet without strings. Taking advantage of the confusion, Damien swung his fist.