The Dead of Winter 3: Foley’s Last Stand (© Kurt Warner) This contribution is part of a series:- 1. The Dead of Winter: A Christmas Short (10-Dec-2003) 2. The Dead of Winter 2: You Died (25-Apr-2004) 3. The Dead of Winter 3: Foley’s Last Stand (1-Apr-2005) 4. The Dead of Winter 4: Flakes on a Train (13-May-2007)
| When the caboose of a rescue train making its way west through upstate New York in a blizzard loses communication with the engineers up front, it’s discovered that all of the train in between is undead. The situation’s exacerbated by a fast-moving derelict engine coming up behind on the same track for an inevitable collision, leaving few options for the protagonists to save their own lives. | 5. The Dead Of Winter 5: Foley’s Dead Leaves (11-Sep-2007)
| A snowbound, empty town might look like a safe winter, but sometimes what you can’t see can be a real killer. | 6. The Dead Of Winter 6: The Ice House (1-Oct-2008)
| A small group of inmates have taken over an isolated prison already virulently infected with The Plague that's sweeping through the area. They set up sporting events between the zombies and anyone under their control they don't like. The warden's locked up and is joined by one of the repeating characters in the series and both are slated to be entertainment. They lose their chaperones, but the warden refuses to escape unless he can take someone with him the inmates are holding hostage, but where? | 7. The Dead Of Winter 7: Chilly Con Carnies (20-Jul-2009)
| Ice House aftermath leads to another rescue. | 8. The Dead of Winter 8: Deadman's Hand (3-Sep-2010)
| Can a serial killer be content with killing zombies instead of making them? Would you bet the lives of your friends on it? |
Page 1 FOREWORD
You can run, but not very far, and you cannot hide at all.
Your pursuers are slow, but they never tire, never sleep, and they never lose
your trail, even in the dark. They stop for nothing, ignoring cold, rain, and
snow, and you cannot outlast them. They are incapable of reason or pity, and if
you make one mistake, one wrong decision for any reason, they will rip you
apart and eat you alive -- literally.
Ever wonder what might have happened if the original
occupants of the NOTLD farmhouse were forced out in the middle of the
night? What if it was cold and snowy? What would you do?
Foley was in the middle of his favorite recurring nightmare.
It was a clear autumn night with a bright full moon. The leaves on the trees
lining both sides of the street had all changed color, and most had fallen off.
A breeze would send them scampering around Foley’s feet as he walked down the middle
of the road. He was in the outskirts of a city, in a wealthy neighborhood, but
he was the only person there - or in the whole dream, for that matter.
On either side of the street were large houses and mansions
in varying architectural designs and states of structural integrity, and Foley
knew they were all haunted. The old and the modern, the ramshackle and the
pristine, all had that in common. For the most part, it wasn’t obvious or
archetypical. It was that indefinable quality one sees from the outside, like
in photographs of haunted houses; that overly spiritual starkness and extreme
absence of warmth that tells you - ironically --- something’s going on inside.
Foley would keep to the middle of the street, eventually
coming to the town proper and an intersection. If he went straight or turned
left, he’d go through a business district where all the businesses were haunted
the same as the houses. If he turned right, he’d go down a hill to a haunted
wharf and pier, where a ghost ship was moored. It was an old three-master in
run-down condition, with tattered, hanging sails - almost Disney-esque -
and sporting scabs of flaking paint, like ghost ship acne. There was even a
haunted bait shop on the pier, though Foley was never clear about what haunted
it - the proprietor? Ex-customers? Vengeful merchandise?
He had the dream often and lucid enough to do some exploring
around town, remembering the sections he had visited the last time, but no
matter which way he went, he would always end up being chased by ghosts, and he
would always wake up just before being caught. It was always the same town,
too, but the number of ghosts would vary. He would catch glimpses of them from
the street flitting past windows, sometimes behind curtains or blinds. They
usually left him alone until he trespassed onto their property during his
explorations, but the really strange thing was that the ghosts looked almost
benign - like they came from a Casper, the Friendly Ghost
cartoon. They were white with bland features, no real detail, and always seemed
to move several inches above the ground without actually flying. Singer Michael
Jackson could be said to fit the same description, but he was a lot
scarier. Foley didn’t realize he had gotten attached to the dream until he
stopped having it, but the homecoming was a little different from what he might
have expected.
Something made him look down, and Gus was there, sitting on
the street and calmly looking right back. What are you doing here?
Foley asked. Wanna check out the bait shop?
Gus didn’t, so she woke up in Foley’s backpack on the floor.
She could see Foley in the early morning light through the flap - he was also
on the floor, curled up amid a couple of pillows and covered with a blanket. He
was also twitching, which meant he’d wake up soon. She wasn’t crazy about being
in Foley’s nightmare, but at least it was better than that other dream where he
gradually turned into a fungus. For some reason, he liked that one so much he
didn’t even consider it a nightmare. As a cat, Gus couldn’t begin to understand
why he would like waving his arms in a breeze just to watch the spoors fly off
without even chasing after them, but then she suspected most humans wouldn’t
understand that, either. Foley was a breed apart from them and made no sense.
That was part of his charm.
As soon as he was awake, he checked his
pack to make sure Gus was still there. There was no real reason to think
otherwise, and Foley had no idea why he was apprehensive now - it wasn’t as if
she could stay in the dream after he woke up. [ Continue to page 2 ] |