Cities of the Dead: Winters of Discontent by William Young

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