Winter Smith (Book 2): The Secrets of France

by Strange, J. S.

  “Can you show us?” Violet questioned.

  Nathan looked away. “Maybe.”

  He began to jerk his knee ever so slightly. Winter suspected he didn’t trust anyone in the room including her. She wanted to get through to her father, but she had never been able to.

  “Where did you go after the evacuation?” Winter asked.

  Nathan turned to Missy. “I’m glad to see you’re alive.”

  Violet exchanged a worried look with Winter.

  “It’s good to see you around, too,” Missy said. “But Nathan, you’ve got to tell us how you ended up here.”

  Nathan shook his head. “Stop asking me questions and eat up. Your food will go cold.”

  Connor had already finished his food. Zach lifted a chip to his mouth but didn’t eat.

  “Was this your place originally, Nathan?”

  Nathan shook his head. “No. France isn’t safe. It never was safe, but it’s gotten worse. People have to survive. They do what they have to do.”

  “And what did you do?” Violet asked.

  Nathan glared at her. “Nothing.”

  “What are you hiding?”

  “How dare you.”

  “Vi,” Winter warned.

  Nathan turned to his daughter. “You bring these people into my home and they ask me questions they should not ask. Do you even know these people? Where did you find them?”

  “Your home?” Violet asked.

  “It’s just as good as, and you should be glad I’ve let you in.” Nathan pointed a shaking finger at her. “Nobody lets anybody in these days.”

  “We’re not here to cause trouble. We just want to figure out what’s going on,” Winter said.

  “Figure it out.” Nathan nodded.

  “We can’t if you don’t tell us what you know,” Winter said, as kindly as possible.

  Nathan stood, his chair falling with a bang behind him. “I’m going out.” He turned to the door. “Don’t follow me.”

  Violet jumped from the counter, and Winter panicked she was going to antagonise her father further. Instead, she pulled the chair back to its feet and sat down at the table.

  “Your dad is crazy.”

  Winter sighed. They heard the door slam shut. “He’s broken. Something has happened but he’s keeping quiet.”

  “You think he knows something?” Zach asked.

  Winter nodded. “He won’t answer my questions. He won’t tell me where he’s been, where my mum is. For all I know he could have witnessed something horrible…like her death. He could be lying or trying to keep his guard up. We need to find out what’s going on.”

  “He didn’t sound like he was keen to talk,” Connor said.

  “He’s never been very talkative towards me,” Winter said. “But he seems different this time. Broken.”

  Violet sighed. “What’s it like?” Winter blinked at her. “Seeing your dad again? Having him in front of you, alive and well?”

  Winter sensed resentment. She sensed jealousy and pain. Violet had lost everyone she had worked hard to provide for. Her mother had died to the dead, but she was days from death with cancer. Her brothers had been too young to do anything other than play with toys. Winter knew Violet would give anything to have her family back.

  “It’s strange,” Winter managed to say, trying to come across as genuine. The truth was the rediscovery of her father had been numbing. “It doesn’t feel like he should be here.”

  “He survived,” Violet stated. “So did your mother. That must make you happy.”

  “It would shock anybody to see their family alive and well after losing them to the apocalypse,” Connor said. “I suppose Winter just needs to get used to having him about again.” Connor looked at Winter. “I never knew if my mother died. I still hold out hope I’ll see her one day.”

  Winter swallowed. “We’re not staying any longer than we have to.”

  Violet looked annoyed. “Why not? We’ve got food here, a house to sleep in.”

  “Dad’s hiding something, and I think we may be in danger.”

  Zach adjusted the glasses he wore, and leant forwards. “What do you mean?”

  Winter sighed. Looking around, on the surface this was safety. They had stacks upon stacks of food, with a supply nearby that wasn’t well known. They had beds, heating, and running water. They had a man who had survived the apocalypse this long, and seemed to be doing okay. But Winter knew her father, and she sensed something was off.

  “I need to get information from him,” Winter said. “Once we get that information, we use it to get to The Union.”

  “The Union?” Missy gasped. “You can’t join The Union. They’re too far in to Paris. They won’t accept us.”

  “They need extra hands,” Winter said. “So we need to join them.”

  Missy shook her head vigorously. “We can’t join them! We’re not strong enough.”

  “It’s either that, or hide out until we’re found and killed.”

  Violet cleared her throat. “So you’re just going to get information out of your dad and leave him behind to be found and killed?”

  “I didn’t say that,”

  “But you implied you don’t want to be with him for any longer than is necessary.”

  “He’s not someone to spend much time with.”

  Violet shook her head, unable to believe what Winter was saying. “You’ve just found your father, alive and well. You should be over the moon, Winter.”

  “I’m glad he’s alive.”

  “Then appreciate it.”

  Violet stood and headed out of the room. Zach looked torn between Winter and Violet.

  “Why don’t you go after her?” Winter asked him, her tone harsh.

  Zach bit his lip. After a few moments thought he stood and headed out of the room, following Violet into a bedroom.

  “Those two are together?” Missy asked.

  Winter shook her head. “It’s complicated.”

  Missy looked intrigued, but didn’t question it.

  “Don’t worry about her,” Connor said, to both Winter and Missy. “Violet’s a loose cannon. She’s crazy.”

  “Crazy isn’t the best word to use when talking about Violet,” Winter said. “She just has a temper.”

  “One she needs to sort out.”

  * * *

  That night, Winter lay awake, lost in trails of thought that went from one thing to the next. Her mind would not turn off, antagonising her emotions and getting her riled up for failure that was sure to come.

  She wondered where William was, and how he was fitting in with the two girls who had taken them in at their arrival. Lara and Caroline were intriguing girls, with secrets and facts that Winter needed to know. As Winter saw more of France, she knew that something had to be done. Her thoughts dwelled on Caroline, someone she didn’t know well, but a girl that had captured her interest nonetheless.

  The Union. Her thoughts kept coming back to The Union. They had answers. They had resources. They were braving what others weren’t. They were getting set to take on V, and the army she was building of Blitzers and dead.

  Who were they? Where were they? If they had answers then first she would need to find them. Right now, with nothing to go on, Winter had to find out her own answers.

  She listened to Connor snoring next to her. Violet and Zach were in separate rooms. Missy was in the kitchen, probably thinking of Keiron. Would her friends fight? Would they join The Union? If they didn’t, was she prepared to leave them behind to fend for themselves?

  Missy hadn’t seemed keen. Did she know more than she was letting on? Maybe she had already tried to join The Union, only to be rejected. Her old friend had been hiding underground, a lone warrior. Missy had never had trouble joining groups. The apocalypse changed people.

  Winter wanted to join The Union. She wanted to feel safe, but to also feel like she was doing something worthwhile. Would she be prepared to leave her friends behind if they didn’t follow her? She didn’t
know. If they died, she would feel incredibly guilty.

  She thought of Cedric, and his second in command Ruby. The pair had tried recruiting her. Had they been part of The Union all along, or were they part of a different group? The thought scared Winter. Maybe Cedric was to be trusted.

  The apocalypse installed paranoia in them all. Winter hated the thoughts that kept coming to her, fiddling with her nerves and twisting her stomach. She didn’t know who to trust, or who to side with.

  All she knew was France was not safe. Nobody was to be trusted, and that had to change.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The next morning, Winter and Zach headed out into the world outside. Things had changed overnight. There was a fresh body lying across the ground, a hole in her head from where she had been shot. Standing on the doorstep, Winter and Zach looked at the boarded up houses and shops around them, and then at the shops with broken windows and kicked in doors.

  “Do you think somebody is watching us right now?” Zach asked.

  Winter shuddered at the thought.

  They walked away from Nathan Smith’s hideout, and turned down into the next street. It didn’t do good to stand out in the open for too long. The streetlamps here had been burnt, and the street looked the same as the one they had just left. But at the end of this street was an abandoned grocery store, one that not many people knew about.

  “Do you think Nathan is telling the truth about this place?”

  The same thought had occurred to Winter. “I’m sure there will be some food here.” Though her father seemed confused. Maybe he had been mistaken.

  They stepped outside the shop. The door was chained shut, with bloodstains on the outside from hands that had slipped down the glass. A body lay in the corner of the doorway; dead or alive they didn’t know.

  “This can’t be the entrance,” Winter whispered, trying the door that didn’t budge. Looking at the frame she saw it had been sealed with concrete. “There must be another way.”

  Zach began walking away from the main door, and stopped when he came to the corner. “Follow me.”

  Winter followed him down the street, until they came across a vent in the bottom of the wall. Zach tried it, and to their surprise it fell off. Getting to his knees, Zach peered through.

  “What’s in there?”

  “I think I can see a dark room,” Zach muttered. “There’s enough room to get in, but it will be pretty claustrophobic.”

  Winter looked around them. They were alone, but she felt like they were being watched. There was definitely something strange about this area.

  “Let’s just get in.”

  Bravely, Zach led the way, climbing through the vent. Winter did the same, trying her best to cover the entrance again, but failing.

  The crawl way was very narrow. Winter’s tangled hair pulled across the stone above her, and her knees threatened to wedge her in with every move she made. It didn’t take long to get through. With her heart beating, and her brain telling her she was losing air, she emerged into what was once a refrigerated storeroom.

  “Isn’t it eerie?”

  Winter nodded her agreement. The room was humming with the sounds of freezers, left on to cool down food that had long since disappeared. She shivered as her body reacted to the nipping of her skin. She walked to containers, hoping to find food, but instead found them empty.

  “Don’t worry.” Zach shrugged. “We’ll have better luck in the next room.”

  They walked out of the storeroom and into the supermarket. Aisles upon aisles of confectionary and supplies greeted them. Winter felt as though she had been transported back in time.

  “Don’t you think this is odd?” Winter asked, looking at vacuum cleaners in one aisle. “Why are they still stocked? You’d think people would have found out all about this.”

  “It’s not a well-known area, and we’re not in Paris yet.” Zach said. “I bet the people around here are either dead, in hiding, or have travelled further in hoping to find The Union. They’ve left this behind for people like us who are still stuck on the outskirts.”

  They walked away from the cleaning aisle, and towards the fruit and veg aisle. Winter noticed a box of melons covered in mould. The only oranges left were those that were squished and rotting. Flies buzzed around wrinkled grapes, and tomatoes had fallen from their stand and cascaded across the floor, leaking their juices like blood from the dead.

  Across from the fruit aisle were magazines and newspapers. As Zach tried to salvage bananas, Winter allowed her curiosity to take her to the headlines. They were dated ten days after Winter had escaped her Watford home. It seemed this supermarket had stopped trading since then.

  Then why so much food? It didn’t make sense to Winter.

  Zach walked towards her pushing a trolley. All that was in it were bananas.

  “How the hell are you expecting to get food out of here?” Winter asked, remembering their claustrophobic squeeze.

  “There’ll be another way out.” Zach said. “It was just safer to come in the way we did.”

  “If you say so,”

  They loaded their trolley with cereal boxes, tinned soups, beans and whatever else they could get their hands on. Winter bucketed frozen microwaved meals and bathroom essentials. As they walked down the clothes aisle, conversation turned to Violet.

  “Do you think she’s coping?” Zach started, avoiding direct eye contact with Winter.

  “Violet? I suppose. Why do you ask?”

  “She just seems a little bit strained.”

  “We’re all strained, Zach.” Winter reminded him. “This is difficult for everyone.”

  Zach nodded. “I know. I just worry for her.”

  Winter sighed. “How are things between you two?”

  “Things between…what, me and Violet?”

  Winter looked at Zach. “Don’t be coy.” They came to a stop next to school uniforms that would never be worn. “You want to be with her.”

  Zach blushed. He tried to hide it by looking away, but it was too late. “I don’t.”

  “Zach.” Winter smiled. “Why don’t you talk to me? I’m not going to be judgemental, am I? The worst thing anybody can do is keep things to themselves.”

  Zach agreed. He looked put out, troubled even. He swiped at his long fringe and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “She just doesn’t talk to me much when it is all of us. She will be sarcastic towards me, and sometimes I wonder if she even likes me at all. I know she’s troubled. I know she feels guilty about the death of her brothers and her mother.”

  “She does?”

  “Oh, yes,” Zach nodded. “You saw her reaction to you when you found your dad. She would give anything to have her family back.”

  “I suppose,” Winter sighed. “But it’s different for us both.”

  “Violet doesn’t see it that way. She sees family as the most important thing anybody could ever need. She struggles without it.”

  Winter placed her hand on the cold metal trolley. “How do you know all of this?”

  “We talk,” Zach said. “This is what I mean. When I’m alone with her, we talk. We talk about everything and anything. Favourite colours, favourite animals, favourite foods. Then we talk about our worries. We’ve both lost our families under the zombie regime.”

  “The zombie regime.” Winter repeated.

  Zach shrugged. “I guess Violet just sees me as a confidant. She sees me as someone to fall back on when things get tough for her. She doesn’t want to be with me like I want to be with her.”

  Winter looked at Zach and felt pity. He was in love. This was probably his first love, a first attraction to a girl that had actually showed him any attention.

  Zach looked around and took a seat on an empty shelf. Winter knelt on the floor, keeping a firm hand on the trolley even though there was nobody else in here.

  “The apocalypse was difficult, Zach,” Winter began slowly. “It was for all of us. Everything was a little bit confusing. When
we weren’t fearing for our lives and trying to survive, we were trying to seek comfort in anything and anybody. I think that is what happened with you and Violet. It’s just unfortunate that you actually developed feelings.”

  Zach looked at Winter, a hurt expression on his face. “You don’t think she actually likes me at all?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You did,” Zach said. “You don’t think she fancied me at all, do you? You think she, what, strung me along?”

  Winter thought that was exactly what Violet had done. “She had lost everybody, and for some reason she turned against me and you were the only person there. She sought you for guidance.”

  “She kissed me.” Zach said. “We…well, we slept together.”

  Winter remembered all too well walking in to the room where Violet and Zach had just done the deed. It had been the beginning of Winter’s fall out with Violet. Until the reunion with Nathan Smith, Winter had thought her relationship with Violet had been re-established. Now, she wasn’t so sure.

  “That was Violet’s profession.”

  “Don’t let her hear you say that.”

  “No, but you know what I mean,” Winter said, her heart flipping as if she feared Violet would walk in on them at any moment. “Violet turned to prostitution to save her family and get a roof over their heads. She did whatever she could. Obviously, as she did that she convinced herself that sex was the answer to surviving.”

  “You’ve come to that conclusion?” Zach asked, eyebrow raised.

  “I’ve thought about it.”

  Zach sighed. “I’ve thought about it, too.”

  “There we go,” Winter said. “Maybe with you, it was different. Maybe she realised that and began to treat you as something other than a client. Maybe she got scared and tried to push you away, expecting to come to France and have everything work itself out. Or maybe she just doesn’t care for anyone but herself.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying you’re young,” Winter tried to hide the exasperation from her voice. “I’m saying you have everything set out ahead of you, providing we survive this whole ordeal. Violet is a learning curve and will be a distant memory. First loves are hard, Zach, they always are. But just trust me when I say this isn’t going to be your only love.”