Dead Winter: A gripping crime thriller full of suspense

by Jack Parker

  Why on Earth was I here again? Why was it so dark? These were the questions that burdened my mind as I kept my legs moving. I caught a glimpse of the moon above me, burning deep scarlet. It almost looked like an eye, shifting its gaze to stare deep into my mind.

  It was terrifyingly intoxicating, dark thoughts flooding my mind.

  Behind me now was a small group of infected that I had passed by, all in hot pursuit of me. I turned a corner quickly and entered a side-passage to give them the slip, it seemed to work as I peered around the corner from behind a waste bin. The infected horde dashed past me, seemingly oblivious as to what I had done.

  Chuckling to myself, I turned around and began to walk down the alleyway as a strange sensation came over me, a presence of sorts. I turned the corner and found myself in a dead end. The walls melted and merged into each other behind me, blocking my only exit.

  Standing there, I suddenly felt nerve-piercingly cold as I heard a cold voice issue from the rooftop above me. I glanced up at it just in time to see a silhouette jump straight down, landing in a crouching position in front of me.

  "Hello again, Ethan. How have you been?" the figure said with a hint of a familiar sing-song tone.

  "What is this?" I blurted out, desperate for answers.

  "What do you think it is, psycho boy?" Lucas said to me, raising an eyebrow. Who the hell was this guy calling a psycho?

  Him of all people.

  "Did you enjoy it, kid? Did you enjoy the moment you put a bullet in my skull?" Lucas jeered, a callous grin appearing on his face as he came into better light.

  He looked exactly the same, wearing the same clothing and everything, with one difference. There was a small hole in the centre of his forehead with a trickle of dried blood running from the hole down his face.

  "Of course I didn't! I did what I had to do to survive!" I shouted at him. As I did, writing began to appear on the walls in a luminous red, burning across the brickwork, small scribbles forming words.

  I did what I had to.

  "And then you went on a little rampage, didn't you, boy?" sneered Lucas, raising his hands to the sky as an object began to materialise in them.

  Shadows danced around his hands, forming a sword. I glanced down at my own hand and was taken aback, a gun now in my hand. Raising it to point at his head, I closed my eyes and pulled the trigger, the gunshot nearly blowing my ears out.

  "Not this time." he said, bursting into laughter as a barely audible tinkle of metal on the ground came to my ears.

  Opening my eyes a little, I was just in time to see the sword coming down at me. The last thing I saw was his glowing red eyes, burning brightly until it felt like mine were on fire.

  I jolted awake, breaking into a cold sweat that I quickly wiped from my head, scenes from the nightmare flashing through my head. Was this guilt, or something else?

  As I climbed out of my tent, I slid into my jacket and shivered slightly, looking for the rest of the group, who were huddled around the fire, just recently relit.

  My mind went back to the previous night, to a conversation I'd had with John before I went to sleep. As I had made my way over to my tent, he'd pulled me to the side to talk.

  "Look mate, you're a good kid. But I can tell there's something bothering you." John had whispered to me, trying not to get the attention of the rest of the group, who were climbing into their own tents.

  "Whatever gave you that impression? I'm fine." I spat bitterly, denying every thought I'd had since then.

  "Don't bullshit me, I know that look. I'm sure it's got something to do with what happened with that guy." John had said to me, taking his hat off to run his fingers through his hair.

  "You expect me to be fine? I shot a guy through the head! He wasn't infected! I mean sure he was going to kill me if I didn't but I still feel like shit over it. Not everyone is like you!" I'd ranted, my hands forming into fists as I felt my anger rise a little.

  "I know that, it wasn't always easy for me, y'know. I didn't want to do this originally, I was born into it. You wanna know what I wanted to be when I was a kid?" John continued, glancing over his shoulder at the rest of the group.

  "Humour me." I'd said coldly, staring down at the frost-covered grass at my feet.

  "I wanted to be a baker, or a hairdresser, not a fucking hired gun!" he concluded, chuckling slightly as his own words.

  I'd snickered to myself as he spoke, humoured by his words. The image of John cutting someone's hair brought a brief smile to my face. A couple of birds were chirping amongst themselves in the trees nearby as John patted me on the shoulder and began to speak once more.

  "But look, I know how it must feel, having to kill someone like that. And I can't help but think it's changing you, Ethan. And I'm not sure what it's changing you into." he had said, his tone of voice indicating his concern for my state.

  "I don't know, man. I just.. When all this started, I was so scared. Now I can't feel a thing when I kill one of those things, like it comes naturally to me. It feels too natural." I said, sighing before I spoke.

  "People adapt to situations in strange ways, just try to put it out of your mind, I guess. I'm no good at advice, mate. But I'm trying, because we're friends, right?" John finished, extending his hand towards me.

  I'd taken his hand, shaking it firmly as I clarified the answer to his question. We were friends, I suppose. We'd met in strange circumstances, but we sure as hell weren't enemies, so friends we must be.

  Back to the present.

  John wasn't present at the fire as I sat down next to Dave, who handed me a cup of coffee, which I happily sipped at.

  "Where's John?" I asked, nudging Dave slightly.

  "I think he's over by the car, sorting out the stuff." Dave replied, taking a sip of his own coffee, which seemed a lot darker than mine.

  Several minutes later, John appeared from behind the shrubbery, a look of dismay plastered across his face as he walked towards the four of us, still practically hugging the fire for warmth.

  "Guys... We have a problem. A BIG problem." he sighed, motioning for us to come and see. We all reluctantly climbed to our respective feet and followed John to the car.

  At the first glance, I couldn't see anything wrong. But on further inspection, I noticed something.

  The tires were flat, deep gashes run through the side of them as though somebody had taken a knife to each one of them. Muttering to myself, I walked around the car, examining each tire. Somebody had cut all of them.

  "What the fuck?" Dave groaned sleepily, raising his free hand to his face in disbelief.

  The fuel cap was off too, as though someone had syphoned what fuel we had left and taken it away.

  "That's right, kid. The fuel's gone too. Someone is toying with us." John stated, narrowing his eyes in irritation as he looked at us all.

  "Did anyone hear anything last night? Any voices, or something out of the ordinary?" he asked as we glanced nervously at each other, shaking our heads. None of us had heard a thing.

  Why couldn't anything ever be simple here?

  "Are we in danger?" Claire stammered, looking to her older brother for reassurance, which was clearly not going to come.

  "For now? I think we best assume so. We're going to have to walk from here." John said, his voice still ripe with annoyance and anger.

  Downtrodden and depressed, the five of us began to gather up our weapons and supplies, which had surprisingly not been taken. All that had been taken from us was our vehicle, which we had to abandon.

  For hours we slowly made our way down the seemingly endless stretch of motorway, stopping every now and then to look inside cars for supplies or a working vehicle. But each and every time we were disappointed, all the cars we'd found had been stripped of fuel or just weren't working.

  Every now and then, I thought I heard a sound from behind the trees to my left. Tiny whispers or cracking twigs, but every time I peered into the expanse of trees and bushes, or climbed over the railings to get a c
loser look, I found nothing.

  I thought it eerily familiar, this sensation of being hunted. Wondering to myself whether or not I'd make it till tomorrow. We were all on edge, weapons drawn and at the ready, just waiting for someone to show themselves.

  The infected truly weren't the biggest threat in this world.

  We lived in fear of what the people amongst us might do.

  As the sky went dark, we made our way over the crash barrier into a small clearing in the trees and set up camp, slowly pitching up our tents as we glanced over our shoulders into the trees around us.

  "Right, someone's going to have to stay awake while the rest of us sleep tonight." John stated to the rest of us, adjusting his hat slightly as he made his own tent. We all agreed with him and decided that we'd take it in shifts, two hours at a time. We'd also decided that Claire wouldn't have to take guard duty, being so young.

  No matter where I went, everything still looked the same, all the same colours with barely any variance in the environment, just like the city, which lay a fair few miles in the opposite direction.

  So I slept for a couple of hours while Paul took the first watch, if you could call it sleep. I practically just laid there with my eyes closed.

  Then, it was my turn to take watch, I crawled out of my tent onto the leaf-covered grass before getting to my feet, strolling over to Paul to relieve him of his job.

  "Alright, man. Get some sleep." I said to him as he glanced over his shoulder at me, nodding. He was clearly exhausted from all the walking we'd done today.

  There was a brief rustle in the bushes behind us, and the sound of a stick or twig snapping rang through the camp as a voice called through the darkness at me, I reached for my handgun.

  "Surprise, motherfucker! Hands in the air or I'll blow them off!" a rough voice shouted at the two of us. I felt my heart sink from inside my chest at the sound, slowly moving my hand away from the handle of my gun, raising them into the air.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Day Eight (28th December – 9:45PM)

  With my arms raised to the sky, I felt a bead of cold sweat run down the side of my head along with a sense of dread. Whatever this was, it wasn't going to be good for us, only bad things could come of something like this.

  "Keep them up!" the voice called at me, I kept my arms raised as high as I could, resisting the urge to grab my handgun. For now, I would do as I was told, I wasn't ready to die just yet.

  "Good! Now turn around, let me get a look at you." called the voice again as I slowly turned around to face the man behind me. He was a decently-sized man, with a gruff expression, his facial hair was unkempt and rather wild looking. But what caught my eye most was the weapon he was carrying; it was a sawn-off shotgun.

  So that's what it was. We were being hunted.

  "What the hell do you think you're doing!?" Paul shouted at the other man, who was pointing a composite bow directly at his head, an arrow strung in preparation.

  "Quiet! All we want is what you got." the other man declared.

  "Like hell you're getting our stuff!" Paul spat angrily, staring down at the ground in contemplation.

  "Look at this, Randy. We got ourselves a fighter!" jeered the man holding Paul hostage.

  "Heheh. Now tell me, you just came from the city over yonder, did you not?" the man known as Randy said to me, his eyes locked with my own.

  "And what if we did?" I retorted, with a hint of sarcasm lingering in my voice. The night was young, and the cold had yet to fully sink in, yet I found myself frozen in what could only be described as fear.

  "Then that means you should have some pretty nice kit, doesn't it? I see you've got some guns on you as is!" Randy sneered, raising the shotgun slightly to point at my face. He was only spitting distance away from me.

  I wondered how many of them there were as I quickly glanced around at my surroundings, Paul wasn't in my line of sight and nor was the other man, but I still wondered if we could take them. I briefly heard a small tinkle and assumed John was now sneaking out of his tent.

  "Oh, fuck this!" I heard Paul shout, I turned my head just in time to see him duck out of the way of an arrow to pull out his gun. But he hadn't moved quickly enough, as an arrow planted itself in his shoulder.

  He shouted and pulled the trigger with his other hand, sending a bullet flying towards the unnamed hunter; but to no avail, as the bullet sailed straight past him.

  "Son of a bitch just tried to kill me!" the unnamed man shouted at Randy as Paul writhed around on the floor in agony, dropping his gun and clutching at his shoulder, where the arrow had sunk deep.

  "Then I think we need to make an example of him, George!" Randy shouted, moving his shotgun closer to my face, he was a mere few yards away from me now, but I didn't dare make a move in case he blow my head off.

  An example?

  "Get up! And you two, weapons down! We have you both surrounded!" shouted George, pulling Paul to his feet as he drew out a large combat knife and pressed it to Paul's throat.

  As he did, three more men appeared from behind the trees, pointing weapons at John and Dave, who quickly dropped their own to the ground and raised their arms in defeat.

  "I'll... fucking kill you." Paul groaned at the hunter, blood trickling down his arm from the arrow stuck in his shoulder.

  "No. Not at all. Now pay attention, men! This is what happens when you try to fuck with us!" George cackled, pressing the blade of the knife against Paul's throat, slowly dragging it through the skin and flesh. Paul let out one final scream as the hunter cut his throat.

  "Motherfuckers! You're not getting away with this!" John shouted at the hunters, spitting in rage as George dropped Paul to the cold, grassy ground. He weakly clutched at his neck, letting out a quiet gargling sound, unable to breathe as blood oozed from his neck until he moved no more.

  "I think you'll find we are." said one of the other hunters as two of them proceeded to knock John and Dave out with their weapons.

  "Do we need to knock you out too, or will you be a good boy?" Randy sang, laughing at the end of his sentence as he slowly walked towards me, pulling out a length of rope from his bag.

  "I think I'll pass on the whole being knocked out thing." I hissed, seething with rage and dreadful thoughts of what I might do to these people if I had the chance.

  "Good man!" he said, grabbing my arms and tying them quite tightly behind my back, I felt a shiver run down my spine as he took the handgun from my pocket, then I began to walk slowly as the hunter jabbed me in the back with his shotgun.

  "Hold up, boss! We've got ourselves a girl in here!" shouted one of the hunters near the tents, I felt my heart leap up into my throat as he pulled Claire out from the tent, kicking and screaming.

  Oh shit, why didn't she run?

  "Be quiet, you little bitch! You'll call out the ramblers!" the hunter carrying her said, whacking his in the back of the head with his gun, knocking her out cold.

  The four men began to ransack our little camp as the other seemingly went away to bring in their vehicle. They were looking for supplies and weapons, which they soon found a minute or two later as they converged in a group. I was kneeling on the ground with my hands still tied behind my back, biting down hard on my bottom lip.

  "Right, boss. You'll love what ponytail had on him." George said, pulling out John's kukri from behind his back, handing it over to Randy, who appeared the be the leader of this group.

  "Oh, man. I haven't seen one of these in years!" Randy exclaimed, turning the blade over in his hands as he examined it.

  If he thought that was cool, wait till they find my sword.

  "We've got a few handguns too, but no big guns." George sighed, turning over the guns to Randy, who put them in his backpack along with the spare magazines I had found.

  I'd kept the sword hidden underneath my sleeping bag before I'd come out here to take guard, I wondered if they'd find it, it was only a matter of time as the hunters were gradually making their way through the te
nts.

  "There's some food in this tent! It's all canned!" one of the hunters shouted, bringing over our bag of food which Claire had been keeping in her tent as a thought occurred to me.

  "Hey, you. Big guy." I said loudly, cutting off the mutterings of one of the hunters as I directed my attention to the boss of the hunters.

  "Yeah? What do you want, small fry?" Randy spat at me as he made his way over, bending down to look me in the eyes. He had cold, piercing eyes that would normally have made me feel a little scared, but not now.

  "That was you who broke our car, right?" I asked him as calmly as I could, determined not to show an ounce of fear, even though I was quaking slightly on the inside.