Cities of the Dead: Winters of Discontent (8 page)

Will put the truck in park and popped out of
it, walking around the truck to the edge of the river. Frank rolled
down his window.

“
What the fuck
are you doing? Let
’
s
go.”

Will turned his head over his
shoulder.
“
Just
wait.
”

Within moments, the dozens of undead had turned
into hundreds, and they lurched through the snow onto the ice. The
horde was half-way across the river when Will pulled out a small
walkie-talkie from a pocket, held it before him and pressed a key.
The river exploded, heaving chunks of ice high into the air and
sending a spray of frigid water everywhere. The undead were knocked
over or lifted into the air, but they all fell through the open ice
into the frigid water. Moments later, the ice began to move with
the current, sweeping the undead downriver and creating a logjam of
bodies near a bend in the river where the ice was still
solid.

Will slid back into the truck alongside Frank
and put it in gear. Frank shook his head.

“
When the hell
did you rig that?
”

“
A couple weeks
ago,
”
Will said as he
drove.
“
There
’
s
another spot closer to the dam with the same set-up. Wanted to make
sure we had more than one exit if things got tight on the other
side.
”

“
What was I doing
when you were doing that
”

“
Banging Stacey,
I guess,
”
Will said, turning
his head and smiling at Frank.
“
Mike and I put the charges in. He had some explosives he
had never figured out a use for, so I suggested
one.
”

As Will drove down the lane to their cottage,
Frank stared absently out the window, watching the snow flurries
ratchet up into a steady, heavy snowfall.

“
We
’
re not getting out of here
today, bud,
”
Frank said as
Will parked the vehicle.
“We
’
re gonna get a couple more
inches before the end of the day.
”

Not that Frank wanted to leave.
They
’
d been in
the cottage for nearly six months, the longest stay in one place
since the collapse of civilization, and he had grown used to it and
the life he was building with Stacey. If humanity were going to
rebuild anything, the remaining survivors would have to stop being
hunter-gatherers again and set down roots. Frank watched Will as he
walked up to the cottage, stripping off the zombie-blood-infused
cloak and dropping it on the ground. Will thought it would take
hundreds of years for humans to rebuild any sort of civilization,
longer if the undead persisted. And Will expected things to get
worse as the left-over technologies slowly became irreparable and
un-replaceable. Humans would end up forgetting everything they knew
about living and start all over again. The world would never look
the same again.

But it was the only world Frank had.

***

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

William Young can fly helicopters and
airplanes, drive automobiles, steer boats, rollerblade, water ski,
snowboard, and ride a bicycle. He was a newspaper reporter for more
than a decade at five different newspapers. He has also worked as a
golf caddy, flipped burgers at a fast food chain, stocked grocery
store shelves, sold ski equipment, worked at a funeral home,
unloaded trucks for a department store and worked as a uniformed
security guard. He lives in Pennsylvania in a small post-industrial
town along the Schuylkill River with his wife, three children and
their dog.

Other Books By William Young:

Monster

The Signal

The Divine World

Cities of the Dead: Stories from the Zombie
Apocalypse

Of Monsters and Men