The Cold by Rich Hawkins

Author:Rich Hawkins [Hawkins, Rich]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: thriller, Science Fiction, suspense, British horror, Lovecraftian, Post-Apocalyptic, Male POV, horror, uk horror
Publisher: Horrific Tales Publishing
Published: 2019-07-21T22:00:00+00:00

*

Seth slipped on blood in the doorway, and held onto the jamb to stay on his feet. Speechless, he stared at the scene before him. In the flickering light of candles and lanterns, all was chaos and violence. Sobs and screams mixed with the blood-curdling bestial cries of the creatures. A chaotic thrashing of bodies as the monsters attacked. Shattered windows in the light of lanterns. Shards of glass on the floor. The creatures had burst through the windows and smashed down the front door. They were inside the hall. Feeding on people. Other refugees fought back or tried to escape.

Through the panicked crowd, Seth saw Andy, Ruby and Delia standing with their backs against the far wall to his right side. Delia held Jack in her arms as he wailed. She looked terrified. Ruby held a short wooden club of some kind, raising it before her. Andy gripped a carving knife in his right hand, and his eyes were so wide that they could have spilled from their sockets.

Seth started towards them, pushing his way through. He flinched from the bark of Callum’s shotgun. He glimpsed Quinn firing his pistol at a shrieking monster that ran at him with stringy viscera clasped in its spindly hands. Brief sights of terrified faces amidst the flailing, struggling bodies and clamouring forms. Pools of blood on the floor.

To his right, in one rear corner of the room, the children cowered in a huddled group, guarded by a few men and women armed with crowbars, knives and hammers. Seth glanced around, shielding his face from jutting elbows and legs; a misdirected hand struck him on the side of the head. Blood splattered upon him from his left side, and someone’s cries became a choking gurgle. A scream filled his ears, pulsed inside his skull. Near-witless, he looked down at a severed leg detached just below the knee on the floor. Entrails and offal. A ravaged body, made androgynous by the violence acted upon it. Everything manic and hysterical.

A man staggered past clutching his opened stomach, trying to keep his guts from slopping past his red hands. And while stumbling through the scrum of bodies and violence, suffering glancing blows from those around him, Seth saw Callum dump his shotgun and pull out a knife.

The creatures grabbed Callum, slashed and clawed at him. His hat dropped to the floor, and his greasy hair spilled down. He spat and swore, fighting with all his strength until he was lost to a feeding frenzy of horribly thin bodies and swiping claws. Blackened mouths gnawed and snapped. Hot arterial blood spurted on the floor and walls as he was quickly dismantled.

Other people were dragged away screaming, to be slaughtered in the shadows at the front of the hall.

Seth had almost reached Andy, Delia and Jack, when a stray elbow caught him in the face. His vision spun, dotted with black motes, as he fell, clutching his nose. His breathing was ragged. The floor was wet. He looked up to see a man holding a Molotov cocktail, preparing to throw it towards the front of the hall.

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