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hole, but the pain was no less. Sweating, he gathered snow into a plastic baggie he’d found in one of the offices, and iced the seared flesh, the cool white stuff providing a temporary numbness from the hurt.
    He sat, ate a can of beans and added more wood to the fire. He thought about searching for painkillers, but didn’t want to waste his energy. Pain was pain; nothing more, nothing less. In this new world, it was something he was going to have to learn to accept, just like everyone else. Pills and shots were a thing of the past.
    He’d taken a lot of damage over the last month, the aches seeming constant. Planning on living a long and healthy life in this new world was another thing one couldn’t count on. But after he’d won, took out Zaun—for Jack was surely dead by now—and made Maria his, unless he decided to kill her, he would settle down somewhere for a while, rest up and fully recover.
    Eventually the undead would die off, their bodies rotting away to nothing more than bone. There would always be one or two about, people always died, but the majority would be gone. The world would be left vacant, vast and ripe for the taking. The disease moved quickly and would wipe itself out eventually, like diseases of the past had—smallpox, the Black Death and whatnot.
    Thinking about the two undead he’d trapped in that office, he was bothered. They appeared fresher than most he’d run into, as if newly turned. However, their clothes were torn and filthy, indicating they’d been undead for a while. For a moment, he wondered if they had gotten better, somehow healed, but quickly shook off the notion. Things were only going to get better for him. A cleansing of the earth and a way to restart mankind was happening. A sort of rebooting of the planet.
    Cable laughed at himself, knowing he’d watched one too many science fiction movies while in prison. He lay back, letting the warmth of the fire wash over him. He needed to think of his next move.
    With Maria and Zaun injured, he figured they would likely hole up somewhere nearby. If anything, they’d want to stay with Jack while he passed, maybe even bury him, though the frozen ground would make such a task nearly impossible. It would be at least a couple days before they moved on, to where he didn’t know, but move on they would. So he had to do something before he lost them. In the morning, he’d head out and follow their tracks, and if they were in the Galleria mall, he’d find them and kill them, or get killed trying.  

Chapter 6
     
    Cable awoke to sunshine the next morning. His shoulder throbbed and moving his arm hurt like hell. He checked his wound and found no sign that it was infected. In fact, it was already scabbing over. He put a fresh bandage over it, then gathered everything he wanted to take with him into his backpack and left it on the second floor in one of the offices. When he finished with Zaun and Maria, he’d come back for it. Maybe head south to warmer weather.
    From the roof, he surveyed the surrounding area, able to see for miles in most directions. He used his rifle’s scope for close-up views. All in all, there was no sign of his prey. A few undead roamed the open tundra here and there. But nearer to the Galleria was a small horde of about thirty zombies. They must have chased his prey when they left, then lost them and went into their semi-sleep mode, or whatever it was that the undead did when there was nothing to eat. Having seen the boarded up mall entrances and the huddled group of undead near the bottom of the hill that led up to the Home Depot, Cable guessed that’s where they had gone. Of course, they could’ve gone past the home improvement store and into the woods beyond in hopes of finding a neighborhood where they could hole up in a house. But he didn’t think so. Not with everyone injured. They’d want immediate shelter.
    Next, he studied the ground below, found the snowmobile tracks and followed them as far as his