Dead Winter

by Aline Riva

  The room was emptying fast as the others got up and started to leave. Mickey was already out of the door, and Joy got up, glancing to Sage, who was talking to Poppy.

  “It will be okay,” she said, “You'll be safe,”

  “But what about you?” Poppy said tearfully.

  “I'll be fine, we all will,” Sage promised her.

  “We hope...” Joy muttered under her breath as she left the cafe for the last time, to prepare to help the others pack up, taking what they could manage to cram into the back of the dented and blood splashed van on the ground floor.

  The mood was sombre as the van was packed up, the medical supplies and guns and what other essentials could be packed in were placed on one side, then Poppy paused to hug Sage before she climbed in the back, followed by River, who had studied the map with Joy while the van was being packed, then as River glanced at her, she spoke up.

  “We'll be waiting at the meeting point – if it's too clogged with zombies, we'll drive around until you catch up.”

  “See you soon,” said Joy, then she closed the back of the van.

  Curtis got into the driver's side and started up the engine.

  “Ready when you are,” he said.

  Call down when you're about to take the lift,” Chris said.

  “We're leaving now,” Joy told him, then she and Sage picked up their weapons and hurried off towards the lift.

  “There's no rush!” Mickey reminded them as he came down the stairs, walking stiffly and wrapped up in a long black coat and carrying a machine gun, “The corpses will be waiting patiently for us. We don't have to run to them!”

  Then he made his way along the ground floor, holding the machine gun with well practised ease as the others waited by the closed doors of the lift.

  As he joined them, Joy hit the button and the doors opened. The lift still had smears of blood on the walls and it stunk of death.

  “This is it,” she said, and as Mickey and Sage went in, she paused, calling back to Chris:

  “We're in, open up the doors!”

  Then she joined the others inside and the lift closed.

  Downstairs, Chris ran for the doors. He reached up, knowing at once the familiar feel of the controls as he flipped the switches. The shutter began to rise as the alarm started to screech. The undead sounded like a mass roar as they swarmed against the rising shutters. He bolted back to the open door of the van and got in, slamming the door as Chris turned the van around, facing daylight that was increasingly blocked out by the undead as the piled in at the entrance.

  “Everyone hang on tight!” Curtis said, and there was a squeal of rubber on the floor of the mall as the van took off at speed.

  The shutters were almost up by the time they drove beneath them, it was still winding upwards as it scraped the roof of the van as the front of the vehicle hit bodies with soft thumps, sending zombies tumbling bloody to the white snow outside. In the back, River and Poppy were braced for unexpected impacts, with their heads down and their eyes closed as the van tore across the city centre. The vehicle jolted as another snarling corpse was slammed into, as blood sprayed the window and the undead creature flew in the air and landed with a snap of bones on the iced up ground nearby. Here the zombies had thinned out, they were all descending on the source of the alarm, but Chris kept his gun ready and he leaned back hard in his seat, ready for the van to stop, so he could listen for the sounds of the creeping dead once they were out of the town centre.

  A handgun rested in his lap as Curtis drove, he took the short route that led out to the main square, past the empty market place, mowing down another zombie with a jolt, as the wheels of the van bumped sharply, crushing others that had already been hit on the way in. They reached the open road and the van turned, heading away from town as Curtis slowed his speed, carefully sticking to the clear side of a road where a few wrecked cars dotted the route. River and Poppy looked up, as River breathed a sigh of relief and Poppy started to smile.

  “We got out!” she said.

  “Yes we did,” Chris agreed as he kept a tight hold on his weapon, “But that doesn't mean we're safe. Can you see any corpses, Curtis? I hear something close by, isolated...”

  They passed by a crashed car where a body was bent awkwardly, half in and half out of a shattered front window. The corpse raised its head, snarling as the van passed by.

  “You're right. Just the one in a smashed up car and it's trapped..... it all looks empty up ahead and the roadside is clear,” he confirmed.

  “So far, so good,” Chris replied, “I think we're through the worst of it, at least for now.” The van went slowly on its way, driving carefully on the snowy road as they headed for the meeting point.

  The lift shuddered, almost stalling as it passed the first floor and continued its climb towards the car park. The lift was groaning now, as all three of them looked up nervously then exchanged a glance.

  “I would really hate to get stuck in here at a time like this!” said Mickey as he clutched his gun tighter.

  “Don't even say it. Don't jinx us!” Sage told him.

  “I think we've got enough bad luck already, a bit more won't make any difference!” Joy remarked, then the lift shuddered again as the lights faltered. The alarm screeching below echoed upward, sounding hollow as it travelled up the lift shaft, mingled with the moans and snarls of the undead as they flooded the mall. The lift shuddered beneath their feet, then reached the top floor.

  “This is it,” Joy whispered.

  The doors opened. The remaining creatures yet to follow the sound of the alarm were further out in the middle of the parking area. They all turned, icy faces and frozen wounds glistening as morning sunlight caught them, as they snarled and began to advance on the open lift, as one broke into a run another followed and Mickey shoved past Joy and Sage, stepping out first and spraying the whole place with bullets. Bodies jerked and fell, as more came running, Sage slammed her back up tight against a wall and fired off shots to the left, hitting two creatures in the head as a third slammed into them and was cut down by shots from Joy. A roar sounded as a large corpse in torn clothing lunged from the shadows, out from between two parked cars, it caught Mickey's jacket and he fell to the ground, rolling sharply and smacking the corpse's face with the gun as the undead creature rolled side ways and jumped back to its feet. Mickey's boots slipped on the icy ground as he lay there on his back in panic, then he raised the weapon and fired off shots as the zombie's face exploded in a bloody mess.

  Joy was taking shots at a creature in a blood spattered white snow coat as it screeched and its hair blew back in the wind. Two more shots hit the target as its head jerked back and it flipped over the rail, falling far to the ground below.

  Silence fell. There was a creeping, dragging sound and then a low snarl as Sage turned around, firing off more rounds, felling the last of the corpses. As the alarm echoed about the silent town centre, they heard the moans and snarls of gathered corpses on the next floor, and Joy ran over and looked down to see the way out was blocked by a gathering of undead, who had been making their way down to the source of the alarm. Now they stood there turning back, pausing to listen for more gun shots.

  “What do you think?” she said, glancing to the others.

  Mickey walked stiffly to the top of the slope, aiming his weapon as Joy and Sage joined him. They exchanged a glance, knowing what had to be done. The gunfire sounded deafening as they fired off round after round into the gathered zombies below, who fell like dominoes, their bodies rolling as the bullets caught them, it was a steep downward route all the way, but that way was clear now...

  As they lowered their weapons, they looked about the parking area. There was a large blue transit van parked near the slope. It had a caught a couple of bullet holes in the door. Beside it, a body was on its front, torn up with the neck gnawed away down to bone as a dead hand still clutched a set of keys.

  “That one?” suggested Mickey.

  Joy smiled.


  “That one,” she confirmed.

  They went over to the van as Joy snatched the keys from the corpse. It raised its head as teeth bared and she gave a gasp. Shots rang out rang out, peppering the skull as the body jerked, the neck snapped and the head rolled under the van. Mickey lowered his weapon.

  “Now I think we're good to go?”

  “I bloody hope so!” Joy said, her heart still racing after that corpse had unexpectedly raised its head on nothing but exposed bone.

  She stepped over the headless corpse, kicked it aside and unlocked the van. There were three seats in the front, and behind was a clear view into the empty back, it had plenty of room for storage and now all they had to do was meet with the others and find another, larger vehicle, and they would be set for taking plenty of food back to the village – assuming they could find a source of supplies that wasn't over run...

  Joy took the wheel as Sage sat beside her and Mickey took the end seat. The engine started up smoothly and Joy took the van out of the parking space and headed down the slope, taking a twisting, turning route with more than a few bumps as they went over flattened corpses that crunched beneath the wheels, but as they drove out of the parking area, the way was clear. The creatures were still piling into the mall as the sound of the alarm filled the town square. They drove off towards the short route that led to the road, driving over bodies flattened already by the van on its way out, and then they turned on to a snow covered road where the route was clear. Joy drove carefully, weaving around a few wrecked cars, then they had a straight run to the end of the road, where they would turn off and take the second part of the journey. The mood in the van was becoming relaxed as Mickey wound down a window and a blast of fresh air came in.

  “That wasn't as hard as I expected it to be!”

  “That's why I worry,” Sage replied, “This time we had a way out. One day, we might not be so lucky.”

  “But not today,” Joy said, and she glanced at Mickey as they exchanged a smile, then the van drove on, heading for the meeting point.

  By now the others had arrived, parking the van in a car park that sat beside a fast food outlet that was closed up. There were others cars dotted about the parking area, and the place was silent. Chris listened as nothing but cold air and the breeze came in through the open driver's window as Curtis looked out towards the building. In the distance were a few small stores, all with shutters down. He looked at the signs above them.

  “A pet store, an electrical place and another fast food shop. No good to us.”

  “What about this place?” asked River as she leaned forward, indicating to the outlet close to the van.

  “Forget it,” Curtis said, “It's a burger place, it will be full of rotted food and fresh but frozen supplies in the freezer unit. We can't take it with us. We need canned and dried goods, stuff that can last.”

  “Can we get out?” asked Poppy.

  “I think it's clear, I hear nothing out there but the wind,” said Chris.

  Curtis glanced out the window, then leaned right out, taking a look around.

  “No footprints in the snow,” he said, “There's nothing about, were clear.”

  River and Poppy got out of the back of the van as Curtis got out the front first, followed by Chris.

  “Do we see any suitable vehicles?” he asked.

  River zipped her snow coat up to her chin and glanced about.

  “It's all cars... nothing with a huge amount of storage space.”

  “And most likely no keys,” said Curtis, “This place has been shut down a long time. I see no bodies, nothing... Most people must have left when the evacuation started.”

  River paused for thought as they walked away from the vehicle and stood there in the middle of the snowy car park.

  “I wonder if there was any point in evacuating? So called safe places can't be that safe... there's more dead than there are living by my estimate.”

  “I heard, before the media shut down, that a designated safe zone up in Cumbria was over run,” said Chris, “It was a news report that lasted about two minutes then they switched to something else, and it was never mentioned again. I guess they wanted to try and avoid panic.”

  “Yeah, they just gave up and left us like this, to fend for ourselves,” Curtis remarked.

  The whole place was still as the sunlight shone down making snow look crystalline as it sparkled while the drip-drip of melting icicles could be heard from the guttering of the fast food place nearby.

  “At lease the snow is starting to thaw,” said River, “Spring will be easier, we won't have to worry about freezing to death.”

  “No, but we still have to avoid getting eaten alive,” added Chris, and River gave him a nudge as he turned his head.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Not so loud. Poppy's exploring. Let her be a child, she doesn't need reminders of how bad it really is.”

  “Sorry, I was just being honest. It could be this way forever. We don't know it will be over in a year.”

  “Until we find out,” River said to him, “Let's try and have some hope, shall we?”

  “We can try,” Chris agreed as he stood there in his dark glasses, hearing no hint of a threat close by, “But don't cling to hope too tightly. This world is already in pieces. It won't go back the way it was, it can never be the same again.”

  “But that doesn't mean we have to go to hell with it,” River added, “There's still hope. I can't think otherwise.”

  While they stood there talking, Poppy had trudged in the snow around the side of the building. She looked ahead and saw no foot prints, only a thick blanket of white that sparkled under winter sun. There was a low brick wall around an empty outdoor seating area, and she climbed up and began to walk along it, the wall ran straight and then curved to the back of the building, where she jumped down and then stopped sharply. There were foot prints in the snow, and they were not clean steps, nor were they dragging, it was as if many steps had been taken here, and it was leading towards the building. She looked to the marks in the snow, they led up to a place where the shutter hung loose on a doorway, but as it sat rigid and buckled, gaping open to darkness within, Poppy saw no movement. She turned back and ran around to the other side, looking through windows, seeing nothing but empty tables.

  “What's wrong?” asked River as she hurried over to her.

  Poppy looked up at her.

  “I thought I saw footprints but there's nobody there.”

  By now Curtis had joined her as Chris followed, hearing his boots crunch in the snow as he let the sound guide him over to the others.

  “What's going on?” said Curtis.

  “Nothing. Poppy thought she saw footprints in the snow, but there's no one in that place, we can see through the windows.”

  “Let me listen,” said Chris, and they fell silent as he stood there, listening intently as the breeze passed through cold and all he heard was the rattle of a loose shutter somewhere.

  “I can't hear anything,” he said.

  “But I saw footprints, like boots in the snow!” Poppy insisted.

  “Where did they go?” asked Chris.

  “Into the burger place!”

  “I'll go,” said Curtis, and River told Poppy to wait with Chris as they walked quickly around the side of the building, then approached the back way together, following the tracks left in the snow by Poppy.

  Back near the van, Poppy waited with Chris.

  “I know I saw it!” she insisted.

  “And we believe you, but it might not be footprints,” Chris told her.

  “I know what footprints look like!” Poppy said, “Someone is in the building!”

  Chris listened again. He heard the rattle of the shutter, it was coming from around the back, but it only stirred with the flow of the breeze as it passed through.

  “It's all silent,” he confirmed, “Maybe someone passed through and left again.”

  “So why didn't we see more marks in the sn
ow, like footsteps or a car?” Poppy took a few steps closer to the building. She could see through the place from one window close by to the window on the other side, and the place was in part shadow with the lights off, but nothing moved within. She could see sunlight spilling on to some of the tables. The place was empty.

  “There's no one there,” Chris told her, as Poppy went back to join him, “We're not used to the world the way it is now, it's like a ghost town and it's full of strange noises and sights but it doesn't mean danger is lurking. This place has been empty for a long time.”

  Poppy looked about the place, seeing empty parked cars and untrodden snow. It seemed empty...

  “Maybe you're right,” she agreed.

  “I am right, stop worrying,” Chris told her, “There's a lot of danger outside these days, but not everywhere is like that. Sometimes, we do find safe places. They do still exist.”

  “I hope so,” Poppy added quietly as she stood there beside him, still watching and listening, yet hearing nothing but the breeze and the sound of the loose shutter.

  Curtis was standing there at the back of the building, taking a good look at the shutter that was buckled on one side as he studied the marks in the snow. It looked like someone had walked out and gone back in, but the snow was starting to melt and maybe something had fallen from the rooftop – icicles, perhaps, to mar the smoothness of the snow.

  “I don't know,” he said to River as they stood there,”We can see through the windows. No one is in there now.”

  She frowned as she looked to the buckled shutter.

  “I wonder what did that?”

  “Maybe it happened when the place was shut down, they were in a hurry to leave. Or maybe someone else came by here a while back and took shelter. They could have broken in. But there's no one here now, we can see through the windows.”

  River glanced at her watch.