Dead Frost - 02 (8 page)

Victor clamped down
on the cigar, so hard that his jaw ached. 'And what has the
prick
done, now?'

Moon sighed. 'He's
gone, Sir. He's taken the Snatch and...well, he's just
gone
!
He's taken my shotgun, too, the
sonofabitch
!'

There were three
pieces of information in Moon's statement; Victor Lord was only
interested in one of them.

'The Snatch?' he
said. 'The only decent fucking transport we have?'

Moon nodded.
Behind him, the two silent soldiers exchanged nervous glances.

'It seems that
way,' Moon replied. 'But we think he has others with him. Couldn't
find the doctor anywhere, and that bible-basher and his cell-mate are
missing. Sir, they've deserted us.'

It was freezing
standing out in the corridor. The soldiers were visibly shivering,
clenching their teeth together to prevent them from chattering. But
Victor Lord, in that moment, felt as if his blood had turned to lava.

'I don't give a
fuck about those people,' Victor said, chomping the cigar as if it
had done him wrong. 'The way I see it, it's four less mouths to
feed. What I
do
care about, though, is my fucking Jeep. We
need it...
I
need it. That prick's fucked up this time, and
there ain't no redemption.'

'So what do we do?'
Stewart Randall asked, hopping from one foot to the other to generate
body-heat. 'They could be long gone by now, and those things are
everywhere
out there.'

Victor pulled the
chewed cigar from his mouth and pocketed it. 'Get that fucking pilot
to me asap,' he said, the cogs in his head audibly whirring. 'We're
gonna get my truck back, one way or the other, and those assholes are
gonna wish they never fucked with Captain Victor Lord.'

TEN

With sunrise came
the hope of a thaw. It had only been snowing for a few hours, but
the ground was covered, several inches thick in some places. The
Snatch was built for all terrain, but the tyres slipped occasionally
on the snow, and each time they did panic ensued.

'Jesus Christ!'
Marla said, leaning forward and stabilising herself against the
separating mesh. 'Just doesn't feel safe, to me.'

'We're fine,' Shane
said. 'It's just the ice beneath the snow. Possibly the worst
combination. Should be okay when we reach the highway.'

'You mean less cars
to hit?' Marla replied. Next to her, Jared raised his eyebrows, a
comical face. 'You do realise that our travelling time has seriously
increased because of this damned weather?'

'It appears so,'
Shane said. 'But that doesn't make a bit of difference. Our aim is
to get where we need to be in one piece. I'll drive at five miles an
hour if it means getting to Jackson with all of our limbs intact.'

'The lurkers can
walk faster than that,' Marla whispered. 'Let's just hope we don't
come across any. We're meals on wheels at the moment.'

The Jeep skidded a
few feet to the right; Shane gripped the wheel and steadied it,
trying not to panic, trying to look as though he had full control
over the vehicle.

'One hell of a
road-trip,' Marla chided, settling back into her seat. When she
realised that Jared was looking towards her, expectantly, she said,
'Oh, don;t worry. Everything's under control. Well, everything
apart from the fucking Jeep.'

Jared forced a
smile. 'Seems like it,' he said. 'I'm pretty sure I've shit my
pants.'

Marla made a
disgusted face. 'Ewwww. You need to think before you speak.' She
laughed, which was cut off as the Snatch slipped a foot to the left,
complete with sound-effects.

'We're okay,' Shane
said from the front. 'Just had to go around a body in the road.'

'What?' Jared said,
more than terrified.

'It's okay,'
Terry's voice added. 'It wasn't a lurker; just some poor sonofabitch
who couldn't run quick enough. God rest his soul.'

Jared relaxed. 'I
can't believe we left the barracks for this,' he said. To Marla, he
said, 'Is it possible to have a heart-attack just sitting down.'

She nodded.

'That's good to
know,' he said. 'I'll add that to my list of things to look out
for.'

Marla was going to
reply when the snatch began to slow. It was quite a sudden halt, or
at least it felt like it, but as far as she was aware there was
nothing to stop for. So what if the lights were red; you were never
going to get a ticket, so you might as well just blast through them.

She reached up and
slammed a hand against the mesh, which rattled noisily. 'I said it's
gonna take us forever to get there,' she said. 'That didn't include
any stoppages.'

'Marla, shut the
fuck up,' Terry whispered. The fear in his voice was palpable. 'We
have a small problem.'

The engine switched
off. Marla didn't know whether the Jeep had just cut out, or if
Shane had shut her down. She hoped it was the latter, although even
that had its drawbacks.

It meant that
something very bad was about to happen.

And it was.

Marla pushed
herself up to look through the mesh, and immediately wished she
hadn't.

There were eight of
them, trundling through the snow towards the Snatch. The bile caught
in Marla's throat as panic hit her like a tonne of bricks. It was a
good job that Jared couldn't see what she could; he really
would
have shit his pants. Instead, he sat quietly, aware that something
terrible was about to happen but too afraid to ask what.

'What do we do?'
Marla asked, keeping her voice low just in case. 'Shane?'

He shook his head
and pulled the pistol from the side-door. Terry had both hands on
the shotgun, although neither of them seemed to be in any rush to do
anything.

'We wait,' Shane
said. 'Get back there and stay down. Don't make a sound.'

'Wha
—
'

'If they
hear
you, they'll keep coming until they get in here. We need to play
them at there own game,' he said. 'We need to play dead.'

Marla didn't like
that plan – or
nonplan
– one bit. Driving through
them would have been a better option, but that was fraught with
dangers. First off, the snow; one slip and they would be out of
control, an easy target for the lurkers once the Jeep came to rest.
Secondly, there were eight of them, and they were far enough apart to
make hitting them all an impossibility. Sure, three or four of them
would splat, but the ones at the side – the problem ones –
would latch onto the Snatch by any means necessary. It wasn't an
option at all.

'This is a bad
idea,' Marla whispered, crawling backwards until she was lying on the
floor of the Snatch. Jared, petrified, climbed down from the bench
and lay next to Marla.

'What the fuck is
out there?' he whispered, his voice cracking as if he was about to
start sobbing.

'Trust me,' Marla
said, putting both hands over the back of her head as if it would
conceal her more. 'It's much better if you don't know.'

Shit
, Jared
thought. That was all the answer he needed.

Three of the
lurkers had reached the Snatch, and were trailing bloody hands across
the bonnet. Shane watched with one eye open as the creatures began
to rock the Jeep from side-to-side.

Thank fuck the
windows are up
, Shane thought.

As a lurker –
a fat man, wearing nothing but a pair of stained pants and a
wife-beater – scratched the side of the Snatch with fat
sausage-fingers, Terry readied himself for the unimaginable. His one
hand was on the stock of the gun, the other was prepared to go for
the trigger in an instant. If anything tried to get inside, he would
have time to raise the gun and blow it to kingdom-come. Worry about
the consequences afterwards. Surviving the moment seemed to be what
it was all about.

A female lurker,
probably out cycling when she had been infected judging by her lycra
suit, tried to crawl onto the bonnet, but her motor-functions were
long gone and she slipped aside, landing with a thump in the snow
beside the Snatch.

In the back of the
Jeep, somebody was whimpering. Shane didn't think it was Marla.

The Snatch rocked
viciously to the left, accompanied by a frustrated grunt from the fat
man. When the Jeep fell back into place, Terry sensed an opportunity
to move his finger closer to the shotgun-trigger.

The snow was
thicker, now, than it had been a few minutes earlier. The lurkers
were almost camouflaged, so pallid was their skin. Shane had lost
visuals on five of them, but he knew they were close, and probably
trying to figure out what to do next. He could see fat-man in his
peripheral vision, and the cyclist was clambering back to her feet on
Terry's side of the Jeep. The third lurker, a nondescript beast
apart from the fact he was ginger, was thudding incessantly on the
front bumper.

Marla could be
heard whispering to Jared, telling him to calm the fuck down.

Shane watched
through his open eye as the lycra-clad creature shuffled off to
rejoin the horde. The fat man looked over, grunted twice, and then
decided that there was nothing in the vehicle worth the hassle. The
ginger zombie glanced skywards; snow tumbled down onto his pale face.
Tiny flakes fell into his open mouth, but if he could taste them
then he didn't show it.

After a few
seconds, he lurched around the side of the Jeep and began to scramble
towards the horde, who were twenty feet behind the vehicle now and
moving away.

Shane exhaled with
relief, the pistol relaxed in his grip.

He watched the
horde become smaller in the rearview mirror, but with visibility
reduced so severely they had vanished before their groans had ceased.

'I don't think I
could ever do that again,' Terry finally said. His breathing came in
short, sharp gasps that suggested how difficult he had found it
keeping motionless. 'Intense just doesn't cut it.'

'Is it over?' Marla
asked from the floor of the Snatch. 'I swear to God, Shane, next
time you better go straight through them.'

'It worked didn't
it?' Shane said, checking across his shoulder, glancing into the snow
for a sign the creatures weren't going to return.

'Who was whining
back there?' Terry asked, placing the Remington back between his
knees. 'Shit like that could get us killed.'

'I'm sorry,' Jared
said. 'I had no idea how many of them there were; nobody tells me
shit
.'

'For good reason,'
Marla said. 'Anyway, it doesn't matter. We're okay and those
fucking things didn't manage to get in. You said this thing has
armour?'

Shane nodded. 'The
best,' he said. 'But if they really wanted to get in, they'd just
keep on trying until they succeeded. Thank fuck they were in no mood
to hang about.'

'Can we get out of
here, now? Terry said, straightening up in his seat. I think I'm
gonna need a pit-stop at the next available junction.'

That, Shane
thought, might be a good idea.

He turned the key
in the ignition.

ELEVEN

Victor decided to
call a meeting before leaving. It was the done thing. You didn't
just up and leave, with no notice; you informed the people who placed
their trust in you, and that way they respected you even more.

Staring down at the
faces in the crowd, though, Victor wasn't so sure. He felt as if he
were addressing a bunch of school-kids, but all of a sudden he felt
exposed, vulnerable, and very naked.

'Ladies, gentlemen,
can I just say a few words.' He watched as a few of the survivors
decided to button it, urging the people standing next to them to “Let
him speak.”

In the corner of
the room, Maggie Cox smoked a cigarette and stared at him with those
sunken eyes. Her wizened, macerated face seemed to be taunting him
silently. He could only look at her for a second before choosing a
different focal-point altogether.

'People,' Victor
said, raising both hands calmly, almost apologetically. 'I need to
speak with you regarding a problem I have been made aware of.'