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  Vic leaned forward and placed his hand softly on Kat’s un-damaged shoulder. “You should rest. I don’t know how you do what you do, but right now you’re the biggest weapon we got against all this craziness.”

  Kat knew he was right and allowed herself to fall back against the soft pillows behind her.

  More noises came from the landing, and an out of breath Darren appeared with a large plate of sandwiches. With him was Hunt. Chip’s head looked up and started sniffing the air.

  The medic immediately moved forward and placed his hand on Kat’s forehead. “How you feeling?”

  “Tired, but OK. Arm hurts.”

  Hunt smiled, then pulled out a small plastic bottle from his pocket, and poured out two pills. He then leaned over and picked up a glass of water that was sitting on the nightstand. “Take these, it will help with the pain.”

  Kat did as she was told then started munching on a sandwich, although her mouth was so dry she had trouble swallowing the bread.

  “Make sure you rest and don’t try and get out of bed for at least another few hours.”

  “I’m going to check on our guest,” said Algorine getting up.

  Hunt looked at Vic. “Can I have a word with you.” Vic nodded and went to leave.

  “Umm, that girl, the one we found in the farmhouse. How is she?” Kat said, looking at both Vic and Hunt.

  “She’s better, last I saw her she was sleeping,” said Hunt.

  “Did you catch her name?”

  Hunt thought for a moment. “Hmm something Dulake—”

  “Annabelle Dulake,” said Vic.

  CHAPTER 20

  Two weeks earlier . . . Christmas Eve.

  Day one.

  An athletic girl with long blonde hair sprouting from her thick winter hat looked at the three-foot wall of snow that filled the small country lane and sighed. Her arms felt a few inches longer due to the bags of presents she was holding, and there was no way she was going to get to her grandparents’ house through the route in front of her.

  She looked around her as the snow fell heavily. The road she was in had a few homes with Christmas lights burning bright, but apart from that there was no other sign of life.

  Jack Dulake, her grandfather had told her to wait on the corner of the country lane and that he would pick her up at 10 p.m. It was now 10:20 p.m. and she had arrived ten minutes early.

  She looked at her mobile phone again. Still no signal.

  “Sacre bleu!” she exclaimed out into the darkness, her frustration taking form as a white mist from her mouth.

  She couldn’t wait here any longer. She figured it was already well below freezing and was exhausted from the journey from Paris. She looked along the street trying to remember if she had passed any hotels or even a petrol station in the taxi before being dropped off, but none came to mind.

  She then heard noises from the closest house. The sound of children laughing. Opening the front gate, she traipsed up the snow-covered pathway, trying not to slip until she faced a front door with a bright hallway beyond.

  She rang the doorbell. There was more talking from inside, this time from adults and a man wearing a thick jumper walked up the hallway and opened the door. He was about to say something then realised this wasn’t the usual cold caller he would get.

  “Sorry, Monsieur. I have come from Paris and I am meant to meet my grandfather outside here—” She pointed back to the corner. “But he has not arrived, and I do not know where to go now?”

  The man looked bemused and only caught the words ‘grandfather’ because of her heavy french accent. “You’re looking for your grandfather?”

  “Oui, yes.”

  “He lives around here?”

  She nodded.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Jack D—“

  “Oh, old Jack? Who lives up the lane? I know Jack! Please come inside.”

  She was glad for the warmth and within a few minutes was drinking some hot tea and eating Christmas cake. A short while after she was trundling down the country lane to her grandparents’ house in the back of a tractor, driven by the man in the jumper. The large heavy vehicle made short work of the barrier of snow and it wasn’t long before they stopped outside the entrance to her grandparents’ farmhouse.

  After thanking him numerous times, together with a kiss on his cheek, she jumped down and started walking up the stone pathway to the front of the Dulake family home. Waving her torch around at the ground, the brown of the salt that had been used to keep the path clear was clearly visible amongst the newly laid snow.

  She looked up at the living room windows that were brightly lit and the light that hung above the porch. She half-expected to see her grandparents’ faces at the window and was a little disappointed that she had made it all the way to the front door without anyone coming out to greet her.

  She put her bags down and slid her backpack off her back. She was surprised the door still hadn’t opened. Maybe they are watching something?

  She pressed the buzzer and waited for a response. None came. A thought washed through her mind that perhaps she had arrived on the wrong date, or maybe they had forgot? But then quickly dismissed it as insane. Who forgets Christmas eve? Anyway she was also here because of her recent birthday and her grandfather said he has something special to give her.

  She pressed the buzzer a few more times and when the front door did not open she moved around to the front and looked through the windows. A fire was burning down and the television was on, but there was no one to be seen. The warm drink she had twenty minutes before was starting to wear off and numbness was returning to her fingers, even inside her gloves.

  “Hello? Grandpa!” she shouted through the glass.

  She pressed her ear to the window and could hear the faint sound of the news on the television. She then had the strange sensation that she had become invisible and that nobody could see her.

  Ignoring the feeling, she walked to the side gate, pulled it open then continued to the back of the house. The kitchen light was also on and the back door was ajar. Some snow had already built up in the gap between the door and the inside, and she pulled it all the way back and stepped into the warm kitchen.

  On the kitchen worktop a frozen turkey was slowly thawing causing a puddle to form, together with a large amount of fresh vegetables.

  “Hello? Grandpa? Grandmother?” she shouted into the hallway beyond the kitchen. The only sound that replied was the television in the living room.

  A feeling of panic started to well in her throat. Closing the back door, she ran into the living room, and then immediately turned and ran upstairs, shouting for a response but not getting any.

  After ten minutes of searching every part of the house, she remembered her things still sitting outside the front door, and brought them inside.

  Sitting on the sofa in the living room, she briefly looked at her phone and on seeing it still had no signal, dropped it onto the coffee table and looked around for the landline phone. Picking up the receiver she heard the dial tone and pondered on who to call. Should I call the police? There’s no point calling my parents in France, what can they do? And it will just worry them.

  There was no denying that it was very strange for her grandparents not to be in their house, but she decided she would wait a few more hours before calling anyone. She did notice that their car was missing.

  She then did her best to distract herself and set about unpacking while making herself something to eat and watching the news on the television about the unprecedented winter storm that was hitting the country.

  Instead of sleeping in the bed she usually slept in when she stayed there, she brought some blankets down and covered herself with them on the sofa, with the television left on. The plan had been to call the police or someone around 1 a.m. but she was sure the front door would open long before then and the sound of her grandfather’s voice would follow.

  She opened her eyes and blinked a few times. The televis
ion was still showing the news which she thought was odd seeing it was Christmas. Her brain suddenly then screamed at her to wake up fully, and she realised it was 4 a.m. by the time displayed on the screen in front of her. She got up and walked into the hallway. “Anyone here?”

  There was no reply, but just to be sure, she searched the rest of the house once again, but it was still empty.

  There was no more waiting, she had to call the police. She picked up the phone and dialled 999. After being passed through to the police service, she started to tell the operator how she had been expecting to be picked up and then on arriving at the house finding nobody there.

  “I’ll take your name, address and your grandparents, and also this number. Do you have a mobile I can reach you on as well?” said the operator.

  She gave them the relevant information. She couldn’t quite believe she was in the situation she was in.

  “OK, I’ll try to have someone sent out for you in the morning—”

  “Morning?”

  “Yes, I’m sorry Miss Dulake, but we are very busy due to the storm. I’m sure you can understand. In the morning, an officer will come out to you and take your statement. Please do not venture out into the storm to look for them, we don’t want you getting lost too!”

  “Non, I understand.”

  The call ended. Tiredness started to overwhelm her once again.

  On the second day, no police came. She tried to call, but on picking up the landline phone only a crackling sound came from the receiver. Around noon, she wrapped herself in winter clothing and ventured out into the snow-covered landscape around the house. First, she checked the large garden and workshop that her grandfather spent a lot of his time in, then moved further out, stomping her way best she could along hedgerows and nearby fields. She always kept the house in view in case a police car showed up, but it never did. Luckily the snow had stopped for most of the time she was searching, but by late afternoon it had begun again, and she had lost the feeling in most of her extremities.

  She waded back to the house and collapsed on the kitchen floor worn out.

  Over the next few days she tried searching again, each time with no sign of anyone else let alone her relatives.

  On the fifth day after arriving, she decided she needed to try and contact the helpful farmer that she met the first night. After spending almost an hour digging her way through the snow drift on the path to the road, she gave up going any further. The hole the tractor had created in the road had been refilled with snow and the wall of white was now a foot higher.

  After seven days, she was beginning to think she would never see her grandparents again as the snow was now up to the bottom of the ground floor windows.

  On the tenth day the electricity and gas was turned off and the ‘things’ came.

  The sun had just dropped beneath the horizon. She was in the living room which had now become something of a studio flat and was lighting candles when she heard a sliding noise outside. Apart from the occasional squawk from a crow she had not heard any noises outside for days.

  She moved to the living room window and looked out, but only darkness looked back at her. The sound came again, this time from another position outside. For some reason she blew all the candles out apart from one, which she carried with her upstairs placing it on a table on the landing. She then moved into a bedroom and looked out. It took a few moments for her eyes to adjust, but when they did, she could see shadows, human-like ones moving over the front garden, and more further back in the field.

  She immediately opened the bedroom window. The icy air rushed in making her take a deep breath, then she shouted into the night.

  “Hey, I’m up here!” she said, waving her arm.

  The shadowy forms seemed to stop moving, and then start moving towards the house.

  A noise came from directly below her, and she leaned out as far as she could to look directly down.

  At first, she wasn’t sure what she was looking at but the dark shapes seemed to form a person. She squinted trying to focus better on who they were. Who are you? They started to groan. “Hello? Are you hurt?”

  The horrific idea then jumped into her head, that it was one of her grandparents who had gotten lost out in the storm, and was trying to get back in the house. Closing the window, she grabbed the candle and ran back down the stairs. Running into the hallway she made a movement towards the front door, when she realised she had just seen a face at the living room window. But it was a face that her mind was telling her not to look at again.

  She backtracked a few steps and stood mouth agape. The thing on the other side of the glass was decaying. Features on its face were not where they should be, and it seemed to be trying to see into the ground floor room.

  Instinctively she blew out the candle plunging the house into complete darkness.

  Not knowing if the thing was still there, she crept back up the stairs, and locked herself in the bathroom. After an hour listening for any noises, her eyes grew heavy and she fell into a deep sleep.

  On the eleventh day the water stopped running. Not wanting to venture outside, she scraped what snow she could off window seals and melted it. She also moved some of her things and supplies into the loft space. If any of the things managed to get into the house, that would be her last refuge.

  She also had the idea of putting some kind of message on the front roof of the house. Maybe some would see it, maybe someone in a plane? The first half of the day was spent sewing two white sheets together and then finding something to paint with. Once she had that accomplished, she attached heavy items to each of the two corners on the same side, and on leaning out of the first-floor window managed to throw those same objects up to the top of the slanted roof pulling the sheet with it. She then tied down the opposite corners to the guttering that ran along the bottom of the roof. It wasn’t elegant, but she was saw it would be visible for a few miles.

  Luckily her grandparents had a well-stocked kitchen but heat was a problem. On the twelfth day she gave in and started breaking up what wooden furniture she could find, and with some effort managed to get it lit. When the evening came, she had a roaring fire burning. Sitting in the living room under a mountain of blankets, watching the flames dance, fatigue overcame her and she fell asleep.

  She awoke with the sound of scratching at the living room windows which were now half-buried in snow.

  Broken and scarred faces on the other side of the glass looked at her being lit by her candles. She screamed, blew the candles out, threw what water she had on the fire, and ran upstairs, quickly climbing into the attic and pulling the access door closed behind her.

  That night she hid in darkness, listening to the groaning outside and only slept when light started to peek between the rafters.

  She realised on waking that the smoke from the fire must have attracted the things to the house. So that wasn’t an option again, but she was intensely cold and no matter how many layers of clothing she managed to squeeze inside of, it wasn’t making her feel much warmer.

  She also could tell she was dehydrated because everything was becoming harder to do. Her muscles argued with her every movement, and all she wanted to do was lie and rest.

  The thirteenth day she didn’t remember much of, but she could hear the things again during the night.

  When she opened her eyes on the fourteenth day she was in a metal cage with soldiers and a young woman, of similar age, smiling at her.

  * * * * *

  Annabelle Dulake looked at the inside of her tent and sighed. The white hessian fabric wasn’t very thick, but was keeping her warmer than her grandparents’ attic, that she had spent the last few days in. To the side of her bed was four large gallon bottles of water and a small gas-powered heater. The water was her allocation for the week, for drinking and bathing, although she had already seen some in the huge camp substitute their water with melted snow, which there seemed to be a never-ending supply of.

  Much of the past few days, sh
e couldn’t remember. Not that she wanted too, but the young woman’s face from the APC she remembered. She had no idea who she was, or why she was with her, but there was something about the memory of this person that seemed to not want to fade.

  She got up and stepped through the opening in the tent to the sounds of babies crying and people arguing. The snow had stopped falling, but the sky was still monotone grey above the rows and rows of stone coloured tents, most of which had shadows moving within them.

  An old woman, carrying a bucket of water walked past her, giving her the briefest of smiles. She smiled back but the woman had already looked down.

  “Umm, Madam?”

  The old woman stopped and looked back.

  “Do you know where I can talk to the er . . .” She searched for the word for person in charge. “Commander of this place?”

  The woman pointed over Annabelle’s shoulder. “Up there, that building on the hill, it’s where the administrators are. Not that they will be any help to you. Useless lot all of them.”

  “Merci.”

  The woman nodded and carried on with her journey.

  Annabelle walked up the path between the tents that had now become a muddy quagmire and eventually approached the large flat building, which in a previous life was a barn for cattle. Columns of dejected-looking people stood in queues winding their way to a few different entry points. She went to walk to one of them, when at least three people angrily shouted something in her direction. Rather than risk the wrath of the crowd she joined the end of the nearest group. An hour late she was inside the building, and two hours later she had made her way to the front.

  A lady with dark patches beneath her eyes holding a clipboard, looked up from a desk. “What can I do for you?”

  “My name is Annabelle Dulake, I travelled here from Paris almost two weeks ago. I need to get a message back to France, to my parents.”

  The woman was shaking her head even before Annabelle finished. “There are no international communications possible. Is there anything else I can help you with? Water? Food? Bedding?”