Dead Frost - 02 (7 page)

They set to work.
Shane snipped the first chain while Terry kept a look out on both
sides of the gate.

'Seems like we're
always trying to break out of
somewhere
,' Terry said, bouncing
up and down in an attempt to generate some body-heat.

'It seems that
way,' Shane added. 'Only this time we know what we're doing.'
Or
we hope we do
, he thought but didn't say.

With the three
chains cut, he pulled them out and lowered them to the ground. The
snow was so deep now –
already
– that the links
vanished entirely, leaving only the holes in the snow as proof that
they even existed.

Terry was about to
pull the gate open when Shane whispered his name.

'Not yet,' he said.
'Go, get in the Jeep. I'll pull the gate, but when I do I need you
driving through it. If there are any lurkers in the vicinity, we
need to give them as little chance as possible of getting through.
There are still people here, good people, and the last thing we wanna
do is leave them at the mercy of a fucking horde.'

Terry nodded,
placed the bag of padlocks down in the snow, before making towards
the Jeep.

Shane could see
both ways up the road, and there was nothing to report, unless you
counted a crow as a possible threat. It hopped around on a wooden
post across the way before taking to the skies, and Shane didn't know
whether to take the sighting as pure coincidence or a bad omen.

Or neither.

Terry edged the
Jeep forward; Shane could hear Marla's voice, but none of her words.
He guessed she was giving Terry instructions, and could imagine Terry
telling her to shut the fuck up as there was nothing worse than a
back-seat driver.

Shane took one deep
breath and pulled the gate inwards. It was heavier than it looked,
but the two inches of snow beneath it probably added to the
resistance somewhat.

Still, he pulled
fast, knowing that time was of the essence and the sooner he was back
in the Snatch –
safe
– the better.

He waved towards
Terry, signalling that the gate was wide enough to get the Jeep
through. Terry drove forward slowly, offering Shane a thumbs up as
he passed. Marla was still rambling on about something, but the wind
and snow whipping Shane's ears prevented him from hearing.

With the Snatch
safely through and at a stop on the other side, Shane grabbed the
chains and almost pulled his back out shutting the gate. He slipped
the first chain through and padlocked it; then the second.

He had the third
length of chain in his hand when Terry yelled from the window.

'Shane! Over
there!'

Shane turned, saw
the creature shuffling towards the Jeep, and said, 'Where the fuck
did he come from?'

It was alone, a
single creature that had wandered off the beaten path, but its eyes
contained a hunger that Shane was more than familiar with.

'Whatever you do,'
Shane said, 'stay in the Jeep.'

He left the gate
and began to edge closer to the lurker; from the Jeep came the sounds
of Marla panicking, while Terry gave her a running commentary on the
events unfolding.

Thank God it was
just one. Shane knew that they would have been helpless against a
horde, which made him realise just how unprepared they actually were
for the rescue-mission ahead.

The creature
moaned, its deep, monotonous call barely audible against the howling
wind. Black drool fell from its lips and stained the snow beneath
it, a thick tar that seemed to melt through the freshly-laid purity.

With the chain
wrapped around his hands, Shane pushed towards the lurker, his heart
almost in his mouth, his eyes trained on the target.

As the creature
grasped for him, he sidestepped and wrapped the chain around its
neck. It instantly fell to its knees, as Shane had anticipated, and
began to struggle fiercely with the tightening steel around its
throat.

To no avail.

Shane pulled once,
which caused the creature's eyes to bulge and fall out of their
sockets. The second pull – complete with an almighty twist –
severed the head from its body. As the viscous fluid sprayed from
the neck-stump, Shane turned his head aside. One minute drop in the
mouth would be sufficient to infect him.

The body fell
forward; the head lay face-down in the snow. A pool of darkness
began to feather outwards. When Shane stepped back and surveyed the
aftermath he could have been looking at an oil-slick.

'Shane, come on!'
Terry called. When Shane turned he saw that Terry was half out of
the Jeep with the Remington in his hands. 'What, are you waiting for
more of them?' He raced around to the passenger side and climbed in.

Shane reached the
gate and attached the third chain. Padlocking it, he realised that
the links were covered with dead flesh; rotten, maggot-infested
morsels of the man who he had just killed.

By the time he
clambered aboard the Snatch, he felt a little queasy.

It was gonna be one
helluva road-trip.

NINE

'Don't you ever do
that again,' Marla said as Shane pulled away from the gate. 'For
fuck's sake, Shane! You could have been bitten. Are you out of your
mind?'

Shane drove and
fought for breath. The last thing he had expected was a lecture. 'I
had to kill it,' Shane said. 'For all we know it watched where we
came from. I don't know how smart they are, or if they communicate,
but if that fucking thing could tell its friends where all the meat
was hiding, it probably wouldn't be a good thing for those people in
there.'

'They wouldn't be
able to get through the gate,' Marla retorted. 'You said so
yourself.'

'Doesn't mean we
should set them a challenge,' Shane said. 'Plus, as soon as we
finish we need to be able to get back in. I don't know about you but
an army of dead standing in front of the gate might make that
difficult.'

Marla fell silent.
It wasn't that she had nothing to say – she had plenty, and
always did – it was because she knew that he was right. She
kept forgetting that they would be returning. For some reason it
felt like a one-way mission.

'What's the fuel
situation?' Terry asked, placing the shotgun between his legs so that
the barrel faced away from his ballsack.

Shane checked the
gauge. It looked okay; the needle sat somewhere between a quarter-
and a half-tank, which would – or should – get them to
where they needed to be. The Snatch, Shane guessed, was built to
hold a fuckload of fuel, and a quarter of a tank would probably be
the same amount of fuel to fill an ordinary car.

'We should be
okay,' Shane said. 'If we need a top-up anytime soon, I'll let you
know.'

The Jeep rolled
forward, towards the breaking dawn, towards Megan and Holly.

Behind them, all
hell was breaking loose.

*

Victor Lord made his
way down the stairs and into the main camp. The sea of tents and
sleeping-bags always reminded him of a rescue mission he had overseen
in China after an 8.2 magnitude earthquake. The only real difference
here, though, was the willingness to obey. The Chinese had been
frantic, unable to understand, and pretty damned pissed off that
their livelihoods had been reduced to ruin. The last thing they had
expected was an American telling them what to do, and when to do it,
and they made this apparent by ignoring his orders and doing just
what the fuck they pleased.

Not here, though.

The survivors
needed him; he was strong, a born leader, They knew which side their
bread was buttered. They also knew not to fuck with him or risk
being turfed out of the barracks.

As people emerged
from their tents wrapped in blankets – some were tumbling
around the place in their sleeping-bags to avoid the nip in the air –
Victor surveyed the area the way any good Captain would. There were
a hundred people here, stuffed into a room, and half the time it was
difficult to tell whether any more had died during the night. You
had to really look, check for movement on some of the older folks.
The last thing he wanted was a room stinking of death and decay.

The body of Max
Martigan had been removed almost immediately. His men had carried
the body down to the storage-room, where it would be incinerated at a
later date. If anything, it would provide them with a little warmth,
and as long as you didn't stand downwind from it the stench wouldn't
be too much of a problem.

Victor stepped over
a sleeping woman – didn't recognise her, but he was hardly
there to make friends – and pulled the zip down on a dome-tent.

He crouched and
peered in through the opening.

'Everybody alive in
there?' he asked, grinning like a shark amongst a school of plankton.

An elderly lady
stared back at him, obviously annoyed at the captain's severe lack of
respect. Maggie Cox, silver-haired potty-mouth, said, 'Captain, what
the fuck! You would have had the shock of your life had my tits been
swinging about the place.'

Victor smiled.
'Lady, it's freezing. If you had your tits out I would have been
very surprised, indeed.'

'You just go on and
get the fuck out of here,' Maggie said, her eyes darting around the
tent in search of something. She found what she was looking for –
a packet of cigarettes – and lit one up, blowing a plume of
blue smoke towards Victor and filling the tent in less than a second
flat. 'I'm sure you got others to be perving on.'

Victor coughed as
the smoke hit his face. 'Just checking you hadn't expired during the
night,' he said, as if she had every right to just lie down and die.

'Wouldn't that have
been fucking something?' Maggie spat, drawing on her cigarette.
'Well, Captain, I am fine, and I ain't gonna die for a long fucking
time, so just make your peace with it and move on.'

Victor smiled,
artificial and insincere. In truth, he wouldn't mind the old hag
dying. Her contributions to the camp were nonexistent and she had no
– or very little – respect for him and his men. The
least she could do was roll over and provide some extra kindling for
the young and fit.

Victor was about to
say something he might have regretted when a panicked voice entered
the room.

'Captain? Captain?
Has anyone seen the Captain?'

Victor gave the old
lady a grimace, just to confirm his hatred for her – as if she
wasn't already aware – and backed out of the tent.

Standing, he found
David Moon, Stewart Randall and Henry Colburn making their way
through the camp. All of them looked worried; something Victor had
never seen before in his men.

'What is it?'
Victor called, making his presence known. When They saw him, they
breathed a sigh of relief. The survivors emerging from tents
watched, trying to figure out what was going on; obviously something
bad. It was tattooed on the face of all who wore camouflage.

David Moon stopped
next to the captain. He was about to speak when he noticed the
audience. Victor, on the other hand, looked on impatiently, awaiting
the bad news. He really didn't give a fuck if the rest of the group
heard. Just how bad could it possibly be?

'We need to have a
word,' Moon said, pointing to the double-doors at the end of the
room.

Victor sighed and
began to walk; heads turned to follow him out. People whispered
amongst themselves, speculating on what the problem was. There was
talk of generators failing, lurkers breaching the perimeter, outside
contact with the CDC and all manner of impossible things.

When the
double-doors closed behind the military-men, the group went about
their morning rituals, nonplussed and indifferent.

What could possibly
have happened to worsen their current situation?

*

'This had better be
good,' Victor said as he shoved his unlit cigar into the corner of
his mouth. One of these days he would light it, but not just yet.

The three soldiers
looked to each other, silently deciding on who should speak. In the
end, it was David Moon.

'It's Shane,' Moon
said. 'He's fucked up proper this time.'