Winter Cove

by Skye Knizley

  River looked at her arm where Rylee was pointing. Her jacket was torn and blood ran freely down her sleeve from a wound high on her left arm. She hadn’t noticed until Rylee had pointed it out, but now it was starting to sting.

  “It’s just a graze. Are Jody and Richie okay?”

  Rylee didn’t answer, she instead started pulling on River’s jacket. River let her pull the jacket off and set it in the next chair.

  “Are they…?” she asked.

  Rylee was examining the wound and cleaning it with a cotton ball. “They’re gone, both of them. Whoever these guys are, they took them.”

  River looked at Dustin. Rylee had moved him away from the door and he now lay beneath a sheet by the exam rooms.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Rylee opened her kit and began gather more tools. “You did all you could, River. This isn’t your fault, you aren’t Captain America and you aren’t supposed to protect everyone.”

  River watched her thread one of the odd curving needles. “Coming here, bringing you, that was my idea, Rye. No one to blame but me.”

  Rylee met her eyes. “River, stop! You didn’t know the strangest thing that could ever happen to us was going to…happen. You were trying to give us a honeymoon away from all the shit and I love you for it. Please, honey, don’t go all bibbledy on me, okay? I need you.”

  River looked into Rylee’s beautiful eyes and saw nothing but love and worry without a hint of blame or anger. After a moment she nodded and looked away.

  “Thank you, Rye.”

  Rylee smiled. “Don’t thank me yet, babes, I’m about to put a needle through your arm without any anesthetic. Are you ready?”

  River wasn’t, she hated getting stitches, but it wasn’t the first time and it was certain not to be the last. “Do it.”

  The pain wasn’t as bad as she remembered, but it triggered another memory. She blinked and suddenly felt the heat of the valley, smelled dripping fuel and the stench of burning flesh that still clung to her uniform. The Navy corpsman, an annoying little thing named Bridgette, was stitching up her leg and talking incessantly about almost everything, including how much she hated the smell of burning people. River opened her mouth to ask her to please shut the hell up when reality came flooding back.

  “Done,” Rylee said. “How does it feel?”

  River looked at the neat row of stitches and flexed her arm. It hurt, but was serviceable. “It’s fine, thank you honey.”

  She stood and kissed Rylee, then squatted beside the two dead sec-men. Dustin’s aim had been good, which was surprising given the size of his rifle and the close quarters. Both men had been shot once in the center of his chest, just close enough to the heart to kill. The hunting rounds had punched through their armor like it was butter and done the job they were designed to do.

  River reached down and pulled the helmet off the nearest man, which came off with difficulty. The helmet was a full gas-mask and containment system connected to a breather-like device on his back.

  The sec-man himself was a nondescript man of indeterminate age. He had close-cropped hair and his wide, staring eyes were blue. Beyond that there was nothing to differentiate him from anyone else you might see on the street on any other day. He was just a man.

  Rylee took the helmet and looked inside. “This is state of the art stuff. I’ve read about these, they’re next-gen hazard systems designed to protect the wearer from airborne pathogens under combat conditions.”

  River arched an eyebrow at her and Rylee looked sheepish. “I read your magazines while you were deployed. It made me feel closer to you.”

  “Ah. Why do you think they’re wearing them?”

  Rylee shrugged. “There are any number of reasons, mostly viral, which I admit makes me nervous. We saw the notices about an evacuation, now we have security personnel wearing hazmat suits. That screams biohazard to me.”

  River finished patting the sec-man down. When she was through she had another Beretta M9, two fresh magazines of ammunition and some kind of small radio that required a code to use. She set the radio on the counter and added the rest of the equipment to what she was carrying.

  “Have you seen anything that suggests some kind of infection?” she asked when she was through.

  Rylee took the other sec-man’s pistol and ammunition. “Not really. Richie’s wound was normal, no crusting or pustules or anything that indicated infection. I pumped him full of antibiotics as a precaution not a necessity. But you said the people you saw looked sick, so it makes sense.”

  She turned and looked at Dustin. “What do we do, now?”

  River hugged her from behind. “We can do one of two things. We can pack the truck and run as fast as we can−”

  Rylee cut her off. “Or we can find our friends and figure out what the hell is going on.” She turned and looked up at River. “We can’t leave them.”

  River kissed her. God she loved this woman. She was tired, afraid, and had been through more in a few hours than most people went through in a week, but she was still brave.

  “I know,” River said.

  “Let me get some gear and we can go. I want to repack the first aid kit, I saw an EMT bag in the exam room, it will leave my hands free,” Rylee said.

  She hurried off and River turned back to the bodies. She was torn between leaving them for whatever authorities eventually found them, and dragging them inside. She decided it was better to get them inside and out of the way and walked into the snow to get the one she’d kicked through the door. She bent to grab his ankles and heard the whispering noise. It was so loud she dropped his feet in surprise and turned to find the source. The snow was still coming down so hard she could barely see twenty feet in front of her and even then, distant objects were nothing but shadows. There was nothing and no one close enough to make the whispering, but she followed the noise into the street, where she could hear waves crashing against the beach only a few yards away.

  “I’m not going crazy,” she whispered. “I know you’re there.”

  She glared into the snow and detected movement just at the edge of her vision. She drew her pistol and aimed it at the figure charging out of the snow. It was a man, a big one, dressed in an orange coat and stocking cap, the kind road workers usually wear in bad weather. His face dark, like he was covered in ash and his eyes were white with no pupil at all. He roared and spread his arms and River squeezed the trigger. The M9 barked in her hand and sent two jacketed hollow-points through his chest. He dropped like a marionette with its strings cut and River spotted more coming out of the darkness. She shot the nearest ones and ran back to the hospital, where Rylee was just coming outside with a pack on her shoulder and a pistol in her hand.

  “What’s going on?” Rylee asked.

  “Get back inside!” River panted.

  Rylee opened her mouth to argue. River caught her and ushered her back inside while looking behind for her pursuers.

  “People acting strange, just like the one I shot earlier,” River said.

  She looked around for any way to block the doors, but there was nothing. Then her eyes caught the emergency gate, a device that didn’t look to have been used in years. It was activated by a red-painted switch beside the doors. Her fingers pressed the button and she stepped back. A motor somewhere in the wall whirred and the rolled steel gate began to descend. River had seen similar ones working in retail, usually intended to keep shoppers out after the end of the business day, but this was thicker than anything she’d ever encountered. It looked heavy enough to stop bullets.

  It was halfway down when the first of her pursuers crashed into the door with so much force the gate shook. Rylee screamed and recoiled in horror. At the sound, the woman outside roared, a bestial sound that should never come from a human. She punched the gate again then dropped to her knees and tried to crawl beneath the gate. River crouched a
nd balanced herself with one leg extended to the side and behind. Her pistol boomed and the woman fell with a hole just above her right eye. In the flash River saw a dozen more not far behind. The gate wasn’t coming down fast enough to stop them.

  “They’re going to get through. Run for the front entrance!”

  Rylee didn’t need to be told twice. She took off for the exit, her boots pounding. River watched the approaching ash people for another moment, then turned and followed. They reached the front door a few minutes later and River handed Rylee the keys she’d taken from the reception desk.

  “Unlock it and get outside.”

  “I’m not leaving you!” Rylee said.

  “You’re not, I’ll be right there, I promise,” River said. “I need to slow them down.”

  Rylee kissed her then ran to the doors.

  The hospital cafeteria lay on the other side of the lobby. River ran through the doors and skidded to a halt near the fire equipment she’d noticed earlier. She broke the glass, which set off the hospital fire alarm, and retrieved the fire axe. She returned to the lobby just ahead of the strange mob and pushed through the doors into the snow. She used the axe to wedge the doors closed behind her and ran after Rylee, who was pacing back and forth beneath one of the parking lot streetlights. She grabbed Rylee’s hand and kept running. They crossed the parking lot and ran alongside the hospital until they reached the emergency entrance. River slowed at the edge of the building and peered around the corner. The emergency gate had never finished lowering. It was bent and almost torn off its track so badly that the little electric motor was now screaming and sparking into the night.

  “Jesus,” Rylee breathed.

  They climbed inside the Raptor, which now seemed as much safe haven as vehicle, and River started the engine. Its rumble was a comfort; it hadn’t been her best day ever.

  She put the truck in gear and accelerated away from the hospital. The mob she’d trapped inside the lobby had made short work of the glass doors and was now stumbling around in the parking lot as if lost. A few glared at the truck and looked ready to give chase, but seemed uncertain. Rylee watched them through the passenger window and used her phone to record their movements.

  “To study,” she said when River asked her why. “Their behavior is erratic, pack-like. Normal disease doesn’t turn humans into irrational packs roaming the streets.”

  “No kidding,” River said. “I thought people chasing after you with blood in their eyes was rational behavior!”

  “Don’t be sarcastic, maybe I can figure out what the hell is going on and find a way to stop it,” Rylee said.

  River lapsed into silence. Rylee was right, being snarky wasn’t going to help and Rylee didn’t deserve it.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Apology accepted. Where are we going?”

  River had no idea. The snow was coming down so hard that the Typhoon’s tracks were long gone. Once it had gotten to the center of town it could have gone anywhere. You would think that a vehicle that weighed somewhere around forty thousand pounds would be hard to hide, but there was no sign of it. Just rows of empty houses and storefronts lit up for the coming holidays. She didn’t know where Richard and Jody might have been taken, but she had an idea how to find out.

  “The police station is only a few blocks from here, they should have a map of the area, maybe we can narrow our search,” she said.

  “I hope so. I don’t like the idea of my patient in the care of those thugs,” Rylee said.

  River turned onto Beach Street, a two lane road that wound its way around the far side of the cove. To the left was the waterfront and the wide beach that, during summer, would be packed with townspeople and tourists enjoying the warm sun. Now it was deserted save for a handful of broken sailboats. It was difficult to tell through the snow, but it looked as if the small vessels had been systematically destroyed. The holes and burn-marks looked like grenade blasts more than anything natural.

  The police station sat at the end of the road. It was a squat brick building with a wide front facing the water. Several police cars were parked in front, one or two with their flashers on, but there was no sign of any officers nor any other soul. River turned the Raptor so it was facing back the way they’d come and looked at the front entrance. It had once consisted of two glass doors with sidelights. One of the sidelights was still intact and bore the Winter Cove Police seal, but the doors and other windows had been broken. Lights flickered inside as if the fluorescent bulbs were on the cusp of dying and there was blood smeared on the inner wall of the entrance.

  “Doesn’t that look friendly,” Rylee murmured.

  River stepped out into the cold and drew her pistol. It was generally frowned upon to have a weapon inside a police station but she wasn’t taking any chances.

  “Stay close and keep your eyes open,” she said when Rylee joined her.

  “You’re going to have to pry me off,” Rylee replied.

  She looked frightened, her eyes were wide and she was breathing through parted lips. River took her hand and squeezed.

  “It’s going to be okay, Rye.”

  Rylee smiled and squeezed back. “Let’s go.”

  The lobby of the police station was as wide as the main entrance. A few chairs made of leather and aluminum had been tossed aside like children’s toys and brass ammunition cases littered the floor. There were hundreds scattered all about the room as well as the two hallways leading to the wings of the building. The half-moon reception desk was scarred and damaged, but not from gunfire. It looked more like wild animals had attacked it in some inhuman fury.

  River bent and picked up some of the brass. Most were typical police issue nine mil and forty Smith, but mixed in were 7.62 and 5.56, generally used in assault rifles and sub-machine guns. Not the sort of thing you expected to find in a small town police station.

  Rylee pushed a desk chair out of the way and stepped behind the reception desk. She held up a broken phone and what looked like a piece of a computer monitor. “Everything is smashed, even the short-wave radio.”

  She dropped the pieces and looked at River. “Do you think it was those same men? The ones in the masks?”

  River dropped the brass in a tinkle of metal and checked the nearest door. “I can’t say for sure, but that would be my guess. Whoever they are, they seem to be bent on killing anyone and everything on this island.”

  The door was stout and made of steel covered in a pale veneer of wood. Like the desk it was covered in deep scratches and spattered with blood. It was also locked and there was no keyhole on this side, only a touchpad that glowed with nine numbers.

  “That’s a little modern for this town,” Rylee said behind her.

  River drew her knife and pried at the pad’s face. “I’m finding this little town isn’t exactly what it seems.”

  The face came off in her hand and she peered into the panel. She’d learned from a techie friend that these panels looked more complicated than they actually were. She sucked her lip for a moment and used her blade to sort the wires. She found what she was looking for at the back of the panel.

  “Can you hand me a paperclip or something?”

  Rylee went back to the desk. “What are you doing?”

  She handed the clip to River, who twisted it until she had a curving wire with a loop in the middle.

  “I’m going to fool this panel into safe mode. Most fail to the unlock position, it’s a safety feature so nobody can be locked in should there be a total power failure or lightning strike,” she said.

  She slipped the wire into the small control board and wiggled it until she felt a shock that burned the tip of her fingers. There was a loud buzzing sound and the lock clicked. A beat later the door creaked open and a uniformed officer fell out. He’d been leaning against the door, sitting on the ground, when death claimed him. Whatever happene
d, it hadn’t been painless or sudden. Blood from his eyes was dried to his face and his chest was torn open, a gaping wound filled with the tatters of his uniform shirt. White showed through where his ribs had cracked and splintered and red meat still glistened within the cavity.

  Rylee bent to examine the wound. “Do you see this?”

  “You mean the huge hole where the man’s heart and lungs should be? How could I not, lover?”

  Rylee donned a pair of latex exam gloves from her pocket. “No, I mean do you see this.”

  She pointed at the ribs and River had to admit there was something odd about the way they were splintered, as if…

  “Is that broken from the inside out?”

  Rylee nodded and gripped the officer’s shoulders. “Help me roll him over.”

  River took his legs and together they rolled him onto his stomach. His back was uninjured.

  “Something burst out of his chest,” Rylee said.

  River stood. “Two days ago, you couldn’t have said that without making a movie reference.”

  Rylee pulled off her gloves and tossed them into a wastebasket, the only thing in the room still standing. “Two days ago, I hadn’t been to Winter Cove.”

  The door opened into a wide corridor with white-washed walls and a floor of marble-effect tile, now smeared with the dead officer’s blood. Doors to either side led to dispatch and a small office, respectively.

  Most small towns have a room where an underpaid dispatcher manages both 9-1-1 calls and police dispatch. They have a map with so many pin-holes all that is holding it together is air, a desk covered in coffee rings, a computer and a few phone lines.

  Not Winter Cove. The room River found herself in looked more like it belonged in the heart of Los Angeles, not on an island in the North Atlantic. The far wall was covered in a plasma screen that showed an overhead map of the island with the town highlighted in shades of red, yellow and green. Markers in the shape of squad cars dotted the map, with most nestled near headquarters. A few more were located on Main Street and School Street and there was one all by itself on the northern edge of the island, so close to the cliffs it looked as if it was in the water.