by R J Murray
A blast of cold air came through the door as it was opened and she cast an irritated glance over her shoulder as she opened her mouth to berate the British woman for letting the heat out. The words never came as she stared at the naked woman standing in the doorway.
For several long seconds, they looked at each other, the naked woman shivering with the cold, limbs trembling as she looked around the small room. Her skin had a bluish tinge and her hair was a tangled, greasy mess.
There were marks on her skin, scratches and cuts along with numerous bruises. Blood ran down her thighs from the torn and ripped flesh between her legs and there were deep bite marks on her breasts. Mandy almost gagged at the rancid smell that was brought in with her and pushed herself back against the cabinets as the infected woman took a step forward, hands clenching and unclenching.
She wanted to call for help, to move, to run but stood petrified as the woman took another step. Mandy scanned the room, lingering for a moment on the rifles propped against the wall beside the door. Her hand moved across the counter, slowly so as not to alarm the infected woman, fingers twitching as she searched for a weapon.
The infected woman took another step, stopping as she sniffed at the air. As she moved closer, Mandy could clearly see the blackened toes that she immediately recognised as frostbite. She must be close to death, was the only thought Mandy had as she watched her take another faltering step.
Her fingers closed around the hilt of a kitchen knife and she gripped it tightly, fingers whitening from the force of her grip.
Another step from the infected woman, barely six more short steps and she would reach Mandy. She stopped; mouth opening and drool running down her chin. Stained and cracked teeth with foul breath that she could smell even with the distance between them.
“Merde,” she said, slipping into her native French as the woman moved closer.
The infected woman took another step and lunged at her. Mandy lashed out with the knife, swinging her arm around and slicing deep into the woman’s arms before she skipped to her left out of the woman’s reach.
She swung again as the infected turned and lurched towards her. Blood sprayed into the air as the knife bit deep but at a cost. The infected woman gripped her arm, nails digging into Mandy’s skin as she pulled away.
“Libère moi!” she screamed as she lashed out with her free hand, hitting the infected woman around the head and shoulders to little effect.
With an unnatural strength, the infected woman pulled Mandy closer. She gagged at the stench, stomach churning as fear clawed at her. A hand with blackened fingers oozing pus ran across her cheek and tears filled her eyes as she faced her death.
The side of the infected woman’s head exploded outwards as a thunderous roar filled the cabin. Blood and bits of brain sprayed into the air as her eyes rolled up and she dropped like a sack of flour. Lifeless.
Mandy stared open-mouthed at her for a moment before looking over to where Terri stood beside the door, a hunting rifle in her arms, a wispy trail of smoke rising from the barrel.
“Thank you!” she said, almost in tears.
A tremble ran through her as she stepped back away from the dead infected.
“You hurt?” Terri asked, pulling back the lever and ejecting the cartridge as Elise stepped into the room.
The young blonde woman stared around, mouth and eyes open wide as she took in the scene. Terri ignored her as she slipped another bullet into the rifles open chamber and pushed the lever forward.
She kept the rifle in her hand and asked again, “Mandy! Are you hurt? Did she bite you?”
“N-no,” Mandy said, shaking her head in a daze. “I wasn’t bitten.”
Alan had begun to shout from the bedroom and Terri caught Elise’s eyes and jerked her head towards the door.
“Go tell him what’s going on,” she instructed.
The young woman nodded and ran off to do as she was told while Terri took a cautious few steps towards Mandy. She paused by the body, nudging it with her toe and swearing softly as she saw the bloody mess between her legs.
“This is fresh.”
“What?” Mandy shook herself from her reverie and focused on Terri. “What is?”
“That fucking mess,” she said with a nod of her head.
“Raped before she turned?”
“Either that or consensual after,” Terri said with a twist of her lips. “At least as consensual as it gets with the infected.”
“What does it matter?”
“It matters because it means there might be at least one more close by. I only saw one set of footprints in the snow but that doesn’t mean much.”
“Footprints?” What?”
Terri fought back the urge to shake the other woman. She was in shock, that much was clear and she wasn’t entirely sure what you needed to do about that other than perhaps a good slap to shake her out of it.
“By the woodpile, I saw some footprints leading around the house. I was coming back for the rifle when I saw the door was open.”
“Thanks. For coming back in time, I mean.”
“Welcome, now pull yourself together and gather as much of our stuff into the rucksacks as you can.”
“We’re not leaving, are we?”
“I don’t know what we’ll do,” Terri said. “As soon as the others are back, we can discuss. Until then we prepare for the possibility that we will leave. You gather things together and I’ll keep watch.”
Mandy nodded slowly. She rubbed at her right arm where the infected woman had grabbed her. There were four small crescent marks on her skin and she was terrified of what that might mean.
She rushed over to the sink as soon as Terri turned towards the door and scooped up some of the melted snow they used for cleaning, scrubbing at her arm as she cast a look of fear back over her shoulder at Terri.
Chapter 4
Snow had begun to fall once again as Jacob and Clive approached the cabin. The older man led the way while the younger cast frequent glances behind them, his anxiety fading only a little as he watched the snow slowly filling the tracks they had made.
“Wait!” Jacob commanded as he paused at the edge of the trees, eyes narrowed as he stared at the cabin.
“What’s up?”
“I’m not sure…”
Jacob lifted his rifle to his shoulder and took a cautious step out from between the trees. He paused, scanning the area before taking another. Clive followed, sweaty hands gripping his own rifle as he wondered if he should have it ready too.
“Clive!”
A whispered call came from the cabin and he breathed a sigh of relief as he recognised Terri’s voice.
“Everything’s fine, see,” he said as he pushed past the other man and hurried over to the cabin as the door swung open.
He slowed his pace as he saw the look of concern she wore and the rifle she cradled in her arms. He looked her up and down, sudden fear pulling at him as he searched for sign of injury.
“You okay?” he asked quickly as she stepped forward into his awkward embrace as they juggled the rifles between them.
“No,” she whispered and sniffed, burying her head against his broad chest.
“Aye, son,” Jacob said with a sneer as he pushed past. “Everything’s fine.”
Clive gently prised Terri away from him and urged her gently back into the cabin. He closed the door firmly behind them and stopped as the coppery scent of blood assailed him.
“What…”
“Fucking infected,” Jacob answered.
He stared down at the dead woman and quickly looked around the room, taking in each of the women in turn and then the packed rucksacks. He nodded approvingly.
“I was on the fence before, but this seals it. We have to leave.”
“We can’t,” Clive said. “Alan isn’t ready to be moved.”
An uncomfortable silence fell as each of them waited for someone else to speak. They all knew what it meant and from the moment they’d arrived
, they’d all agreed that they would stay only while it was safe.
“We’ll leave him some food,” Mandy said.
“Plenty of blankets to keep warm,” Jacob agreed before adding, “rifle too.”
“We can’t do this,” Clive said in protest. “We can’t just abandon him.”
He turned to look at Terri, eyes imploring her to say something, anything to help support him. She turned her gaze away and said in a small voice, “I think we have to.”
“This isn’t right!”
“You can stay, lad,” Jacob said. “Won’t force you, but this place isn’t safe.”
“It’s one infected!”
“And those others,” Jacob replied giving him a stern look. “And however many there were with this one.”
“She could have been alone.”
It was weak and he knew it, but he couldn’t not at least try to convince them.
“They don’t travel alone. Humans are pack animals for the most part, and the infected are true to that from what I’ve seen.”
“Some will be alone. She could have been.”
“Nay, lad.” Jacob shook his head sorrowfully as he propped his rifle against the wall. “She was dying of the cold most likely, couldn’t keep up and lost her way.”
“The others won’t be looking for her then, they don’t care about lost members of their groups.”
“True enough, but they’ll be hungry and we’ve seen ourselves that they’ll eat their own.”
He couldn’t argue with that and Jacob, seeing that in his face, nodded sharply and turned to the bedroom. He paused with his hand on the door handle and looked back over his shoulder at the others.
“Gather the gear, we’ll leave as soon as I’m done.”
“We should say goodbye,” Elise said softly. “Shouldn’t we?”
“Clean break, lass,” Jacob said. “Easier for everyone.”
With that, he pushed open the door and stepped into the bedroom. It closed behind him with a solid finality and none of those remaining in the living room were able to look each other in the eye. They all knew that what they were doing was tantamount to a death sentence for the quiet, unassuming man.
“I’ll bring in some wood for him,” Clive said. “Can do that much at least.”
“Yeah, I’ll help,” Terri said.
He nodded curtly and she followed him from the cabin. They each carried their rifle and kept a wary eye on the surrounding trees. The snowfall made it hard to see much of anything, so they moved slowly, neither of them speaking as they listened for sounds of approach.
In silence they gathered armfuls of logs and carried them back into the cabin, stacking them beside the fireplace. He’d be spending some time in the bedroom, but when he was able to move into the living room he wouldn’t have to struggle to get the fire started.
They made several trips and the stack grew. As they came in for the fourth time, Jacob was pulling on his rucksack. He nodded approvingly at Clive as he carried in his armful of wood.
“That’ll do,” he said, not unkindly. “Time to go.”
Clive carefully stacked the wood before standing straight and pressing his hands against the base of his back and stretching the muscles there. He looked around the room and shook his head as he watched the others gather their own packs.
“This isn’t right.”
He knew it likely wouldn’t sway them but he had to try.
“We could make him a splint and a crutch. Or a stretcher to carry him. We could at least try!”
“Wouldn’t work, lad. You saw it the same as I did out there. We wouldn’t make it if we were carrying him.”
“It’s not right,” he repeated, knowing he was defeated.
He couldn’t stay. If he did then Terri would too and it wasn’t safe. He knew that. But that didn’t mean he didn’t want to and he felt awful for wanting to leave.
“We’ve left food and ammo,” Jacob said as he headed towards the door. “We’ll secure this place when we leave and when he feels up to it, he can come after us.”
Clive nodded and crossed the room to pick up his own pack. He swung it onto his shoulders, dismayed at how little it weighed. Their supplies had already been running low so he didn’t know how much they could have spared and their ammo supply wasn’t as healthy as it could have been.
He didn’t want to ask as he glanced suspiciously at the other man. He knew he wouldn’t like the answer, but he had to anyway.
“How much ammo did you leave him?”
Jacob ushered them all out of the door and as Clive stepped out, he closed it securely behind him. He didn’t look at the younger man for several moments as he went about securing the door as best he could.
“How much?” Clive repeated.
A single gunshot echoed through the still air and Clive turned, startled, to stare at the closed door to the cabin. He reached for the handle but Jacob gripped his arm and pulled his hand away.
“Just enough,” he said and walked away.
Chapter 5
They travelled for an hour before the snow stopped falling from the sky and the clouds began to clear. The moon shone brightly down upon them, reflecting from the snow and illuminating their way. It wasn’t perfect, but they could see where they were going at least.
Each of them had their too light rucksack on their backs and a rifle cradled in their arms, held across the body so as to be ready when needed. Though they all knew that if they met any infected while out in the open, the best thing they could do was run.
It was close to midnight when they broke through the trees and found themselves on a snow-covered service road that led roughly east to west. They paused there for a moment, heads turning to look both ways and then all eyes went to Jacob.
“Guess it’s time,” he said softly. “I know we’ve all discussed what we’d do and where we’d go, but now is the time to make the final decision.”
He turned his head, looking at each of them in turn and making sure he met their eyes with his own. He wanted their full attention and hoped that his words would stress the import of what they had to decide.
“We go east, we’ll make it to Switzerland. We can head up into the mountains and find somewhere that maybe the infected don’t go.”
Jacob scratched at the thick fuzz of hair that covered his chin and shrugged.
“It’s not a bad idea. Though there’s a risk of frostbite, unsafe mountain trails and getting complacent enough to think they won’t find us, right up until they do.”
“That was A-Alan and Martin’s choice,” Terri said, stumbling over the name of the man they had left behind. “I just want to go home.”
“Home’s different for all of us, lass. But for four of us, home is in the UK.” He looked at Mandy and cocked an eyebrow. “What about you?”
“Home,” she said, rubbing absently at her arm. “That has been many places over the years. I have no objection to making another new one.”
“England it is then,” Jacob said, pausing to allow any last-minute argument to be made. “It’ll be a long walk and there’s a lot of towns and cities between here and there.”
“They can’t all have fallen,” Clive said. “The military and the government must still have some control.”
“Aye, well, when the sat-phone starts to work, then I might think they have a handle on it.”
That was a sore point. Back when Clive and Terri were blissfully unaware of what was going on in their mountain vacation cabin, a terrorist group had somehow managed to disable communications while releasing the infected on the world.
Jacob had maintained that if the governments were in charge, they would have managed to regain some control of the communications satellites. The fact that the CB radios had no one talking was a little dismaying too.
“West it is,” Jacob said. “Stick to this road for now and we might find somewhere to spend what’s left of the night. Maybe some food too.”
They walked for hours, moving alon
g the eerily silent road. Their legs were soon soaked through from the snow and each of them knew what a problem that would be. Jacob had schooled them enough on the potential issues they might face with the snow and cold
As they moved further away from the mountains, the land slowly descended, flattening out into the wide open fields and vineyards of South-Eastern France. At the end of the long road they had walked, was a small town, barely more than a village.
White painted houses with ceramic tiles on the roofs and well-kept gardens, all lined the road that led into the town. Mixed in amongst the houses were the larger buildings that contained the shops, restaurants and bars that made most of their income from holidaymakers headed up into the mountains.
They crowded the side of the road, each one with large signage proclaiming their name and business type. Each of them vying for the attention of the passersby. A sign rose up beside the road covered with a thick coating of frozen snow that obscured the name of the town.
Cars filled the road, many of them drawn up onto the pavement and grass verge. All of them empty and cold, their engines long since shut off.
Jacob stopped them beside the sign as he peered ahead. He turned his head this way and that as though trying to see everything hidden in those dark windows of the houses.
“No tracks,” he said softly, then added, “but the snowfall would have covered any.”
He shook his head, his eyes narrowing as his lips moved silently. After a moment, he shook his head and hefted his rifle before turning to look back over his shoulders at the others.
“We’ll have to risk it.”
“You sure?” Terri asked.
She eyed Mandy as she said it, watching the other woman shiver and rub her arms. The cold was getting to everyone but the Frenchwoman seemed to be having the worst time of all of them.
“Not much choice.”
Jacob tilted his head, an almost imperceptible movement in the darkness, towards Mandy. He’d noticed too. Elise, shivered as she nodded agreement. Dark rings had formed beneath her eyes and it was clear to see she too was exhausted.
“What do we do?” Terri asked.
