Cities of the Dead: Winters of Discontent (3 page)

“
We chop what we
can and shoot what we must,
”
Dexter said,
“
But
don
’
t
waste your ammo on them. Save enough in case we need to get out of
here over the back fence.
”

Peter and Jeff exchanged quick glances.

“
What?
”

“
Pete and I were
talking about it earlier and think maybe now
’
s the time to get the hell
out of here,
”
Jeff
said.
“
We
’
ve got two toboggans we can load with supplies and pull so we
don
’
t
leave everything behind. If we get out of here by noon,
we
’
ll
have five or six hours of daylight to find someplace to hunker down
in for the night.
”

Dexter flitted his eyes between the
two men.
“
I got two
little kids, not teenagers like you two. We
’
d be lucky to get a couple of
miles in that time through this snow. And it
’
s not like these are the only
undead around. We
’
ve all barricaded the houses so
that they can
’
t get inside, and, in the past,
they
’
ve usually only stayed around for a few hours when there was
nobody outside for them to see.

“
I think
we
’
re
better off killing what we can and reinforcing the gate. Push the
car back up against it, maybe pile some furniture or stuff between
the car and the fence to make it harder for them to push against
it. Then we head into our houses and wait it
out.
”

“
We keep doing
that, Dex, and they keep coming back. One day,
they
’
re going to get through,
”
Peter said.
“
We might be better off trying to find
a new place.
”

Dexter nodded.
“
I know, I get that, Pete. But
it
’
s
the middle of winter and we
’
ve got a reasonably secure place
here. Every time one of us goes out there, we take a huge risk.
These things are everywhere. And it
’
s not only them you have to worry
about. How many times have we had to fend off other groups of
people, living people, who are desperate for anything and willing
to kill for it? Kill living people like us for what we have: ammo,
a few cans of food, whatever. We know each other, we trust each
other. You go out there and you
’
re rolling dice with some pretty
long odds.
”

A few hours later, Dexter watched as
Jeff
’
s
and Peter
’
s families left the compound, each man pulling a toboggan
behind him, their sons holding their rifles. Peter turned after a
dozen yards through the snow and waved at Dexter, and Dexter waved
back, knowing he would never see any of them again. But he felt
nothing inside himself for their leaving, no grief or regret or
desire for them to change their minds and come back. They
hadn
’
t
been friends, merely
“
co-survivors,
”
and they could do whatever they wanted to try to
survive.

He got into the Bronco, started it
up and drove down the street to the front gate, settling the bumper
into the side of the TownCar. He set the parking brake and then
walked around to the back of the truck and placed a chock block
behind one of the rear wheels. He looked at the undead on the other
side of the gate and watched as they seethed, all of their eyes
fixated on him. And then he watched the zombie in the business suit
from the night before creep out from the group and start looking
around, scanning the area. He
’
d seen this behavior before but
never thought twice about it. But now, it seemed different.
Coordinated. He got out of the truck and walked up to wall, pulling
his pistol from its holster and looking through the rest of the
horde, trying to figure out if anything was afoot. The horde simply
stared at him and pressed against the barricade.

Dexter turned his attention back to
the lone zombie in the business suit, its hair long gone, the skin
atop the skull stretched thin and revealing the bone of the skull
beneath. It should be dead, long dead, as no human could live so
frail and thin, but it stared at him and managed something akin to
a snarl, drool trickling out of it
’
s mouth. It knew it had him,
Dexter thought as he watched it. It knew it had won. Dexter raised
his pistol, aimed down the sights, and squeezed. The
zombie
’
s head split open like a cantaloupe and the body collapsed in
a heap. Like so many others before it. He turned and looked at the
horde and nothing had changed. He shrugged inwardly and walked back
to his house.

“
How
’
d it go?
”
Carly asked as he sat down on a bench in the foyer and pulled
his boots off.

“
About as well as
you
’
d
expect, I guess. We
’
ll see if it
holds.
”

“
I
can
’
t
believe the others left us,
”
Carly said, her voice low and almost mad. The last
year had taught them not to mourn for long the loss of a friend.
Getting to know someone was a risk not to be taken
lightly.

Dexter made a small
“
what can you
do?
”
gesture with
his hands and gave her a small smile of understanding.

“
Let
’
s get to the bedroom,
”
he said after a long moment, giving her a small
wink and a smile.
“
We might have an interesting day ahead of
us.
”

The first rays of light broke through the eastern
window of the bedroom and woke Dexter up, as usual. He slipped out
of the warmth of the bed and into the bone-chilling cold of the
bedroom, the fire downstairs long out. He dressed quickly and
headed downstairs and noticed his son stacking wood into the
fireplace.

“
You
’
re up early,
”
Dexter said.

“
I had to go the
bathroom,
”
Ben said
over his shoulder.

Dexter crossed the room to the bay window and parted
the curtains a half inch, peeking through them down the road at the
front gate.

Which was deserted.

“
What
the?
”

“
What is it,
Dad?
”

“
They
’
re gone already.
”

“
The
undead?
”

“
Yeah.
”

Outside, Dexter held his rifle at
the ready as he approached the gate, the sky above blue and devoid
of clouds. He puffed out clouds of air as he crunched through the
snow, listening through the snow-silenced stillness of the world
for the sounds of the undead. Nothing. The snow on the other side
of the gate had been trampled down and turned into mud that had
frozen solid overnight, and only the bodies of those
they
’
d
killed the day before remained. He walked the perimeter around the
twenty-three homes in the gated community and found nothing on the
other side but leafless trees and snow. What had he missed while he
slept through it all?

And then, for the first time in weeks, he saw a deer
in the woods. A hundred yards off, standing still. He raised the
rifle and looked through the scope at the animal, a young buck with
maybe three points. He lifted his head up and scanned the
surrounding area, again, looking for undead walkers, and saw
nothing. He sighted the animal again, paused, and remembered his
rule about creating loud noises in the compound. Then, he squeezed
the trigger.

The animal fell over. Then got onto
its feet and stumbled about, taking steps this way and that before
heading deeper into the woods. A second shot would take it down,
but would be unwise if there were dead nearby. One shot was
difficult to trace an origin point, but two shots could confirm a
direction. He lowered the rifle and headed to the house.
He
’
d
track it down later in the day, when he was equipped to clean it.
Right now, it was time to lay low and wait the situation
out.

“
I heard a
shot,
”
Carly said
as Dexter sat down and pulled off his boots.

“
Saw a
deer.
”

“
A
deer?
”

“
I know, first one
in almost two months. I had to take the shot.
”

“
I noticed the dead
aren
’
t
at the gate anymore.
”

“
Yeah.
”

“
Think
they
’
ll come back?
”

“
Yeah. They always
do.
”

Carly almost laughed.
“
No, I mean Pete and Jeff
and their families.
”

Dexter walked over to the fireplace
and turned his back to it, feeling the heat flow across his
back.
“
No, we
’
ll never see them
again.
”

***

THEN CAIN TURNED ON ABEL

Bakersfield, California - Day 401

Ben stood behind a large tree and cradled his
Remington 870 12-gauge shotgun, scanning through the foliage on his
side of the road for the people who had rigged the trap. He, Paul
and Glenn had been driving down the back road with a couple of
cases of canned goods when a tree had suddenly toppled across the
road and forced him to brake hard. Not hard enough to avoid hitting
the tree, though, and then a moment later gunfire erupted, smashing
the front windscreen and catching Paul in the shoulder.

They had slipped out of the
pick-up quickly after that, Paul and Glenn heading into the woods
to the right while Ben dodged to the left, out the
driver
’
s side
door. He had caught sight of a silhouette behind some low bushes
and unleashed a couple of covering fire shots and had been met with
a fusillade of return fire. Now, he was stuck behind a tree with no
idea what he was up against. But he knew one thing for certain: any
more shooting would attract the undead. If they
weren
’
t already
on the way. And there were always undead within gunshot. It was a
sort of dinner bell for them, somehow.

Nothing happened for a minute, and then his
walkie came to life.

“
Ben, you okay?”

It was Glenn.

“
Yeah, I
’
m fine. You see the assholes
shooting at us?
”

“
No. I think
they
’
re waiting
for us to move.
”

And, then, from somewhere in the
woods a voice bellowed:
“
There
’
s
only three of you. If you start walking away from the truck,
we
’
ll let you
leave. We saw you down at the distribution center, so we know what
you have, and we mean to have it.
”

Ben reckoned the man speaking was only twenty
yards away, on the other side of the road. He looked around the
ground and picked a palm-sized rock. He threw it up through the
trees where it kicked through branches before falling on the other
side of the road. But the sound of it rustling through the branches
did what Ben needed it to do, and a fortyish man with a full beard,
ball cap and tan jacket popped out from behind a tree a dozen yards
away and Ben quickly raised his weapon and squeezed the trigger,
catching the man in the chest just below his neck and crumpling him
to the ground without so much as a whimper. Ben chambered a round
as he crouched and walked quickly toward a different tree, where he
took a knee and listened for movement. Nothing.

He creeped slowly forward,
stopping every few yards to listen. They couldn
’
t go back down the road, toward
the chain store distribution center because it was overrun with
zombies and they
’
d barely made it away with the little they had. Others who
had tried to raid it before had not been so lucky, judging by the
abandoned vehicles and skeletal remains in the lot. The facility
was still packed with dry and canned goods, a prize that would keep
whoever could take it flush with food for months, if not longer.
Why the undead remained near it was a mystery: it was almost as if
they were guarding it because they knew its value.