Free Dead: Winter by TW Brown

shoulder and used the night scope to scan the scene.
    At the very least I guessed there to be fifty undead making their way across the field and another twenty in the tunnel. It was easy to locate the pairs. Their heat signatures were blazing icons against the cold of the walking corpses. I dropped the weapon for a second to confirm something.
    Snow.
    It was coming down in large wet flakes that didn’t drift so much as plummet to earth. That was just great.
    “You folks really have a system here,” a voice right behind me made me jump. It was the newcomer, Nickie.
    “Still a work in progress,” I said, bringing the scope back up to my eye.
    Ian and Jamie were up on one of the berms with crossbows. Fiona and Billy had come down the hill on the east side and were circling around the rear of the main body of the herd. Jon and Jake were busy making noise as they killed the leading edge of the pack. This would keep most of the zombies focused on them as Billy and Fiona came from behind and took the easy kills.
    “Maybe so,” the woman’s voice held a hint of skepticism. “But none of the groups I’ve travelled with had it like this.”
    “Groups?”
    “First bunch I hooked up with only lasted a day…but I still count ‘em.” Nickie’s voice changed, a bit and I could tell she was fighting back tears. “My husband and son and I were in one of those useless FEMA centers when a bunch of the people inside who’d been bitten all started to turn.”
    I listened as she recounted her story and felt a bit guilty that I wasn’t giving her my full attention. However, I had six of my people out there taking down a large number of undead that had followed us after we’d gone and gathered up her friend Christina. I wasn’t blaming her for the situation, but the fact was that, at the moment, I had a job to do.
    A child-sized zombie was scrambling up the berm behind Jamie. His focus was on the handful in front of him. He wouldn’t see the other until it was too late. Sighting in, I squeezed the trigger. The tiny figure jerked sideways and slid back down the dirt incline.
    While not technically silenced, the suppressor helped muffle the sound greatly. Jamie never even knew how close he’d come. I sighted in on a pair that were going to be a problem for Fiona who was busy trying to pull her machete blade free of a skull. I put them both down before I realized that Nickie had stopped talking.
    “Sorry about that.” I looked at her and saw the tears I’d heard in her voice.
    “No,” she waved a dismissive hand. “I should probably be inside in case your doctor has news.” With that, she turned and ducked through the door.
    I scanned the scene. The hardest part was deciding who was actually in enough danger for me to expend one of our precious rounds of ammunition. Up in the crow’s nest, DeAngelo would be doing the same thing. I sighted in on one that was slipping up behind Ian when Nickie came out onto the porch in a tizzy.
    Great , was my initial thought, her friend didn’t make it . That was unfortunate.
    “Steve?” Her voice was strange. I hadn’t known her for more than a few hours, but there was something off about it. “The doctor wants you inside right now.”
    “Does she understand what is going on right now?” I said over my shoulder as I exhaled slowly and squeezed the trigger. Another zombie toppled.
    “She said that no matter what you said, you needed to come in right now.”
    Of all the things I could say about Dr. Zahn, there was one thing for absolute certain. She was not an individual prone to exaggeration. I handed the rifle to Nickie.
    “Only shoot if somebody is in absolute danger of being grabbed by one they don’t see.” There wasn’t really any more instruction to give beyond that.
    I went inside and felt the immediate wave of relative warmth on my face. Thalia was sitting in a chair with Emily holding her hand. I could see the ball of cotton held in place by a Band-Aid. They were both