Without a wink of sleep throughout the night, Vin lay there awake in the dark. At one time, the sheriff got up and walked over to the barricade. Vin sat up.
“What’s wrong?” Vin asked, barely loud enough for the sheriff to hear. But Vin could already see that the light through the windows of the swinging doors was dimmer.
“Either someone turned out the lights and then turned on the emergency lights, or the power went out.”
“The microwave is out. So either someone cut power in prep to attack or—”
“—Or it’s the heavy, wet snow.”
Vin listened for the air blowing through the vents. Nothing. But off in the distance, an engine hummed. The sound of the supermarket’s backup generator.
Shit. It was only a matter of time before lack of maintenance shut down the power grid, but the storm must have sped up that occurrence.
And he was sure the generator’s gas wouldn’t last the week.
Day Two
Shotgun in his hand, Vin stood outside the market under the overhang of the front entrance. Several inches of snow that still fell in large flakes covered the cars in the parking lot. There was little wind, and he guessed the temperature was right around freezing.
With the heat and the microwave out, a fire would be needed to keep warm and cook food. And that required firewood, something the market didn’t carry. Usually, markets like this had some firewood available, but not until winter.
He gazed at the landscape, disbelieving it was still summer.
A freak snowstorm a day after a zombie apocalypse. What were the odds?
Vin saw no sense in bringing anyone along while he quested for a source of firewood. Although an extra person could carry an initial batch back, it also meant slowing him down. The sheriff might keep up, but guarding the rest of the group was more important. Once he found the firewood, the others could help retrieve it.
Happy with his waterproof boots, Vin ventured out into the slush—it must have rained some overnight. Since it had turned back to snow, he knew the back side of the storm had arrived, and it would end soon. Vin guessed it would be a few more hours.
Near the gondola that took skiers up the mountain, the real estate in this section of town was prohibitively expensive. As an engineer, he could afford to live here, but he preferred the more provincial Ella, where his small house was north up the road.
Fewer liberals. Fewer snowflakes.
But the pricier neighborhood meant small condos with little prospects of firewood, so he had to travel a bit up north to reach a neighborhood with houses likely to have firewood.
After a few minutes of walking, he heard a distant growl behind him. He spun around, shotgun at the ready, to see a pack of German Shepherds snarling and approaching him slowly. Tame or not, he couldn’t afford to deal with any dogs—they were on their own.
He fired the shotgun into the air above the dogs. They scattered.
He reached his target neighborhood after a few more minutes of walking. By now he was sweating underneath his new ski jacket.
Canvassing for firewood would be a tough slog. Since firewood piles are typically at least several feet behind a house, he had to search behind each property he came across. Every front door was open in one fashion or another. It seemed the zombies had done their own canvassing.
The fifteenth house was a log cabin with a pile of firewood in the side yard, too close to the house. They should have thought about carpenter ants or termites, not that it mattered now. The wood was wet, as he expected, but there had to be some dry wood in the house to at least get a fire started before trying the less-than-ideal damp wood. He hoped whoever lived here was long gone. He couldn’t steal a living person’s firewood. Or could he? No, he wasn’t that desperate yet.
The front door lay broken on the floor. He walked in and called out “Hello,” and, unfortunately, he got a weak response from a nearby bedroom on the first floor. There on the bed lay an old, emaciated woman with medical equipment all around her, including a blood pressure meter, an IV dispenser, and an oxygen monitor, among other apparatuses. None of it functioned, and neither did the TV across the room from her. The head and tail of the bed were raised, no doubt permanently.
“Hello, young man,” she said.
“Hello,” Vin echoed grimly.
“My caregiver only stepped out for a minute two days ago but never returned.” She picked up a TV remote. “This told me why.”
She looked like she should have died days ago. Vin stared at her.
“Yes, I’m dying,” she said. “I have an inoperable brain tumor that has spread everywhere.” She smiled. She actually smiled. “Not that anyone could operate now, anyway.”
Vin recovered. “Why hasn’t a zombie come in to kill you? The front door was knocked down.”
“One did. But she stopped short of the bed, sniffed the air, and unceremoniously turned her back and left.” Her speech was slow and stilted. The dying woman shook her head. “So disappointing.”
“Disappointing?!”
“Didn’t I say I was dying? I’m in so much pain . . . Can you please kill me? Shoot me in the head with that shotgun? If you shoot me point-blank at my skull, I’m sure I won’t feel a thing.” She smiled again.
“But I . . . I’m sorry, I just can’t do that.”
She smiled yet again. “But you can, and you must. If you’re here, if you’ve survived with that gun, you’ve probably used it on the victims before. Am I right?”
He nodded, noticing the scattering of wet snow that covered the only window in the room.
“Then you’ve already killed innocent victims. What’s one terminally ill person wanting to end her misery?”
“All right, I’ll do it,” he whispered.
“Oh, don’t get all bent out of shape,” she said. “The rules of society have changed. Clearly, you see that?”
He sighed. “What is your
