Winter Cove

by Skye Knizley

  Reluctantly, River sat and accepted a piece of bread which she dipped in the chocolate before taking a bite. It was quite good, with a sort of nutty taste that went well with the chocolate. Howie sat opposite and took a long draught of his own cocoa. River took the opportunity presented by chewing to look around the kitchen. It was clean, immaculately so, with antique fixtures and wide granite counters. The walls, which were covered in beige Victorian era paper, were decorated with more photographs. These were of places around Winter Cove, including what River recognized as the General Store and Baptist Church. All showed the same familiar-looking man. He was always unsmiling and dressed in a suit that would have been new in 1927. All save the most recent-looking one. It was the same man, somewhat older and heavier, standing beside an attractive blonde woman in front of the very house she was now inside.

  “Rebecca,” Howie said.

  River turned. “What?”

  Howie smiled and River realized she somehow hadn’t quite seen him before. Howie was plain. The kind of plain that would have made him a fantastic clandestine operative, had that been his calling. He had a long, narrow face with a slight under bite, brown hair, greying eyebrows and eyes that were probably brown beneath colored contacts.

  “The woman. Her name was Rebecca, she was my wife.”

  Howie looked down at his plate where he was tearing his bread into small pieces. “She was killed in an accident about thirty years ago, now.”

  River took another bite of bread. “You don’t look that old.”

  Howie shrugged. “I am far older than I look. But you are not here to discuss my age. You have questions−”

  “Like what the hell is going on?” Rylee said. She entered from the corridor with a towel still in her hands. She dropped into a chair, covered herself with the towel and picked up her cocoa. “Well?”

  Howie gave her a brief smile. “Just so, Ms. Rylee. Where shall I begin? Perhaps, yes, perhaps thirty years ago. On the day my wife was killed.”

  He folded his hands over his plate. “My dear wife, Rebecca, was a member of a small research group here on the island. They were formed after the island was cut off from the mainland by a storm. Though most found that to be strange enough, that was not all the damage done by the storm. A number of other strange phenomena, such as magnetic disturbances and strange flora not native to the area appeared overnight. Sentinel was founded to research them. My dear Rebecca was studying a patch of flora on the northeast side of Forq Mountain when she was killed. Murdered.”

  Howie took a bite of bread and toyed with it. River could see he found the gesture to be calming.

  “I’m so sorry. How did she die?” Rylee asked.

  Howie looked up and again gave the brief smile. “She was shot at close range and her killer threw her body into the ocean. The current around the island carried her into the harbor where a local fisherman caught her in a net.”

  He chewed a piece of bread and looked distant. “The next day, Sentinel changed its name to Sentynil and closed almost all of the research stations. Onyx, Obsidian, Amber, Topaz. All closed. Only Malachite remained, or so they said.”

  Rylee swallowed another draught of cocoa. “Could you fast forward a few decades? What the hell is going on now? There are zombies out there!”

  “Ms. Rylee, not much for background, are you? Of course. I do not know all of the answers, I wish I did. What I do know is that Rebecca found something at Station Onyx, something in the ruins. She was killed and it was taken to Station Malachite,” Howie said.

  He pushed his chair back. “Excuse me a moment, I will show you.”

  He left the kitchen and Rylee leaned sideways to River. “This guy is a complete nutball, let’s get out of here, yeah?”

  “I’m not sure he’s crazy, honey. He seems familiar, let’s hear him out. If he starts rambling again we’ll bail,” River said.

  Howie returned carrying a book, which he opened and set between them. It was a scrapbook, of sorts, containing sketches and photographs of some sort of ruin. River was no expert, but they looked Germanic in origin to her.

  “These were found on Forq Mountain a few days after the storm. Estimates put them between four thousand and five thousand years old. Norse relics were found within, which was not unusual, the Vikings used Winter Cove long before the first pirates stumbled across it in 18th century,” he said. “What was unusual is that no one had ever stumbled across them before. They are plainly visible from the ocean yet they remained undocumented for the two-hundred years that Winter Cove has existed.”

  Rylee turned the pages of the book, revealing more sketches and photographs. “Maybe no one was interested?”

  Howie chuckled. “But my dear, you are intrigued by only a few photographs. Imagine seeing them first hand before the walls were erected. No, curiosity would have gotten the better of someone before 1967. My wife found them so intriguing she devoted her professional life to their study for almost two decades.”

  “What did she find?” River asked.

  Howie reached for the book. “May I?”

  Rylee stopped flipping and Howie searched through the pages until he found a page taken from a rubbing. The paper was onion-skin and covered with charcoal marks from a stone tablet of some sort.

  “This,” Howie said. “It was a stone carving she unearthed in the deepest ruin.”

  River plucked at the page. She recognized some of the symbols, she’d seen enough old Viking movies to recognize them as Norse runes. “What does it say? Can you read it?”

  Howie looked disgusted and sat back down. “By traditional interpretation it is rubbish. Babbling. Rebecca was convinced it was a language that predated ancient Norse, much like Latin predates most modern languages.”

  Rylee nodded her understanding. “Same letters, different order and meaning.”

  Howie snapped his fingers. “Exactly! She was studying it at Onyx when she was killed. All of her notes were taken or destroyed and I have been unable to make any headway.”

  He toyed with a piece of bread, visibly calming himself. “Anyway, the tablet and Rebecca’s research was taken, as I said. Things were quiet for almost two decades, then…something.”

  “Something? That isn’t cryptic at all,” River said.

  Howie looked up. “I tend to specialize in cryptic, Ms. Hunter. But the truth is, I don’t know exactly what happened. There was an emergency, it was blasted all over the island that everyone was to stay indoors. The hurricane warning blared all through the night, my manservant Clyde and I boarded the windows and secured things as best we could against what we thought was a storm.”

  “But it wasn’t,” Rylee said.

  Howie shook his head. “No, not a natural one, at least. The snow started after midnight yesterday. It was followed by people vanishing and going mad in the streets, eating one another, feasting on entrails… I couldn’t even write something so horrific.”

  River heard the strange whispers. They started at the edge of her consciousness and got louder and louder until they hung in her ears then faded. She spun her cocoa mug in her hands and stared at the ring of chocolate at the bottom, trying not to think about it. “You think it is all tied into the murder of your wife and the tablet?”

  “I know it is,” Howie said.

  He leaned across the table as if to speak, but was interrupted by a loud crash outside. A heartbeat later the front door thudded with a heavy impact, then again and again. Howie stood and grabbed a shotgun that was leaning against the wall. Unlike the one River still carried over her shoulder his was so old it bordered on antique, with an extra-long double barrel intended for bird hunting and a polished wooden stock.

  “They’ve found us! Quick, take the stairs to the cellar, there is a passage behind the wine rack!” Howie ordered.

  River picked up her own weapon. “Who found us? Who do you think is out there?”
/>
  The door thudded with another terrible impact and the wood cracked down the center. Howie stared at it, a mixture of anger and horror on his face. “Sentynil. Or something worse. Hurry, you can come back for your truck later!”

  Rylee opened the door to the stairs and flicked on the light. “What about you?”

  Howie smiled and his age showed in his eyes. He was far older than he looked. “Do not fear, child. I am not done yet, however if it is my time it is my time. I will delay them. Go!”

  Rylee started down the steps. River stopped at the door and looked back. “Where does this go?”

  “Out, you will find your way. Go!”

  Howie pushed her into the stairwell and slammed the door. A split-second later she heard the front door crash open and the boom of Howie’s shotgun. She tried the knob and found he’d locked it behind her.

  “Good luck, Howard,” she muttered.

  The stairs emptied into a large basement made of native stone. A small amount of water trickled in from cracks in the walls and froze in a hand-chipped gutter than ran around the basement. Shelves made from old wood and rusting nails lined the walls and held all manner of equipment, from a spelunking kit that looked almost a hundred years old to modern scuba gear. River picked up an oil lantern and shook it.

  “About half full,” she said when it sloshed.

  She lit it with her lighter and held it high. The shelves cast shadows on the wall and floor and the lantern gave off the acrid smell of old oil, but it was better than fumbling around in the dark cellar.

  She and Rylee located the wine-rack against the far wall and pushed it aside to reveal a sort of trap door in the floor and wall. River handed Rylee the lantern and pulled on the ring set in the edge of the door. It opened with a scrape of old hinges and a shower of rust. Beneath was a short ladder that led into a stone passage.

  Rylee covered her wrinkled nose. “What the fuck is that smell?”

  “Old sand, seawater, maybe a little rotting seaweed,” River replied.

  “How can you even breathe?”

  River reached a leg into the hole and tested the ladder. “I’ve smelled worse. The ladder seems sturdy, are you ready?”

  There was another loud crash from above, followed by the report of Howie’s shotgun and a scream of pain from something that didn’t sound human. Rylee looked at the ceiling with wide eyes. “Hurry up, will you?”

  River shook her head and hurried down the ladder. At the bottom she found herself in a tunnel no more than four feet wide and barely high enough to stand. Even so, she had to bend slightly, but it was better than crawling in the cold muck that coated her boots.

  “It’s safe. Hand me the lantern and get down here.”

  Rylee lowered the lamp, which River took and held high enough to see the rest of her surroundings. The tunnel was similar construction to the basement, save it was much older and held together with a type of mortar that included seashells. From one direction she could hear the distant sound of waves crashing, from the other the silence of the crypt.

  Rylee joined her in the tunnel and River handed her the lamp, leaving River’s hands free for the shotgun. She then reached up and pulled the hatch closed for what good it might do.

  “Are you sure about this?” Rylee asked.

  River unslung her shotgun and chambered a round. “Not at all. But I don’t really see that we have an option, do you?”

  Rylee didn’t look happy. “No, it’s either slog through cold mud or fight faceless thugs. Next time I pick the vacation spot. Someplace nice, like Cancun.”

  River couldn’t help but smile. “Deal. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The walk through the slime-coated tunnel was slow and cold. By the time they pushed through a narrow wooden door and into another cellar they were both shivering with cold and exhaustion. River closed the door behind them and leaned against it, trying to control her shaking and take stock of where they were.

  The basement was large, perhaps thirty feet to a side and contained a dozen shelves heavy with packaged foodstuffs. To the left were three large freezers humming quietly in the twilight while to the right were kegs of beer of all kinds, from name brand to small local brews.

  “I think we’re in a restaurant or bar,” Rylee said as she rubbed her shaking hands together then stuck them under her armpits. “Nobody stocks the ‘Weiser by the keg unless they plan to sell it to unsuspecting tourists.”

  “I don’t think normal people stock their basements with kegs of any kind,” River said. “If this is a house they must be party animals.”

  She stood and stretched before walking toward the wooden staircase set in the middle of the room. The door at the top was open, the room beyond dark. She flicked on the shotgun’s tactical light and started up the stairs. Her tread was light and she kept the beam pointed at the stairs until she reached the top. She panned the flashlight around the room at the top and stepped through onto one knee.

  It was a dining room, old but well kept. Tables laden with place-settings were set around the room along with old and comfortable looking wooden chairs. To her left was a wide wooden bar surrounded by a brass rail, to the right a barred door that went out onto a porch. Beyond lay the ocean, visible only when the green lightning arced across the sky. The strange tornado-like funnels River had seen just a few blocks away were here, as well. Dozens of them stretching from sea to sky, like wisps of smoke.

  She stepped away from the window and moved through the dining area. Most of the tables were empty, but a handful were set with half-eaten meals and mugs of beer, as if the diners had just gotten up to use the restroom and would be back any moment.

  “This is fucking creepy,” Rylee said.

  River almost jumped out of her skin. She turned to see Rylee standing by the bar, her pistol in one hand and beer napkin in the other.

  “I thought you were staying put!”

  Rylee ignored her. “I’m a big girl and I’m not letting you out of my sight. Check this out.”

  River looked over her shoulder. Someone had written a short note on the napkin in blue ink. There wasn’t much to it, just They’re coming. Goodbye, my love. The edges of the napkin were covered in dried blood.

  “Who came? The men in black or the infected?” River asked.

  Rylee put the note back on the bar. “You’re asking me? Whatever it was, it was scary enough that someone left a goodbye note.”

  River looked around the room. The deep shadows looked more sinister than they had a few moments before. Were there infected, or worse, somewhere within?

  “Stay close and keep your eyes open.”

  “So no tequila then?”

  Rylee picked up a bottle sitting on the bar. Though it was dark, River could tell by the shape it was her favorite.

  “No! We need to stay focused!”

  Rylee set the bottle down. “I’m just trying to lighten the mood, lover.”

  River softened and took Rylee’s hand. “Thank you, honey. I’m sorry I am so bitchy, this whole thing has me on edge.”

  Rylee stepped closer. “I know. Me, too. But we’re going to get through together. Just take it easy, you’re going to give yourself a heart attack or something.”

  River kissed Rylee’s nose then turned back to the dining room. The main doors were on the far side of the room. She let go of Rylee’s hand and let the way toward them, shotgun ready.

  The double doors were typical of most small-town restaurants, wood with a single pane of glass decorated with the restaurant’s logo and name: Seabreeze Café. A heavy plank carved with Native American symbols had been placed through the handles, keeping them secure against the storm. By the damage to the doors and the wooden splinters that littered the floor, the plank had done its job very well even against the odds. More wood had been nailed over the windows and side
lights.

  River tested the wood and found it slid under her hand. She pulled it free and set it aside, then looked out through the glass. The parking lot was almost empty, with only a few snow-covered mounds indicating cars parked beneath. The lot itself, however, was crisscrossed with foot prints. Some were covered or half-covered with snow, others were fresh, no more than a few minutes old.

  “I think we have company out there,” she whispered.

  Rylee shrugged. “We can face whatever is out there or stay here and eat stale beer nuts washed down with warm tequila. I vote we make like trees and leave.”

  River took a breath and pushed on the door. It opened only a foot or so before coming to rest with a dull thump. River and Rylee squeezed through the gap and Rylee pushed the door shut behind them. Neither looked at the snow-covered lump that was blocking the entrance. The shape of a corpse was unmistakable. River stepped over it and continued down the walk with Rylee close behind. The street was to the left of the entrance and River directed Rylee toward it while turning to watch the lot behind them. The restaurant, which she now realized sat on the opposite side of town from the police department, was a large grey building with blue trim. Like many of the buildings that hugged the coastline, it was old, built sometime in the mid-1800s. The exterior bore the scars where something had tried to force its way in. Siding had been torn off in chunks and now lay discarded in the hedges, windows had been shattered and shingles ripped from their hinges. It didn’t look as if anyone had gotten through from the outside, where were all the survivors?

  She didn’t have long to think about it, her attention was drawn to a huge shape moving out of the snow. He was gigantic, over seven feet tall in height, with grey skin covered in a torn yellow rain slicker and what looked like the remains of a fishing net. Muscles rippled along its arms and its legs were like tree trunks, allowing it to run with a speed that bordered on supernatural. In its arms it held what looked like the remains of an old truck bumper. In a swift movement it raised the club over its head and roared. Somehow, through her terror and surprise, River would later swear it had yelled, ‘Fresh Fish.’