Dead World (Book 2): Headed North (14 page)

23

Far North

Daniel leans against the biting wind. They have been walking for three days now. The car ran out of gas and that was that. They carried what they could. Which was a pitifully small amount after the house of cannibals.

More often than not Daniel and Peter found themselves carrying Chloe. The girl had become so frail from walking, and so malnourished, that she could barely lift her feet. Every step was a chore that seemed impossible. And so they carried her and kept on walking.

They would have lost all faith a long time ago. They would have stopped walking and just laid down to die. Letting the cold slowly wrap around them as feeling escaped into the earth. But then they had come upon a sign. It was rickety and broken. It used to be a billboard advertising some product or another. But hastily scrawled over it in spray paint was the words “safe zone ahead”. Of course it didn’t give a distance, which was infuriating but Daniel found that he could not give up.

When his strength wavered Peter or Valentine were always there with him.

And so they continue to walk. The frigid air sapping their strength. The lack of food making their stomachs gnaw until numbness took over. But they refuse to give in. Refuse to accept the fate the world has thrown at them.

“We have to be almost there,” Daniel mumbles. He feels that he has lost a large part of his sanity and often finds himself mumbling. If only to keep his mind from allowing him to lay down and die. Valentine nods her head, wrapping a length of blanket that she is using as a scarf around her neck.

The sun is setting again to their left casting long shadows over the frozen landscape. Trees thick and ancient help to shield some of the snow.

The sign they had seen warned them that the safe zone was off the road, next exit it had said. And so they walk along the frozen path. Dirty snow sticking to their shoes wrapped in extra towels to provide some protection against the ice.

The cold has become unbearable. If they don’t find shelter soon they won’t make it through the night, he thinks. He needs to start a fire. He looks around but all the wood, that precious little bit that has fallen to the ground is covered in snow and useless as firewood. Not that he would know how to start a fire anyways.

“Hey,” the voice rings out, but Daniel isn’t sure where from. He strafes his head around slowly, trying to determine who called out. It must have been Peter he thinks. But then the call comes again. “Hey,” this time with more urgency.

Peter falls to the ground, collapsing in a heavy heap. Chloe falls to the ground next to him. She pulls on his arm. “Get up,” she begs weakly.

“Jack we got people over here,” Daniel hears the incessant voice in his head again but his brain is too clouded with hunger and numb from cold, he doesn’t recognize that it is not someone in his group. Valentine is by Chloe’s side now trying to lift her off Peter so she can talk to him.

Daniel is helpless but to stare on. In his mind it is like a terrible dream where you are being chased and your arms feel incapable of moving. Your feet feel like they are lodged in place. Everything slows down as he watches peter lay on the ground his breathing shallow and weak.

Flood lights snap on, banishing the closing shadows and throwing the night drenched forest into stark relief. Voices call out to them and Valentine stands upright waving her hands, trying to stop someone, or get someone’s attention, Daniel isn’t sure.

She is speaking to a man that Daniel swears he has never seen. The man is wrapped in clothing like he was prepared for this cold. His black body suit has metal scales sewn into the fabric and a heavy face mask that covers him completely from the elements. He raises a gun pointing it directly at Valentines face. “Get down and get your hands up,” he yells at her.

Chloe wails and clings to Peter’s prone form. Daniels mind snaps at the threat to Valentine. He surges forward. His cold muscles burn from the sudden exertion, his weakened body flying at her attacker.

Another man steps in. He swings around the butt of his rifle catching Daniel in the side of his head. Daniel feels his legs give out too and he collapses to the ground finally allowing the warmth of unconsciousness to take him.