Winter Smith (Book 2): The Secrets of France

by Strange, J. S.

  Lara turned and leapt across the gap between the buildings. Once on the roof of the other, she crouched down, and headed across to the fire escape.

  “Now you’ve pissed her off,” Caroline sighed. “She’s a pain when she’s pissed off.”

  Violet rolled her eyes and leapt across.

  “You don’t want to leave us,” Caroline said to Winter, Zach, Connor and William. “It isn’t safe out there.”

  “I don’t know what we’re going to do yet,” Zach said.

  Winter bit her tongue. Zach was thinking only of what Violet wanted. He wasn’t thinking logically. Winter wanted to stay with Lara and Caroline. They were two girls who knew what was going on, and they had been successfully evading Blitzers and V for a few weeks. Winter couldn’t help but feel that if they were to part ways, they would be caught.

  One by one, they leapt across the roof and headed down the fire escape. The clattering of their shoes on metal made Winter apprehensive that as soon as they got to the floor they would be killed by Blitzers.

  They found stone flooring, and peered around the corner onto a deserted street. The cars here had been stripped of anything valuable. Windows to some buildings were smashed, whilst others had been reinforced with metal cages on the doors and window frames.

  “This really is awful,” Winter whispered.

  “We’ll head down the street and hopefully we’ll find a house that has somewhere we can crawl into,” Lara said.

  Before Violet could argue, Lara and Caroline walked away. The others followed, Violet somewhat begrudgingly, until they came across a street that was littered with rubbish and stained with graffiti.

  “This doesn’t look like a safe area,” Zach remarked.

  “Sometimes that’s best,” Caroline replied. “It probably means that the apartments here are easy to get into. We’ve just got to reinforce it ourselves.”

  “How do you hope to do that without getting caught?” Violet asked.

  Winter looked up at the many buildings that towered above them. Windows were either blacked out or boarded up, but being stood in the middle of a street wasn’t smart. All it took was for one person to alert the Blitzers that they were here. Then it would be over.

  “Well, it was lovely to meet you girls,” Violet began. “But we’re going our separate ways.”

  “Violet, come on,” William pleaded. “That isn’t a good idea.”

  “Be my guest and stay with them, Will,” Violet said. “Just don’t come back and bite me when you turn into the dead.”

  Something fell in the distance. Lara looked in the direction.

  “Do what you want to do.”

  Lara turned and ran up a nearby flight of steps. Caroline looked at Winter before following Lara. Something else fell in the distance, this time closer. William looked at Winter.

  “I don’t know what you’re going to do, but I want to go with them.”

  Winter looked at William. She couldn’t hold him back. She couldn’t make him do what he didn’t want to do. With a heavy heart, she hugged him. He grasped her, swaying slightly.

  “Keep safe,” William whispered.

  “You too.”

  They broke apart. William smiled slightly, before following Caroline and Lara.

  “Well?” Winter said.

  “Well what?” Violet asked.

  “What’s the plan?”

  Violet grinned. She pointed to the end of the pavement. “The metro.”

  “You want us to go underground?” Zach asked.

  “It’s the safest place. We’ll be able to keep away from The Blitzers.”

  “I don’t think being underground is the best idea.” Connor began.

  But then something fell again, this time rolling out from the street next to them. It was a bin, set alight. They could hear cheering. Men’s voices, celebrating their arson.

  “We’ve got to move,” Winter gasped.

  They hurried away from the jeering voices and to the metro. The entrance was blocked with a flimsy gate. After a few kicks from Connor, it broke apart.

  “Great, wake up everyone around us why don’t you?” Violet fired.

  “Do you want to get underground or not?”

  They hurried down the steps and into the darkness. Winter felt a chill creep over her. Immediately they felt like this had been a bad idea.

  “Where do we go now?”

  Before anyone could answer, there was a flicker of light. A fire in the middle of the room had been stoked. Stood around it were a group of people in black clothing, masks over their faces.

  “You’re not welcome here!”

  Chapter Seven

  Winter turned, intent on escape. She registered that the stairway was covered in graffiti, symbols that reminded her of a cult. The floor was filthy with oil and rubbish. The odour of the fire had already filled the abandoned station. Winter didn’t climb the steps. She didn’t try to escape.

  Stood on the stairs they had just come down were the men who had been cheering in the street before. They wore black clothing and carried baseball bats. Their unadorned white masks were staring lifelessly back at the intruders. With a lurch in her stomach, Winter saw they were carrying the head of a dead man.

  “Please, we’ve just taken a wrong turning,” Violet’s voice echoed around them. Winter stepped away from the stairs and glanced behind her. The ticket barriers had barbed wire over the entrances. The people around the fire were behind the barriers. They held barbed wires in their hands. “We’ll be on our way. Nobody needs to get hurt here.”

  There was a chilling laughter. Someone who had been poking the fire began to step forwards. “This is our territory. You’ve entered it without permission. You’re not going anywhere.”

  “We didn’t know. We’re new here. We just got in on the ship…” Violet began.

  “Survivors?” Something in the man’s voice told Winter that Violet had made a mistake mentioning they were survivors. “You only just got here? Why so far away from government camp?”

  “We’ve been told they’re dangerous.” Connor answered. Winter tried to remember if Lara had mentioned anything about camps.

  “Frizzy boy is right,” the man said, stepping towards the barriers. His mask was stained with what looked like blood. Winter moved closer to Zach, keeping her back turned to the wall and her eyes on the men on the stairs and the group at the fire. “The government are dangerous. But we’re worse.”

  There was a loud bang as someone with a bat hit the wall. Violet screamed out. The men on the stairs sauntered towards them. Winter, Violet, Zach and Connor moved into the middle of the room, stopping at the barrier.

  “Why worse?” Violet managed to say. “Shouldn’t we all be teaming together? Shouldn’t we all be trying to bring down the government?”

  The room was filled with laughter. Winter saw steps leading further underground, to different train routes.

  “We are not a team,” the man spoke. “This is the world we live in, now. People against people against the dead against the government against people. You’re not our people. Therefore, we are against you.”

  “Then let us be your people.” Connor spoke. “We need to find a place on the food chain. We need to survive, too.”

  “That’s not how it works.” The man pressed a button and the gates of the ticket barrier opened. He stepped through carefully, his black boots echoing off the walls. “This is survival, and unfortunately your time is up.”

  The man was holding a steel bat, unlike the others who all held bats made out of wood. Winter began to shake. They had made a terrible mistake coming down here.

  A bat swung towards them. Winter screamed out and fell to the floor. The others had done the same. Winter got to her feet and ran. She could hear footsteps around her, but she had no idea if they were her friends or if they were the enemies.

  Someone grabbed her. She screamed, until she saw that it was Connor. He was directing her to a tunnel. They could hear bats hitting hard su
rfaces, people shouting, warning them never to come back. Then, they were running down a tunnel, into the darkness.

  Winter skidded to a halt. She tried to fight off Connor’s grip, but he kept a strong hold of her.

  “Where are Violet and Zach?” Winter shouted, her voice echoing around the chamber. It was pitch black around them, and soon Winter couldn’t tell which direction to go in.

  “They went down another tunnel.” Connor said. “Trust me, Winter, they’re fine. Follow me, please.”

  “We can’t lose them!” Winter exclaimed. “We can’t lose them, otherwise we’ll be goners. We won’t survive.”

  “Winter, if you keep shouting we’re going to get killed by those people up there. Your voice will carry. We’re not far enough out of this tunnel. We need to get down. We need to get away.”

  “But Violet…Zach…”

  “Trust me, Winter. We’ll find them.”

  Winter resigned to trusting Connor. She let him guide her away, further into the darkness. She was glad he did, as she had no sense of direction.

  The tunnel soon turned into a flight of stairs. Dim lighting lit up the floors below, from emergency lights dotted along the floor of the platform.

  Winter and Connor emerged out onto a deserted platform, and looked out over more deserted platforms. The train tracks were empty, except for one track that had a parked up tube train.

  “That’s atmospheric,” Connor muttered.

  “Where are they?”

  “They’ll be here soon, Winter.” Connor sighed. “Trust me. I saw them escape.”

  Winter nodded. “Okay.”

  Just then, they heard footsteps. From a stairway two platforms away came Violet and Zach. They looked around, before they saw Winter and Connor.

  “Oh my god, Winter.” Violet gasped, her voice carrying. “Are you alright?”

  “Yes. Are you?”

  “Yes,” Zach’s voice shook. “Get across here.”

  Winter and Connor leapt off the platform, and climbed onto the next, until they were finally on the same platform as Violet and Zach.

  “Those people were crazy,” Violet muttered. “Reminds you of the leisure centre all over again, doesn’t it?”

  Winter remembered London, and the people inside the leisure centre, driven crazy with paranoia and fear.

  “It’s not surprising people are like it when France has got this bad.” Winter remarked. “What do we do now?”

  “If we walk down the train tracks we’ll be able to find something,” Zach said. “We can find somewhere to hide out for a bit.”

  “Do you think it’s a good idea to stay here?” Violet looked up at the ceiling. “Those people could come down here. Or there could be more.”

  “I doubt it,” Connor said. “They probably have one level. The metro is vast and wide. We can walk as far as you want, but we’ll be able to find somewhere for ourselves.”

  “Let’s do that,” Winter said. “I don’t fancy getting beaten to death with a baseball bat.”

  “Did you hear he said something about government camps?”

  “Cedric told me about them,” Connor replied. “He said people are housed there for a year, where they live under government watch. They believe the government are on their side. They’re promised jobs, brainwashed into thinking everything is okay. They don’t realise how trapped they are.”

  “When did Cedric tell you this?” Winter asked. “You better not have been withholding information from us.”

  Connor shook his head. “He told me that night you refused to work with him.”

  Winter believed him.

  “Where do you think Cedric is now?” Zach asked.

  Connor sighed. “I really don’t know. I know he escaped from the lower deck of the ship. Jumped straight out into the water. Ruby followed him, too. But whether they survived that…”

  “I hope they didn’t.” Winter spoke.

  Connor’s eyes widened. “You can’t think that!”

  “Why not? He wanted me to be a pawn in his game.”

  “Cedric has answers. Cedric is valuable to us if we want to survive.”

  “But you don’t know that, Connor.” Winter snapped. “Cedric French could be dangerous.”

  Chapter Eight

  They headed further underground, following the emergency lights that had been left on.

  “They must not be worried about being found out this far down,” Zach said. “If it was me, I would want complete darkness and just carry torches,” Violet said.

  “We can do that when we secure somewhere to hide,” Connor said, leading the way through a tunnel.

  The train tracks were uneven. Winter felt odd, walking where humans should never be able to walk. The smell of urine was strong, and Winter wondered if it was fresh, or if the stench had been trapped down here for years. So far, they hadn’t come across a train, but they almost expected to see the headlights come zooming around the corner at any minute. Of course, they knew there would be none. Life had come to a standstill.

  They stopped at a wall built five foot high, two beams supporting the ceiling, but a gap wide enough to allow people to crawl through. Connor heaved himself up and peered over.

  “It’s pretty dark,” he whispered. “But there is enough room for us to bed down for the rest of the night. When it gets lighter we’ll be able to get our surroundings.”

  “Connor, we’re underground,” Violet said. “We’re not going to know when it’s day light.”

  “Oh…right.”

  They climbed over the wall and dropped down to the ground, rocky and dirty. The air here was stale, to the point where Winter began to panic that it would suffocate them.

  “We’ll be fine here,” Zach said. “But I think we need to take watch. We don’t want people coming down here and killing us.”

  “Cheery thought!” Violet rolled her eyes.

  They found a patch of ground that wasn’t damp and settled down. Connor kept the first watch by lying on the arch and stretching out on the wall. Sleep soon washed over them all, until they were awoken by the sounds of voices.

  “Shh,” Connor signalled, climbing quietly off the wall and peering over the edge.

  “I don’t know why he made us come this far down,” a man with a Manchester accent spoke. “This ain’t our territory. Why does it bother him where those punks went?”

  “He just wants to keep this to himself,” another man said. “He’s got ambition, I can tell you that.”

  Their footsteps echoed off the tunnel walls. Masking her footsteps in theirs, Winter joined Connor at the wall and peered over.

  All she could see were denser shadows moving in the darkness of the tunnel. They carried torches, and were barely moving them anywhere else but forwards.

  “You’ve got to remember that everybody is a threat to him,” the Manchester man said. “He’s a fugitive, just like the rest of us.”

  “By association.”

  “Maybe so, but we’re on his side now.”

  “All because he escaped from V,” the second man grumbled. “If I had a job creating the dead I would keep at it. To me it sounded like he got a good sum of money.”

  “I heard him telling Craig that his house was complimentary. Eight bedrooms, six bathrooms, a wine cellar, a basement and twenty four hour security.”

  The second man whistled. “What made him give it up?”

  Their voices were beginning to fade now, as they began to round the corner.

  “He said he felt guilty about creating the dead. Said he didn’t like V’s methods.”

  “Well, bugger me.”

  Their footsteps faded along with their voices. Holding their breath, they waited for any more noise. There was nothing.

  “Who is he?” Connor whispered.

  “Obviously the man who tried to kill us with a steel baseball bat,” Violet murmured. “But he worked for government?”

  “Apparently,”

  “We should try and talk to him,”
Zach said.

  Violet turned to Zach in shock. “What?”

  “We should get some information from him. Find out what is really going on.”

  “Oh, great idea, Zach!” Violet said. “Go and hand ourselves over to men in black with baseball bats. Get killed in the process!”

  “I don’t think it would quite go like that,”

  “They’re dangerous guys.”

  Winter stayed at the wall, looking out. Hearing the men outside talking made her realise that everyone was on the run from V. Anybody who knew the truth, and who wanted change, was trying to build a life somewhere different whilst they figured out what to do. She looked at her three friends, and knew they needed some kind of guidance.

  “I think we should try and join them.”

  Everyone looked at Winter. Violet looked surprised. “You do?”

  Winter nodded. “I mean, it’s like you say…he’s someone with information. He’s obviously wanted. Maybe not as much as Lara or Caroline, but he’s wanted. He’s worked for V. By the sounds of it he created the dead. He would definitely have some information.”

  “Problem is, we don’t know who he is,” Violet muttered.

  “I don’t think it would be hard to find him again.”

  Violet threw her hands up in exasperation. “Well, if you want to find a murdering, zombie creating, steel bat swinging monster, then be my guest.”

  “I appreciate that.” Winter grinned.

  Violet grimaced.

  “First, we need to find some blankets. Maybe some food,” Connor said.

  “The only food you’re going to find down here is dead rats,” Violet replied.

  Winter peered out into the tunnel. “Why don’t we go and find a train? Maybe they’ll have some food on board? Sometimes trains give complimentary pillows and blankets, too.”

  “They do?” Violet asked.

  “Have you never been on a train?” Connor asked.

  “Not long haul,” Violet said, somewhat defensively. “I never needed to go anywhere other than work and home.”

  Winter remembered Violet’s life: prostitution that was only to earn money and buy food for her dying mother and her young brothers. It made Winter realise how fortunate her life had been. Not everybody was able to travel, to pop to another town, to do what they wanted to do. Sometimes, people had to be selfless and put others first.