The Darkest Winter

by Lindsey Pogue

  “No,” he said, eyes hardening into slits. “He won’t. But you’re not helpless, and you won’t be ever again. We’ll work every day until you feel safe, with or without Jackson and Elle or anyone else’s help, for that matter.”

  Everything Alex ever told me felt like a promise. His words always nestled their way in the cold spots in my bones and warmed me from the inside out. I knew he meant every word, and I knew he was right. I wasn’t defenseless, I just needed to be more certain.

  He squeezed my biceps through my jacket. “But we have our work cut out for us.”

  I shoved him this time, and he stumbled back. “There she is!” he said with a laugh. “Bring that to a fight and we’ll have to take bets.”

  I couldn’t help but smile.

  “Alex!” Jackson called from the porch balcony. We both peered up at him [H166]as his eyes rested on us below.

  “Shit, I was supposed to get you and Elle.” Alex looked at me. “Jackson wants us to circle up so he can fill us in on a few things. I think he and Ross talked this morning, a lot[SF167].”

  Jackson stared down at us, frowning. It had been permanently etched in his brow since he woke up. “Where’s Elle?”

  “I’ll get her,” I offered. “She’s at the river taking photos.”

  He glanced over the balcony toward the water and nodded. “We’ll meet up in the living room.”

  “Okay.”

  I shoved Alex one more time for good measure, earning a grunt from him and a chuckle, then headed down the trail toward the water.

  Alex was right. We just needed time. We needed routine and a home, and once we did, everything might fall into place. I’d come a long way from a fourteen-story building, and I tried to imagine what life would look like a few years from now.

  The trail was muddy with willows and fingerlike, defrosting branches lined the way to the water.

  I heard a rustle in the bushes. “Elle? Jackson wants to meet.” I followed the bend in the path and rounded a boulder.

  I gasped. Froze. My heart thudded, and I couldn’t move as a mass of black moved in front of me, and just as I was about to scream, everything went black.[LP168]

  Chapter 59

  Jackson

  I paced the window, waiting for Elle and Sophie to come up the trail. I’d had a bad feeling since I woke up and now wasn’t the time to worry about pictures.

  “Where the hell are they?” I glared at Alex. “It’s been almost an hour.”

  Alex set the maps in his lap down on the coffee table and walked over to the window. “You know as much as me. She said would get Elle . . .”

  I’d finally gotten drunken Bert off the couch and some coffee in him. Ross was up and showered, hell the kids were easier to wrangle than the rest of the lot.

  Apprehension mounting, I headed out the door. “Elle! Sophie!” I stopped on the crest of the hill. “Let’s wrap it up!”

  But a sickening feeling settled inside of me when they didn’t answer. “Elle?” I stepped off the porch[K169]. I rested my hand on my Glock as I marched through the yard, past the fire pit, and down the path. “Elle!” I shouted, but it was fear lacing my voice, not anger.

  The sickening feeling coiled, alive in my chest as I ran the length of the path. My heart raced as I thought of everything that could’ve happened. Bears. A crazy lunatic attacking them. They’d fallen in the river and gotten swept away.

  I stopped at the end of the path at the muddy bank of the water. The water drifted, not strong enough yet to carry them away. I looked upstream and then down. “Elle!”

  My boot slipped in the mud and as I caught myself on the trunk of a pine tree, my muscles coiled even tighter. Bootprints, long and wide, size eleven or twelve—eight, maybe ten overlapping [LP170]each other, I couldn’t tell. They had grip outsole, which could be any tactical shoe. Holding my breath, I crouched down, my gun in one hand and I felt the mud with the other. It was fresh, wet and glistening in the sunlight.

  I scoured the water’s edge for more shoe prints, but there were none. There was nothing but a slight breeze and rippling water. I walked through the trees, scoured the branches, looking for something broken that would give us some sign. There was nothing.

  “Fuck!” I shouted, running my fingers through my hair. I needed to get a grip. I needed to calm down and think.

  “What is it?” Alex gasped, running to a stop at the mouth of the trail.

  “Elle’s gone,” I breathed, grabbing my head. “Elle and Sophie are gone.” I hit my first against a hapless tree trunk. We hadn’t been there twelve hours and my worst fears had already come true.

  Ross came running up behind Alex, and I spun on him. The print was military grade, just like the ones he was wearing. Grabbing him by his collar, I lifted him to his feet. “What are they?” I growled.

  “Fuck, Jackson, I don’t know!” His eyes were wide with surprise, his chest heaving but not as much as mine was with fear and unadulterated anger.

  “You’ve been acting weird since we got here. I know you know something. Tell me or I swear—”

  “Jackson!” Alex shouted. “Calm down. We don’t know it was him. He’s been with us this whole time.”

  Ross glanced at Alex then back at me. “Listen to the kid, Jackson. You’re out of your goddamn mind if you think I was behind this.”

  I let go of him, Ross trying to catch his balance. “Jesus Christ, man, how did I go from bro to being your number one suspect?”

  “You’re the only one who knows we’re here.”

  He laughed, humorless and fuming. “Are you shitting me, man? You drove a fucking F-350 plow truck through an empty town, everyone there knows you’re here.”

  “There are survivors then?” People who would do bad things to Elle and Sophie the first chance they got.

  “I don’t know, Jackson. I didn’t exactly walk into town with an old drunk and knock on doors looking for psychopaths who like to eat flesh.”

  I frowned.

  “Look, Jackson. I know this looks bad[SF171] and is the last thing you want to hear right now, but we know what sort of people are out there. Anyone could’ve taken them.”

  My breath stuck in my throat. I was in the hospital again, surrounded with the cold sweat of ear and desperation.

  Alex grabbed my arm, his brown eyes wild with fear and determination. “We have to find them.”

  I nodded. Yes. We did. And Elle wasn’t like Hannah. She wasn’t helpless. Elle was strong, and she was fierce and she would protect them, we just had to find them.

  I ran past Alex and Ross, toward the house.

  “Where are you going?” Ross called, and I heard the clomp of footsteps running up behind me.

  I needed Beau. “I’m getting more help.”

  Chapter 60

  Elle

  My mind flicked on, like a switch turns on the light in a dark room, and I opened my eyes. I blinked as my vision adjusted to the darkness sprinkled with filtered light from outside the room. It was confined and cold. I hadn’t been cold in so long. As my eyes perked open, I noticed the cement walls and the sharp scent of metal and stale air filled my nostrils.

  An outline of a man sat in a halo of light that shone from the ceiling above him, his face was cast in shadows. [LP172]

  My eyes opened wider. My heart raced. An opened door propped open separated us, like I was in a sterile, airless cage.

  The man dressed in black. He’d appeared in the water. There was a boat, but then everything went black.[H173]

  “Mornin’ sunshine,” drawled a familiar voice. I tried to sit up, but my hands were tied behind my back. My blood boiled, but not with the anger and rage and fear I knew I could use to my advantage. I couldn’t feel the fire at all, and panic riddled its way through my veins in its place.

  “What do you want?” I bite out, trying not to show fear, but if he was anything like the other basket cases, he probably already knew just how scared of him I was.

  “I just want to talk.” There
was an amused lilt to his voice that worried me.

  “About what?” I seethed. “Because this isn’t a great way to make friends.”

  He chuckled. “Touché.” The man stood up, still covered in shadow as he walked closer to my cell. His footsteps echoed against the concrete, cold like permafrost beneath me. “You’re right thought. I’m sorry about all this.”

  “For what, kidnapping me?”

  He laughed again. “I guess that is what it looks like, doesn’t it?” He paced back and forth, like a warden might do, but I was no criminal, and he was clearly no warden. “I’m not one of the bad guys, I promise.” But the amusement in his voice said otherwise.

  “That’s what all the bad guys say.” I tried to wiggle my wrists free of my bindings, what felt like cuffs and rope bindings combined.

  He shrugged. “I have a couple questions and then I’ll let you go. It’s that simple. Or, I might decide to lock you in here forever. I haven’t decided yet.”

  “You mean, you’ll let me go if you like my answers,” I added.

  He wagged his finger at me as he stepped into the light. “You’re smart, and you’ve got some fire in you.” He was a middle-aged man with crazy blonde hair and a beak-like nose. He had beady eyes and a permanent smile parting his lips, exposing the gap between his straight white teeth. “I like it.” He nodded appreciatively. “It means you’re not easily swayed.”

  I couldn’t listen to his psychobabble much longer. My heart would beat out of my chest any minute and if I wasn’t careful, I might pass out again. “Jackson!” I screamed. “Help, Jackson! I’m in here!”

  “It’s okay, scream. Go ahead. Get it out.” He shrugged. “No one can hear you.” He held his hands out, like he was welcoming it, and tears burned the backs of my eyes.

  “Beau! I’m in here!” Maybe no person could hear me. I was probably underground in a bunker. But if the wolves could hear me, maybe he would too. “Beau, I’m in here!” I hit my fists on the floor, my chains clanking, and shouted from the top of my lungs.

  The man turned on his heel. “When you’re ready, let me know and we can talk. I’ll pop in to see your friend in the cell down the hall while you get the shouting and the screaming out of your system.”

  My heart pounded to a screeching halt. I could barely form the words. “What—who? Please don’t hurt them—”

  “Uh, I didn’t get a name before we snatched her,” he mused, tapping his chin with his crooked index finger. “She’s younger, about five-foot-six inches or so, give or take with reddish-blonde hair.”

  “Sophie,” I breathed. “Please, don’t hurt her, she’s just a kid.”

  “I won’t hurt her unless I have to,” he said so nonchalant, I wanted to rip his head off.

  “Fine, ask me then, whatever you want. Ask me and I’ll tell you.” I wanted him to forget Sophie was in the other room. I need his attention on me while I figured something out. I wondered if I could lure him closer and the fire would return.

  “So,” he said, pulling his chair from the shadows so he could sit closer to the doorway. “I want to know why he sent you.” He was wearing army fatigues, but they were old and tattered, and he didn’t look to be in well enough shape to have been in the armed forces before the outbreak.

  My mind raced between distractions and his questions. I blinked. “What?”

  The psychopath chuckled again, laughing at everything that didn’t go exactly his way. I contemplated whether he was crazy before or after the outbreak.

  “Look,” I breathed, and spoke slowly and as carefully as I could. “No one sent me. I was passing through with Sophie and we stayed at an abandoned house by the water. That’s all.”

  “Are you related?” he asked, catching me off guard. “You two don’t really look related.”

  “Uh, no. We’re not related. We’re just . . . family,” I said blinking back tears. “Did any of your relatives survive?” I hedged, wondering if this was a tangent I could take advantage of.

  “No, not that I’m aware of,” he said easily. “But then I never really had any family,” he mused. “I’ve been what most people would call a ‘strange bird’ all my life. Very introverted, a little crazy, but all the best people are, am I right?” He pointed at me as if he thought I might actually laugh.

  I tried to smile, to act like he didn’t petrify me, but I couldn’t manage it. “Sophie’s just a kid. Please, let her go.”

  He stared down at his hands as he made a show of thinking about it. “But she’s not just an ordinary kid, is she?” He looked at me, right into my eyes past the shadows. It wasn’t really a question, in fact, he leaned forward, his gaze settling on me, knowing far too much.

  I swallowed thickly.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not like those kooks you’ve seen out there. I’m not after kids. I’m on the lookout for military folk, yellow bands and black bands. I hear they’re out in force these days, and I quite frankly want to kill every last one of them. So,” he said, his easiness solidifying to something more terrifying. “Are you here on his behalf and do I need to kill you?”

  “Whose behalf?” I whispered, knowing I would never get out of here if he thought I was part of some delusion. “I don’t know what bands you’re talking about.”

  The angles in his face sharpened. He stood up, pacing again. “I’ve been telling people for years the government would do this. They would unleash a super killer that would take out the world, but in all fairness, I was wrong. The virus didn’t take out the world, just 90% of human life.” He shrugged. “I think I still earned that point, though. In my opinion at least.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked again. If the figment of his imagination had a face, I might use it again him.

  “I’ve heard whispers about him for years,” he continued as if he hadn’t heard a single word. “Yet somehow people are surprised.” He chuckled to himself and shook his head. “I tried to tell them. Doesn’t it suck always being right?” His voice was so familiar, I could almost place it . . .

  The more he paced the more desperate I was to find the fire inside that had been gaining strength for months. Where was it when I needed it—why wouldn’t it come?

  “I should probably tell you that your mutated capabilities don’t affect me in this place,” he said.

  “What—how did you know?”

  “I might be crazy, but I’m not stupid,” he said. “I wasn’t gonna bring you down here just to kill me, silly.” He grinned amused by my confusion.

  “But, all jokes aside. I will kill you if you don’t tell me what you’re doing here. I’m fair, but my patience tend to run out when I get bored. And I promise, if I have to probe you to get the truth, I will.”

  “I told you! I don’t know what you’re talking about! What else do you want me to say? I. Don’t. Know. Anything. I don’t know how the virus spread or what it even is. I don’t even know what’s wrong with me. I thought I was dead and woke up, and now I’m not the same. Just let me see Sophie. Please!”

  “What do you think, Stanley? Is she telling the truth?”

  Tears streamed down my cheeks, a cold sweat making me feel sick to my stomach, like I was sick all over again. He was talking to himself now too.

  But then I saw a man’s shadow drawing closer as he walked quietly up the hall. He barely stepped into view and peeked his head forward to see me. The man wore black-rimmed glasses and a suit and bowtie. I heard him whisper, but couldn’t make out what he was saying.

  “You’ll have to speak louder, Stanley. That’s my bad ear.”

  “She’s telling the truth,” he said, his words like a warm blanket of hope.

  “Does she know the General[SF174]?”

  Stanley shook his head. “I, um. I don’t think so.”

  The crazy man looked at me. “Do you know the General, Elle? Tell the truth now, you’re doing so well.”

  I glanced between the two men, praying this wasn’t a trick. I shook my head. “No,” I whispered. “
I don’t know the general.”

  “Well, why didn’t you say so from the start?” He said, a grin engulfing his face. I heard the door down the hall shut and realized Stanley was gone.

  He walked over to the doorway with his hands on his hips. “In that case, sorry for the inconvenience, Ma’am. You should’ve told me you were one of us.”

  “What?”

  “It’s just a precaution. You can’t trust the government, they have spies everywhere.” I gasped. “You’re the voice from the radio.”

  “Oh, good! You’ve heard the show. The name’s Woody.” He waved me to my feet. “Come on now, let’s get you out of here. I’ll take you to your friend.”

  “You broadcast from a dungeon?”

  He chuckled. “It’s not a dungeon, they don’t make those anymore[SF175].”

  I laughed this time, hysteria bubbling up inside me.

  He pulled a key out from his pocked, my heart racing as he motioned for me to turn around.

  It couldn’t have been that simple.

  He was crazy, he wouldn’t just let me go.

  “I should probably tell you,” he said, just before the cuffs released. “Your powers won’t work here, not until you leave, so I wouldn’t try anything.” He dipped his chin. “Promise?”

  I nodded. “Promise,” I said, inaudible even to myself.

  Woody was crazy, that was for sure.[H176]

  “Now, there are a few things you should probably know . . . .

  Chapter 61

  Jackson

  Three hours. One hundred-and eighty-nine minutes we took to get gear, jump in the truck, and follow the wolves until they found Elle and Sophie’s scent four miles upriver.

  We’d ditched the trucks on the side of the road, hoofing it behind the wolves as they scattered and sniffed, searching for whatever trace they could find that would take us to them. The closer to the city we drew the more panicked I became.

  “A boat!” Alex shouted ahead, and I ran through the trees, toward him. “They can’t be far then, right?”

  “God, I hope not,” I said, pivoting to search the mud for more tracks.