Chapter 3

Matt dumped the bucket over the edge, grateful for the cold that had frozen everything on the ground below. Usually the smell was really bad, they'd been dumping for nearly two months, ever since the water had stopped running. The contents hit one of the zombies, and it looked up, moaning. That got the attention of the others, and they clustered around it, trampling the crusty snow. He ran back to the hatch that lend to the dollar store and lowered the bucket down for Bobby to put back in the bathroom, then went round the building, counting the dead outside.

One hundred and eighty-seven. Last time he'd counted, there'd been only a hundred and fifty-six. It seemed that more showed up nearly every day. They were so stupid and slow that they wouldn't be a problem, except that he only had nine bullets left. He went back to what he thought of as the dirty side of the building, they'd chosen the east side because the wind usually came from the west, and yelled at the dead, waving his arms over his head. They obliged him by moving closer, reaching for him and trying to climb the wall. He pulled on a pair of rubber gloves, then pulled on the rope around the cinder block. It was still tight, and still tied off to a pipe sticking out of the roof. He raised it over his head and threw it down as hard as he could. One of the dead fell down, but he'd missed its skull, so before he'd pulled the block back up, it was back on its feet, snarling louder than before.

By the time he heard Valarie climb up onto the roof, he'd repeated the process more than a dozen times, he'd managed eight kills too, but his arms were tired from the work. Usually he only did a couple at a time, but since they were leaving he figured he should get rid of as many of the walking dead as he could.

Matt hauled the cinder block back up, then stripped off the rubber gloves and tossed them over the edge. The wind caught one of them and blew it out past the trampled area, where it sat like a squashed spider on the pristine snow. He turned his back on the dead, and joined Valarie on the clean side of the building. He didn't mention the count, or what he'd been doing, she didn't want to know how many there were, and he knew she didn't like hearing about how many he'd gotten rid of.

They worked together filling bags with snow, while he tried to think of the best way to bring up the subject. She kept looking at him while he used a spatula to break up the crusty snow so they could get it into the plastic bags, giving him time to think. She seemed content to let him take his time, but he knew he had to say something, and stopped working. He stood and looked at the snow covered landscape. The mountains rose up sharply to the west, tops invisible in the clouds that threatened more snow. He could see the van, just a few hundred yards to the north, but it wouldn't do them any good, it had brought them all the way from St. Louis, but wasn't going anywhere now.

Matt looked farther down the road, the drifted snow looked like ocean waves frozen in time. The top layer had melted and refrozen, forming a hard crust. Down the road, a dark spot moved, crawling towards them. It stayed on top, not heavy enough to break through to the powder beneath.

Valarie pointed at it. "There's another one of those things, why do they keep coming? How do they know we're here?"

Matt shrugged. "Don't know, but we have to leave. We don't have enough food for the winter." He scooped up more snow and dumped it into the bag she held. "If it warms up too much, we won't have any water either."

She carried the bag over to the roof hatch and shook out another one. She shivered as the wind picked up, blowing her hair across her face, then knelt, holding the bag open for him. "Where are we gonna go? Huh? tell me that. We can't walk to Wyoming, not when it's so cold and with all this snow, and we don't even know if it's still safe there."