Winter Castle

by Isla Jones

  W I N T E R

  C A S T L E

  ISLA JONES

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  WELCOME TO THE PLAGUE … AGAIN

  I LOST EVERYTHING

  ROBBERS CAVE

  I GUESS WE BECAME FRIENDS

  THE DAY I FOUND YOU

  OUR LAST DAY AT THE CABIN

  FAMILY OF ROTTERS

  ROTTER RECRUITMENT

  TOYS FOR BOYS

  THE SHIFT

  THE GREAT FALL

  CASTLE’S UNVEILING

  MY BABY, MY WORLD, MY CLEO

  THE MEET-UP POINT

  THE FORGOTTEN TOWN

  DON’T PICK UP STRAYS

  THE PROBLEM WITH STRAYS

  ZOE’S UNSOLICITED ADVICE

  THE OTHERS

  WELCOME TO THE PLAGUE … AGAIN

  ENTRY ONE

  My name is Winter Miles and this isn’t my first diary. I’ve written one before, five months into these horrors, but I chucked it off a cliff-side.

  If you’ve found this and you’re reading my story, then you know what has happened to the world. Rabies took over; vicious and merciless, slaughtering cities and towns and animals. It took my Cleo…

  Cleo is my dog—was my dog. I don’t know what happened to her back at the farmhouse. Another group had tracked us to steal our secret cargo—a secret I’m still out of the loop on—and they’d brought the rotters with them. That group is a force; one that outsmarted and overpowered us. They are defected delta soldiers and they’re after us.

  Castle and I were separated from the others. We are going to meet-up points to find any survivors. But until then, it’s just me and Castle—the last person I’d ever want to spend an apocalypse with. The delta soldier I loathe … or had once loathed.

  I was on the cliff’s edge.

  I threw my first diary over the side. I didn’t hear it hit the rocks at the bottom of the slope. I hobbled to the edge, my boots crunching on the dried leaves, my limp slowing me down. My ankle still hurt; Castle had bandaged it earlier that day. But it wasn’t day anymore, it was night and I was about to join the stars forever.

  I paused at the edge of the cliff. The rush hit me and my vision blurred. Adrenaline had clutched me too soon. But I inched closer to the side and raised my arms, ready to fall like an angel plummeting to hell.

  But I was already in hell. Hell is earth, now.

  Castle must’ve followed me. I hadn’t heard him move through the trees, but with him being a delta I suppose I’d only hear him if he wanted me to. It makes me wonder how many times he’d followed me during the nights I’d wandered away from the cave to relieve myself in the bushes. Was he making sure I came back in one piece? Was he making sure I didn’t become one of them?

  Or was he making sure I didn’t do what I was doing—standing at the edge of the cliff, ready to fall for my sins and cowardice?

  I might never know.

  Before I titled forward; before I leaned down into the abyss, my entire body was thrown through the air. Castle had lunged out of whatever tree he hid behind and tackled me to the ground.

  I LOST EVERYTHING

  ENTRY TWO

  The dirt and dried leaves wafted up around us upon impact.

  I saw stars. Not the ones in the sky above, the ones behind my eyelids. I blinked, clearing my vision until I saw him—Castle, and his blazing eyes. Castle’s blond waves dangled, the tips brushing over my own forehead; his sharp emerald eyes gleamed from sun-touched skin like the moon from the night sky.

  “What the fuck were you thinking?” he hissed in my face. “Are you really that weak?” I almost flinched from the venom in his voice. “So weak that you’d rather die than live without the ones we lost?”

  I felt as if he’d slapped me. I tensed, my eyelids clenched shut—but when I opened them again, the tautness in my jaw ached.

  “The ones we lost?” I whispered. My voice trembled along with my hands, but not from fear. “WE?”

  Castle braced himself before my hand even curled into a fist. I grunted as I punched out at him, but his face turned away from me in time.

  “YOU DIDN’T LOSE ANYONE!”

  I can barely remember what I shouted between blows to his head. All I remember is the gutted feeling in my stomach; the rage that hugged me.

  “YOU DON’T CARE! YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT ANYONE OTHER THAN YOUR STUPID-ASS SELF!”

  My fist unwrapped, and I resorted to a stream of slaps that rained down on the back of his head. He curved over me, taking the hits, tense as ever.

  “Get off of me!” I cried. My legs kicked out beneath him. My bad ankle hit the ground and I hissed through my teeth at the sharp bolt of pain. “I just want it to end! It’s not your choice, it’s mine! It’s mine!”

  Castle dodged another strike aimed at his head. He ducked, then snatched my flailing arms and pinned them to the dirt.

  I grunted, trying to buck him from my body. He straddled me quickly, in one smooth motion, and held me down. His head dipped, his face an inch from mine, and the warmth of his breath heated up my skin.

  “You don’t get to opt out whenever it gets tough,” he whispered. His voice might’ve been quiet, but it wasn’t gentle—there was a hushed warning beneath the softness and it sent a shiver down my spine. I stopped fighting and met his green eyes, alight with fury. “Did you think it would be easy? Did you think there wasn’t danger?”

  An ache seared the back of my neck; I lifted my head from the ground, our noses touching, and I spat back at him, “It’s your fault. It’s your fault Cleo died—You did this.”

  Castle didn’t even blink. Behind the anger burning in his crisp-green eyes was a sheet of indifference. He didn’t care who they lost on the way to Washington DC. Castle only cared about himself and the mission.

  “People die,” he said. “I could have left you behind, but I made sure you got out of there safely. This is how you repay me? By throwing your life away over a little grief?”

  A little grief.

  Anger reignited within me. I bared my teeth and hiked up my knee—I heard his groan before I felt my kneecap connect. I’d kneed him in his worthless jewels. One of his hands shot down between us to cup the wounded area; I bucked and rolled him off of me.

  I laid still.

  Castle was on his back beside me. The dirt had found its way through the torn fabric of my t-shirt, and the tiny grains rubbed against my back. I sighed and shut my eyes to stop the tears from leaking. I didn’t want to cry in front of him again.

  Leaves rustled.

  At first, I’d thought it was Castle moving on the ground. But I turned to face him and he lay perfectly still; his brows had furrowed, and his hand inched from his crotch to his holster. I tensed, my breath hitching.

  The sound came again. I craned my neck, slowly, and looked behind us to the trees and bushes. It was too dark to see beyond them, but something was in there.

  I whispered, “Did you hear—”

  Castle cut me off; his free hand slapped against my mouth, hushing my words. He looked at me, and through the darkness I saw the storm settle in his bright eyes—they cooled into icy slats, and I recognised what that meant instantly.

  Dread trickled through me.

  I might’ve been ready to die moments before, but not by rotters—rotters didn’t care about how quickly you died, how much pain you were in. They either beat you to a pulp, consumed by rage, or they ate you until you turned or there was nothing left to eat.

  Castle slipped the gun from his holster. I heard the pop of the clasp. Then, not a second after, the bushes behind us shook; the rustle was louder.

  I rolled onto my front, keeping my gaze on the bush. I pushed myself to my knees as Castle sat up beside me. Over the crunch of the leaves beneath us, I
heard the steady thrum of my heartbeat pump throughout my body.

  Castle nudged me on the arm. It was the one that’d been shot a few weeks ago. The pain jolted through me and I muffled a groan. I glowered at him, and he jerked his head. He was telling me to stand up. So I did.

  My movements were slow. My shoulder ached, still healing from the gunshot. My ankle burned, still the size and colour of a plum from rolling it.

  I bit my lip, hard. It muffled any hisses of pain that crawled up my throat. As I pushed all my weight onto my legs and stood, Castle did the same beside me. His gaze was fixed ahead on the bushes.

  The trees and bushes were motionless. Whatever was in there—or had been in there—was either gone, ignorant to us, or watching us. It could be someone from the other group; the defected deltas. It could be a rotter, hunting us like prey.

  I didn’t know which option was worse.

  What I did know was that I brought them to us. It had been my shouts that led them up the hill to where we were. I did this.

  Castle reached out for me. His fingers coiled around my wrist, and he stepped back. I barely heard the dirt or leaves or twigs flatten beneath his boot.

  He guided me backwards. We moved quietly.

  Nothing happened.

  I almost let myself think it had been the breeze, that we’d get back down to the cave safely. But it’s never save in this world. Not ever.

  Castle released me and gave me a knife. I took it and my sweaty hand curled around the leather-bound handle. Then, the bushes ahead rattled. They didn’t rustle or sway, they shook as if a violent gust of wind had shoved through it. But there was no wind.

  I staggered back, the knife raised in my shaky hand. Castle aimed the gun ahead.

  And the second he did, a shadow lurched out of the trees. It tripped over the bush and staggered to a stop. Then, it saw us, and we saw it—the reddened, bloodshot eyes piercing through the darkness of the night, the tattered clothes smeared with blood.

  It wasn’t a shadow. It was a rotter. A young one; fresh and muscular and strong.

  I screamed. I know I shouldn’t have, but it was an instinct. I screamed and scrambled backwards, moving behind Castle. Castle pulled the trigger and the rotter went down.

  I scoffed. At my own dramatics, the fear pumping through me, or at myself because I’d forgotten about the gun. And just as soon as I ridiculed myself, something snatched me from behind.

  I was yanked away from Castle, and I really screamed this time. Castle turned around, but whatever he was going to do was interrupted—two rotters came sprinting out of the trees and charged at him. Castle was tackled to the ground. I couldn’t help him yet.

  My wild eyes glanced down at the arms around me. Rotter arms.

  I threw up my legs before I heaved my whole body down. We hit the ground, and I took the full force of the rotter’s weight crashing onto my back. Its fingers tangled in my hair and pulled, its legs straddling me, its mouth open and ready to bite down on my skin—

  My hand reached out and snatched a rock. I tried to wriggle away, but my front was pressed firmly into the ground. Through the panic, I didn’t feel the ache in my shoulder or the sting in my ankle. I swung back my arm, elbowing the rotter in the face. It didn’t stop the creature. Its face swept down, a crazed movement to rip me apart with its teeth. Just as it neared, I shoved the rock backwards and the rotter smacked its mouth into the hard stone. The shatter and crack of its teeth made me shiver.

  I held the rock in place, right at the nape of my neck. The rotter smacked its head down again, trying to bite through the stone to my skin. It smashed its own teeth up, and I looked around for Castle. It was hard to see, and that’s when I realised that there were tears in my eyes. I wasn’t sad; adrenaline makes me cry sometimes.

  My eyes lingered over a limp body a few metres away. It was dark, and through the tears it was hard to tell what—or who—it was. But then I saw movement ahead, by the bush and trees that rotters had come from. I squinted.

  It was Castle, fighting off the second rotter. He ducked out of the way as the creature lunged at him. He spun around and kicked the infectee in the back, sending it crashing into a sturdy tree-trunk. But Castle didn’t use his gun; he didn’t have it. Where was it?

  My gaze swept the dirt, searching for the gun. A glint of metal caught my sight—a metre away from me lay my knife. It must’ve fallen out of my hand when we’d crashed to the dirt.

  The rotter let go of my hair. It was switching tactics. If it scratched me, I’d be doomed. It took the moment—digging my shoes into the dirt, I bent my knees and rammed the rock back into the rotter’s face. It connected with a crunch.

  I lunged forward, my hand outstretched, reaching for the knife.

  I landed on the dirt again. A groan, stifled and pained, choked at the back of my throat. I grabbed the knife and spun around, just as the rotter soared through the air. It smacked onto the dirt beside me, right where I was a second before.

  I fumbled with the knife, lifting it up; the rotter’s wild face was smeared in dirt, and it scrambled to its knees. It jumped forward, a vicious snarl crawling through its open mouth, its yellowed teeth ground into jagged scraps.

  I rammed the knife up, and stabbed it into the thing’s eyeball.

  The rotter jerked, then went still. My hand gripped tightly onto the handle, and I twisted it. The rotter twitched. It’s hand lazily dragged over the dirt to reach me. I rolled away and got to my feet, leaving the knife stuck into the rotter’s face.

  Before I could even balance myself, another large figure came sprinting toward me.

  I flinched. It grabbed my arm and kept running. It was Castle.

  I choked on a sigh of relief and stumbled beside him. His grip was tight on my arm, and his fingertips dug into my skin. But we kept running; even through the pain of my ankle—we hobbled and skid down the hill.

  A snarl was right behind us. One was following.

  “Where’s your gun?” I shouted, leaping over a boulder.

  “Lost it.” He jumped over a bush, pulling me along, and skidded down the muddy slope of the hill. “Watch out for that—”

  I tripped and landed on my side.

  Gravity won; I tumbled down the hill and knocked Castle off his feet. We rolled, limbs tangled together, a rotter right behind us. The slope was too steep. I tried to dig my fingers into the dirt, to stop tumbling, but I only broke nails. Castle’s stomach whacked into a boulder, and he held on. I crashed into him, hitting my head on his hard shoulder, and inhaled a bite of air through my teeth.

  My body would ache all over after that night. Before I could gather my wits and climb out of the daze I was in, Castle had jumped to his feet, grabbing a rock as he did so. The rotter chasing us scrambled closer. I squinted up at the shadowy hill and saw the infectee lumber down at a slant.

  It jumped—hands splayed, ready to grab onto its prey. But Castle lunged forward, too, and cracked the rock against its head. The rotter dropped to the ground, and Castle moved with it; diving on top of it, rock in hand, before he struck the creature again.

  I winced, looking away. The sound of hit after hit after hit had my stomach churning. Bile seared at my throat as I managed to climb onto the boulder and sit.

  When the thumps and grunts stopped, I looked back at Castle. The rotter didn’t have a face anymore. It didn’t have a head anymore. I swallowed back the acidic bile, and watched Castle get to his feet.

  Blood soaked him. Splotches of it dripped from his mousy-blonde hair; crimson smears streaked up and down his golden arms, and his grey t-shirt had a jagged circle of deep red blood on the front. When blood dried, I realised, it never looks like it does in the movies. It turns brown, as if it had gone off.

  Castle ran his fingers through his hair. He might as well have dunked his hair in a bucket of blood; it came away ruby-red in patches.

  I don’t imagine I looked any better. My peach-blond hair likely tangled around my face in balls of matted blood and dirt, m
y freckles were probably hidden by smears of a rotter’s gooey brains, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I had cuts and bruises on my face.

  My eyes followed Castle as he came down the hill toward me. I waited for the icy chill of his voice, for him to tell me how useless I am, and to learn just how much he hated me. But he stopped in front of me, his apple-green eyes piercing down at me, and he just sighed.

  A moment passed before he knelt down in front of me and said, “If you really wanted to die, you would have let those infectees kill you.”

  He stood up, hooping his arm around my waist as he did. I rose with him, keeping my bad ankle off the ground.

  Castle stared down at me, and while his eyes still held their veil of sharp stone, I wasn’t as afraid of him as I had once been.

  “Don’t do that to me again,” he said, and helped me down the hill to the cave.

  ROBBERS CAVE

  ENTRY THREE

  Castle said we had to move.

  The cave we used by the lake just wasn’t safe anymore. We’d stayed there for too long and after our fight up the hill, more rotters might come.

  We’d left at dawn, before the sun had even kissed the sky.

  My ankle slowed us down. Castle had redressed it with a washed bandage and we’d cleaned ourselves in the lake before leaving. When he’d taken his shirt off, I saw a bruise—bigger than my backpack—covering the side of his torso. I think he might’ve hurt his ribs, but if I hadn’t seen the bruise for myself, I wouldn’t have known he was injured at all. No one has a better poker face than Castle.

  We walked for the first day, only stopping for toilet breaks and to rest my ankle. His chilly silence told me how much he loathed that I was with him. But if he hated me so much, he shouldn’t have saved me—he shouldn’t have taken me away from Cleo or the cliff-side.

  When night came, we didn’t stop for long. I showed Castle my trick to hide from the rotters. I hadn’t much of a choice if I wanted to keep moving.