Chapter 7: Bad Hospitality
The frozen lake was a vast, silent plain of milky white, its surface scoured by winds into rippled waves of ice and snow. The ATV’s engine, a persistent growl in the emptiness, felt obscenely loud. Julian clung to Alistair, his grip more necessity than choice, every bump and jolt translating into a nauseating spike of pain from his knee. The compression bandage was a cruel joke now, the joint swollen tight against the straps.
Ahead, the cluster of buildings grew from shadows into shapes. This wasn’t like the ski town. This place had been money. Soaring A-frames with walls of glass now reflected only the flat, gray sky, many of them shattered. Boathouses listed precariously over the frozen shore. A tall marina building, its roof partially collapsed, stood like a broken ribcage against the water.
“No smoke. No movement,” Alistair called over his shoulder, his voice barely audible over the engine and wind.
“Maybe everyone had the good sense to die somewhere prettier,” Julian shouted back, the words scraping his throat raw.
They followed the main road, which traced the shoreline. The mansions here were set back behind high, wrought-iron gates, some hanging open, others twisted and mangled. Expensive cars sat buried in driveways, their shapes just gentle, snow-blanketed mounds. The place had the eerie stillness of a museum after hours, a display of curated ruin.
Alistair slowed as they reached what must have been the town’s quaint commercial strip. A post office, a boutique selling weathered life preservers, an art gallery with paintings still visible through frost-fern glass. And at the center, a long, low building with a angular, retro sign that read “The Frostline Diner.” Its windows were boarded over with fresh-looking, unpainted plywood. A single set of footprints, already being softened by new snowfall, led from the road to the diner’s side door.
Alistair killed the engine.
The sudden silence was a physical presence, ringing in Julian’s ears. The only sound was the wind whistling through the gaps in the buildings. The air smelled cold and clean, with an underlying tang of rotting fish from the lake.
“Shelter,” Alistair said, dismounting. He surveyed the diner, then the silent street. “Defensible. Single entry point if those boards hold.”
Julian tried to swing his leg off the ATV. A white-hot wire of agony seared through his entire leg. He gasped, his vision speckling with black dots. His good foot slipped on the ice-rimmed footpeg. He crashed down onto the packed snow of the street, the impact sending a fresh, debilitating shock through his injury. He didn’t cry out. The sound that escaped was a choked, animal grunt.
For a moment, he just lay there, the cold seeping through his clothes, staring up at the dead sky. The pain was a totality. It owned him.
Alistair was beside him in an instant, not with comfort, but with assessment. His hands were on Julian’s leg, probing the swollen joint through the trousers. “The bandage has failed. The joint is unstable. You’ve done more damage.”
“No kidding,” Julian managed through clenched teeth. “Just… give me a minute.”
“We don’t have a minute. Get up.”
“I can’t, you relentless bastard!”
“You will.” Alistair’s voice was cold steel. He hooked his hands under Julian’s armpits. “On three. One, two–”
He hauled. Julian screamed. It was a short, sharp sound that echoed off the silent storefronts. He stumbled, his weight entirely on Alistair, his left leg dangling uselessly. They lurched toward the diner’s side door like a grotesque three-legged race, Julian hopping and biting back curses that dissolved into pained whimpers.
Alistair didn’t slow. He reached the door, a solid-looking metal thing, and shoved it with his shoulder. It swung inward with a groan.
Darkness, and a smell. Not just dust and decay. The greasy, metallic smell of old cooking oil, yes. But underneath it, the sour scent of unwashed bodies, of sweat, of something else… something cooking.Meat.
Before their eyes could adjust, a voice cut through the gloom, flat and hard.
“Far enough.”
A flashlight beam speared them, blinding. Julian flinched, burying his face against Alistair’s jacket. In the peripheral glare, he saw shapes. Four, maybe five of them. Silhouetted against the faint light from cracks in the boarded windows.
“We’re just looking for shelter,” Alistair said, his voice impressively calm. He kept his hands in view, still supporting Julian. “My friend is injured. We have supplies to trade.”
A low chuckle rumbled from the darkness. “Let’s see the supplies first.”
A figure stepped forward, into the edge of the light. He was huge, broad-shouldered, wearing a stained Carhartt jacket. He held a pump-action shotgun casually, pointed at the floor between them. His face was bearded, rugged, but it was his hands that Julian’s pain-glazed eyes fixated on. On his left hand, the ring and pinkie fingers were just… gone, ending in rough, puckered scars.
His eyes, small and dark, flicked over Alistair’s tactical gear, Julian’s expensive but ruined coat. A slow smile spread across his face, revealing gaps in his teeth. He looked at Julian’s pain-twisted features, his clinging desperation to Alistair.
“Well now,” the man said, his voice a gravelly drawl. He raised the shotgun, not in a quick threat, but with a deliberate, smooth motion until it was leveled at Alistair’s chest. The kach-chick of the pump being racked was deafening in the closed space.
Behind him, two others stepped forward. A wiry woman with a hunting rifle, and a younger man clutching a fire axe. Their faces were blank, hungry.
The big man’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Welcome to the last supper, pretty boys.”
Time seemed to thicken, congealing in the beam of the flashlight. Julian could feel the tremble in his own body, a mix of agony and adrenaline. Alistair, however, had gone perfectly still. Not the stillness of fear, but the poised, efficient stillness of a predator assessing a new variable.
“The supplies are on the vehicle outside,” Alistair said, his tone shifting from neutral to something almost conversational. “Food.Medicine. A working jump-starter. You’ll want it.”
The big man—Julian mentally tagged him as ‘Two-Fingers’—didn’t lower the shotgun. “Riley,” he grunted, not taking his eyes off Alistair. The woman with the rifle sidled past them and out the door, heading for the ATV.
“We just need a place to rest for a few hours,” Julian gritted out, sweat beading on his forehead. “We’re not a threat.”
“Everyone’s a threat,” Two-Fingers said pleasantly. His gaze slid to Julian, lingering. “Or a resource. Hard to tell which you are yet. Him,” he nodded at Alistair, “he’s got gear. You… you look like you’re about to faint. Makes you a liability. Or bait.”
The words landed with a cold, sickening certainty. Julian had seen the type before, in different rooms with different currencies. The kind who saw people as balance sheets of use and burden. He forced himself to stand a little straighter, to take some of his own weight, though the effort made black spots dance at the edges of his vision.
Riley came back in, her arms laden with their packs. She dumped them on a cracked Formica table with a thud. “Food’s slim. Good med kit, though. And the jumper’s legit.” She held up Alistair’s sleek, black device.
“Good,” Two-Fingers said. He finally lowered the shotgun, resting the butt on his hip, but his finger stayed near the trigger guard. “See?Trade concluded. You get to not be dead out there. We get your stuff. Fair.”
“We didn’t agree to those terms,” Alistair said, his voice dangerously soft.
“You’re in no position to negotiate, city mouse.” Two-Fingers took a step closer. The smell of him—sweat, woodsmoke, and that underlying meaty scent—was overpowering. “Now, you can sit down over there,” he pointed with his mangled hand toward a shadowy corner where a few booths were visible, “and be quiet. Or we can have a disagreement. Your choice.”
The woman, Riley, raised her rifle, covering them. The message was clear.
Julian felt Alistair’s muscles coil. He was calculating the angles, the distances. One against three, in the dark, with Julian as a literal anchor. The math was bad.
“We’ll sit,” Julian said quickly, before Alistair could decide to be a hero. He tugged on Alistair’s arm, a desperate, insistent pull.
For a terrifying second, Alistair resisted. His icy blue eyes locked with Two-Fingers’, a silent challenge passing between them. Then, with a minute, almost imperceptible nod, he allowed Julian to guide him backward, hobbling toward the designated booth.
They collapsed into the cracked vinyl seat, Julian sucking in a sharp breath as his leg straightened. Alistair sat rigidly, his eyes never leaving the three survivors, who now huddled around their pilfered packs, whispering.
The diner’s interior revealed itself slowly. It was a tomb of faded Americana. Red vinyl stools were bolted to the floor near a counter. A pie carousel, empty and dusty. And in the far back, near the kitchen pass-through, a source of the cooking smell: a small, portable camping stove, its blue flame flickering under a battered pot. Something stewed inside, emitting a vague, savory steam.
“What’s the play?” Julian whispered, his lips barely moving.
“There isn’t one yet,” Alistair murmured back, his gaze scanning the room. “They have the firepower. And the home-field advantage.”
“The axe kid looks scared,” Julian observed, watching the young man shift his weight from foot to foot, his knuckles white on the axe handle.
“Scared people are unpredictable. Worse than confident ones.”
Two-Fingers looked over at them, his eyes glinting in the low light. “You two cozy?Good. Don’t get too comfortable. We’re just deciding what to do with you after dinner.”
He turned back to the pot, giving it a stir with a long spoon. “Riley, check their pockets. Thoroughly.”
Riley approached, her rifle slung but her hand on a knife at her belt. “Stand up. Slowly.”
Alistair stood, his movements deliberate, his face a mask of cold disdain. She patted him down with rough, efficient hands, retrieving a multi-tool from his pocket and the pistol from his waistband. She tossed them onto the table with the rest.
“Your turn, sweetheart,” she said to Julian.
Julian tried to stand, failed. Alistair hauled him up, holding him steady as Riley’s hands went over him. She found his pistol, the trekking poles collapsed in his coat, nothing else. Her hands lingered for a moment too long on his chest, his waist, a clinical assessment. She smirked, catching his eye. “Lighter than I expected.”
She took the items and walked back to the table.
Two-Fingers was ladling the stew into chipped bowls. “So,” he said, conversationally. “Where you two headed that’s so important you’d drag a busted leg through a herd of deadheads?”
“Away from here,” Alistair said.
“Vague. I like it. Means you’ve got somewhere specific in mind.” Two-Fingers brought a bowl to his lips, slurping loudly. He didn’t offer them any. “A bunker? One of those government safe zones they were yapping about on the radio before the lights went out?”
Julian stayed silent, watching Alistair. Lie, he thought desperately. Give them something, but not the truth.
“Something like that,” Alistair said, noncommittally.
Two-Fingers nodded, as if confirming a private theory. He set the bowl down and walked over to their booth, leaning his massive frame against the end. He studied Alistair, then Julian, his gaze like a physical weight.
“You know, we had a good thing here for a while.Five of us. Fished through the ice. Scavenged the big houses. Was quiet.” His voice dropped, losing its false cheer. “Then winter set in hard. Fish stopped biting. Canned goods ran thin. Got… hungry.”
He glanced toward the pot. Julian followed his gaze, his brain making a terrible, irreversible connection. The meaty smell. The previous group of five. Now there were three. The two missing members weren’t outside on watch.
A cold wave of nausea, separate from the pain, washed over Julian.
Two-Fingers saw the understanding dawn on his face. That cruel smile returned. “Waste not, want not, right? Tough times make for tough choices.” He pushed off from the booth. “You’re thinking we’re monsters. Maybe. But we’re alive. And we’re still making choices.”
He returned to the stove, leaving them with the unspeakable truth hanging in the greasy air.
The young man with the axe—he couldn’t have been more than twenty—looked like he was going to be sick. He avoided looking at the pot, his eyes wide and glued to the floor.
Riley, however, ate her stew with a grim, practical focus.
Alistair’s hand found Julian’s under the table. It wasn’t a gesture of comfort. It was a signal. A quick, sharp squeeze that said be ready. His eyes were fixed on the axe kid, on the terror and revulsion warring on his young face. He had seen it too. The fracture in their little group.
The calculus had changed. They weren’t just being robbed. They were on the menu.
Two-Fingers finished his bowl and belched. He looked at the pot, then at Julian, his expression thoughtful. “A busted leg won’t store well. Tenderizes too fast. Best eaten fresh.”
He picked up his shotgun again, the sound of his fingers brushing the stock obscenely loud.
“Riley,” he said, his voice casual, as if discussing the weather. “Take the anxious one back to the freezer. Time for him to earn his share.”
The axe kid’s head snapped up, pure terror in his eyes. “No, Donny, I… I can’t again, I can’t–”
“You will,” Two-Fingers—Donny—said, the veneer dropping. His voice was a guttural snarl. “Or you join him in the pantry. Your choice.”
The kid was cracking, his resolve shattering. Alistair’s grip on Julian’s hand tightened to the point of pain.
This was the variable. The unstable element.
The moment teetered on a knife’s edge, the stink of fear and stew thick in the dark, silent diner.
The moment teetered on a knife’s edge, the stink of fear and stew thick in the dark, silent diner.
Riley hesitated, her eyes flicking from the panicked kid to Donny’s implacable face. That hesitation was the variable Alistair needed. His hand, still gripping Julian’s under the table, became a vice. A single pulse of pressure.Now.
“Do it,” Donny barked, his patience snapping.
As Riley turned toward the kid, Alistair moved. He didn’t stand. He launched himself sideways across the booth table, a silent predator uncoiling. His target wasn’t Donny with the shotgun, but Riley, whose rifle was slung, her hands empty. He collided with her, driving them both into the pie carousel with a crash of shattering glass and twisting metal.
Donny swung the shotgun up, but Julian was already in motion. He threw himself sideways off the bench, his scream of pain lost in the chaos. He hit the floor, his bad leg folding beneath him, and grabbed the only thing within reach—the collapsed trekking pole from where Riley had discarded it. He flicked his wrist, extending it with a sharp click-clack.
The shotgun roared, deafening in the enclosed space. Wood splintered from the booth where Julian’s head had been a second before. Donny racked another shell, his mangled hand clumsy on the pump.
Julian, sprawled on the grimy linoleum, thrust the trekking pole like a spear. The rubber tip jammed into Donny’s shin, not to wound, but to unbalance. The big man stumbled, his second shot blasting a hole in the ceiling, raining down dust and insulation.
Across the room, Alistair and Riley fought in a silent, brutal tangle. She was strong, wiry, all elbows and knees. He was precision and relentless pressure. Julian saw a flash of metal—Alistair’s hidden knife, the one not in his boot but in his sleeve. He drove it upward, once, twice. Riley’s choked gasp was a wet, bubbling sound that ended abruptly.
Donny roared, kicking the trekking pole aside. He leveled the shotgun at Julian’s face. Julian scrambled backward, his hands slipping in something slick. Time slowed, the twin barrels becoming black tunnels.
A weight slammed into Donny from the side. It was the axe kid, a blur of panic and misplaced loyalty, trying to tackle his captor. The shotgun discharged again, the blast catching the kid in the side, spinning him away in a mist of red.
The distraction was a fraction of a second.It was enough. Alistair was there. He drove his knife into the side of Donny’s neck, just above the collar of his jacket. Donny’s roar turned to a wet gurgle. He dropped the shotgun, his hands flying to the handle protruding from his flesh.
Alistair didn’t watch him fall. He snatched the falling shotgun, turned, and fired the last remaining shell point-blank into Donny’s chest as the big man staggered forward. The impact was a sickening thump, hurling him back against the stove. The pot of stew toppled, splashing its contents across the floor in a grotesque, steaming puddle.
Silence rushed back in, ringing and absolute, broken only by the hiss of the overturned camp stove and a low, dying rattle from Donny’s throat.
Julian lay panting on the floor, clutching his screaming knee. Alistair stood over the carnage, chest heaving, the empty shotgun held like a club. Blood soaked his left sleeve from a deep gash on his forearm, and a vicious, bleeding scrape marred his temple where he’d hit the carousel.
He looked at Julian. “Can you stand?”
“Does it matter?” Julian gasped, staring at the ruin of the axe kid, who was whimpering softly by the door.
“Yes.” Alistair dropped the shotgun and moved to their packs, his movements stiff but quick. He rifled through, tossing Julian’s pistol and the multi-tool to him. “Keys. They’ll have vehicle keys.”
He began patting down Donny’s body, his face a mask of cold detachment. Julian forced himself to look away, to scan the counter. He saw a rusty hook labeled “KEYS.” It was empty.
“Here,” Alistair said, pulling a single car key on a fob from Donny’s pocket. The logo was a silver “G” for GMC. “A truck or SUV. Outside.”
He hauled Julian up again. The pain was a white-hot universe, but Julian bit down on his coat sleeve to keep from crying out. They stumbled past the dying kid, whose eyes were glazing over, his breath shallow. Julian couldn’t bring himself to look into the pot on the floor.
The cold outside was a slap, cleansing and brutal. Alistair scanned the street, his head swiveling. “There.”
Parked behind the diner, mostly hidden by a snowdrift, was a hulking, older-model GMC Yukon. Its tires looked solid. They half-fell, half-ran toward it, Julian hopping on one leg. Alistair hit the key fob. The truck’s lights flashed once, and the locks clicked open.
He shoved Julian into the passenger seat, slammed the door, and vaulted into the driver’s side. He jammed the key into the ignition. It turned. The engine cranked once, twice, protesting the cold, then roared to life.
Alistair threw it into reverse, backed out with a spray of snow, then spun the wheel and aimed them down the main road, away from the lake, away from the diner. He drove fast, too fast for the conditions, the truck fishtailing on the packed snow.Neither spoke. The cab filled with the sound of ragged breathing and the heater blasting cold air that slowly warmed. Julian clutched his leg, his face pale. Blood, his own or someone else’s, was smeared on his hands. Alistair drove with a fierce, single-minded focus, his knuckles white on the wheel, the cut on his temple dripping a thin line of red down his jaw.
They drove for over an hour, through winding mountain passes and stretches of dead-straight, pine-lined highway, putting miles of frozen silence between them and the red lake. The sky began to bruise with the early onset of evening.
Finally, Alistair slowed, his shoulders slumping a fraction. He guided the truck onto a wide, plowed pull-off overlooking a vast, snowy valley. He put it in park. The engine ticked as it cooled.
Only then did he look at Julian, then down at his own bleeding arm.
“Okay,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Now we stop.”