Cities of the Dead: Winters of Discontent (2 page)

“
What
’
s that?
”
Jeff
asked.

“
That
we
’
d
reinforce the gate with their bodies.
”

Dexter watched with curiosity as one
of the dead separated from the horde and began turning its head
across the four men as if it were sizing them up, an undead man who
resembled a skeleton in a deteriorating business suit. Just in
case, Dexter turned around and scanned the cul-de-sac behind them,
wondering what the zombie might be trying to figure out. What could
it figure out? It was a
…
reanimated corpse.

“
Now,
what?
”
Carl asked
as he back stepped away from the fence, his eyes on the walking
dead.

A few minutes later, Dexter drove a Lincoln TownCar
down the lane and parallel parked it so that the passenger side was
only an inch from the gate. It had been left in the garage by
whoever had owned the house before he and Carly had taken it over
(a fortyish couple with two boys and a girl, judging from the the
photos on the walls in the living room). He turned the car off but
left the key in the ignition and popped the door open.

“
Someone
’
s going to have to watch the gate
all night, so we
’
ll have to take
shifts,
”
Dexter
said.
“
I
’
ll take first watch until ten. Jeff, you go from then till
two, Pete next until four, then Carl until dawn, when
we
’
ll
all be up. If they
’
re still here in the morning,
we
’
ll
figure out what to do next.
”

For the next few hours, Dexter watched out the window
of the house closest to the gate, a house none of them lived in
because it was so close. He shivered inside his clothing and wished
for an electric heater. Or, a propane one. Anything to warm the
bedroom of the teenager who had lived in here before the
apocalypse. He looked around the room at the video game posters on
the walls, the sports trophies atop the bureau: a boy had lived
here.

He looked back out the window and brought a pair of
binoculars to his eyes: the horde had grown. He caught his breath.
He scanned the perimeter to either side of the gate and saw scores
more of the undead pressed up against the wall, knee-deep in snow.
The undead knew there was living on the other side, and they were
hungry for flesh. For a moment, Dexter wished he still smoked,
wished there were cigarettes to smoke or, even, that he had some of
the nicotine gum he had used to quit smoking after Carly had gotten
pregnant with Ben and forced him to quit. He had hated the gum -
and Carly, for a while. He had liked smoking. His grandfather had
smoked cigarettes his entire life and died from old age, and Dexter
had always considered the anti-smoking stuff nothing more than the
stuff anti-smokers promoted. Not everyone died from smoking. Not
even most people. But everyone died, and in the new world, some who
did returned as undead. Probably even the boy who had lived in the
room.

He heard the front door open and close, followed by
steady footfalls up the steps. He turned over his shoulder and
watched Jeff as he walked into the room dressed in a camouflage
hunting suit, thick wool cap and carrying his hunting rifle. Jeff
shook his head slightly in disbelief that they had to do this yet
again.

“
I
’
m down to twenty-seven rifle rounds and a box of ammo for my
pistol,
”
he said as
he walked up to the window and looked through it at the silhouettes
of zombies at the gate.
“
We aren
’
t gonna be able to stay here too
much longer if they keep following one of us back after a day out.
I need the ammo to hunt, not kill these fuckers.
”

“
Yup.
”

Jeff had been a medical sales representative before
the collapse of civilization, and he and his wife Danielle had lost
one of their children in the mass exodus out of the city on I-79.
The highway had become clogged with cars heading toward Pittsburgh
and nobody had gotten anywhere when a zombie horde moving south
startled everyone out of their cars in panic. Their eight-year old
daughter had gotten lost in the crowd after stumbling and losing
her grip on his hand, and the zombies were everywhere too quickly
for him to spend more than a few moments trying to find her. He
hated himself, still, for having run after his wife and twelve-year
old son, leaving his little girl behind so he could save his own
skin.

“
Whaddaya think we
should do? We aren
’
t going to be able to put up any
additional barricades during the winter, not with all this
snow,
”
Jeff
said.

“
I dunno. I think a
couple of us should maybe hit up 84 Lumber and see if we
can
’
t
find some more fencing and posts or something and build up the
perimeter a little bit more. So we have to shovel some snow,
nothing new there,
”
Dexter said.
“
We almost kinda have a good thing going
here.
”

“
Yeah,
almost,
”
Jeff
said.
“
As long as
they don
’
t surround the whole place and keep us penned
in.
”

“
Yup.
”

“
This is the third
time in two months we
’
ve had a horde of
‘
em pressed up against the
gate, Dex. I
’
m not sure we
’
re going to get very
many more before some group manages to push through it, and then
we
’
re
stuck in here like fish in a barrel.
”

Dexter nodded, trying to be
diplomatic in understanding Jeff
’
s point, and said,
“
It
’
s the middle of winter and
we
’
ve
got a bunch of kids to deal with. Getting out of here now would be
an immense logistical nightmare: there
’
s snow everywhere, no roads are
plowed, finding gasoline for the vehicles would take up too much
time and none of us has much more than a few days of food, which
we
’
d
have to use because we couldn
’
t hunt if we were on the
move.

“
And
it
’
s
not like it
’
s not like this everywhere else
out there. You were out there before you were here, you know that.
There isn
’
t a safe place on this planet that any of us know about. If we
sit here until the weather breaks, we
’
ll have a better
chance.
”

Jeff nodded. It was the same old argument, just
distilled.

“
You get anything
today on the lake?
”
Jeff asked.

“
Some walleye.
You?
”

“
A pair of geese
that thought I was going to feed them bread.
”

Dexter smiled.
“
I
’
m so sick of
goose.
”

“
You and me both,
but there
’
s lots of
‘
em
and they
’
re easy to catch.
”

Dexter handed the binoculars to Jeff
and nodded.
“
See
you in the morning.
”

Dexter unsheathed his machete before opening the door
and stepped out on the porch, scanning the neighborhood for any
undead that might have found their way in. Until the horde left -
usually after a half-day or so of having nothing to eat - he and
the others were stuck inside with no exit. And no food.

He made his way quickly to his house
and slipped inside, locking the door behind him. The fire in the
fireplace was almost out, and his wife and kids were asleep in
sleeping bags on the floor near it. He threw a couple of logs on,
stoked the coals and retrieved the bottle of whisky
he
’
d
found in the original owner
’
s liquor cabinet and poured an
inch into a rocks glass. He sat back on the couch and felt the
growing heat of the fire roll over him. He glanced at the 50-inch
flat screen and wished it still worked, and, for a moment, wished
everything were back to the way it had been.

But, as back then, he was still
happy that he at least had his family at the end of the day. Only
now, more so. He treasured his time with his wife and kids despite
the risk to his life he took every day, and he had noticed that his
relationship with Carly had changed during the course of the last
year, with her yielding to his decisions, trusting him more,
and
…
loving him
more. His life had felt almost hollow before the zombies had forced
him to be more than just half of a parental unit, with both he and
his wife heading out to their jobs everyday. Now that she tended to
the needs of the family at home every day, and he ventured out for
sustenance, she seemed more at ease, more loving toward
him.

Dexter awoke to banging on the front door, a staccato
of slamming devoid of a beat. He sat up quickly and grabbed his
rifle while the rest of his family stirred. Carly stared at
him.

“
Lemme see what it
is.
”

He walked quickly to the front door and found Peter
on the other side, covered in the blood of the dead.

“
We gotta get out
of here, now,
”
Peter said, his voice measured panic.
“
There
’
s more dead ones at the gate, and
they
’
re pushing it open, moving the car back.
”

Dexter glanced over at the gate: there were more of
the undead, hundreds more.

“
And
Carl
’
s
gone. So is his wife.
”

“
What do you
mean,
‘
gone,
’”
Dexter asked, stepping out onto the porch and
looking at the horde as it pushed against the
gate.

“
He never came to
relieve me last night, so I just figured he must not have woken up,
so I waited for sun-up and then went and checked on him, and they
were gone.
”

“
You gotta be
shitting me,
”
Dexter said softly. He looked over at the gate and saw that it
had been opened about a foot, the chain stretched to maximum. The
car had been moved sideways about six inches, but if the horde was
capable of that in eight hours, it was only a matter of time until
the hinges on the gate were pulled loose and the car pushed farther
in. A day? Two days?

“
Let me put my
boots on and get dressed,
”
Dexter said.
“
Get Jeff and meet me out front in
ten.
”

Dexter walked back into the house
and looked at his family as they huddled around the fireplace. They
were all he had, and he really didn
’
t have them if he
couldn
’
t keep them safe. And he couldn
’
t keep them safe, not really, not
forever. Not when half the world was against you and organized to
kill you and your half was always hiding.

“
Well?
”
Carly asked.

“
Same old, same
old. There
’
s a couple hundred 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.