Whispers in the Mist: Black Winter Book Three

by Coates, Darcy

  Clare gently shook Dorran’s arm to wake him. He’d been in a deep sleep, and it took him a moment to emerge. As he sat upright and squinted through the windows, the tiredness fled from his eyes. “Oh.”

  The house was near the top of a hill. Behind it were solid wooden fences that must have been used to house cattle before the stillness. The bus wheels skidded on frozen mud as Beth pushed it up the incline. They crested the worst of the rise and slowed as they neared the dirt parking area ahead of the house’s front door. Beth pulled on the handbrake and turned off the engine.

  “It looks unoccupied, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s empty.” She drummed her fingertips on the wheel. “If there are humans inside, we’ll leave. If they’re hollows, we’ll kill them. Agreed?”

  They both nodded. Beth, keeping one eye on the front door, rose and began to sort through the storage compartments. She tossed them each an extra jacket then dished out weapons: a broom handle sharpened into a stake for Dorran and a crowbar for Clare. She herself carried the piece of rebar she’d used the previous day. They gathered at the bus’s front. Beth glanced over them, checking they were protected well enough, then pulled open the bus’s door.

  Chapter Ten

  Clare had thought she was prepared for the cold, but she was still shocked by its severity. She clenched her teeth as ice scraped across her cheeks and tangled in her hair.

  The snowfall was already deep enough that their footsteps left depressions. Clare squinted up at the house. It wasn’t luxurious, but it was large for a country home. Beth pulled her scarf over the lower half of her face as they approached the front door. She tried the handle. It turned, but the hinges were stiff, and she had to put her shoulder into it to get it unjammed.

  They stood on the front step while the door swung open. They each held their weapons at the ready, squinting to see through the gloom. Nothing moved. Beth lowered her rebar a fraction as she stepped over the threshold. Clare exchanged a glance with Dorran then followed.

  The structure creaked as winds tore around it. A hallway stretched ahead, winding to the right, into what had to be bedrooms and bathrooms. To their left was a dining room. Its floor was speckled with snow coming through a large broken window. To their right was a living room with fabric couches and a fireplace in the back wall.

  As she stepped deeper into the house, a familiar smell filled Clare’s nose. Sticky. Musty. Oily. The hairs across the back of her neck rose as she recognised the scent of hollows. It permeated the new world, even clinging to their bus, but it was stronger in the farmhouse. “There’s something in here.”

  Dorran took Clare’s empty hand and squeezed tightly. Beth stared along the hallway, towards where the wood flooring and wood walls vanished into shadows. “Scout the house,” she whispered. “Keep your backs to a wall.”

  They stayed as a tight group. Dorran used his stake to nudge a door open, revealing a bedroom, its walls painted in bright blues. The next room along was filled with dark colours and two electric guitars. Then a bathroom, its medicine cabinet standing open. The laundry had a pile of clothes in a basket waiting to be washed. Then, finally, they reached the room at the end of hall.

  The door had been left closed. An elastic cord was fastened from the doorhandle to a hook on the wall, effectively locking it from the outside. The stench was stronger.

  Dorran moved forward first, but Beth put out an arm and swept him back. She unhooked the elastic rope. It made a rough snapping noise as it sprung free. She turned the handle, raised her rebar, and pushed the door inwards.

  The master bedroom’s shutters were drawn. Only thin slats of light were allowed in, and they ran along the floor and up the walls like prison bars.

  That’s what this was. A prison.

  A body crawled towards them. Broken arms dragged across the floor. A filthy nightgown hung from narrow shoulders. Bones strained against emaciated flesh at every angle. The head lifted, long strands of thinned hair sticking to a spit-dampened face, and the hollow hissed at them.

  Clare took a reflexive step away, but she didn’t need to. The hollow’s head snapped back as a shackle around its neck pulled taut. The chain ran to the corner of the four-poster bed, where a thick padlock hung, key still embedded.

  “I’ll take care of this one,” Beth said. She shifted the bar into her left hand as she stepped forward.

  Clare couldn’t tear her eyes away from the woman. She was thoroughly and entirely removed from her humanity, but hints of her former life still hovered around her like ghosts. A delicate gold necklace hung around her neck. Her nails had been almost entirely torn off, but the two that remained had scraps of a pastel-pink nail polish.

  Beth noticed her staring and frowned. “If you’re squeamish, wait outside.”

  “No. It’s not… I just…” She stared into the hollow’s eyes. The hollow stared back.

  Dorran’s arm moved around her shoulders and gently guided her back into the hallway. “It’s a kindness,” he murmured. “She wouldn’t have wanted to be like this.”

  Clare tried to nod. She knew that. But the reality never felt as simple as her mind wanted it to be. It hadn’t been simple at Marnie’s. It was no easier now.

  A loud thwack sounded from the room behind her, and she flinched. The noise was followed again and again, until it no longer sounded hard but wet. The hissing chatters fell quiet. A moment later, Beth stepped out to join them, using a T-shirt she’d taken from the wardrobe to dry her rebar. She nonchalantly kicked the door closed behind them. “Did we miss anywhere? I don’t want to be woken by any surprise guests at two in the morning.”

  “I think that was it,” Dorran said.

  “All right. You’ll help me seal off that broken window somehow. Clare, build us a fire. Once we have a bit of heat in this place, we’ll get some food.”

  Clare felt as though she should do, or say, something more. They had just ended a life. It didn’t seem right to brush past that.

  It was a hollow. You’ve killed them before. You will probably kill more before you get home. You can’t grieve for them.

  The vulnerable hollows were always the worst, though. The aggressive ones—the ones that hunted and howled and were consumed by hunger—were easier to kill. It was purely a matter of survival. The hollow in the bedroom hadn’t been a hunter, though. It had barely been able to crawl.

  Dorran was watching Clare. His strong features were full of quiet concern, one hand lingering over her shoulder in case she needed support.

  Both of her companions were better than Clare at handling the new world. She was too quick to grasp for empathy. She let it hurt her.

  Dorran held compassion. He didn’t enjoy killing the hollows, but he could see it as what it was: necessary. More importantly, he could separate what the hollows had become from what they once were.

  Beth was something different. Callous, the voice in the back of her mind whispered. She never used to be callous.

  As they reached the front hallway, Beth and Dorran went right, towards the dining area and the broken window. Clare turned left, following the open archway into the living room. Cosy, well-used chairs and a rugged coffee table were spaced around the fireplace. The metal box was less elaborate and less grand than Winterbourne’s stone hearths, but it would be enough to warm them.

  The fireplace hadn’t been touched in a long while. Dust coated the handle. Clare opened the glass door and coughed as she inadvertently disturbed layers of soot. The nearby wood bracket held several logs, and a box of matches waited beside it, but there was no kindling. Clare muttered under her breath. She picked through the logs, trying to work out if there was a way to break one of them into smaller pieces, but all she achieved was embedding a splinter into her palm. She sucked on it as she rocked back onto her heels.

  Behind her, Beth and Dorran were in the dining area, arguing over the broken window. Stark white light fell across them, and Clare felt an unpleasant shock. Dorran looked gaunt. The bus had been dim enough to
disguise it, but standing in the harsh light, Clare couldn’t believe she’d missed it.

  Beth was directing Dorran to drag one of the china cabinets across the room. Dorran let it go, and the plates inside rattled. Frustration lay across his features in hard angles. “I’m telling you, the windowsill—”

  “It’ll fit. Just push it over.”

  “We need to seal the hallway instead—”

  Clare bit her lip. She didn’t know how the two people she loved the most could be so incompatible, but Beth and Dorran seemed to bring out the worst in each other. The argument was swelling, but she had the awful feeling that any interruption would only make it worse.

  We need a fire. And that needs kindling. What here is flammable?

  She turned in a slow circle and stopped facing the bookcase. Her heart sank. Before the stillness, reading had been one of her favourite pastimes. Setting books on fire felt like heresy.

  But they needed warmth if they wanted to get through the night. They did not, technically, need the books, especially not when there were now many more libraries than library owners. If she wanted to collect books, she could fill the bus with armfuls every time they passed a house.

  That didn’t make her feel any better. Clare leafed through the bookcase, trying to choose volumes that she didn’t care about as deeply. She couldn’t touch any of the classics. There was an assortment of non-fiction on the lowest shelves, and Clare picked through them to pull out volumes without any plastic covers or laminated pages. She settled on a self-help book, a biography, and a physics textbook. She still felt compelled to apologise as she tore pages out of them, scrunched them up, and used the matches to set them alight.

  Something heavy scraped behind her, and Clare turned to see the china cabinet and a second bookcase had been used to seal off the opening to the dining room entirely. It looked like Dorran had won the disagreement. The exertion hadn’t been kind to him, though; he was pale as he leaned against the archway, breathing too quickly.

  “How’s the fire looking?” Beth thrust her hands into her jacket pockets as she came up behind Clare.

  “Getting there.” Thicker and thicker portions of the books went over the infant flames, gradually increasing the blaze and heating the metal.

  Beth made a faint noise of approval. “Good. Don’t let it go out. Dorran and I are going to bring some food inside, then I’ll see if this place has its own water supply so that I can wash up and make us some dinner.”

  As Clare hovered over the flames, coaxing them to catch on a piece of wood, the door behind her opened and slammed repeatedly, each time inviting in a gust of icy air. Dorran and Beth dropped armfuls of supplies onto the coffee table, then Beth stalked into the hallway to look for water.

  Dorran crouched beside Clare. “Can I help?”

  “Thanks, but I think I’m good.” Clare frowned at the creases around his eyes. “You look tired. If Beth is bossing you around too much—”

  He chuckled. “She’s fine. Just stubborn.”

  “Isn’t she?” Clare gently bumped his shoulder. “Almost as stubborn as me, huh?”

  “Mm. Though I would much rather face off against you.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  His eyes were warm as he smiled down at her. “You are so pretty when you are angry.”

  “What? No. No I’m not.” She narrowed her eyes in a mock glower to demonstrate.

  His smile only grew. “You are. You become full of fire and life. If I loved you less, I might provoke you more, just to enjoy it.” He pressed his lips together as he glanced towards the hallway. “When Beth is angry, I fear I am about to have my head bitten off.”

  Clare laughed, but there was a little too much truth in his observation.

  Dorran ducked closer to kiss her cheek then gently pressed her shoulder before moving away to settle in one of the fireside chairs. Clare fed an extra slab of the biography under the log to make sure the fire wouldn’t go out, then she rose to look for blankets.

  The storm whipped frantic flecks of snow against the windowpane, and Clare’s breath sent up plumes of condensation. Beth and Dorran had brought food and cooking utensils inside but no cloths. Clare guessed they must have planned to use what the house offered. She returned to the hallway. Sounds of splashing water came from the bathroom, telling her the house had tank water. Clare tapped on the door. “Beth? Everything all right?”

  “Yep.” The word came out shaky. The water must have been freezing.

  “I could look at your cuts—”

  “Nope.”

  Clare was tempted to try the handle regardless, but she forced herself to step back. Be patient. She needs more time to open up.

  She found a linen cupboard partway along the hallway. It was cluttered with blankets, towels, and cleaning supplies. Clare pulled down one blanket and saw it featured brightly coloured rocket ships. She swallowed thickly and put it back. Instead, she pulled out a thick grey blanket sized for an adult.

  As she moved back down the hallway, she noticed a piece of paper nearly hidden under a side table. Clare shifted the blanket under one arm and bent to pick it up.

  From what she could tell, it had come out of a notebook. Perforations ran down one side, and blue lines scored the white. A dark pen had been used to write a brief, sloppy message.

  Mum,

  I’ve gone to get help. Don’t try to leave the house. I’ll be back soon.

  I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m sorry.

  Josh

  Clare slowly turned to look at the bedroom at the end of the hall. The note wasn’t recent. Water had stained one corner, near some kind of smear that looked like blood. The paper had curled around the edges from exposure to moisture in the air. It must have been there for weeks.

  He must have woken on the morning of the silence to find his mother had been transformed. He chained her up, to keep her safe, to keep himself safe. And he went to try to get help.

  Clare’s eyes stung as she reread the note. She hadn’t seen anywhere in the house that could be airtight. Josh must have been infected by the thanites too. But, unlike his mother, he’d kept his mind.

  People with AB-negative blood are protected against the insanity. That was what Ezra had said, at least. Josh might have woken up late that morning, after his mother had already begun to change. He wouldn’t have understood what was happening. Inside the silent zones, there were no phones, no TVs, and no way to contact anyone. He’d restrained his mother where he thought she would be safe. Then he’d left the key in the lock and written her a note in case her mind returned.

  Clare wondered how far Josh might have gotten before his own body started to change. Maybe it had only been in the early stages for him, before it was easy to notice. He’d gone for help. Maybe he went to his neighbours’ or drove into the nearest town and fell to the hollow hordes.

  Or maybe he’d survived long enough to realise what was happening. To see his own body begin to deform. To watch the people he’d once called friends turn into mindless, soulless monsters. To realise there was no help for his mother. No help for anyone. Maybe he’d gotten back into his car and driven to the nearest lake, where he could end his existence and escape the all-consuming despair.

  Clare’s hands shook as she slipped the paper back under the side table. There was no use keeping it. Beth wouldn’t care. Dorran would be sad but resigned. The intended recipient was now dead. The note wouldn’t matter to anyone in the new world.

  Her eyes burned as she crept back to the living room. Dorran was already asleep, curled up in the chair, one arm hanging over the edge. The fire bathed him in a warm glow but enhanced the shadows around his features. She draped the blanket over him, taking care to tuck it in, then kissed the cool skin on his cheek before settling back down in front of the blaze.

  The logs had caught, and Clare used the poker to nudge them around into a better arrangement. Even with the layers of thermal jackets, she still felt cold.

  A floorboard creaked behind
her. Clare turned. Beth stood in the hallway opening, a towel around her wet hair. She still wore the familiar thick jacket and scarf, hiding the injury on her shoulder. The corners of her mouth twitched up then dropped back down as her eyes drifted towards Dorran. “We need to talk.”

  Clare thought she knew what was on her sister’s mind. She didn’t feel ready for it.

  “He’s sick.”

  Clare squeezed her hands together. “I know.”

  “And he’s not getting better.”

  “He just needs rest.”

  Beth let her breath out slowly as her eyes drifted back to Clare. “He’s had rest. I don’t think any more will fix this.”

  Clare tried to swallow, but it was as though her muscles had forgotten how to work. Perspiration glistened on Dorran’s face. He wasn’t overheated, though. Any time Clare touched him, he felt cold. His colour was bad. Even asleep, his breathing was still laboured.

  She’d tried to tell herself that he just needed time. That whatever Ezra had done to him would be temporary. That a long sleep and some good food would return his strength. But it had been two days. And Beth was right. He was growing worse.

  Dorran’s hand hung over the chair’s side, and Clare took it. He didn’t respond. Clare blinked furiously, trying not to let any of the building tears spill over, as she looked up at her sister. “What can we do?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Beth’s features were shadowed as she leaned against the archway. “I don’t have any antibiotics. But we can try to find some.”

  Clare looked up from Dorran’s gaunt face. “Will antibiotics help?”

  “No idea. But we can try.” Beth shrugged off the doorway and sauntered into the room. She took the second chair, the one opposite Dorran. “I don’t know anyone with medical expertise. Short of that and failing an obvious cause, antibiotics are probably the best we can do for him.”