Dead of Winter

by Darcy Coates

The advice is to spit: see which way your saliva drips, then dig away from it.

I chuckle, even though I’m left feeling uncomfortable in ways I can’t quite explain. Miri and Steve seem friendly, but the hairs on the back of my arms rise.

The sense of danger, of wrongness, grows worse. A premonition that something bad is coming. Like a storm threatening to break. I’ve learned not to ignore that feeling. The last time I tried was on August 8. And the cost it exacted was extreme.

There’s something off about her and I can’t quite decide what it is.

It’s then that the premonition hits me, stronger than any I’ve felt in a long time—stronger even than the one on August 8—and I lean forward and close my eyes as a cold sweat breaks out over my flesh. None of us are getting out of here alive.

He’d wanted to make sure he had all of our signatures. That the wording, which only took up one page, was watertight. While Kiernan was dying outside, he was making sure he couldn’t be held responsible.

Speared onto the end of the branch is something horrendously familiar. Brian’s head.

Steve is the first to break the silence. “Who did this?” It’s as though he expects one of us to raise our hand. That was me. Sorry for the inconvenience.

It’s a strange feeling to know you might be walking beside someone who’s taken a life. Technically, the statistics on that are ugly on a regular day: the average person is likely to cross paths with three to ten murderers in their lifetime, including not-insignificant odds of having one inside their broad social group. Still, that’s better than what I’m facing. The possibility that one of the eight people around me is a killer.

“He’s out there. He needs help. I can’t abandon him.” Blake, just behind me, lets out a barking laugh. “Maybe he’s the one who killed Brian. Revenge for being left behind.”

Haha I had highlighted this because I thought there was some truth in this statement and boy was I right.

“I’ll look for someone for as long as there’s hope they’re alive.” That’s all he says, but I understand his meaning as he crosses to his chair. As far as he’s concerned, Kiernan is dead.

did anyone actually hear him make that call?” There’s silence. Hutch lowers the radio. His face has greyed out. “Because this is broken.”

Grey shapes are scattered around the bus’s front, half buried under the snow. At first I took them for rocks. As I draw nearer, though, I realise I’m looking at metal. Engine parts have been stripped out and discarded.

I figured it would be that or slashed tires

Small shapes are lined up on the outside, crusted in fresh snow. I lean forward, frowning, doubting what I’m seeing. My breath condenses on the glass. The shapes are pale white, with spots of deep crimson.

What? Fingers or teeth?

Kiernan only had thirty-one teeth. He was missing a premolar, something that never grew in after his baby teeth came loose. You couldn’t tell, not even when he smiled, unless you knew where to look.

I hope he was already dead when they were pulled.

And I’d looked at him with new eyes. He wasn’t the unblemished, naive figure I’d imagined. He was weathered by pain. Aged by suffering. And despite it all, he had learned how to reforge his joy. How to use the pain to construct his life. We were more alike than I’d imagined, only he was a better, fuller version. The person I had been striving, and failing, to become. He gave me hope. More than that, he became someone I could trust. Someone I could let myself love.

I drag my eyes upwards, towards her head. The space where it should be. It’s been cleaved off, just like Brian’s.

If the teeth were taken during the night, it was most likely by the same person who placed them there. The same person who killed Miri. I lay directly beneath, asleep and unaware, as the butcher picked the teeth off the sill above me one by one.

It’s a handkerchief. Damp with blood. The liquid doesn’t quite spread from edge to edge, but it’s enough to leave a trace of crimson on my fingertips.

A body moves through the hazy white. Steve. His walk is shambling, unsteady. He’s been out in the cold for a long time. His muscles are probably stiff. But Simone’s words return: Doesn’t it feel performative?

Either Brian was wildly, dangerously underprepared—and he didn’t strike me as that sort of person; if anything, he took pride in how thoroughly he stuck by the books—or someone else came through and cleared any important items out of the bus.

There’s something dark on the road ahead. It’s between the rocks on one side, shielded from the wind, but, even though it’s partially covered by snow, it’s still unmistakably human. Kiernan.

What if it's brian's body and the killer switched clothes?

My eyes follow Kiernan’s body up to where his face should be. There are his shoulders, slim but strong under the jacket. But there’s no head.

I’ve finally realised what bothered me about his hands. They were torn to shreds, as though a scavenger animal had ravaged them. It made sense. Animals will go for the easier, exposed parts of a body first. But then, why was the bare flesh at his neck so pristine?

My heart feels as though it is about to break. I slump back into the snowbank, my legs limp, my body numb. Ahead of me, sharp and crisp in its bed of white, is a small midnight-blue velvet box. I know what it means.

Someone hurt Kiernan. They carved his head off. Removed his teeth. Shredded his hands.

We sure he's not still alive and he's the actual killer? Great way to fake a death cuz there's no face, dental records, or prints to identify him quickly.

Grayson’s hair hides most of his expression, but he doesn’t appear happy to have his father back.

“This is the part I really wanted to tell you about. I asked Grayson how his mother died. And he didn’t say anything for a really, really long time. He just stared at me. And then he said, ‘I think my dad killed her.’”

Supposedly the brakes failed.” Alexis gives me a significant look. “And Denny’s a mechanic,” I whisper.

Simmering jealousy. A refusal to let her be happy anywhere except in his home.

Well of course, he's jealous. his wife was cheating on him. It can't be justified t by claiming that at least she is "happy" Not saying this means he should plan to kill her, but still acting like he should be honky dory isn't realistic either.

the kills are so efficient and terrifyingly precise that it’s hard to believe the butcher has never taken a life before.

I can credit my father for a lot of things. A hyper-developed ability to read others’ body language, a hatred of hard liquor, a mistrust of people who indulge in it.

I don’t remember seeing any cigarettes when we searched her belongings. The carton and blue lighter clutched in her spare hand are matches for the ones Miri used to carry, though.

“Despite all those years as a dispatcher, I’ve never seen a dead body before.” I have. I don’t tell her that.

The blade is clean. But traces of colour cluster around where the metal joins with the wood. Rust. No. Blood? It’s hard to get a good sense of its true shade with the LED washing it out, but the pattern looks like someone may have tried to clean liquid off the ax and failed to get it out of the cracks.

There’s no proof that Denny is the butcher, I tell myself. He’s only one of the seven people I need to be wary of. But I don’t like how unconcerned he was by the ax. Or the way he stared at me. As though he was weighing up a choice.

This doesn’t feel like grieving to me. It feels more like feigning grief while taking advantage of being the centre of attention.

I don’t know if that’s something I should be ashamed of. That I grieved for a stranger more than for my own father.

The space between his limp arms is empty. As before, the head was taken. All that remains are slick icicles of blood and spinal fluid clinging to the stump of neck. The blizzard gusts around us. Grayson’s body moves like a pendulum under its

“That would be a mistake. To believe too much in anyone’s innocence, I mean.” I hate how much truth there is in that.

“Your knife, Alexis.” “It’s my property! You can’t take something I legally own—” Simone’s hand slams onto the table. The sound is like a gunshot. It runs through me, heavy reverberations that shake my bones. “Give it to me.” She’s whispering now, and it feels far, far worse than yelling. “Or so help me, I will carve scars into that pretty face of yours.”

Who made this byotch in charge ?

“You’re all adults. I thought I could trust you to use enough common sense and caution to keep yourselves safe,”

Um they were tying to by arming themselves but then you took that right away from them!!

All you’ve done is strip our protection away for next time we’re attacked.”

Exactly!!

One death could be a spur of the moment provocation. Two might have been eliminating a witness or cleaning up loose ends. But four? Spaced apart, timed carefully, the victims apparently chosen according to who presents the best opportunity. It’s more akin to sport hunting.

my gaze turns towards Steve. On the bus, he bemoaned the fact that he hadn’t been allowed to bring his guns. He’d been eager to hunt. And it wasn’t impossible to imagine a man like him might be fascinated by the idea of the world’s most exclusive prey: humans.

Stereotyping much? Just cuz a guy likes to hunt in the wild with guns doesn't automatically make him a psycho butcher of humans.

I wonder which of them are too anxious to rest and who might be staying awake in hopes of finding an opportunity to corner one of us alone.

A premonition slammed into me, harsh and painful enough to suck my breath away. This is going to end badly. My mouth turned dry.

No charges were ever brought against me; he’d been in the wrong lane after all. But I know the truth. On the eighth of August, I stole a boy’s life.

“I knew one of us was a murderer before I even arrived here.”