At an intersection on the edge of a cliff overlooking a snow-covered lot filled with shipping crates and an abandoned metal works factory, we find two cars and an overturned road train, wrapped around each other in a disjointed mass of steel. I take a step forward and my foot crunches down on something hard. I look down and a skeletal hand grasps at my shoe. I kick it. A finger snaps off and rolls away. We turn left and start following the road down the cliff, past a pile of snow-covered rubble and a leaning metal sign that reads, in faded lettering, Haversham Motel.
“This road leads into a town,” Jessica says, as we start to descend into a wide valley. “The quickest way to New City is to go right through.”
“In my experience, places like that are usually dangerous,” I reply.
She shrugs, and pats the gun over her shoulder. “Well, I won’t lie to you; there’s a lot of burnt-out buildings and a lot of places where people would usually look for supplies. However, the only other way is another week or so of hiking around in the hills. Just keep your head down, make sure you listen, and we’ll be fine.”
I glance at Claire. Droplets of sweat glisten on her forehead. She nods in agreement. “The quicker, the better,” she says in a tired voice. “I’m exhausted already.”
We follow the road for another hour. It takes a sharp dip, then climbs again, then steeply descends, until it reaches the bottom of the cliff-face, where it crosses a river of murky, unmoving water and curves away to the right, smoothing out as it runs through a plain.
Soon, the air starts to feel colder, and then I notice that a thick, blue-tinged mist has rolled in, obscuring the far off hills and trees from view. My breath turns into a wisp of vapor as it leaves my mouth, assimilating with the fog. I pull my coat tighter around my body and raise my hood to try and block out the cold.
As we go further, the mist steadily grows thicker and thicker, until we can only see a few steps ahead. Beside me, Claire shivers.
“Where…where did all this fog come from?” she stutters. “It’s freezing!”
Jessica stops, and tries to squint through the smog.
“It probably blew in from the coast,” she replies, shaking her head. “The further you go from the hills, the colder it gets, and that probably means more moisture in the air, or something. In any case, it sure makes it hard to see if there’s anything to shoot.”
“So what do we do?” I ask. “May as well keep going through it. Could be hours before it passes, and if it can hide anyone we don’t want to run into, it’ll probably be able to hide us from them, as well.”
“Can’t we just wait for a second?” Claire asks, holding a hand to the cut on her head. “Trying to keep walking in this cold is making me feel faint.”
“Best if we don’t, if that’s the case,” Jessica says, starting to walk ahead. “Sitting out here in the cold will make you sick, and that’ll slow us down.”
“Here,” I say, moving closer to her and wrapping my arm around her shoulder. “I’ll try to keep you warm.” She smiles faintly, and stares at me for a moment with bloodshot, weary eyes.
“Let’s keep going,” I whisper. “There isn’t far to go now.”
We move on, enveloping ourselves in mist.
In the distance, I can make out faint grey squares, the outskirts of the town drawing closer.
I pat the side of my waist with my hand and feel the cold metal of the revolver there, then reach over my shoulder to make sure I’m not just imagining the weight of my rifle. Somehow, it’s slightly comforting.
* * * *
The town is nothing but a necropolis. There was civilization here, once, but it is long gone. Now it is just another ruinous landmark in the endless winter, another dangerous place where monsters hunt and the difference between life and death lingers around the next corner.
We try to stick to the main road that runs straight through the town because it’s the quickest way through, hoping that the heavy mist will keep us hidden from any marauders lurking nearby. I walk with one hand on the hilt of my revolver, and the other one on Claire’s shoulder, to draw her close to me for protection.
Jessica walks in front of us, moving slowly, training her rifle on each wrecked façade as we pass it. We don’t talk; it’s dangerous and, aside from that, there’s something about the town—a lingering feeling of loss and sadness—that silences me.
Through the fog, the ruined buildings look like haunted crypts. We pass them, slowly, one by one, and I warily watch each of them go by, keeping an eye out for signs of life (marauder or otherwise) but only seeing death.
In the first street, there’s a row of townhouses, half standing, the windows and doors torn off and cupboards inside left wide open and bare. A child’s wooden rocking horse lies broken in the slush and beside it, bones that look human but are unnervingly tiny. There’s only one house still intact, at the very end of the row, with boarded-up windows. The front door has been forced open and sits ajar on the front porch and, in front of it, I see a brown stain trailing inside, amidst a handful of spent shells.
Next, we pass through a small park to detour around a roadblock of smashed cars and emerge on the other side in the parking lot of a shopping complex. Most of the buildings that are standing are boarded up or have had their shop fronts smashed and gauged out entirely, leaving massive holes opening into empty rooms. We come to a supermarket topped with a sign that optimistically reads Savings Superstore—Making Living Easier, where empty shelves have been pushed up against the shattered windows to block entry and the door has been replaced with a swinging sheet of corrugated iron, nailed to the doorframe.
“Supplies?” Claire croaks, pointing at a cluttered checkout, visible through the window, where cans and bottles are neatly arranged. “Should we…?”
Jessica shakes her head, and nudges her chin at the gap in the door. A human skull is impaled on a waist-high pole and, just behind it, a trip line stretches across the entryway, connected to wooden crate suspended from the ceiling.
We move on, turning a corner behind the store and passing into a narrow side street. We cross the entire length of a featureless brick wall and come back out on an intersection between a cul-de-sac of houses and a collection of scattered brick and glass which, according to an overturned sign facing up in a patch of frosted scrub, used to be a library.
Jessica stops to regain her sense of direction, and I leave Claire with her and start picking through the library fragments. I push aside a chunk of concrete with my feet and spy a soot-covered, leather-bound book hiding underneath. I pick it up and open it to the title page. It’s a King James Bible, and somebody’s scratched swear words and obscene pictures all over it with a pencil. I quickly flip through it, in case there’s something wedged inside, but nothing falls out. On the very last page, one of the paragraphs is highlighted, but I don’t understand the reference.
“Lionel, let’s get going,” Jessica calls from behind.
I toss the book aside.
* * * *
A few hours later, we’re passing through the town center, and the mist is gradually replaced by darkness as the grey sun descends beyond the horizon. We’ve just passed through a maze of houses and collapsed construction sites, and now, coming out in the front yard of a once impressive city hall lined with broken concrete pillars, we’re on the main road once more.
“I’m not feeling well,” Claire says, gripping my arm as hard as she can.
I glance at her face. It’s pale, except for a sickly purple bruising around the cut. A single ream of saliva drips from her bottom lip, out of a slack, open mouth.
“Looks like the fever’s getting worse. Take some more of that medicine.”
“I did. It didn’t do anything. My head is killing me.”
I stop and call ahead to Jessica.
“How much further do we have to go?”
“There’s an old train station on the edge of town. We’ll stop for the night there and then follow the railway tracks all the way to New City.”
“But Claire’s sick. She can’t keep going like this.”
Jessica stops and turns around. She shrugs her shoulders.
“Well, we can’t just stop here. It’s not safe.”
I shake my head angrily.
“Damn it, look at her! She’s about to pass out!”
Jessica shrugs again and starts walking.
“We can get her some help when we get to New City. In the meantime, we need to keep going. If we stay out here for too long—”
A dog barks twice in the darkness and growls. Jessica halts. There’s another peal of barking, and then we hear the pattering of tiny feet running on the road. Beside me, Claire screams.
Shit.
Something crashes in a nearby building, and a pack of ravenous mutts sprint through a broken window. They run onto the road and tear towards us, baring yellowed, rotten teeth. Three of them make a beeline for Jessica, and she swears and fires her rifle. She misses and the dogs keep running, joined by another three that burst out from around a corner to our right. They stop and stand in front of us, staring us down with glimmering yellow eyes.
“Run!” I shout.
We turn around and start fleeing down the road. We head towards a side street, but as we get there, more barking announces the presence of yet another dog, emerging from an alcove to the left to intercept us. He howls once, a shrill sound, and then runs full pelt towards us, growling hungrily.
Damn it! Trapped!
I look around wildly for an escape route, firing my revolver blindly at the advancing animal while I back away, missing it by at least a foot, but causing it to flinch and falter for a slim millisecond before continuing, unfazed, on its way.
We turn around and start running in the other direction, not quite sure where we’re going to go while more dogs come out from nearby buildings and join the groups, capturing us in a pincer movement.
We verge sharply to the left and tumble through an open gate into the car park of the city hall. The dogs follow us in, and we run along the waist-high brick wall, as they circle around us, trying to herd us into an approaching corner.
Their angry barking pounds the air, stopping me from thinking straight as I look frantically around for a break in their ranks.
Can’t focus! Listen!
I take a step forward to try and edge through a space between them, but two of them growl and leap forward to nip me. I pull back.
Fuck it, where can I…?
More barking.
Jessica screams in rage and fires another barrage of rounds. The dogs disperse from the noise, to circle around and join the group coming at us from behind, but now there’s space for us to move out of the corner and try to get away. We sprint forward as Jessica fires off another round, and we slalom through two rusted out cars, drawing closer to the building in the center of the car park and…
“In there!”
Jessica points at the city hall, where a thick oak door hangs ajar atop the short flight of stairs.
We scramble up the steps and weave between the stone columns. As I rush for the open door, I feel something latch onto the back of my coat and attempt to pull me down.
I try to pull forward, but the dog growls and bites further up my back. With a grunt of effort, I kick backwards with my left foot, as hard as I can.
I hear a pained yelp and the dog releases its jaws, tearing a patch of my coat away.
I throw myself through the doorway just as another one pounces from my side. I land, roughly, on the hard tiled floor inside and knock the wind out of myself.
Behind me, Jessica pushes the massive door shut with a loud scrape. One of the dogs collides with it on the other side, making a heavy thump, but she holds the door closed and soon, after a few seconds of frenzied barking and growling as the animals claw at the door, trying to get it open, we hear them give up and run off.
It’s silent now, except for Claire’s exhausted, congested breathing.
I stay sprawled out on the cold floor, waiting for oxygen to return to my lungs.
Jessica lets go of the door and surveys the vast entrance hall. She begins a careful lap around it, pointing her gun into empty rooms and crawl spaces as she goes along. I let my head sink down onto the tiles in exhaustion, listening to her call out challenges and kick open doors.
A few moments later, I look up again. She’s back in the entrance hall, apparently satisfied, since her rifle is slung back over her shoulder. She crosses the hall and takes one last glance around a bunch of desks near reception. At last, she sweeps a bunch of papers off a dusty table and drops her knapsack onto it. She turns back to us, and shakes her head grimly.
“Looks like we’ll be stopping here, after all.”
Chapter Eleven
Exhausted from all the running, we dump our possessions on the floor right in front of the door and, without conversation, start to unpack for the night.
Claire tosses her backpack on the floor and then nearly collapses, and I have to rush forward to catch her as she stumbles and ease her into her sleeping bag. She looks up at me and smiles gratefully, before unleashing a fit of sharp coughing. I retrieve a bottle of water from my bag and she nearly drains all of it, before lowering her head back down onto her pillow and closing her eyes.
Within seconds, she’s out of it, and her breathing slows to a regular pace, though it’s congested and something rattles inside her throat each time she exhales. I reach down and wipe droplets of perspiration from her pale forehead with my sleeve, and spend a few moments watching her.
She gasps softly in her sleep and then, with a pained moan, turns her head to the other side, so that the cut isn’t pressed down on her pillow. I briefly contemplate waking her so that I can change her dressings. The bandage is already tinted a light brown from grime and congealed blood, but she looks peaceful at the moment, and I decide to let her sleep.
“I can put off changing the bandage until morning, can’t I?” I whisper to Jessica, as she leans down beside me and presses a stale bread roll into my hand.
“You don’t want to disturb her?”
I shake my head.
“She’s been through a lot today. She deserves to rest.”
Jessica takes a bite out of her bread roll and savors it thoughtfully.
“Should be fine, I think, as long as the current dressing doesn’t come off in the night.”
I nod, contemplating Claire’s sunken face.
“Eat,” Jessica commands, poking at the bread roll in my hand. “You need the energy.” I take a small bite, and sit there chewing it without swallowing it. It doesn’t taste like anything.
“I don’t feel like it,” I mutter, handing the roll back to her. She sighs and looks down at Claire, feeling her temperature with the back of her hand.
“Her fever’s getting worse, but…” She looks at me with a sad expression. “Maybe she’ll be okay. It’s not easy, worrying about someone you love, is it?”
I look away.
“She’s been getting sicker and sicker for days. I don’t want to lose her. She’s all I’ve got.”
Jessica stands up, and starts walking over to her sleeping bag.
“Will she be okay?” I ask.
She turns her head and looks at me over her shoulder. Her face is cold.
“I’m hoping we can get her to New City in time to help her, but we can’t do anything more for her here and...”
“No, don’t say that. That can’t happen. Not to Claire.”
She pulls open her sleeping bag and lies down, facing away from me
“Jessica,” I whisper urgently. “
It won’t.”
She shrugs her shoulders sadly, and sighs.
“Lionel, we’re living in an unkind world. Bad things happen, and we can’t stop them. Just like with Rowan back at the farmhouse...” She sighs again. “There isn’t always a happy ending.”
“But I—”
“Go to sleep. If you want to help her...be ready to leave as soon as the sun’s up. The sooner we get to New City, the better.”
I crawl under the blanket that I use as my bed.
I stay awake, staring into the blackness, and thinking about what tomorrow may bring. What future is there for us, waiting for us, perhaps mocking us, beyond the void of time? Is it a good one, or a bad one? I find myself struggling to wonder how those terms can still have meaning, in a world where human life is reduced to something abstract, something indefinable and killing can be so easily justified in the name of survival. There can’t be such things as good or bad in a place where everything is grey. People will continue to do what they have to do, and thus the only future that awaits us is one that’s as bleak as the present.
There’s no meaning in any of this, the voice of the watching thing taunts. Nothing. Only death.
Is that true? Am I doomed to lose everything? To lose the idea of humanity that I’ve tried so hard to hold onto?
“No,” I say out loud, spitting into the darkness.
No, I won’t lose Claire.
That isn’t how this story will end.
I throw my blanket aside and grab my pen and writing pad. I’ll stay up through the night, all night if I have to. I’ll write a happier ending.
Sun Bleached Winter Page 8