“Why should we follow you?” Violet asked.
“And how do you know my name?” Winter questioned.
The narrow faced girl deflated. “Now isn’t the time for all of this. Please, just follow me.”
The three girls turned and headed away from the wall, and the locked iron gate. Winter looked behind her, at the burning ship in the distance, at the bodies washing up, running to the wall hoping to get in to the Promised Land. She headed away from the gate she had come through when she saw a mother and child heading towards it. She couldn’t face telling people they weren’t getting in.
They hurried down a street that was dark except for one or two lights in upstairs windows. Either the streetlamps had been smashed, or they were not working. The parked cars looked like they had been there for weeks. They gathered dust, some with windows smashed, others with flat tyres. Vandalism was evident everywhere; rules were out.
Winter tried to make sense of what was around her. Where were the picturesque squares? Where were the warm, inviting lights in windows? Where were the signs of life?
Where was the safety?
The girl with the narrow face took an abrupt turn and came to a stop. Winter bumped into her, apologising as she did so.
“Shh,” the girl hissed. “We need to be quiet.”
Winter looked over the girl’s shoulder. They were in a grassy square, short trees only just managing to stand taller than a rustic fence. The flowers inside were dead, the petals turning a sickly brown. The benches looked charred, as if they had been set alight. Winter thought of riots.
Outside the fences were a group of orange suited bodies. Winter counted at least twelve of them, all with their backs turned, facing a row of houses that had curtains drawn tightly shut.
“Shit,” the pixie haired girl said. “They’ve found us.”
Winter glanced at Zach with worry. Were these girls criminals?
“What the fuck is happening?” William demanded.
The leading girl began to sink to the ground. The others did the same, out of confusion more than anything.
“We need to stay low,” she whispered. Winter detected a Bristol accent. “These people are dangerous.”
“How do we know you’re not dangerous?” Violet fired back.
“This isn’t the time.” The girl repeated.
Winter eyed the orange suits again. One began moving towards the house, as if it had seen something move inside.
“Is this where you live?” Winter asked the blonde girl, but all she got was a finger to the lips as a response.
The girl with black hair signalled for them to follow her. They had their backs to the bushes, and crawled forwards on their hands and knees. One by one, they scarpered past the shut gate, where an orange suited body stood. Once on the other side, the girl began to rise, running lightly on her feet.
They exited the small gardens and came to the edge of another street. The cars here were just as abandoned as the ones they had seen before. There was a gap of openness between them and the next street. Winter took comfort in the three girls’ sense of direction. It seemed they had somewhere to go.
“One by one, we need to get across.” The girl with the black hair whispered.
“To the street in front?” Zach asked.
The girl nodded stiffly. She turned to peer at the bodies in the suits, looked left and right, and darted through the night.
“Shit,” Connor exhaled.
One by one they hurried across, hiding in the shadows of the next street, until it was Winter and the pixie haired girl left.
“You go first,” The girl said to Winter.
“Are you sure?”
“There is no time for politeness.”
Winter nodded, trying not to show her emotions. She took a deep breath and sprinted across the ground.
There was a shout. The girl with the black hair looked afraid. A grenade rolled across Winter’s feet and came to rest at a car. Winter didn’t turn back. She kept her eyes on Violet.
Then there was a bang, and Winter was thrown off her feet.
Chapter Three
Winter looked up, to see Violet running towards her. Winter could only hear a high-pitched noise. She was momentarily dazed. She could see the narrow faced girl crying, screaming, but couldn’t understand why.
Violet lifted Winter to her feet, saying something, muttering something. Winter just nodded. There was a pain in her leg, and looking down she saw her jeans had ripped and she was bleeding.
The blonde girl took Winter’s hand and pulled her further away from the scene. Winter stumbled along, looking behind her.
The pixie haired girl lay dead on the floor.
With the narrow faced girl crying, the blonde had taken control. Winter’s ears began to pop, a painful sensation, until sound came rushing back to her.
“Miranda!” The dark haired girl screamed. “No, Miranda!”
“Lara, this isn’t the time! She’s gone. She’s gone!”
The blonde turned up a flight of stairs, which were in an alcove between two flats. They followed her up the stairs, and Winter watched as the girl unlocked the door and ushered everybody inside.
“Did they see us?” The blonde asked William, who was last to come through.
“Who?”
“The Blitzers. The men in orange suits.”
“I don’t think so?” William said. “No, we weren’t followed.”
“Good.” The blonde nodded. “Quick, get inside.”
William did, and the blonde slammed the door shut, locking it and drawing across a reinforced iron door.
“What the fuck is happening?” Violet asked, over the manic cries of the girl called Lara.
“Get up those stairs and I will tell you everything,” the blonde said. When nobody moved, she raised her voice. “Now!”
They climbed the stairs, pushing through fabric that had been hung up in a hurry. They emerged onto one whole floor, the windows boarded up, the only light source coming from two candle lamps.
Winter could see this was a squat. Pillows that had seen better days rested on tattered old bed sheets, knitted together by some hand that was long gone. There was no bathroom, no kitchen.
“Sit anywhere,” the blonde said, before turning to Lara who was led across the floor at the back of the room. “Lara, pull yourself together. We can’t be heard here, okay? If they hear you crying they will come for us.”
Winter moved closer to Zach.
Lara wiped at her tears, and tried to control her rapid breaths. “It just happened too quickly,” she finally said, when she had somewhat calmed down. “I just can’t believe she’s gone.”
“Miranda was a great person, and a huge loss to our endeavours, but use this as a reason to bring those fuckers down.” The blonde said, staring directly at Lara. She turned to the others. “Miranda Butters. She was our friend back in Bristol, and our main engineer. She’s a huge loss, but we got caught. It’s nobody’s fault but The Blitzers. And the way V runs this fucking government of hers.”
Violet made a noise of exasperation.
“You’re going to have to be more specific about that,” Connor said.
“We need answers,” Winter added.
The blonde nodded. She looked at Lara for confirmation, and when Lara nodded the blonde sighed. “Get comfortable.” She looked at their surroundings. “Well, as comfortable as you can get. I’ll talk as much as possible, and hope we don’t get fucking disturbed by those Blitzers outside.”
Winter sat where she stood, coming to rest on an upside down black bucket. Violet sat next to her, crossing her arms.
“My name is Caroline Neil. I come from Bristol. During the apocalypse, I escaped with Lara and Miranda. I lost my parents. I was an only child. I escaped on a government boat, and I came to France. Life was great. We even got offered admin roles at the government. Then we learned what they were up to when our department got sent a wrong email…” Caroline quivered at the recollection.
“I don’t really know where is best to begin.”
“Start with who the fuck were the people outside,” Violet said.
Caroline nodded, eyeing Violet with a mixture of apprehension and understanding. “Blitzers. They are government guards, hired by V. At first, we thought they were all good to go. They shot down any of the dead that managed to get in. They helped build the walls that surround France, built by volunteers and building companies. They were on our side. At least, that’s what we thought. Then one day they turned. They began rampaging houses, killing those that they had decided were carriers. They shot at people in the street, installed a seven PM curfew, and made up rules on the spot. They’re dangerous terrorists who have total control, all because they listen to their leader: a woman we only know as V.”
“V.” Winter stated. “Who is she?”
“She is the government leader. The government we thought we knew has gone. They’ve been over thrown by V and her cult. V is in charge of not only France, not only the world, but the zombie apocalypse.”
Zach blanched. “In charge of…?”
Caroline nodded. “Whilst working in government offices, we did spot a few odd things. Blitzers came and went, but never revealed their identities. There were the normal restricted sections, but then any room that wasn’t in our hallway became restricted. Doctors and scientists kept arriving at the building, and we didn’t know why. The wall was built, but the dead kept getting in. Then people started disappearing.”
“Disappearing?” Winter asked.
Caroline nodded. “People who wouldn’t be missed at first. But then important people. Then we noticed survivors were going. We didn’t know where. Then we found out. They were going to experiments.”
Nobody said anything. It seemed everybody was too stunned. Lara sniffed, wiping away fresh tears.
“The experiments were a department V had opened before the apocalypse began. The department isn’t here in France, but is in Papua New Guinea. She’s opened a building, where she is creating the virus, creating the dead, and unleashing it on the world. That’s where the apocalypse began. A man-made virus in the middle of a rain forest.”
“How do you know all of this?” Violet asked, not convinced.
“When we got sent our email, we did some more digging into databases, and looked at more files that we had been told never to look at,” Miranda said. “V has it all written down. She underestimated anybody working for her finding out the truth. But we did, and that is why we’re on the run.”
“You’re on the run?” William gasped.
Caroline smirked, looking around the small squat. “You don’t get a place like this if you’re a high earner for V’s government.”
“Why do you call her V?” Winter asked.
“That was the only initial we ever saw, whilst working admin.” Caroline said. “She hides her identity. Any public speaking, she wears a pink satin cloth that drapes her body from head to toe.”
“How did she create the virus?”
“We don’t know.” Caroline admitted. “But we want to find out.”
“How will you find out?” William asked.
“We’re building our own anti-government body,” Lara said, her voice stronger now. “We’re calling it The Elite.”
Violet adjusted her seating position. “You’re going to take on V’s government?”
Lara and Caroline nodded. “Many people are too scared to act out. Others are on V’s side. Anybody who has tried to stop V has gone about it the wrong way, and have disappeared under mysterious circumstances weeks later.”
“How?” Zach asked.
“Suicides, car crashes, and plain old executions.” Lara replied.
“Executions?” Violet and William gasped.
“V has gone public,” Caroline said. “A lot of people don’t know she is responsible for the virus, but they know she is trouble. Right now, they see her as someone who is losing control of the Blitzers, and doing a bad job of securing our countries and building a safety in France. Many people have protested, rioted even, and called for her to step down. Of course, this is V’s way of luring people into a false sense of security. She’s making people act out, making them believe they can change the world, can do something better than she can. But she’s dangerous. And she knows exactly what she’s doing.”
“It looks like you’ve been led into thinking you can do something different,” Violet said. “You could easily be fooled.”
“Maybe,” Lara nodded. “Or maybe we’re the change the world needs.”
Chapter Four
“I didn’t know about that,” Connor said, his back turned to the group and addressing Winter.
She stood at the boarded up window, thinking things through. The two girls were convicts. They were evading V, for fears of being captured. If they were captured, they would have a gruesome fate: either a public execution, or shipped off to a remote island to be changed into the dead. France had never been safe.
“You didn’t know?” Winter asked.
“You have to believe me,” Connor pleaded. “I didn’t know as much as you thought I knew. Yes, Cedric was talking to me in London. Yes, he wanted you protected. I don’t know why, before you ask. He just said you were important, and you needed to be kept safe. So I wanted to keep you safe, and I did that. I knew of the government being somewhat sketchy, but I did not know they were a new government, or a cult, and it has only been confirmed tonight that they were the ones creating the virus and the dead.”
Winter looked at Connor. He was tired and strained like the rest of them. Stubble grew on his chiselled face, and his hair had become longer and curlier.
“Did you know that Cedric wanted me to go against the government?” Winter asked, keeping her voice low. The room was small, and she was sure the others could hear what they were saying, but she wanted this to be as private as possible.
“He did mention it.” Connor nodded. “But I didn’t think he would ask you so forcefully. And I knew you would be able to stick up for yourself.”
“It hurt me, Connor. I felt betrayed.”
“Why?”
“I’ve dealt with people forcing me into things too many times. I’ve gone through enough shit in my seventeen years to know that now is the time to take control of my life and do what I need to do.” Winter sighed. “This is dangerous territory. Asking me to publicly tackle a killer government isn’t smart.”
Connor ran a hand over his chest. “I know. You’re right. I’m sorry, Winter, but I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to keep you safe, regardless of who was asking.”
Winter shied away from Connor, closing her eyes. “You know we can’t do this, don’t you?”
“Do what?”
Winter swallowed. “Me and you. We can’t be something. We can’t be what you want us to be.”
“I just want us to be friends, Wint.”
Winter turned her green eyes to Connor’s brown. “You don’t mean that.”
Connor shrugged. “It is what it is.”
Winter turned away from Connor and was pleased to feel him walk away and join the others. She needed time to think, as much time alone as she could get in this cramped squat.
Her thoughts turned to her parents. Had they escaped to France? If they had, what had happened to them? Had they been shipped off to Papua New Guinea to be turned into the dead, released back into the world to kill? Or were they hiding away from V, on the run like the girls were in this room?
Winter supposed that now she was on the run. She couldn’t go back out in France knowing it wasn’t safe. She couldn’t just set up a life she had so desperately wanted to set up.
France was supposed to be her escape and her new fresh start, but now it was nothing but trouble and uncertainty.
“We can’t stay here much longer,” Caroline said, drawing Winter’s attention back to the room. “Miranda’s body is just down the road, and the Blitzers will want everybody to know one of the Trio Girls has been killed
.” Everyone but Lara stared at Caroline blankly. “The Trio Girls are what they’ve been calling us. V put out a wanted list and we were top of it. We’ve been dubbed The Trio Girls. Girls that are conspiring against the government.”
“Do people know V created the virus?” Zach asked.
“No,” Lara answered. “But they know something is seriously wrong. V is pushing new jobs, new businesses, and controlling the media to publish that countries are being reclaimed by the Blitzers. But seven PM curfews and Blitzers blowing people up isn’t the best message.”
“Then why aren’t more people turning against V?” Violet questioned.
“They’re scared,” Caroline shrugged. “Or they’re found and killed before they can do so. There are people out there, on the run, trying to think of a way to take back control. It’s our job to find them and join together.”
“Our job?” William asked.
“It’s not ideal to not have a base, but ultimately we need to find one and build a team. Right now, the members of The Elite are scattered,” Lara said.
“Members?” Connor questioned.
Lara nodded. “We do have a few recruits. People on our side that we work with, and that we can trust. We’ve been speaking to them whenever we have a chance, but we’ve been out on a private mission. That mission was to recruit people as soon as they get in to France. Tonight was different; we weren’t expecting any more survivors. We will aim to get back to our members.”
“How big is The Elite?”
“Not big enough.” Caroline sighed.
“This is going to be a war.” Lara spoke.
Winter shook her head. “No, no. I’m not starting any kind of war.”
Lara blinked. “If we don’t, who will?”
“Someone,” Zach said. “But not us. We don’t want to meddle with things.”
“The Blitzers saw you tonight,” Lara said. “You’re one of us now.”
“They can’t possibly know who we are,” William said.
Lara and Caroline exchanged worried glances.
Winter Smith (Book 2): The Secrets of France Page 2
