Frozen Flesh Page 4

  I plaster a fake smile on my face and turn to face Jeremy, to see how bad he is looking now.

  And I find a pair of white cloudy eyes inches from my face. I scream as he lunges, teeth ready to clamp onto my neck. I whip the bat around my body and try to hit him with it. His teeth sink into it instead and the wood splinters. I strike with my elbow like I was taught to do in my self defence class. It connects with his nose and the bone shatters. He should be incapacitated by pain, at least for a few moments.

  His empty eyes don’t even waver. His gaze is locked onto my neck. His hands come up to grab me.

  Matt reaches around awkwardly and shoves Jeremy away. The kid is still skinny, no matter how freakishly strong he has become, and he is thrown backwards onto the seats. The car scrapes deafeningly against the side of the spiral ramp and then suddenly stops.

  We have reached the parking area.

  I reach for the door handle but Jeremy is back and his arms grab for me. I smack away one hand and grab the other wrist, using all my strength to hold it away from me. It’s incredibly strong, whatever this thing is. It’s not human, that’s for sure. Jeremy’s gone, and this thing wants to eat me.

  His teeth snap at my hands and I jerk away from him, releasing his wrists and pushing myself against the door. I scramble for the door handle while he reaches for me and I keep swiping his arms away. Miraculously, there isn’t enough space for him to get his body into the front of the car so he can sink his teeth into me.

  The door opens behind me.

  Matt catches me before I fall backwards onto the ground. It was just in time, too. Jeremy squeezes past the front seat. It looks extremely painful but he doesn’t react, his eyes are still locked on us. He is entirely consumed by the need to get to us.

  The broken baseball bat fell out of the car with me but the bag of guns is still inside, and now Jeremy is between us and them. I snatch up the bat and we back away. There isn’t any other infected on this level of the complex. I catch a glimpse of something inside one of the cars but it’s stuck inside, so it’s not our concern right now.

  Jeremy frees himself of the car.

  I raise my splintered bat. When he’s close enough, I swing and connect directly with his face. Blood pours from his shattered nose and he stumbles to the side. That should have knocked him out cold but he doesn’t even fall down. His eyes snap back to us within moments.

  This would be a great moment for one of those kitchen knives.

  Matt makes a dash towards the car for the guns and Jeremy rushes towards the flurry of movement. Moving targets must be more enticing.

  Matt reacts too slowly so he can’t stop me when I throw myself in front of him. Jeremy collides with me and his teeth sink into my shoulder. I scream as pain blurs my vision. We hit the ground and I struggle to free the bat from where it’s trapped between our bodies. He lifts his broken face and opens his mouth again. His teeth are covered in blood - my blood - and this time he’s going for my neck.

  This is it.

  The sound of a gunshot explodes around us and Jeremy’s head snaps to the side. His blood showers out around me and I try to keep my mouth and eyes closed and turned away. I don’t want to think about what else is mixed in with the blood.

  My ears are ringing and I can’t open my eyes to see, but I feel Matt picking me up. He’s wiping the disgusting mess off my face. He’s trying to.

  Burning spreads from my shoulder and I start sobbing when I realise what’s happening. The infection. I’m going to become one of them.

  Matt will be all alone.

  I open my eyes. I don’t care about the gore covering me, I need to see his face one last time. His face is pale and his eyes are wide. He looks terrified.

  “Matt. You need to... You...”

  I gasp for air, struggling to tell him to run, but my lungs are on fire.

  Run and don’t come back. Save yourself.

  I try to say it but the words won’t come out of my mouth.

  I think he’s speaking to me, but all I can hear is a too-loud voice, all the words are blurring together. The lights on the ceiling are blinding me so I squeeze my eyes shut against them.

  Two things slip through the fiery haze before darkness claims my mind. The first is the burning pain in my shoulder. The second is Matt’s voice.

  “Stay with me, Kim. Please. Fight it.”

  Before I can try to resist, the darkness sweeps me into oblivion.

  ***

  Chapter 5 - Frost

  Jake

  We’re still in the gun room when we hear a loud ringing noise. We freeze. The noise is coming from the pocket of the dead man. I look at Diana and she shrugs at me.

  I crouch down next to him and try not to look at the mess that used to be his face while I take the phone out of his pocket. His body is cold and and a wave of nausea rolls over me. I quickly move away from him and glance down at the phone.

  “It’s Reggie.”

  Diana nods. She’s still hanging back. She must not want to get any closer to the dead body than she has to.

  I press the answer button and hold it up to my ear. “Hello?”

  “Hello?” Reggie says. “Harry?”

  “No, it’s Jake.”

  I turn to Diana to see if she has any ideas about who Harry might be. Before I do, my eyes stop on the corpse whose head we crushed.

  “Oh. I think Harry’s dead.”

  “What happened? Are you hurt? Is Leo okay?”

  “Leo’s fine. Me and Diana found a corpse lurking in the garage when we came out here, and we... dealt with it. I’m guessing that was Harry.”

  “Well, this is his phone, so I’d say yes. White guy, mid-thirties, brown hair?”

  “Yeah.” I pause and glance at Diana. “His hair was brown, right?”

  She shrugs.

  I hear Reggie sigh. “That bad, huh?”

  “Diana took his face off and he still wouldn’t die. We had to get creative.”

  “I’ll be there in about half an hour. I sent Harry over this morning to make sure everything was okay, no one got bit, you know, until I got there.”

  “That worked out well.”

  He sighs again. “I don’t appreciate the attitude, Jake, but I can’t argue with you.”

  “You said you wanted to make sure no one got bit. Is that how it spreads?”

  Diana moves closer to me, curious about the biting for the same reason I am.

  “Yeah, you get bit, you get infected and within a few hours you’ll be a biter. Maybe sooner depending on how bad the injury is.”

  I don’t mention my own bite. “Is it always within a few hours?”

  “As far as I know. We’ve seen some take an hour, others take longer, but none of them last very long before they start showing symptoms.”

  I take a deep breath. “Okay,” I said. “Well, we’re fine. Who else is with you?”

  “I’ve got a group with me. Mostly my guys and some of their families, if they have any left. It’s pretty bad out here. I’ve had to put down some of my people, after they got infected. Diana’s aunt is with me. That might cheer her up a bit.”

  I pass on the information to Diana and she breathes a sigh of relief.

  “What about you, Jake? Have you talked to Kim?”

  “I haven’t been able to get into contact with her.”

  “Don’t lost hope, Jake. Every person in the city is trying to call their loved ones, the networks are overloaded. There could be a million reasons that you can’t reach her. I’m sure she’s fine.”

  “It’ll be fine,” I say. “I’ll try calling her again soon. See you in half an hour?”

  “Yes. Don’t die.”

  And on that positive note, he hangs up.

  * * *

  We almost make it back inside before another crisis happens.

  Diana points at something over my shoulder and I hear the groan before I see them. There are three walkers approaching the house. They’re at the gate and they are walking
so slowly that we’re not in any immediate danger.

  That doesn’t mean we won’t be in danger soon.

  “Get inside,” I say.

  Diana is one step ahead of me and I follow her through the door. She locks it and we stare at each other for a moment.

  “The guns,” I say.

  She nods and drops the bag on the floor and starts rifling through it.

  “Leo!” I shout. “We have company!”

  I can hear his footsteps on the landing above us but I grab the rifle Diana hands me and move to the window.

  “I only see two,” I say. “There were three.”

  “Deal with those ones first,” she said. “I’ll keep an eye out for the third.”

  I open the window and take aim. It’s been a while since I fired anything like this and my first shot misses. The second clips the closest walker’s shoulder and she spins around and falls to the ground. She starts to get back up straight away.

  The second walker is getting very close to the house and he’s walking straight towards me. The noise must attract them. I take aim but another shot goes off before I can fire and his head snaps back. I look to my left and Diana grins at me.

  I raise my rifle again and focus on the female walker who is now standing and walking towards us. Her shoulder is a mess but she doesn’t care. She comes within ten feet of us and raises her good arm towards us.

  I pull the trigger right as a hand closes around my arm. The bullet goes wide and I turn to tell Leo to get out of the way.

  It’s not Leo.

  The third undead corpse grabs me and pulls me with surprising strength. I stumble towards him and the rifle clatters to the floor. His jaws open wide but I shove my forearm under his chin. His teeth snap together inches from my face. Diana is shouting something but there’s no space to fire and I must be between her and the corpse.

  Leo appears and wrestles the monster off of me. The thing falls through the window and they both hit the ground. It moves quickly now, faster than I thought it could. All of a sudden it’s leaning over Leo and those teeth are closing over his neck and I grab it without thinking.

  I pull it away from him but the walker is stiff suddenly, and freezing cold, and when I let go it topples onto the tiled floor with a sharp crack.

  It’s frozen solid.

  I stare at it, trying to figure out how this could be possible, but a gunshot brings me back to the present. Diana is breathing heavily and she turns to us with wide eyes.

  “Are you okay?”

  I look at Leo. His face is white but I can’t see any blood. The walker didn’t bite him.

  “We’re fine,” I say.

  “I would have helped but the ones outside got too close,” she says. “And there was a fourth one. I don’t know where it came from but it’s dead now.”

  I glance out the window and see the trail of corpses lying between us and the gate. The closest one is only a few feet away.

  “That was too close.”

  ***

  We move the bodies outside and decide that Reggie will know what to do with them. We all keep busy, packing supplies and moving around. None of us want to have time to think about how close we all came to death. Diana and Leo try to ask me about the frozen walker, but I keep changing the topic until they give up.

  My clothes and arms are covered in walker blood so I go upstairs to shower and get away from my friends. I feel something coursing through my body. It’s cold and powerful and I have no idea how to control it. I’m afraid that they won’t understand but I’m more afraid that I might hurt them because I don’t know how to stop myself.

  There’s only one person I want to talk to right now, and I have no idea how to find her. I try calling again.I scroll through my contacts until I see Kim’s name and then I hit the call button.

  It’s ringing. It’s ringing. It’s ring-

  This network is unavailable. Please try again later.

  I growl and force myself not to throw the phone at the wall.

  I grab some clothes from Leo’s room and walk down to the main bathroom on this floor - yes, Leo’s house has multiple bathrooms on every floor. I tell people not to bother asking me to explain it because I don’t understand it myself. They could never use all the bathrooms at one time, there isn’t enough people living here. It doesn’t make sense.

  I close the door but leave it unlocked. The other might need me if something happens. I pull off my old clothes and throw them straight into the bin. There is no way I’m putting those ones back on.

  The water is warm and I sigh as it washes over me. I don’t even need to wait for the water to heat up. Everything in this house is state-of-the-art, even the showers. Reggie doesn’t settle for second best.

  Steam fogs the glass, and I start humming to myself. I turn the water temperature up, and then some more, a voice in the back of my head urging me on. I turn it up all the way.

  It doesn’t hurt. I can literally see my skin turning red, so I turn the temperature down quickly. But it didn’t hurt. It’s not even sore now. Panic starts to fill me. Something unknown and terrifying is happening to me.

  I often find that I do my best thinking in the shower so I close my eyes and take a moment to think. My hearing has improved, my strength is off the charts, and I got bit by a crazy girl over forty eights hours ago and I’m not infected. Or maybe I am. Maybe I am and I’m just reacting differently. Is that possible?

  And most terrifying of all, I froze a walker solid with my hands. An undead human. I killed it just by touching it and unintentionally releasing some kind of new power from inside me.

  I could be immune. I could be the cure. I saw that in a movie once. The main character didn’t turn, so they had to bring her to a lab to get the cure from her blood.

  Or maybe the girl who bit me was just high on something. She might not even have been infected. I wish I could believe it but that doesn’t explain any of the strange things I’ve been able to do. And the fever, of course. The fire. I remember the fire very clearly. That wasn’t fun.

  So I was definitely bitten by an infected person. That means I got the infection.

  And for some reason, it didn’t turn me into an insane cannibal monster.

  A darker thought strikes me. What if it just hasn’t happened yet? I could be taking a very long time to turn into one of them. Reggie said everyone turns within a few hours, but he also said that the exact time varies. I could be on the extreme high end of average.

  My gut tells me that’s not true, though. I felt the fever break. I got better. I felt that coldness push the fire back. It must have been important, whatever it was. Without it, I might be trying to eat Diana and Leo right now.

  I sigh. I can guess all I want, but there’s no way to know for sure. All I can do is act normal until I know more.

  I get out of the shower and wrap a towel around my waist. I absently wipe the mirror with my hand to clear away the mist. My thoughts are elsewhere but something glimmers in the light and I realise that the shiny thing is me.

  My skin is covered in dozens of beads of ice. They’re reflecting the ceiling lights and making me look like some kind of weird disco ball. I reach up to touch one of them and it brushes off my skin without any resistance. I brush off more of them but they’re everywhere so I just grab my clothes and put them on.

  Drops of ice fall from my clothes as I walk back down the hall and downstairs. I walk slowly, calmly, as if I can convince myself that everything is normal.

  “Guys, something happened.”

  Diana whirls around, gun in hand. “What is it? Did you see more walkers?”

  “No, it’s not that.”

  “What’s in your hair?” Leo asks.

  “Ice,” I say. “My hair was wet after the shower and then... this happened.”

  Diana frowns and steps closer. She lifts her hand to my head and brushes through my hair. Pieces of ice the size of raindrops fall to the ground like a mini hail storm.

  “Do
you think this is a result of the bite?” she asks.

  “Maybe,” I say. I think of the frozen walker and the coldness that protected me from the fever.

  “We should keep this to ourselves,” Leo says. “People do drastic things when they’re scared. Especially now.”

  “Besides, there might be others like you,” Diana says reassuringly.

  “There might be,” I say.

  I don’t tell the others but my gut is telling me that there are others. There are many others. I don’t know how I know but I’m certain of it. And if it’s true, it presents an even bigger problem. These abilities are powerful and terrifying and there are a lot of people out there who could use them for the wrong reasons. Power is a weapon and abilities could turn the tide in almost any fight. The thought of the wrong people possessing powers like mine fills me with dread.

  I hope I’m wrong.

  ***

  Chapter 6 - Power and Control

  Kim

  There is nothing slow about how I wake up.

  I jolt upright in the bed and search the darkness around me desperately for Jake or Matt. No, Jake’s not here, I remember. But where is Matt?

  And whose bed is this?

  I find Matt in the next room, a cosy kitchen that raises yet another question.

  “Where are we?”

  Matt twists around in the chair. “You’re awake,” he rushes over to me. “I was so worried, I thought-”

  “Whose house is this?”

  He blinks a few times. “Their names are Scott and Cara.”

  “Are? Don’t you mean were?”

  He shakes his head. “No. They took us in. I saw her in the window and I banged on the door until they let me in. They were kind enough to let us stay.” A sly grin appears on his face. “And probably too worried about how much noise I was making to leave me outside.”

  I have to laugh. “You annoyed them into letting you inside.”

  “I annoyed them into letting us inside,” he says, grinning.

  “I don’t feel sick,” I say suddenly. His expression drops immediately. “Sorry, I know that was a very dark change of topic, but I just realised it. I feel fine.” I pause. “In fact, I feel great. What happened?”