Cities of the Dead: Winters of Discontent Read Free Page A

undead pushing at the gate and we gotta
figure out how to stop them, again, ” Dexter said.
    “ You ’ ll do it baby, you always do. ”
    Dexter smiled but
didn ’ t
feel it inside. Had Carl gone to relieve Peter and seen something
to change his mind about the compound? What could he have seen that
would cause him and his wife to flee in the middle of the night, in
the dead of winter, on foot? He pulled on his boots and clipped his
holster to his belt. He might only be able to kill twenty of them,
but that would be twenty less he ’ d have to deal with
later.
    “ I gotta
go, ” he said, and
left.
    Out by the gate, the undead were a teeming mass of
outstretched arms and drooling mouths. They saw food - Dexter,
Peter and Jeff - and wanted it.
    “ 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