Dead Frost - 02 (5 page)

As she
approached, the girl on the right snapped forward. The chains
rattled the pole they were attached to. Growling, licking her lips
and pushing out black goo until the drool was long enough to touch
the ground, the creature clearly displayed her hunger and her
intentions.

It took less
than a second to raise the machete; three seconds in total to
decapitate both of them. In the end, she fell to her knees and began
to sob silently.

What had she
become? Was this how it was going to be for the rest of her pathetic
life?

With two Asian
girls' heads staring up at her – an audience that she could
have done without – she steadied her nerves, hoisted herself to
her feet, and headed back out into the night.

It was getting
colder by the minute.

SIX

It started to snow
at four, the kind of snow that would stick. There was a frost on the
ground, which didn't help matters. The barracks, though, seemed to
glow as the snow landed, highlighting each and every turret, every
single angular construct. In the distance, lurkers moaned and
howled. It made Shane wonder if the weather had anything to do with
it, although he doubted it. It could have been pissing fire or
hailing razorblades and they wouldn't have reacted any differently.

Shane couldn't
sleep; he was too worked up for the days ahead – and the notion
that he would find his wife and daughter, one way or the other.

Deciding to go for
a run around the compound, however, might not have been his brightest
idea ever. Despite the fact that he was wearing a Helikon base layer
and a Fox mark III fleece, the freezing air made him realise just how
cold it was.

And now it was
snowing, and each flake was sticking to his fleece like white-on-rye.
The khaki-green fleece was soon peppered, making him look
ridiculous, like a lost snowman.

His breath fogged
in the air in front of his face as he ran the training circuit. He
wasn't a military-man, and he'd never had ambitions to be one, but
fitness seemed to mean a lot these days. If you couldn't run, then
you might as well just lie down and let the pain commence, because
those things would keep on coming until they got you. Unlike humans
– which they clearly no longer were – they didn't feel
pain, get a stitch, run out of breath. They were relentless, and
although they didn't move as quickly, all it took was one at close
proximity and you were fucked.

Shane didn't want
to be fucked.

Something off in
the distance exploded, and for a moment Shane stopped in his tracks.
It was far away, perhaps a mile or two, but every time there was a
loud noise it made you think. Shane wondered if there were any
powers out there still capable of dropping a nuke, levelling the
cities and starting over from scratch. Surely they would have done
that by now if they had survived. Although nuking cities pretty much
rendered them obsolete and practically uninhabitable for the
foreseeable future.

But this was the
governments
? Shane knew that they weren't the smartest tools
in the drawer.
Shit
, the cities were uninhabitable anyway –
with those cannibalistic sonsofbitches everywhere you looked. Might
as well take them out and wait for the debris to stop falling; that,
he thought, was the kind of mentality that the government harboured.

Brushing the
explosion off in the distance as nothing more than a burnt-out car,
Shane resumed his run. He needed to be careful now, though; the snow
underfoot had turned the ground to mush. One false move, one
misplaced boot, and he would slip, bust his neck and be out of the
fucking world in the most anticlimactic way imaginable.

He decided to call
it a night. No point in putting himself at risk, not when he would
be spending the whole of the next week doing exactly that.

He turned and
headed back to main compound.

Packing for the
mission would take an hour; after that, they were out of there.

On the road to
oblivion.

*

'He was old,' Terry
said, placing himself down on the makeshift bed. 'At least he's in a
better place, now.'

Jared moved across
the room like a boy on his first day of school. 'Yeah, but he looked
so fit when we first got in here,' he said. 'Looked like he could
take on any one of us in a fight.'

Shane wasn't paying
too much attention to the conversation, but he knew that they were
talking about Max Martigan. Was it wrong that he had very little
interest in that right now? There were things more important than an
old man dying, at least he thought so. His family, for one, who
could still be alive.

Are alive
,
he reminded himself.
Still, are alive..
.

He stuffed more
clothing into his Bergen, knowing that he had to draw the line, soon,
or risk being weighed down.

'Well, if you ask
me,' Marla joined in, 'he's gone out of this life at the best
possible moment, in the best fucking way.'

Terry gave her a
reproachful stare, before adding, 'Sure, the alternative might have
been much worse, but there are better ways to die than holed up in a
military compound, lying on a cold floor like some dog waiting to be
put down. His expiration could have been a fuck of a lot more
comfy.'

'Can you pass me
the water-bottles?' Shane asked, pointing to the green containers on
the floor next to the bed. Terry handed them to him. 'Thanks, now
can we stop talking about Old Man Martigan; he's gone, out of here,
for good, so let's just concentrate on what we need to do, remember,
the living?'

The three stared at
him silently. It was a Shane that they weren't used to, and one that
none of them really cared for.

'Marla,' Shane
said, sensing that there was an uncomfortable silence that needed
breaking. 'Did you manage to get the keys I asked for.'

She reached into
her pocket and retrieved a set of keys. 'Easier than I expected,'
she said, smiling. Obviously, her sexuality had paid off once again.
'The prick didn't even realise what I was up to. I'm sure he
thought I was gonna kiss him.'

Victor Lord was
many things, and that included a lecherous, old slime-bag. The
Snatch was his. Well, technically it belonged to the barracks, but
since he was pretty much running the show – or liked to think
he was – he held the keys at all times.

But not anymore.

'Good,' Shane said.
'He's gonna know it was you, though. You do realise that?'

She sighed, then a
huge smile lit up her face. 'I'm counting on it,' she said.
'Otherwise what was the point in getting so close to his
cigar-stinking face?'

'Right,' Shane
said, authoritatively. 'I'm taking it that you're all set, because
there's no coming back once we hit that road, at least not for a
while.'

Terry pushed
himself up from the mattress, which creaked beneath him as if
exhaling with relief. 'Got
my
bag packed, but turns out I
like to travel light.' He lifted the tiniest satchel imaginable from
the floor and dropped it onto the mattress. 'Got everything I need
right
here.'

Shane shook his
head. '
Weapons
,' he said. 'We need to figure out what we're
taking weapon-wise.'

Jared nervously
stepped forward. It seemed like he was waiting for this moment, and
now that it had arrived he was going to make the most of it.

'I already thought
about that,' he said, a slight stutter creeping into the sentence.
'I wanted to, you know, make myself
useful
for a change, and
the best way to do that, I figured, was to get a hold of some useful
shit.'

Jared left the room
and reappeared a minute later with what looked like a hockey-stick
case. In fact, it was a hockey-stick case; the word Kookaburra was
printed down one side in fancy lettering.

'Holy
shit
,'
Marla said. 'What we gonna do? Give the lurkers a few games on the
way out, because I don't think they're big fans?'

Jared stopped
unzipping the bag long enough to cast her a cautionary glance. 'Wow,
you're really
funny
,' he said, sarcastically. He pulled the
zip across all the way and pulled out possibly the farthest thing
from a hockey-stick that you could get.

A Remington
shotgun.

'Jesus
Christ
,
Jared!' Shane panted, mesmerised by the weapon in Jared's hands. In
truth, it looked like it should be in anybody's hands
except
for Jared. 'Where in the
hell
did you get that?'

Jared grinned,
knowing that he had impressed the group. 'You know
Moon
?
Tall guy? Beard?'

Shane knew David
Moon; he also knew that stealing his weapon was a mistake that even
he wouldn't have made.

'You're talking
about the
big
guy?' Shane said, faking enthusiasm. 'The
large
man who'd probably kick the living shit out of you if he knew what
you had done?'

'That sounds like
him
,' Jared said, cocking the shotgun. Marla moved a few feet
back, avoiding the barrel completely.

'Well, that's a
mighty fine weapon,' Terry said, taking it away from Jared, who
clearly had no use for it other than as a bludgeon. He removed the
shells from it and slipped it back into the hockey-bag. 'You did
good, Jared.
Very
good.'

Jared smiled, with
teeth. 'Why, thank you,' he said, still stuttering.

'So we have
A
gun,' Marla said. 'Anything else?'

Shane had a pistol;
22. Calibre, clean, probably never been fired. None of the others
dared to ask where he had managed to swipe it from, which was
probably for the best. He also had knives; lots of knives, although
they were only good in close-quarters, and as they all knew being in
close quarters with one of those things was about the last place you
wanted to find yourself.

Shane handed a
large knife to Terry, who looked at it with an amalgamation of horror
and confusion. 'If it comes to it,' he said, 'I'd much rather you
just took them out quickly, with the shotgun.'

Shane shook his
head. 'Unfortunately, Padre,' he said, smiling, 'I don't think we'll
have that luxury, not
often
anyway. You know as well as I do
that a shotgun blast'll just draw more of them. Before we know it
they'd be everywhere. No, knives are
safer
. Quieter,
anyhow.'

Terry slipped the
knife into his satchel; it barely fit, and he knew he would have to
be careful not to make any sudden movements or risk the blade jabbing
through the leather and spilling the rest of his supplies.

'I think we're good
to go,' Shane said, shouldering his Bergen. 'Anybody got anything
prolific to say.'

Jared looked to
Terry, who turned to Marla. They all shook their heads.

'Then let's get the
fuck out of here,' Shane said. 'Before that prick, Victor, drags his
slimy ass out of bed.'

They headed for the
Snatch.

SEVEN

It was around
five in the morning when the shit hit the fan. She wasn't prepared
for it, either, which was something that she made a mental log of for
future reference.

Four of them,
dragging their dead carcasses across the field. She knew that she
had to go through them. There was no other option. If she wanted to
get home and get some rest before the sun came up, she would have to
take them on. Playing the waiting game with a quartet of
maggot-filled dead people was not something she relished. Plus, she
was absolutely shattered. Her bed was calling to her, and the
quickest way to it was also the only way.

She leapt the
fence – which was only three feet high, but still quite a
challenge for someone of her height – and drew her machete. In
the moonlight she could see that the blade still carried remains on
it, but they had congealed by now making them almost impossible to
remove.

Something for
later, she thought.

She moved around
the perimeter of the field, trying to stay as close to the fence as
possible whilst still maintaining forward movement.

Three men, one
woman. The woman – or the zombie equivalent of a woman –
continuously fell down, burying herself in the long grass before
popping back up a few moments later. Under other circumstances, it
would have been quite entertaining to watch. When you were tired,
though, and just wanted to fall into a soft mattress and close your
stinging eyes, it was more of a nuisance than anything else.