Cities of the Dead: Stories From The Zombie Apocalypse by William Young Page B

good-luck.
    There were no remains of Tanya to show anyone, and the digital cameras on which images of her were stored had long ceased to power up. That was back when they thought taking pictures would give them something to look back on in the future, when the zombies were gone. Back when they all thought the plague was a reason for a party.
    The trio made their way down the street cautiously, Fyodor in the lead with Nikita in the middle. They were almost three kilometers out from the dacha, walking alongside a string of curbside shopping centers and taking pains to check through the storefront windows of each as they moved. For whatever reason, the undead could remain immobile for long periods of time, just standing in place, or lying against a wall. Human sounds, the steps of the living, would rouse them in a heartbeat, so one had to take precautions in areas where the zombies assumed people might be.
    “This has all been picked clean, Vasily,” Fyodor said as they came to an intersection and scanned the open space for the undead, the store fronts all broken open. “We’re going to have to walk farther if we’re going to find anything.”
    Fyodor stroked his beard and looked around. He hated having a beard, but procuring razor blades was one of the things that rarely occurred to him while he was out foraging for supplies. He kept the growth clipped close with scissors, but for some reason he was still drawn to stroke it as if it were some obsessive-compulsive disorder.
    “What are you thinking, Fyodor?” Vasily asked.
    Fyodor shrugged and watched as Nikita slowly walked to the edge of the sidewalk curb, moving her shotgun in small arcs as if she were searching for something at which to shoot. She might have some talent at this, he thought.
    “I’m thinking we need bicycles, Vasily, but I haven’t a clue where any might be.”
    “What for?”
    “So we can cover more ground more quickly without making any noise,” Fyodor said matter-of-factly. “It’s not like there’s any gasoline anymore. Not that you can drive anywhere with all the fucking car wrecks on the roads, but if we’re going to have to keep going farther out each time, we’re going to need to expose ourselves for less time.”
    “Bicycles,” Vasily said, letting the word just hang in the air and sag under its weight, as if such a contraption were an indicator of poverty or powerlessness. He looked around the intersection, paused a moment on Nikita, who had made her way off the roadway and was poking through some rubble near a crumbled wall, and turned to Fyodor.
    “How long until they nuke us?”
    Fyodor shrugged. “We’re near Moscow. I think that probably still means something to them, even if it’s mostly burnt to the ground. But if somebody doesn’t figure out what’s going on with these things, and how to kill them or cure them or whatever the fuck you have to do to them, well, it’s only a matter of time.”
    “Unless the dead walkers get to them first,” Vasily said with a sniff of a laugh He glanced at Nikita. “Look at that girl. Nineteen years old, perfect body, tight ass, and I’m tired of fucking her already.”
    Fyodor rolled his eyes. “You fucked her this morning before we came out here.”
    “Only I wasn’t fucking her, not in my mind, anyway. I was with that redheaded coat check girl at the club who would never give me the time of day, only a stub for my coat,” Vasily said. “I wonder where she is these days.”
    “You’re not missing anything with Karena,” Fyodor said, focusing on Nikita as she walked across the street, her shotgun held at her waist, ready for use.
    “You didn’t.”
    Fyodor barely shrugged. “I did. A couple of times. She’s a sloppy fuck.”
    “You never told me you banged her.”
    “Yeah, well, it was before you told me you wanted to, so I didn’t want to prejudice you.”
    “Looking out for me?”
    “Not really,” Fyodor said. “You didn’t miss anything.”
    Vasily stood