Dead of Winter by Darcy Coates

Author:Darcy Coates [Coates, Darcy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Owl Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

38

Shivers rush through me like electricity. My eyes are wide-open but there’s nothing for them to see. We let the coals in the fireplace turn cold. The storm is so dense that no traces of moonlight can reach through the window. We’re blind.

Sounds rise out of the empty world around me. Scratching fingers across rough wood.

Ragged breathing.

A heavy thump to my right.

Blake. She’s right there. On the couch, less than an arm’s reach away.

My body reacts before the thought can properly sink in. I scramble away, my back dragging across the wall before I hit something solid.

“Everyone keep still!” Simone’s voice is sharp and terrified.

“What’s happening?” Hutch sounds sluggish with sleep. Then, suddenly, his words quicken as he yells, “Who is that? Who touched me?”

“I said don’t move.”

A chair scrapes. My head swivels as I try to keep track of the sounds, trying to place each of the bodies around me. Something brushes my shoulder. Fear floods my veins as I flinch back.

I need light. Where’s my phone?

I stretch my fingers out, desperately feeling across the floor. It was in my jacket. But where’s that now?

“Get back!”

Simone’s voice is so close to a scream that I almost don’t recognise it.

My fingers close around rough fabric. My jacket. I scramble with it, trying to get my phone out.

Something bangs against a wall, hard. There are frantic noises. A second of sickening silence. Then someone screams: “They have a knife. Hell, they have a knife.”

Pure panic breaks out. Bodies slam together, feet scraping on the floor for purchase. Something hits the wall behind me so hard that I can feel the reverberations travel through my bones. I clutch my jacket to my chest as I crawl, trying to find shelter.

“Get off, get off!”

A grunt. A scream of pain. Feet pound across the floor, achingly loud. We’re like frightened birds trapped in a box with a predator, fluttering and beating ourselves senseless against the walls.

Something hard and bony hits my side. I grunt, dropping over. A body lands on top of me. The weight is enough to drive the air out of my lungs. I push against it, trying to get free, and a hand crawls its way across my throat and up over my mouth.

No. No.

Fingers press into my face. The skin is hot and damp with sweat. It’s over my nose. Smothering me. The pressure peels my lips back from my teeth. I scramble against the body, fists beating against a thick jacket. The cabin’s door bangs open as someone escapes into the storm outside. Still others are moving, yelling, hands clawing against the walls, the window. Someone trips over my outstretched legs; dull pain blooms where I was hit.

They can’t see what’s happening to me. And I have no breath to scream.

I open my jaw and let the flesh of the stranger’s palm sink between my teeth. Then I bite down.

The skin is sour and tough. My teeth ache from the pressure. There’s a gasping, voiceless cry, then the hand tears away from my face.

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