Dead: Winter (32 page)

“Jamie!” Billy called and pushed past me to his friend.

At first there was no response as Billy shook and then slapped the young man. Jon and I drew near, but neither would interfere. My only concern was that, if he died, having already been bitten, we knew that he would come back as one of them. It didn’t matter that the bite itself didn’t kill him. I
m
munity only meant that the bite would not do him in at the moment. Once you were bit, I guess it was in your system and when you f
i
nally died, you turned.

Jamie looked up, and that is when I realized that I must have been holding my breath, because it came out in a whoosh. His eyes were normal—bloodshot and swollen, but very normal.

“W-w-why can’t you leave me be?” Jamie managed through chattering teeth.

“You can’t do this,” Billy said, kneeling in front of Jamie and pulling a coat out of the small pack he was carrying. “You can’t just quit on me like this.”

“I can’t do it anymore,” Jamie insisted.

“You can’t quit!” Billy shot back. “We’ve been through too much shit for you to just do…
this
!”

“Billy…” Jamie’s voice broke, and a sob was all he could manage.

“No!” Billy yelled in his friend’s face. “I lost Aaron, and J
o
seph. I’ll be damned if I will lose you, too. You were there that night. Remember when I lost my mom? That thing pulled her right through the window of the car. We were all in the back…and saw that monster rip my mother open and start ea
t
ing.

”When we were climbing out of the car and she sat up…I was ready to just quit. I would have let her get me because I didn’t want to run…not without my mom.”

Billy was on his knees in the snow by now. Tears were streaming down his cheeks and I almost wanted to move away in order to give the two some privacy. I felt like I was seeing something too personal for an audience.

“She did everything for us all those years after my dad split. And she was there, reaching out for me with that crying noise coming out of her mouth. You made me run. R
e
member? You told me she would want me to live, and every single zombie that I killed from that day on would be for my mom.

“When we got ambushed in that town during the supply run…when I got separated from the group? All I could think of was that I had to survive to kill more of those things for my mom…because
you
told me to.”

“It’s not the same,” Jamie protested. “I just don’t have an
y
thing left inside.”

“So you can go out into the woods and die?” Billy’s voice grew angry now. “That’s a bunch of crap! We grew up toget
h
er…my mom was the one who took you to the doctor when you fell out of the tree in my back yard and broke your arm. It was me you stayed with when your sister and brother were born…and it was my mom who came and got us when your fa
m
ily was outside the door trying to eat us! You think I wasn’t broken inside when my mom died…after saving
us
?”

“But…” Jamie tried to protest but Billy wasn’t in the mood to listen.

“No! You do not get to say that some girl we met when the world was coming to an end means more than my mom!”

The two boys stared at each other. Both of them were crying now and from that point, I couldn’t hear any more of what was being said as they went forehead-to-forehead and started whi
s
pering…or at least not talking loud enough for me or Jon to be able to hear.

I limped over to Jon. He was watching back the way we’d come. I immediately went on my guard. Had that zombie we left by the creek managed to climb up? Was he coming to break up the big emotional moment taking place?

“What’s wrong?” I whispered. My gaze alternated between the two boys and back up the trail.

“Thought I heard something,” Jon said.

I tried to block out the conversation coming from behind me and focus on whatever it was that had Jon’s hackles up. As much as I strained…I didn’t hear a damn think except for the wind in the trees. Behind me, I could hear Billy and Jamie still talking in hushed tones. Other than that, I wasn’t hearing anyth—

“Please help me!” the voice cried.

Then I heard something else…like a chainsaw or something with a small engine that revved high. My brain was about to provide the answer when the girl came crashing through the trees. She was on skis and until her face hit the low branch, she seemed to be doing quite well. Behind her was a heavily bundled figure on a snowmobile.

I grabbed the heavy machete from where it hung on my belt and cursed not having a gun. The girl on skis tried to get to her feet, but was struggling. The person on the snowmobile did a pretty amazing power slide and raced back to the downed skier. Neither of them noticed us yet, and we really couldn’t do a thing to help the skier from so far away. I was prepared for the worst.

“Grab hold!” the person on the snowmobile shouted and tossed a knotted rope.

I was so relieved that they were obviously a team that it took me a second or two to realize that if they weren’t chasing each other…that meant something else was on their heels. When I saw them, I felt something twist in my stomach. An image of my beloved Basset Hound, Pluck, his insides dra
g
ging behind him, was the only thing that could match my horror. Despite all I had seen up to this point, this new horror topped them.

I have no idea what could have taken down the entire pack of wolves, but there they were. I guess dogs and wolves were related close enough so that these now-hideous creatures su
f
fered the same fate of their domesticated brethren.

I counted eleven dark forms moving through the trees. The one in the lead was coated in crimson ice and snow. Fresh blood—I only knew it was fresh because it was still very red—stained the clumps of snow clinging to its fur and when it turned its head my direction, a few dark drops fell from its muzzle. The rest were spreading out in a semi-circle around the fallen skier and the person on the snowmobile trying to save his friend. (I knew it was a male because I’d heard the voice.)

The leader of the undead wolf pack seemed to regard us from a distance for a moment before r
e
turning its attention to the closer potential meal. One thing I learned right then was that a slow zombie-wolf is faster than a healthy human. It moved in for the kill and I knew without a doubt that the people were goners.

“Hey!” Bolting past me, Jamie began yelling, waving his arms. Billy was right on his heels.

The wolves stopped and turned their terrible heads our direction. Proving that all zombies are equally stupid, they stopped feet away from the cowering couple who looked like they had resigned themselves to dying together and turned to this new sound. That was also the first time that the couple became aware that they weren’t alone in the woods.

I looked at Jon who shrugged, shook his head and pulled a spear free to meet the oncoming threat. I set my feet and readied myself for the pair that had chosen to veer away from the leader.

I had a few seconds to watch as Jamie met the leading wolf in a clearing between a pair of pines. Since I hadn’t recalled him having any weapons, I assumed Billy had given over one of his. It was an aluminum baseball bat, and his first swing connected with a metallic ting. The wolf flew to the left, but the second one was on him before he could come back around with a follow-through. Jamie va
n
ished in the snow and all I could see was the ridge of the front haunches of his attacker peeking above the white.

Then mine were on me. I judged which one would attack first and stepped into it with an ove
r
head cleave that shattered skull and muzzle. As luck would have it, the blade was wedged in tight and came free from my grip. I barely had enough time to get my knife free of its sheath when the second one lunged and got a mouthful of my jeans. I was fortunate that I pulled away when I did because a wolf’s teeth are much sharper than a h
u
man’s and the material tore leaving my lower left leg exposed.

I brought my knife in from the side and it skidded across the crown of the creature’s head doing no substantial damage wha
t
soever. I felt a surge of fear that almost paralyzed me. My bladder let go and my only cognizant thought was how warm my crotch felt for that split second. Teeth came down hard on my arm and I felt the obscenely strong grip lock down just above the wrist where something popped. I lucked out in that my free hand was the one with the knife. I drove the blade down with all my strength and was relieved that zombie wolves shut down just as fast as their human counterparts. I took a second to ensure my leather jacket hadn’t ripped. My left wrist was probably hurt, and when this adrenaline wore off, I was certain the pain would be harsh, but for now I was thankful there were no tears in the material.

I looked around to see Billy stepping away from a dark lump. Jon was moving in a circle as he faced a pair and that d
e
termined where my help was needed most. I did have a second to appreciate that the snowmobile rider had dismounted and was standing over the skier. Two wolves looked to be dead, and two more were trying to figure out how to get past the honest-to-goodness sword he was waving in their faces. I saw no sign of Jamie, but I did see two wolves that looked like they were wo
r
rying at something in the snow where Jamie had gone down.

“They won’t get close enough for me to hit ‘em!” Jon yelled. As I drew closer, I watched as first one, then the other, made little feints but then drew back. I hadn’t seen anything like this in a human zombie. I had to wonder if this was due to some sort of animal instinct. If people did certain things out of some sort of lingering memory, then perhaps these wolves were still acting on theirs.

Once I had closed to within a few yards, I called out,” Here, boy!” (Hey…what else was I gonna say?) I froze when both heads turned my direction. Now all I could feel was the cold snow on my e
x
posed leg and I just knew that the wolves were gonna go for that. What the hell had I been thinking?

Thankfully, Jon was a man who had the instincts of a fighter. He came in fast with his spear and plunged it into the wolf that was closest to me. He pulled back and thrust as the second wolf was now turning back once more to its original target. That actually caused Jon to miss his mark, and the spear plunged in and through the creature’s neck.

I saw my chance and took it. Bounding forward the three or four steps to close the distance, a wave of snow in front of me like a miniature arctic tsunami, I dove. I actually ended up stra
d
dling the beast and drove my blade down with both hands into the space between the pair of drooping ears.

I was able to take a breath and look around. I guess su
r
prised is the closest word to describe what I felt when I saw Jamie stand up. His jacket looked like it had a few tears, and I thought I saw blood, but him being immune actually made that acceptable.

“I don’t know where you guys came from, but we owe you our lives,” the man said. He peeled off his blue-tinted goggles and stepped forward. The female stood just behind him and I noticed that she had her hands on the hilt of a sword that was strapped to her hip.

“My name is Steve, this is Jon, that’s Billy and the other is Jamie.” I pointed to each in turn. When I reached Jamie, there was a gasp from the couple. They obviously saw the blood.

“Just a scratch,” Jamie raised his sleeve and revealed set of long red scratches down his right forearm, “nothing to get too riled up over.”

“But the scratches seem to be just as lethal as the bite,” the man said.

“I’m immune.”

“Immune?” the girl asked. “What do you mean…immune?”

I explained what we’d discovered to the couple. The man seemed to turn a bit pale and the wo
m
an looked at him a few times with an expression that I couldn’t decipher.