The Final Winter

Chapter Eighteen

“What the hell do we do?”

Harry heard Jess’s voice, but had no answers for her. Peter’s condition was bad, that much was plain to see. He’d remained unconscious since they’d patched him up earlier and his condition had only seemed to get worse since then. His ruined eye was almost certainly lost. Medical attention was desperately needed, but when everyone at the bar tried their mobiles they were met only with static. Steph had found the exact same thing with the pub’s landline. With the snow outside, along with the boy’s attackers, they were stranded, and alone.

“We just need to do the best we can for him, right now,” said Harry. “Then in the morning maybe we can go get help. There’s a main road nearby where we can wait for someone to drive past.” Harry could see the anguish in Jess’s eyes but was powerless to do anything about it. He wasn’t a doctor and could do nothing about the snow either. All the same, he felt like he was letting the poor girl down. Harry just hoped she didn’t see the flaw in his plan: that the main roads were closed and that nobody would be driving by tomorrow, or probably even the next day.

“He’ll be okay,” said Jerry, coming over and placing an arm around her. “We just need to keep him warm.”

Harry watched the two of them walk back to where Peter lay and it dawned on him that his entire body was becoming numb from the cold. The only place in the pub left with any warmth at all was by the fireplace, and that was now taken up by their causality. Harry decided to move over to the bar and joined the others that had gathered there on the stools. Steph was busy handing out fresh beers.

“Got one for me?” he asked her.

Steph smiled. “Sure, Harry, here you go.”

Harry thanked her and took the stool beside Nigel, who himself was sitting next to Lucas, then asked the question that was on his mind: “Say, is anybody else wondering what we’re going to do for warmth now that Peter is taking up the fire?”

Steph winked at him. “Already on it. Damien and Old Graham are down in the cellar looking for anything we could start a fire with. I’m pretty sure I saw a steel barrel down there once, so I was thinking we could stab some holes in it and use it as a furnace.”

Lucas laughed. “This gal is something else, don’t you reckon?”

Harry looked at Steph for a moment and their eyes met. “Yes, Lucas, she most definitely is.”

“You think the kid’s going to snuff it?”

The comment came from Nigel and Harry was taken aback by the man’s harsh wording. “What?”

“I overheard you talking to the girl,” said Nigel. “I could tell by your voice that you don’t hold out much hope.”

The negativity irritated Harry, but he assumed it was only natural in the situation they were all in. “I can’t say for sure – I’m not a doctor – but I know enough to see that the poor lad’s suffered more than anyone ever should.”

“You ever seen anyone in such a state before?” Lucas asked.

Harry conjured up images from his memory but quickly stopped himself. “No, I haven’t,” he lied. “I’ve never seen injuries like it before, which is why I’m not sure if he’ll last the night.”

“Well then,” Lucas replied, “perhaps we should be worrying more about whom – or what – did this to the lad. There’s someone out there looking to do us all harm, and we’ve got enough on our plates with just the weather.”

“I agree,” said Steph from the other side of the bar, still assuming her job role was valid (in a way it probably still was). “I don’t like any of this. I feel like we’re cut off from civilisation. The phones are dead, the electric’s off, we’re freezing our tits off, and we can’t go outside because some madman is knifing people up. I don’t even want to think what the rest of the country is like. I’m starting to get really freaked out.”

“We don’t know there’s a madman outside,” said Harry. “Perhaps Peter made an enemy and they’ve got what they wanted just by hurting him.”

Nigel posed a question that made Harry’s logic falter. “Why throw him through the window?”

“Yeah,” said Steph. “If they wanted to kill Peter they would have been better leaving him to freeze outside in the snow. Throwing him through the window makes it pretty obvious they were trying to frighten everyone in the pub.”

Lucas put his beer down on the bar with a clink! “Maybe it was a message for the sinner,” he said.

“More talk about this bloody sinner,” said Nigel, banging down his own beer on the bar. “Why are we buying into this bullshit? If someone is crazy enough to carve words into someone’s chest then I think it’s fair to say they’ve lost a certain amount of marbles – probably an entire play set.”

“You’re probably right,” Harry admitted. “How would we even know who’s a sinner and who isn’t, anyway?”

“Exactly,” said Nigel, seemingly satisfied.

Steph pushed another recently-thawed beer over to Lucas, who was about to finish his current one. “We already spoke about that,” she mentioned. “Nigel seems to think that it’s all about drugs, and that Damien is the one they want.”

“Well, well, well. Is that right, now?” Damien entered the bar area from a room in the back. Old Graham was stood behind him and seemed to be cringing. Harry cringed too when he realised that Damien had just heard the accusation.

Damien stepped through the hatch at the side of the bar and ambled over to Nigel. “So you think I caused all this, do you?”

Nigel shifted on his stool. “I didn’t say that. I… I was just talking to Steph about who could be out there and… and…”

“…and you thought you’d blame everything on me? Why’s that then? Is it because you think you’re better than me? That I’m just some fuckin’ mug?”

“No, I just thought…”

“You thought shit!” Damien snarled, tensing up like a wild animal. “You’re a dead man.”

Nigel got off his stool and backed away. Lucas leapt up too and stood between the two. “I had your word,” he said to Damien.

Damien stopped his pursuit of Nigel and looked at Lucas. “What are you talking about, you stupid Mick?”

Lucas put a hand on Damien’s neck and pulled him in close. “I had your word that you’d behave – at least for tonight. The only reason Nigel is looking to blame people is because he’s afraid.”

“Hey,” Nigel protested.

“We’re all afraid,” Lucas continued. “If you’re not then my hat is off to you, but the rest of us are. And when people are scared they run their mouth. It’s nothing personal, just what people do to try and make sense of things. Stops their minds floating away with them.”

“Yeah,” said Nigel. “I don’t know what’s going on tonight. I was just talking shit. I figured that because you’re a tough guy, you’d have some tough enemies.”

Lucas released Damien from his grip and stepped away. Harry wondered if Lucas had done so to allow a fight to happen, but all seemed okay when Damien remained in place. The young lad seemed to be thinking something over.

“You better keep your accusations to yourself from now on,” Damien told Nigel, “because I’ll tell you something: I’m bloody cold tonight, and kicking your arse would be a nice way to warm up!”

Harry was glad that, yet again, Damien had been reigned in. In fact, he started to wonder whether the thug was as unreasonable and bloodthirsty as people made out. He considered giving the lad the benefit of the doubt.

At least for now.

“Can we get a beer for Damien?” Harry asked.

Damien shook his head. “I’m good. I found that old drum in the basement, Steph, but I need help dragging it up. Then we should be able to start a decent fire and get some goddamn heat in here.”

Harry raised an eyebrow. “Really? That’s great. I’ll come and help you.”

Damien nodded and walked back through the hatch, disappearing through the narrow door behind the bar. Harry followed him into the rear corridor and then down the stairs into the cellar. At the bottom, he found Damien and Old Graham waiting next to a rusty old drum that appeared to have been dragged out of a cluttered corner (if the trail of candle-lit debris was anything to go by). The cellar was a mess, with mounds of rotting wood and cardboard promotion stands for various beer companies making up several piles around the small square space.

“You going to help or not?” Damien asked, tipping the drum onto its edge.

Harry hurried over and grabbed the barrel’s rim, while Old Graham kicked away any obstructions that covered the route to the stairs. Turned out the old man was quite spry for his age.

“After three,” said Harry. “One… two… three…” He and Damien heaved, and began rolling the drum along on its edge, heading for the bottom of the stairs. It was empty but still substantial in weight; Harry felt his hands chafing under the pressure. “How are we going lift it up the stairs?” he asked as they neared the bottom step.

Damien laughed. “Back giving out on you? We’ll just lift it, step by step. Piece of piss.”

The two of them stopped at the stairway and righted the drum back onto its base, dropping it down with a Wong! “Okay,” said Harry. “You ready?”

“Ready for what? A bit of lifting?”

Harry shook his head, unwilling to get into a pissing contest. He turned to look at Old Graham. “Maybe you could gather up some of this cardboard so we can use it for the fire?”

Old Graham nodded and got to work.

Harry signalled to Damien and the two began to lift. They hoisted the drum onto the first step with little effort, and then again onto the second and third. By the fourth, Harry was starting to lose his breath. “Can we stop a sec,” he said.

Damien shook his head. “Can we fuck! Come on, I’m freezing. Maybe if you didn’t drink so much, you’d have more stamina.”

Harry felt his pulse quicken as he fought the urge to slap some respect into the cretinous little shit, but decided to let his actions argue for him. “Right, come on then!” He tried to sound full of vigour, despite the tightness in his chest. “Last thing I want is for your delicate little body to get cold.”

Damien snickered but didn’t rebuke. The two of them continued hoisting the steel drum upwards. They scaled the fifth step and then the sixth. The seventh and eight were hard work but they managed to shift the deadweight up using their feet underneath to kick it upwards. With two more steps left, Harry looked forward to finally releasing the drum at the top. His shoulders burned with fire while his lungs had started to cramp up. Damien was right; a year of constant drinking had left Harry in the physical state of a man twice his age. He felt ashamed.

Just two more steps though and it’s done. You can make it.

They hoisted the drum once more, jarring it upwards with their arms. The barrel rose and Damien began to slide it up onto the next step. As he did so, the bottom edge of the barrel struck against the lip of the step. Harry pushed his side up, trying to clear the two centre-metres needed to get the drum up onto the platform, but found himself unable to move. He strained harder, willed his arms to move, but instead they lowered against his control. Harry’s strength diminished; his grip gave out completely.

Damien cursed as the weight in his hands doubled. Harry watched helplessly as the lad tried to keep the drum under control, attempting to trap it with his leg. Somehow, despite Damien’s best efforts, it twisted sideways and rolled away from them both.

Harry tripped backwards onto the step above as the drum fell past him and began a spiralling journey back down the stairs. His spirits plummeted further as he realised all of the hard work his weakness had just wasted, all the time it would take to try and get the drum back up the stairs again – time the people freezing in the other room did not have.

But Harry felt a hundred times worse when he realised that Old Graham was bent over at the bottom of the stairs, gathering cardboard, oblivious to the danger hurtling towards him.

The barrel picked up speed.