Dead Of Winter (The Rift Book II) (20 page)

“He’s not here,” Colin said.

“Uh…where’d he go?”

“Not sure.
Didn’t say much.
Just took off.”

“But I didn’t see him leave.”

He jabbed his thumb behind him. “Probably ‘
cause
he’s been sifting through the pile of stuff out back for a while now.”

“Oh.”

Yvette tilted her head and creased her brow. “Why’d you come running in here like that?” she asked.

Kyra sighed. “Oh, it’s not important. Thought I saw something. I guess it was nothing. I’ll be back.”

With that she turned on her heels, exited the shack, and walked to the rear of the cabin, where their food and supplies had been stored beneath a tarp, burlap sack, and heavy blanket. The sack was long gone, having been used to wrap up Frank McKinley’s corpse. It joined their other excess blankets, finding a resting spot with their deceased loved ones beneath the earth.

Now only the tarp remained. She knew what that meant.

Josh had more digging to do.

She followed his footprints. The sun withdrew and the snow picked up again, so intense she could only see a few feet in front of her. A gust of glacial wind pummeled her face. She shoved her hands in the waistband of her pants, using her nethers to keep them warm. A yip escaped her throat when her fingers pressed too close to the source of that heat.

Beneath the wind she heard screams. She started to jog, shoving her way through the thick branches blocking her way. Her foot struck a rock buried in the snow. She tumbled, twisting her body to the side as to not cause any damage to the sensitive package residing in her abdomen. Snow covered her face. She blew away the flakes in disgust.

Rising to her feet, Kyra moved more cautiously this time. The screams were gone, replaced by a dog’s muffled whimper. She ducked beneath a large branch and entered a clearing. She hadn’t been this far from the cabin in months. What she saw there caused her heart to sink.

There Josh stood, his back to her, leaning against a shovel. The blanket he’d taken was beside him, wrapped around what she assumed was the cadaver of the walking dead man he’d told them about. There was a fresh layer of white powder on the ground. Four large stones had been positioned with care to his right. She could see letters etched crudely on them. FM, TG, TL, MG. She didn’t need to think any more about it to know what those letters meant.

I’ll take care of it
, Josh had said at the time. She’d admired his strength in being able to deal with horrors such as dead children, and yet felt more than a little concern over his outward flippancy in regards to the subject.
 
The sight of him there, surrounded by their graves while his body shook, afforded proof that he was anything but.

She swallowed hard and approached him. When she touched his shoulder he flinched and craned his neck. The remnants of tears formed veins in the dirt on his face.

“Hi,” he said. His voice was weak.

“You don’t seem surprised to see me,” she said.

He shook his head.
“
Kinda
expected it.”

“Why didn’t you just ask me to come with you?”

“I couldn’t.” He choked on his words. “This was something I thought I had to do on my own. But I never made it a secret. If anyone
wanted
to come…” His voice ran off. The depth of his depression frightened her.

“What’s this all about, Josh? What’s going on?”

He didn’t reply. Instead he let go of the shovel, let it fall, and reached behind him. From his back pocket he removed his wallet. He opened it and rummaged through its contents – driver’s license, credit cards, phone numbers,
a
few dollar bills. He then shoved them back inside, stepped away from her, and cocked his arm. With a swift motion he hurled the wallet into the woods. It arched high, piercing the trees and disturbing the needle-covered branches. A few of the items fell out and fluttered to the ground, only to disappear beneath the newly fallen snow.

“It’s all useless now,” he muttered. “All of it.”

She grabbed him by the crook of his arm and squeezed. She didn’t know what to say.

His eyes dropped to the blanket at his feet. Just then she noticed a thin stream of blood exiting from its open end. Her stomach cramped. Josh spoke.

“I’m a killer, Kye. Did you know that?”

She shook her head.

“Well I am. Call it what you will. Some might say I’m a survivor, or opportunistic, but I know the truth. Murder is murder. And that’s me.
A murderer.”

“That’s not true,” she whispered. “You were only protecting yourself.” She pointed at the bundled blanket. “That thing would’ve killed you if you didn’t do something.”

He laughed. It was a disheartening sound. “See what I mean?
Justification.
It’s all bullshit.”

“I don’t understand why you’re saying this.”

He bowed his head. “It’s not the act, Kye. It’s how easy it is. There wasn’t even any hesitation.
At all.
What’s that mean?”

She shrugged.

“I killed my family. Did you know that?”

A lump formed in Kyra’s throat. Her thoughts went askew. She took a step back.

“I’ve never told you the story,” he said, his cloudy eyes fixed on nothing in particular. “But I have to now. I have to because I
scare myself.
” He swallowed hard and continued. “That night…I was late getting home. I stayed with Mr. C and the rest of you at the church, delayed going back home. I should’ve left earlier. If I had…none of this would’ve happened.

“When I got to the house, there was silence. It was horrible, like the quiet swallowed everything. Then I go into the basement, where we were hiding, and there were my parents. They’d been butchered, Kye.
Slaughtered.
By Sophia.”

Kyra’s heart skipped a beat. She chewed on her tongue to keep from crying.

“
Sophia’d
been sick. I told you that, right? Well, probably not. But anyway, she was sitting there, on top of my dad, covered in blood, when I found her. She walked up to me and I wasn’t even scared. I thought at the time that something was controlling me, but that wasn’t the case. But the worst part was
her
reaction to
me
. She didn’t attack me, didn’t pull back. She just walked up to me and tilted her head. Like I was
like her.

“So what do I do? I lead her upstairs into the kitchen and kill her.” He jerked up suddenly and slammed his fist into his open hand.
“Bam!
Just like that. I shoved a knife in her eye. And it was
my
action,
my
decision. I have to own that. I…killed…my…sister.”

Kyra wanted to say something, anything, to ease his pain.
Tell him it’s okay
, she thought.
Tell him she was sick and it was for the best.
But she couldn’t do that. Instead she said, “Thank you for finally telling me,” stepped up to him, and threw her arm around his shoulder.

He broke down and dropped to his knees. “You know what the worst thing is?” he blubbered. “She…was my
sister!
I loved her more than anything. I would’ve done anything for her. I should’ve just brought her along.” He was hysterical now. “I mean, we might’ve found other people! They might’ve had
a cure!
But I robbed her of that chance!”

With a great spasm he fell into her. His head landed in her lap, pushing her rump into the snow. He clutched her leg with both arms, trembling. She kicked the bundled corpse beside them with her free leg. It rolled a few feet before stopping.

Very slowly, Josh’s fit petered out. He lay in her lap and breathed deeply with his eyes closed. Before long he’d gathered enough strength to sit up. His lower jaw quivered.

“I know what you’re going to say,” Kyra said, “but I’ll repeat it anyway. You’re not a killer.”

He nodded.

“It’s just guilt. I get it. But you
gotta
get over it,
hun
. It’s paralyzing you…hell, it’s paralyzing
us
. We’re here now, they aren’t. We need you. Both of us do.”

She winced when she spoke those words, but Josh didn’t seem to understand her meaning. He
grinned
a sad grin and patted her on the knee. “I know you guys do. You mean a lot to me, too. I don’t know how I would’ve gotten through this without you. Sorry for keeping you in the dark for so long.”

“That’s okay, it really is, but that’s not what I –”

“It’s funny,” he said, raising his face to the falling snow. “I lived my whole life thinking –
wishing
– I was on the fringe of society when I really wasn’t. I was
included
in it. And now here we are, and we’re the only society left. Yet even now, this despair, this sadness, won’t go away. It’s hard, Kye.
This life, this
existence.
I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.” He glanced at the path. “I feel sorry for them. I do. Most of them are gonna grow up knowing nothing but
this
. It isn’t right. Hell, I used to argue with Colin about the prospect of bringing a child into the world. He’d always said it was a cruel thing to do, what with the state of everything. ‘How could we subject them to that,’ he’d say. And he was right. Imagine if those kids’ parents had been able to see what’s happening now. Do you think they’d still want them to be born? I don’t.”

Sadness flowed through her. “So you’re saying it’s wrong to bring a child into the world?”

“I guess so. It’s a selfish and ignorant thing to do.
Especially now.
Hell, maybe we weren’t supposed to survive this at all. In that case we should just let nature take its course.”

“What if I told you I was pregnant?”

He chuckled. “I’d probably tell you to get rid of it as fast as possible.”

A tear dripped onto her cold cheeks. She sniffled. “If that’s the way you feel,” she said. She lifted his hand off her knee, dropped it to the ground, and stood up. Jamming her hands into her armpits, she turned and started walking back the way she came. The tears flowed fast and hard.

Stupid, stupid girl
, she thought.
You should’ve kept it to yourself.

She marched through the snow for a few minutes, sobbing, and then heard the crunch of booted feet behind her, closing in fast. She gripped her torso tighter, trying to squeeze herself into a quiet place.

“Hey, slow up!” Josh yelled.

His hand touched her wrist and she flailed away from him. He jogged in front of her and put his hand out.

“C’mon, stop,” he said.

She planted her feet and glowered at him. “Why?”

“What do you mean you’re pregnant? Are you serious?”

“Uh-huh.”

“But shit, we haven’t had sex since…damn, since the day after we left. That would mean…”

“Four months.
Almost five.”

“But…I thought you couldn’t have kids?”

“Things change.”

Josh spread his hands and arched his eyebrows. He looked incredulous. “I didn’t realize…why didn’t you tell me?”

She choked on her words.
“Because of this reaction.
I knew you couldn’t handle it.”

“You should’ve trusted me.”

“I couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because we can’t relate, Josh.”
Her strength failed her and her next words came out in a flurry of sniffles and wheezes. “You’re twenty-five…I haven’t seen that age in forever…I don’t wanna be alone…not in this…but you’ve been so distant…and you’re so angry…and you’re gonna hate the baby…”