by Jones, Isla
“What if they’re gone by the time we get there?”
Castle shook his head. “Won’t happen. Those who make it to the meet-up point will wait for three weeks. That’s the protocol. We wait for three weeks, and there are some of us who don’t turn up, we leave a note behind.”
“A note?”
“It will be coded, but it’ll inform the right people of our next meet-up point.” He looked at me, the green gleaming beneath dark lashes. “Just in case.”
My fingers curled around a frayed hole in my t-shirt. I tugged at it, fighting the tears in my eyes. I hated crying so much, especially in front of someone I didn’t know, someone I despised and who despised me.
“Were you telling the truth?” I asked quietly.
My gaze found his, and I noticed that his jaw ticked.
“You lied to me.” My voice cracked. “Didn’t you?”
He looked away.
I choked on a cry. My body jolted and my face crinkled. The tears wouldn’t be stopped, they wouldn’t be restrained.
“I didn’t see Vicki,” he said. “I didn’t see your dog.” His voice was quiet, as if he was ashamed of his lie. “But if I’d told you the truth at the farm, you would’ve died searching for them. I made a decision in the moment. One that saved your life.”
I leaned forward and snatched the only cushion in the van from beneath my twisted ankle. With both hands, I slammed it against my face; and I screamed.
It took seconds for that scream to turn; it became infected with the horror of what I’d done. I’d left her behind; alone and scared, to be ripped apart by those creatures. Her tiny little self wouldn’t understand. She wouldn’t understand where I’d gone, why I wasn’t there for her, why I didn’t stop them from pulling her into pieces.
My scream turned into sobs, and the cushion muffled them.
I sobbed until I had nothing left but sleep.
*
I hate him. He knows it, too.
I hate him for saving me, for tearing me away from the fight. I’d needed to find Cleo. He just didn’t understand; without her, without my Cleo—and knowing I left her behind to die a gruesome, torturous death—I didn’t want to live.
It hadn’t been Summer keeping me alive all these months.
It had been Cleo.
I refuse to talk to him. Sometimes, he asks me questions.
‘How is your shoulder?’; ‘Can you move your foot?’; ‘Do you want the beef jerky or the cold beans?’
I always ignore him.
I hate him.
*
We’d been on the road for three days when the van chugged and stopped. We didn’t have gas to fill it back up. We packed what we could carry and went on foot.
Castle knew what to do. I sometimes wondered if he had grown up in the wilderness as a child, or if it had all been a part of his training.
He led us through the woods of Robbers Cave State Park. ‘There are bears,’ he’d told me, ‘so stick close, and don’t make too much noise.’
I’d followed Castle for hours until I just couldn’t walk anymore. He’d walked a few metres ahead before he’d realised I’d stopped at a boulder.
The boulder was covered in moss. It reminded me of Leo’s eyes.
Castle hiked back up to me. The tall, thin trees loomed up high and blocked most of the sun from scorching us on the ground. Yet, my skin still reacted as though I was in an oven. Sweat-stains soiled most of my t-shirt, and patches of them were dotted around my torn jeans.
I sat on the edge of the boulder, crouched over, looking at my scuffed boots. Castle came up beside me; he just stood there for a few moments, silent.
“You can’t walk anymore?” he asked eventually.
I shook my head. My strawberry blond hair waved around me, but the blood from that night still clung to the strands. I was caked in Gretel’s blood.
Castle moved around me, and dropped to one knee at my feet. My muscles clenched as he gripped onto my calf and placed my foot on his knee. Then, he lifted the bottom of my jeans up to check my ankle.
It had purpled and swelled, as if there was an engorged plum stuffed inside of my skin. I grimaced and looked away.
“You should just leave me,” I said. My voice could barely pass as a whisper; almost vanishing in the breeze that rustled through the trees. “I’m slowing you down, and I can’t … I can’t do this anymore.”
“Your ankle needs time to heal—”
“No,” I said. A bitter smile twisted my lips. “I can’t do this anymore.”
We both knew what I meant: I can’t go on living anymore. I want to die.
He lowered my foot to the ground and stood. I gasped in surprise as he ducked down and hoisted my arm over his shoulders, then pulled me to my feet. I hopped on one foot—the good one—but my shoulder still burned at my back.
I was too weak to go on. I mean that. I mean that in more ways than one. And you know it, too.
Castle had exhausted his energy. That was to be expected when we’d hiked—him supporting most of my weight—through the national park for hours. But then dusk had started above the trees and we’d had no choice but to stop.
They didn’t call it Robbers Cave State Park for nothing. I can’t count how many caves we’d passed until Castle decided that we’d found a good one to stay in for the night. He’d lay out the blankets inside—the ones we’d taken from the van, where we’d left the mattress—and draped a tarp over the opening.
Right by the cave was a lake. I’d gone in almost straight away.
I didn’t care about my modesty in such a filthy state. I went in naked. Castle didn’t so much as glance at me, and I was grateful. I washed my body with a cloth and rinsed out all the blood from my hair.
Then, I’d had to get out. The sky above was darkening. We couldn’t light a fire; the light would attract any nearby rotters. Our food supply had run out already.
We slept in the cave, cold and hungry. And when I woke up, sometime during the night, I found that we were huddled together under the blanket for warmth. I didn’t sleep for the rest of the night.
In the morning, I built a fire—Castle seemed surprised by this, but I’d survived on my own for five months, so it was reasonable that I could do it—and Castle washed in the lake. He had a spear in his hand, one he’d carved from a long, thick branch. Every so often, he stabbed it into the water, and when he pulled it back out, there was a fish flopping on the sharp end.
We ate that day. Six fish between us.
We didn’t talk.
Night came again. We hadn’t moved from the cave by the lake. Castle had said that my ankle needed time to heal. If I continued to walk on it, it would worsen and slow us down even more.
That’s when I decided. I’d waited, long into the night, eyes wide open. When I was certain that the steady breaths of his were genuine, and that he was deeply asleep, I climbed out from the blanket and crept outside.
Even if I’d woken him, even if he’d stirred; he’d think I left to relieve myself outside.
The moonlight above pierced through the trees and gushed down onto the clearing. I couldn’t see any rotters.
I left my bag inside the cave. I’d packed this diary away with a flashlight before nightfall. I took this diary, one pen and a flashlight with me—I hiked up the steep hill.
I’m sure I’ve fractured bones in my ankle. But it doesn’t seem to matter anymore. Nothing does.
I am with the angel of death. He has saved me—he took me from the place of the virus and brought me here. But he has killed me, too. He took me from all the hope that kept me going—the one I lived for; my Cleo. And with it, he stole me from him … from Leo.
I am now a companion of the angel of death. I will leave this diary here for whomever to stumble upon when I am gone. I know I will be gone. Because in this life, in this world, I have nothing to live for—I will choose my fate; and I have. The angel of death took me, saved me, and he has killed me in doing so.
So
I sit here, on the edge of the cliff, writing my last words to you. I will write the last sentence, I will fold the book and then I will throw it over the cliff’s edge while Castle sleeps down the slope.
And then I will join my story on the rocky bottom, and I hope I die before impact; because above all, I am a coward.
I am Winter Miles, and I say goodbye.
end of book 2
Winter Castle
Book 3
Isla Jones
1.
My name is Winter Miles and this isn’t my first diary. I’ve written one before, six months into these horrors, but I threw 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, people 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.
The cargo is important. How? I can’t tell you, not because it’s classified—which it is—but because I don’t know. All I do know is that it needs to get to Washington D.C. And that’s where my sister is, Summer Miles. She works at the CDC there, or at least she did before the outbreak.
At the farmhouse, Castle and I were separated from the others. We’re headed to the first meet-up point, where there might be 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.
It all changed the night I stood 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. The rush hit me and my vision blurred. Adrenaline had clutched me too soon. 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, isn’t it?
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 tilted forward; before I leaned down into the abyss, and plummeted to my death—my entire body was smacked to the dirt. Castle had lunged out of the tree he hid behind and tackled me to the ground.
He stole my choice from me, shoving me back into the world I don’t want to live in anymore. A world where I must survive the plague, avoid the rotters, live through the violence of other groups, get to DC to find my sister, and forget those I’d loved and lost; forget Cleo and Leo.
I’m not strong enough for this world.
2.
Dry leaves wafted up at us as we slammed onto the ground.
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. His 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. And his voice, like a hiss in the breeze, slithered down at me: “What the fuck are you doing? Are you really that weak? So weak that you’d rather die than live without the ones we lost?”
I flinched from the pure venom of his words, as if he’d slapped me. I tensed, my eyelids clenched shut. 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 hit out at him, but his face turned away from me in time. Each hit was shadowed by my grunts; the trapped sobs.
“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.
“Get off of me!” I cried. My legs kicked out beneath him. My bad ankle hit the ground; 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, 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, so close that the warmth of his breath tickled 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 molten green eyes. “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 touched, 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 away your life over a little bit of grief?”
A little grief.
Anger reignited within me. I bared my teeth and hiked up my knee—I heard his groan before the ache hit my kneecap. 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.
“I told you to get off of me,” I said, sprawled out on the dirt. 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.
I was about to ask him why he’d followed me, why he’d stopped me, but the words were thwarted by another sound; the rustle of leaves.
At first, I’d thought it was Castle moving on the ground. But I turned to face him and he was perfectly still. His brows had furrowed, and his hand inched from his crotch to his holster. I tensed, my breath hitching.
There it was again. The crinkle of dead leaves, as if stepped on. 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—never by rotters. Infectees won’t care about how quickly you die, or how much pain you are in. They either beat you to a pulp, consumed by rage, or eat you until there’s nothing left to eat. The worst case—the one that nobody wants—is the infection taking over before dea
th comes. It’s then that one would join the infectees as a mindless, savage creature. I would rather live this awful life than become one of them.
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, the branches wobbled.
I rolled onto my front, keeping my gaze on the bush. As I pushed myself to my knees, Castle flipped onto his feet beside me. Over the crunch and crackle of the leaves, the steady thrum of my heartbeat pumped in my ears.
Castle nudged me on the arm, the one that’d been shot a few weeks ago. The pain jolted through me and I muffled a groan. I glowered at him; he jerked his head, gesturing for me to get up.
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 would be worse.
Castle reached out for me. His fingers coiled around my wrist, and he stepped back. I barely heard the leaves and twigs flatten beneath his boot.
He guided me backwards. We moved quietly. Each step backwards took us closer to the path downhill. As we moved, nothing jumped out at us; no bullets soared out from the bushes. I almost let myself think it had been the breeze, that we’d get back down to the cave safely. But it’s never safe in this world. Not ever.
Castle released my wrist to hand me a knife. My sweaty hand curled around the leather-bound handle. We were almost at the mouth of the path when it happened. The bushes didn’t rustle or sway; they shook as if a violent gust of wind had shoved through it. But there was no wind.
