Dead Frost - 02 (28 page)

Always keep
their heads away?
Terry thought. How long had this girl been
surviving
like this. Judging from the way she fought, since
the outbreak, but she must have been pretty nifty with a blade before
even the first signs of the virus. Fighting like
that
was a
gift, something that needed to be honed and practised. She was
clearly gifted, and Terry found himself in awe of her spirit as he
looked searchingly into her eyes.

'C'mon,' Shane
said, suddenly. He was walking away, trying to put some distance
between River and himself. 'We need to carry on. The house is only
a few streets away.'

Marla could see
that something was not right; she had learned, quite quickly, to pick
up on Shane's emotions, and was now getting pretty good at spotting
when something was wrong, even though he was unaware of it.

'Shane, what about
River?' Marla said, gesturing towards the girl. There was no way the
youngster could hear; Marla turned to find that she was talking to
Terry, anyway, not paying the slightest bit of attention.

'What about her?'
Shane said, indifferently. 'She's done well to survive out here for
so long on her own.'

Marla couldn't
believe her ears. 'So, what? You suggest we
leave
her here?
She's been doing so well on her lonesome that she's earned her place
amongst
them, fighting them, on her
own
?'

Shane suddenly
snapped. There was no warning, and Marla took a step back in
anticipation. 'What do you want me to fucking do, Marla? I thought
she was fucking Megan! I thought she was Megan, which was why I put
my own life on the line. She's not Megan. She's not anybody, so we
need to carry on just the way we were before she fucking showed up!'
He stood, mouth opening and shutting for a few more seconds –
as if there were other things he wanted to add but couldn't find the
words. Marla's expression told him that his comments were not
appreciated, but he had to tell her how he felt, didn't he? They had
to push forward, just the way they were going. This River, or
whatever her name was, could do whatever she wanted as far as he was
concerned. At least she could fight, she was safe? Megan was
helpless in a world that she couldn't understand.

Marla was about to
speak – something reproachful, too, that would have no doubt
pissed Shane off even further – when River cut in.

'Megan?' she said,
stepping past Terry. She was speaking directly to Shane, whose voice
must have travelled something rotten in the howling wind. 'Do you
mean Megan
Bridge
?'

Shane looked
towards River, his features softening, his eyes seeking answers. He
didn't speak, though; he couldn't. He began to trudge through the
snow towards the little girl, who was still holding the machete as if
it was her favourite doll. When he reached her, he dropped to his
knees and grabbed her by the arms.

'How do you know my
daughter's name?' he asked. 'River, please, I need you to tell me if
you've seen her, or you know where she might be hiding.'

River looked to
Marla, silently asking for support. Since she was the only other
woman present, it came as no surprise. Though Marla didn't know what
to say, or do in this instance, so she simply nodded.
Tell him
what you know.

River began
to speak, her voice barely audible over the howling wind. 'We were
in the same class at school,' she said. 'I didn't really know her,
not as a best friend or anything like that, but she was nice to me.
She used to help me with words that I couldn't spell properly. She
was really good at that.'

Shane didn't like
the constant use of past-tense, but didn't interrupt.

'She told me about
you, though. You're her daddy, aren't you? She said that you worked
away, in a different part of the country, which is why you could
never come to any of the parent meetings or shows. I can see, now,'
she said, reaching out and touching Shane's face with tiny, frozen
hands. 'You look like her.'

Shane fought back
tears; River's own eyes seemed to be filling with them, too.

'Tell me,' Shane
said. 'Please, where is she, River?'

The little girl
sighed, and in that moment Shane couldn't stop the tears from
falling.

'I was over by the
supermarket a few weeks ago,' River continued. 'I'd managed to fight
my way through a few of them so that I could get some supplies, some
food and water. I saw her in the supermarket.'

Shane smiled; his
daughter had been alive only a few weeks back. She had survived the
beginning of the outbreak, and was probably holed up somewhere safe,
waiting for help, with Holly...

'Did she speak?
Was her Mommy with her? You know what her mother looks like?'

'She wasn't there,'
River said. 'And I didn't want to get too close Megan. I knew that
something wasn't right. The others, they were out roaming the
streets, looking for people like me, but Megan was just sitting in
the middle of the supermarket.'

Shane couldn't
comprehend what he was being told. 'Was she hurt?' he asked, raising
his voice a little. 'Didn't you try to help her?'

River once again
looked to Marla for advice. This time, Marla had to speak.

'Shane, let the
girl finish what she's trying to say,' she said. 'This must be
really hard for her.'

Hard for her?
Shane thought.
It's fucking killing me. All I need to know is
where she is, and how to get to her...

'I couldn't help
her,' River said. 'There was nothing I could do. By the time I got
there, it was too late. I could see it in her eyes, and she was just
sitting there, growling like they do. She was chewing a finger...I
remember that part because it made me want to spew. I just got what
I needed and ran, back to the place I was staying in then. I didn't
see her again after that day.'

Shane shook his
head. 'No, you're wrong,' he said, shaking River so hard that she
almost dropped her machete. 'You must be wrong. Megan's fine. It
might not have been her that you saw...you were confused, she's
fine...she's my daughter, and I'll find her.'

River was
frightened, that much was clear. Marla stepped in and managed to
prise Shane away from the terrified little girl. He was sobbing, his
face twisted into pure misery. 'She's fine,' he told Marla. 'I
swear I'm gonna fucking find her, and she'll be just
—
'

'She's gone,' Marla
said, pulling him into a hug. 'Shane, she's gone. Shhhhh.
Everything's going to be okay, Shane, please trust me.'

But he couldn't.
He couldn't trust anything, anymore. The whole world had gone to
shit and taken his daughter with it. She might not be dead, at least
not truly dead, but she was dead to him, and there was nothing he
could do to take that back. It hurt like hell; the worst pain he had
ever felt in his entire life – and he had been through a lot of
pain recently.

'Did I hurt him?'
River asked Terry, who was trying to comfort her.

'No, sweetie,' he
replied. 'He's just upset about his daughter, that's all. You did
everything right.'

It didn't feel like
it, to her. The man was shaking violently, sobbing his heart out,
and she had caused it. She felt terrible; maybe she shouldn't have
said anything.

Shane finally
managed to compose himself and, wiping the frozen snot and tears away
from his face, he spoke. 'We still have to find her,' he said. 'I
need to see for myself. I need to release her.'

Marla nodded. She
understood what he was asking, but didn't know the likelihood of
finding his daughter now, especially since she was just shambling
aimlessly around the city like the rest of them. The chances had
been slim when they had pinpointed a likely location; now, they were
anorexic.

'We'll do what we
can,' Marla said, shivering as a sudden chill coursed through her
body. She knew that getting back to the barracks was the only way
they would survive, and despite Shane's pleas to locate his daughter
– who was now a lurker – she knew that they would only
stay alive for so long without the protection of a larger group.

Terry suddenly
stood up and pointed off into the distance. 'Guys,' he said.
'Look.'

The street was
filled with lurkers, more than any of them had ever seen before all
at once. They were like an army, a spreading plague of malevolence,
and they were stumbling towards them through the snow inexorably,
grunting gutturally, moaning along with the wind.

'We need to move,'
Shane said. He turned to find that the other direction was just as
bad; a shambling horde of around a hundred, aiming for the very spot
on which they stood. 'Fuck!' He lifted the pistol, but it would be
no good. Ammo was low, he knew that, and firing aimlessly into the
horde would just be wasting the few bullets that remained.

The little girl –
River – raised her machete and pointed to the museum. 'I was
in there,' she said. 'But I had to bug out because I hadn't checked
the escape-routes properly. We'll be safe in there for now.'

She was already
moving for the grey building, not looking back. Terry began to
follow; it didn't seem right to let the girl out of sight of an
adult, and then he remembered what she was capable of, what she had
already survived, and felt silly for even thinking of her as the
pre-pubescent little thing that she was.

Shane shook his
head. 'We'll get trapped in there,' he said to Marla. 'They'll find
a way in.'

Marla grabbed him
by the arm and began pulling him towards the entrance. 'We don't
have a choice, Shane,' she said. 'If we die out here tonight, we'll
never find Megan. River's right. We'll be safer in there than
anywhere else. We'll just have to make sure we barricade it up
properly.'

Shane was offering
little in the way of resistance, and allowed himself to be dragged
towards the museum. He knew that there were too many of them to
fight; fuck, probably too many to outmanoeuvre. He had never seen
such an immense horde, and they would converge in the middle of the
street in a few seconds. It didn't pay to be present for that.

They reached the
museum doors and stumbled through them. The first thing that Shane
noticed was the temperature-change. At least the building still had
heating, which was more than could be said for 90 percent of the rest
of the country.

The groaning
cadavers were shambling towards the doors, drawn by the light and the
promise of live flesh. Shane slammed the doors and screamed for
somebody to find something – anything – that could be
used as a barricade. Terry was already on it, and was halfway across
the room pushing a mahogany cabinet. It seemed heavy enough to keep
the doors closed. Shane was pulling the deadbolts across as Terry
pushed the cabinet into place. It would have to do, at least for
now.

'Marla, switch off
the lights,' Shane said, stepping away from the doors.

Marla began to scan
the room, searching for the switch. River pointed across to the far
wall, and she raced across. She flipped them, all three of them, and
the room fell into darkness, accompanied by a tiny blinking noise as
the lights shut down.

In the half-light
of the morning, the room looked dull and gloomy, not the kind of
place you'd want to find yourself trapped in for extended periods of
time.

They listened,
silently, waiting for the horde to reach the building, to start
tearing at the doors, a hundred rotting talons scratching to get in.

They weren't
disappointed.

'So this is it?'
Shane said, whispering over the terrible clawing at the entrance. It
was like being in a hurricane, one that could consume you alive if
the doors hadn't been properly checked. 'This is how it ends?'

Terry slid down the
wall across the room. 'This is just the beginning,' he said. 'I
don't know about you guys, but there is no way I'm going out like
this, not a chance.' He pulled the bible from his coat-pocket and
began to leaf through the pages as if he knew what he was searching
for. Once he found it, he read silently, mouthing the words to
himself, closing his eyes.

Listening to the
hellish scratchings of the lurkers upon the door.

'He's right,' Marla
said. 'We're gonna make it through this, Shane.' She looked over to
River, and said, 'We have to.'

Shane thought for a
moment, about everything that had happened, about Holly and Megan and
how they were probably walking the streets in search of living flesh,
and he knew that the world had ended, that everything had altered
beyond repair. He glanced towards River, who was standing and
watching Terry Lewis flick through his tattered bible with the
naivety of any eight year-old girl. He knew, as he watched that
little girl – the machete-wielding warrior who could fight
better than the rest of them – that not everything had gone to
shit. As long as people were fighting, trying to survive the day,
then it wasn't completely pointless. If a little girl could see a
future worth existing in, enough to fight for, then shouldn't they
all?