Dead of Winter Collection

by Benjamin Knox

  DEAD OF WINTER

  COLLECTION

  Dead Of Winter Collection © Benjamin Knox 2015

  Cover Art © Benjamin Knox 2015

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written consent of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

  DEAD OF WINTER

  COLLECTION

  BENJAMIN KNOX

  CONTENTS:

  DEAD OF WINTER

  DEAD OF WINTER 2

  Prologue

  1 – Frozen Stiff

  2 – The Lights

  3 – Revenants

  Epilogue

  DEAD OF WINTER 3

  1 – Götterdämmerung

  2 – Hunter's Peak

  3 – Jotun

  4 – The Barrow

  Epilogue

  About The Author

  DEAD OF WINTER

  Luckily we'd left the city before it started. Head up to the cabin for a little time away from the rat-race, ski a little and just enjoy the outdoors. Gain back a little of the majesty winter loses when you live in the city. Grey slush by the roadside, ice on the pavement. The oppressive drear of day after day of low cloud and bone biting cold.

  At least up here, while still cold, it was beautiful.

  Majestic.

  With the cabin so isolated – you couldn't even get the car up here, you had to stop and trek up the last part of the mountain – we hadn't seen the news or even switched on the radio in days. When we did though...We couldn't quite believe it. It must've been some large scale practical joke. Then the missed calls from family and friends.

  The world had exploded into chaos and violence and here we were enjoying drinking hot chocolate on the veranda staring over the snowy peaks at the eerie green wisps of the Aurora Borealis and brilliant white sheets below.

  Mark and I came up here for a break, and time to practice for my biathlon here in Norway later in the winter, and that's exactly what we got. Time to reconnect. We'd both been working so hard lately that we barely spoke once home. We just ate something quick and simple and zoned out to some TV before passing out, exhausted.

  A long weekend would do us some good.

  And it had.

  We'd brought the cross-country skis and my little .22 LR rifle to practise. I wasn't in the Winter Olympics or anything like that but I could hold my own in national and some international competitions. Norway was the next big event and I wanted to shake off the cobwebs and get back into a rhythm with it.

  A little practice for me and some time just the two of us together. Mark helped me train, just like back when we were freshly married. Keeping the pace and pushing me. We might fight every now and then but whenever we took to the slopes, we had fun. A familiar comfort. It did both of us some good.

  It was only when we were preparing to return that we managed to get any signal, mark had 4G on his phone, no cell service up here though. The internet was alive with panic. Crazed amateur footage too horrible to watch. After listen to a few of our families panicked messages, we went to a news site.

  We could barely believe it...

  The Dead Walk!

  Ridiculous, I know. It took me ages to really believe that this wasn't a very large scale viral-add campaign. But it was all too real. Some sort of infection running riot through the population. One that was highly communicable and drove people violently mad. Criminally insane and sadistic. But that was only the beginning. As the virus tore through the city thousands of people died every day. Those who were infected didn't stay dead. The dead were coming back to life, corpses standing up, to attack people.

  The government as well as every news network in the country had a list of actions and precautions to assist survivors, as martial law was declared.

  Stay inside and barricade all the entrances and windows.

  Keep away from the dead. All corpses should be ejected from the living space immediately. Military trucks will be sweeping the streets of contaminated bodies daily.

  Basically, hunker down and wait for help.

  The highways clogged with traffic as the population ignored the advice and fled the city, only to block the main thoroughfares with endless rows of vehicles. All it took was one infected in there with them and it became a bloodbath as the infection spread and the dead rose and attacked the living with voracious fury.

  We watched helicopter footage and black and white street camera views of the assaults. It was outright slaughter.

  *

  “Kerry,” my mother sobs into the phone, “Don't come back into the city, sweety, you hear me? Don't you even think about it. You and Mark just sit tight and wait 'til this blows over.”

  I weep and replay the message.

  Mark has similar messages from his sisters.

  He hikes down to where we left the car for a cell signal, but once he finally returns an hour later, he just shakes his head. I don't know whether that means he couldn't get a signal or that no one picked up. I don't ask. Instead I throw another log on the fire and stare into it, too in shock to do anything else.

  2 Weeks Later...

  Originally Mark and I had brought only enough food for our weekend trip, but the cabin itself had canned and dried foods already in the cupboards as back up. The cabin is shared so it is often stocked with long-life foodstuffs just in case. A good thing too, with our enforced stay. But even that only lasted so long.

  We're almost out.

  There's still fresh water and we can melt the heavy snow if that stops. Nonetheless we've exhausted what supplies this little cabin has. We've burned our way through over half the supply of logs set at the side of the house under a tarp. We even began rationing how much wood we burn in an attempt to keep warm yet preserve what fuel we still have left.

  Outside the winds howl. At night it sounds like dozens of people shrieking and growling. The frigid winds batter the little cabin, making it creak and moan in response.

  Still no word from anyone. Mark has checked multiple times, but no new messages waiting for us, no word from family or friends. Nothing. Not even the news has much if anything above a looping emergency signal.

  If nothing changes soon, we'll have to try for the supply store further down the mountain. That means hiking back to the car and hoping the roads are clear enough to drive. I don't know much about cars, but having stood inactive for two weeks it might not start at all. Fluids freezing in the pipes.

  At least we both have our cross-country skis, but an estimated ten kilometres to the supply store. Not so bad going down, but that sort of trip would be hellish on skis coming back up while dragging food behind you. But what other choice do we have? There's been no word. The news still has the same emergency advice to hunker down and wait for official aid.

  As winter deepens, I stare out the small windows at the pristine world of white outside. Where once I found the isolation inspiring, exactly what I needed to recharge and rejuvenate myself, now has become something of a prison. Mark and I started our enforced extended stay by worrying about family and friends, endless theories about how they were or where they could be. Nothing got solved and all we did was get on each other's nerves. Once we'd calmed down we began to enjoy ourselves. It was like camping only with a sense of dread lurking in the very back of your brain, gnawing at you. We read books, talked about all the silly things in our lives that we never have time to share usually. And we made love, a lot.

  It was like being teenagers again. We were at it constantly. Re-exploring each others bodies and finding our new rhythm. Trying things we'd always wanted to but ne
ver done. It was liberating. Exciting to feel so connected again. Reigniting some of the passion we'd had when we'd first gotten married four years ago.

  The sex kept us warm and was comforting. In many ways the first week was therapeutic, Mark and I closer than ever, but then as the anxiety built and food began to run low, and you just got sick of the same four walls, the same company and conversation, we began to fight.

  Nothing serious, just snarky little comments and hurtful sarcasm. One step forward in our relationship, two steps back.

  If we didn't do something soon, we'd start to starve.

  Or kill one another.

  Just when we thought it couldn't get any worse the screaming North wind would return to hound us. Harrowing our minds further. Every time it came the Aurora followed snaking eerie tendrils southwards across the night sky.

  *

  I found Mark coming in from outside, shaking the snow off his lined jacket and placing the cut logs to the side by the hatchet he'd used to resize them to fit the cabin's small cast iron heater-stove.

  “It's getting colder,” he said pulling off his gloves and breathing on his hands, rubbing them together.

  Small flakes danced in the air having snuck in with him from the flurries outside, only to land and quickly melt. Mark stamped his boots on the mat freeing up the encrusted snow from the treads. I gave him a steadying hand as he pulled them off. The non-thinking simpatico of marriage.

  “We're already going through the wood at a steady rate,” I replied.

  “Yeah, this place wasn't made for long stays. We're going to have to leave sometime, even if it is just to look for more burnable wood.”

  “Let's not forget food,” I said, like either of us could have. We'd been rationing ourselves down to two meals a day, yet still we barely had enough left to get us through the next few days.

  Mark finished pulling his boots and jacket off and had begun stacking the wood by the small stove, savouring the heat from it.

  “It's gotten to that point hasn't it?” I knew the answer to my question. I just needed to say it.

  Mark paused long enough to look back at me. “Yeah,” he nodded.

  No surprise. We'd have to venture out in search of food, fire or any new information we could find. “There aren't any other cabins nearby, our best bet is the supply and hiking store back along the road.”

  “You think we can hike back to where the car is and get it started?”

  “Only one way to find out.”

  *

  It took us forty-five minutes to trek down to the car in full gear. We'd decided that the cross-country skis were a better idea than having to trudge through the two foot high snow. Skiing downhill to the car was certainly less work.

  Mark popped his head up from under the hood, “Nope, ain't going to happen.”

  “Damn!” I cursed.

  “I don't know if it's the cold affecting the electrical system or whether the gas has frozen, if that's even possible. But we're not even getting a spark when you turn the ignition, so it's sorta moot.”

  “Good thing we decided to use the skis then. Come on, no point wasting more daylight.”

  Mark looked disappointed despite the fact that when leaving the cabin neither of us had believed the car would work in the first place. I guess his optimism got the better of him. Or maybe it was the fact that he looked tired. He'd also grown in a beard in the two weeks we'd been up here having neglected to bring a razor for our brief weekend stay.

  *

  Without another word, Mark and I set off at a careful pace down the rolling slopes of the mountain, following the bend of the road. The only reason we knew it was the road was because of it was lower than the rolling white around it. No snow ploughs had been up here in a while. The world had more pressing concerns.

  The trip down the mountain to the supply kiosk took us over an hour from the icy tombstone of our car. The small building sat low by the side of the road with an overhang to shelter the gas pumps. Other than that small area everything else was a pristine white that sparkled and shimmered in the crisp winter daylight.

  Seeing the supply store sent a small flood of euphoria through my cold bones. My breath bursting in plumes into the frigid air. Mark had ice crystals in his beard. There was no sound other than our heavy breathing, making the somewhat idyllic view seem eerie.

  No sign of activity from the supply store. Lights off and only one car in the vicinity, half buried under snow drifts. I felt foolish unslinging my .22 LR from my pack, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. Before the news went quiet there were reports of violent looting on top of the attacks carried out by the infected and the dead.

  Mark brought the hatchet he used to chop wood at the cabin. It wasn't much, but at least we were armed.

  “I'll go in, you cover me and fill the gas can.”

  I already knew the plan, but it was comforting to hear Mark say it out loud. It was more than my husband being chivalrous, volunteering to go inside, we both knew I was the better shot.

  Though we hoped it wouldn't come to that.

  We moved to the front of the store, still no sign of life. The half buried car had a door open but no one appeared to be inside. I took off my backpack and handed it to Mark, keeping a small plastic container to fill with fuel.

  Mark looked very much the mountain man in his parka and beard. A stark transformation from the mild-mannered online content editor he'd been a few weeks ago. He blew me a kiss, readied the packs and his hatchet, then pulled at the glass door, disappearing inside. With the interior so dark the glass of the door and front panels looked like black ice. He was trying to be brave for me, play the big strong man part, but I could see in his eyes before he entered that he was terrified. Even if he'd never admit it.

  I got to work, quickly using the pump, which miraculously still functioned, to fill the plastic bottle we'd brought with us. We could have taken a gas-can from the store but it would have been too heavy and bulky to carry back.

  Mark's task was to find any supplies and load them into the backpacks. Anything we could eat. Maybe even some mineral water would be nice as an alternative to melted ice.

  Screwing the cap on the bottle and wrapping the whole thing in a plastic shopping bag to make sure it didn't leak, I stowed away the gas, then scanned the area.

  No movement.

  Off in the distance, over the tree covered ridges of the lower mountains clouds gathered and thickened on the horizon. Here however it was bright and clear. Usually you could only see the Aurora Borealis at night, and a good one at that, yet there it was now to the North adding a hint of green to the sky.

  The unusual phenomena just made the whole situation that much more unsettling.

  A roadside sign stood on the opposite ridge of snow that must've been the road from the abandoned car, icicles hanging as long as knives from the sheet metal. Distances were painted next to locations.

  The small town of Bennett Creek a nearby 53 km, were as the city was around 347 km. Then there was Pine Lodge Ski Resort 12 km.

  We knew the ski lodge, we passed the turn off every time we drove up here to the cabin, but had never been. Ski resorts aren't really either Mark's nor my thing. Too many fat families and loud children clogging up the lame slopes. Might as well have been a snow themed hotel and theme-park. If memory served they had a mineral hot spring they were proud of and, of course, a spa.

  My God, I'd do just about anything for a nice long soak and a massage. It was enough to make me consider the distance. However, with that many people there, staff and the early seasonal visitors, it was still too many people, if any of them were infected it would spread like wildfire. All it would take would be one. That and the fact that after all this time, any survivors holed up there would be in equal and desperate need of food as we were.

  No, even tempting myself with the idea was bad.

  “Kerry.”

  Mark's harsh whisper.

  I looked up and he had stopped just outside the
door carrying both packs, staring over by the road. I'd been in such a daze I hadn't seen her. A girl, maybe five or six, standing by the open door of the buried car.

  I took me a moment to see it, but I saw it.

  Her hair in pigtails frozen into sharp clumps. Skin pale and bloodless, the her eyes glimmering with an eerie internal fire. She wore only a long pink thermal nightie and slippers, holding a large stuffed rabbit. Both the girl and the rabbit had smears and spatterings of a dark fluid that could only be frozen blood, all over her.

  The cold must have stopped most of the decomposition as she was fairly intact for a walking corpse. Still the shock of seeing her standing upright staring back at me was paralysing.

  We'd heard reports, seen footage, believed it. But that was so very different... actually seeing it. Face to face.

  Mark placed the packs down, bringing up his hatchet. My mind recoiled from the idea. Was he really going to use it on this little girl? Yes she was dead, there was no doubt about that. Poor thing may well have succumbed to the cold rather than the infection itself. Could she really be that dangero–

  She came at me a shrieking banshee, teeth bared, fingers like claws stretched out towards me. That sudden scream of unbridled, inhuman, rage...need spread gooseflesh under my thermals. The hair on my neck stood up.

  “Kerry!” Mark yelled, running to intercept the girl, but he wouldn't make it in time. My rifle felt useless in my hands. I screamed at my limbs to move to do anything but they refused. At the last moment fear galvanised me into action. Raw primal desire to save myself. I couldn't dodge her with my skis on so I brought the butt of my rifle up to swat her to the ground.

  The girl splayed out in the wet gravel near the pumps, tearing up her elbows as she fell.

  Twisting to follow her down I brought the rifle to my shoulder getting the prone girl in my sights, my thumb switching off the safety.