Free Web NovelChapter 65: Chapter 65 - The Turbines
Hector’s voice broke the quiet. "Maybe we should go back," he muttered, eyes flicking toward the trees.
Ruben snorted. "You’re kidding, right? We’re not walking for 3 days in the snow just to turn around."
"Yeah, we make sure the line’s good, or we all die freezing when the power cuts out. You forget that part?" Andrei muttered.
Hector huffed, shifting his pack higher on his shoulder. "I didn’t forget. I just... I just feel like something’s weird."
"You volunteered," Ruben reminded him with a half-smile. "You knew the chances when you raised your hand."
"I did," Hector admitted, his voice low. "Still doesn’t mean I’m not scared."
Ruben chuckled. "Not a bit scared, huh? Try a lot."
The men laughed quietly, the sound easing the tension for a moment. But even with the banter, Malcolm could see the unease behind it, the quick glances, the way hands stayed too close to weapons.
"The hunting ground’s far from here," Andrei said finally, cutting through the chatter. "Don’t overthink it. We clear the line, reach Radfords before nightfall, then rest."
Malcolm didn’t answer. He scanned the trees again, watching how the shadows gathered between the trunks. Everything in him said the others wanted to believe Andrei, but none of them really did.
By late afternoon, the forest began to thin. The hum of wind grew stronger, the air colder and sharper. Snow swept in low, stinging their faces as they trudged up a small rise.
And then they saw it.
The turbines.
Radford’s Run spread across the horizon, towers stretching above the plain. Their blades hung frozen in place, layered with ice. Some leaned from years of storms, and when the wind pressed through them it made a low, hollow moan that rose and fell like breath.
Malcolm’s stomach clenched, but his face stayed still. He raised his binoculars. Through the gray lenses, the field sharpened: an unmoving mass spread wide across the base of the towers, bodies packed under sheets of snow.
"Christ," Ruben whispered. "That’s... all people."
No one answered.
Andrei’s voice was tight. "It wasn’t like this before. Last time, there were maybe forty. Fifty. Now..."
"Now it’s a graveyard," Malcolm said.
Hector’s breathing quickened. "If the wind keeps up, the sound from those blades will pull in more. They hear it from miles away."
Kyle pointed toward the far side of the field where a line of snow was broken by movement. "If there’s a twitcher in that pack, we’re done. It’ll lead the rest straight to us."
Malcolm followed his line of sight. Near the second turbine, one of the corpses shifted. It jerked against the ice once, twice, slamming weakly against the base of the tower before going still again. The movement was small, but it was enough.
Malcolm lowered the binoculars. "We stay quiet," he said.
The others nodded, trudging forward through the frozen wind farm. The sound of the blades creaking above them filled the empty white expanse.
Somewhere in the distance, something moved. Faint, slow. Impossible to tell if it was the wind or not.
The snow was deeper here, heavy enough that every step sank with a soft crunch. They moved carefully, trying not to break the surface too hard. The turbines loomed above, their iced blades cutting long shadows over the field.
Malcolm stayed near the back, scanning their flanks. The others followed Andrei’s lead toward the main junction tower, a straight, narrow path between half-buried corpses.
White, flat, and littered with the dead.
Most were buried. Heads and shoulders jutted from the drifts like markers in a graveyard, faces locked in the ice. The snow had sealed their mouths open, teeth rimmed in frost, eyes glazed into glassy bulbs that caught the pale light.
They walked among them in silence. The bodies looked almost arranged, tilted toward the wind, expressions frozen mid-breath. The air had preserved everything—the lines on their faces, the cracks in their lips, the faint gray of their irises.
The eyes were the worst.
They stared upward, unblinking, the frost over them thin enough to catch the light. Nothing inside moved. Not even a flicker. It gave the field the feeling of being watched by hundreds of glass mannequins, each one a mirror of what they used to be.
Kyle swallowed hard, his breath fogging the air. Ruben stepped wider around a pair of corpses locked together at the shoulders. Even Andrei, steady as ever, kept his gaze forward.
For a moment it almost felt safe. The quiet, the cold, the way none of them moved—it gave the illusion that whatever spark had once animated these things was long gone. That maybe the cold had won.
Then Kyle crouched near one of the bodies.
Malcolm opened his mouth to warn him, but before he could speak, the steel barrel brushed the corpse’s cheek. freёweɓnovel.com
A faint click.
The twitcher’s eyes rolled beneath the frost.
Malcolm’s hand shot up. "Kyle!"
Too late. The corpse jerked, head twisting toward the sound. Ice cracked along its spine as its mouth gaped wide, snapping at the air. Kyle stumbled back with a startled cry, losing his footing on the slick snow. His rifle slammed against the ground with a heavy thud.
That was enough.
Around them, other buried bodies twitched. Snow shifted. A low scrape echoed from somewhere to their left. freewёbn૦νeɭ.com
"Shit," Ruben hissed, drawing his blade.
The first twitcher, whom Kyle touched, lunged, or tried to him. Its frozen feet broke off at the ankles, sending it collapsing forward. It clawed its way across the snow, dragging itself over Kyle, jaw snapping inches from his throat. A muffled hiss rattled from its chest where the ice kept its lungs from groaning.
Malcolm didn’t think. He pulled his knife and threw.
The blade buried itself through the twitcher’s skull with a dull crack. The body went still, twitching once before it froze again.
The other men worked fast without sounds, knives flashing in the pale light as they finished off the few that had stirred. The air filled with the soft, wet crunch of steel meeting ice.
When it was over, Malcolm retrieved his knife, wiping it clean on the snow.
"Keep the rifles up," he said quietly. "No more mistakes."
They moved deeper into the wind farm, spacing out between the towers.
The wind was sharper here, blowing through the towers with a hollow moan that shifted from one pitch to another. Every sound carried.
Andrei and Kyle crouched near a half-buried junction box at the base of the first tower. Their voices were low, muffled by the wind. Bits of metal clinked as Andrei pried at the frozen panel, explaining something about the gears, about current lines still pulsing weakly through the system.
He didn’t move closer. The noise of their tools already made his nerves tighten. Every strike, every scrape, seemed too loud against the emptiness.
Ruben stood nearby, rifle slung across his chest, watching. His breath came out in slow bursts of mist. Hector knelt by the packs, rubbing his hands together for warmth.
Malcolm kept walking, circling the perimeter. He passed the frozen bodies that lay scattered near the towers, more densely packed than before. The wind brushed thin veils of snow across their faces, revealing and hiding them with each gust.
Their eyes were glassy and fixed, some staring upward, some turned toward each other. The skin around them had split, pale and tight, like old wax left too close to fire. They looked ready to move, caught between death and waking.
Malcolm stopped beside one — a man in a torn jacket, his face locked mid-scream. Frost clung to his teeth. The wind whistled through the hollow of his throat.
He looked across the field again. Hundreds, maybe more, buried just under the surface. If the ice thawed, even for an hour, this place would be a slaughter.
They needed to move.
He turned back toward the group. Andrei was still working, Kyle leaning close beside him, the faint sound of tools echoing in the cold.
Malcolm tightened his grip on his rifle and stayed quiet.
The wind howled through the turbines again, and the whole field seemed to breathe.
They would finish fast, then get as far from this place as the light would let them.
