Dead and Rising: Terminal

Frostbite

The bitter cold cut through Rob’s two shirts, sweatshirt, and coat as if he were wearing a tank top. He gathered his coat around him and swore if he didn’t live to see another winter day he’d be fine and dandy with that.

The streets were glazed over with ice and it made it hard to walk as he dragged a small red wagon loaded with broken, damp planks of wood behind him. In his right hand he carried a small gun and kept a stiff finger over the trigger.

Walking along the sidewalk in a pre-programed route, he glanced into the frosted windows of the stores as he passed. He walked past a small Deli with its windows cracked, webbing up and stemming out into thin cuts that made the glass refract the feeble amount of light that shone on it.

He stood and stared into the store, weighing the risk of venturing inside for more supplies, but then figured he’d make do with the materials he had and continued on his way.

The wind kicked up and with it the hard chunks of snow that had frozen into tennis ball-sized debris, all brown and dirty from oil running off of the road. The ice-balls rolled with surprising speed down the road, bouncing as they launched off of the uneven surface. One ice block in particular kicked up and slammed straight into Rob’s calf, causing him to double over in pain.

“God— damn it! Damn it all to Hell!”

He dropped his wagon handle and cupped his sore spot; right on his open wound, too. The ice block had reopened the crudely stitched puncture and now the blood and pus was seeping into his pants.

The wet area immediately began to freeze, seeming to draw all of the chill in the air right to his burning wound.

“Aw, shit. Come on, now!” The wind continued to howl but all the ice chunks had rolled on,  moving past this desolate town, and now the street seemed eerily quiet. Rob bent over and began to rock back and forth while holding pressure on the fast-flowing blood.

Down the street an overturned garbage can toppled over, rolled and scraped against the pavement, banging into the side of a small convenience store. The noise disturbed the silence like someone had thrown a large stone into a still lake, breaking the glassiness of the water and sending many ripples throughout it.

Rob began to panic now. He released his wound and grabbed the wagon handle, his palms sweaty under his thick gloves. Gathering himself in his coat he began the arduous task of walking again.

Before that day, and the day before that, it had been snowing. He’d been locked inside his tiny apartment complex for God knows how long before hunger and cold drove him out into the streets to search for food and wood for a fire. So far he’d only succeeded in finding the wood— the food was harder to find. The shelves at all the stores were either picked clean or filled with rotted and decaying groceries.

Just like those things, decomposed and putrid. The things. That’s what they were. He couldn’t explain what they were; he just knew that they were not right. Aliens, zombies, vampires-- it all didn't matter. What mattered was that they wanted to eat him.

Rob unconsciously pulled the wagon a bit slower now, made sure his footsteps were quieter, muffled under the shriek of wind.

Ah, the silence. It was too quiet, way too still.

Kind of like the eye in a storm, he thought. The calm before shit hit the fan. He hadn’t seen them since two nights ago. Now the only thing living in the town was him.

He bent down to pick up a plank of icy wood that lay broken on the sidewalk and froze. There was something glistening down the road, something that caught the light. Some type of liquid, he was sure. He tossed the plank into the wagon and studied the road. Yes, definitely liquid. Fresh, too, by the looks of it. Untainted by frost.