Fractured
Author: D.J. Molles
Date: 2013-08-27 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Zombies; Horror; Post Apocalyptic; Fiction; Dystopia; Science Fiction; Apocalyptic; Military Fiction; Action; Survival
Description: This is the destiny of those who stand for others. Their honor will be bought in blood and pain.The Camp Ryder Hub is broken. Lee is nowhere to be found, and his allies are scattered across the state, each of them learning that their missions will not be as easy as they thought. Inside the walls of Camp Ryder, a silent war is brewing, between those few that still support Lee's vision of rebuilding, and the majority that support Jerry's desire for isolation. But this war will not remain silent for long. And in this savage world, everyone will have to make a choice.To keep their morals. Or keep
Publisher: Orbit

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To Pops,
For all the books read aloud
That were more than just words,
But entire worlds
And great stories.

THANKS

The further I get into this story that I have enjoyed writing so much, the more I find myself indebted to others. Fractured was a bit of a beast to edit, and I owe it to the following two gentlemen that it now sits in a reader’s hands:

Ed Herro, thanks for taking (I don’t even want to guess how many) hours out of your busy day to find all those pesky errors hiding inside my book, and doing it in record time. I promise that one day I will learn the proper use of a hyphen.

David Fugate, a great agent who has gone above and beyond to help me out, even when it wasn’t required. There are big things ahead, and I’m glad to have you in my corner.

ONE

A CAPACITY FOR VIOLENCE

ANGELA CLOSES THE BEDROOM door. Her hands are shaking and the knob rattles noisily. She stands there in the hallway and stares at the door, at the flimsy fiberboard construction of it. And she knows that it won’t do her any good. It won’t keep him inside if he gets loose.

It is just after eight at night and the hallway is dim. Just the barest hint of the setting sun, turning everything into blues and grays. The air is still hot and humid inside her house and it smells like sickness and the rank of her own sweat. The power has been out, and she has not showered in more than a week.

From behind the closed bedroom door comes a mongrel sound. Like a dog fighting for a scrap of meat. She steps away from the door, one hand clutching her stomach, the other pulling her frazzled blond hair out of her face. She wants to feel pity for him, but there is only dread as thick as clotted blood. She cannot stop shaking.

“Is Daddy okay?”

Angela turns. Finds Abby standing there, an image of herself thirty years ago. The girl is dressed in her jeans, sneakers, and a bright pink top, everything colorful and bejeweled with rhinestones. Twinkling in the darkness of the hall.

Angela tries to answer but chokes on her words. She rubs her sweat-slick forehead and swallows hard. “Daddy’s not feeling well right now.”

“But is he gonna be okay?”

“Honey…”

“Is he sick like the other people?”

Inside the bedroom, he begins to thrash. The sound of the wooden bedframe rattling. He moans now, mournfully, painfully, but it soon fades to a sound of rage. A gnawing sound. Chewing. Trying to chew through the leather belts she’s used to strap him to the bed.

Tom…

Angela turns away from the door and takes her daughter by the shoulders. “Come on, honey. Stay with Mommy.”

She goes to the bathroom where the last of their water lingers at the bottom of a bathtub. There are a few empty jugs piled in the corner between the clogged toilet and the bathtub wall. The bathroom smells like a sewer—they’d stupidly used it for a day after the pipes stopped producing water. She’s concerned about the water being in the same room as all those germs, but what choice does she have? They need to go somewhere, and they need water to get there.

Wherever “there” might be.

Maybe a FEMA camp will still be open for them. Maybe some National Guard troops will come by soon and pick them up, take them to safety. Whatever might happen, they can’t stay here in this house. Not with Tom going crazy in the next room.

I could kill him.

And she had thought about it already. Thought about it for a long, long time. Sitting there next to his bed as he sweat profusely and muttered nonsense and soiled the sheets. She had thought about it as she held the printouts of his last e-mail to Trisha, whoever the fuck that was, before he took the flight out to Cincinnati for a “business trip.” The papers had grown damp and limp in her hands, a confrontation that would never be made, and she just kept staring at this man who was a stranger to her in more ways than one.

Thinking about just doing it.

Getting it over with.

Before he tried to hurt her.

Before he tried to hurt Abby.

But she couldn’t go through with it. Or wouldn’t, though it amounted to the same thing. So she had tied him to the bed with leather belts from his closet. And she wasn’t going to untie him when they left. And that was as cruel as she was able to be. To leave him there to die, wallowing in his own filth.

She left the printouts on the nightstand, as though Tom might come to his senses one day and read them. Now, she doesn’t know what to feel, not toward Tom or the situation or the whole goddamned world. All she knows is that she is Abby’s mother. And Abby is still alive. Abby still needs her.

Angela’s knees crack as she crouches down next to the tub. There are tears in her eyes now, though she is not sure when she started crying. She makes no effort to hide them from Abby, just grabs a jug, uncaps it, and dips it into the tub of water.

“Help Mommy fill a water jug,” she says quietly.

Abby’s blue eyes well up. “Why can’t I see Daddy?”

“Because Daddy is sick, and I don’t want you to catch it.”

“But you were in there and you didn’t get sick.”

Angela feels her stomach tighten like she might vomit. Between the smell of the bathroom and the emotional vertigo, she feels nauseous. “Mommy’s okay. I’m a big girl and I don’t get sick very easily.”

Please God, don’t let me get sick.

The slopping sound of water filling the jug. She pulls it up from the tub, dripping and cool. She twists the cap on and reaches for another water jug. But then stops.

The house is quiet. Tom isn’t growling or thrashing in the bed.

Angela stands, takes a firm hold of Abby’s arm, and moves toward the bathroom door. She leaves the other jug where it is. She steps out into the hallway, Abby’s arm in one hand, the filled jug of water in the other. The bedroom door is still closed. She turns her back to it but then realizes she has forgotten something.

Something she needs.

She turns back down the hallway and stands there. The thing that she needs is at the end of the hallway, leaning against the corner nearest to the bedroom door, seeming to mock her as she considers the distance between her and it as though it is a chasm. It is Tom’s softball bat. The only decent weapon in the house, and she’d been lugging it around with her everywhere she went. But in the tumult of distractions, she’d left it there.

She stands frozen in the hall, for a moment unwilling to go to the door.

But the door remains closed. Everything beyond it is quiet.

“Abby,” she says quietly, “stay right here and don’t make any noise.”

Abby doesn’t respond. She just stands there staring at her feet with her lower lip stuck out, nostrils flaring rapidly.

Angela steps lightly to the end of the hallway and takes hold of the slim, rubberized grip of the bat. It is an aluminum one, but it still has some heft to it. From inside the bedroom there is nothing but silence. Not even the sound of his labored breathing. The center of her gut aches to look in at him, to see him, maybe even touch him one last time. And then as rapidly as the feeling appeared it is replaced with the cold, bitter truth.

He got himself sick on a trip to fuck some whore in Cincinnati.

Almost didn’t make it back before they canceled all the flights.

Almost left his family to die…

Almost? He did. He’s leaving us right now, and it’s just Abby and me.

Just Abby and me.

She turns, takes a step.

A floorboard underneath the carpet creaks.

It is like she has stepped on a land mine. From behind the door comes the most wretched, horrifying sound she has ever heard. Some high-pitched screech of rage and hunger, and the explosive cracking of heavy wooden boards as they give way. The rhythmic slamming of furniture being lifted completely off the ground and crashing back down on its feet. And she thinks that there is no way Tom can do these things because he just isn’t strong enough.

She flies down the hall, seeing nothing at all but Abby at the end with her blue eyes open so wide that they seem to encompass her entire face.

“Abby! Go!”

In the bedroom there is catastrophe. Glass breaking. Wood breaking. Walls breaking. Things are being thrown, shattering, cracking, booming against whatever surface they collide with. And under it all is the sound of his screams coming through clenched teeth. The kind of scream that makes the belly ache and scrapes the throat raw. The kind of scream that only comes from a madman.

She seizes Abby by the arm, hauls her along with her. They move past the laundry room, past the basement stairwell, into the kitchen. Everything is dark in the waning daylight, dreamlike and smudged together. Black around the edges. Her heart beats itself to death against the cage of her ribs. From deeper in the house, the sound of the bedroom door opening and slamming against the opposite wall. Footsteps pounding down the hall.

She bolts around the kitchen counter, ripping open the back door, and then flies out into the yard, into the overgrown grass. Outside is only slightly brighter than the darkness inside the house. The gray-green earth below, the pink-splashed sky above. She keeps going straight ahead, legs pumping, dragging Abby along with her as they move through the knee-high grass.

Shapes ahead.

Pale shapes at the edge of the gray woods.

She cannot go that way. She spins just in time to see Tom lurching out of the house, still in nothing but his soiled boxers. He stumbles into the yard, strings of drool hanging from his mouth, linking to glistening patches across his chest and down to chunks of vomit that still cling to his abdomen. His dark hair is pressed in random directions by sweat and heat. His eyes are unfocused, wild, and feverish. His right arm hangs awkwardly, the wrist crumpled into a claw and bleeding where the leather belt had bitten into his skin as he repeatedly yanked against it, eventually breaking his own bones to get free.

“You bitch!” he screams at her.

For a moment it freezes her. Is it him talking or delirium? Is he angry with her for leaving him tied to the bed, or has he just gone insane?

“Tom.” Angela winds up the bat, ready to swing. “Go back to bed!”

“You bitch! You bitch! You bitch!”

Abby sobs hysterically.

Tom lurches for them. For Abby.

Angela steps into his path and swings the bat in a hard right arc. It cracks him across the temple and Angela is already moving again, this time back toward the house. Her mind is almost blank but for the imperative of flight and survival. There is no conscious thought. No decisions. Only escape.

She heads toward the big orange ladder, still leaning against the side of the house from Tom’s attempt at cleaning the gutters. She latches on to it and shoves Abby up, yelling at her: “Go! Climb, Abby! Climb!”

The little girl’s panic causes her arms to be unwieldy and she fumbles up the ladder, losing her grip several times. Angela realizes she is still holding the water jug and the softball bat; and for no other reason than the bat is in her strong hand and she needs it to support her child, she drops it and keeps the jug.

They hurtle over the top of the ladder and onto the roof. Angela spins, her jeans scraping on the rough grit of the shingles, and she kicks the ladder off. Below them, in the backyard, three of the shapes from the woods are still racing toward them—a man and two women. They dodge the falling ladder and crowd underneath the roof, jumping and screeching and clawing at the siding.

Angela stares down at them, holding her daughter to her chest while the little girl wails, soaking her mother’s shirt. Angela is wide-eyed and feels nothing but the hammering of her own heart, and she wonders if she’ll ever be able to gather all the shattered pieces of herself back together.

It seems so out of control that if it weren’t for the girl in her arms, she wouldn’t care at all. How can you care about something so completely incomprehensible? How can you make sense of it? How can you quantify it to a point where feeling one way or the other will do you any damn bit of good?

Below them, Tom begins to stir, hitches himself up.

The thing that was once Tom.

Was once her husband.

She scoots herself and Abby away from the ledge, up to the crown of the roof where they can’t see the backyard anymore. Where Abby can’t see her father go insane beneath them.

Abby cries, “What’s gonna happen to us?”

Angela’s voice is distant, emotionless, shell-shocked. “Somebody will come for us, honey. Somebody has to come for us…”

Angela opened her eyes and found herself in darkness.

The air was cold and musty with the smell of greasy engine components. She tried to fight off panic and had trouble breathing for a moment. Like she was drowning in a tub of dirty engine oil. She could picture where she was, even though she couldn’t see. The rusted box of a shipping container, filled with abandoned mechanical components. A place to put things to keep them out of the way until they might be useful again.

She could hear people moving about outside, so it must’ve been daytime, but no light reached her in the trailer where Jerry had thrown her away. She caught her breath and calmed herself, the memories fading like storm clouds that have passed on, rumbling in the distance as they leave a path of beaten fields behind them. She listened to the pulse of her heart and eventually it was steady.

She sat for a long time in one position, then another. Her mind only wandered so far. It ran a circular groove around the same questions, like a dog on a short chain: Where was Abby? Where was Sam? Where was Lee? And was he even still alive? What was happening outside of these four rusted walls?

How long had she been locked away?

Days, she thought, but she couldn’t be sure.

It was difficult to gauge the time. She slept when she wasn’t tired, remained wide-awake when bone-aching weariness tried to blanket her. She’d been given water and food once, but it had been a while ago. Now she felt starved and her mouth was dry as sawdust.

How long were they going to keep her there?

How long were they going to keep her from seeing her daughter?

She jolted at the sound of the chains being drawn back from the doors of the shipping container. She rose unsteadily to her feet. Felt faint for a moment, felt her scalp tingle with light-headedness. Outside the doors she could hear murmured voices. She strained to pick out what they said, but it was like the darkness dampened her ears as well as her eyes.

The doors clanked loudly. Harsh light erupted through the shadows. She squinted against it, felt her pupils constrict painfully. A gust of wind came in with it, seeming to give the light substance, and it chilled her instantly. She shrugged her shoulders, wrapped her arms around herself.

A silhouette stood in the center of the opening. She could not see the details of it, but she knew who it was. She could see the casual coolness of his body language, the long jacket hanging down to mid-thigh. The shotgun slung from his shoulder. A sawed-off contraption of his own creation.

She took a step back, feeling exposed. Her palms were moist and clammy. Every time she thought of him, every time she thought of that damn gun, she just pictured it bursting Bus’s chest open. She saw her hands sinking into the gore. The stickiness in the webbing of her fingers. The way it clotted under her fingernails. Bus looking up at her and saying, “Take it. You have to…”

She swallowed. Took a breath. “Where’s my daughter?”

Jerry stepped into the trailer, regarding her blankly. His hair was combed nicely, as it seemed to always be, no matter the situation. The only thing that told her that Jerry had been under any stress at all over the course of the past few days was the pale stubble along his jaw. Usually he kept himself shaven.

She waited for him to speak. His eyes meandered unpleasantly over her. The silence became long and deliberate. Just another weapon that Jerry wielded to chip away at her.

He crossed his arms. “You’re a bit of a conundrum, Angela.”

She considered that for a moment, not sure how to take it. Pretty sure it wasn’t a compliment.

He took another step closer. “Reminds me of that old saying about women: Can’t live with ’em; can’t kill ’em.”

Angela wanted to hold his gaze, but she was tired and her eyes drifted off to the right, to the open doors, hoping to see someone she knew, someone who would help her, but there was only the expanse of dirt and gravel that made up the backside of the Camp Ryder building, where people rarely went. The “backyard,” they called it.

“Let’s just be honest, shall we?” he said flatly.

She clenched her jaw. Didn’t respond.

“It would be easier for me if you were dead.” He spoke thoughtfully. “And yet I didn’t kill you. I had an opportunity to kill you, but I didn’t. Which, in retrospect, was a poor decision on my part. However, now everybody knows that you’re in this trailer being held captive. And there are quite a few people in Camp Ryder who still view you in a positive light. So, if I were to kill you right now then I think people would… dislike that. So now I find myself in a dilemma, Angela. A conundrum.”

He ran a palm gently along the side of his hair. “If I keep you locked up, people will start to wonder why. Sure, there are only maybe a half dozen or so who think of you as a friend. But they’ll talk. And then others will talk. And before I know it, everyone’s beating down my door and telling me to set you free. So obviously I can’t keep you locked up here indefinitely, despite how much I’d like that. On the other hand, if I let you out to see your children, then what reassurance do I have that you’ll play nice?”

Angela grasped at the one hope that seemed tangible. “Please, Jerry. Just let me be with my daughter. I won’t cause problems.”

“Ah.” Jerry smiled without pleasure. “You say that now, but when some time has passed and you’re getting comfortable again, you’ll talk. You’ll have… unkind things to say about me. You’ll be the little bad apple that spoils the whole bunch.”

Angela shook her head firmly. “I won’t, Jerry. I won’t. Just let me be with Abby.”

Jerry’s eyes glimmered with a strange light. He reached out to her, speaking as he did. “I’m going to let you be with Abby. I’m going to do that for you, Angela…”

His hand touched her shoulder, glided up toward her neck.

Without thinking, Angela jerked her body away and swatted at his hand.

Jerry lurched in close, so that she had no room to run, and he reached the other arm around her shoulder and pulled her down. She wasn’t sure what he was doing, but then she felt his fist slam into her stomach. Just once. But surprisingly hard.

She doubled over, wheezing, and then collapsed onto her side.

She tried to catch her breath, tried to force air into her lungs, but it just kept leaking back out of her mouth with a weird groaning noise. It shocked her, but then the pain started to grow. Dull at first, and then sharp. Made her stomach feel hollow and achy.

She finally caught a breath and coughed. She watched a gob of saliva fly out of her mouth and hit the metal floor, still trailing a glistening strand back to her lips.

Jerry sank down to his knees over her, put his hand on her neck, squeezing hard enough to let her know that she should be very still, but not so hard that it pinched her airway. Then he leaned down close to her face so that his lips brushed her ear and his hot breath moistened it.

“You see, Angela, I would never hurt you. Not like that. Because I’m just not that kind of person. But I know men who are. And if I were to allow you this kindness, if I were to let you stay in Camp Ryder and live peacefully with your child, and if you were then to repay my kindness with disrespect… well, then those men who do things for me might find you, Angela. Maybe in the middle of the night when you’re snug in your bed, cradling your daughter. They might find you there, and they might do terrible things, Angela. Things that don’t heal with time. Things that fuck you up in the head. Things that might fuck Abby up in the head, because she’ll see it happen. She’ll see every bit of it. Do I make myself abundantly clear?”

Her face pressed against the floor, staring at the trail of her own spit across it, she nodded slowly under the pressure of his hand on her neck. “Yes, I understand.”

Then Jerry stood up and brushed off the knees of his pants. He regarded her with disdain, then turned and left her lying there, apparently with nothing further to say. Behind him, the doors to the trailer remained open, and another freezing gust of wind whipped through as though it might sweep her out of the enclosure like a pile of dead leaves.

Angela coughed again and sat up, rubbing her neck. She shook all over. But there was something else to it besides plain old fear. There was a tension that spread itself across her frame. Like there was a winch in the core of her body and it was connected by steel cables to all of her limbs, and someone had just tightened it a few notches. The kind of tension that eventually breaks, and breaks violently.

She picked herself up off the floor, the throbbing in her gut making it difficult to stand up straight. She bent over, hands on her knees for a moment, staring at the ground, trying to make the pain subside. Finally she forced herself upright and stepped to the edge of the trailer.

She stood there, looking right and then left.

No guards.

No people to see her leave.

She could run right now. Escape Camp Ryder.

But where else would she go?

She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling suddenly and incredibly alone. Abandoned. Without hope. Like she was caught behind enemy lines. What was there for her now? To quietly go about her life like everything was normal? Ignore Bus’s murder? Ignore Jerry’s threats?

She touched her stomach again, found it tender like a bruise.

A reminder that Jerry was not all frills and politics, as he often seemed.

He was capable of violence as well.

But so am I, she thought, remembering the feel of the bat as it struck her husband’s skull and toppled him. Because Abby stood right behind her. She remembered the smell of gun smoke in a dark upstairs hallway in some little abandoned house with Lee battling for his life, and she remembered how the shotgun bucked in her grip, remembered watching that lead payload as it ripped flesh and bone from human beings. And she never stopped because Abby stood right behind her.

I am violent if the right buttons are pushed. She looked up into the gray-clad sky and her mouth tightened into something harder than what it had been before. She brought her gaze back down to the dirty world she lived in, and she stepped out of the shadow of the trailer and went to find her daughter.

TWO

ANOMALY

JACOB STOOD AT THE window to the neonatal room of the Johnston Memorial Hospital in Smithfield. The same place where parents had stood to look in at their newborns. Now, though, the light of a few halogen lamps gave the place a more severe appearance, and there was nothing good inside.

It seemed a perverse place to house one of these things, but it made the most practical sense. Concerns about infant abductions had caused the hospital to make the room somewhat of a fortress to keep people out. But it also worked to keep things in. With lockable doors and a reinforced, shatterproof window, it provided Jacob and Doc Hamilton with opportunities to watch their subject without being within arm’s reach of her.

So Jacob watched her, feeling a little queasy.

She was crouched against the back wall, regarding him with unreadable eyes. She was naked and horrific. The protuberance of the thing growing inside of her seemed oddly large. Perhaps indicative of some other medical problem. She still appeared dirty, but Jacob and Doc Hamilton had cleaned the worst of it off the first time they had her sedated. Partly just to relieve themselves of the smell, though it didn’t last long—she continuously defecated in the corner of the room.

The way she was crouched, Jacob could see the cause for his current concerns.

Significant vaginal bleeding.

He broke the uncomfortable eye contact with the creature inside the room and looked to his right. Doc Hamilton stood there with the ultrasound cart, gloves already on, and a syringe in his hand loaded with Propofol. A cold, nervous sweat began to break out along Doc Hamilton’s heavily receding hairline. He was a staunch supporter of Jerry, and their difference of beliefs was a source of unspoken tension between the two of them. Jacob also knew that Doc Hamilton had been slipping information to Jerry. Sort of spying on Jacob and his experiments.

On the cart with the ultrasound machine was a tray from the hospital cafeteria, slopped with some canned chicken, beans, and corn. Pretty decent eating by today’s standards, and it seemed sacrilegious to give it to one of these beasts. But they wanted to keep their subject’s pregnancy viable as long as possible. And that meant giving her as much nutrition as they could.

Everything had to be coordinated. The giving of meals, the running of tests, the checking on any medical problems such as the bleeding. It all had to be compiled into one session, because they didn’t want to keep pumping her full of drugs. Though the sedative was considered mostly safe for a pregnancy, it also wasn’t intended to be given on a daily basis, so they tried to give the minimum amount and make their sessions brief and fruitful.

Beside Doc Hamilton, two other men stood. One held a riot shield and a pistol. The other held the makeshift dogcatcher’s pole that Jacob had originally caught his test subject with. They looked at Jacob, seeming a little nervous even though they’d done it twice already. They were two of the regular guards, and though it seemed they didn’t like what had happened at Camp Ryder, they also didn’t really resist it. And when Greg and his crew came knocking, they were clearly friends.

Jacob nodded to them. “Just remember to be gentle.”

“As gentle as we can be.” One smirked to the other.

Jacob turned back to the window. The creature still stared at him, though she had leaned forward, one hand supporting her weight. Jacob got the distinct impression that she’d seen him look away and was going to use that opportunity to creep up closer to him. Unconsciously, he stepped back away from the window.

The sound of the doors unlocking drew her attention. But she didn’t attack. She recoiled, scrambling away from them on all fours, hissing and screeching at them. This was how she had reacted each time. Defensive, until she was cornered. Then she would start lashing out.

Jacob and Doc Hamilton watched as the two men got her into the corner, using the shield to protect themselves and to pin her down while they got the dogcatcher’s pole around her neck.

“We got her! Come on!”

Doc Hamilton was surprisingly quick for such a small man. He ran in and slipped quickly between the two men, sticking the writhing form in the side and squeezing the payload into her bloodstream. She became more violent at first, but that was typical. After perhaps thirty seconds, the fighting slowed, and her screeching turned into a hollow-sounding moan. And maybe ten seconds after that she was completely unconscious. Arms and legs twitching. Eyelids fluttering.

“Alright.” Jacob pushed the ultrasound machine into the room. “Get her up on the bed.”

There was already a bed there in the room, kicked off to the side. She didn’t use it—at least not as intended. She would push it into the corner, creating a little den with it, and she would hide underneath sometimes, and often sleep there. But never on it. Like she feared being exposed.

The two guards hauled her up, one at her feet and the other at her head. As they waddled backward toward the bed, they heard the steady dribbling sound of liquid hitting the floor. The guard at the feet glanced down and grimaced.

“I think she’s pissing herself.”

Jacob nodded, following them with the ultrasound cart but avoiding the yellowish puddles left behind. “She’s heavily sedated. Not unusual.”

They hefted her onto the bed and then vacated quickly, wiping their hands off on their clothes, their noses wrinkled in disgust.

Jacob pulled the ultrasound up beside the bed. Doc Hamilton hurried over, disposing of the needle in one of the biohazard bins, and then plugging in the machine. While they waited for it to boot up, Jacob put the tray of food on the floor and slid it away from them; then he gloved up and began squeezing the tube of light-blue gel onto the pregnant belly.

“Doing good, Stacey,” Jacob said softly as he worked.

Doc Hamilton regarded him with some distaste. “Why you gotta name the damn thing?”

Jacob glanced at him. They’d already been through this. “We have to call her something.”

“How about Subject One?”

To Doc, the creature before them was just a science experiment. He didn’t want to consider that she had once been a person, and he thought that Jacob’s naming of the thing spoke of some sort of hopeful naïveté, as though Jacob thought they might coax this damaged thing back to sanity. Jacob had named her, but not because he thought she was still a person.

Jacob shrugged. “She looks like a Stacey.”

“You must’ve had a very bad encounter with a girl named Stacey,” Doc mumbled.

Jacob smiled. He’d never actually known a Stacey—at least that he could remember. But for some reason when he thought of what to call the creature lying unconscious before him, he just kept thinking of her as Stacey. No idea why. She just was.

“It’s ready,” Doc said, handing Jacob the ultrasound wand.

Jacob pressed it against the swollen stomach. The thing called Stacey twitched a bit, but then lay still again. She made an unpleasant gargling sound, drool coming from the corner of her mouth. The speaker on the equipment crackled like a garbled radio transmission. Fluidic sounds of something squirming through the amniotic sac inside.

The heavy, steady thump-thump of Stacey’s heart.

Then a more rapid beat.

Jacob steadied the wand, kept it there. He eyed the screen.

Doc Hamilton leaned around to get a look at the screen. “Looks like it’s still alive in there.”

He almost sounded disappointed.

Maybe Jacob was too. He didn’t really know how he felt about it.

Doc frowned after almost a minute passed. “That…” He made a face. “That heartbeat doesn’t sound quite right.”

“No?” Jacob eyed his partner. Doc Hamilton was the general practitioner. Granted, he was no OB/GYN, but Doc probably had a lot more experience with pregnant women than Jacob had, since Jacob had essentially none. Jacob knew about small things. Viruses. Bacteria. Infections.

Not reproduction.

Doc Hamilton raised his wrist and looked at the windup watch he still had strapped to it. He seemed utterly focused on it, the little second hand moving about and Doc’s eyes watching it like a hawk, all the while the air in the room filled with the strange slish-slosh of the fetus’s movements and the rapid thip-thip-thip of its heart.

“What’s wrong with it?” Jacob asked.

“Well.” Doc lowered his wrist. “I guess there’s nothing wrong with it, per se.”

Jacob frowned at the other man, trying to get to the meat of what he was saying.

But Doc just stared at the screen, shaking his head. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

Greg hated Arnie’s little red Geo. In a world where you were lucky not to be walking, he still hated Arnie’s little red Geo. It stank of decades of decaying fast food, tiny morsels that were lodged somewhere down in between the seats and glued there by soda. Since those glory days of overindulgence, Arnie had shrunken—all that skin that used to be stretched tight by his immense stores of fat now swung around loosely inside his clothing—but when Greg was stuck in the front seat, with Arnie driving beside him, he couldn’t help but picture the man at his fattest state, driving with his knees while he double-fisted cheeseburgers.

With four men crammed into it, the smell became that much worse. With the weather hitting a cold spike over the last few days and true winter coming on, people were using the outdoor shower stalls less and less. Instead, most of them opted to give themselves a “wipe down.” This consisted of wiping your armpits and crotch with a wet cloth. Or a baby wipe, if you were lucky enough to find one.

Great to make sure they didn’t grow a fungus, but it didn’t do much for the smell.

So Greg sat in his quiet misery while Arnie drove them down the highway.

West toward Lillington.

In the days following Jerry’s movement and the deactivation of the radios at Camp Ryder, there had been no word from OP Lillington. They’d heard from Doc Hamilton and Jacob at Smithfield. They’d heard from OP Benson. But nobody had seen hide nor hair of Old Man Hughes and his group.

In Jerry’s opinion, Smithfield was necessary, because it was a hospital. OP Benson kept the roads between Camp Ryder and Smithfield clear, so that anyone who needed serious medical attention could go to Smithfield and see Doc Hamilton. But OP Lillington was just a waste. Another drain on their resources. It only existed so that Captain Harden could expand his area of influence and use Lillington as a jumping-off point for his operations.

So Jerry sent Greg, Arnie, and the new guy, Kyle, to scout it out. The fourth passenger, crammed in tightly with the others, was Professor White, the leader of the group from Fuquay-Varina. He’d been curious about Lillington and had been pressuring Jerry into letting him take a group to go check it out. Greg supposed that he held some sort of attachment to Lillington, or perhaps to Old Man Hughes and his group, since they had shared Lillington for a short time.

Who knew what Professor White was thinking?

But he’d been very insistent. To the point of accusing Jerry of covering things up. Suggesting that OP Lillington had contacted Camp Ryder but that Jerry just refused to render any help to them. And there were other issues souring their relationship. Professor White felt he’d been promised that as soon as Captain Harden and Bus were overthrown and the supplies accessed, they would all immediately make a run for the mountains. A mass exodus to escape.

Obviously Jerry was in no hurry to do this, and each day it became more evident that it wasn’t going to happen. Which left White feeling betrayed. And Professor White had never been shy in his attempt to sway the court of “public opinion,” if you could call a few dozen survivors living in shanties the “public.”

White’s presence in the already cramped car was a result of him butting heads with Jerry for the umpteenth time in the past forty-eight hours. White wanted to know what had happened to Lillington, and Jerry assured him that he would send a group out to investigate. At which point White insisted that he be a part of it. And if he didn’t get what he wanted he was going to make a stink.

So he got what he wanted.

They turned onto South Main Street and hit the bridge over the Cape Fear River. Arnie slowed them down but didn’t stop. They continued rolling until they were across the river. They trundled over a set of train tracks and Greg leaned forward in his seat, motioning Arnie to a stop. He pulled out a pair of binoculars and glassed the downtown area of Lillington, the little square of buildings where the outpost had been set up.

“Why are we stopping here?” White asked, shifting abruptly in the backseat and setting the vehicle to rocking.

A look of mild irritation passed over Greg’s face. He pulled the binoculars away from his eyes and waited for White to quit fidgeting so the car would be still, and then he put the binoculars back up and continued to scan, slowly, carefully.

“We’re checking the area, Professor,” he responded, his voice less than enthusiastic.

“So you do think that someone is there,” White pronounced triumphantly.

Greg sighed and dropped the binoculars in his lap. “I think that if I blundered into unknown situations without checking them out from a distance, then I’d be dead by now. I can’t see any movement in or around the buildings.” He glanced back at White. “Hostile or otherwise.”

“So…”

Greg turned fully in his seat and looked at White. The professor regarded him with that usual pinched expression that sat amid all of his snow-white hair. His head slightly inclined, looking down through his thick glasses at Greg. Like he resented being forced to converse with such a lowbrow specimen.

Greg adjusted his Yankees ball cap. “Let me explain something to you, Professor. You might be able to manipulate Jerry and get what you want out of him by threatening to trash him publicly, but I don’t like you. I am not beholden to you. I don’t give a fuck what you think or say. I only allowed you to come along with us today as a favor to Jerry. And given the fact that I generally regard you as an idiot, whose survival so far defies logic and probability, I’m going to need you to sit back there and shut the fuck up. Okay?”

Professor White stared back at Greg, looking somewhat shocked.

But silent, at least.

Kyle sat beside Professor White and looked tense and awkward. Which wasn’t difficult for him. He was one of those guys whose awkward stage somehow lasted well into his twenties. A thin, gawky neck. Just a smattering of unsightly facial hair that clumped at his cheeks and his chin, leaving the other areas bare.

Arnie grinned, chuckled. His loose folds of empty skin quivered under his chin like a wattle.

Greg turned back around. “Go ahead and take us in, Arnie. Slow and easy.”

“You got it, boss.”

They rolled on, Greg and Kyle readying themselves for whatever they might find, while Professor White sulked. They rolled their windows down and laid their rifles on the doors, barrels protruding out, though it was tight to maneuver a rifle in such a small vehicle.

They stopped at the intersection of South Main Street and Front Street, kitty-corner to OP Lillington. The ring of redbrick buildings had been partially secured—most of the windows and doors were boarded or covered with some sort of barricade. A few were still open, giving it the look of an abandoned project.

Greg leaned forward again, looked up to the roof of the building, and watched it for a minute.

“No watchman?” Kyle asked.

Greg just shook his head. “Go ahead and take us around back.”

Arnie took them into the entrance, a narrow alley wide enough for a single vehicle. The end of the alley was usually barricaded by a car, which the guards at OP Lillington would roll out of the way for incoming friendlies, like one might open a gate.

The barricade car was rolled away. No one around it.

They crept past, then stopped in the middle of the open space, surrounded completely by all those buildings. The other barricades still stood intact—the Dumpsters and tires and other abandoned cars still stacked up and crowned with loops of barbed wire. It was only the entrance that had been left open. Like an abandoned house with the front door hanging off its hinges.

Greg opened his door, stepped out. He took a moment to survey his surroundings while behind him the others squirmed their way out of the tiny hatchback car. It was very still there in the center of OP Lillington. Greg would still check the interiors of the buildings, just to say that he had, but he already knew that the place was abandoned. He could tell just from the immense silence of it.

“Hellooooo?” Professor White yelled. “Anybody here?”

Greg spun on the man. The professor had his hands cupped around his mouth like a megaphone and took another deep breath to continue his shouting. Greg slapped the hands away from his mouth, then stood there, glaring.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

White looked concerned. “I was trying to call out—”

“Didn’t I tell you to shut the fuck up?”

“But what if there are people around?”

“And what if they’re the wrong people?” Greg shook his head. “Jesus, it really is astounding that you’ve lived this long.” He turned away from the professor, stood without moving for a moment, feeling out the ensuing silence, listening for sounds of anything that might be coming for them.

Nothing.

Greg started walking for the buildings. “Kyle, you’re with me. Arnie, stay with the professor, please. Make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.”

“You got it.”

“I don’t need a babysitter, Greg!” The professor sounded indignant.

“Oh, I think you do,” Greg said without turning around.

They cleared the buildings and found nobody, just as Greg had suspected. Nor did they find any sign of somebody. Or any clue as to where they had gone. Like OP Lillington had never existed.

In the quiet darkness of one of the buildings, Kyle spoke up. “You think the infected got them?”

Greg considered it but shook his head. “No. There’d be bodies. Blood.”

“You think…” He lowered his voice. “Maybe the hunters got them?”

Greg just made a face of consternation. “The who?”

Kyle glanced around uncomfortably. “Some of Harden’s guys were talking about these new infected they were calling hunters. Said they were big and fast. Said they hunted like animals. Ran in a small pack. Grabbed people and carried them away, instead of tearing ’em apart right there like the normal infected. Maybe that’s what happened here. Maybe the hunters got them all. Carried them away.”

Greg shook his head again. “Bullshit.”

“Well, what do you think happened?”

Greg shrugged nonchalantly. “I don’t know, Kyle.”

Before they exited the building, Greg found a good pry bar lying near one of the outer doors. He picked it up, judging its heft. He seemed satisfied and left the building. In the back parking lot, Arnie and Professor White sat on the hood of the Geo, the professor looking sour and Arnie looking amused.

Greg walked over to the professor and motioned with the pry bar. “Let me show you something, Professor.”

White slid down off the hood and Greg led him toward the entrance. As he passed, he gave Arnie a small nod, and then Arnie and Kyle hopped into the Geo. As Greg and White exited the former OP Lillington, the little old car rattled to life, the fan belt squeaking loudly for a few seconds.

White looked back. “Where are they going?”

Greg rolled his eyes. “Relax, Professor. They’re gonna swing around and pick us up.”

“Well, what’s so important out here?”

Greg just kept walking until they reached Front Street, and there on the corner, he stopped. He pointed across the street with the pry bar. “You see that, Professor?”

White squinted. “What?”

“Directly across the street. Don’t act like you can’t see it.”

White frowned with irritation, stepped past Greg. “My eyes aren’t what they were…”

Greg hit him in the side of his right knee with the pry bar. White cried out in pain, his leg seizing, and he stumbled, trying to grab at his knee. Greg swung again, this time catching White’s hand as it gripped his knee, the impact crushing his fingers. White screamed and collapsed onto the ground, holding up his injured hand.

“What are you doing?” he screamed.

Greg ignored him. He swung the pry bar down and finally hit White’s knee straight on, breaking the bone and inverting the joint. Then he went to work quickly on the other leg, getting into a sort of rhythm as he hammered down onto the kneecap while Professor White screamed on and on. He felt the second knee break and then Greg stood up straight, breathing hard.

He dropped the pry bar on the ground.

Professor White sobbed uncontrollably. “It hurts! It hurts!”

Greg raised his voice over White’s blubbering. “While conducting a routine scouting operation into the disappearance of the group at OP Lillington, we were attacked by a pack of infected. Unfortunately, during the ensuing struggle, we were unable to save Professor White.” He bent down and made eye contact with White. “How’s that sound?”

“You bastard!” Spittle flew from White’s mouth. “You fucking bastard!”

Greg just shook his head. “You should’ve learned when to keep your fucking mouth shut, Professor. Sometimes the squeaky wheel gets the oil. Sometimes the squeaky wheel gets gone.”

“I’m sorry,” White muttered. “I won’t say anything else! I promise!”

But Greg had already turned his back on the professor. He walked to the Geo and sat down inside, closing his door against White’s rising voice as it begged and pleaded for them not to leave him there. Greg motioned Arnie on, and they sped off, leaving the professor on the sidewalk, hollering desperately as he attempted to crawl after them, dragging his crumpled legs behind him.

Greg looked into the backseat at Kyle.

The kid’s face was pale.

“You gonna be okay with this?” Greg asked.

Kyle seemed shaky, but he nodded. “Yeah. Yeah. I’m okay.”

The pain in his legs was blinding. Like they were caught in a mechanical crusher, one of those big ones they used to turn cars into little cubes of scrap metal. He crawled after the vehicle, dragged himself along the sidewalk, elbows and palms scraping into bloody messes against the rough pavement.

The car made the turn onto South Main Street, heading toward the bridge over the Cape Fear River. Heading back toward Camp Ryder. And then it disappeared. White lay there, one arm outstretched after the vehicle like he might just reach out and grab it. Then he collapsed, weeping in agony and despair.

He lay there for a moment, just trying to overcome the pain. Just trying to make himself move more. He didn’t want to die right there, but the pain was so bad he didn’t think he had the strength to keep going. Maybe Greg would come back for him. Maybe it was all just a cruel trick, to teach him a lesson so that he wouldn’t talk bad about Jerry anymore.

“I learned my lesson!” Professor White screamed in desperation. “I’m sorry!”

A scraping growl echoed off the buildings.

Fear flooded his system. He evacuated his bowels in terror.

“Oh, no! No!” He hitched himself up onto his raw and bloody elbows, trying to look behind him. All he saw was a lean, sinuous form ducking behind a building, only a block from him. “No, no, no! Somebody help me! Please! Help me!”

He looked back toward South Main Street and there, just in front of the railroad tracks, he could see a figure. Standing there next to the woods. At first he thought it might be an infected, but it was astride a dirt bike. White didn’t know whether it was friend or foe, a bandit or just a regular survivor. In that moment, it didn’t matter. He would take anything over being eaten alive.

He raised his hand weakly. “Help! Help!”

The figure rolled forward on the dirt bike.

“Over here!” White yelled excitedly—someone was going to save him! “Please! Help me!”

The dirt bike worked its way around the railroad tracks, and then onto the road. And when it hit the concrete, it turned, heading away from Professor White, and the engine gunned, loud enough that he could hear it over his own cries for help. He thought maybe it was a mistake; maybe the man on the dirt bike just needed to get around a median or something.

But in the following quiet, he could hear the sound of the dirt bike’s engine fading.

Fading.

And then nothing.

He stared in the direction it had disappeared to. Who the hell was it? Why wouldn’t the person come help him?

A guttural noise behind him.

He looked and didn’t see anything.

The same noise again, this time from above.

Professor White looked up. And screamed.

THREE

ISOLATION

IT FELT ODD FOR Angela to drift through Camp Ryder like a stranger, the eyes of passersby regarding her with some suspicion and sometimes pity. As though she were a poor refugee, filthy and harrowed by the dangers of the road. But an outsider nonetheless. Did none of them remember just a few days ago when she had helped to mend their clothes? Brought them food and water when they were sick?

She found herself walking with her head down, skirting the edge of The Square. In the few days since she’d seen it last, The Square seemed to have been abandoned. There were no cars or trucks parked near the gate from neighboring settlements, no little shops set up to receive customers and to trade wares. Just the big fire pit, filled with nothing but ashes, and a few people gathered around it to talk quietly.

She was saved by a familiar voice, gravelly but kind.

“Angie!”

She turned and found Keith Jenkins picking his way through a row of shanties. The old man was one of the few who had stood by Lee, loaning him his pickup truck to make the trip to Bunker #4 months ago. Since then he’d spent a lot of time with Sam, filling a sort of grandfatherly role as he taught the kid how to hunt and trap small game. Keith Jenkins had become more a member of Angela’s family than almost anyone else she’d met at Camp Ryder.

She tried to call back to him, but suddenly she just broke down. Tears came hard, and she didn’t know whether they were from the jarring loneliness he’d just pulled her out of or from the happiness of finally seeing a friendly face.

He put an arm around her as they met. “Come on, Angie. I got your kids at my place.”

His breath was sharp and sour, but she took comfort in his being there. She walked with him, leaning into him and sobbing quietly into her hand, her eyes barely able to see what was in front of her, just a watercolor mash-up of graying plywood boards and blue tarpaulin. She’d never felt so simultaneously miserable and relieved in her life.

Keith had taken her to his shanty and inside she found Abby and Sam. The boy stood by reservedly, a small smile on his lips. Abby broke down and wept hysterically upon seeing her mother. Angela’s tears seemed to dry up under her clenched eyes as she held her child fiercely and didn’t move from the floor of Keith’s shanty for a long time.

She hated it. She hated Abby seeing these things, experiencing these things. Abby was changing. Going colder on the inside, so slowly that Angela was the only one who could notice. A steadily growing stoniness to her demeanor, and when she wept it sounded more angry than sad.

She was losing her little girl, bit by bit.

Keith brought her a bottle of water, the plastic stained and scratched up from months of reuse. She drank it thirstily and he got her another, told her she was welcome to any of his food whenever she was up to it.

She made her way over to a plastic crate and sat on it, still holding Abby in her arms. She kissed her girl and pulled the hair out of her eyes. She looked up at the older man who sat across the small shanty from her. “How long was I gone for?”

A shadow passed over Keith’s eyes, as though he were dismayed that she didn’t know, but he hid it quickly and took the question straight on. “You were out for two days, hon.”

Angela nodded. “Keith, what’s happened?”

Keith looked around them with some obvious discomfort, then crossed the room and took a seat on his mattress, close to Angela. He made a circumferential motion with his finger. “Thin walls and unsympathetic ears, Angela,” he said in a low tone. “We have to be careful.”

He looked pointedly down at Abby.

Angela understood quickly. She squeezed her daughter again, kissed her neck, then pulled her up off her lap. “Honey, why don’t you go play with Sam?” She looked at the skinny thirteen-year-old boy. “Sam, can you and Abby play outside for a minute? Just…” Her hands wavered. “Just right outside the door. Please. Don’t go far.”

Sam nodded. “We won’t.” He put his arm around the little blond girl—big brother and little sister—and guided her out the blue tarpaulin flap.

Keith smiled sadly. “He’s a good kid, Angie.”

“I know.”

He looked back at her. “Been asking where Lee’s at.”

Angela’s hand went to her face again. Her voice was barely a whisper. “I don’t know, Keith. There was talk about someone who had been sent to kill him—I don’t know all the details—but I think it was Eddie, that new guy.”

Keith raised an eyebrow. “Vicky Ramirez’s husband?”

Angela shook her head. “He’s not her husband. It was all just an act to get inside the damn gates. Vicky didn’t know what it was about, but I think Eddie killed…” She swallowed hard. “Lee and him left together just a few hours before all of this went down, and then we couldn’t get Lee on the radio.” She hung her head, her dirty, bedraggled hair obscuring her face. “What happened, Keith? What the hell happened?”

Keith sighed heavily. “Best I can tell, Jerry’s been in cahoots with that little weasel fuck from Fuquay-Varina, Professor White. It looks like Jerry killed the radio antenna on top of the Camp Ryder building, and his boys came hauling in here, opened up the gates for Professor White and his idiots, and they all got rifles.”

The old man shook his head. “Most of the people who would have stood up to some shit like that are gone with Harper and LaRouche now. There are a few good people left, but not enough to make a stand, and everybody else supports Jerry.”

Angela raised her head. “You said Jerry took down the radio antenna?”

Keith nodded. “Unplugged it, I think. Not sure if he’s plugged it in again or not.”

Angela considered this. “Maybe that’s why we couldn’t get a signal out when we tried to reach Lee.”

“That would make sense.” Keith rubbed his thumbs together. “Bad timing, though.”

“So what’s happened since I’ve been gone?”

“Marie’s been pretty scarce.” Keith looked at the ceiling of his shack. “Jerry has his boys distribute rations instead of having her cook community meals. Vicky disappeared—guess now I know why. Couple other families took off right when things went down. Jerry hasn’t come out and said so much, but I think he’s forcing out the families who just got here. The ones who haven’t been able to contribute much.”

“Oh my God.” Angela’s eyes widened. “He can’t do that!”

Keith shrugged. “My opinion? He already has. You know how he’s been about newcomers. Wants us to cloister ourselves off. Nobody leaves; nobody comes. He thinks we can just isolate ourselves and hoard our supplies and everything will pass in the end.”

“What about the other settlements?”

“Haven’t heard from any of them except Smithfield. I think he’s keeping them in the loop because he wants to keep the hospital. From what I can gather through the grapevine, he’s kept OP Benson staffed to keep the roads between here and Smithfield open, but everyone else is in the wind. Lillington, Broadway, Newton Grove… haven’t heard from any of them. Pretty sure he’s cut them off.”

She leaned in. “We have to do something.”

Keith looked at her sternly and spoke very slowly, as though each word was of paramount importance. “You best be very careful who you say that to. Not everybody thinks like you and me.”

“Who can we trust?”

“Right now? Nobody.” Keith rubbed his weathered face. “Hon, you want everybody to be asking, ‘Hey, whatever happened to that Angela woman and her daughter?’ then you just keep asking questions like that. Get you and your girl thrown out of here in a heartbeat.”

Angela balled a fist against her leg. “Keith…”

He looked at her. “What?”

“I’m gonna tell you something, but you can’t tell anyone else about it. You can’t tell them I told you a secret. It can’t get back to Jerry that I said a damn word. Understand?”

“Well, maybe you just shouldn’t say anything at all.”

She shook her head vehemently. “No. I can’t let this lie, Keith. Not this.”

Keith avoided her eyes, found the dirt floor.

“Bus wasn’t killed in a firefight with Jerry’s men.”

The older man’s eyebrow twitched, but otherwise he gave no indication of even having heard her.

Angela continued. “I was in the room with Bus when all this went down. We surrendered, Keith. We threw down our weapons and we unlocked the door. And Jerry and his men come barging into the room, they surround us. And then Jerry and Bus are arguing about the infected and Jerry starts yelling for Bus to shut up. And the next thing I know, Jerry points that big, sawed-off shotgun right at Bus and shoots him in the chest.”

Keith closed his eyes and grimaced as though he were being forced to eat something he wanted none of. “Goddammit, Angela.”

She reached out and grabbed the older man’s shoulder. “Keith, listen to me.”

“I’m listenin’.”

“Bus didn’t die right away. He was alive for a few more seconds, and I ran over to him, knelt down next to him. I was asking them to help, asking them to get something to stop the bleeding, but nobody moved.” Angela realized that her throat was constricting again. “They all just stood around and watched him die. But he said something to me, Keith. He looked right at me and he said, ‘Take it, Angela. You have to take it.’ ”

She swiped at her eyes as though they had betrayed her. “I didn’t know what he was talking about. I didn’t realize it because I was too confused. I was thinking about Abby and getting back to her and that was the only thing I could grasp.” She jabbed her index finger into her thigh to punctuate her next words. “But he was talking about this! He was talking about Camp Ryder. He was telling me not to let it die, not to give up on it.”

Keith grimaced. “He was dying, Angela. You have no idea what was goin’ through that man’s head. For all you know, he could have been delirious.”

She shook her head. “No. You weren’t there. You didn’t see his eyes. He looked right at me when he said it.”

“Angela…”

“This is our home,” she said abruptly, as though she had issued an argument that could not be refuted. “This is our life. And we’ve worked hard to make it safe, to make it a place that’s worth living in. Jesus Christ, when I first got here I thought about killing myself every miserable day. The only reason I didn’t was Abby. But you know what? We turned it around. We made our lives worth living again.” She pointed outside. “Now that man has come along and is taking all of that away. He’s taking it all away from us, Keith, and no one wants to do a damn thing about it.”

“Plenty of people want to do something about it.” Keith leaned away from her. “I’m just not sure it’s the right time.”

“It’s the only time we have.” She put her hand on his knee. “You have to help me.”

The old man heaved a sigh and looked at her for a long moment. “You know, when I was growin’ up, just startin’ to feel my oats and all, my pops told me that blond women were nothin’ but trouble.”

Angela hung her head and cracked a long-suffering smile.

Keith patted her hand and gave it a squeeze. “I never did listen to my pops.” He rose, his joints complaining with loud pops and cracks. He looked down at the woman sitting before him, her eyes just looking so cold despite the smile on her lips. Like they’d forgotten what it felt like to have hope. His smile faded quickly as he looked at her.

He shoved his weathered hands into his pockets and his normally kind face grew stern. “You can’t afford to be runnin’ around talking to folks about this stuff. You let me do that for you, okay?”

Angela considered it for a moment, then nodded. “Okay.”

“We gotta keep this real quiet.” He turned partially away from her, eyes on the dirt floor again. “I see a lot of folks dyin’ if we don’t keep it shored up good and tight.”

FOUR

SEPARATION

LAROUCHE STEPPED OUT OF the Humvee, followed by Father Jim. Their boots crunched on gravel half buried beneath a layer of weeds. Jeriah Wilson remained in the driver’s seat, the engine still running. His right hand rested on the wheel, the two stubs of his missing fingers twitching. He eyed the building in front of them. He seemed skeptical, as usual.

LaRouche rubbed his grimy fingers under his nose. “Kinda looks like home, doesn’t it?”

The old warehouse looked like it had been abandoned long before the collapse. The parking lot leading up to it was cracked through, and tall brown weeds struggled to exist in the narrow fissures. Windows took up one side of the building and appeared to belong to the offices of whoever had worked there. Mostly, the glass was broken out, but a few panes remained, dark with dirt and mildew, creeping vines twining their way through the window frames and rooting themselves in the soft, damp carpet inside.

It was buffered from the main road by a cluster of office suites housing a range of businesses—an alarm company here, a catering company there. Behind those businesses, a hard-packed gravel road led back behind a fence with a rusted padlock and dead kudzu hanging on the barbed-wire coils. Some quick use of the bolt cutters had opened up the fence for them and they now sat just inside the gate.

“Little overgrown.” Wilson hung his elbow out the open window.

“It’ll do for the night.” LaRouche nodded toward a pair of bay doors large enough for a tractor trailer to get through. “Me and Jim will clear it and see if we can’t roll those doors open. Maybe we can get the trucks inside.”

“Roger ’at.”

“Hey…” LaRouche scratched at the overgrowth of his chin and looked at the young Air Force cadet in the driver’s seat. “Give it another try.”

Wilson sighed, the dark skin of his face twitching into a subtle grimace. “All right,” he said quietly. “I’ll try again.”

LaRouche tapped the hood of the Humvee, ending the conversation. Then he and Jim hefted their rifles and moved out. LaRouche led and Jim followed, just a few paces behind. They slipped in through a section of broken windows and found themselves in a spacious office. The walls were ripped apart, completely gutted of copper pipes and wiring. Jagged sections of plate glass crunched and snapped underfoot like thin sheets of ice. A ragged bird’s nest sat abandoned in the joist of a pair of two-by-fours.

They stuck together as they moved through the maze of offices, each adjoining the other, with a common break room in the middle of it all. The light scrape of their boots across tile and carpeting was the only noise in the building.

They exited the office area and entered a dark hallway. LaRouche stood there in the shadows for a moment, letting his eyes adjust and taking a deep whiff of the air. It smelled of a dank old building and nothing more. No body odor and feces. No smell of recently lit fires from other squatters.

When his eyes had adjusted, LaRouche moved down the hallway to where it opened into a cavernous space, roughly twice as big as the interior of the Camp Ryder building. The tiny sounds of their feet on the ground and their pants legs brushing together echoed back to them in the huge empty space. A crack in the roof exposed a sliver of daylight. Water dripped through the ceiling. Big fat drops that landed loudly into a puddle. The sound was even and rhythmic, as if it were set to a metronome.

They worked around the entire inside of the area, finding nothing to indicate that anyone or anything had taken up residence in the abandoned warehouse. When they were comfortable with the area, when every dark space, every closet, every bathroom stall in the building had been cleared at the muzzle of a rifle, they moved quickly to the bay doors. The latching mechanism keeping them in place was simple enough and had been left unlocked.

Nearly fifteen minutes had passed by the time Jim rolled open one of the bay doors, cranking the chain while LaRouche stepped out into the dull light of the shrouded sun and waved their small convoy inside. The vehicles rolled into the warehouse—Wilson’s Humvee, then the LMTV, the HEMTT tanker, and finally the second Humvee to bring up the rear. They cut a wide circle around the evenly spaced support beams and positioned themselves in order, oriented toward the door. So they could escape quickly.

LaRouche gave one last look around the exterior of the warehouse property, seeing nothing but a few piles of trash and some overgrown shrubs that threatened to consume the fence. He backed into the shadows, then turned and nodded to Jim, who let the chain slide noisily out of his hands and the rolling bay door rattle back down into its place.

As the echo of the rolling door bounced around the man-made cave of a building, the rumble of the four trucks rolled into a high idle and then died, one by one. Hydraulics hissed and engine components ticked, and then the space became clamorous with the noise of opening doors and the babble of conversation as LaRouche’s team climbed out of their vehicles and began pulling down their packs and gear.

LaRouche’s eyes glided over them for a moment as the smell of diesel fumes rolled into him, hot and pungent. To any one of his people he would seem to be focused in that moment, but in fact his mind jumped from topic to topic, asking questions but not staying long enough to receive an answer. First he thought of the Red Man in his cargo pocket and how long he could make it last, and then he thought about food and water and how long he could make that last, and finally he thought of bodies lashed to telephone poles, crucified and gutted where they hung…

“What’s that look for?” Jim asked from beside him.

LaRouche snapped his head right, found the ex-priest regarding him with the half curiosity of someone who already has a good idea of the answer to his question. LaRouche realized that he was baring his teeth just slightly—his bottom lip quirked down to expose a row of teeth that were gradually yellowing with tobacco stains and lack of brushing.

He let the expression slide off of his face and pulled the sling of his M4 from around his shoulders, then touched the raw spot where the nylon had managed to get through his layers of clothing and rub at the bottom of his neck. He leaned the rifle against the wall, then dove into his cargo pocket and retrieved the chaw.

“They’re out there,” LaRouche said quietly as he worked.

Jim planted his hands in the pockets of his parka. “Yeah.”

LaRouche rolled the wad of tobacco into his cheek, brushed a few stray pieces off on his pants, and then replaced the pouch. “Just hope they stay the fuck out of our way.”

Jim only nodded.

Wilson joined them, looking between the two older men with a taut expression.

LaRouche knew what it meant. “No luck, huh?”

“No.” Wilson crossed his arms. “I tried four times while you guys were clearing the building. Still getting nothing.”

“Alright,” LaRouche said. “Until we know what’s going on, I think we should do all intersquad communication on a subchannel and stop attempting to make contact. We will keep one of the Humvees monitoring the main channel, in case Camp Ryder attempts to contact us.”

Wilson looked at the other two men, and they stared at the floor in front of them.

“It’s been two days,” Jim said, speaking carefully. “I think we’re at a point now where we need to decide what we’re going to do.”

LaRouche cocked his head to the side. “What do you mean?”

Jim took off his tortoiseshell glasses and inspected the lenses. “I know this isn’t going to be the popular opinion with you guys, but I think we need to consider going back.”

LaRouche waited for a moment. “Okay.” He opened his palms. “Why?”

Jim seated the glasses back on his face. “I think something is wrong. We haven’t been able to raise Camp Ryder on the radio in two days. I know the mission is important, but so is Camp Ryder. If they’re in trouble, we should go help them.”

“We don’t know that they’re in trouble,” Wilson said. “You’re just assuming that because we haven’t been able to get the radios to work. Could be something as simple as one of our repeaters going down.”

“But do we want to take the chance?” Jim asked. His voice was low. “I don’t think we should take chances with other people’s lives. We need to work on the side of caution here.”

“And if we go back now, and it turns out that nothing was wrong, then that’s six days gone. For nothing.” Wilson addressed himself to LaRouche this time. “You heard Lee when he briefed us. We’re already behind the ball on this thing. We don’t have time to waste.”

Jim rubbed his head, seemed exasperated. “Wilson… we’re talking about our friends. Our families.”

Wilson raised an eyebrow. “We’re also talking about the entire eastern seaboard, Jim. We’re losing time as we speak. What happens if we don’t blow these bridges in time? There’s more at stake than just our friends and families.” Wilson seemed not to like the sound of the words coming out of his own mouth and looked like he’d tasted something sour. “It sounds harsh, but it’s the truth.”

Jim’s jaw locked. “Fine. Let me and four others take one of the Humvees and backtrack.”

LaRouche gave him a pained look.

Jim continued. “We’ll head back toward Camp Ryder, but we’ll check the repeaters as we go. If we can find the problem and fix it, and reestablish contact with the camp, then we’ll head back and rejoin you guys.”

“Absolutely not.” LaRouche shook his head.

“Why?”

LaRouche spit off to the side and wiped a string of tobacco juice from the stubble on his chin. “I’m not splitting up the team,” he growled. “Jesus, Jim, you know what’s out there right now—you’ve seen it with your own eyes! We’re already looking at long odds. I’m not gonna cut my team in half.”

Wilson spoke evenly. “Well, then we really only have two choices. We either all go back or we all go forward.” He shrugged. “I say we go forward.”

“I say we go back,” Jim said stubbornly.

They both looked at LaRouche.

The sergeant shook his head. “We’ve gotta keep going. I said it two days ago, and I haven’t changed my mind. We’ve got a job to do and Lee is counting on us doing it as quickly as possible. Whatever is going on…” He trailed off for a moment, then simply stated, “We’re gonna keep going.”

“LaRouche…” Jim began.

“Decision’s been made,” LaRouche said curtly.

The ex-priest looked at him from under his brow. LaRouche knew that Jim wouldn’t defy him, but that didn’t mean that he agreed with all of LaRouche’s decisions. In fact, he seemed to disagree more often than not.

“Does everybody else know the situation?” Wilson asked.

“Seems like it would just invite argument.” LaRouche sighed. “I hate to keep things from them, but it’s better that we make the decisions and go with them, or we’re going to be sitting around, discussing it for days on end.”

Wilson shifted uncomfortably. “Sarge, you know I have your back, whatever decision you make. But I don’t think that keeping it a secret is going to go over well.” He turned partially so he could look at the others as they pulled out blankets and foodstuffs to prepare dinner. “Some of these guys have family back at Camp Ryder. I don’t think it would be right not to give them the option of going back.”

LaRouche pursed his lips in irritation but didn’t respond immediately.

“I know you don’t want to split up the team.” Jim lowered his voice. “At least explain the situation. Let them come to their own decisions.”

“How many have family back at Camp Ryder?” LaRouche asked.

“Joel and Dorian both have wives, and Nick has a wife and a kid.”

“Fine.” LaRouche snatched his rifle off the wall. “We’ll do it your way.”

He marched over to the group of ten that had formed a tight circle between the LMTV and the tanker, enjoying the residual warmth of the engines as they laid out their bedrolls and got a few small propane camping stoves burning. Wilson and Jim followed behind but kept their distance, as though they feared being present for the backlash.

LaRouche stopped in front of the group and held up a hand. “Listen up for a second.”

The sound of quiet conversation and the clank of cookware ceased and the eyes of the team went to LaRouche, who did not look happy.

LaRouche looked back at them. “At this point, you all know I don’t beat around the bush, so I’ll just spit it out. It’s been two days since we’ve had any radio contact with Camp Ryder. We have no idea what the problem is. Could be something as simple as a malfunction with one of our repeaters…” He cleared his throat. “Or it could be that something very serious has happened at Camp Ryder that is preventing them from responding to us.

“I’ve considered the options, and my decision remains the same as it has always been. We were given a mission, and we’re going to complete it. We’re not turning back. We’re not splitting up the team to send anyone back. I know that a few of you have wives and children back at Camp Ryder. I also know the threat we’re facing ahead of us. If we encounter the Followers, I’m gonna need every gun I can get. Not to mention the importance of the mission.”

He found the faces of Joel, Nick, and Dorian, and he looked directly at them when he spoke. “If you choose to leave, I won’t stop you. But I won’t help you either. You’ll go with what you have on you. You won’t get any extra food or water or ammunition. I can’t loan you a vehicle or send anybody with you to watch your back. I’m not doing this to be a dick, but like I said, I still have a mission, and I intend to complete it no matter what.”

Of the three men, Nick seemed to be the most perturbed. He stood up, raised one of his long, thin arms in question. He was a tall man, in his thirties. He had a skeletal face and an awkward gangly-ness to his stretched-out frame. His deep-set eyes were close together, and a thin blue vein bulged noticeably under his left socket, so that it seemed no matter what his mood, he appeared to be intensely angry about something. He stood there, his shoulders cinched in a permanent shrug. “We can’t make it back to Camp Ryder by ourselves. It’d be fucking suicide.”

“Yes, it would.” LaRouche nodded.

“Well, you’re not giving us much of a choice, are you?”

“No, I’m not,” LaRouche said. “But that’s the situation. If we don’t make it to the bridges, if some jack-fuck religious fanatics wipe us out before we can do what we came here to do, then we’re talking about annihilation. Everything south of us gets wiped out.” LaRouche shrugged. “So, no, I’m not giving you much of a choice. Because I don’t have much of a choice to give.”

He shook his head and turned away from them. “I’ll take first watch.”

He found a rusted old ladder on the outside of the building, leading up to the roof. With a bottle of water and a pop-top can of ravioli, LaRouche climbed to his post just as the last shade of gray collapsed from the sky and left complete and utter blackness.

He looked back and forth across the sky but saw no sign of moon or stars. Somewhere above him was a thick cloud cover, and the wind buffeted against him. Perhaps he wasn’t doing anyone any favors by taking the first watch—it seemed like there might be a late-night storm coming through, just in time to soak the other two watchmen.

He climbed up on a dusty air-conditioning unit, scared away something that hissed and scuttled loudly across the rooftop, and nearly fell off in surprise. When he had recovered his heart, he flicked on a flashlight for a brief moment, scanning the top of the roof. There was nothing to see.

“Fucking rat.” LaRouche felt a shiver work down him.

He settled into position on the top of the air conditioner. He turned off the flashlight and scanned the perimeter of the property, though his eyes were still light-dazzled and he couldn’t see much. He closed his eyes and listened, but there was nothing but the wind rattling through leaves and the creaking of massive timbers in the forest behind him.

He removed the wad of chaw from his cheek but didn’t throw it out. He wiped the dust from a section of the aluminum box and set the moist brown ball there. Then he popped the top on his canned ravioli and considered that he had once thought canned pasta was disgusting. Now it was the most flavorful thing he’d had in months.

He ate the ravioli with his fingers. When he was done, he licked the sauce off and wiped them on his pants. He took a long gulp of water. Put his tobacco back in. He situated himself more comfortably and draped his arms over the cold metal of his rifle, shrugging his shoulders against the wind.

His three hours of watch dragged on mercilessly.

The rain didn’t come for him, but the rat did. It scurried around the edges of the roof, always disappearing before LaRouche could turn on his flashlight. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do when he caught the bastard in the light. Shooting it would make too much noise, and it would be far too nimble to stomp to death. But at least it occupied him until the next watchman clambered up the ladder to relieve him.

It was Joel. Even in the darkness, LaRouche could tell it was him. His pale skin seemed to glow, and his white-blond hair stood out in a round puff on top of his head. LaRouche had always thought “Q-Tip” would make a good nickname for him.

LaRouche nodded to Joel and stood from his spot on the air-conditioning unit. “You taking next watch?”

Joel nodded.

LaRouche stood facing the man, waiting for something. Either for Joel to speak or for himself to come up with some piece of wisdom to offer. But he had nothing. And apparently neither did Joel. LaRouche took a step forward, put his hand up on the other man’s shoulder.

“Listen…” he began.

“I’m staying,” Joel said quietly.

LaRouche looked down. Closed his mouth.

“I’m scared, man.” Joel’s voice wavered slightly when he spoke, though in the darkness LaRouche couldn’t make out his expression. “I’m scared for my wife. I’m scared for what might be happening. But you know what?”

LaRouche looked at the man. “What?”

“I’m getting used to it.” He took a breath. “There’s just… there’s just no getting away from it. There’s always something new to worry about. And if there’s something wrong at Camp Ryder, you know… what the hell are we gonna do about it?”

LaRouche wasn’t sure, but he thought maybe Joel was crying.

“I mean, it’s not like there’s anyone out there taking hostages. Either nothing has happened at Camp Ryder—which I hope to God is the case—or something has. And we’re already too goddamned late. And if we’re already too late, then… then there’s no point in going back.”

A miserable noise escaped the man. “Jesus… is it wrong that I can think that way? It’s my wife I’m talking about.”

LaRouche squeezed the man’s shoulder. “Joel. We don’t know that anything has even happened.”

“Why can’t we reach them?”

“When there are multiple theories, the simplest one is usually true.”

“What?”

“What’s simpler to believe?” LaRouche faced the man and spoke with a confidence that he had to pull up from a shallow and fast-dwindling well. “That someone or something has somehow overrun all of Camp Ryder, and that no one remains to answer our radio calls—including no one at any of the outposts? Or that there’s a problem with our radios?”

There was a long moment of silence between them.

Joel eventually sniffed loudly and LaRouche could see him nod his head in the gloom. “Yeah. That makes sense.”

LaRouche gave him a gentle slap on the arm. “It’s gonna be all right, man.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll see you in the morning.”

LaRouche made his way down the ladder again, growing more and more tired with each passing rung. The ladder left little oxidized particles of metal behind on his hands and made them gritty and smelling like blood. Inside the warehouse again, the light of a single windup flashlight cast a weak glow, barely illuminating the forms of his eleven sleeping teammates.

He had already laid out his bedroll so that he could simply move quietly to his spot, lie down, and pull the blanket up over his chest. He was asleep before he knew it.

It seemed he had only just closed his eyes when he opened them again and found the warehouse illuminated by great swaths of yellow morning light. His breath plumed in the air and he realized it was the clank and rustle of people gathering their things that had awoken him.

He leaned up, found Jim folding up his bedroll, his eyes puffy and red, his hair a matted mess, face creased deeply by hard sleep. Jim regarded him warily.

“Jesus.” LaRouche threw off his blanket. “When were you gonna wake me?”

“You’re usually up by now,” Jim explained. “Figured if you weren’t waking up with this racket, you probably needed the sleep.” Jim looked around briefly and he lowered his voice. “Listen… I haven’t seen Nick this morning.”

LaRouche stood up, rubbing his face and his eyes and looking around quickly to confirm Jim’s claim. “Shit. Did he have a watch last night?”

“No. Wilson’s up there now.”

A voice mumbled behind them. “He left.”

LaRouche spun and found Joel, pulling his pack up onto one shoulder. In the light, strain showed on Joel’s features. The definition of careworn.

“He left?” LaRouche demanded.

“At first light.” Joel avoided eye contact. “Didn’t say nothin’ to nobody. Just grabbed his shit and left. I just happened to wake up as he was leaving.”

LaRouche bared his teeth again, an expression that was probably becoming familiar to his team. He raked all ten fingers through his hair. He swore once quietly. Then again with more volume.

“Hey, Sarge!”

LaRouche turned and found Wilson stalking into the warehouse from outside.

LaRouche raised his eyebrows in question. “Did you know Nick left?”

“Nick left?”

“I guess you didn’t.”

Wilson reached him and looked around conspiratorially. “I think we got another problem.”

LaRouche snatched up his rifle from beside his bedroll. “Of course we do. What is it?”

Wilson turned on his heels and began walking briskly outside, this time with LaRouche in tow. Through the dingy abandoned offices, with their wet carpets and torn walls and vines creeping in through the windows, Wilson led him to the large open panel of missing glass that had been their entry and exit. There he pointed east.

At first LaRouche thought it was a storm cloud, dark and ominous, looming toward them from the eastern horizon, seeming to be silhouetted by the rising sun that shoved through the dark mass in dazzling ribbons. But it was too narrow. And LaRouche could see it boiling; he could see it rising angrily. Far enough that he couldn’t smell it yet but close enough to see the billows.

A black column of smoke.

“Get everybody mounted up,” LaRouche said. “We’re moving in five.”

FIVE

HEAD CHECK

LEE STARED AT COLORS.

Golden brown, like the sun on sand.

Like a sand dune that stretches up, up, up and overtakes every shred of blue sky.

But it didn’t smell like dust, or the shit-reek of oil fields, or the smell of open sewers in a third-world country. It smelled like musty carpet. Mildew. Wet dog. A distinct “inside” smell. The smell of something lived in long enough to soak up all the smells of human habitation but since abandoned.

There was pain.

Feverish, aching pain that soaked his whole body. Throbbing pain in his ankle that bulged at the joint, slow and deliberate. Spiking pain in his head that jacked through the seams of his skull to the beat of his own pulse.

Lee moved his head, saw that the sand dune was a wall, painted that golden sandy color, made bright by the sunlight pouring in through the windows. He had no clear thought upon waking, but instead… panic. Confusion and disorientation as his mind tried to match his whereabouts to someplace he knew, someplace from his memory. But what he saw was unfamiliar to him, and his memories were shattered into bits and pieces.

He was cold. Shivering, actually. But part of him was warm, near his legs.

He looked down along the line of his body.

He lay on his side, facing the wall. His hands were tucked tightly into his chest and clutched in his red right hand was a blood-spattered KA-BAR, the wood handle sticking to his fingers, his fingers sticking to each other. A brown and tan dog was curled at his legs and stirred when he moved, raising its lupine face and regarding him with golden eyes and perked, pointed ears.

Beyond the dog at his feet, he could see a linoleum entryway. Then a door hanging open, and outside, the world. Bright and cold.

Lee sat up sharply, ignoring the pain it caused. The sight of the door standing open like that set his heart to ricocheting around in his chest cavity. The dog lying next to him jumped out of his way as he heaved himself across the entryway and kicked the door shut.

Trembling from cold, from fear, from pain, he dropped the knife and got to his knees. Put his bloody hands against the door and straightened just slightly so he could peer out the half-moon-shaped window at the top. His breath hit the glass, frosting it in front of his face.

There was a neighborhood out there. A bunch of tract houses, twenty or so of them crammed into a cul-de-sac street. The houses directly across from him seemed intact. One a little farther down was blackened around the windows, the vinyl siding melted and pocked, the roof collapsed. The street and sidewalk were empty and scattered about with trash that clung to overgrown front lawns.

Lee scanned the streets, his pulse still knocking.

Unsure what he was looking for. Unsure what he was afraid of.

He put his back to the door and slid down to a crouch, trying to catch his breath.

“What’s wrong with me?” Lee whispered desperately. “What the hell is going on?”

Lee raised his hands to his head. Felt the sting and the hot, fleshy groove along his scalp. He recoiled from his own touch but seized on the memory of the wound. Yes. He knew he had that wound. He knew that he’d been shot in the head. He was hurting. Maybe the confusion was because of that…

“Okay,” he muttered under his breath. “Okay. Okay.”

The dog stood in the middle of the floor, head cocked. It stared at him for a moment, then seemed to relax a bit. It licked its chops and one of its hind feet came up tentatively to scratch at its side for a moment. The dog watched its own paw, as though it moved of its own volition and it was leery of its intentions. It itched itself, then sat.

Lee closed his eyes and hung his head between his knees. It seemed to alleviate some of the pain. His breath slowed. His heart rate slowed. His thoughts seemed to slow, to stop swirling around like they were dust motes caught in a cyclone. He forced himself to think. Focus. One thing at a time.

How did I get here?

He remembered running. Remembered cold, gray branches whipping at him. The brown and tan dog just ahead of him, barking as the two of them ran through the woods. The cold ache in his lungs. Salt in his mouth as snot ran into it.

Before that.

Before that there was waking up, just like now. Except it had been dark out. He’d been confused. The dog was barking at something. He had the knife in his hands. He was looking for something else but couldn’t find it.

Before that.

Just a set of dark, regretful eyes behind a small silver revolver.

Eddie Ramirez…

It was like he had backed up his spring-loaded memory as far as it would go, and now he’d released it. It rocketed forward through a blur. The eyes, the gun, the waking, the pain, the confusion. Then running. Barking. Fear. Hard hands. Growling. Gnashing teeth. Straining muscles against something strong. Much stronger than him. Pulling him down. He remembered slashing out with the knife, targeting arteries. Then there was more running.

He’d slept at some point—it was dark, very dark. He was cold but exhausted. He slept in a pile of leaves, gathering them up over him like a blanket. Then there was a noise that woke him and he ran without thinking. Tripped and fell. An old barbed-wire fence. He got up and kept going.

Then he ran through a backyard. Across the road. The dog was beside him, but it didn’t bark. Lee kicked open the door to a house—this house. He fell in the entryway. His body finally gave out and he didn’t get up. He just closed his eyes. Went back to sleep before his mind had time to make sense of anything.

Lee opened his eyes. The realization of it hit him like a cramp in the gut.

My GPS! Eddie Ramirez has my GPS!

“Okay,” he repeated, rolling onto his hands and knees, and then finally taking his feet, supporting himself against the wall. “Need to move. Need to keep moving. Need to get going.” He bent down and grabbed his knife from the floor, groaned as he did so. “I’ve gotta find him.”

He evaluated himself. Cold and in pain. Beyond that, he was hungry and incredibly thirsty. He stumbled forward, still touching the wall, still holding the knife in a death grip. Another thought occurred to him: Had he even cleared the house before he passed out?

No. Because he hadn’t even shut the door behind him.

He swore under his breath. There could be infected in the house. He could have woken up to find himself being eaten, ripped apart like prey for a wild animal.

“You’ve got to get your shit together,” he whispered to himself. “No more mistakes.”

His mouth became silent, but his mind continued on.

Because there’s no one here to help you.

Because you’re alone.

As he thought the last word—alone—things became a little clearer, and his mind traced through the faces of the people he had left behind. Angela. Harper. Bus. LaRouche. Father Jim. Julia. Marie. They were all back at Camp Ryder… No… That wasn’t right. He’d sent some of them away.

Something about bridges. Bridges over the Roanoke River.

He shook his head, then cringed at the wave of dull pain that it brought. He knew why he had sent them away, could feel the truth rattling around in there, but all of his memories were jostled out of their proper place. He just needed to pick them up and put them back where they belonged. At least, he hoped it would be that easy. He hoped that the wound on his head had not scrambled his brain permanently.

He continued cautiously through the living room and stumbled into the adjoining kitchen. It was a small, dingy room, cluttered with dishes and dirty pans that were piled high in the sink and on the surrounding countertop. A collection of cans huddled at the far end of the counter, beyond which a garbage pail overflowed onto the kitchen floor. The cans were from soups and beans and vegetables and meats, their tops pulled back and covered in a greenish-white fuzz.

Lee’s stomach rumbled audibly. He moved to a door that looked like it belonged to a pantry. Opening it created a stir of tiny claws that scrambled away from the light and shot into dark corners and holes. Little granular bits of mouse shit covered the shelf space. A box of Hamburger Helper with the corner chewed to bits. Some baking soda. A small bag of cornmeal.

He took the cornmeal and left everything else. It could be eaten raw, mixed into a coarse dough with nothing but a little bit of water, if he could find that. He continued through the cupboards and cabinets but found them empty. In a drawer he found an old packet of mayonnaise. He squeezed it into his mouth because it was high in fat and calories and he knew he would regret leaving it. Then he moved to the refrigerator.

He hesitated, because a refrigerator without power for several months could smell almost as bad as a dead body. He took a deep breath, covered his mouth and nose with the crook of his arm, and opened the fridge. It was surprisingly barren. He shut it quickly anyway. Opened the freezer on top and found only a bag of green beans, long since thawed and rotted away into a dark sludge.

He closed the freezer and turned away.

Down the hall, with three bedrooms and a bathroom. He entered the first bedroom to the left. It was a child’s bedroom—a boy. Full of Disney characters and action figures. He checked under the bed and in the closet just to be safe. There was no one hiding in the room. Nothing of interest, and something about it being a kid’s room bothered him. He moved on.

He went into the bathroom. No water in the toilet reservoir, but he wasn’t to that level of dehydration anyway. He checked under the sink, found nothing but a box of tampons and some drain cleaner. He moved up to the medicine cabinet. He riffled through the collection of bottles inside, reading the labels of each. An ancient bottle of prenatal vitamins. Some acetaminophen and ibuprofen, which he emptied into his pants pockets. There was a brown bottle of hydrogen peroxide and some cotton swabs.

He took these items down and closed the medicine cabinet. He looked at the mirror, uncomfortable with what it showed him. He stood in stark contrast to his own memories of himself. Like he’d been transplanted into another man’s body. His face was gaunt and drawn, his beard disheveled and wiry-looking, with bits coming in gray on his hollow cheeks. His eyes were dark and sunken, seeming wide as though they were perpetually surprised.

He looked unhealthy at best. Psychotic at worst.

He turned to inspect the right side of his head. The hair was matted and clumped with dried blood. The long, open wound looked swollen and angry. He reached up, still holding his KA-BAR, and extended one shaky index finger, which he used to cautiously probe at the wound. It smarted viciously, felt hot to the touch.

It’s getting infected, he realized.

Then he thought of all the blood on his hands, and how much of that was his and how much belonged to a dead infected somewhere in the woods. Had any of it gotten into his wound? Was his confusion a result of the bullet wound to the head… or was he going mad?

He left the hydrogen peroxide and the cotton swabs on the bathroom counter. He marched down the hall, teeth clenched. He found the washer and dryer and a wire rack above them that held what he needed. He grabbed a towel from the rack, and then took the bottle of bleach. Then he returned to the bathroom.

At the sink he soaked the towel with the bleach and used it to scrub his hands until he could see his pale skin underneath. The towel turned into a washed-out red. Like watercolor. He threw the filthy towel into the tub and opened the package of cotton swabs and the hydrogen peroxide. He wet the swabs with the peroxide and got to work cleaning his wound.

It was slow, painful work with the cotton swabs, and the hydrogen peroxide hissed and bubbled against his split skin. A pile of red cotton swabs began to accumulate in the sink until he finally had the wound clean enough to see through the scabbed blood. He considered stitching it closed but dismissed the idea. That would be the worst thing to do for it at this point in time, when infection was already probable. Closing the wound now would only be like putting a lid on a petri dish and hiding it in a warm, dark place. His best bet would be to keep it clean and bandaged.

But he needed to find some antibiotics.

He checked a few orange prescription bottles in the medicine cabinet, but they were old and the labels worn so that he could barely read what the prescription was for. He found a tube of antibiotic ointment and delicately spread a thin salve across the split in his scalp. He then closed the medicine cabinet again, avoiding looking at himself in the mirror, and left the bathroom.

In the main bedroom he overturned the mattress, hoping for a gun. No such luck. He ransacked the closet and the chest of drawers. Nothing of use, but he did take a white cotton T-shirt from one of the drawers. He split it into a wide strip and used it to bandage his head.

As he did this, moving room to room, the dog followed him. It padded along quietly, sometimes with its head down low, sometimes staring up curiously at whatever Lee was doing. Lee took a moment to stop and look at the dog. Odd that he hadn’t really thought twice about the dog following him, but when he put his mind to it, he knew the dog belonged with him.

After a long moment’s thought, he pointed with his knife. “Deuce.”

The dog’s tail stirred, the barest hint of a wag.

“Yeah. That’s what I named you.” Lee nodded to himself. “You can smell ’em, can’t you? You can smell ’em from a long way off?” He knelt down and reached out one hand. The dog shied away from his touch at first, but then let him scratch behind the ears. “And you haven’t growled, so we must be good, right?”

Deuce yawned, smacked his chops.

“Right.” Lee smiled, but his face felt unsuited for the expression. He let it fall and stood up. It felt good to talk to someone, even if the dog couldn’t talk back. So he kept it going. “Well, there doesn’t seem like a whole lot of good shit in this house. I think we should move on.”

They left out of the back door and crossed to the neighbor’s house. Lee peered through windows while Deuce trotted around and marked all the shrubs he could find. Lee found the back door locked and barricaded, so he moved cautiously around to the front. It was a two-story house, with a door in the center and two second-story windows to either side of the front door so it looked like two eyes. Closed into these windows were white bedsheets that clung stiffly to the side of the house and didn’t stir in the breeze.

Lee tried the door without success, then put a shoulder into it. It rattled loudly and he took a step back, looking around and down both sides of the street, like a burglar worried about the neighborhood watch. Deuce crept into the front lawn and stood there, tongue lolling.

A rustle of leaves from a natural area between houses drew his attention.

A pair of squirrels erupted from a bush and shot up a tree, one after the other.

Lee took a breath to calm his jangled nerves and then turned back to the door. With a sudden grunt he put a foot into the door, just to the side of the knob. The door burst open with a crack of wood, rebounded off its hinges, and almost came to a closed position again before Lee put his hand in the way and stopped it by stepping through into the residence.

He moved through the house carefully, much in the same way as before. He felt clearer than when he’d first woken up, his mind more focused. In the living room he found a large fish tank, still full. The sides of the glass were speckled with algae, the top of the water a thick layer of pond scum. Two large and exotic-looking fish floated amid the green layer, their bulbous eyes gray and sightless.

A soft click of claws on the foyer tiles caused him to spin.

Deuce stood partially through the doorway, sniffing the house hesitantly. His ears were forward, tail level. His body language was neutral.

Lee moved on.

The kitchen was cramped. A table took up much of the floor space and was parked in front of the back door to barricade it. He left it where it was. Lee searched the narrow kitchen and came up with a can of corn and a half-full gallon of water from the pantry. He uncapped the water and sniffed it. It smelled fine. He took a sip, swished it around in his mouth. It was cool on his tongue and tasted slightly of plastic, but otherwise it was okay. He took a longer drink, then recapped the jug.

He rummaged through the drawers, pulling up a can opener when he found it and setting to work on the can of corn. He opened it and ate it there, fishing out every last kernel. What was left in the bottom of the can was murky-looking water. He pulled out the cornmeal he’d taken from the other house and mixed small amounts into the water until he had created a thick paste.

Deuce sat before him very attentively.

Lee scooped a big wad of the paste onto his fingers and held it down to the dog. Deuce moved in quickly and it was gone from Lee’s fingertips in a flash of pink tongue. Lee pulled out another mouthful. “Go ahead, buddy. You earned it. You already saved me once.”

Lee ate the last half of the cornmeal. He took a moment to think more than five minutes ahead. He stood quietly in the kitchen, leaning against the counter and looking out the kitchen window into the backyard. The yard ended in a thin patch of trees that separated this house and the house on the next street over. Through the layer of trees, the houses on the next street looked strangely untouched. Like he could just step through that bit of forest and find himself in a neighborhood without violence and chaos, with joggers and dog walkers and people in robes stepping out to get the newspaper. Fresh cups of coffee in hand.

He looked down at his dirty old boots. Mud-caked and blood-spattered. Bits of leaves still clinging to them. He didn’t want to think about a neighborhood without violence and chaos, because such a thing was not real. He would not delude himself. This was the world. This was his world. He may as well have been born into it, because everything else was so long gone, it seemed that it had never existed.

Think about what you need to do, he told himself.

Eddie Ramirez shot you in the head and stole your GPS.

You need to get your GPS back.

How the fuck are you going to do that?

It was easier said than done. Eddie had a big head start on him. He’d taken Lee’s Humvee. And Lee could only take an educated guess as to where the other man was heading at that moment. But he knew that he should know where Eddie was going. He just couldn’t make it clear to himself. He closed his eyes, his face scrunching up in what looked like pain, but he was only trying to think. His scattered mind seemed to be avoiding him. Like something recently forgotten that only recedes deeper into your mind the more you try to haul it to the surface.

Lee touched his head where it ached, as though the overstress and confusion and multitude of questions were going to split his skull open like an overpressurized pipe. Whatever wires had been jarred loose by taking a bullet graze across his dome, Lee could feel that he wasn’t thinking as quickly or making connections as well as he’d done before. He felt stunted. Like his thoughts were being suppressed. Like he had the truth rolling around in there, but he just couldn’t lock it down into place.

He started with what he knew and tugged at the thread gently.

Eddie Ramirez. He stole my GPS and tried to kill me.

Why?

Because…

Because…

Because of Abe Darabie.

Lee’s eyes popped open. His fingers suddenly wrenched down into a fist.

That one little thread had suddenly unearthed the whole ugly truth that had been hiding beneath the silt of his injured mind. And it hit him like a gut-punch, just like the first time he’d learned it. Abe Darabie—his closest friend—had sent people to kill him. To terminate him. To execute him. To keep him from opening any more of his bunkers. Because that wasn’t in the cards. It wasn’t in the plan to let North Carolina live. It wasn’t in the plan that Lee’s portion of the mission actually be successful. Lee was just a waste of resources. A rogue operative.

A nonviable asset.

“Motherfucker,” Lee mumbled under his breath. He looked at the dirty dishes surrounding him on the kitchen counter. For a brief moment he wanted to sling them across the room. Just to see something besides himself get broken.

But he didn’t. He just looked at them, slowly shaking his head as the picture became clear. The whole terrible picture. And he silently argued with himself, his own mind opposing himself like a madman:

Everything east of the Appalachians has been written off. We’re in a dead zone. A no-man’s-land. And then there’s everything west of the Appalachians. All the interior states, surrounded by mountains. A convenient buffer between them and all those overpopulated coastal cities.

So if I were to make a guess, I’d have to say Eddie Ramirez is heading west. West with my stolen GPS, to cross the Appalachians. Probably into Tennessee.

So, great. You’ve really narrowed it down.

Somewhere near the border of Tennessee and North Carolina.

In the fucking mountains with a two-day head start.

I’ll find him.

There’s no fucking way you’re going to find him.

I will. I have to.

The sound of Deuce growling snapped him out of it.

For a moment he stood confused, as though the growl required interpretation. Then abruptly he dropped to the ground. He fumbled with the knife in his hand. Felt his heart lodge firmly in his throat. He put his back to the cabinet doors. Leaned out just slightly, peering around the corner. From there he could see straight through the living room and to the front door. It still hung open from when Lee had kicked it in.

It was open about a foot, and through that opening he could see a thin sliver of the world outside. Green-brown lawns. The charcoal strip of the street. A single mailbox. He waited there, not breathing, not moving, his whole body just a bundle of muscles and nerves locked down and ready to bolt at any minute.

Beside him, Deuce stood stiffly. The hair along his spine had risen and his head was lowered. He continued to growl, but it was low, subdued.

Lee focused on the door again. He couldn’t see any movement outside, and Deuce was not barking yet. But his window of opportunity to get the hell out of the house was rapidly closing. He had to assume that the infected that Deuce smelled were moving closer. And all Lee had was his knife. If he was still in the house when they got close enough to sniff him out or hear him moving, it would be all over. He might take one. Maybe two. But after that they would overpower him.

Lee reached out and poked the dog gently in the side of his neck.

Deuce looked at him and grumbled.

Lee put his finger in front of his lips. “Shh.”

He rose slowly from his crouched position, eyes still locked on the front door. When he was on his feet, he turned and faced the back door. There was a window in that door, and through it Lee could see the backyard and the strip of woods beyond. Then the next street over. More houses. Lee stared at them for a long moment but saw no movement.

Deuce growled again, this time a little louder.

“Alright,” Lee said. “We’re going. Just stay quiet.”

He pulled the table out of the way as quietly as he could and opened the back door. It creaked loudly, the weather stripping cracking as it separated from the door. Lee grimaced at the noise and swore under his breath. With the door open, he leaned out and looked both ways.

All clear.

He stepped through the door, Deuce on his heels and then trotting past him, casting wary glances back behind them as they headed for the trees. He didn’t want to be in the house, but the woods weren’t much better. The last few days had been dry, and the leaves would be loud. He wasn’t sure how far away the infected were, but he always assumed that they were in earshot.

He jogged to the woods and then slowed. “Shit!” He turned back to the house, one hand flying to his head. He’d left the jug of water sitting on the kitchen counter. His feet moved unsurely, as though one foot wanted to go back and the other wanted to go forward.

He looked through the woods to the back of the next line of houses. He could hole up in one of those, take a minute to barricade the doors and windows, keep watch and wait for the neighborhood to be clear of infected before running back for the water…

He shook his head.

Bullshit. He wasn’t going to get himself killed over a half gallon of water, no matter how thirsty he was. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to escape one house just to cram himself into another one less than a hundred yards away from the first.

He stepped into the woods with fresh urgency, picking his way as quickly and as quietly as he could. The dried leaves and twigs felt more like trip wires and sensors, threatening to give him away at each step.

Deuce was already on the other side of the strip of woods, looking back at him with what seemed like impatience.

Yeah, I’m working on it…

Lee forced himself to focus completely on the forest floor and where he put his feet. In his mind he pictured a pack of the filthy creatures tumbling around the corner of the house and seeing him picking his slow progress through the woods, locking onto him like a pack of wolves on a wounded deer.

Just get to the other side.

His feet hit grass. He looked up and found himself in another back lawn and he broke into a jog. Deuce lingered for a few seconds, sniffing the air, his body language cautious. The houses here were packed close together so that the sides of two adjacent houses created a narrow alley perhaps ten feet wide. Lee went to the left of the house directly in front of him, making for the street on the other side.

Halfway down that narrow alley, he stopped and looked behind him. Deuce wasn’t following.

“Deuce,” he said in a loud whisper. “Come on!”

When he faced forward again, something large and dark stood in front of him and it lashed out and turned his vision into stars, and he tasted blood.

SIX

GUT CHECK

LEE HIT THE GROUND on his back. He rolled onto his side and tried to bring himself up, gripping the knife in close to his body and praying that he wouldn’t lose it. He could smell dirt and grass and when the sparkles cleared in his vision, he was looking at mildewed vinyl siding, wriggling patterns cut through the green by the slime trails of slugs.

“Stay down!” someone shouted. “Drop that knife or I’ll blow your fucking head off!”

Lee opened his mouth, felt blood dribble out onto his chin, and he wondered if he’d lost another tooth. He twisted slightly, slumping against the dirty vinyl siding. The figure stood over him, just an Impressionist blur. Lee blinked rapidly, trying to bring the figure into focus.

A large man, well over six feet. A giant, reddish-brown beard that looked like it had been grown long even before the collapse, only now it clumped into dreadlocks toward the bottom. An old black cap with no logo and a crumpled and tattered brim shaded the man’s narrowed eyes, dark and suspicious. He wore a black hooded sweatshirt with the sleeves bunched up at the elbows, revealing a clutter of blue tattoos on both forearms. The man held an M4 carbine, the barrel oriented perfectly with Lee’s face.

“I said, drop the fucking knife!” the man yelled again.

Lee complied, half because he truly believed the man would shoot him and half because he wanted him to stop yelling. He held up both hands, palms speckled with dirt. “Alright,” he said quietly. “I dropped the knife. You need to be quiet.”

“What the fuck did you say?” Two thick eyebrows came together in the center of the man’s face.

Lee’s mind kicked into gear. Slightly delayed, but better late than never. The barrel of the man’s rifle was too close to Lee, only inches from his face. Action would always be faster than reaction, and a trained man would know to keep his gun out of reach of his enemy.

Lee pointed back behind him. “There’re infected back there!”

The man’s eyes tracked up, away from Lee.

Lee pivoted his foot underneath his body, getting a good stance, about to launch himself.

Then two other figures appeared around the corner of the house.

Lee stopped himself.

One of them held an AK-47. A pale, skinny kid who couldn’t have been more than eighteen years old. He pointed his rifle at Lee and eyed him coldly. “What we got here, Kev?” He stood with his head cocked to one side, and he spoke in that certain way that said he desperately wanted to appear tougher than he was but had likely come from a soft, upper-middle-class life.

The second newcomer was a middle-aged man with dark hair and a beard, both shot through with gray. He wore a blue knit cap, under which his long hair hung in a single braid, just slightly longer than shoulder-length. He held a pistol-grip shotgun with a sidesaddle full of spare shells. His eyes were a frosty blue and he looked like the type who didn’t talk much.

Kev—the guy with the big red beard—looked back down at Lee’s face. “You fuckin’ with me, bro? I don’t see any infected.” His mustache and beard compacted as though his lips had disappeared from between them. He reached down with one hand and hauled Lee to his feet. “Get the fuck up against the wall.”

Lee didn’t resist it, knew that he’d already lost any impetus he might have gained by distracting Kev. The big man shoved him up against the wall and kicked his legs open. Lee’s mind scrambled and he cursed himself silently—for thinking too slowly and for letting himself fall into this situation in the first place. He could feel Kev’s hands roughly grabbing through his pockets and pouches, searching him quickly. Appropriating his knife and the two magazines from his chest rig.

He’s going to search you and then he’s going to kill you.

Because you’re no good to him.

Kev put a hand on the back of Lee’s neck, pushed his face into the side of the house. He tasted the bitter taste of the mold, the copper of the blood running from his nose down into his mouth. He closed his eyes and breathed, tried to marshal himself.

“You ain’t got much,” Kev observed.

What are you gonna do, Lee?

How are you gonna get yourself out of this?

The tough-guy-wannabe spoke up. “Kev, man. Fuck this guy.”

Lee’s eyes came open. He couldn’t fight. That wouldn’t work. All the bravery in the world wasn’t going to get him out of this one alive. He needed to think his way out. He needed to trick his way out. And that meant that his damaged brain needed to start working.

Lee felt cold metal against the back of his head.

“Well…” Kev drawled casually.

“Yo, heads up,” the wannabe said. “There’s a dog back there barking at us.”

Lee seized on it. Opened his mouth and the words tumbled out. “Wait! Don’t shoot the dog! He’s not barking at you. He can smell infected. That’s why I told you there were infected coming. He starts barking when he smells them.”

There was a sort of stillness. Like Kev and the wannabe were processing what Lee had just told them. Lee could hear Deuce yammering his head off and when he twisted just slightly, he could see the dog, skirting back and forth along the edges of the woods. He didn’t want to stay so close to the woods, but he clearly didn’t want to be near the unknown men who were holding Lee at gunpoint.

Kev shifted. “Don’t fuck with me, bro.”

“I’m not fucking with you,” Lee said. “That’s why I keep that dog around. Because he can smell them coming. So they don’t sneak up on me. Like an early-warning system.”

Silence.

Lee pushed forward. “He doesn’t bark like that unless they’re close.”

“How close?”

“Real fuckin’ close.”

The wannabe spoke up. “Kev, man. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

“Corey.” Kev’s voice was irritated. “Could you shut the fuck up and let me think for a minute?” Kev seemed to readdress himself to Lee. He prodded Lee’s head with the muzzle of his rifle. “You wouldn’t play games with me, right? You wouldn’t play games when your life was on the line, would you?”

Lee swallowed and closed his eyes. “No games.” Lee wasn’t going to play coy. He wasn’t going to hide his own desperation. Between the rifle muzzle against his head and infected moving in on them, he didn’t have time for Kev to put the pieces together on his own. Lee was going to have to spell it out for him. “Look, man. The dog will stick with me, but he won’t go with you guys. He doesn’t know you guys and he’s already scared. If you keep me alive, I can control the dog. We can work for you. Tell you when the infected are coming. I know you could use that. I know—”

Kev silenced him by banging Lee’s head against the wall. “Alright; shut up.”

Deuce’s barking bordered on panic now. The same sound Lee remembered him making when he’d stood over Lee’s barely conscious body when he lay in the middle of the road, left to die by Eddie Ramirez with a gunshot wound to his head.

Come on, Kev, Lee pleaded silently. Make up your mind, you stupid fuck.

Lee felt a hand close around one of his wrists, yank it behind his back.

“Zip ties,” Kev commanded.

“Seriously?” Corey-the-wannabe gawked.

“Zip ties,” Kev barked loudly. “Now!”

“A’ight, a’ight…”

Lee’s other hand was yanked behind his back. A thin plastic band looped around his wrists. It tightened, biting into his skin, but Lee didn’t really feel it. Because he’d just earned himself some more time. He’d managed to buy it with a little bit of quick thinking. It wasn’t the most flattering of positions to find himself in, but Lee would do what he needed to survive.

And right now he needed to play nice.

With Lee’s hands secured, Kev pulled him off the wall and pointed to the dog. “Call your dog. And he better fucking come when you call.”

Lee looked out at the nervous animal and then glanced behind him. “I’m not gonna run. But I need y’all to back up or he’s not gonna come.”

Kev glared. “You run and I shoot.”

Lee nodded. “I know.”

Kev motioned his little crew back a few feet. “Give him some fucking room.”

Corey and the older man with the shotgun shuffled back, looking unsure of themselves.

“Deuce!” Lee called. “Come on, boy!”

The dog pranced unsurely, tail tucked. He looked back and forth between Lee and the woods.

Lee clicked his tongue. “Come on, Deuce!”

Come on, you stupid mutt! You’re gonna get us fucking killed!

A flash of movement from the opposite side of the trees. Something—several somethings, actually—slipped in between the houses, heading for the little patch of woods. The only thing that stood between Lee and being torn apart.

Lee felt the adrenaline in his toes first, then his fingers, and then it slammed his chest. They were coming, and Lee stood there with his hands tied behind his back, completely defenseless. Infected in front of him and men with guns behind him.

He began to backpedal, yelling as he did. “Deuce! Let’s fucking go!”

Behind him, Kev called out, “Infected! Move it back, guys!”

And right at that moment, when Lee was almost certain that he was about to get a bullet to the back of his head while Kev and the others made their escape, Deuce finally broke. He jumped away from the trees and began hauling up the overgrown backyards, knifing through the waist-high grass, tail tucked, ears back.

Lee turned.

Kev was there, grabbing him by the jacket.

They didn’t speak. They just ran. Ahead of them, Corey and the quiet man with the shotgun backpedaled. When they saw Kev turn and begin running, they followed suit. Lee craned his neck and glanced behind him as Kev dragged him along. Deuce was at his feet, still running scared.

They rounded the corner of the house, headed for the street. Parked at the curb was an old gray utility van. Exhaust rose up in gray clouds from the tailpipe. Lee could just see inside the slightly tinted front windows. He could see the driver looking at them and thought that it looked like a woman. The engine revved and the brake lights flashed.

The side door of the van flew open just before Corey and the Quiet Man reached it. There was another figure in the van, but he was in shadows and Lee couldn’t see much of him. The figure reached out and hauled Corey and the Quiet Man through the door. As they drew close, Lee tried to get a better look at the man inside the van, but Kev shoved his head down and catapulted him forward into the van so that Lee hit the floor of it face-first, skinning his cheekbones.

Kev clambered in after him. “Get your fucking dog in here!”

Lee rolled into a sitting position. All over the floor there was a collection of scavenged items—canned goods, bottles of water, and what seemed like an odd amount of sweets. Lee kicked through the items as he righted himself and leaned out of the open van door. Deuce was just outside, but still not sure about jumping into the van with strangers.

“Deuce!” Lee shouted. “Get in here!”

A screech echoed through the houses. Followed by a series of barks that seemed to surround them. That was all Deuce could handle. He jumped into the van, immediately plastering himself against Lee’s chest, looking warily at the others and whining loudly. Lee instinctively tried to put his arms around the dog but was reminded that his wrists were bound.

Captured.

The man that Lee had not been able to see leaned forward and slammed the sliding van door, then pointed forward. “Get us out of here, Shelley!”

Lee glanced up toward the driver. It was a woman, as Lee had thought. Young. Pretty at first until you saw the coldness in her. How used up her face seemed. She eyed Lee with a quick, unpleasant evaluation, and then turned back forward, hitting the gas and causing everyone in the van to lurch backward as the vehicle took off.

Lee struggled to right himself. A cloth sack was suddenly pulled over his head. It was rough, like burlap. Smelled like dirt and cedar. The fabric was coarse enough that Lee could see some light through it, but no details. Just smudges.

Kev’s voice in his ear. “Just sit tight…”

“Wait a minute.”

It was the voice of the fourth man. The one who had waited in the van for the others.

Something tickled Lee’s subconscious. Maybe a memory.

“Pull the hood off,” the fourth man ordered.

There was some hesitation, but not long. Kev clearly deferred to the fourth man. He didn’t question why the cloth needed to be removed, and the fourth man didn’t offer an explanation. Kev simply grabbed it by the top, pinching a chunk of Lee’s overgrown hair with it, and he ripped it up and off.

Lee blinked rapidly.

Focusing on the face that stared at him.

Gaunt. Wild hair. The right side of the man’s face was all angles and cruel lines. The left side was mottled with scar tissue. The man’s beard grew patchy there, and almost white. But it was his eyes that told the story. They stared at Lee and they knew him, recognized him, and hated him all at once.

Lee’s gut tightened. “Deputy Shumate.”

The man kneeling in front of him just shook his head. “Not anymore.”

Harper stood in the cargo bed of one of the LMTVs, leaning over the roof of the cab and trying to let the morning sun warm him. He stared out into the long, empty section of Highway 421 that stretched out in front of him. They’d spent the night on the side of the road, surrounded by open fields. It gave the watchmen a chance to see any intruders before they got too close.

The highway was four lanes, two heading northwest and two heading southeast, divided by a grassy median. It was on this median that they had parked the train of vehicles so that they had a clear, 360-degree arc of fire with no cover for attackers.

Standing to his right, shoulder to shoulder with him, was Julia. She was bent over a long black bolt-action rifle, her left eye squinted and her right staring through a high-powered scope. As she squinted, her lips parted just slightly, showing her left incisor.

“What do you have?” Harper prodded, rubbing his balding head and wishing for a hat.

“Three,” she said quietly, shivering just slightly from leaning against the ice-cold metal of the LMTV’s cab. “Two males and a female.”

“Infected?”

Julia considered this for another moment, then let out a steady breath that fogged in front of her face. “Yes. Looks like they’re rooting through a pile of trash in the median.”

“Guess they smell somethin’ good.” Harper shifted his weight. “You okay?”

She sighed heavily. “Yeah. I’m good.”

“Go ahead, then.”

Julia slapped the top of the LMTV. “Hit it,” she called.

Under that roof was Mike Reagan in the driver’s seat and his wife, Torri, in the passenger seat. The “cute couple,” as Julia had observed on several occasions with a sort of flagging sense of sentimentality. Both of them were in their early thirties. Mike was dark-haired and athletic-looking. Torri was blond and slender. The type of couple who used to live in upscale condos, drive matching BMWs, and regularly visit the gym together.

In response to Julia’s signal, Mike blasted the horn three times.

Julia settled back to her scope. “Okay… they’re looking up… right at us…” She paused for a moment, then sounded exasperated. “They’re aggressive.”

Harper leaned back away from the cab as he saw her finger move to the trigger. The first blast from the rifle’s muzzle jarred his chest and cracked at his ears. He winced against the noise and put his fingers in his ears. Down the road, one of the small figures spurted red mist and then tumbled to the ground.

The other two kept sprinting toward them.

Julia’s feet spread wider to stabilize herself as she racked the bolt-action back and slammed in a fresh round.

A long pause as the first shot echoed back to them.

She fired. Racked the bolt. Fired again almost immediately. The second figure went down, now just over a couple hundred yards out. Julia chambered the fourth round and took her time aiming, waiting a full ten seconds until Harper could almost hear the strange barking-chuffing noise of the third infected as it ran headlong toward them.

Another boom.

The thing’s body jerked, a fleshy explosion coming from its chest. It faltered, then regained its footing and kept running for another ten or fifteen yards before it collapsed. Maybe a hundred yards down the road from them.

Julia opened both eyes and looked over the top of her scope.

The thing was still alive. Its moans were audible as it clawed at the ground, working its way slowly toward them. Harper glanced back and forth between the figure on the ground and Julia. She still leaned over her rifle but looked like she didn’t really want to take that last shot. Was she going to put the damn thing out of its misery or just let it die on its own?

He supposed it didn’t matter. It would never reach them. Its heart was most likely pulverized by the shot to the chest. It was dead. It just didn’t know it yet.

She straightened and lifted the rifle from its rest on the cab of the LMTV.

He fixed her with a suspicious gaze. “Never shot a bolt-gun before, my ass.”

Julia shrugged. “Beginner’s luck.”

Harper just shook his head and moved to the back of the LMTV. He climbed down off the bed with Julia following and they made their way around the LMTV, walking toward the three bodies Julia had just taken down.

The driver’s door of the LMTV opened and Mike Reagan slid out, holding his M4. “Need some help?” he called as he jogged to catch up.

“Sure.” Harper smiled perfunctorily and looked at Julia. “Any of them have clothes on?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “They were all wearing their pants this time.”

“Jackpot.”

She pulled a pair of latex gloves from her pocket, began to pull them on. “Let’s get to it.”

They walked out past the end of the convoy. The last vehicle was one of the Humvees, and the gunner lounged in the turret, seemingly amused by what had just occurred. He was a fifty-something man with a gray beard that made him seem like he belonged in leather and riding a Harley. People tried to question him on what he used to be, but he would just smile and change the subject.

Most had settled on his somehow being involved with the local chapter of the Outlaws.

A theory that came in a close second was that he had been a bounty hunter.

Dave, Harper thought, but everyone called him Gray, short for Gray Beard.

And somehow he knew how to use the M2.

Harper nodded to him, and Gray nodded back.

“You get ’em?” Gray asked Julia.

Julia nodded. “Yeah, I got ’em.”

“Good job, Jules.” He sat back, hitched an elbow up on the M2.

The three of them made their way down the highway. There were a few cars shoved off to the side, but otherwise no serious snarls between them and the dead infected. An old traffic accident lay farther on, perhaps half a mile. It looked like it involved several vehicles and had caused others to back up and crunch in close to each other, blocking all the lanes of traffic and even the parts of the shoulder that could be used to skirt around the wreck.

It was these clusters of broken vehicles that had caused sixty miles to take two days to travel. Their primary objective was to reach Eden, North Carolina. But their secondary objective was to clear a supply and transportation route on the way, which meant winching fallen trees and wrecked and abandoned cars out of the road. And there were plenty of both.

They arrived at the first body. It was the one that Julia had shot last, through the chest. It was a male, probably in his mid-twenties. A shaggy, dreadlocked head of sandy hair. A mangy-looking beard, plastered with crusted blood and God only knew what else. He wore a tattered pair of gym shorts and a single sneaker that had stayed stubbornly affixed to his foot through months of whatever torture he’d put himself through.

Harper made a face and looked off. “Don’t think you’ll find much there.”

“Yeah.” Julia’s voice strained as she bent down and patted the two side pockets of the gym shorts. “Nothin’ there.”

“On to the next.”

The next one was the female, shot cleanly through the neck, severing her spinal column. Young, probably in her late teens. A pair of jeans that had probably once been skintight but now hung loose on her emaciated frame. A tattered old bra with the cups long since ripped away, exposing her small breasts. The smell of this one was particularly bad when they approached. Distinctly fecal.

They curled their noses and looked at the jeans that had contained every movement of the infected girl’s bowels for the past four months. They were dark and stiff with it, and Harper could only imagine what kind of horrendous, infectious rash her skin had developed underneath the denim.

Julia held a hand in front of her face, cringing, and poked at the front pockets of the jeans with a single index finger, felt nothing, then pushed the body over with her foot so that it slumped onto its side, exposing the back pockets. There she saw a collection of small plastic squares, imprinting from inside the pocket. She knelt down quickly and stuck her hand in the pocket.

“Got something,” she grunted, then stood quickly and moved away from the body, holding up a pair of credit cards and an ID.

Harper scratched his beard. “Alright. Let’s hear it.”

Julia discarded the two credit cards but held up the ID. “From Raleigh.”

Harper nodded. “Good so far. We’re one for one.”

Julia tossed the ID back onto the body and they continued on.

Fifty feet from the dead girl lay the first infected that Julia had killed. A middle-aged man, wearing the shredded remnants of khaki dress pants and half a tank top that hung in tatters from his shoulders and waist. Julia poked through his pockets and managed to come up with a brown leather wallet.

She flipped it open. Found herself staring at a smiling family.

Harper stood next to her, almost flinched at the sight of the portraits.

Julia flipped quickly through—a set of baby photos, a picture of the dead man sitting beside a golden retriever. She ripped the photos out of the wallet and tossed them away from her. There was nothing to be done for him now. He was dead. In all likelihood, his family was dead too.

And he’d probably been the one who’d killed them.

Harper watched the photographs flutter through the air, the plastic lining flashing briefly in the sun before it landed on the ground. Like a dead bird. He turned away from it. Didn’t want to think about all of that right now.

Julia riffled through the rest of the contents and found the ID. This time she looked at it with some interest. Her eyes flicked up to Harper’s. She extended it to him, slotted between her index and middle fingers.

Harper took the ID card and looked it over.

“Danville, Virginia,” he said.

Julia chewed her lip for a moment, looking up the road. “Could just be coincidence.”

Mike Reagan leaned over Harper’s shoulder to look at the ID himself. “It’s only the second Virginia ID we’ve seen.”

“How many don’t have IDs on them?” Harper asked, flicking the card away from him. “A fucking lot. Most don’t have IDs on them. So we’ve seen two Virginia IDs out of how many? Maybe five total?” He shook his head. “Shitfire.”

There was really nothing else to be said. The trio scanned the area around them and saw nothing else to catch their eyes, so they turned back toward the convoy and began walking again. As they approached, Harper could see Nate Malone standing at the front of the lead LMTV, rifle hanging from his makeshift sling, arms crossed over it. The first man to volunteer when Lee asked for help and the one who had organized and convinced many of the other volunteers. Harper wondered if he regretted it now, leaving his wife behind at Camp Ryder and coming out here on a long-odds mission.

Nate nodded as they drew closer. “We’re ready.”

Harper took a deep breath and looked down the column of vehicles to the end, where the Humvee was positioned, facing in the opposite direction. Back toward Camp Ryder. Devon Mills, the young, flush-faced kid from camp, pushed his pack into the passenger door of the Humvee.

Harper made eye contact with Nate. “Are you sure you have everything you need?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve got enough food and water and ammunition?”

Nate smiled. “Yes. We have everything.”

“Alright.” Harper’s lips drew out, thin and pale. “Be careful. Keep yourself and Devon alive.”

“I will.” Nate turned partially, but then stopped and looked back. “We’re gonna find out what’s going on at Camp Ryder. We’ll be back before you know it.”

SEVEN

SMOKE TRAILS

LAROUCHE’S CONVOY ROARED DOWN two-lane blacktop, riding directly on top of the double-yellow line. LaRouche sat in the passenger seat of the lead vehicle, trying to read a map as the freezing wind from his open window jerked the paper around.

“Four-way up ahead,” Wilson called.

LaRouche frowned and turned the map counterclockwise. “Uh… keep going. I think.”

He hazarded a glance out the window. They headed east into the sunrise. Now the gouts of black smoke were to the south. LaRouche had been trying to navigate them around whatever catastrophe the smoke was rising out of, but now it seemed thicker and closer than before. Like no matter where he took them, they were being drawn there.

All roads leading to disaster.

Whatever was going on, it couldn’t be more than a mile away.

They passed the four-way stop and LaRouche forced his attention back to the map, jabbing his finger at their last known location and tracing it along thin lines until he saw the four-way stop they’d just passed through. The road curved, and when they had turned through it, the smoke was rising almost directly in front of them.

“Sonofabitch.” LaRouche shook the map. “Just fucking stop. Stop!”

Wilson looked pissed. He slammed on the brakes. “Where the fuck are we going?”

“I’m figuring it out!” LaRouche yelled. “I don’t have a goddamned GPS! Gimme a fuckin’ minute to read this piece-of-shit map!” He wrangled the oversize paper around. Despite the cold air, sweat gathered on his eyebrows. “Okay… Okay… Go up here and hang a left on Seven Pines Road…”

“Sarge…”

LaRouche tried to fold the map but couldn’t find the creases and began to simply ball it up in anger. “Just go up and make a left on Seven Pines Road.”

“Sarge!”

LaRouche turned to Wilson. “What?!”

Wilson pointed down the road.

LaRouche looked where Wilson was pointing. He dropped the map, snatched up his rifle.

Father Jim leaned out of the backseat, grabbed LaRouche’s shoulder. “Don’t shoot! It’s just a kid!”

Directly ahead of them, a small figure stood. She couldn’t have been more than four years old. She wore what looked like a homespun dress—little more than a sack with holes for the arms and head. She walked barefoot with the stunted, shambling steps of someone on the brink of delirium, her chest hitching rapidly. Over the idling engines LaRouche could hear her sobbing hysterically.

LaRouche pushed his rifle through the window. “She’s infected.”

“She’s crying!” Jim almost shouted in his ear. “Don’t shoot her!”

LaRouche looked at Wilson.

The driver glanced back and forth between LaRouche and the little girl, shaking his head just slightly. “Sarge… I don’t think she’s infected.”

She drew closer to them. Slowly but surely. Didn’t even seem to register the convoy of vehicles that blocked her path. Her thin arms were locked stiffly at her sides, but the small hands opened and closed like she was trying to grab something. Her round face was grimed and streaked with her tears, her mouth open as she cried, eyes nearly closed.

“Fuck,” LaRouche muttered, trying to search the girl’s face for something that might tell him the truth. She was thin, but she didn’t seem starved. Dirty, but not soiled. Desperate, but not insane. No blood on her face. No blood anywhere on her.

Still…

LaRouche stamped his foot a few times as though he wished there were a gas pedal there to take him out of this situation. He knew what the others wanted him to say, but he didn’t want to say it. He wanted to tell them to drive away, leave the little girl and all of her problems behind. But Wilson and Jim… they would want to save her. Of course they fucking would.

Wilson cleared his throat uncomfortably.

“Come on, LaRouche,” Jim said. “It’s a little girl.”

LaRouche turned on him. “I know that, Jim. But I need you to think ahead for two fucking seconds. We can’t take a kid with us where we’re going. We don’t have the time to get involved in this bullshit right now. It’s just a bad idea.”

Silence in the Humvee. Long, uncomfortable silence. The kind that existed only because no one could even wrap their heads around what LaRouche was trying to tell them. They couldn’t even come up with words to rebut him because what he was saying was in a language they didn’t speak. All they could see was a little girl walking down the middle of the road, crying.

And time was wasting.

LaRouche swore. “Fine! Fuck you both!” He punched the dashboard, then kicked open his door. “Jim, you’ve got thirty seconds to grab her and get her in the fucking truck and then we’re gone, you understand that?”

“Okay,” Jim said.

“Wilson, me and you are going to move up with Jim and keep him covered until he gets the girl in the car.” LaRouche slid out of his seat. “And for the record, I still think this is a horrible idea. I just don’t have the time to talk sense into you.”

“Okay.” Wilson cranked the truck out of gear and yanked the emergency brake.

LaRouche looked back at the convoy, held up his hand, palm out: Stay put.

Jim and Wilson piled out. The three of them moved forward, Jim in front, with Wilson to his left and LaRouche to his right. Jim stepped quickly, his rifle slung onto his back, his hands open and exposed to the girl to show that he meant no harm. He put a finger to his lips, trying to tell her to be quiet, but here in the thin morning air her wail bounced from wood line to wood line.

“Daddy! Daddy!”

LaRouche cringed, forced his eyes off of the little girl. He scanned back behind her, then all around them and into the surrounding woods and pastures. Watched for movement. For things rustling through the trees, slipping through the grassy fields.

This is a fucking mistake.

As they pulled up closer to the little girl, she stopped moving forward, but her feet still stamped restlessly, as though she couldn’t figure out what to do with herself. LaRouche edged past her, giving her only a cursory glance, but noticing how her entire body trembled so violently. From fear or from cold, or both.

Jim knelt down next to the girl. “Hey, sweetie…”

“Daddy!” she continued to wail. “I want my daddy!”

“Can you come with me? You’ll be safe with us.”

“Daddy!”

LaRouche glanced back and raised his voice over the girl. “Jim! Grab her and let’s go!”

Jim reached for her. “Okay, sweetie, I’m gonna pick you up and take you back to our car so you can be safe. It’s okay; we’re the good guys. No one’s gonna hurt you.”

She didn’t resist it. Like she was frozen. Like she had no control over herself.

Jim picked her up, cradling her against his shoulder. He turned back for the Humvee and began jogging.

“They’re hurting Daddy!” the girl screamed.

LaRouche looked down the road but couldn’t see anything but the triple columns of smoke. He and Wilson began to move back, following Jim. The girl yelled something else now, but between his rattling gear and huffing breath, LaRouche couldn’t make it out. He turned to Wilson as they ran. “What’s she saying?”

Wilson just shook his head.

Jim reached the vehicle first. He shifted the little girl on his arms and opened his door. LaRouche and Wilson pulled up right behind him and just before Jim set the girl in the Humvee, she yelled again, and this time LaRouche heard what she yelled.

“They’re gonna hurt Daddy on the cross!”

Jim put her in the vehicle and closed the door.

With the girl in the car, LaRouche could hear something he hadn’t been able to hear before, but it was short-lived, as though the sound had been carried to him on the wind, and it died as quickly as it registered with him. Coming from the direction of the columns of smoke, LaRouche heard people screaming.

Then nothing.

He brought a hand to his head, raked his fingers along his scalp.

“LaRouche…” Jim said.

“We gotta do something,” Wilson jumped in.

LaRouche didn’t argue with them this time. He felt shaky. Liquid on the inside. He just hissed through his clenched teeth and looked back down the road. He knew this was going to happen. He fucking knew it. That’s why he didn’t want to mess with the little girl in the first place. You couldn’t just mess around with parts of the problem. You had to tackle the whole goddamned thing.

Jim put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s the right thing to do.”

Without responding, LaRouche turned and opened his door. He leaned in and snatched the radio handset from its cradle and brought it up to his mouth. “Lucky and Joel. Up front. Now.”

Down the convoy, two doors opened and the men piled out and came running.

LaRouche moved to the rear of the Humvee and opened the fastback. He reached in and grabbed his pack and then slammed it closed. By the time he situated the straps on his shoulders, Lucky and Joel stood next to him. An interesting combo with Lucky’s bright red hair and Joel’s white-blond Q-Tip top.

He pointed to Lucky. “You’re with us.” He turned to Joel. “Joel, you’re gonna drive this thing. There’s a little girl in the backseat. Go up to Seven Pines Road and make a left. Pull off and wait for us there. If we’re not back in an hour, or if you guys start taking contact, move back to the warehouse we slept in last night. Understand?”

Joel nodded quickly. “I got it.”

LaRouche shouldered his rifle and turned to his three companions, Jim, Wilson, and Lucky. “Alright. Let’s move.”

LaRouche led them into the woods on the right-hand side of the road, plunging in about a hundred yards until they could barely see the road. They skirted along as quickly but as quietly as they could, urgency pushing their footsteps faster and faster until they were almost running.

LaRouche couldn’t hear the screams anymore. Wasn’t sure if he’d ever even heard them in the first place or if he’d just imagined them. Whether he’d heard them or not, now it was eerily silent ahead of them. Silent like a spider in a web.

Maybe he was being paranoid…

A single gunshot cracked through the woods.

LaRouche’s first instinct was to hit the dirt but he stopped himself at a half crouch. He knew what a bullet sounded like when it was aimed in his direction, and what he heard was not that. What he’d heard was the clear and singular pop of a pistol round, and no hiss or zing or splitting branches that he would’ve heard if it were aimed at him.

He looked back at the others. They had followed his lead and crouched down a couple yards back from him, all three sets of eyes stretched open wide. He motioned with his head to keep moving, then rose out of his crouch, pushing on while the others fell into step behind him.

He shouldn’t be scared, he told himself. He’d been here before. He’d been in bad situations. He’d been in combat. He’d battled enemies and shot them dead. Nothing different about this, was there?

Was there?

Another gunshot.

Straight ahead of him through the thinning trees, the scene came into view as suddenly as if a curtain had been lifted. The forest stopped abruptly about fifty yards in front of them. A road. A narrow slab of blacktop extended out in either direction. There was an old passenger van and a small pickup truck behind it. Huddled to the rear of the pickup were perhaps five or six men. They all stood with stooped shoulders, their hands wringing, looking about with worried eyes. Four men with rifles surrounded them. On their arms they wore the white band with the red cross-and-circle. The symbol of the Followers of the Rapture.

There was another man there, standing apart from the larger group. He was a tall man with a wiry head of gray hair and—oddly enough—a clean-shaven face. He wore an old peacoat that seemed a size too small for him, his pale wrists extending past the cuffs several inches. He held a pistol in his right hand. Kneeling on the ground before him was another man. The kneeling man wore a bright red knitted cap that stood out like a beacon.

The tall man in the peacoat began speaking. LaRouche signaled for the others to stop. He leaned up against a tree, turning his head just slightly as he tried to listen. The tall man did not yell, but his voice carried. He projected, like an orator. Like a preacher behind a pulpit.

“You have repented for your sins,” he said to the man in the red cap. “You have renounced Satan and all of his evils of this world, and you have accepted Jesus Christ and God as the true rulers of this earth. Is this true?”

Red Cap nodded, burbled something that LaRouche couldn’t hear.

The tall man smiled and raised the pistol. “You have sworn to cleanse this earth. Will you do the Lord’s work?”

Red Cap began to shake violently and weep.

The Tall Man bent slightly at the waist. “Will you do the Lord’s work?”

Red Cap spoke, loud enough for LaRouche to hear. “Yes,” he sobbed. “I will.”

The Tall Man straightened. “Good.”

Red Cap leaned forward, reaching for something. LaRouche couldn’t see what it was, so he stood up behind the tree, trying to gain a better vantage point.

There was a body on the ground. Not dead, LaRouche realized as it moved. It was lashed to a two-by-four, the beam stretched across its back and extending a foot past each hand. Coils of some sort of cordage LaRouche could not identify bound the man to the beam at his wrists and at his shoulders.

Red Cap picked something up off the ground.

The man on the beam began to shake his head. He struggled against his bindings. “Come on, man! Don’t do this!”

“I’m sorry.” Red Cap’s words were detached. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“Please! Steven! Think about what you’re doing!”

“Just… be quiet,” Red Cap begged the other man.

“Don’t do it!”

“Be quiet!”

“Please don’t do it!”

Red Cap raised his hands and LaRouche could see what he’d picked up. A long nail and a heavy mallet. Red Cap set the nail to the other man’s wrist. He did it quickly, nervous. Scared of what he was about to do. He raised the hammer above his head, his face contorting, and he swung down hard. The sound of metal striking metal. And then screams.

LaRouche was not given any time to think. Abruptly, Wilson charged forward through the trees, firing his rifle. The percussion of gunshots slapped the side of LaRouche’s face, branches twirling and chipping off of trees, and the Tall Man stumbled, his right leg blooming red. His face bore a look of surprise, and then it was gone as his entire face just disappeared into red muck.

Wilson’s shots were wild after that, striking trees and dirt and pavement. One of the guards took a bullet to the chest and pitched backward, and then one of the captives behind him received the next two bullets. The other captives either hit the ground or started running for the woods, away from the sound of gunfire. The three remaining guards all reacted differently. One tried to grab some of the captives as they ran. The second dove for cover behind the pickup truck. The third just stood there in the road, his rifle raised, but without any idea as to what he should be shooting at.

LaRouche hauled himself out from behind the tree, pulled his rifle up, and sighted down the barrel. The guard that stood in the middle of the road suddenly fixated on him and began firing. LaRouche watched the muzzle flashes, the puffs of gray smoke bursting out at him. For some reason he didn’t register the sound of the shots, but he could see the branches splitting all around him as the rounds passed within inches of him.

He cringed, pulled his trigger as fast as he could, and prayed to God, Please kill him before he kills me! Please kill him before he kills me!

Something nipped him in the side.

He looked down, seeing only torn fabric low on his left hip. No blood.

When he looked back up, the man he’d been shooting at was slumped in the middle of the road. The man screamed and stared down at his opened belly. LaRouche sighted again and fired twice more. Slow, even, well-aimed shots. The first hit the man in the upper chest and knocked him back. LaRouche couldn’t tell where the second shot hit, but he saw the body jerk and then lay still.

LaRouche ran for the road. There were bodies on the ground, men running and screaming, men tied to two-by-fours struggling to their feet, trying to escape. The two remaining guards huddled on the passenger side of the pickup truck, trying to use it as cover. One of them stuck his rifle out and fired blindly over the bed, the rounds hurtling off harmlessly into the woods. The second scrambled for the passenger door, ripping it open and diving inside.

LaRouche ran for the truck. To his left he could hear Lucky screaming at the top of his lungs, “Get outta the truck! Get outta the truck!” but the guard didn’t listen. Lucky’s rifle cracked a half dozen times, the bullets punching neat holes through the sheet-metal door. LaRouche fired along with him. One-two-three, and painted the inner windshield red.

The other guard went for the cab of the pickup, only to find his comrade killed. Lucky fired a barrage at him, but the engine block soaked up most of what he gave out. The hood of the pickup rumpled and flexed as round after round struck it. The windshield turned abruptly opaque, run through with a million tiny cracks, then began to collapse.

Lucky’s gun went dry. He looked down at it and didn’t seem to know what to do with it. He stood in the middle of the street, less than ten yards from the front of the pickup truck, and began fumbling with his gun like he no longer knew what it was.

LaRouche wanted to yell at Lucky to get his fucking gun up, to quit fucking with the thing and reload it. But there wasn’t time. And he knew that if he said it, it would only distract Lucky further and take precious seconds away from him. So LaRouche cut right, flanking around the back end of the pickup truck.

He heard two shots just before he cleared the tailgate.

LaRouche cleared the back end just as the shooter threw his rifle down and began running for the woods. LaRouche’s jaw clamped down. He raised his rifle to shoot, aiming for the running man’s back. His finger touched the trigger, but then suddenly Wilson was in his sight picture, tearing after the man on foot. The man kept running and looking behind him as Wilson gained on him. Fear in his eyes.

LaRouche pulled his rifle off the target. Wilson would handle that motherfucker.

He turned to his left and jogged around the front of the car. “Lucky?” he called out. “You okay, bro?”

Lucky was still in the middle of the road. Down on one knee. His face pinched in intense focus. He didn’t seem to register LaRouche calling out to him. He was still trying to grab the magazine, but it was like his entire body rebelled against him. His fingers kept sliding off the magazine like he was unable to produce the grip required to pull it from his pouch.

“Shit…” LaRouche felt numb. He looked at the other man, saw the blooms of red spreading across the front of his jacket.

Lucky finally got his fingers around the magazine and ripped it from its pouch. Then he began stubbornly trying to seat it in the mag-well, almost oblivious to the wounds in his midsection. Like he refused to acknowledge it. Like something in him had just decided that if he got his gun reloaded, everything would be okay.

“Lucky!” LaRouche slung his rifle and ran for him. “Talk to me, Lucky!”

Whether from shock, or rapid loss of blood pressure, or just the dangerous blast of adrenaline, Lucky was losing his fine motor skills, including the ability to speak clearly. He spoke through clenched teeth. Sounded like his mouth was full of marbles. “I’m fine…’m okay… think ’m okay…”

Lucky managed to get the magazine into the well. He slammed it up until it clicked, but it never charged the next round. He raised the rifle weakly and began pulling the trigger, though LaRouche wasn’t sure what he thought he was going to shoot at. Lucky frowned at the rifle when it didn’t fire.

“Shi’s not workin’,” he mumbled.

Then he tilted unsteadily and stumbled into the bullet-riddled hood of the truck.

LaRouche grabbed him by the shoulder so he wouldn’t fall over. “You’re hit, man; put the rifle down.”

Even leaning against the truck, Lucky tried to get the rifle up to sight through, his mouth hanging slack as he very deliberately closed one eye. “No… I’ma fuckin’ kill ’em, Sarge. I gottem.”

LaRouche took the rifle out of his hands and it wasn’t until the weapon left his grip that Lucky seemed to realize what had happened. His eyes became wide and concerned and his hands fluttered to his belly. He looked down, saw the holes in his jacket, and touched them gingerly with trembling fingers.

“Oh no. Oh no.”

“It’s okay, buddy. Calm down.” LaRouche slipped his arm under Lucky’s and righted the sagging man. “Come on with me. Come with me. One foot in front of the other.”

But his wounds transfixed Lucky. “He shot me!” he said indignantly. “Asshole shot me! He shot me, Sarge.” Lucky looked drunkenly at LaRouche. “D’you see it? D’you see ’im shoot me? Fuckin’ asshole…”

LaRouche strained as he half walked, half dragged his burden to the back of the truck and opened the tailgate, trying to move as quickly as possible. “Don’t worry about that shit now, okay, buddy? Wilson’s gonna beat the fucking shit outta that guy for you. So you just relax.”

Lucky nodded. “Gon’ relass… i’s not that bad, is it?”

“No, it’s not bad.”

“Feels bad.”

“No, you’ll be okay.”

Lucky shook his head irritably. “Sarge, I did ever’thin’ I was s’posed to do. I did all my tactical stuff. I can’t believe this shit. Fuckin’ can’t believe I got shot.”

LaRouche grunted as he hefted Lucky’s butt up onto the tailgate and then laid the man down. “You’re doin’ good, man. Just keep talkin’ to me while I check you out.” He shrugged his backpack off and slid it into the truck bed, then climbed in himself. Huddled over the wounded man, he pulled the shoulder bag of magazines off, unzipped the jacket, and pulled up Lucky’s fleece sweater.

Two holes—one just inside his right hipbone and the other a few inches below his left nipple. He rolled Lucky partially onto his side, fought to get the jacket and shirt up, and saw two exit wounds. They roughly matched the holes on the front, but it looked like the bullets had entered at an angle. The bullet that had struck him below the left nipple had exited out his side and looked the least dangerous. The one just inside his right hip had exited close to his spine.

LaRouche stared at the exit wounds, ragged and almost black. The wound in his upper torso might not have hit anything important, but the one through his gut most certainly had. There was no imaginary line that LaRouche could draw between the entry and exit wounds that didn’t result in the pulverization of something vital.

Lucky yammered on as LaRouche tried to think. “This’s just stupid. This’s all jus’ fuckin’ stupid. I jus’ wanted to put in my thirty years at the shop an’ retire. Tha’s all I wanted. Tha’s all I wanted. I didn’t wanna do this shit. I never wanted to do this shit.” His face tensed and he trailed off with a quiet moan. “Hey, Sarge… I’s startin’ to hurt.”

“I know.” LaRouche began ripping open his backpack. “That just means it’s not that bad. If it were bad, you wouldn’t feel anything.”

“Is that true?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know…”

“Of course it’s true.”

As LaRouche began pulling out bandages from the front pocket of his backpack, he registered the sounds around him and glanced back over his shoulder. One of the men who had been held captive was still alive, crawling on the ground and moaning. From the direction of the woods there was rustling and thrashing.

LaRouche looked up over the side of the pickup bed and into the woods, and found Wilson and Jim approaching, both with their hands on the man who had taken off running. The man who had shot Lucky. His face was covered in blood and lumpy in places, the beginnings of massive, swollen bruises that would set in over the course of the next hour.

They stopped at the edge of the road, seeing Lucky lying there in the truck bed and clearly knowing from the look on LaRouche’s face that it wasn’t good. Wilson’s and Jim’s faces became tense, like a tried man waiting for a verdict.

LaRouche began wiping away the excess blood around the wound.

His patient swatted weakly at the bandage and shook his head. “Stop. Just come here.”

“What?”

Lucky reached forward and grabbed LaRouche by the arm and pulled him in close.

LaRouche pushed back. “Lucky, you gotta let me work!”

Lucky pulled at him harder. “Stop. Please… come here.” He pulled LaRouche close again, and Lucky leaned his pale face into LaRouche’s jacket as though he took comfort from it. The wounded man’s eyes were wide and scared and he began to breathe rapidly and shallowly.

“Don’t go anywhere,” he told LaRouche. “Don’t go anywhere.”

LaRouche stayed still, let the man hold on to him. He couldn’t do anything else, so he put an arm around Lucky, pulled him in. He looked at Wilson, then at Jim. Both of the men avoided his gaze. They looked off into the woods, then down to the road.

“It’s okay, buddy,” LaRouche said. “I got you.”

Lucky took three more hitching breaths and died.

LaRouche leaned back, let the dead man slide out of his arms, back onto the bed of the pickup. He put his hands on his hips and knelt there on his haunches. Took slow, deep breaths against the burning, ratcheting feeling in his stomach.

Wilson and Jim stood there, still as stones. Their prisoner swayed on his feet between them and spit blood from his mouth. The air was very still and seemed to have gotten colder for some reason, though the sun shone on them fully. On the street, among the bodies, the moaning survivor had ceased to move or make noise.

Wilson took a half step forward. His hand went up toward his head, then hesitated, balled into a fist, then dropped down to his side again. “He died?”

LaRouche nodded. “Yeah. He died.”

“Oh, man.” Wilson’s face screwed up. “Oh, man… it’s my fault.”

“Shut up,” LaRouche said.

Tears glimmered in Wilson’s eyes now. “I shoulda waited. I wasn’t thinking. I just… started shooting without planning anything or coordinating.”

LaRouche slid off the tailgate and spat. “I said, shut the fuck up.”

Wilson closed his eyes, turned his head skyward.

LaRouche approached the prisoner, whose one open eye tracked him suspiciously, the other bulbous and turning purple. LaRouche stood an arm’s length from the man and eyed him up and down, thinking, So this is one of the big, bad “Followers”? He was a short, unimpressive individual with shoulder-length blond hair. He had a wiry body and a fidgety manner that LaRouche found off-putting.

“He have anything on him?” LaRouche asked.

Wilson held up a pint-size plastic bottle of whiskey. “Just this.”

LaRouche took the bottle, hefted it in his hands. It was still full. He flipped it so he held the top of the bottle, and then abruptly swung it, smacking the prisoner in the face with it. It wasn’t hard enough to do any real damage, but it made the man grunt in pain, and LaRouche thought about doing it again. Instead, he just rapped the man twice on the forehead with it. “Mine now.”

He slipped the bottle in his back pocket and then reached forward and took the man by the face, thinking that he would only direct the man’s gaze to where he wanted. But when his fingers touched the man’s skin he suddenly felt his blood roaring and within a split second he became enraged with the man—his stink; his bleeding; his lumpy, bruised face; and the very fact that he dared to be alive when Lucky was dead.

His grip tightened, causing the man to cry out and his mouth to mush inward, pinched between LaRouche’s bloodless fingers. He pulled the man in close and jerked his head to the right, forcing him to look at the pickup truck while he spoke into his ear, louder than necessary.

“You see that shit? You see that man lying there?” LaRouche grated in the man’s face. “You did that. To my fucking friend.”

The man shook his head violently, getting his face free of LaRouche’s vise grip. Then he looked right in LaRouche’s eyes, defiance blazing, and spoke with a thick northern accent. “Your dead friend interrupted the Lord’s work. He got his. And you’ll get yours.”

LaRouche wanted murder. He grabbed the man by the shoulders, pulled him out of Jim’s and Wilson’s arms, and shoved him to the ground. He wound back with his right boot and sent it solidly into the man’s side, cracking ribs loud enough to be heard.

“LaRouche,” Jim spoke up, raising a hand.

LaRouche either didn’t hear him or ignored him completely. He kicked the man in the side again so the man curled up into the fetal position and began gasping for air, horrible rasping sounds. LaRouche bent down onto one knee, took the man by the collar, and began hammering his already bruised face with his fist. He got in three strikes and nearly knocked the man unconscious before Father Jim finally leaped in, seizing his upraised arm.

“LaRouche!” he shouted. “Knock it off!”

LaRouche looked up at him. “You got a fuckin’ problem with this, Jim?”

The two stared at each other for a moment.

Then Jim nodded. “Yeah, I do.”

LaRouche continued to stare at his comrade for a long moment. Jim released his grip on LaRouche’s arm. The man on the ground continued to cough and splutter and wail incoherently about his broken ribs.

Finally LaRouche just nodded. “Fine. Take the pickup and drive Lucky’s body back to the others.” He gave it another second’s thought and then looked at the ground. “Wilson, go with him.”

“I want to be here.”

“Wilson!” LaRouche looked up at him sharply. “You’ve done enough for one fuckin’ day! Just go with him!”

Wilson and Jim exchanged glances, both pained, but they stayed silent. They moved to the truck, closed the tailgate, pulled the dead driver out the door, and kicked out the shattered windshield. LaRouche watched them, catching his breath. Then he forced his prisoner to his feet and guided him to the back of the van, opening the rear doors and manhandling him into the narrow space between the backseat and the doorstop. Then he shut the door, pinning the man in place.

Behind him, an engine cranked loudly, failing to catch. LaRouche turned and found Jim in the driver’s seat of the pickup truck and Wilson riding shotgun. The pickup’s engine caught and ran roughly for a few seconds, but then it evened out. They both looked up at LaRouche and he nodded sternly to them, so Jim simply cranked the wheel hard to the left and completed a tight U-turn, then drove back toward the convoy.

They never asked LaRouche what he intended to do, nor expressed concern about him being by himself. They all knew that it wouldn’t do them any good, because LaRouche had already made up his mind what he was going to do, and LaRouche was nothing if not mule-stubborn.

He slid into the driver’s seat of the van, putting his rifle in the passenger’s seat.

The keys were in the ignition. He cranked them and the van started up nicely.

He looked in the rearview mirror and saw the man still wedged in the back, murmuring something and wriggling around. LaRouche called out to him coldly, “Cool it back there. You might hurt yourself.” Then he pulled the shifter into drive and hit the gas.

EIGHT

THE LORD’S WORK

THE DRIVE WAS SHORT, but with each passing second, LaRouche’s mind delved deeper into some dark compaction at the core of himself. He stared straight ahead, colors turning to black and white, eyes drying, saliva turning thick in his mouth. The man in the back of the van prayed loudly for God to kill LaRouche, pled for his life, and finally offered LaRouche a high-ranking position in the Lord’s Army.

LaRouche never responded to any of it.

He pulled into the business park and drove behind it, taking the corners quickly and stomping alternately on the gas and the brake so that the tires squealed and chirped. He didn’t stop to remove the chain or open the gate to the warehouse where they’d slept the night before; he simply rammed it with the van and skidded to a stop in front of the rolling doors, which still stood open from their departure earlier.

He stepped out of the van and stopped for a moment, his hand moving to his stomach, the tension in his shoulders seeming to falter for a moment as he dipped his head and swallowed hard. The burning sensation reached up from his stomach, through his chest, and into his throat. His mouth watered, threatening vomit, but he forced it down again. The burning subsided to a dull ache in his gut.

He growled and straightened himself up, then proceeded to the back of the van. He pulled open the doors and looked at the sack of flesh lying before him. The man looked back and found no comfort in LaRouche’s eyes, just a cold indifference. And maybe a hint of regret that was more frightening than anything LaRouche could have said.

LaRouche reached in and grabbed the man, pulled him out of the van and onto his feet. He noticed for the first time that the man’s wrists were bound with one of their rifle straps—either Jim’s or Wilson’s. He took hold of the man’s arm and walked him briskly into the warehouse. In the center of the space, he looked up at the rafters and I-beams overhead and stopped.

He kicked the man in the back of the knee, sprawling him on the concrete floor. He pointed at him. “Don’t move,” he said.

He took a few steps away to a pile of rope on the floor. It looked to be a suitable length. He dragged it over to his prisoner, looped one end under his armpits and around his chest, then cinched a knot behind his back.

The man watched him work, his face blank. “What are you doing?”

LaRouche shook his head, avoiding eye contact with the man. His emotions were like sediment that time and pressure had turned into a brick, and now it lodged in his chest—hard, and dull, and uncomfortable. Something that needed to be purged from him.

He took the opposite end of the long rope and slung it high above his head, where it looped over one of the rafters. He fed the rope upward until the end dangled down low enough for him to grab, and then he yanked up the slack.

“Get up,” he ordered.

The man complied, not really showing any true fear anymore, as though he had resigned himself to what was coming. LaRouche yanked the rope until the man stood up straight as a board, then tied it to the loop around his chest so that if the man were to lift his feet, he would simply dangle from the rafters like a crude ornament.

“You can’t hurt me.” The man closed his eyes. “God is my strength.”

LaRouche walked to the front of the man, hands on his hips, and looked at him until he opened his eyes again. They were feral eyes. Ignorant and wanton.

“What’s your name?”

The man’s nostrils flared and he looked around as though hoping for something that would show him a way out of the situation he was in.

“What’s your name?” LaRouche repeated.

His eyes shifted back to LaRouche. “Willie.”

“Well, Willie.” LaRouche scratched his cheek. “You can call me ‘Sarge,’ and how about we start off this relationship with a little bit of honesty. How’s that sound?”

Willie swallowed. “Okay.”

“Yeah, okay.” LaRouche folded his arms. “I’m gonna hurt you, Willie. I’m gonna hurt you bad. Until the sun goes down in about seven hours. And then I’m gonna kill you. But before that, I’m gonna try a bunch of different stuff. Find out what you can’t handle. Maybe it’s being burned. Maybe it’s having your toes crushed. Maybe it’s”—LaRouche made cutting motions with his index finger—“having the skin on the soles of your feet flayed off. Make you walk around on the gravel out there.”

The man closed his eyes and began to murmur something unintelligible.

“You prayin’?” LaRouche leaned forward and raised his voice. “Oh, you’ll have hours to talk to God, my friend. Listen to me for a minute of the precious seven hours that remain of your life.”

The man’s mouth stopped moving, but his eyes wouldn’t open.

LaRouche sidled closer to the man. “Open your eyes, Willie. Take a good look around. Because the second you can’t see the sun anymore, you get a bullet in the brain. However, if at any point in time you want me to cut you down and leave you alone, all you have to do is tell me every damn thing you know about the Followers. Do you understand how this works?”

Willie opened his eyes. “God will avenge me.”

LaRouche nodded. “I know He will.”

He found the convoy where he’d left them. As the brown passenger van rolled around the corner, turrets swung in his direction and rifles poked out menacingly from the windows. He slowed and stopped behind the column of vehicles and put the van in park.

A few of the people still stared suspiciously at the van, but from the front of the column, Wilson and Jim appeared, walking side by side. Wilson’s rifle hung from its sling, relaxed. Jim carried his rifle by hand, the muzzle pointed toward the ground. It must’ve been his rifle strap that they’d used to secure Willie’s hands behind his back.

LaRouche sat in the van, watching the two men approach. They hollered to the members of the convoy, though LaRouche couldn’t hear what they said. He could see their placating gestures, and he watched the rifle barrels disappear back into the vehicles and the big .50-caliber guns lifted and turned away.

The acid in his stomach felt like it was creeping up his esophagus again. He could picture it hissing and bubbling as it ate away his insides into nothing, creating that ache, sometimes dull, sometimes hot. He touched the bottom of his throat, pressed in with his fingers as though he could stop the advance of the sensation, pinch it off before it consumed his tongue.

As Jim and Wilson rounded the last vehicle, he forced himself to move, reached up and pulled the door latch, popping it and swinging it open. Exhaustion—mental, physical, and emotional—hung on him like a wet coat, chafing and weighing him down. With effort, he slid out of the driver’s seat and stood up, hand still on the door, trying not to appear like he was leaning on it.

Jim and Wilson looked at his face with concern, but when he exited the vehicle, their eyes dropped to his shirt, the dirty, old white T-shirt he wore under his jacket, and the concern left them, replaced with horror.

“Holy shit,” Wilson said quietly.

Jim was more reserved, gathering his words for a moment while LaRouche reached back into the car and retrieved his jacket, his chest rig, and his rifle. Finally, Jim took a step closer. “LaRouche, what the heck happened?”

LaRouche just reached out, handed Jim his rifle strap back.

Jim took it, stared at it, then looked back up at LaRouche’s clothing.

LaRouche pulled on his jacket. He looked down at his shirt as he fumbled with the zipper. The dingy white was splattered and dotted with blood—the kind of splatter that comes from being very close to a bloody mass when it is severely beaten. He zipped up his jacket, indifferent to the blood he wore.

He swung his rifle and his chest rig onto his shoulder. “We’ve got some things to talk about.”

“Where’s the guy we captured?” Jim asked, his voice a point-blank shot aimed at stopping LaRouche in his tracks.

LaRouche looked at Jim, stood face-to-face with him, perhaps a little closer than necessary. “Why do you care? What difference does it make to you?”

“Because I wanna know that you didn’t kill him.”

LaRouche’s eyes flickered around Jim’s face, as though searching for a weakness. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but then closed it again. He turned away from the ex-priest and began walking. “We can talk about it later.”

Wilson and Jim exchanged a glance, but they followed.

“I… uh…” LaRouche’s hand went to the bottom of his throat again. “I got some information on the Followers. Stuff like…” He swallowed a couple times. “Like…” Finally, his pace faltered at the back of one of the LMTVs and he put a hand out, gripping the cold metal of the back end.

“You all right?” Wilson put a hand on his shoulder.

LaRouche waved him off. “Yeah… I’m fine.”

Then he doubled over and heaved, thin yellow vomit streaming out of his mouth and splashing onto the pale asphalt. The burn had traveled all the way up his throat now and invaded his mouth and his sinuses. He could feel the wetness of the vomit under his nose, still clinging to his mustache. A tendril of it swung from his lips and finally fell into the small puddle he’d created.

He stared down at it. There wasn’t much to it—just stomach acid, really. But in the fluid were ribbons and clots of red that stood out against the pale concrete.

“Jesus,” Wilson whispered. “Is that blood?”

LaRouche hauled himself upright again, wiped at his mouth with his sleeve. “Don’t worry about it,” he growled and began walking again.

“LaRouche.” Jim spoke evenly. “If there’s something wrong with you, don’t ignore it.”

“There’s nothing wrong with me.” He looked back at the other two. “Just a little heartburn or whatever. Just drop it. We’ve got bigger things to worry about. Can we focus on those for right now?”

They relented, following him to the lead Humvee and gathering at the hood where LaRouche leaned tiredly on the brush guard and the others stood around him in a tight circle. LaRouche hocked and spat. “Any infected?”

Wilson looked out toward the surrounding countryside. “Not really. We’ve been hearing them calling to each other out in the woods, but we haven’t seen any yet. They don’t seem to be getting too close.”

“How’s the little girl?”

Jim shrugged. “You know…”

LaRouche didn’t, really. But he said nothing. He shucked the rifle and chest rig off his shoulder and onto the hood. He looked off momentarily, eyes hazy and unfocused for a moment. He took a deep breath and sharpened up again. “This problem with the Followers is worse than we thought.”

“How so?” Jim asked.

LaRouche began pulling his map out of his chest rig and unfolding it. “This isn’t just a crazy-ass group of religious radicals out randomly hitting targets. These guys look like they know what they’re doing, and it looks like they’re not going to settle for just pillaging the eastern half of North Carolina. They’re intentionally expanding.” LaRouche laid out the map on the hood of the Humvee and looked up at Jim and Wilson. “And they’re doing it quickly and strategically.”

He put a hand in the center of the map to keep it from blowing away. “Our guy—Willie—wasn’t an ideal candidate for… questioning. He was only a soldier. Former drug addict, petty criminal, general shit-bag. His information was limited, but I guess it’s better than nothing. I know more than I did. Probably more than I wanted.”

“Any reason he would be exaggerating?”

LaRouche shrugged but didn’t answer immediately. Finally, he simply said, “He was telling the truth.” He gathered himself again and pointed to a little dot on the map labeled in almost unreadable lettering. “This little town right here, Vanceboro, it was a settlement of survivors for the last few months but the Followers just recently busted it. They’ve set up a base camp there, and that’s where our guy was working out of.”

Jim lifted his head. “How many?”

LaRouche tapped his finger. “Only about a hundred there.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad,” Wilson said, his voice pleasantly surprised.

“Key word was ‘there.’ ” LaRouche spread his palms across the map. “There are four other bases, each approximately the same size as Vanceboro, but Willie didn’t know where they were.”

“Shit.” Wilson rubbed his chin. “That’s five hundred people.”

“Probably more.” LaRouche pointed to another city, this one on the coast, at the point of one of the inlets that jagged into North Carolina. “All of this shit started in New Bern. According to Willie, that used to be their headquarters, but with the expansion west, they’ve established a new headquarters farther inland. He couldn’t tell me where and swore he’d never been there. But he says they’re constantly shipping whatever they capture back there.”

Wilson frowned. “Why move the headquarters?”

LaRouche rubbed the back of his head. No answer.

Wilson continued. “I’m just saying… if you have a secure headquarters, you don’t move it. Unless your supply lines to the front are becoming compromised. But even then, you just set up a FOB. You don’t move your fucking headquarters.”

LaRouche shrugged. “Well, their boss is a preacher, not a soldier. And maybe he’s got a good reason to move the headquarters inland. Maybe he’s having trouble along the coast.”

“So what’s this guy’s name?” Wilson folded his arms over themselves. “The guy who came up with all of this shit?”

“Marty Wiscoe,” Jim said, his expression souring. “I heard of him before all this. Actually watched a few of his televangelist programs because he was creating quite the stir. Very controversial. He and his congregation made a habit of showing up to protest soldiers’ funerals. Something about gays in the military—he was violently antigay. His entire talking point was about how evil the United States had become and how the evil had to be purged.” Jim sniffed. “A lot of talk of killing whores and gays to purify the nation. Very Old Testament stuff.”

LaRouche nodded. “Well, it doesn’t sound like much has changed. That’s pretty much the load of shit I got from Willie. But Willie was no true believer. He was just a henchman taking advantage of the situation—drinking the Kool-Aid so he could get a piece of the spoils.”

“I’m afraid to ask what the spoils are.” Jim sighed.

LaRouche cleared his throat. “It’s exactly what you think it is. Their whole fucking philosophy is that this plague is a curse from God, and the only way to get things back to normal is to purify the country. Part of that is reproducing and creating a ‘holy society.’ The women from all the settlements they take over are forced into some sort of…” LaRouche struggled to find the right word. “Harem, I guess. They rotate through until they’re pregnant, and then they’re removed.” LaRouche rubbed a bit of dried blood from his hand. “Apparently up until that point, they’re starved, beaten, treated like shit, not to mention being raped every goddamned night. But when they get pregnant, they’re treated like royalty. Little extra incentive for them to create the holy society, I guess.”

“Jesus, that is so fucked up.” Wilson shook his head.

LaRouche couldn’t get the blood off completely and buried his hand in his pocket as though to hide it there. “Yeah. It is.”

Jim took a breath to speak, but a howl in the distance made all three of their heads snap to the north. They stood there, not moving, not breathing, for a long moment, just staring into the gray woods across the road from them. It had not been close, but it had been startling enough.

Wilson broke the silence with a nervous chuckle. “They’ve been doing that all day.”

“Are they getting any closer?” LaRouche asked.

Wilson looked at Jim, who shrugged. “Dunno,” Wilson admitted. “Can’t really tell.”

Jim refocused the conversation. “So what the heck were they doing when we interrupted them?”

LaRouche shifted his weight. “That would be their initiation, if you want to call it that. When the Followers come knocking, they round everybody up in the center of the settlement. The head honcho leading that raiding party stands up and tells everyone that they have to purify the nation. Then they take all the women and children away. The men are given the choice to join or die. Those who join are forced to crucify those who refuse.” LaRouche sneered. “Same thing warlords in Africa do. You force a man to commit an atrocity that bad, he starts to think no place else will be able to look past his sins. He starts to think there’s no place else to go. And then you get yourself a loyal soldier, willing to kill and rape and pillage whenever you tell him to, as long as you tell him it’s okay.”

Jim stood with his arms overlapped, one hand up, holding tightly to his face as though to help contain himself. He removed his hand and his lips were pale and thin underneath. “What are we going to do about this?”

“What are we gonna do?” LaRouche looked at him like he’d just asked if the sky was blue. “We’re gonna do our goddamned best to skirt around these fuckers. The less contact we have with them, the better.” He threw a sharp glance in Wilson’s direction. “We got lucky this time, but don’t expect it to stay that way. These guys have been ruling the roost for the past few months, and they let their guard down a little bit. It ain’t gonna happen again.”

Jim looked surprised. “So we’re just gonna let this continue to happen? Turn a blind eye?”

LaRouche dropped his hands to his sides. “Are you fucking serious right now? What the hell do you want us to do, Jim? We’re only twelve guys—eleven now that Lucky’s gone. Against five hundred? Possibly more?”

Jim threw a hand out toward an imagined enemy. “We can’t just let them do this! We can’t just leave all those people to be victimized! All the women and children—”

“No!” LaRouche stood up and pointed a finger in Jim’s face. “You are not gonna guilt-trip me on this shit, Jim! I don’t care about your priestly duties or your goddamned Christian sensibilities. Have you completely forgotten what we’re here to do? We were given a mission, and we’re gonna fucking complete it. If you can’t get on board with that, then what the fuck are you doing here?” LaRouche turned and slammed his fist on the hood of the Humvee. “Fuck it! I know exactly what you’re doing here. Fucking making my life miserable—scratch that—more miserable.”

Jim jutted out his chin and his eyes narrowed, his face fading quickly from his usual pleasantness to a very unusual look of anger. He took two deep breaths and spoke as calmly as he could. “What happened to Willie?”

LaRouche’s face contorted with confusion. “What?”

“The guy we captured. What happened to him?”

The two men stared at each other. Both of them angry, both of them unyielding.

Finally, LaRouche spoke, and the words came out like barbs—meant to stick and inflict pain. “I beat him, Jim. I beat him bad. Broke his bones, actually.” LaRouche’s hands balled into fists. “And I hadn’t even asked him a question yet. Then I used the cigarette lighter from the van to burn him until he was begging me to ask him a question. So I asked my questions. And when I got my answers, I killed him.” He put a single finger to the center of his chest. “I put one right there.”

There were tears in Jim’s eyes, but there was no pity in them. It was still just anger. “You killed an unarmed man. Tortured him and killed him.”

LaRouche nodded. “Yes. I did.”

Jim stepped closer. “Do you think you would have ever done something like that before all of this? Do you think you had it in you?” He threw his hands up. “What the hell is wrong with you? Do you think that because there’s no law that right and wrong have ceased to exist? Do you think that just because things are falling apart, you have carte blanche to act like an animal? What’s happening to us? What’s happening to you?”

For a split second, LaRouche thought he might tackle the man and beat him to death, pound his head into the pavement until there was nothing left. But as quickly as that thought came to him, it scared him, because it seemed to give bitter credence to every word that the ex-priest had just said. Something was wrong with him. Something hard and ugly was taking root.

Any words he might have said in that moment were silenced by another howl, this time coming from the opposite direction and much closer. The three men only took a moment to look in that direction, the argument suddenly forgotten.

Then LaRouche grabbed his rifle and chest rig from the hood of the Humvee. “I think we’ve been sitting in one place too long. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

NINE

CAPTIVE

THE HOOD STIFLED HIM. Lee’s breath was warm and moist inside, and it smelled rank from the blood left on his tongue. He could barely breathe through his broken nose and so had to huff through his mouth, which had grown parched. Though everything under the hood was hot and swampy, the rest of his body was cold, save only for the outside of his right leg, where Deuce was lying.

He sat against something, but he couldn’t tell what. Something metallic, like a car or a large piece of machinery. His hands were still bound, though they’d clipped off the zip ties and replaced them with duct tape. The skin was chafing and becoming painful. The upside was that they were bound in the front, which allowed him to easily manipulate things.

If only he could see to manipulate them.

He could hear the quiet murmur of voices nearby. A fire too, the twigs and branches crackling and popping loudly, and if Lee outstretched his cold, bare hands, he could just faintly feel the warmth of the fire. He tried to estimate the distance, thinking it was perhaps fifteen or twenty feet from him, but he wasn’t sure what difference it made. Maybe he was just trying to distract himself.

He tried to listen to the conversation, but the words were spoken in the low tones of conspiring thieves, and he could only make out a few words in each sentence—not enough to make sense or to get a gist of what they were talking about.

He tried to stretch his senses out beyond the stifling hood, to hear if there were others, perhaps someone closer to him who guarded him and remained quiet. But if there was, he was extremely disciplined. Lee could hear neither breath, nor scrape of boots, nor rustle of fabric to give anyone away.

Just the voices and the muted warmth of the fire, about fifteen or twenty feet in front of him.

They seemed to speak in turn, rarely talking over each other, so that it became difficult to figure their numbers. He had to assume there were at least as many as had captured him in the neighborhood, which meant five. But there might be more. Maybe there were people who had stayed behind to guard the campsite while the others went out to scavenge.

He could feel the creeping coldness of fever overtaking him. It slid between all the other discomforts like mortar between bricks of misery. He had to assume it was his head wound. The infection finally setting in. He couldn’t expect his captors to provide him with antibiotics or to give a shit that without them the infection would go systemic and he could very well die. His own body was a clock ticking against him.

He staved off the desire to sleep, because he feared the ensuing confusion when he awoke, feared that it might cost him an opportunity to escape. His mind worked, pinballing among his worries. Time stretched interminably and he had no way to gauge it, only knew that it was passing him by and that he could not afford one second of it lost.

He sat here while Eddie Ramirez escaped with his GPS.

Lee’s tenuous thread, which still connected him with the possibility of victory, was being stretched and stretched and overburdened. Eventually Eddie’s trail would be cold, if it was not cold already, and then that thread would have snapped and Lee’s ability to access his bunkers, to provide for the survivors, to put some semblance of life back together in the region, would all be gone as quickly as if it were a daydream.

Without that GPS, Lee was just another survivor. He could run and gun with the best of them, but in the end, that’s all his life would amount to: running and gunning. And eventually, inevitably, dying.

Footsteps approached.

He clenched his fists, held his breath, and tightened his stomach, forcing blood into his extremities and hoping it would put some life back into his frozen fingers, in case he needed them to be nimble in the next few seconds. It also forced blood into his head. Helped increase mental focus, so he’d been told.

Deuce growled.

The footsteps hesitated.

Lee reached to his right, touched the dog’s flanks, felt the animal’s bristling tension relax just a bit.

A female’s voice: “That thing gonna bite?”

“I don’t know,” Lee said simply. “Haven’t been around him that long.”

“If he bites me, I’m shooting him.”

She’s got a gun on her, Lee noted, mentally arraying his playable cards out in front of him. Look for the gun.

To the female, he said, “I think you’ll be okay.”

Another footstep, slower this time.

Deuce remained silent.

The hood came off with a swish of coarse fabric.

The air outside was brutally cold and stung his lungs and dried his lips to cracking, all in a single breath. It was filled with the heavy smells of oil and grease and old engine parts, and it made him think of Camp Ryder, though the smell was much stronger here.

His gaze went rapidly left to right, soaking in his surroundings, trying to imprint them behind his eyes. He was in some sort of mechanic’s shop, a few hydraulic lifts directly in front of him. An old car sat on one, an abandoned project from another time. Engine parts were scattered around, rolling toolboxes posted here and there like headstones. Lee himself leaned against a cabinet, he discovered, though he wasn’t sure what it contained.

Directly in front of him knelt the woman—or girl, really—from the van. She regarded him with skeptical eyes, and he knew just from the look on her face that Shumate had been telling stories. It struck him as odd in that moment that Shumate would not have secured him better, knowing firsthand his abilities to escape. But he also supposed that Shumate had no way of knowing that Lee had escaped of his own cunning and not with the help of a third party.

Lee would take what luck he could get.

“So,” the girl said mildly. “You’re some kind of captain?”

Lee eyed her in response, not quite sure how to answer her question.

“You’re, like, some type of special soldier? Like a Navy SEAL or something?”

Lee dropped his eyes. “I don’t know what Shumate’s been telling you.” His voice was hoarse. “Maybe he’s got me mixed up with someone else.”

“Well, you recognized him, didn’t you?”

Lee licked his lips. His tongue wasn’t wet enough to transfer moisture. He decided to change the subject. “Do you have any water?”

Her eyes mocked him with some dark amusement, but she held up a bottle of water. “Take it. Drink it. Give it back to me.”

He took the bottle and drank greedily, the plastic snapping and popping as he emptied it. The dark-haired girl watched him but didn’t seem to notice that while he drank he also watched her. His eyes traveled rapidly across her body, absorbing what information he could.

Knife clipped to the pocket of her pants.

The butt of her pistol protruded from the front of her jeans.

The girl was petite, would have been petite even before the collapse, and now was petite and slightly malnourished. The bones of her wrists stood out like a bird’s, her cheeks sunken. Her neck seemed barely thicker than his arm. Four months ago, the thought probably would not have crossed his mind, but nowadays, savagery was survival, and he thought to himself, I could snap that skinny little neck. So easily…

He finished the bottle and handed it back to her. The water sloshed unpleasantly in his stomach, but at least it was there. He raised his chin toward her. “So, what are you? The slave around here?”

Her head cocked just slightly, but otherwise she gave no indication of surprise at his question. Which meant there was some truth to it. Or she was a much cooler customer than Lee had suspected.

“What’s your name?”

She thought about it for a moment. “Michelle. They call me Shelley.”

He shifted his wrists inside their bindings. “Shelley, what are you doing with guys like this?”

She glanced back at them. Something unpleasant flickered across her face. “Just trying to survive.”

“You friends with these guys?”

Hesitation. “Sure.”

“They treat you as an equal?”

Her eyes narrowed. She didn’t answer.

“Could you walk away at any time?” He leaned his head back and rested it on the cold metal cabinet that propped him up. “Are you free to come and go as you please? You’re just here because you like these guys so much?”

She cleared her throat. “I don’t know what kind of mind games—”

“Just asking,” Lee interrupted.

They stared at each other for several beats, her dark eyes searching his face, not giving up much of the thoughts that lay behind her own.

“Will you answer a question honestly?” he asked.

She pursed her lips. Nodded slowly.

He paused, then spoke. “If you were given the chance to leave, would you take it?”

She blinked twice, broke eye contact, looked for something else to stare at, and found a bit of dirt on her hands to worry about. Almost under her breath, she said, “You think you could help me?”

Lee sat forward, checked over her shoulder again to see if the others were still not paying attention. His pulse was suddenly pounding. “We can both get out of here,” he whispered.

Her voice was blank. “They… uh… they just do whatever they want with me.”

Lee cringed. “Shelley…”

She looked at him fiercely. “I need to get away from here.”

Lee reached forward, just slightly, extended his fingers until they touched hers. “Help me.”

She stared at his hands, at his bindings.

He pushed them forward just a bit more to make his point clearer. “Help me. Help me so I can help you.” Lee looked up from his bindings at the men around the campfire, nervous that even their low, breathy whispers would garner attention.

When he looked back, Shelley was smiling.

Amused.

Lee felt instantly cold.

“What fucking world do you live in?” she said, her voice maintaining its secretive tone. She leaned into him until their faces were intimately close. “You think you’re some kind of white knight who’s going to ride up and rescue a damsel in distress? You’re a fucking idiot.” She mimicked wiping tears from her eyes and her voice took on a babyish, mocking quality. “Oh, these bad guys are raping me! Won’t some big strong man come and save me?”

Her wiry little hand shot out and seized him by the jaw, the fingernails digging in like claws. “You think I give a fuck that I have to give up some snatch so I can roll with the big dogs instead of getting eaten by them? We all have a part to play. I play mine very well, and all my boys can confirm that. It keeps me warm, and fed, and safe.” She smiled sweetly. “What else could a girl want?”

He ripped his face out of her grip and glared. He wanted to tell her that she was fucked in the head, but no matter how true he thought those words were, he wasn’t sure it was the wisest thing to say. He kept his mouth shut.

She stood up and reached into the back pocket of her khaki pants, producing a can of tuna that she held out at arm’s length and dropped unceremoniously between his legs. “There’s your dinner, hero.” She leaned over and spat, the little white globule landing perfectly atop the can. “Hope you got a can opener.” She turned and walked away, mumbling under her breath, “Shithead.”

“Damn!”

Lee looked up and found Shumate standing there with a little smirk on his face, his hands clasped together as though he were about to begin clapping. He stood a few feet away and watched Shelley walk past, back toward the fire. He shook his head, then turned his face back to Lee and rolled his eyes, as though it was all some hilarious inside joke. As if to say, Oh, that Shelley! She gets ’em every time!

“Here.” Shumate stepped to Lee, pulling a knife out of his pocket and kneeling down. “Let me help you with that.” He stuck the knife into the top of the can of tuna, not bothering to wipe off the spittle. He worked the knife around the edge of the can, then pried open the rough edge, almost handed it over to Lee, then seemed to think better of it and removed the sharp top.

He handed the disarmed can of tuna to Lee. “Can’t be too careful with you. You know what they say and all: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, and I’d have to slit your fuckin’ throat.”

Lee dipped his dirty fingers into the tuna, pinching the fibrous meat and bringing it to his mouth. It was salty and fishy and seemed like the best thing he’d ever tasted. After he’d taken two bites, he swallowed and hesitated before going further. He evaluated the ex-lawman kneeling across from him.

He seemed much harder. Much rougher. But then again, everyone was like that. If you had made it this far, if you had lived this long past the collapse, then you were probably much harder and rougher. This world was no fine-grit sandpaper. It did not polish you. It chiseled you. Left your edges coarse and sharp.

“What happened to your face?” Lee asked flatly.

Shumate shrugged. “It’s a long story. But then again, you’re not going anywhere, are you?”

Lee worked a bit of tuna out of the gap where his tooth used to be. “Doesn’t look like it.”

“Well.” Shumate looked off. “You remember a few months ago when I was leading a group of survivors over there in Smithfield, just mindin’ my own damn business? When out of the blue, this asshole shows up and simultaneously ruins everything I built and leads a goddamned billion infected to my front door?”

Shumate rubbed the slight crease between his lower lip and chin, his false good humor gone. “You know, I barely made it out of there alive?”

“We all barely made it out of there alive.”

“Funny, you still have your face.”

Lee regarded the can of tuna in his hands, somehow no longer hungry.

“I’m getting ahead of myself.” Shumate rolled his hands over each other, like the wheel of a steamboat backing up. “So there I am. The power goes out in the hospital, all the doors open, and every fucking infected within five square miles is running freely through the halls of my little building that I”—he made an angry noise and punched one fist into the other—“I tried so hard to keep safe. And of course, you know, Milo was there—now that guy was a fucking asshole—and he wasn’t a whole helluva lot of help. And everyone else seems to have forgotten about li’l ol’ me, because they’ve all gone to run off with the great, big, strapping army hero”—he pointed at Lee—“goddamned Captain America over here.”

Shumate mused for a moment, then continued. “So I’m all by myself, scared out of my mind and running up the stairs because there’s no place else to run. And the whole time I just keep thinking, ‘I should have done this a long time ago. I should have been looking out for number one.’ ” He chuckled bitterly. “You see, all these years I’ve just been a faithful public servant, working my ass off, putting myself on the line for a bullshit salary, so that other people could chase the American dream in safety.”

He looked at Lee, his face open and honest. “I know that you’re thinking, ‘This guy’s a shit-bag now; he must’ve been a shit-bag then.’ But I wasn’t. I was a good goddamned cop. Never took a penny that wasn’t mine. Never cheated on shit. Never lied. Never handled anyone rougher than I needed to.” He touched his chest as though feeling the badge that was no longer there. “I believed in that shit. But somewhere between the fourth floor and the roof of that hospital, I realized it was all bullshit. Because people are animals, and animals will take advantage of anything they can. They will use the shit out of you, and then leave you high and dry as soon as it becomes inconvenient for them to stick around.

“So I decided to start looking out for me, because clearly no one else was going to. I reached the roof and I thought I was gonna be able to close the door in time, but one of them got through. He was just some kid, maybe fifteen years old, but he grabbed ahold of me and I couldn’t get him off. I fought him, tried to shoot him, lost my gun, tried to stab him, lost my knife.” His hand went to his face. “He got his fucking teeth in me. Right there. Right on the jaw. And he just bit down and started shaking his head like a dog. Next thing I know, half my face is missing.”

Lee was unconvinced. “You were bit?”

“Can I finish my story?” Shumate asked. “Anyway, I manage to get this fucker over to the roof and push him off. He goes down—splat. Then I’m on the roof by myself and, I’ll admit, I am freaking out a bit. I mean, I just got bit in the face. How could I not die? The amazing part about this shit? I actually got sick.” Shumate chuffed. “Got sick, like, eight hours after getting bit. Raging fever, hallucinations, delusions. Then by the time morning broke, I was better. Weirdest thing ever.

“So morning breaks, I realize that not only am I not infected, but all the infected that chased me onto the roof are all gone. So I just waltz down through the hospital, gathering weapons and supplies from dead bodies as I go. I make it out, and I head for the countryside. Figured it would be the safest place for me. Met the rest of these fuckers on the road and we all decided there was some safety in numbers, so we decided to stick together.

“But enough about me.” Shumate ran his fingers delicately across the mottled scar tissue of his face, wrinkled oddly at the corners of his smile. “What happened to you? You look like shit. What happened to all your ‘supplies’? Thought you had a bunch of food and water and guns? Now you’re out wandering around a neighborhood like a homeless man. Starving. Thirsty. No weapons.” He shrugged. “Looks like all your followers abandoned you.”

Lee glanced up at the man hovering over him, but otherwise he gave no sign that Shumate’s words had perturbed him. He returned his attention to the can of tuna in his hand, now with a little less than half of the meat left. He scooped it out and held it down to Deuce, where it magically disappeared with a flourish of the dog’s tongue.

“Giving half your food to the dog,” Shumate observed. “That’s heartwarming.”

Lee just kept looking at the dog. “You have to take care of the things that keep you alive, Shumate.”

“Mmm.” Shumate touched his chin, as though pondering it. “You were about to tell me why you’re running around out there all by yourself.”

“It’s complicated,” Lee said.

“Oh, I’m sure it is.”

Lee set the can of tuna down. “What the fuck do you want from me?”

Shumate feigned shock. “I want you to tell me how you came to be here, bound up and beat to hell.”

“Someone tried to kill me.”

“Who?”

“Guy named Eddie.”

“Hmm.”

“He took something from me.”

“Uh-oh.”

“I’m going to get it back.”

“Big talk for someone with his wrists tied together.”

Lee ground his teeth and glared. “Make a fucking joke, Shumate. But the more time you keep playing games, the worse the situation becomes.” He shook his head. “We’re on a fucking clock and we don’t have much time left. You think you’re getting some sweet revenge over some grudge you’ve been carrying, but I don’t give a shit. There are things happening much bigger than whatever happened between you and me.”

Shumate nodded. “Says the guy who has everything to gain by being cut loose.”

Lee closed his mouth and looked off.

“Don’t stop now.” Shumate rubbed his hands together. “You were on a roll. It was just getting exciting. Go on. Tell me about the ticking clock.”

Lee shook his head.

Shumate snorted. He took the tin can from the floor and stood up. “I don’t really give a shit about you or your delusions of grandeur. You might be the savior of the world in your own mind, but in reality you’re just a sad little man, beaten down and close to dying, trying to scratch a few more days of existence from the universe.

“But.” Shumate held up a finger. “You could still serve a purpose.” He tossed the empty tuna can into the far corner of the garage. “So far we’ve only been able to scavenge from neighborhoods and apartment complexes. Haven’t really gone near the cities because of the hordes. But if you and your dog can smell the infected coming, then you might be useful to us.” He put his hands in his pockets. “If not, then I’m just gonna kill you and be done with it.”

He turned, took two steps, then looked back over his shoulder, tapping his head. “And I won’t miss.”

TEN

PROBABILITIES

JACOB SAT IN HIS ROOM, scribbling madly into a notebook. He’d been given one of the patient rooms on the third floor, and he shared that floor with Doc Hamilton and the two guards posted to them. Which made them the only regular residents at Johnston Memorial Hospital. If someone got hurt badly enough, they’d be shipped over there and stay on the third floor for a while, but right now it was just them.

Jacob stopped writing and looked up at the single lantern glowing on his desk. He stared at the little LEDs, that tiny filament encased in plastic. Blue-white when it shone. Lighting up his circle of existence—a card table that acted as a desk, strewn about with notes. Papers with endless strings of cramped writing on them, sketches of chemical compounds and the formation of bacteria in the bloodstream. Papers on the walls, pinned up by thumbtacks. Complete chaos, it seemed. But Jacob knew where everything was.

Right now, though, his entire world revolved around the notepad in his hand. It was the center of his existence.

A compendium of bad news.

He kept staring at it, then closing his eyes and shaking his head. A moment later he would open his eyes again, stare at what he had written, and the cycle would repeat. Like he didn’t want to believe his own conclusions. And maybe he didn’t have to. They weren’t proven, after all. Just theories. Perhaps there were other explanations for what he’d observed. Something he just hadn’t thought of yet.

He set down the notebook.

“Bad news,” he said quietly into the darkness.

Outside of his room, someone ran down the hall.

Jacob stared at his door, irritated.

A banging noise. Shouting.

“What the hell…” Jacob threw himself out of his chair and stalked to his door. He ripped it open and stepped out into the hall. He looked left, saw nothing but the row of unused hospital equipment lying derelict along the wall. Then he looked right and saw one of the guards, banging on Doc Hamilton’s door.

“Doc! Hey! We got a problem!”

“What’s going on?” Jacob asked.

The guard turned to him, eyes excited. “Whole group of survivors coming in. Maybe a dozen. Coming straight for the hospital.”

Doc Hamilton opened his door, looking bleary-eyed. “What the hell is your problem?”

The guard repeated himself.

Doc looked over at Jacob. “Well, we can’t take them here.”

“Why not?” Jacob asked. “What if they’re friendly?”

“I don’t give a shit whether they’re friendly or not.” Doc reached back inside his room and grabbed his jacket. “This ain’t Captain Harden’s mess anymore. We’re not going out and wasting our resources on every Jim, Jack, and Sally with a sob story. And I’m not the only one who thinks that way.” Doc pulled his arms through the jacket and gave Jacob a stern look. “Trust me, Jacob. You’re already on the line with Jerry. Don’t piss him off anymore.”

“How would he even find out?” Jacob said with a mild tone.

Doc just shook his head. “Don’t be a smart-ass, Jacob. It doesn’t become you.”

Doc exited his room and followed the guard down the hall. They passed by Jacob’s room, neither of them looking at him. So was the strange dynamic with them and Jacob. They wanted his knowledge, wanted his help learning about the FURY bacteria. But they also knew he wasn’t with them. He’d been with Captain Harden and Bus, which made him a pariah of sorts.

Jacob had already been through this rigmarole. The day after Jerry seized Camp Ryder, he’d sent his goon squad—Greg, Arnie, and Kyle—to have a chat with Jacob about loyalties and bullshit like that. Jacob had stared blankly, not really absorbing any of the speech that Greg gave him, but clear that it was meant to intimidate him into silence and subservience.

At the end, Jacob had just looked all three men in the eyes and made it very clear that his concern was getting information from the test subject they had captured, and he didn’t really care what regime he gave that information to.

This was a bit of an untruth, because he did care. But he also didn’t see how telling them that would benefit him. At least now they left him alone, didn’t hang over his shoulder. Now he had freedom to move about, and for the most part they believed him. They believed he was purely motivated by scientific curiosity.

It was interesting how everyone overlooked the endless weeks he’d spent on the road, by himself, fighting his way from Virginia to North Carolina. They only saw his bookish features and quiet demeanor. Perhaps that was an advantage.

He leaned on his door as Doc and the guard disappeared into the stairwell. He looked behind him at the little card table that acted as his desk. Stared at the notebook lying open there on the table. After a minute, he walked over to it. Put his finger on the page, tap-tap-tapping it against the paper.

He weighed. He considered. Options. Implications. Like trying to see into the future, see which roads were most probable. Which ones led to success and which to failure. Was there really any way to tell, or did one just make an educated guess and hope for the best?

Jacob left the desk behind him. He walked out of the door and down the hall to the stairs. He moved quickly but calmly. He descended two flights to the ground level. Even in the echoing stairwell, he could hear the rumblings down on the bottom floor. He could hear some people speaking loudly—that would most likely be Doc Hamilton and the guards—and a rumble of dissent underneath those clearer voices.

Jacob opened the door and looked out across the lobby. At one time this area had been a clutter of decomposing bodies left over from the days when the CDC and National Guard still shoved infected and injured people through the doors, containing them in the building and eventually leaving them to die. Now all the bodies had been removed and burned, but somehow the smell of them still tainted the air. If ghosts had a smell, Jacob was sure this was what they would smell like.

Like dust and mold and very faintly of rot.

On the other side of the lobby, the sliding glass doors were closed. It had already been explained to Jacob that the glass was bulletproof, and Doc Hamilton and the two guards stood on one side of the glass, confident they were protected, and they yelled to a small group of people that stood before the doors.

It looked like a few families. Some older folks. A few kids. Several harried-looking adults. If they were armed, Jacob couldn’t see it. They huddled around two pickup trucks, some of the children and elders still sitting in the bed, looking forlornly through the glass of the hospital doors. Two of the men stood at the door, receiving Doc’s hoarse commands.

“Turn around and go away!” Doc shouted through the glass. “We have nothing for you here.”

One of the men didn’t seem to be getting the message. He looked incredibly frustrated and his voice came through clearly even through the glass. “You don’t understand. We spoke to LaRouche! We spoke to his group two days ago! We gave them information about the Followers, to help them, and they told us that we could come here. We have people in need of medical attention, and we need food and water!”

“We’ve got none of those things here. Go away!”

“We were told that this was one of Captain Harden’s settlements. That you were working with him and Camp Ryder. Aren’t you supposed to help? Where’s Captain Harden? I want to talk to Captain Harden. Right the fuck now!”

Doc actually laughed at the man. “You were lied to, sir. Captain Harden is gone. He abandoned Camp Ryder two days ago and no one has seen him since. We’re no longer taking any other survivors, not here or at Camp Ryder! You’re on your own. Now get the fuck out of here or we’ll be forced to use violence!”

The man on the other side punched the glass door. “That’s fucking bullshit!”

Jacob had seen enough. He closed the door gently so as not to make a sound. He vaulted quickly up the three flights of stairs, taking them two at a time. He reached the top, breathing heavily, and ran to his room. He stopped just inside the door and looked at the notepad again. He grimaced, ran a shaky hand through his hair.

“You sure you wanna do this?” he said aloud. He’d developed a bad habit of debating verbally with himself while on the road from Virginia to North Carolina. Sometimes it was nice to trick yourself into thinking you had a friend. Sometimes it was nice to break up the silence.

“Do you have a choice?”

He considered his own question.

“I don’t feel like I do. I feel like this is the path that has the greatest chance of success.”

He nodded. “Then go with it. And do it quickly.”

He took a deep breath, blew it out so it puffed his cheeks. “Okay. We’re gonna do this.

“It’s okay; you’ve done this sort of thing before.”

He went to the corner of the room and grabbed the rifle there. “Yeah, but it’s hard to get used to.”

He checked the magazine, then checked the chamber. Just like Captain Mitchell had always taught him. He had a full thirty rounds, and one in the chamber. He flicked off the safety so he wouldn’t forget. Then he ran through the door to his room again. Down the hall with his heart pounding. Down the stairwell, slowing as he got to the bottom, softening his footfalls.

Beyond the door, the shouts had reached a different pitch.

Bordering on aggression.

Jacob didn’t stop to take a breath. He didn’t stop to think it over or to make sure he was doing the right thing. He knew that if he stopped, he would stop completely. And he’d already made up his mind. He’d already decided that this was the right thing to do. Or at least the thing with the highest probability of success.

He pulled open the door and slid through quietly. At the sliding glass doors, Doc Hamilton was screaming, with his face nearly pressed against the glass, while the two guards stood to either side, their rifles raised, though they knew they couldn’t shoot through the glass and into the crowd.

“Open the fucking door!” the man on the outside yelled, pounding it with his fists. “Let us talk to Captain Harden!”

Doc’s face was going red. “You’ve got ten seconds to get the fuck away from my door before I have my guys open up!”

Jacob raised his rifle.

His first shot went through the buttock of the guard to Doc Hamilton’s right. The man crumpled as the round dinged the ballistic glass and left behind a spattering of red. Another shot straight into the man’s midsection as he toppled over, his rifle falling out of his grip.

Jacob transitioned to the guard on the left. The guard was just beginning to realize what had happened and was in the process of turning. Jacob fired three times, got him with two of the shots, but the third went wide and clipped Doc Hamilton in the shoulder. The old man cried out in pain, clutching his shoulder and spinning around to face Jacob, eyes shimmering with fear.

Behind him, the people on the outside had fallen silent.

Jacob walked up at an even pace, rifle still trained on Doc’s chest.

“Jacob!” Doc shouted. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Jacob tilted his head just slightly at the question. “I’m trying to figure out whether or not to kill you.”

Doc slid down into a sitting position, his face going white. “Jacob…”

“I don’t see you being of any benefit to me. In fact, I see you lowering my odds of success.”

“Success at what?” Doc blubbered.

“Survival. For everyone. The human race as a species.” Jacob shook his head. “I see you as an impediment to that, Doc. I’m sorry to say it, but it’s true. We just don’t have the ability anymore to put up with people like you—liars, backstabbers, et cetera, et cetera.”

“I’m not…” Doc shook his head, beginning to sweat. “I’m not…”

“Shh,” Jacob said softly. “Don’t move.”

Doc remained still and Jacob shot him once, right on the bridge of the nose.

The crowd outside jumped at the sound of the gunshot. They gasped and drew back as Doc slumped. His right foot kept spasming, like he was attempting to point his toes. It went on like that for a few seconds, and then finally relaxed. Just the sound of blood dribbling onto the tile floors.

Jacob took a deep, shaky breath. He ported his rifle and went to the door, standing just to the side of Doc’s body. The man Doc had been in the shouting match with now stood back a good distance, clearly nervous about Jacob. But neither he nor his group made a run for it.

Jacob motioned him forward. Had to repeat the motion several times, like he was calling for a stubborn dog. Finally the man stepped forward, close enough for Jacob to be heard through the closed doors.

“You said that LaRouche sent you here?” Jacob asked.

The man hesitated, but then nodded. “Yeah. Where’s Captain Harden?”

Jacob shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s not here.”

The man looked around. “Why’d you kill those men?”

“They would have killed me.”

“The old guy wasn’t even armed.”

“No.” Jacob looked down at the body. “But he did some other things.”

The man’s fingers worked nervously. “So what now?”

“We have food and water,” Jacob said. “And medicine.”

This caught the other man’s attention again. He eyed Jacob up and down. “Okay.”

Jacob smiled, knowing that the man knew there was a catch. “You can have it, but not before I open these doors. And before I open these doors, you have to promise me something.”

A glance behind him, then, “What’s that?”

“There’s been a bit of infighting around here the last few days.”

“I can see that.”

“Some people don’t think we should help other groups, such as yourself. But I’ve got friends who side with me. And I need help finding them. If you help me find them, you can have whatever you can carry with you.”

“Are you a doctor?”

“I am, but probably not the kind you want. I can do some basic stuff, though.”

“Okay.” The man nodded. “You’ve got a deal.”

Jacob stepped away from the door. “I’ll be back in five minutes.”

He left the man outside, probably mystified and wondering what the hell he’d just agreed to. But the man never called out to Jacob as he walked away, and Jacob went back to the stairs, leaving behind him the dead bodies of Doc Hamilton and the two guards. He climbed the stairs steadily. Went onto the third floor and into his room. He grabbed the rucksack he’d taken from Captain Mitchell that still contained everything Jacob owned in the world—he still hadn’t emptied it completely after moving to Johnston Memorial Hospital.

He stuffed everything into the pack, which was only an extra pair of pants, a battered pair of boots, and a collection of solid color T-shirts, a few white and a few black. And finally his prized possession… his Pink Floyd T-shirt. He wore it when he needed to free up his mind a bit. It put him in the mood to make leaps in his logic and think more creatively.

Then he went to his table and began pulling all the papers off the wall, then stacking them up. While he did this, he looked at the notebook one last time, shaking his head, sad to his core. Then he slapped the pile of loose notes down into the middle of the notebook and closed it like an overloaded sandwich. He stuffed the whole thing into his rucksack.

He swung it up on his back, grabbed the lantern off his desk, and exited the room without looking back. Always forward. Never look back. You can always second-guess your decisions, but why? You were incapable of changing them. Forward was the only way.

He went to the stairs again, but this time he did not go down. He went up. To the neonatal ward. He pushed into the room, found it dark. He got the uncomfortable sensation that Stacey had gotten out and now lurked in the shadows, waiting for him. He clicked on the battery-powered lantern and held it up. The pale light cast a moon glow over everything. He stepped into the ward.

From the neonatal room he could hear a clatter.

Good. Stacey was still in the room.

She smelled him getting closer, or saw the shifting light from his lantern, and began to growl menacingly. He approached the window cautiously. He knew that she couldn’t break through it—she’d already tried, and Jacob had been relieved to see how sturdy the reinforced glass was—but it was still nerve-racking to walk up to the glass and have her lunge at him.

Tonight she was burrowed under the bed. The tray where they had piled her food was licked clean and tossed into the far corner of the room. She was only partially under the bed—her pale rear end stuck out just slightly, her spine twisted to look behind her and glare at him. When she saw him at the window, she slunk farther underneath the bed, muttering.

Jacob forced down a shivery feeling and walked around to the door. He unlocked it and swung the door open, raising his rifle at the same time. The lantern hung from the hand that gripped the fore-end of his rifle, and it dangled, the light washing back and forth, like they were on a rocking boat.

“Stacey,” he said softly.

As though she would recognize her name and come to him.

He knelt down slowly so that he could see under the bed. The light from his lantern glistened in her squinted eyes. She opened her mouth and hissed at him, and it glistened there too.

“I can’t just leave you up here,” Jacob said with a note of regret. “Sorry, Stacey.”

He pulled the trigger rapidly. The first few shots caused her to come lurching out from under the bed in panicked aggression, all the hormones in her body telling her simultaneously to attack him, to defend herself, and to defend the wretched offspring growing in her belly. But the next few rounds slowed her down, and the last three ended her life.

Jacob stood up. And for a moment of weakness, he did look back. He looked back at who he’d been only months ago, and he wondered about himself. He wondered what things were twisting up inside of him, changing and souring and hardening. It was not so much the things that he did, as the fact that he did them so casually. What kind of a man was he?

He left the neonatal ward and went back downstairs. In the lobby, he unlocked the front doors and forced them open. Then he stood face-to-face with the other man. He extended his hand, but then he saw that there was a spot of blood on it. He stared at it for a long time, but then the stranger’s hand enveloped his, seemingly oblivious to the blood, and he shook it.

“Brett,” the man said.

“Jacob Weber.” Jacob tried to force a smile but couldn’t. “Pleasure.”

Stay awake…

Stay awake…

Lee jerked slightly as he felt his chin touch his chest. Despite the cold and the discomfort and the numbness sinking into his fingers from the duct tape around his wrists, he was falling asleep. The warmth of Deuce sleeping fitfully at his legs seemed to mentally draw him in, so he focused on it and ignored the other things.

Like the chills that might have been from the air but might have been from fever. He felt rotten, and it was difficult to tell whether it was from dehydration and fatigue or the infection that he feared was setting in to the ragged wound on his scalp.

He needed to get free. He had to escape. Or he was going to die.

He lay there, staring across the open space between himself and the dwindling fire, while Kev stroked his beard and stared back. Kev was the second watchman. The first had been Shelley. Lee had to guess that it was close to three or four in the morning, and he didn’t know how much longer he could keep himself awake. He was fast approaching that point of exhaustion where rocks became pillows and standing up was as good as lying down.

The only thing keeping him awake now was the throb of adrenaline that pushed his eyes open each time he remembered the simple fact that time was not on his side. Time was slipping away. Time was his enemy.

Stay awake…

Stay awake…

Stay awake, because the next opportunity you get, you’ve got to take it. You’ve got to take it and get the fuck out of here. All bets are off. No holds barred. Do-or-die time.

He could feel himself fading anyway. He knew he needed the sleep, but he knew that if he awoke confused, he might miss the one fleeting opportunity when it came to him. Sleep was like a river that would wash every damn memory out of his brain, force him to build it all back up again like broken dams. If he could just delay the flood…

Just keep reminding yourself of what you’re doing.

Eddie Ramirez shot me in the head and stole my GPS. I am somewhere north of Sanford. I have to get my GPS back. Eddie Ramirez shot me in the head and stole my GPS. I am somewhere north of Sanford. I have to get my GPS back. Eddie Ramirez… shot me in the head… fuck… I feel like shit… and something about my GPS…

Eddie Ramirez…

Stay awake…

He fell asleep.

ELEVEN

VISITORS

JULIA AND GRAY MADE the first fire they’d had since leaving Camp Ryder. Harper had looked at them like a long-suffering parent when they’d cleared it with him. Generally fire was a bad idea. It could be seen and smelled from a long way off. But they’d selected a little spot in the corner of an overpass just behind where they’d parked the convoy. The overpass distributed the smoke from it, and overgrown brush along the edges hid it from view.

Julia and Gray crouched beside the small flame. Gray smiled wistfully and Julia remained focused, piling on small twigs and feeding it until it could take a few larger branches. They didn’t intend to keep the fire going very long, but it had been a few days since anyone had eaten a hot meal, and Julia thought they could use the morale boost.

Gray held his hands out to the warmth. “You start a fire like a pro, Jules.”

Julia glanced up at him. “When we were growing up, our dad used to take me and Marie camping. Never had a boy, so it was on us to do all the camping and fishing and shooting.” She smiled slightly. “It was fun, though. I enjoyed it.”

Gray watched her. “That where you learned to shoot like that?”

“Deer hunting,” Julia said. “Every November, just after Thanksgiving.”

They were quiet for a bit and Julia just sat there, letting the fire grow on its own, no longer having to tease it to life. To the west, the red sky began to darken to purple, all the light dipping down below the horizon.

Gray watched the fire. “You worry about her?”

Julia settled down into the dirt, sitting cross-legged. “Marie?”

Gray nodded.

“Yeah. Of course I do.”

“She’ll be okay,” Gray said. “Both of you are strong-minded. You don’t give up easily. That’s good.” He sighed, seemed about to say something else, but held back.

Julia eyed the older man. “What about you, Gray? When are you going to reveal the mystery that is you?”

He laughed coldly. “No. No mystery.”

“Then talk,” she prodded, reaching over to retrieve the open can of baked beans she intended to heat up. “Tell me something new about the man we know as Gray Beard. Where’d you come from? How’d you get here?”

He stroked his longish goatee, then folded his hands in front of his face. “Well… I’ll tell you what. I’ll let you ask me one question—any question you want—and I’ll answer it honestly.” He held up a finger. “But you only get that one question, so make it a good one. I don’t like to talk about myself.”

Julia set her can next to the fire. “Why don’t you like to talk about yourself?”

“Is that your question?”

She thought about it for a moment. “Yeah. Sure. Let’s make that my question. And I expect a completely honest answer from you, Gray.” She looked at him very seriously, all the playfulness suddenly drained out of the moment. “Why don’t you like to talk about yourself?”

He sat there for a while, considering the question. Julia didn’t press. She waited patiently. Gray’s eyes remained fixed on the fire, and when she looked up at him, she could see a small white glimmer hovering around the bottom of his eyes, which he quickly blinked away.

“You know, I had a daughter,” he said quietly. “About the same age as you. But she wasn’t like you or Marie. She wasn’t… strong enough. I’m afraid that she got that from me. I was never much of a fighter. Might even consider me a bit of a pushover. Her mother did, anyway.”

“Seems like you’ve changed,” Julia pointed out.

“Yeah,” he said with a note of bitterness. “I’ve changed.”

“Sometimes that’s a good thing.”

He met her gaze. “Depends on how you’ve changed. The person I was seems like a past life. Like I did something horrendous in that past life and this is a new life I’ve been punished with. Isn’t that how reincarnation works? You do something wrong in the past life, and your next life gets worse?” He shook his head. “That’s why I don’t talk about myself. Because I don’t know the man I was, and I’m not sure who I’m turning into.”

“You’re not turning into anything bad,” Julia said.

“Am I not?” He raised his eyebrows. “You know, Jules, of all the things in this world to be afraid of, the thing I fear the most is what I see myself becoming. It’s not a good thing to fear yourself. But I guess that’s all part of the punishment, huh?”

Julia poked at the fire, silent.

Gray stood, his knees popping loudly. He smiled forlornly. “I told you I’d be honest.” He turned away from her. “I’ll let the others know the fire’s ready.”

Harper drew the short straw for watch. No one wanted the last shift, because the last three-hour shift took you to dawn, and there was no sleep after that. If Harper wanted to be a dick about it, he could have removed himself from the watch rotation—the man in charge needs his rest and all that—but he had never seriously entertained the idea.

Four o’clock in the morning found him standing atop the LMTV, hunched against a sharply cold night and thinking about, of all things, a Bavarian cream doughnut. He thought about the way the chocolate icing on top would dry, so it would have a layer of crisp, and then soft chocolate underneath. The way the glaze would flake off on his fingers when he grabbed it. And of course, he couldn’t avoid thinking about the fact that they were made and sold fresh. Which meant he would never have one again. At least not until someone opened a doughnut shop, and he didn’t think that was in the plans just yet.

He sighed, attempted to turn his mind from useless things. He looked skyward, stared at the moon, its haunted face in full, stark view, staring down at the world with an undeniable expression of sadness. It always struck him that the face in the moon seemed to be partially turned away, as though for the last few thousand years, it had slowly, and with monumental effort, been trying to turn its back on humanity.

He faced the other way.

Don’t want to think about food. Don’t want to stare at the moon.

His breath fogged the air as he sighed.

Don’t want to think about Annette.

Don’t want to think about anything sad.

But there wasn’t much else.

With his back to the cab of the lead LMTV, he looked down the column of vehicles parked in the middle of the highway, edged onto the right shoulder of the northbound lanes of Highway 421, heading into Greensboro. Progress had been especially slow that day. They’d had to clear almost a dozen wrecks and seemed to be interrupted every half hour by infected in the wood line who probed and howled and made them abandon their work, but they never left the safety of the forest and attacked them.

“Packs during the day?” Julia had mused.

Harper didn’t want to say it, but he did anyway: “Could be the hunters.”

They were now just a few miles from the I-85 spur that Harper intended to use to circumvent Greensboro. The overall plan was to thread the needle, so to speak, between Greensboro and Durham, carving out their supply-and-escape route so that it sat between the two major population centers and hopefully avoided both.

Or became smashed between them.

He grew bored of his view, staring at the tops of the trucks, and he turned to face northward again, where the road sloped down. Long and straight, and then back up again on the other side. In the depression, a cluster of cars had gathered like water pooling at a low point. Their windshields glowed brightly with the reflection of the moonlight. They appeared to twinkle.

At first, he didn’t think much of it. Kept looking around, bored out of his mind. But then, the third or fourth time he scanned over those cars, the twinkling windshields struck him as odd. He leaned forward as far as he could over the cab of the LMTV, his eyebrows cinching. All through the center of the crowd of vehicles, windshields winked at him, the moonlit reflection being blotted out by something for such a brief moment that it was almost unnoticeable, but it just kept on happening, like the same object was passing in front of the windshield repeatedly.

He brought the rifle up. It was not his usual M4—that leaned on the cab of the LMTV at his feet—but a scoped hunter’s rifle that stayed with whoever was on watch. He settled himself against the cab, feeling the cold roof through his jacket. He pulled the rifle in, sighted through the scope, the telescopic image swishing and swashing back and forth until he found what he was looking for.

“Son of a bitch…” Harper slapped the top of the LMTV. “Wake up! Everybody wake up!” He ran to the back of the cargo bed and shouted at the vehicle directly behind him. “Hey! Wake the fuck up! Get everyone up!”

Flashlights started blazing, filling the cabs of the vehicles with startled and confused faces.

Harper turned to the front again, found Mike and Torri Reagan stumbling out of the LMTV, their rifles in hand, their shoulder bags dangling.

“What?” Mike said blearily. “What’s going on?”

“Mike, fire the truck up.” Harper looked at the woman who held her rifle between her knees and used both hands to pull her blond hair out of her face and into a rubber band. “Torri, get on the radio and let ’em know we got incoming. Keep your door open so I can feed you information as I get it. Make sure you’re on the right sub-channel.”

She nodded. “I got it.”

Harper raised his rifle again. “Everyone sits tight,” he said to Torri. “No one starts bugging until I say so.”

Torri clambered back into the LMTV just as it rumbled to life, shuddering beneath Harper’s feet. He huddled over the rifle and scope again and tried to get a better picture of what was going on in the depression a mile ahead of them.

Not one object passing over the windshields repeatedly, but a line of bodies moving in single file. He sniffed the air, couldn’t yet smell the stench of the infected. Through the scope, he could see the individual bodies, but not faces or other descriptive factors. Just their silhouettes against the moon reflection of the windshields.

Someone climbed into the truck bed behind him.

He took his eyes off and found Julia joining him.

“What’s happening?” she asked, picking crust from the corners of her eyes. “Infected?”

Harper refocused and made a noncommittal noise. “They’re not running, but they’re certainly not taking their time either. Hard to tell in the dark but… I’d say… twenty or so?”

The click-snick sound of Julia checking the chamber of her rifle. “That’s a large pack… or maybe a really small horde out past their bedtime.”

“I’d have to go with a pack. Still…” He sniffed and wiped his nose. “Odd to see ’em walking down a road like that. More horde behavior than pack behavior.”

“They never cease to surprise.”

Harper bit his lip. “You think they might pass us by?”

“We’re in the middle of the road.”

“Yeah.”

“They’re gonna follow the path of least resistance.”

“Right to us.”

Julia pointed down the hill. “Let ’em clear that snarl of vehicles and get about halfway up the hill. Then light ’em up with the fifty and we’ll clean up the rest.”

Harper looked at her. “Sounds good to me. You’re okay with it?”

She seemed unwilling to look at him. “Yeah, well…” She shook her head and turned away. “I’m not gonna put others in danger to save my own conscience.”

“We can give them a warning shot.”

She stopped at the tailgate, appeared to consider it.

Harper pressed. “It won’t make any difference. Let the fifty fire a burst over their heads. If they charge, we’ll take ’em out as planned.”

She nodded, then hopped down to deliver the message.

Behind him the convoy grumbled to life. A few quiet voices could be heard over the engines, people asking where items were that they had somehow lost while they slept and now urgently needed. In anticipation of having to move quickly, several of the men stood on the overgrown grassy shoulder, great gouts of steam pouring from the ground as they all pissed and looked around with wide eyes as though afraid of getting caught.

All the flashlights had since been extinguished. None of the vehicles turned on their headlights. They were still just under a mile away, and the sound of the engines could probably not be heard from that distance. Even if it were to be heard, Harper didn’t think the noise alone would cause the infected to start making that horrible screech and sprinting for them. It might make them curious, though.

He scoped them again.

They were like coal-black smudges, the distinction between their heads and their bodies coming from the moonlight on their pale faces.

All fully clothed?

From behind him and to his right, one of the Humvees with the M2 mounted on top rolled up to their position and stopped adjacent to Harper’s LMTV. Julia stood up out of the driver’s seat. Gray poked his head through the turret, rubbing the sleep out of his face.

Julia waved for Harper’s attention. “Where are they now?”

Harper looked through the scope again. “About to start comin’ up the hill.” He paused for a long moment, emitting a long, uncertain noise. “Ummmmm… hold off for a minute.”

“What’s wrong?” Julia’s voice strained as she stretched to see down the road. “What’re you seeing? Talk to me, Harper.”

“Eh…” Harper looked out over the scope, then at Gray, then at Julia. “I don’t know if they’re infected.”

“What makes you think that?” Julia asked.

Harper’s eyes went back down the road. “Well, I think they spotted you moving up. Now they’re just standing there. Watching us.”

Julia followed his gaze back down the road as though she might make eye contact with one of them and know for sure.

Harper was already moving. He laid down the scoped rifle and picked up his old M4, a little scratched, the matte finish worn off in a few places. He slung it on his shoulder, then jogged to the back of the LMTV and swung out of the cargo bed.

He rounded the Humvee. “Get in.” He motioned Julia into the truck.

Torri kicked the LMTV door open and looked down at Harper with her hands raised in question. “Where are you going?”

“Tell everyone to sit tight.” He jammed himself into the tight seating, Julia just now sitting down in the driver’s seat and closing her door. Harper leaned back, directing his voice toward the turret. “Gray!”

“Yup?” The man’s voice was soft, like everything was normal.

Like everything was just fine.

“If those… people, or infected, or whatever… if they start moving toward us, you light ’em the fuck up and don’t stop until every last one of ’em’s dead.”

“Okay.”

Harper shifted in his seat, trying to work around his bulky gear and uncomfortable straps. “Julia, ease us down this hill. Go slow.” He put a hand out as though to stay her from stomping the gas. “Go real slow.”

She nodded and popped the emergency brake. The Humvee shuddered, then began to roll slowly down the hill. As they started downward and the hood of the Humvee dipped, the strange image came into view. The road stretched out before them, the blacktop seeming to soak up what little light there was to see with. The waist-high grass on either side of the road undulated like a sea of silver. At the bottom of the hill was the mishmash of abandoned vehicles. And halfway up the hill stood the twenty or so figures, jumbled together in a tight group like their single-file line had collapsed in on itself.

Julia let the vehicle roll a few more yards, then the brakes squealed and it halted. “You want me to keep going?”

Rather than respond, Harper pulled the little black handle that let the driver’s side window drop. “Gray, you keep ’em covered, you hear?” he hollered back as he pulled himself partly through the window. “Just sit here for a minute, Julia. Let’s see what they do.”

Reason would suggest that if they were infected, they would have already attacked. But being on the road, Harper had learned that this was not always the case, particularly when they were inside their vehicles. Different infected reacted differently to the vehicles. Some charged, the mere presence of something that moved and made noises enough to send them into a frenzy. Others Harper had observed staring at the vehicles with what looked like confusion, first jogging toward them, then backing up, as though they were not sure whether it could be attacked or not. Still others stood by placidly at the edge of the woods while they drove past, not looking at the vehicles themselves but the people inside, and they appeared to understand that while they were in the vehicle, they could not be easily attacked.

With his upper torso shoved through the narrow opening of the window, he took a deep breath of the icy air, then waved his arms twice over his head and hollered out in a loud voice. “Hey, we’re friendly! Don’t shoot! Say something so we know you’re sane!”

One of the figures lurched forward like it had been hit with a cattle prod. Harper’s throat tightened and he reached inside the vehicle, his fingertips touching his rifle.

Then the figure raised its arms above his head, and Harper heard a voice. “Don’t shoot! We’re not crazy! We’re not crazy!”

A shuddering breath issued out from between Harper’s clenched teeth. His fingers closed around the barrel of his rifle, more to steady himself than anything. When he had regained some control of his heart and lungs, he waved the man toward him.

“Walk toward me!” he shouted.

The man looked back behind him, as though conferring with the others about whether this was a wise choice. Harper pulled back into the Humvee and kicked the door open. He looked to his left, made eye contact with Julia as he slid out of his seat and his boots hit the blacktop.

She nodded. “We’ve got you.”

He took the rifle, holding it with only one hand so that the muzzle pointed at the ground. His left hand he raised to show that he didn’t mean to use it, and he began walking slowly toward the other man. The stranger seemed to accept Harper’s gesture as a sign that there would not be a shoot-out, and he began walking down the white hash marks of the line dividers toward Harper.

The walk seemed to last forever, stretching well into awkwardness, and Harper wished he had driven a little bit closer. But within the span of a couple minutes, the two men were face-to-face, stopping about a yard or two from each other, neither quite comfortable getting within arm’s reach. Caution still took precedence. No one in this world ran to each other with hugs.

Harper sized up the other man, as he was sure the other man was doing to him. The stranger was tall and broadly built, perhaps thirty years old or more. Wiry black hair on top, graying at the temples. Thick eyebrows that hovered over darkly inquisitive eyes. Not particularly tough or dangerous looking, but no pushover either.

“Mack,” the man said.

“Harper,” came his response. “These your folks?”

Mack glanced behind him. “No. Just a group I’m traveling with.”

“Why you movin’ at night?”

“Haven’t stopped for the last twenty-four hours, ’cept for water or food… when we can find it.”

Harper quirked an eyebrow. “Seems like you’re in a rush.”

Mack pulled his coat around him. Harper could see the bulge of something on his right hip. “Any way we can pass through here?”

Harper nodded. “We’re not thieves, Mr. Mack. You’re free to leave if you’d like. We won’t stop you. But I’d hope we could help each other out.”

Mack looked at the ground. “We don’t have anything to give you.”

“You’re coming from where we’re going.” Harper motioned up the road. “You have information for us. Like what’s keeping you marching for twenty-four hours.”

Mack’s right hand hovered loosely around his hip. “Okay. What do you have to offer?”

“What do you need?”

“We need water. Food. A few of our group are sick—not infected, though,” he added quickly.

Harper let his hand rest on his rifle. “You seem like a stand-up guy, Mack. But let me say something just to make myself feel better…”

“If we cross you, you’ll kill all of us?” Mack asked with a note of sarcasm.

Harper smiled. “Something like that.”

“Don’t worry. We’re not going to cause trouble.”

“You speak for your group?”

Mack looked behind him at the huddled figures that had pressed forward just slightly in an attempt to overhear what was being said. “Yeah. I speak for the group.”

Harper pointed up to the top of the hill, over which he could just make out the bulk of the lead LMTV’s cab. “We got a convoy of vehicles just on top of that hill. If you agree to play nice, we can help each other out and you’re welcome to join us up there.”

Mack nodded. “I’ll let the others know.”

Harper watched the other man turn and start back toward his group. Bringing his rifle in a little tighter, Harper turned to face his Humvee and made his way back to it. From the shadowy interior, he could see Julia watching him as he drew nearer.

“So, what’s the deal?” she asked as he pulled open the passenger door.

Harper sat with a groan. “More refugees. On the run.”

“Where from?”

“Don’t know.” He pointed a thumb back. “Gonna do a little meet-and-greet up at the convoy. Might get some useful intel out of them.” He looked at Julia. “Discreetly keep some of our boys around our trucks, and tell them to watch closely. We don’t know these people.”

Dawn started as a light blue smudge on the horizon. By then, the convoy was filled with the quiet rumble of conversations held between people who did not want to be overheard by anything lurking in the woods. The two groups mingled and pestered each other with an endless slew of questions, while Harper and Mack stood at the tailgate of the Humvee Julia had driven.

Mack held a water bottle in one hand and an MRE “entrée” in the other. Between gulps of water and spoonfuls of chili mac, he stared out at the small crowd and spoke in a low voice. “Most of us are from Danville, Virginia, but a few are from farther up north. Three weeks ago I was living with a group of survivors, doin’ all right for ourselves. Took up shop in an old stand-alone grocery store.” He shrugged. “We made it work. Me and fourteen others.”

He took another enormous bite of food, washed it down with some water. “About three weeks ago we’re out hittin’ a neighborhood for scraps—water, canned food, anything we can find—and we come across a group of five. They tell us there ain’t nothing left up north and that we better get up and leave out while we got the opportunity.”

Mack paused. “Didn’t believe ’em. But maybe a week after that, we wake up and hear this noise. Man…” His eyes found Harper’s like he was looking for something to cling to. “I can’t even really describe it. Honestly, I thought it was a jet. There were so many of them. So loud. All of them screamin’ back and forth like that.”

He pushed his food around inside the brown package. “We didn’t have time to take anything. Just had to leave. Lot of folks didn’t make it out or got separated. I was by myself. No idea what happened to the others.” He tossed his head in the direction of his group. “Met up with these folks a couple days after that, and we been on the run ever since.”

Harper folded his arms across his chest and waited what he felt was an appropriate amount of time to show deference to the man’s story. “You said you’ve been moving for the last twenty-four hours. Something rushing you?”

“Yeah.” Mack finished his food and crumpled the plastic pouch that it came in. “There’s a big crowd of ’em, seem to be following us. We noticed them a few nights ago. Or heard them, anyway. I recognized the sound from when I heard them hit Danville.”

Harper swallowed, wished for his own bottle of water to cure his suddenly dry mouth. “How many?”

“Can’t say.” Mack made an uncomfortable face. “We haven’t laid eyes on ’em yet. The one that hit Danville was massive. Packed the streets. At least a few thousand, I’d say. Probably more.” He played with the cap of his water bottle. “But I can’t say about this new crowd. Hell, maybe it’s the same ones. Maybe they been following us all the way from Danville.”

Harper swore under his breath. “When’s the last time you heard them?”

Mack looked skyward, as though the answer were up there somewhere. But whatever he had intended to say was lost in a sudden swelling of shouts, someone screaming, and a third person yelling, “Drop it! Drop it!”

And then a single, jarring gunshot.

TWELVE

BAD GUYS

IN THE SPAN OF A SECOND, the quiet gathering erupted into chaos.

It was like a chain reaction, beginning at the back end of the second LMTV, where the noises had come from, and then surging out through the crowd like ripples in a pond. Harper watched in amazement as the people began to move about, mindless and panicked, like an anthill that had been kicked. They converged at the back end of the LMTV, pressing in, and then the two groups began to separate like oil and water.

Harper was off the tailgate of the Humvee and running. He plunged into the crowd, shoving his way through and not realizing until he was already mired in a tangle of bodies that he hadn’t grabbed his rifle. He hazarded a glance back, couldn’t see the Humvee through the bodies, but could see Mack, a head taller than everyone else, moving in his wake.

It seemed everyone in the crowd was yelling something, and in the mess of voices, Harper could not hear anyone in particular, but instead snips of voices and words:

“Help him!”

“He’s dead!”

“Get back!”

“… move…”

“I told him…”

“Don’t do it!”

Harper burst through the crowd at the end of the LMTV and found himself in a tight circle, surrounded on one side by Mack’s people and on the other by his own. In the middle of the circle were four people. One lay on the ground, motionless. A hatchet-faced man with wide, dead eyes that stared up at the gray sky, black blood pooling around his chest. Julia stood over the body, her hands covering the wound, shouting at someone to get her medical pack.

A man Harper didn’t recognize, dressed in filthy rags, was bent at the waist as though he was experiencing some horrible abdominal pain, pointing at the dead body on the ground and screaming. Watching all of this was Mike Reagan, his rifle at the ready, visibly shaking, his eyes so wide they seemed to take up his entire face.

Mack burst through. “What the fuck happened?” he said breathlessly.

The man who had been screaming at Julia and Mike turned, his arm still outstretched, pointing accusingly at Mike. His wild eyes bounced between Harper and Mack. “They fuckin’ killed him! That bastard fucking killed him! They killed Jace!”

Harper moved quickly across the narrow encirclement to where Mike stood. “Mike! What happened?” he yelled over the shouting crowd.

Mike shook his head in disbelief. “He was trying to steal one of our rifles…”

A random voice: “That man’s a damn liar!”

“I told him to stop and he tried to shoot me!”

Harper looked at the body. It was lying on its back, the left arm outstretched across the concrete, the other placed along his side, but with Julia hovering over him, Harper couldn’t tell what that hand was holding. Nowhere did he see one of their rifles.

“Mike.” He shook his head. “I don’t see the rifle. He tried to shoot you with the rifle?”

Mack’s voice shot through the noise. “Harper! You wanna tell me what the fuck’s going on here?”

Mike blinked rapidly. “It wasn’t a rifle. It was a little gun. A little silver gun. He pulled it out of his waistband and I told him to drop it. I told him to drop it, I swear! But he just kept pointing it at me. I thought he was gonna shoot me, Harper! I didn’t know what to do!”

Harper realized his pulse was slamming through his body, adrenaline making it hard to think, making it hard to fully comprehend what was going on around him. He looked behind Mike, found the first face he recognized and grabbed that person by the shoulder.

It was Gray.

They were sandwiched now between the two LMTVs. The one whose grille faced them was the only LMTV they’d equipped with an M2. Harper pointed to it and put his mouth nearly to Gray’s ear. “Get on that turret. If shit goes bad, you gotta do it, okay?”

Gray’s face seemed frozen, but he nodded. “Okay.”

Harper released his grip on the man’s shoulder and he disappeared.

Harper turned back to face Mack. One of Harper’s people burst through the crowd, carrying Julia’s medical pack, which he slid to her. She pulled herself off of the body just long enough for Harper to see the man’s right hand and the silver revolver still clutched in its grip.

That son of a bitch…

Harper took two steps toward Mack. “What the fuck are you tryin’ to pull?”

Mack looked genuinely confused. “What? You just shot one of my guys!”

“He was trying to fucking steal from us!”

“That’s bullshit!” the man beside Mack cried hysterically. “That’s bullshit and you know it! They’re making this shit up, Mack! They’re making it up!”

The crowd of survivors behind Mack grew louder at this last cry, and they pressed in closer. Harper looked past Mack at the angry faces. Tried to tear his eyes away and look at their hands. Saw blunt instruments, a few pistols, a shotgun.

Shit shit shit.

Harper pointed to them, not able to control his shaking hand. “Mack! Push your people back!”

“You need to explain…”

“Get them back, goddammit!” Harper yelled. He looked to his right, saw Gray’s torso working its way into the turret. “If your people aren’t on the other side of the road in ten seconds, we’re gonna open fire!”

Please don’t make me do it… Please don’t make me do it…

Mack followed Harper’s gaze, saw the big-barreled M2 swing toward the crowd. His hands went out and he began to backpedal, shouting as he did. “Back it up, people! Back it up!”

From behind him, Harper could hear Mike Reagan’s voice.

“Is he dead? Oh my God…”

Harper turned, saw Mike staring at the body, Julia resting backward on her heels, bloody bandages in her hand and sterile packages for the dressings tossed about like bits and pieces of white confetti. She looked at Harper and shook her head.

“Shit!” Mike’s hand went to his head. “I didn’t mean to kill him!”

Harper stared at the man, flabbergasted. “You fucking shot him in the chest, Mike! What’d you think was gonna happen?” Never mind the fact that the stranger had pulled a gun on him. Mike had had every right in the world to take the shot, but the simple statement that he didn’t mean to kill him threw Harper for a loop.

Mike’s gaze rose, and Harper immediately regretted letting the words slip out of his mouth. He should be standing behind his man, not hanging him out to dry in front of a hostile crowd. He raised a hand as if to apologize, but Mike turned away, his face clouding.

Harper suddenly realized how quiet it had become. He could hear his own breath huffing, the steady shifting of people’s feet, the great open silence of these abandoned roadways. It was the kind of silence that roared and made city dwellers like himself fidget uncomfortably like a small man in the presence of something vast.

He looked back to his left, to the crowd of strangers. They stared back, sullen and demure, and they stared at their fallen friend. Or maybe he was just as much a stranger to them as he was to Harper. Maybe they had just met him on the road. But he was one of them nonetheless.

The turret creaked as Gray raised the muzzle of the M2 just slightly.

Mack held up his hands as though surrendering. “Look… we don’t have a fight with you folks. We’re just… we’re just trying to make it out here… Please…”

Harper was incredulous. “We’re not…” he started, but the rest of the words crashed around inside his head and never made it out of his mouth. We’re not the bad guys. We didn’t ask for this. We didn’t hunt you down or lure you into a trap. We fed you, we gave you water and medicine, we treated you like friends even though we didn’t fucking know a damned one of you. And you’re going to stand there and look at me like I’m the bad guy? Because one of your shit-bag friends bit off more than he could chew? Like you have to beg for your life because we’re just a band of bloodthirsty thieves?

We’re not the bad guys.

We’re not the bad guys.

It all died behind his tongue like burning cinders. He knew damn well that saying it would do nothing for him. It would do nothing for anyone, except to make him feel better for the brief moment in time after he felt he’d said his piece, but in the end those words would only invite more trouble. More argument. It would only lengthen things, when all he wanted was for them to be over.

“Just let us go,” Mack continued. “We’ve got no problem with you.”

Harper simply stared, because there was no other expression or motion that seemed appropriate in that moment. “Fine,” he said woodenly. “Go.”

The crowd began to edge away. Bitter glares, mixed with sadness and even confusion. Gradually, they turned southward and began to walk, while Gray followed them cautiously with the muzzle of the M2. A breeze swept down the middle of the road, along the white hash marks that seemed to delineate the two groups. It felt tense, as though someone might break it with shouts of anger, but both sides remained silent until the group of strangers had passed the end of the convoy.

Harper turned back, found Julia standing over the body.

“What do you want us to do with this guy?” she asked.

“Put him on the side of the road.”

Julia shifted her weight. “We’re not going to bury him?”

Harper cleared his throat loudly. “No. We’re not going to bury him. His own people didn’t give a shit enough to ask for his body, so I’m certainly not going to trouble my own people with it.” He pointed to the shoulder of the road. “Put him over there, then pack up and let’s get the fuck out of here.”

Harper left them to it, then walked along the right side of the convoy, looking for Mike Reagan. The fire seemed to leave his skin, the adrenaline abating, and the cold surrounded him again. He hunched his shoulders. His fingers felt cold and stiff. He shoved them in his coat pockets.

Harper found his rifle leaning against the back end of the Humvee where he’d sat. He snatched it up as though it had wronged him, slung into it, and walked around the corner of the Humvee to the lead LMTV. He opened the passenger’s side door.

Inside were both Mike and Torri Reagan. Torri in the passenger seat, looking down at him. Mike in the driver’s seat with an expression that said he didn’t want to talk.

Harper plowed ahead anyway. “Mike, you didn’t do anything wrong. You were completely in the right for shooting that motherfucker.”

Mike nodded, stared out the windshield. “I didn’t see the revolver.”

“What?”

“I didn’t see the revolver until after I’d already shot him.”

Harper compressed his lips. Wondered what the hell to say to that. Did it change anything? At the end of the day, what would have happened if Mike hadn’t taken that shot? Would the stranger have pulled the gun anyway? Shot Mike? Would Harper and his group be burying Mike because he’d hesitated too long?

“I saw him trying to get something out of his waistband,” Mike continued. “But I couldn’t see what it was. I just assumed it was a gun. So I shot him. That’s why I said I didn’t mean for him to die, because I didn’t mean to shoot him in the chest. I just meant to… you know… wing him. Scare him off.”

It was done. It was over with. There would be no trial, no hearing, no public backlash. The only thing left was whether Harper would support Mike. Whether Mike would trust him. Whether Mike would trust himself to make that decision in the future, rather than hesitating and getting himself hurt, or someone else hurt.

Harper shook his head. “Fuck that guy, Mike. He was stealing from us. That alone should mean that he dies. And the fact that he had the gall to try to pull a weapon on one of my people? I would have shot him myself. I’m glad you made the decision you made, because otherwise you might have been hurt. You don’t know that motherfucker from Adam. You don’t know what kind of screws are loose in his brain. You played it safe, and that’s the right thing to do.”

Mike nodded. “Okay.”

Torri looked down at Harper. She mouthed the words Thank you.

Harper nodded once and turned away from them.

Julia stood against the side of the LMTV, one hand leaning on it, the other tucked into the shoulder strap of her medical bag. She regarded the concrete at her feet until Harper turned away from the Reagans. She raised her head. “Everyone’s ready to roll.”

Harper walked briskly to the passenger’s side of the Humvee and sat down inside. Gray climbed into the turret, but he paused before situating himself and looked down at Harper, motioning his head to the LMTV that sat abreast of them.

“Everything okay with Mike?” Gray asked.

“Yeah,” Harper said. “Everything’s fine.”

Julia set her pack in the back, then climbed in and flipped the ignition switch. The Humvee took a few seconds, then squawked its long, annoying tone at her until she pressed the ignition button and it rumbled to life.

“Listen,” Harper said, loud enough for both her and Gray to hear. “Before everything went to shit, Mack was telling me about some large horde of infected that they’d made contact with right about when they crossed the I-40 corridor. He couldn’t give me a number and didn’t know whether they were coming from Virginia or out of the Greensboro or Raleigh areas. He just said there were a lot of them, and they were coming south.”

Julia tapped the steering wheel.

Gray rubbed his knees. “Okay.”

“We’re gonna kick out in front of the convoy,” Harper said. “Keep about two miles between us and them. Scout out the way ahead. I don’t want the convoy plunging right into the middle of a couple thousand infected.”

“A couple thousand?” Julia nearly coughed.

Harper shrugged. “I don’t know. Rough guesstimate.”

She looked at him, her fingers now clutching the steering wheel. “Alright. I’m with you.”

Harper picked up the radio mic and transmitted his instructions to the others. When his plan was acknowledged and understood, Julia popped the emergency brake and let the Humvee roll down the hill, putting distance between them and the convoy.

THIRTEEN

DAYLIGHT

HIS HEART POUNDED. He was cold on one side of his body, sweating on the other. He opened his eyes, saw things he didn’t understand, closed them again. He was someplace he didn’t want to be. He was trapped. He needed to get free, but he didn’t know how.

Lee’s brain endlessly pestered him with dreams. Even as a child, it seemed he’d dreamed more often than others, and he very rarely enjoyed the black silence of an empty sleep. His dreams had always been unusually clear and vivid, but lately they were choppy and disconcerting. Now, he dreamed of a cold cement chamber and a door that sounded like a vault opening, and Colonel Reid standing in full dress uniform, extending a hand to him with a pleasant smile.

“Come back to the land of the living, Captain Harden,” Colonel Reid said.

Lee stared up at him, like he’d just seen the eyes of God.

It had all been a nightmare! All the horrible death, and the pain, and the feeling of helplessness, hopelessness, walking forever on a jagged line between complete despair and gutting through. An indescribable relief flooded him, made him giddy, like he was suddenly weightless.

It was all over.

Finally, it was all over.

Then Colonel Reid kicked him in the legs. “I said get the fuck up, hero.”

Lee opened his eyes. Light poured in through the garage windows, illuminating the lifts with rotting, partially gutted cars still hanging on them. The cold. The stink of grease. The stink of himself. The pain all over his body. The aching fever squirming through him, making his muscles tremble, making his skin hot and sensitive to the touch, like all his clothes were made of burlap.

He looked up.

It wasn’t Colonel Reid standing over him anymore. It was an angry-looking female, one hand on her hip, bent at the waist, scowling at him like she was considering punching him in the gut next, if the kick in the legs didn’t work.

Lee realized his heart was still pounding oddly fast.

What’s going on? What’s happening? Where the fuck am I?

He blinked rapidly, let out a quaky breath, tried to sit up a little straighter.

Something about a GPS… Eddie Ramirez…

“Yo, Shelley…” A young voice.

The woman standing in front of Lee turned her attention away from him. She was within arm’s reach of him, and the butt of her pistol stuck out of her waistband. He stared at it, feeling like the world moved in triple time and he was frozen in place, unable to command his body with the fluidity that he once had possessed.

Eddie Ramirez took… No… Eddie Ramirez fucking STOLE my GPS.

And like a password, the rest fell into place.

Eddie Ramirez shot you in the head and stole your GPS.

You need to get your GPS back.

You are currently being held captive. You are waiting for an opportunity—any opportunity—to escape, because time is running out for you. In twenty-four hours you’ll be too sick to think straight. Eddie Ramirez is in the wind with your GPS, and when he’s gone so is any hope you have of actually saving anybody or anything.

You are looking for an opportunity—any opportunity.

The pistol butt glared at him, only a quick lunge away.

Do-or-die time.

“Hey…”

Lee’s eyes shot to the right, where the voice had come from.

Standing there, the muzzle of his rifle pointed at Lee’s face, was Kev. The big man shook his head slowly from side to side, his eyes rock hard and narrowed like he knew every thought that was going through Lee’s head.

“I saw you fuckin’ lookin’ at that gun,” Kev growled. “Shelley!”

She spun around.

Kev gave her a look of malice. “You wanna pay the fuck attention?”

She glanced rapidly between herself and Lee, then backed up a few paces. “What’d I do?”

“Motherfucker was about to snatch your shit,” Kev spat. “Jesus Christ, woman.”

This was bad. The last thing Lee wanted was for them to realize he was thinking about escape. Lee shook his head vehemently, though he knew a complete denial would only make him look guiltier. So he deflected. “I need medicine… I need antibiotics.”

By now Corey, the wannabe tough guy, had walked over, and Shumate and the Quiet Man watched as they gathered their gear around the smoldering fire. Corey gave him a look-over with a critical eye as he approached.

“The fuck is this guy talking about?” He pointed a finger.

A rack of fever chills hit him. As miserable as he felt, he had to admit that they came at the right time. “The head wound is getting infected. I need antibiotics.”

Kev nudged him roughly with the toe of his boot. “Just keep your mouth shut.” He knelt down so he was at eye level with Lee, just out of arm’s reach. “You do your fucking job out there, you keep control of that mutt.” He eyed the dog that huddled against Lee’s leg. “You and the dog prove useful, then maybe we find some antibiotics to keep you alive. But we ain’t wastin’ time on that shit for someone we don’t even know if we want to keep around. Understand?”

Now Shumate had walked over, fixing his pistol belt around his waist and adjusting his holster into a comfortable position. “What’s he asking for?”

“Antibiotics,” Shelley murmured. “He does look like shit.”

Shumate looked down at Lee, flanked by Shelley and Corey, while Kev still knelt down and stared threateningly at Lee, as though there would be nothing more pleasurable for him than to gut Lee where he sat. The first instinct for Lee, despite everything else bogging him down, was to stick out his chin and meet that threat head-on. But he was trying to play a smarter game than that. A game where the stakes were much bigger than bragging rights on who was tougher.

The time would come when they would see who was tougher.

But for now, Lee avoided eye contact with Kev, chose instead to look intimidated and plaintively up at Shumate while he tried not to think about how deep in the shit he was burying himself. Tried not to think about his chances. Tried not to run the numbers in his mind, because he knew they wouldn’t be pretty.

Shumate looked amused. “Antibiotics, huh?” He nodded slowly. “Okay. We’ll look for some while we’re scavenging today.” He gave Lee a friendly wink. “After all, you gotta take care of the things that keep you alive, right? And you’re gonna keep us alive out there. Aren’t you, Captain? Because us living means you living. Right?”

Lee looked at each of their faces. Shelley, filled with suspicion and bitterness. Corey, smiling like a buffoon. Shumate with his eyebrows raised up, as though waiting for an answer. Kev, still fixated on Lee like a cat watching a mousehole. And in the background, still slowly putting on his gear, the Quiet Man, whose expression remained enigmatic.

Lee nodded. “Yes. I’ll keep you guys alive.”

Shelley drove the van erratically, blasting through twists and turns and slowing down to a crawl in long straightaways. The occupants in the back jostled around, bumping against each other and the blank sidewalls of the cargo area, and no one seemed to notice but Lee.

They’d allowed him out without the hood over his head, which was a step in the right direction. Optimism would have been too strong a word to describe what he felt, but he counted it a minor victory. Plus he felt he had successfully steered the conversation away from the fact that he’d been about to snatch Shelley’s pistol from her waistband before Kev called him out.

Now he sat sandwiched between Corey and the Quiet Man, his back to the driver’s side wall, away from any doors. Deuce had tucked himself between Lee’s legs, a surprising show of trust coming from such a skittish dog, but Lee supposed Deuce trusted him more than he trusted these strangers. They’d tied another cord around his original bindings, and then slip-knotted it around the dog’s neck in a makeshift leash.

Up front and across from Lee, Shumate huddled between the driver’s seat and passenger seat, directing Shelley where to go as he read from a map he had splayed out before him. And Kev sat with his shoulder to the side doors, still staring at Lee with violent intensity.

Lee used his time to think. He didn’t know where they were going—Shumate was simply directing Shelley to go left or right and not using street names to guide her. Based on the angle of the sun, Lee figured they headed predominantly west. And if he were to go by last night’s conversation, they were headed into some sort of urban area. He could only hope that they had the sense not to wander into a larger urban area, where the number of infected might be so large that no amount of early warning would save them.

He’d already run through possible scenarios and decided on the most likely ones. If yesterday were any clue, they would have two people in the van. Shelley seemed to be the driver, and Shumate had been the one who waited with her yesterday, while the other three made the rounds, seeming to keep the van close by. He wasn’t sure whether Shumate always stayed behind with Shelley, but he felt it might change on a daily basis, and he believed that Shumate might not want to spend a lot of awkward time in the van, engaged in a staring contest with Lee.

So Lee discreetly assessed the others, breaking down body language, size, how well they appeared to handle themselves, and prioritizing them. Picking his “favorites,” so to speak.

First was Corey. He was small, thin, and young. He was fidgety. He talked too much. He joked too much. He laughed too much. That was weakness on display. A sign of someone who was not confident in himself or his abilities. The big-boy talk was overcompensation, like a bird ruffling its feathers to make itself look bigger. The joking was a sign of nerves.

Lee put Corey at the top of his list.

Then there was Shelley. Much the same evaluation as Corey, but she seemed a little rougher around the edges. The only reason she scored worse than Corey was because she showed a willingness to inflict pain and a willingness to receive it to get what she wanted—signs of sadism and sociopathy. That made her a little more dangerous in Lee’s mind.

Next was the Quiet Man, whose name still remained a mystery to Lee. He was almost tied with Shumate, but the deciding factor had been that Lee knew something of Shumate and very little of the Quiet Man. Lee knew that Shumate had survived the attack on Johnston Memorial Hospital, which meant he had some hard stuff in him after all. The Quiet Man seemed like he knew what he was doing, but perhaps simply knew that when you stayed quiet, people filled the silence with mystery and foreboding. He could have been a used-car salesman, despite looking like someone who had done some criminal enforcing back in the day.

Last on the list was Kev. Kev was everything Lee didn’t like about the others but lacking any visible cracks of weakness. Kev was a mold of every wild-eyed spec-ops goon he’d ever met who decided to go down the mercenary road because the pay was better and the rules were looser. The kind of guy who enjoyed killing but didn’t get carried away by it. Always cautious, always suspiciously aware of everything, always ready to drop the hammer at the slightest provocation. Like a shark, glassy and languid when it’s cruising the ocean, but you know that with two twitches it could be ripping you apart.

Lee did not like Kev one bit.

“Turn right,” Shumate intoned, and the van took the corner in jarring fashion, pinning Lee’s back against the wall before straightening out with a chirp of tires.

Lee leaned forward just enough to see past Corey and Shumate and out the windshield, where he could see what once had been a sleepy town. Redbrick buildings rose all around them, short and squat. Black lampposts that did little but collect trash blown about in the wind. Gutters with desiccated bodies in them.

“Sit back,” Kev said quietly. “You don’t need to see where we’re going.”

Lee sat back, focused on the dog between his knees, idly scratching his fingers behind the dog’s ears while his mind raced and his stomach churned sickly. He was right about Kev. The guy was confident. But could Lee turn it into overconfidence? One of two things would happen by Lee cowering. Either Kev would relax and stop viewing Lee as a threat, or he would sense that something was up and become even more guarded.

“Slow up,” Shumate mumbled, craning his neck to see their surroundings. He pointed out the window to the right. “Pull up to the curb there. Yeah. Right here.”

Shelley guided the van right, braked slowly, then put it in park.

The van rumbled into a high idle, then settled down after a minute.

Shumate turned around. He looked at Lee first, as though Lee had said something strange, then at the others. “Alright. Our guest and his dog will stay in the van. We’ll open the doors so the mutt can get a good whiff of the air. Then we’ll start working our way down the block.” Shumate raised a single eyebrow. “I’m gonna go ahead and join you guys this time. Who wants to stay with Shelley and our new friend here?”

Corey raised his AK-47 partially out of his lap. “Yeah, I’ll stay.”

Shumate’s fingers stroked his leather gun belt. “Hmm…”

Lee stared down at Deuce, trying to look like he didn’t give a shit who they left in the van with him, but he couldn’t help his pulse pounding like a man who had set a trap and now was watching his prey wander closer and closer to it. Of all the people in the van, Corey was the most likely to make a stupid mistake and open an opportunity for Lee to escape.

Leave me with Corey. Lee tried to will the situation into reality. Leave me with Corey. Everything will be fine. Just leave me with Corey.

Shumate grimaced. “Nah… I mean, no offense, Corey, but this guy…” He wagged a finger at Lee. “This guy is a sneaky sonofabitch. Kev, why don’t you sit in the van today? Keep an eye on our friend here.”

The barest hint of a smirk broke across Kev’s lips. “Sounds good to me.”

It was everything Lee had in him to keep his eyes on Deuce, keep his fingers gently touching the fur, and to not react. After a moment that was just long enough that Lee felt he’d demonstrated how little he cared, he looked up at Shumate. He winced and let out a shaky breath.

“Man,” he said in a sickly voice, “I’m burnin’ up here. I’m not gonna be any good to you in a coma. Please…”

Shumate opened the van door. “Relax. We’ll find you some medicine.” He hopped out, looking around cautiously while Corey and the Quiet Man joined him on the curb. He put a hand on his pistol belt. “Now, whether or not I give you that medicine depends on how much help you are to me. So why don’t you focus on that for now, okay?”

Shumate gestured to the back door of the van. “Corey, pop those doors. Get some nice airflow goin’ for our dog.”

Corey sauntered over, his rifle swinging lackadaisically in his hands. “What? You didn’t trust me to sit with the dog guy?” He popped the back doors, gave Lee a dirty look, and walked back around.

Shumate smiled. “I trust you. I just trust Kev more.”

Corey nodded. “Nice. Thanks for that.”

The air moved languidly through the van. Deuce raised his muzzle to it for a moment, his nose working. Lee watched the way the dog’s ears twitched back just slightly. The way his mouth tensed, just a bit. Like he was about to growl. He smelled something he didn’t like. But he never growled nor barked. Instead, he just looked at Lee and then rested his head on his knee with a huff.

Shumate rapped his knuckles on the side of the van. “Does that mean we’re good?”

Lee shrugged. “They’re here. He can smell ’em. But they’re not very close.”

Shumate sucked on his teeth. He seemed unconvinced. “We’ll see,” he said.

Then he and his two companions turned their backs to the van, and it seemed any further conversation was put on hold. Their shoulders cinched up, their heads scanning back and forth, weapons held at a low-ready. The Quiet Man moved out first, followed by Shumate and then Corey in the back. They crossed the brick sidewalk and dipped cautiously into an alley between two storefront buildings and disappeared.

Lee watched them go, his brain working quickly as he tried to breathe evenly and steadily to control his heart rate and to appear relaxed, or at the very least subservient. The three of them would stay close enough to hear whatever signal Shelley prearranged to give them if the infected showed up. Probably a honk of the horn. And if they were close enough to hear that, they would be close enough to hear a gunshot or a scream. Especially with all the doors open.

“Fuck, it’s cold,” Shelley complained from the front seat.

“You’ll be all right,” Kev murmured as he settled into position, taking up the entire opening of the side doors. He faced the back of the van, leaning against the front passenger seat, with one leg hanging out the open door and the other tucked up to his chest, his rifle resting there on his knee, the muzzle partially pointed at Lee.

“So,” Kev said conversationally, “Captain Harden. The savior of humanity. The Navy SEALs, Army Rangers, and Force Recon all rolled into one man—all of their strengths and none of their weaknesses.” He smiled mockingly. “Pretty fuckin’ impressive.”

Lee leaned back, took a breath, leaned forward again.

His stomach began to turn.

“Heard some pretty interesting stories about you,” Shelley joined in.

Kev nodded. “We all know how Shumate likes to exaggerate, so I figured I’d try to get some information straight from the horse’s mouth.”

Lee snapped the other man a look. “You don’t trust Shumate?”

Kev seemed to ponder the question before answering.

Shelley snorted. “He never got bit. No one survives a bite.”

Kev’s answer was more reserved. “I know the difference between a bite mark and a burn scar.”

Lee nodded. “The same thought had crossed my mind.”

Still situated between Lee’s feet, Deuce let out a low, mumbling growl.

Kev’s eyes fell to the dog.

Shelley turned in her seat. “What was that? What’s that mean?”

Lee shook his head. “It means they’re here. But we already knew they’re here.” He looked out the open back doors at the street that stretched out behind them. Quiet. Still. Very little wind to stir anything. “He just got a whiff. The closer they get, the louder he gets. I think we’re okay for now.”

Kev watched the dog for another moment, but Deuce quieted, then laid his head down. Kev raised his attention again. “So how much of this shit is true? You really some fucking super-soldier with bunkers full of shit all over the state?”

Lee touched Deuce’s neck, his fingers finding the rope that tethered him to the dog. He shook his head slowly. “No.”

Kev leaned his head back. “Don’t play coy. I said Shumate exaggerates. I didn’t say he’s a bald-faced liar. There’s clearly something going on with you. Besides, I found you with a tac vest and full magazines.”

Lee quirked an eyebrow, not making the intuitive leap that Kev apparently was.

“I see a man with full magazines, it means something,” Kev explained. “It’s a rough world out there these days, and ammunition is used up pretty quickly. But here you are with full mags. So either that was all the ammunition you had, and you’ve been hiding for the last several months—which means you’ve got a hell of a hiding spot—or you’ve been out running and gunning like the rest of us, but you just have a shitload of supplies.”

He pointed to Lee’s bandaged head. “I can see you’re a little banged up, but that shit is recent, which means your story about someone trying to kill you could be true. But this gets me to thinking, because no one just tries to kill someone else out here and doesn’t search the body afterward and take every damn thing they have. Boots, knives, ammunition.” Kev showed his teeth. “Hell, I’ve even seen people eat each other because they’re fucking starved. Especially these last few months. Weather’s getting cold. Food’s getting scarce. Seem to be more infected now than ever.

“But here you are with a knife, six magazines of ammunition, all your clothing on your back, and your boots still on your feet when—if you were legitimately being killed—you’d’ve been left stripped naked.” Kev cleared his throat. “But you know how this all makes sense?”

Lee closed his eyes. He swallowed, trying to ignore the nausea, and discreetly slipped his fingers under the rope collar around Deuce’s neck, loosening it just slightly. “How’s that?”

“The guy who tried to kill you wasn’t doing it to survive. It was an assassination attempt.”

Lee blew out a breath and opened his eyes. “Assassination?”

Kev tapped his own head and smiled, proud of himself. “And random bums who don’t mean anything don’t get assassinated. They get murdered and robbed. Only important people get assassinated. Which means you’re an important person, at least to somebody.” Kev leaned forward slightly. “I think having some bunkers full of supplies would make you pretty fucking important to some people.”

Lee could feel his stomach tightening, saliva beginning to run. “Sounds like you’ve got me figured out.”

Kev shifted his position. The muzzle swung slightly more in Lee’s direction.

The movement did not escape Lee. His heart skipped, gave one solid pound, then began to hammer. His head buzzed with fever and adrenaline, nausea and nerves coiling in his gut like a live thing trying to come out. He already didn’t like the line of questioning Kev threw his way, but the furtive slide of the muzzle in Lee’s direction sealed it. It was one of those moments when Lee knew that things were about to go very badly for him. Knew it like the smell of a violent thunderstorm.

Shelley looked back. “Kev…”

“You know where that fucking GPS is, don’t you?” Kev said.

Lee looked up at him. “I have no fucking clue.”

Deuce perked up, looking out the back. He growled loudly.

Shelley swore. “What’s that mean?”

Kev swung up onto one knee. “Shut the fuck up, Shelley!” He pointed the rifle at Lee’s chest and began talking quickly. “Now we got even less time, so let’s get to it. You might have Shumate fooled with your act, but not me. You know where that shit is, and you’re gonna fuckin’ tell me or I’m gonna start punching holes in you and deal with the consequences later.”

Lee had both hands under the dog’s collar, had loosened it now so that it would come off with one quick swipe. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about! The GPS was stolen, man! Eddie Ramirez has it!”

“And where the fuck is Eddie Ramirez?” Kev raised his voice slightly.

Despite the commotion inside the van, Deuce continued to stare out the back, growling louder now, long, warning grumbles that ended in a chuff.

“You know where he is. Or at least where he’s heading to.” Kev smiled savagely. “And if you don’t think that I’m about to pop you, you’re in for some misery.”

“I’m gonna throw up,” Lee croaked, leaning forward.

“What?”

“I’m gonna throw up…” Lee coughed, felt the saliva stream down the corners of his mouth and spill over his lips, hanging from him in long glistening strands as his stomach began to heave. His eyes watered and he blinked them rapidly, trying to keep an eye on Kev.

“Are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me right now?” Kev shouted.

“I don’t think he’s kidding,” Shelley said.

Lee retched, a lumpy yellow liquid that tasted of bile and fish. He pitched forward, tried to think about what he was doing. Tried to keep control of himself. He swiped his hands up, pulling the collar free of the dog just as the vomit reached his lips and purged out.

Kev recoiled as the vomit splashed the floor of the van. “Don’t you fuckin’ puke on me!” The muzzle of the rifle swept up, pointing at the ceiling.

And Lee saw it like a door exploding open in a dark room, nothing but daylight beyond.

His way out. His opportunity.

Do-or-die time.

Moving toward the open side door of the van, in mid-heave, he turned and drove straight into Kev’s body with everything he had, slamming his bound hands into Kev’s throat, even as he retched again, spilling vomit across Kev’s chest. Lee’s fingers latched onto the man’s larynx and bore down with everything he had. He could feel the thin bones snapping under his fingers, the nails digging into the skin. Kev’s eyes stared back, his jaw locked open in a silent, gagging scream as his windpipe gave under the pressure. Lee growled, strained with the effort, his teeth clenched, yellow froth bubbling madly from between them. He ripped his hands back and forth as though trying to tear Kev’s throat out, felt things moving in there that shouldn’t have been moving.

At first Kev’s hands flew to his neck, trying to claw Lee’s fingers from his windpipe. Lee felt Kev’s rifle clatter to the ground, useless when the combatants were so close together. He could also hear Shelley screaming, and from his peripheral vision, Lee could see her moving about rapidly, reaching for something. Then Kev torqued his body, slamming an elbow across Lee’s face and knocking him sideways.

Black and white like an inkblot test.

Then the ceiling of the van, with purplish sparkles at the edges of his vision. Deuce barking, somewhere close by.

The weight of Kev clambering wildly to get on top of him. Lee kicked with his knees, tried to get them between his body and Kev’s. Kev slammed something into Lee’s midsection, driving the air out of his lungs.

Shelley, coming into view, trying to point a pistol at Lee’s head, yelling something.

But Lee was already in motion; the decision was made, the actions taken. There would be no stopping now. Not for anything.

He reached up, grabbed the pistol that stared at him, his bound wrists forcing his arms to work in tandem. He shoved the pistol up and away from him, tried to wrestle it out of Shelley’s grip, but a big hand swept across Lee’s vision, knocking the pistol out of Lee’s hand before he could get it from Shelley. It flew out of Lee’s sight, crashing somewhere in the front area of the vehicle.

Kev was still trying to get on top of him, his arms swinging in wild body blows that grew weaker with each repetition, all the oxygen burning up in Kev’s muscles and his lungs not getting anything new past his crushed throat. Lee had one knee between him and Kev, straining to heave the bulk of the man off of him. Kev stared down at him, his eyes wide and bloodshot, his face puffy and strange, his throat misshapen. He tried to rear back for another blow but then toppled.

“Kev!” Shelley screamed.

Lee pushed out with his leg, shoving Kev’s nearly unconscious body off of him. He tried to roll into a better position, but Shelley tumbled into the back, her fists glancing off of Lee’s head, skinning his face as she made insane sounds and kept screaming. Lee reached up, hooked his bound wrists behind her head and pulled her down into his chest to keep her from hitting him anymore. She writhed against him in that position, clawing at his arms, his face, his neck. White-hot pain through the left side of his chest as she bit into his skin and tore her head back and forth like a wild animal.

Lee cried out in pain, kicked with his feet to rid them of the weight of Kev’s body, then rolled, desperately twisting his body until he was on top and Shelley was below him on her back. He arched his back, driving his head into her stomach, then pulled his head up and slammed it into her again. She cried out but still fought, punching and kicking at him but unable to move with her body pinned to the ground by Lee’s head. He had his body bridged over her so that all of his weight was directed into her midsection. Lee pulled himself off of her just long enough to throw everything he had into a knee strike that hit the top of her skull. Whether or not it had stunned her, or whether or not she would have kept fighting after that point, Lee didn’t know. He didn’t wait to find out. He kept driving that knee into her head. Felt the skull crack on the fourth or fifth blow. Kept going until he registered that she wasn’t moving anymore.

He rolled off of her, the fatigue hitting him in a single crashing wave. His muscles burned, his lungs heaved, trying to suck every last bit of oxygen out of the air. His mouth tasted of blood and vomit. His face ached, his already broken nose bleeding again, dripping on the dirty white floor of the van’s cargo hold. He looked at Shelley, saw her eyelids fluttering, though her body was limp. Maybe still alive. Or maybe just peripheral nerves firing off randomly.

He realized that Deuce was still barking.

He twisted, looked to the back of the van. Deuce was poised on the tailgate, staring out at the street and barking his head off, his tail lowered along his legs, his ears erect and wary. He paused from his barking just long enough to look back at Lee as though to say, I know you can hear me!

“Fuck!” Lee lurched onto his hands and knees, found himself weak and wobbly. He spat, saw blood in his saliva, along with bits of tuna and whatever else he’d voided from his stomach. The adrenaline masked much of the pain and the sickness he’d felt, but that would wear off, and he knew the hurt was coming.

He needed antibiotics. At least some fever medication. Some water. He needed to get out of the van before Shumate and Corey and the Quiet Man came back. Surely they’d heard the commotion. At the very least they’d heard Shelley’s screams. Lee needed to get out of here. He needed a weapon. Where were the infected that Deuce was barking about? He needed to run. To find someplace to hide…

Slow it down!

Compartmentalize.

He took a shaky breath.

First things first: He needed a gun. The only gun that was immediately available was Kev’s rifle, and he couldn’t handle that with his hands bound together. One of them had to have a knife. He began riffling through their pockets and belts, looking up quickly to glance out the back for infected or out the side for Shumate and his crew to come running.

He found his own KA-BAR attached to the back of Kev’s belt, along with his sheath. He removed it from Kev’s belt, then slid out his KA-BAR. He jammed the handle between his knees and began working at the bindings on his wrists. Even after all the abuse, the blade was still sharp, and after an agonizing twenty seconds, his wrists were finally free.

He spent no time working life back into them or rubbing the angry red bands that glared at him. They stung like he wore gloves filled with needles, but he knew that would pass. He sheathed the knife and shoved it into his pocket. Then he reached across Kev’s body, took the M4, checked the mag, checked the chamber—locked and loaded. He grabbed an extra magazine and looked to the front of the van, thinking, Damn, maybe I can just drive out of here…

“Holy shit!”

He heard the words coming from outside and knew without having to look that they were back. He flattened himself against the inside of the van, trying not to be seen. Too late. Gunshots cracked the cold air, punching holes clean through the van—in one side and out the other.

Lee dove for the back end, the catastrophic noise causing Deuce to bolt out ahead of him. Lee hit the tailgate on his stomach, rolled, and fell to the concrete on his back. He scrambled to his feet and, though he couldn’t see them through the van, pointed his rifle in their general direction and let loose a volley that shredded through the taillights and caused shouts of alarm on the other side.

Lee took his chance and turned to run.

Deuce stood in the street, still barking incessantly, the hackles along his spine raised up.

Down the street about three blocks, a mass of filthy humanity spilled around the corner of a brownstone building—a horde of naked, barefooted wretches, screeching, grunting, and sprinting for them at breakneck speed.

FOURTEEN

CLARITY

LEE RAN. HIS BOOTS slammed pavement, jarring his legs, but every ache in his body suddenly evaporated. All superfluous messages to his brain were filtered and discarded, his mind singular: Get away. Get away from Shumate and get away from the infected.

Barreling across the street, hunched over and hoping that the van still blocked him from Shumate’s view, he looked at a wall of glass and wood. Storefront windows. Most of them boarded up. Some of them broken in, but not enough to get through without getting cut. And jumping through a plate-glass window looked great in the movies but would slice you up bad in real life.

He pivoted for a door—an old, wooden brown thing that seemed flimsy enough that it wouldn’t give much of a fight. He lowered his shoulder on the approach and didn’t slow down. There was no time to slow down. No time for hesitation.

He went through the door in a cloud of splinters, sprawled out in the middle of a narrow hallway. White tiles with little black accents, worn smooth by passing feet. His body hurt blindingly for a flash, mainly in his chest and shoulders, but the pain almost immediately abated to a dull ache. He scrambled to his feet, took a glance behind him, and found Deuce slipping through the door.

To either side of him were waist-high platforms where antique furniture and other useless trash were displayed in ornamental fashion for window-shoppers. Lee dove for a wooden chair. It felt creaky and ancient in his hands, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. He kicked the door shut and jammed the back of the old chair under the loose doorknob.

He turned. Found himself in nearly complete darkness.

Outside, there was a horrid sound building to a roar. The sound of hundreds of infected, screeching, barking, yapping at each other. There were human shouts amid the noise, the shouts of Shumate and Corey and the Quiet Man, and the rapid pop-pop-pop of gunshots.

Lee shuffled his feet down the hall, his right hand gripping the rifle and pulling it into his shoulder, the left extended out in front of him like a blind man. His vision adjusted slowly, and from the spears of light coming in through cracks in the boarded windows, Lee could just make out the interior of the shop.

It smelled of cedar chests and pine furniture and old fabric passed down through generations. Musty old clutter in dark towers to his left and right, strangely shaped and ominous in the dark. He realized he was breathing rapidly with his mouth open. He closed it. The bile in his mouth had dried to a sickening paste. He spat, tried to clear his arid throat.

Find a safe place. That’s what you need to do. Find a safe place.

Behind him, the front door of the shop banged loudly, as though an irate customer were demanding entry. He swiveled, pointing the rifle at the door. He could hear the commotion outside, but the bang was not repeated and it did not seem that anything was pressing to get in. Perhaps Shumate and his crew had distracted the horde long enough for Lee to get away.

Lee prayed to God for that to be the case.

Because God knows that chair ain’t gonna last.

He forced himself to turn around again, face the dark. He kept moving forward, not sure what he was looking for. A door perhaps. One that led to a basement. Or better yet, an upper level. He tried to think if the building was two-story, tried to recall what it had looked like when he’d run toward it, but he’d been focused on the door. Architectural details had escaped him.

“Come on, Deuce,” Lee said, for no more reason than to put a voice into the darkness. He could hear the clicking of the dog’s claws on the tile floor beside him. The dog whined and growled intermittently, not wanting to go farther into the shop but not wanting to go back the way they came either.

Lee found the cashier’s counter, stepped behind it into an even darker room. Tested the walls. Found a door. He stood at the door for a moment, trying to listen, but the noise from outside was too loud for him to hear if anything was moving beyond the door. Finally he took a step back, raised his rifle, and knocked.

He waited.

No response.

He tested the doorknob, found it unlocked. He opened the door.

A narrow set of stairs, barely distinguishable in the dark.

Behind him, something collided with the front door of the shop, rattling it on its hinges. The chair pinning the door shifted and creaked against the tiles. Lee snapped his head around, saw a flash of daylight come through a crack in the door, a dark shadow of something pressing into that small space as though it might squeeze itself through. The door shook violently and the antique shop was filled with a screech as loud as if it were inside with Lee.

“Upstairs!” Lee shoved Deuce up ahead of him with his foot. The dog scrabbled up the stairs, Lee following quickly through the door and closing it behind him just as the front door exploded. The antique chair flew to pieces, the door clattering back off its stopper as two spidery figures tumbled inside.

Lee latched the door. Locked it, breathing hard again.

He turned and flew up the stairs, taking them two at a time. His legs felt like spring coils for the first few steps and then suddenly they were made of lead as he passed the halfway point, as though he had just sucked up the last little bit of energy left in his muscles. Lee had experienced “hitting the wall” before—the point at which your body simply stopped obeying any commands for speed or strength. He knew the feeling and he feared his body giving out more than anything. The other times he’d experienced it had been long and drawn-out times of 100 percent effort. But with his current physical state, it seemed to be hitting him quicker than ever before.

This is not the time to be weak. He attempted to berate himself into pushing past the wall. But everyone who had ever hit it knew that it wasn’t something you could push past.

He took the last few steps, one foot in front of the other, one hand hobbling him up like a tripod. Below them in the antique shop, wood cracked, shelves were toppled, glass broke. There was more barking and growling now. It sounded like a half dozen of them were tearing the place apart.

How’d they find me? Did they sniff me out?

Will they smell their way to me upstairs?

His mind painted a vivid picture of them pouring through the door to the upstairs area and him unable to run, unable to fight. Just backing himself into a corner and using every last round he had before he set to slashing away with his knife, a hopeless gesture as the soiled and putrid bodies kept piling atop him, pinning his arms and legs down as they went to work on his belly.

I don’t wanna die like this.

“You’re not gonna die,” Lee said through clenched teeth. “Buck up, motherfucker.”

He stood at the top of the stairs, twitching with the slam of each heartbeat as he looked quickly left and right. A wide-open space, packed in the corners with some boxes and old furniture. A small window to the front of the building—one that Lee assumed looked over the street—shed light into the attic storage area.

Keep moving. Gotta keep moving.

He traced the perimeter of the upstairs room. The clattering ruckus continued down below, as though the infected were vandals intent on destroying everything. Lee tried to pinpoint the noise, to see how close they were getting, if they were sniffing him out or if they were simply tearing the place apart looking for something to eat—it was impossible to determine the motivations of someone gone insane. But it seemed like it was getting louder.

“Find a way out. Find a way out.”

A ladder, bolted to the wall, moving into a recess in the ceiling. Lee felt unraveled as he looked at it, relief letting loose some of that bowstring tension. He could escape onto the roof, find a way down from there…

A whine turned his attention around.

Glinting eyes and perked ears. Attention shifting between Lee and the stairwell.

Shit…

Lee swore, moving quickly to the ladder and looking up. It was a roof-access point, probably for utilities. He looked at the dog, knew without having to think about it that he wasn’t going to leave the dog behind. Stupid! Stupid! Don’t risk your life for a fucking dog! But blame it on delirium or fever or some sort of mental break that fissured up from the dark parts of his soul, so long under such enormous pressures… He just couldn’t do it. He couldn’t look at Deuce and not see Tango, and no matter how much reason or logic it defied, he couldn’t do it again. He couldn’t leave the damn dog behind.

“C’mere, you stupid mutt,” Lee growled. He stood over the dog, realized he was not going to carry his rifle and the dog at the same time. He slung into the rifle, draping it over his back, and scrambled up the ladder, unlatching the roof access and shoving it open. Daylight blazed down on him. Cold water dribbled in onto his face, down his collar, into his mouth. It tasted like dirt and mold.

Below him, Deuce began barking.

“Shut up!” Lee hissed, but it was no use. Something rattled the door at the bottom of the stairs, and Deuce backed himself up against the ladder, his tail tucked, going into defense mode. Lee slid down the ladder, almost landed on the dog. He felt his entire body shaking, not from fever or cold this time, but it seemed every muscle in his body quivered under his own weight.

I don’t know if I can carry the fucking dog.

You can carry the dog.

He bent down, put an arm around the dog’s chest, and heaved up. Deuce squirmed a bit, but Lee held him tight. “Relax, dumbass. I’m doin’ this for you.” The dog was lighter than he remembered Tango being. Smaller. He could feel the dog’s bones, his ribs and his hips, digging into his side as he held him under one arm, already breathing hard from the effort.

You’re too weak.

No, I’m gonna make it.

The door at the bottom of the stairs banged loudly. Something trying to get in.

How the fuck do they know?

With his free hand, he grabbed the rung of the ladder and began climbing, having to keep his body in tight to the ladder as he climbed so that he could fit the bulk of his body and Deuce’s through the hole in the ceiling. As they moved into the narrow space, Deuce began to buck violently against him, trying to break free.

“Keep it together, buddy,” Lee groaned, trying to keep his grip on the dog and on the railing, his arms shaking, feeling weak and used up.

A shattering boom. Stampeding footsteps.

Deuce’s paws moved spastically as he fought against Lee’s grip, the dog simultaneously moving against him and trying to claw his way up Lee’s torso toward the daylight only a few feet above their heads.

Lee spoke through clenched teeth. “Come on, motherfucker!”

He slammed his back against the hole as though he were going to chimney up. He bent his torso so that his chest and stomach were a platform for the dog, and then hauled the panicked creature up onto him. With his back rigidly pressed against the wall, his legs creating counterpressure against the ladder, he let go of his grip and took hold of the dog with both hands, shoving him up toward the opening. His muscles screamed, cramped, didn’t want to cooperate.

Screeching from below. The sound of the chase.

Deuce’s front paws clutched at the roof as Lee pushed him up, his hind legs seeking purchase on Lee’s arms, his claws digging grooves into Lee’s skin.

Something pale and sinuous hit the ladder below him, sending reverberations up the rungs. Lee looked down, through the narrow gap between his arm and his torso, and he could see the dark, wild eyes staring up at him, the gaping, bloody mouth, the foul odor of it carried up and out by the suction of wind across the roof access.

The infected jumped onto the ladder and seized hold of Lee’s right ankle. Lee let out a shout of panic and slammed his foot down onto the thing’s face. The grip slackened on his ankle but did not let go. Lee tried again, and put everything he had into it. A spurt of black blood erupted from the infected’s face and splattered the white paint of the wall. It made an animal mewl and fell backward off the ladder, only to be trampled under the feet of three more infected, their wraithlike figures pushing and shoving for a grip on the ladder.

Lee pulled with his arms, pushed with his legs, climbed the last few rungs of the ladder, and rolled onto the roof, his chest heaving, his stomach and intestines looping around each other in slippery knots. Deuce stood with his feet spread wide, a few paces from the roof access hatch, and barked at it. The black hole in the roof growled back, as though it were the throat of some beast that Lee had just escaped from.

Lee struggled to sit up, a violent tremor working through him, something that he could not control. A dreadful feeling of weakness followed it, and he strangled and stuffed it back down. He would not be weak. He could not afford it and would not let it poison his mind any more. Anger was his universe now. And it was a useful drug, breathing hot life into his trembling limbs, putting a fire in his cold gut, and masking all the pain and terror.

A hand clawed its way out of the roof access hatch and gripped the side. So pale that the skin seemed translucent, like the hide of some cave-dwelling creature crawled out from under a rock. Lee slung the rifle from his back, sitting spread-legged just a few feet from the creature as it hoisted itself up out of the hatch. Its other arm ended abruptly in a scabbed and tattered stump just at the wrist. It reached for Lee with the hand that it no longer had and its mouth stretched open wide as though it already had hold of Lee and was drawing him into its mouth.

Lee shot from the hip, pulled the trigger three times. The first round chipped a chunk of flesh from the infected’s bony shoulder, the second poked a hole in its throat, and the third took off the right side of its face as it toppled backward into the hole.

Lee followed it as quickly as his body could be forced to move. He couldn’t seem to stop breathing so hard, and the exhales came out in grunts and groans. He hit the roof access, kicked the hatch closed, and realized that it only latched from the inside.

“Fuck…” he mumbled breathlessly.

Then something hit him from underneath. It beat violently at the hatch, nearly bouncing Lee off, and screamed at him. Lee hung on to the hatch, trying to make his body weigh enough to hold it down, but the thing underneath was incredibly strong, and it shoved up at him, nearly toppling him off the hatch.

Can’t sit here forever.

Lee got one foot up, tried to situate himself.

The hatch burst open, throwing him back a bit.

Three arms, four arms, five arms, scrabbling for purchase, all of them arching up and out of the hole like some arachnid creation cobbled together from human body parts.

Lee just pointed his rifle and shot. Blood and bone and flesh flew from limbs. A head appeared and was pulverized. On his hands and knees, Lee shoved the muzzle of the rifle into the hatch and kept firing, kept firing, until it seemed like he’d beaten the unholy creature back into its hole. Only as he felt the familiar and discomfiting sensation of the bolt locking back on an empty magazine did he come to his senses and pull his finger from the trigger.

He tingled all over.

The roof spun around him in lazy circles.

He slammed the hatch closed again and screamed at it, just a wordless sound of desperation. Pinpricks across his face. The sensation of hot and cold. He put his forehead against the hatch and closed his eyes, trying to stop the spinning, breathing so hard that gobs of frothy spittle cooled his lips.

He breathed shallowly, rapidly.

Don’t pass out! Don’t pass out!

Underneath the hatch, there was the sound of something wounded clinging to its last tethers of life. But nothing screamed at him, nothing screeched. Nothing battered itself against the underside of the hatch.

He rolled onto his back, still pinning the hatch closed. Stared up at a sky that was as blue as any he’d ever seen, though it shimmered and seemed to boil in his fevered state.

Am I hallucinating?

He brought the rifle up so it lay across his chest, stripped the old mag out, fished the new one from his pocket, and slammed it in. His fingers found the bolt release and it clunked forward, recharging the rifle.

I’m good to go. I’m good to go.

The sound of infected on the street seemed to shiver in the air, like the bustle of a crowd, but with something wrong in the pitch and timbre. The inflections were just meaningless jabber. Every nonsense syllable made strange and aggressive in their feral state. They didn’t screech, though, didn’t chase anything or attack anything. Lee pictured them just milling about on the street, sniffing around for food and water like some giant pack of wild dogs.

Maybe they’re calm. Maybe they’ll go away.

He worked his tongue around his mouth, found it dry, his gums covered in paste, his lips crusted and flaking. He closed his mouth, forced himself to breathe through his nose, but the cold air stung his sinuses. He needed to calm this prickling feeling in his chest, the anger that made him waste an entire magazine. He needed to calm down.

And calmly, he thought to himself, I’m dying. This is me dying.

A bird flitted past the corner of his vision. It looked like it sparkled in the air. Made him dizzy.

His head began to pound unmercifully, all the aches and pains returning as the adrenaline ebbed like a receding tide. He almost wanted the danger again, wanted to be thrust into it, so that it would kick that magic drug back into his veins.

This is me dying, but I’m not dead yet. I’ve got some time left. I will need to find water. I will need to find antibiotics. If I can find those things in the time I have left, then maybe I will get more time. That’s what’s important. Getting more time.

This is me dying, but I’m not dead yet.

“HAAAR-DEN!”

Lee hadn’t realized he’d closed his eyes. They shot open at the sound of the scream, his fingertips tingling. Had he been sleeping? How long had he been lying there?

“Harden, you motherfucker, you hear me?”

Excited whimpers rippled through the horde of infected on the street as they heard the sound of human voices coming from nearby.

“You’re not gonna get away with this!” Shumate’s voice. Desperate. Out of his mind. “We know you’re up there! We’re gonna find you, you sonofabitch! You’re gonna die for what you did!”

Lee almost laughed. But the sound that came out of him was just a sad wheeze. And his expression was not one of humor, but rather a death’s-head grin. Because it was all so fucking ridiculous.

In this collapsed world, the sociopaths, the psychotics, the cold-hearted killers and criminals, they would always survive. They would always be there. Because they were unfettered. They were unbound by such immaterial concepts as “common law.” After all, what were all the world’s great leaders and generals if not sociopaths and mass murderers, turned into heroes and forefathers by history’s love of a victor?

He was a fool. He had been one for some time now. Holding so desperately to his old morals and his outdated codes. Honor had brought him nothing but pain. He would not continue. He couldn’t and still expect to live.

You cannot be what you were.

And Lee knew it was true. He knew it through and through, and he felt it like the loss of a limb because it was a part of himself that he was hacking off. The part that wanted to be “good” and “right.” But those parts of him were no longer useful to him. They’d become dead weight. And no matter how much he wanted them back, he could not have them back, just as you could not breathe life back into dead, gangrenous tissue. You had to cut it off before it killed the whole body.

Lee didn’t move. He still stared up at the sky, watching the slow movement of a small cloud as it made its way east. This degradation of morals was an infection in and of itself. The “bad guys” were the carriers and they infected the rest of the world with it. They made people like Lee do things he didn’t want to do. It wasn’t enough that he’d ripped a man’s throat out with his bare hands or that he’d bashed a young woman’s brains in with his knee. It wasn’t enough. They were going to force him to kill them all.

Because they would never turn over with a “reasonable” amount of force.

They required brutality.

You cannot be who you were.

“You’re not leaving this town alive!” Shumate screamed, his voice cracking, going hoarse. “It’s just a matter of time!”

Lee knew exactly what Shumate meant. Eventually, the infected horde below would lose interest or become distracted by something else, or night would fall and they would return to their den, wherever it was. Once they were gone, it would be Lee’s opportunity to escape from this rooftop, to find water and hopefully medicine, before his fever cooked his brain and dehydration rendered him immobile.

Shumate was right. It was just a matter of time.

Lee closed his eyes again. Hugged his rifle. “We’ll see,” he breathed. “We’ll see.”

FIFTEEN

MISINFORMATION

ANGELA LAID THE BLANKET out on the ground inside her shanty, pulled a folding knife from her pocket. Abby stood beside her, leaning on her mother and twisting about in the fidgety manner of all small children. Angela opened the knife and cut a hole in the center of the blanket—a small, rectangular affair, not meant for much more than to be draped over a couch.

With the cut made, she draped it over her daughter, putting the little blond head through the slit she’d created so it hung on the girl’s shoulders like a poncho. Abby looked down at it and swished it back and forth, as though feeling out how drafty it was.

“Still cold,” she said, then swiped at her nose.

Angela smiled and rubbed her daughter’s shoulders. “It’ll do until I fix this one for you.” She picked up the small black winter jacket and displayed the ragged hole in the elbow. She stared at it for a long time. Just another chore to do. It all felt like busywork. Like she was just biding her time. Like it was all just a bunch of distractions, trying to get her to stop thinking about the truth.

Stop thinking about Jerry.

Stop thinking about Bus.

Stop thinking about Lee.

The worst part was that none of it worked. Mothering Abby and Sam. Cooking meals. Mending clothes. Helping out with some of the chores around the compound. Like some domesticated dream that she was being forced to have. And all she wanted to do was wake up. Get out of this dream world. Take the action that needed to be taken.

Is any of this ever going to feel normal again? How long do I think I can fake it?

Abby tapped her shoulder. “You okay, Mommy?”

Angela forced a smile. “Yes, honey. But you need to be more careful when you play.”

“It’s not torn that bad.” Abby touched the torn fibers of the jacket. “I can still wear it.”

“You’re just gonna make it worse.” Angela stood up. “It’s not like it was, honey. We can’t just go to the store and buy you a new coat. We have to take care of our stuff now.”

“I know.”

The tarp that covered the front door swung aside and Sam poked his head in, the .22 rifle he’d gotten from Keith slung on his shoulder. It struck Angela how adult he appeared lately, always concerned for Abby, always serious. Oddly, he often asked Angela how she was doing, as though he felt it was his responsibility to fill in for Lee.

“Sam.” Angela waved. She grabbed her own coat, put it on. Her fingertips went to her hip under her jacket, wanting to touch the cold metal of her gun, but it wasn’t there. She hadn’t gotten it back from Jerry when he’d let her out, and she had no inclination to ask him for it. “Where’s Mr. Keith?”

“I dunno.” Sam stepped through, looked behind him as though to make sure he wasn’t followed. In a lower voice, he stated ominously, “Talking to some people.”

Angela became still. She looked at the young man standing across from her, tried to take a reading from him, but his dark eyes let nothing on. God, he’s such a strange kid.

“Can I go play with Sam?” Abby pled. “I hate sewing.”

“You’re not sewing.” Angela rolled her eyes. “You’re watching me sew.”

“I hate watching you sew.”

Angela rubbed the fabric of her daughter’s torn coat, feeling a knot forming in her stomach. That little twinge of sharp pain every time the prospect of her child being in danger occurred to her. Was it safe for her to leave Angela’s side? She wanted the little girl with her, felt like she was more protected with her mother. But Abby wouldn’t understand why she couldn’t play with Sam. And Sam was old enough to watch her, wasn’t he?

She ground her teeth. “Okay… Sam, is that all right with you?” She prayed Sam would say he was busy with some other project. Some gross boy thing that Abby would not be interested in. Skinning rabbits or gutting fish or something.

But Sam just nodded. “Yeah, we can play soccer with the other kids.”

Abby looked relieved. “I’m good at soccer.”

Sam smiled. “You’re pretty good.”

Angela zipped up her jacket. “Sam, can I ask you to do something for me?”

“Yes?” Sam stuck a thumb in the strap of his little rifle.

Angela put a hand on his shoulder. “If Jerry or any of his guys try to come talk to you or Abby, you come straight to me or Mr. Keith, okay?”

Sam looked at her as though it were a strange request, but he nodded. “Okay.”

Angela watched the two kids exit the shanty, hand in hand. It’s gonna be okay. We’re all within earshot here. If anything happens…

She clutched her hands together. “Nothing’s going to happen.”

Angela left her shanty, wishing she had a way to lock it behind her. She felt open and exposed to this community that felt less like a community and more like strangers. Strangers who were neutral toward her at best. Openly hostile in some cases. So many of them were eating Jerry’s bullshit hook, line, and sinker, and it made her clench her jaw until it hurt that people could be that stupid, that gullible.

But they weren’t all that way. There were a lot, but there were plenty who thought like Angela. And she was going to find them. She was going to find them and she was going to make this right. It was her responsibility. She had to take it.

“Angela!”

She raised her eyes from the gravel ground and found Jenny waving and jogging across The Square toward her. A hesitant smile played across Angela’s features. She raised a hand and waved, somewhat less enthusiastically than the former nursing-student-turned-doctor. She looked around, saw that the few people in The Square hadn’t really paid them any mind.

“Hi, Jenny,” Angela said as Jenny drew close.

Jenny dodged all pretense and immediately put her arms around Angela, her voice thickening as it grew quiet. “I’m so, so sorry. I heard. I heard what happened. If you need anything…”

Angela’s smile turned grim. “I’m fine.”

When Jenny pulled away, there was the barest shimmer of tears in her eyes. “It’s horrible. I just can’t believe that Bus put you in that situation!”

Angela almost coughed. “What?”

“Holding you hostage…”

“Jenny!” Angela felt her face flush and fought the urge to slap the woman, as though she were a piece of machinery that had a stuck gear. Angela opened her mouth to speak but took another glance around and this time found a pair of eyes watching them.

Greg, funny enough.

Jerry’s words jangled through her mind, harsh and reverberating like a cymbal crashed too close to her ears. Those men who do things for me might find you, Angela. Maybe in the middle of the night when you’re snug in your bed, cradling your daughter…

She turned quickly back to Jenny, found the woman staring with a perplexed expression that bordered on taking offense. As though the sharp tone had been completely unexpected and obviously perceived as unnecessary.

“Angela… what’s wrong?”

Angela put an arm around Jenny, clutching the upper sleeve of her jacket perhaps just a little too hard. “Come with me. We need to speak in private.”

“I don’t understand…”

“Just be quiet and walk with me,” Angela whispered harshly, feeling the eyes of Greg boring into her back as she moved Jenny toward the rows of shanties. At first she moved toward her shanty, but then decided she wanted to be farther away.

She kept moving down the rows of hastily erected shelters, walking quickly but not so quickly as to raise suspicions… she hoped. They kept walking until they hit the fence that bordered Camp Ryder, and for the first time, Angela noticed the hodgepodge of scrap metal, corrugated roofing, tires, boards, and other unused items that had been welded and lashed to the fence.

“What the hell is this?” she said.

Jenny looked at it. “It’s Jerry. You know he’s big on fortification—no one in, no one out, that sort of thing. The second he took over, he pulled a group of five guys and they’ve been doing nothing but reinforcing the fence and the gates.”

Angela grimaced.

“Why?” Jenny asked.

Angela shook her head and just muttered, “Berlin wall.”

Jenny looked around, growing mildly irritated. “What the hell’s going on with you?”

Angela looked behind them. There was no one around and the closest shanty was more than twenty yards away. When she found Jenny’s eyes again, she spoke deliberately and quietly. “What were you told? What’d they say happened in the office?”

Jenny put her hand to her chest as a freezing wind knifed at their skin. “They never came out and said anything. I heard that Bus lost it, tried to hold you hostage when he saw Jerry coming to take over. But Jerry was able to get him away from you and then had to kill him.”

Angela didn’t think her eyes could stretch any wider. The wind sucked the warmth and the moisture out of her mouth as it hung open. “Are you serious?”

“Look, I’m no big fan of Jerry,” Jenny whispered. “But I’m glad he saved you—”

“Jenny! None of that happened!”

“What?”

“It didn’t happen like that!” Angela rubbed her face. Her eyebrows knit together in a combination of disbelief and anger. “Bus never held me captive! Bus was the one who convinced me to surrender when I was getting ready to shoot it out with them!”

Jenny shook her head. “Oh, Angela…”

“Why do you think they held me prisoner?”

“I thought it was just to make sure that… well, I don’t know.”

Angela was close to snapping. “Whose side are you on right now, Jenny?”

Jenny reached out and touched her arm. “You’re my friend. I’m here for you.”

Angela put a hand to her mouth and looked away as she felt her eyes starting to burn. Bus’s murder flashed through her brain, memories she didn’t want but that had been erected like murals on the walls of her mind. And then Jerry’s words, once more, whispered in her ear with hot, malicious breath: Those men who do things for me might find you, Angela. Maybe in the middle of the night when you’re snug in your bed, cradling your daughter…

Jenny bent close. “What happened in there?”

Angela sniffed, wiped her hand off on her jacket, and forced a brave face. “Never mind. Forget I said anything.” She shifted her weight. “I’ve got to get this jacket sewn back up. But after that, do you need any help at the medical trailer? I want to get back to work doing something.”

Jenny watched her friend for a long time before nodding. “Yeah. I could always use the help.” She swept stray hair behind her ears. “We’re hurting, Angela. We’ve run out of meds, and it looks like this cold or flu thing is just getting started with us. I’ve got three people with full-blown pneumonia right now, and I’ve got no way to solve it. I don’t…” She didn’t finish her thought.

“Ladies!”

Angela and Jenny turned toward the shanties, saw Greg standing there, his thumbs stuck in the pockets of his ratty jeans, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. Angela’s heart felt like it had exploded in her chest and immediately she began to formulate explanations for what they were doing whispering in this quiet corner of camp.

Jenny actually managed a smile. “Hey, Greg.”

Greg let the silence stretch uncomfortably, situated his old Yankees ball cap on his head, then jerked a thumb back toward The Square. “Jerry’s callin’ a town meeting. Wants everybody to meet up at The Square so we can talk stuff out.”

“Okay.” Jenny nodded.

Angela seethed but kept her mouth shut.

Town meeting? Town meeting? Like he’s the fucking mayor? Like he’s running this place?

Greg winked. “Message delivered. See you there.”

Angela and Jenny made their way through the rows of huts to The Square, where a crowd had already gathered and Jerry stood on the tailgate of a pickup truck, smiling cordially and greeting people by name, bending down to shake hands and slap shoulders.

Angela stood on tiptoe to try to see over the heads of the others. Where’s Abby? Where’s Sam?

There were a few children in the crowd but not the usual amount.

Maybe they’re still off playing.

She tried to listen for the sounds of the children’s soccer game but couldn’t hear over the bubbling murmur of voices all around her. She found the face of another woman she knew had children. She reached through a wall of bodies to touch her arm and get her attention.

The woman turned to look at Angela, and her face immediately soured.

Angela ignored it. “Hey, are the kids still playing soccer?”

The woman nodded. “Last I saw. Why?”

Angela smiled. “Nothing. Just being a mother.”

The woman quirked a brow haughtily and turned away.

And Angela gritted her teeth and thought, Didn’t I bring you food and extra blankets? Didn’t I make sure you had medicine for your snot-nosed brats? Didn’t Lee and his team find the children’s cough syrup for you that kept your son from getting pneumonia?

What a bitch.

Never did like her.

Jerry raised up his hands for quiet and cleared his throat loudly. “Thanks for comin’ out so quickly, folks. I know we all got jobs to tend to, and I’ll make this brief.” His eyes panned over the gathering. “It’s been a few days since we were able to take back control of Camp Ryder, and since then we’ve successfully ended the senseless waste of our precious resources. We’re no longer burning through the things that will keep us alive, because we’re not trying to convince other groups of survivors to be friends with us.”

There was a mild round of applause.

Angela bit her tongue, wondering if he was going to bring up the lack of medicine.

Or maybe that’s what he wants. Maybe he wants us to have to rely on him.

“There’s been no contact yet from Captain Harden,” he continued. “I know that there are those of you still here who want to think the best of Captain Harden, but I think the facts are obvious at this point in time: Captain Harden abandoned us. I’m not sure why, but we haven’t heard from him or his comrade, this Captain Tomlin guy. But you know what?” Jerry smiled kindly. Bravely. “We don’t need them. We’ve got a tough road ahead of us. But it’s a road that’s safer than the one we were on before, I can tell you that much. It’s safer than the road that Captain Harden and Bus put us on, that’s for damn sure. We’re no longer forcing people to go outside our fortifications to find other groups of survivors, and then forcing you folks already living here to share your food and water and living space! We’re no longer cramming ourselves into this place like sardines!” He smiled. “And speaking of fortifications, over the last few days we’ve managed to build up more than half of the fence—a job that should have been completed a long time ago.”

More applause. Enthusiastic this time.

“So you folks are more secure at Camp Ryder now than you’ve been for the past four months. But all that security doesn’t do us a lot of good if we leave the gates open, so to speak. If we constantly have people coming and going, we not only draw attention from God knows what beyond those fences, but we expose ourselves to attack.” He paused for a moment, found Angela, and stared at her, the slightest of smirks on his lips. “I know this might not be a popular decision, but I believe it’s a necessary one. Necessary to keep us safe and to keep our children safe.”

You don’t have any fucking children, Angela thought.

Jerry motioned to Greg, who stood beside him. “You all know Greg. You know the good work he does, and I know that most of you have trusted him to get you whatever you need out there. He’s a good scavenger, and he’s always looked out for us. I know that none of you will have a problem trusting him. And that’s why I’ve decided that Greg and his team are going to take over all scavenging operations for Camp Ryder.”

There was a rumble through the crowd, not negative, not positive, just confused.

“I know there are a lot of you who like to take care of yourselves, and that’s good. That’s a good thing. But in these trying times, we have to be so careful how we act as individuals, because of the harm it might bring to the group. And I think we all agree that none of us would’ve made it very long without the group. We’re strong together. But we need to be safer.

“So, for those of you who like to do your own scavenging, just talk to the others. The guards, the people who work in the medical trailer, and the people who work to mend our clothes. All of these folks put in their hours here at Camp Ryder and don’t normally venture out there. They know it’s just as easy to tell Greg what they want and let him go out and find it. He’s got the experience, and he and a team of two other men are a lot less noticeable than all of us going out, every time we need something.”

Someone raised their hand. “What about hunting?”

“I have a separate group of individuals—experienced hunters—who will go out and hunt when we need them to.”

“What about crops?” someone else called. “Since we’re not dealing with any of the other groups of survivors, we’re gonna run out of produce, since we can’t trade with them.”

Jerry nodded. “That’s a great question. But I assure you, I’m on it. I’m not gonna let us go hungry. As we speak, I’m arranging for a small group that will help us select certain fields come spring where we will set up special work parties to go and cultivate these areas. We’ve just gotta make sure they’re close by. I don’t want the work party to have to go too far from safety.”

Angela seethed. She burned to raise her hand and demand some answers from Jerry, to put him on the spot and make him explain this asinine decision of his that was made, ostensibly, with the best of intentions. Perhaps it was the cynic in Angela, but she saw something very different from the interests of Camp Ryder’s safety and security. She saw control.

Keep your mouth shut.

But she didn’t need to voice her opinion, because someone else did it for her.

Marie shoved her way to the front of the crowd. Put one hand on her hip and enumerated with the fingers of the other. “So, let’s see. You’ve got a special scavenging party, a special hunting party, and a special cultivation party. And if the special scavenging party is any indication, I’d have to believe that the hunting party and the cultivation party will be mainly comprised of your close personal friends.” She folded her arms across her chest. “Is there any reason you don’t trust the rest of us to leave? Do you feel like you need to keep an eye on us at all times?”

Jerry’s face looked set in stone. His lips pulled together sternly.

Marie just smiled at him. “Oh… pardon me… we used to be able to voice our opinions at these town meetings. I forgot you were in charge.” She bowed her head dramatically, her dark curls tousling. “Please forgive me for speaking out of turn, mein führer.”

Jerry’s face turned red for a moment, but then he smiled, the wrinkles in his face oddly bloodless amid all that angry blush. “I obviously don’t agree with your stance, Marie, and I don’t appreciate the insult. However, I completely understand the position you’re coming from. This is the way we’ve done things for hundreds of years.” He smiled at the group. “We’re Americans. We like to be independent. We like to be in control of our own destinies, no matter what. And that was all fine and good when we had a government to look after us, armies to protect us. We could afford to be that way in the old world, because the old world wasn’t so damned dangerous—pardon my language.”

Jerry looked at the ground and shook his head, the sage leader. “Believe me, I wish that’s the way things still were. I wish we could all just worry about ourselves. But we’re neighbors now, and that means more today than it meant in the past. It used to mean that your mailbox was next to mine and that sometimes we’d bicker about whose property the fence was on.” He looked up. “Today, it means something else. It means that I’ve got your back and I know you’ve got mine. It means that we protect each other from what’s out there. It means that if anything ever happened to you, you’d know that we’d step in and take care of your family. It means that we’re a community. And most importantly, it means that we know…” His face was earnest, almost to the point of tears. “We know… that the group… the community… it’s more important than our personal wants and desires.”

The crowd backed their leader with a rush of affirmative voices.

“That’s right!”

“You tell ’em, Jerry!”

“We got your back, Jerry!”

Marie raised her hands, her mouth set in a thin, bitter line. “Again, I beg your forgiveness. You tell me what you need from me, Jerry. We’re here for you.”

Jerry took it seriously, though it was obviously meant as a jab. “Thank you, Marie.” He turned back to the crowd. “Folks, I know that there are those among us who are not on board with what we’re trying to do here. And that’s fine. They’ve been doing things a certain way for a while, and it’s hard to change. Give them time. They’ll come around. The proof is in the pudding, and when we stop burying bodies out back behind the building”—he pointed past the big cement structure—“then they’ll realize we were right all along.”

The crowd cheered.

Marie just turned in disgust and left.

It was not long before Angela followed.

A hard kick sent the soccer ball bouncing over bits of gravel and clumps of weeds, then rolled to a stop at the back corner of the big gray Camp Ryder building. Sam watched it roll, then looked back at the other kids, six of them in all, and realized he was the closest.

“I’ll get it,” he called.

He jogged to the back of the building. From where they played soccer, they were a ways away from The Square, but he could still hear the adults talking about things, particularly the guy named Jerry. The guy Angela and Lee didn’t like. Jerry seemed like an okay guy to Sam, always smiling and shaking people’s hands, but he’d also seen the man with a strange look on his face when he didn’t think anyone was looking, and it made Sam feel like maybe he should stay away from him.

The adults clapped and yelled about something, and Sam looked back in that direction, curious. But he couldn’t see The Square past the Camp Ryder building. Couldn’t tell what all the excitement was about. He wished he could have gone with Angela to see what was going on, rather than playing soccer with the little kids—there was only one other kid his age, and he wasn’t playing soccer right now. But Angela was scared lately. Something to do with Abby, and so he understood that Angela wanted him to watch out for her.

It gave him a sense of purpose. It was nice to be important.

He reached the ball at the edge of the building and bent over to pick it up.

In The Square, people began cheering. It wasn’t overly loud, but it almost drowned out another noise. It was a noise that, when Sam heard it, made his gut instinctively tighten and his arms and legs feel shivery. It was the sound of some sort of altercation, something more than just words being exchanged. This was what people sounded like when they were about to hurt each other.

He held the ball in his arms, standing still as stone and staring at the corner of the wall in front of him, as though he might see through it and discover what was occurring just on the other side. There were two men talking… no… three men. Two of them were young, and very angry. The kind of angry where Sam just knew that something bad was about to happen. The third voice was older… and…

Mr. Keith?

Sam inched closer to the corner, pounding heart and adrenaline preventing any logical thought. He knew that each inch got him closer to trouble, but the consequences of that trouble seemed fuzzy. Was it “yelling and scolding” trouble? Or “you’re gonna get hurt” trouble?

And what about Mr. Keith? Why were the other men so angry with him?

He found his face pressed against the cold concrete. Listening.

“We fuckin’ trusted you, Keith! We thought to ourselves, ‘What the fuck is an old man gonna do to us? There’s no need to throw him out of the camp.’ ” The voice was livid, the voice of someone betrayed. “But then you go and pull some shit like this.”

Keith’s voice: “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“We knew you were with Harden and Bus and all the other fuckers. We could’ve arranged for you to disappear a long time ago. But we didn’t!”

“Jesus Christ…”

“We gave you the same chance we gave everyone else. And you fuckin’ threw it in our faces.”

“Would you explain to me what the fuck you’re doing?” Keith’s voice sounded tired, exasperated.

Sam leaned out from the corner, just slightly. His hand touched the wall, felt the cool grittiness of it. Sam leaned so that just one of his eyes could see around the corner. Behind the building, the three men were crowded close to the wall. Keith was on his knees, one of the men holding him there, the other man standing in front of him, moving his hands angrily as he spoke.

“What’d we tell you, Keith? What did we tell you?”

Keith hung his head. “Damn. I don’t recall. Senior moment.”

“We told you not to rock the boat. And what did you do?”

“I didn’t do shit, Arnie.”

The other man shook his head, and for the first time Sam realized he held a steel pipe. “No. You rocked the boat. You fucked us hard. You went behind our backs, and you started spreading some fucking lies about us and about Jerry. You tried to undermine what we’re doing here, and that is fucking unacceptable.”

Keith looked up at the man—one of the men Sam had seen hanging around with Greg the scavenger—but didn’t say anything. He just sighed. Shook his head. Looked off into the woods.

“Who did you talk to?” the man demanded.

“No idea what you’re talking about.”

“We need. To know. Who the fuck you talked to.” The man bent down, the pipe working up and down in his grip. “You are going to tell us or you are going to die. If you tell us, we will let you go with a good beating as a reminder. If you don’t… then we’ll make an example out of you.”

Keith just laughed, a very old sound. “You gonna kill me, boy? You’d be doin’ me a goddamned favor. You think I wanna live in this shithole anymore? In these conditions? I’ve only got a few years left anyway. And that’s being generous. So why don’t you go fuck yourself. Do whatever you want.”

The younger man standing beside Keith looked distressed. “Come on, Mr. Keith. Don’t be like this. You know we gotta do what we gotta do. Don’t put us in a bad spot. No one wants to hurt you, especially not me and Arnie.”

“Well.” Keith spat into the dirt. “Maybe not you, Kyle. But Arnie here seems to like the idea.”

Arnie—the one with the pipe—raised his hands in surrender. “Look… the man’s right, Keith. We don’t want to hurt you. You tell us who you were talking to and we’ll just drop the whole thing, okay?”

“Yeah?” Keith sat back on his heels, wincing as though the position was painful. “I don’t think you will. I think you’ll hurt me anyway. And I think you’ll hurt or kill whoever’s name I give you. So where’s it gonna end? You keep killin’ everyone who don’t agree with you, ain’t gonna be many left by the end of the year.” A wan smile. “Be a lonely Christmas for Jerry and the boys.”

Arnie stood over the old man. “Well… if that’s how it’s gonna be, then that’s how it’s gonna be.”

“Yeah, I s’pose so.”

Arnie swung once, connected with the side of Keith’s face. Blood and brain erupted out of ears and eye sockets. Keith slouched with a groan, one hand keeping him from falling over. One eye hung out, and with the other he stared up at Arnie, convulsing violently, his mouth working soundlessly.

Sam felt his bladder empty into his pants.

“Oh fuck!” Arnie jumped back.

“Jesus! Fucking kill him already!” Kyle cried out.

Arnie hesitated. Keith mumbled something unintelligible, desperate, his unsocketed eye twitching about madly. Arnie got his guts up again and stepped in to Keith, swinging again, this time a downward trajectory that cracked Keith in the middle of his skull, caused a spurt of blood from his nostrils and all the life to flee from his body, as though a puppeteer had simply dropped the strings.

Sam stared at the dead body on the ground. The warmth on his legs turned suddenly cold. His heart burned like it pumped fire. A sob worked its way up his throat and he tried to stop it, tried to keep it down because he knew he had to be quiet, because this was not “yelling and scolding” trouble; this was I’m going to die trouble.

But it came out anyway.

One short, sharp sound of grief and shock.

He ran. He knew he had to get out of there, knew that they would have heard him make that noise, so he ran. His legs were wobbly, rubbery, just weak muscles with no bones to support him. The other kids stood in the field, staring, wondering where the soccer ball was, but he’d dropped it somewhere back behind him. He ran, he fled, he had to get away. Some of the kids asked him what was wrong, but he didn’t hear them, couldn’t hear anything except the sound of fear, which was like being caught in a windstorm or strapped into a car with all of the windows down as it roared across blacktop at a hundred miles per hour.

He ran clear across the field where they played soccer and disappeared into the rows of shanties.

At the corner of the Camp Ryder building, Kyle stumbled around the corner, pale in the face, his eyes sickened and rushed with adrenaline. He looked around desperately, trying to find the kid he had seen dip around the corner—the little Middle Eastern kid who hung around with Angela and Keith. He looked at each of the kids who stood in the soccer field, saw that some of them stared out toward the shanties, while some of the others looked straight at Kyle.

But none of them was the kid he was looking for.

He put a hand to his head. “Shit.”

SIXTEEN

WITNESSES

JERRY OPENED THE DOOR to his office and found Arnie and Kyle standing there with looks on their faces that immediately made Jerry stop in his tracks, hand still on the doorknob. He looked behind him at Greg. The man in the Yankees ball cap stood outside the office, hands on his hips, regarding Arnie and Kyle with that special brand of disdain reserved for friends who’ve screwed up.

“Goddammit, guys,” Greg mumbled and edged past Jerry, closing the door behind him. “Tell me you didn’t fuck this up.”

Arnie wrung his hands. “Well…”

“Lemme guess.” Jerry touched his fingers to his temples. “Something happened; you guys turned your backs for a second, let your guard down, or maybe he asked you for a cigarette and it confused you because, shit, no one has had a cigarette in two months, so it completely distracted you… and he got away.”

Arnie shook his head, his fatless jowls swinging like empty bags. “No, no. We did the job.”

Jerry glared at them. “So what’s the problem?”

Kyle looked at Arnie.

Jerry and Greg looked at Arnie.

Arnie looked at the floor. “Kid saw us do it.”

Jerry threw his hands up. “Oh, Jesus H. Christ!”

Greg stepped forward, his fingers stabbing the air. “Wait. Whose kid?”

More uncomfortable fidgeting. “The Hadji kid… the one who hangs around with Keith and Angela.”

“What?” Jerry almost screamed. He glanced behind him to see if the door was shut, then spun back to Arnie and Kyle. “The fucking kid… the one who hangs out with Keith and Angela… he’s the one who saw you two mopes do this shit? Un-fucking-believable!”

Greg closed his eyes. “What did the kid see?”

“Everything.”

“Everything?” Jerry swore loudly again. Kicked a chair.

Arnie shrugged. “I guess so. I mean, I didn’t notice him until he let out this weird little noise, and then I turned and saw him runnin’ away from us. Not really sure how long he’d been watchin’ us, but he saw Keith dead, that’s for damn sure.”

“Did you hide the fucking body?” Greg steamed.

“Yeah,” Arnie said, quickly seizing on what he’d done right. “Pulled it through the cut in the fence and hauled him into the woods, just like you told us to.”

Jerry put on a fake smile. “Oh, that’s great. Super great. Fucking fantastic. You got half of the job right.” He crossed the distance between him and Arnie with a single long stride and grabbed the man’s jacket. “You have any idea how much fucking trouble you’ve caused me? This kid fucking sees this shit, and he lives with Angela. With Angela. Of all the fucking people, you do this shit in front of Angela’s kid. Fuck me! You know what that means? I want you to tell me what it means! Please fucking explain it to me, so that I can feel secure in the knowledge that you at least have some sort of brain cells floating around in there. Tell me!”

Arnie blew out a shaky breath. “The kid’s gonna tell Angela.”

“Yeah.” Jerry pushed the man back into the wall of the office, sneering with disgust. He shook his head, walked around the desk, and flopped into the seat, staring up at the ceiling. He seemed boneless, as though his outburst was some exercise in anger and he had spent himself on yelling at Arnie. “Everyone just shut the fuck up and let me think for a second.”

The chair behind the desk creaked. Jerry stared at the ceiling, unmoving.

Creak.

Creak.

Greg stared at the two men.

Arnie mouthed the words, I’m sorry.

Greg gave him a furious look with an almost imperceptible shake of his head. He balled his fist and raised it from his side just slightly, the inference very obvious: Say one damn thing and I will knock your teeth down your throat.

After a lengthy few minutes, the steady creaking sound stopped.

Jerry leaned forward, the chair making an odd springy noise as he settled his elbows on the desk, fingers interlaced, face suddenly calm again as though the three men simply stood before him in order to be interviewed for a position.

The only sign that Jerry was still angry with Arnie and Kyle was that he refused to look at them and instead bored straight into Greg. “We can make this work, Greg. So here’s what I want. I’m going to tell you what I want, and you are going to relay it to these two fucks, in whatever dialect you believe might result in the job being understood and carried out correctly.”

Greg nodded.

“You.” He pointed at Greg. “Go and get Angela. She should be in the medical trailer with Jenny. Go quickly, before that snot-nosed little brat shows up and cries his eyes out. Bring her to me. I will keep her distracted.” His finger shifted to Greg’s left, so it now pointed at Arnie and Kyle. “While I’m doing this, your two fuckhead partners will find this kid, and they will explain to him, clearly and concisely and in terms that a child will understand, why he should not speak to anyone about what he saw today.” Jerry steepled his fingers in front of his face. “They are not to hurt the kid.”

Greg took a slow breath. “It’d be smarter to just—”

“Kill him?” Jerry offered. “Yes. Kill the kid. Kill the little kid who everyone in the fucking camp loves.” He slapped the top of the desk. “No. Like I said, no one is going to hurt the kid. Not yet, anyway. No one is going to miss Keith, the crusty old bastard, but when you get the kids involved then you open a fucking floodgate of every annoying parental instinct these people have, and they won’t turn a blind eye to it. They will get suspicious. And when they get suspicious, they will ask questions. And I don’t think any of us is prepared to answer any fucking questions.” Jerry raised his eyebrows. “I can’t be any clearer than that.”

Greg looked at the others. “Come with me.”

Greg closed the office door and led the two men halfway down the stairs until he felt sure that Jerry couldn’t hear him. He glanced around first, checking the interior of the Camp Ryder building, but it was midmorning and everyone was still out doing the things that needed to be done. Two older men held a quiet conversation in the far corner but didn’t appear too interested in what he or the two men who followed him were doing. He turned on Arnie and Kyle and held up a hand for them to stop.

“You guys wanna tell me what the fuck happened?” he said in a low tone. He glanced around again, cautious as ever. “Did you guys really kill the old man behind the building?”

Kyle and Arnie exchanged glances.

They weren’t unintelligent, Greg knew, despite what Jerry thought. Jerry was a hothead, and Greg recognized it for what it was: the passion of leadership. He wanted shit done a certain way, and naturally he got pissed when it didn’t happen. That same passion was why people followed him. Because he appeared to have everything under control. And the worse the times became, the more control they were willing to give over.

Greg was in. He had been in from the start, because Jerry had seen him as a means to an end—Greg wasn’t fooling himself about that—but lately the relationship had seemed to adopt a more mutual feel. They needed each other. It was a symbiotic relationship. They both wanted to run Camp Ryder in their own ways, and they assisted each other to their ends.

Jerry’s was control.

Greg’s was gain.

So let Jerry think that Arnie and Kyle were idiots. He wouldn’t contradict Jerry while they stood on the receiving end of one of his tirades. But out of the office, Greg knew he had to have his guys’ backs.

He spread out his hands. “Come on, guys. You’re doin’ this to yourself.”

Arnie made an exhausted noise. “Man, it was my fault. I just didn’t think we were gonna get Keith through the fence without him raising some sort of hell. I figured it’d be easy just to handle it out back. Shit, no one ever goes back there.”

“Well, this time someone did.” Greg rubbed his face. “You guys gotta play this shit a little bit smarter, alright? We gotta have Jerry’s back. Can’t put him in shitty spots. Otherwise he’s gonna get a bad taste in his mouth and he’s gonna find other people to do his work.” Greg looked at Arnie and Kyle. “And we need that work. Scrap-and-scavenge is the one commodity left in this world, gentlemen. And right now we’ve got a monopoly on it.”

Arnie and Kyle both nodded.

“My bad,” Arnie said. “Won’t happen again.”

“Alright.” Greg turned back around and started marching down the stairs. “Go find that little shit. I’ll deal with this cunt, Angela.”

The medical trailer was a mess of people. The beds were no longer in use, because there was no point in keeping the people with pneumonia in them when there was no cycle of antibiotics to administer at a particular time. So Jenny had been sending them home with instructions to rest. If they had loved ones to look after them, she told them to keep them hydrated and to try to keep them well fed. If they didn’t have anyone to look after them, Jenny made sure she stopped by their shanty several times each day to try to give them what they needed.

Now the medical trailer contained four newcomers, all of them coughing wetly into their hands, and Angela standing there with Jenny, watching them and imagining each person surrounded by a cloud of infectious germs. She didn’t want to breathe, kept subconsciously taking short, shallow gulps of air instead.

Jenny looked bewildered. “I’ve got nothing for these people,” she murmured to Angela.

Angela shook her head. “I think everyone’s here for the cold-flu thing.”

Jenny nodded. She raised her voice so everyone could hear. “Please raise your hands if you are displaying any of these symptoms: pain in the chest when you cough or breathe; dark-colored mucus, or if it’s got blood in it; feeling short of breath; or if you’re running a fever.”

The four people looked about hesitantly. They all raised their hands.

Jenny’s face was grim. “That’s what I thought. Okay. Look, folks, I’m speaking to all of you now, so listen up.” They coughed and sniffed and stared at her expectantly. “I have no medications whatsoever. There is nothing I can give any of you that will make you better right now.” She glanced at the floor. “I’ll be submitting a request to Greg and his team for antibiotics and cough medicine, but right now I have nothing that can help you. As for the symptoms I just mentioned…” She sighed. “You probably have pneumonia. Right now, it’s best for you to try to stay warm and to rest up. Drink plenty of fluids. Make sure you’re eating carbohydrates—oats, rice, sugars.”

She looked at them. “You’re all otherwise healthy middle-aged adults, so you’ve got a great chance of just beating this thing on your own. But if your symptoms do get worse, please send someone to get me. I’ll be coming by your houses and checking on you, and as soon as I can get some medication, I’ll be addressing the worst cases.” She shrugged. “That’s all we can do for now.”

Rather than arguing or bickering, the tiny crowd simply seemed to droop, as though they didn’t have the energy to protest. Then they turned and shuffled out of the medical trailer.

Jenny watched them go, the hard feeling showing on her face. She wrapped her arms around herself. “God, I feel so fucking useless.”

Angela reached out, rubbed the woman’s arm. “Hey. We got some rounds to make.”

Jenny nodded. “Yeah…”

The trailer clanged three times, hard knuckles wrapping on the metal side.

Angela and Jenny both looked up sharply.

Greg stood at the trailer’s entrance, his head turned as he watched the last of the sick people file out of the trailer and disappear into their shanties. He frowned at them, holding a hand over his nose and mouth as though it would protect him from invading germs. When the last of them had gone, he removed the hand and gave the slightest of shudders, then turned his attention back to Jenny and Angela.

“Jenny,” he said familiarly.

“Greg,” she replied cautiously.

Angela took a step forward, wished that she hadn’t—didn’t want to be any closer to this man. “What the hell do you want, Greg?”

“Whoa.” He held up his hands. “Settle down.” Then he tossed a thumb over his shoulder. “Jerry wants to talk to you.”

Angela touched her chest. “Me?”

“Yeah, you.”

Her mind exploded with warning bells and whistles and questions. Why does he want me? Did he overhear something? Did someone say that I’d gone behind his back? Did Greg hear me and Jenny talking and report it back to Jerry? Why would Jerry want to speak with me? I didn’t say anything during his town meeting, so why the fuck is he mad at me?

Shaking, but trying to not make it obvious, she raised her chin. “Why me? What’s wrong?”

Greg gave a small shake of his head. “You’re gonna have to talk to him, Angela. He just asked me to come get you.”

A hand squeezed hers.

She looked back, found Jenny putting on a brave face. “It’ll be okay.”

Angela nodded, mimicked the face, but it didn’t feel right on her. Then she turned back to Greg and followed him out of the trailer. Oddly, as she walked, she thought of Abby’s torn jacket and how she had not been able to mend it yet. She’d been caught up with Jenny, and then the town meeting, and then the medical trailer…

“You know we’re out of medications, don’t you?” Angela asked quietly.

Greg gave her a sidelong glance. “All right.”

“I only mention it because you’re the one we’re supposed to be requesting items from.”

“Isn’t that Jenny’s field?”

“I suppose so.”

“I’ll talk to Jenny about what she needs.”

“Okay.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Anything you need?” Greg tossed a small wave to a friend as they walked by. “Me and the guys’ll be heading out tomorrow, so if you need something, now’s the time to request it.”

Angela looked at him, wondered what was going on in his head. Her first instinct was to tell him she didn’t need or want anything from him. But what would that gain her? He seemed neutral toward her at this point, and being rude to him would only push him away. An enemy was something she seemed to have a surplus of at this moment, and she didn’t want to add any names to the list.

“Warm clothing for my girl,” she said quietly as they stepped out of the sunshine and into the shade of the Camp Ryder building. “She’s small, only about four feet. She needs a good jacket. Some warm pants. Gloves. A winter hat. Things like that.”

Greg ascended the cement steps to the Camp Ryder building ahead of her and pulled the door open, allowing her through. “I’m sure we can find something. All this shit went down in the summer, so most everybody who packed up and hit the road left behind all their winter clothes.”

She stopped at the stairs, unsure how to feel about Greg at this point in time but positive she shouldn’t let her guard down. Reservedly, she gave him a small nod. “Thank you.”

He didn’t respond, but instead pointed to the top of the stairs where the Camp Ryder office was located. “Jerry’s up there waiting on you.”

She took the stairs, forcing one foot in front of the other as she pushed away thoughts and images of the last time she had taken these steps, the last time she had been in this office, kneeling next to Bus, his chest hitching and spurting. Then being dragged down kicking and screaming, to be locked away in the dark for a few days.

By the time she reached the landing at the top of the stairs, she was angry again. Fuck Greg. Fuck Jerry and all of his friends. But for right now, you play the game. You play the game and you make them think you are cooperating, that you’re no danger to them. You make them think you’re just a little lady and you’re terrified of them.

And she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t scared. It would be unreasonable for her not to be. Jerry and his people could hurt her. They could hurt Abby, and Sam, and anyone she loved and cared for. There was no doubt in her mind about that.

But she would not let the fear paralyze her.

She would not let it control her.

Angela stepped into the office, found Jerry sitting at his desk, staring up at the map on the wall. The map that Lee had once used, the marks that he’d made still evident on the paper. The danger zones shaded in red. The state split into three sectors—Camp Ryder in the middle. Like a puzzle that would never be pieced together.

Where was Lee? Was he hurt? Was he incapacitated? Was he trapped somewhere, hoping people would come looking for him?

Was he dead?

You can’t think about that now.

Think about Jerry.

Think about the game.

She looked down from the map, found Jerry staring at her.

“Angela,” he said, standing. “Please come in. Shut the door.”

Angela hesitated but turned and shut the door behind her. She kept her hands clasped in front of her because she knew they would ball into fists if she let them. She focused on trying not to let her bald hatred of the man show on her face. Tried only to show compliance. Subservience.

“You wanted to see me?”

Jerry stepped around his desk. Leaned back onto it. “I know that you have no inclination to cooperate with me, given the…” He looked like he was searching for the right word. “The combative nature of our relationship. However, there are other people involved now, so we’re going to have to put our little differences aside to help each other out.”

Angela felt her stomach flutter. “What do you mean?”

Jerry looked at her for a long time, as though assessing her. Finally, he took a deep breath and said, “When’s the last time you saw Keith Jenkins?”

For a moment she felt like she was on a pitching boat. “Just this morning. Like, a few hours ago. Why? What’s wrong?”

Jerry looked grave. “He seems to have gone missing.”

Kyle jogged up to Greg as he walked around the back of Shantytown, between the shacks and the fence. The younger man pointed behind him in the direction of Angela’s place. “They’re in the house. Both of the kids—the little girl and the Arab kid.”

“Is Arnie watching the house?” Greg asked, but then answered his own question as he turned onto the row of shanties and could see Arnie standing discreetly, a few doors down from Angela’s. Greg motioned him over. “You two get lost,” he mumbled. “The kids are gonna be scared shitless of you two right now. I’ll talk to them. In the meantime, go walk around the back of the building and make sure there’s nothing—nothing—that can implicate you. No blood spatter. No shoe prints. Nothing.”

Kyle and Arnie both nodded hastily and then disappeared. Greg took off his dirty old ball cap, rubbed an itch on his receding hairline, then replaced it. He walked calmly down the row. These little huts built of scrap were becoming little more than hollowed-out piles of trash. As the original structures began to deteriorate in the steady wetness of a North Carolina winter, people were simply adding more crap on top of the old crap, sealing leaks, increasing the insulation, propping up boards that propped up other boards that propped up sheets of corrugated siding.

Pretty soon it’ll just look like a giant fucking junkyard, and we’ll burrow into the trash at night like fucking moles. He wrinkled his nose. Develop our own fucking language. Start fucking our relatives. Fifty years and we’ll be deformed and inbred. Gibbering nonsense when they find us.

Luckily, Jerry’s plan for complete isolation wouldn’t last.

But it suited Greg for now.

He stood at the flap of blue tarpaulin, rapped his knuckles on a piece of wood. “Hello?”

From inside there was shuffling and whispering.

“Are you kids all right in there?” Greg asked, his voice concerned.

A little girl’s voice: “Sam, I’m scared. What’s going on?”

Then a slightly older boy’s voice: “Who’s there?”

“Hey, it’s Greg.” He leaned on the shanty. “I don’t think you really know me, but I saw you running across the field and… well, it looked like you might be in trouble. Is everything okay?”

“Go away.”

Greg clenched his jaw. Not the reaction he hoped for. Clearly, the caring-adult tactic was not going to work. Either this kid was a suspicious little fuck or he’d seen Kyle and Arnie with Greg and assumed they were all part of Keith Jenkins’s murder.

Time to change tactics.

“Buddy, you know this is just a tarp between us, right? If I wanted to barge in and hurt you, I would have done it already. I’m just trying to talk to you, see what the problem is. But if you don’t come out and talk to me…”

The tarp shifted. Then pulled aside.

The kid’s brown face looked up at Greg with a combination of fear and contempt. “What do you want?” he said, almost a harsh whisper.

“It’s Sam, right?” Greg asked. He considered smiling but decided against it. Faking it wasn’t going to fly. It was time for plain old honesty. It seemed to be what this kid would react best to.

“What do you want?” Sam repeated, more insistent this time. “If you try to come in, I’ll scream. Don’t try to touch me. And take a few steps back.”

Greg’s eyes tracked quickly down to the tarpaulin, noticed the slight poke of something touching the blue plastic, and realized the kid was holding a gun on him. Greg almost wanted to laugh at the little shit, but his requests were fair enough. And he had to give him props for being on point. He held up his hands and took a single step back. “How’s that? That make you more comfortable?”

Sam stared, lips tightening.

“How about you lower that gun you got pointed at me,” Greg said quietly. “I already told you, if I was here to hurt you, I’d’ve done it already.”

Sam looked a little unsure, but he lowered whatever he held behind the tarp. “Fine. I’m not supposed to be talking to you.”

Greg sighed. “Sam, you seem like a straight-up kid, so I’m not gonna bullshit you. I’m gonna talk to you like I’d talk to any other man, okay?”

“Okay.”

“What were you running away from earlier?”

“Nothing.”

“Sam…”

“Nothing.”

“Okay, maybe you thought you saw something bad—”

“I know what I saw,” Sam spat. “And I know you’re with them.”

Greg looked left and right, then leaned forward slightly. “You didn’t see shit. You thought you saw something, but you in fact did not see a goddamned thing. You know how I know you didn’t see anything? Because there’s nothing there to see. Because if you go behind the building, there’s nothing there. You can feel free to go look yourself. Nothing.”

Sam’s eyes had abandoned the contempt and now only showed fear.

Greg leaned farther forward, lowered his voice. “You know how else I know that you didn’t see anything? Because if you ever told anyone what you think you saw, then we’d be forced to kill Angela. We’d have to kill her with a fucking iron pipe. Hit her across the head until her brains started leaking out of her ears. And then we’d have to do the same thing to Abby, but she’d be easier because little kids’ skulls are soft. Hell.” Greg held up his hands. “I could probably just crush her skull between my hands. I don’t know. Maybe I’d use a rock.”

Tears in Sam’s eyes now. He shook violently.

Greg straightened, checked left and right again. There was no one there. “You understand what I’m saying, Sam? You know you’re not safe. You know there’s no one in this camp who’s on your side. You know that no one would believe one little kid over three adults. Especially since you’ve got no way to prove it.” Greg held a finger to his lips, tapped them twice. “You stay real quiet, Sam. Real quiet.”

“I don’t understand,” Angela said, finding herself in a chair, bewildered. “You’re not letting anyone out of the gates.” She didn’t mean for it to sound like an accusation, but it did.

Jerry tilted his head back. “We’re not gonna use this as a sounding board to air your grievances, Angela.” He put a finger to his chest. “I know that I’ve butted heads with Keith, and don’t even get me started on you, but at the end of the day Keith is a part of this group, and no one seems to know where he is. Can we focus on that for now?” Jerry shook his head in apparent disgust. “When was the last time you saw him?”

“Uh…” Angela thought about it. “Breakfast, I think. We ate breakfast together.”

Jerry nodded. “Yeah, not many people saw him after that.”

Angela’s eyes narrowed. “Wait… who brought this up?”

Jerry blinked twice, a shadow of something passing over his eyes, then he seemed to right himself, and he leaned back, folding his arms across his chest. “No one brought it up, Angela. In fact, to be completely honest, I had Greg and the guys looking for him. Wanted to touch base with him. Maybe see if you’d been running your mouth, despite our conversation.” Jerry smiled, a thin, cold-blooded thing, like a lizard. “So imagine my surprise when Keith”—Jerry feigned shock—“is suddenly missing!”

Angela felt chilly and hot at the same time. She knew where this was going and didn’t like it one bit. She held up her hands. “Jerry, I didn’t say anything, I swear to God…”

Jerry heaved himself off the desk, was close to her in a single step, seemed like he towered over her. His voice was severe but frighteningly controlled at once. “Don’t you fucking lie to me, Angela. I’m so sick and tired of your fucking lies and you going behind my goddamned back. Where the hell is Keith? Where the hell did he go? Are you planning to go next? Who else? Who else have you talked to? Who else are you spreading your fucking lies to?”

Angela bolted out of her chair, knocking it over. She moved backward, putting an arm’s length of distance between her and Jerry. “You stay the fuck away from me!” She pointed at him. “And you stay the fuck away from my kids!”

“Where’s Keith, Angela?” Jerry advanced on her.

“I don’t know!”

“Who else have you been talking to?”

“I haven’t said anything!”

Jerry kicked the chair she’d knocked over. “Then why don’t I fucking believe you?”

Angela’s chin trembled as her lips clamped together. She was still afraid, but she refused to show it. She refused to let this creature think he could get the best of her. She gathered every bit of her steam and took a step toward him again, putting her pointed finger right in his face.

“Fuck you! Fuck you, Jerry!” She shook her head violently. “Fuck you for accusing me of this shit! You’re just looking for a goddamned reason to send Greg and his cronies after me! You wanna take me out? Be a fucking man and stand me up in front of everyone and do what you think needs to be done. But don’t play these games with me. Just stop!”

She’d spoken without truly considering her words, and as they left her mouth, she tried hard not to show apprehension that he might call her bluff, might just drag her out into The Square, execute her on the spot, and deal with the consequences. And honestly, she had to ask herself, Would there be any consequences? Would any of these people in this camp stand up for me?

But Jerry just nodded, smiled, then retreated back to his desk.

Someone sniffed loudly.

Angela turned, found Greg standing in the doorway behind her.

“Were you able to find Keith?” Jerry asked, once again the picture of calm composure. “Did you look everywhere?”

Greg’s eyes flitted between Angela and Jerry, as though he was trying to piece something together on the fly, but he nodded. “Uh, yes. We looked everywhere.”

“I was just asking Angela here if she had any idea where he might have gotten off to.” Jerry sat down in his chair. “But she claims not to know anything.”

Greg just nodded.

Jerry waved his hand at Angela. “I’m done with you.”

I’m done with you? I’m fucking DONE WITH YOU?

Angela seethed, her anger causing her vision to blur and her hands and feet to tingle as her body prepared her for what it saw as an imminent physical conflict between them. In her mind, she was across the room, clawing his eyes out of his sockets, ripping that shotgun from him, putting both barrels into his chest, just like he did to Bus, watching his insides hit the back wall…

Jesus!

Angela looked at the floor, shocked at herself.

And something else.

She bit her tongue. Turned and exited the office, hands stuffed into the pockets of her jacket, and in those pockets, balled so tightly that her nails dug into her palms and her knuckles ached. Was she shocked that she was capable of thinking these things? Maybe…

But there was that other feeling.

Something like gratification.

It glowed in her belly like imagined vengeance, made her thoughts dark, turned her mouth down at the edges, and gave her pleasant features a hardness that she could feel settling onto her like an exoskeleton, like it was encasing her inside of herself. Perfectly form-fitting. Almost the same person. But just slightly different. Changed, in some very small but very important ways.

She kept her head down as she descended the stairs and walked out of the building into the cold winter air. It slapped her face, bit at her nose, made her teeth ache. She didn’t want to look up, didn’t want others to see this strange expression on her face and wonder—or worse, ask questions. She didn’t want to speak to a single goddamned soul, just wanted to stare up at the ceiling of her little hovel. And if she were being straightforward with herself, she wanted to cry. But it was like that thing inside of her that was capable of producing that type of emotion had somehow shriveled up and died.

Her thoughts flew, like debris caught in a tornado.

This has got to end. I have to end this.

And where is Keith? What happened to Keith? Is he all right? Did he get hurt out past the fence? How did he get out past the fence? What if they find him? What if he tells them about what I said to him? What if Jerry comes after me? What if Jerry comes after Abby or Sam?

I have to end this.

I have to end this.

She slipped into her shanty and found Abby and Sam on the bed, crying.

SEVENTEEN

THE FATHER

THEY FOLLOWED THE DWINDLING smoke trails in the sky to find the settlement. An old gravel easement led them back through acres of abandoned crops and a decrepit mobile home to a spread of land rimmed in a giant square by trees. In the northwestern corner stood what could only have been the settlement.

The three columns of smoke had died to a single black streak, and this lifted from the rubble of what had once been a farmhouse. The husk of a front porch faced LaRouche and his convoy of vehicles as they navigated the pitted drive. Bits of gravel pinged their tire wells, the chassis swaying back and forth through deep potholes that a bad storm season had washed out of the ground. Overgrown weeds and small brush scraped the undercarriage.

Splayed out in front of the smoldering farmhouse was a collection of slapdash shelters of every type. LaRouche could see tents, cars, a Winnebago, several structures constructed of tarp and scrap wood, much like the shanties at Camp Ryder. All of them were destroyed in some way. The tents were trampled, the shanties and the Winnebago little more than charred husks.

LaRouche spit a stream of tobacco juice out of the open passenger-side window. The smoky air smelled briefly of the molasses-like tang of Red Man. He reached out with his left hand, touched Wilson’s arm. “Slow up.”

Wilson brought the convoy to a halt.

LaRouche looked out the windows, craning his neck to get a 360-degree view. Then he looked into the backseat, where the little girl from the side of the road sat in Father Jim’s arms. She didn’t look directly at LaRouche when he looked at her, just kept staring out the window, her small lips twitching but her face otherwise remaining blank, like her soul had already up and left her.

“This your place?” LaRouche asked her.

Her eyes met his for a fraction of a second—just a flicker of recognition.

Father Jim gently squeezed her upper arm. “Sweetie, is this where your family was?”

She nodded. Looked down at the floor.

“It’s okay,” Jim soothed.

LaRouche grabbed the radio mic from its cradle and keyed it. “Y’all stay back,” he told the rest of the convoy. “We’re gonna push forward a bit. See if we get a reaction.”

A string of muffled affirmatives came over the radio.

LaRouche looked at their new passenger. Joel was seated in the back left, days of sweat and dirt causing his Q-Tip hair to look limp and off-white. LaRouche pointed to the turret. “Go ahead and get on that thing. Stay sharp, but only shoot at clear hostile targets. Don’t want you cappin’ some nice citizens ’cause you thought they were infected.”

Joel nodded and clambered up into the turret. “I got it, Sarge.”

LaRouche pointed forward. “Take us in, Wilson.”

The Humvee rumbled forward again, splitting off from the convoy, an empty stretch of worn gravel and mud growing between them and their friends. They drew closer and closer to the wreckage of what had once been a home for God knew how many people, and LaRouche leaned forward in his seat to see over the hood. In the trampled paths between the shelters and the still-burning farmhouse, where the daily passage of feet had worn the grass down to hard-packed dirt in the span of a few months, LaRouche could see the bodies.

Bodies on top of each other, like they’d been sorted through and separated into piles, though LaRouche could tell that was not the case—in each pile he could see the small limbs of children along with those of adults, both men and women. Three bodies in this pile. Four in that pile. All situated next to some shelter or another.

Families.

They were the ones who had run and hid, LaRouche realized. Maybe they’d fought back. Maybe they’d just been killed for sport. But they’d died inside their little shelters, and then were dragged outside and stacked up, each beside their own little hovel, be it a tent or a station wagon or something cobbled together. Their blood mixing, making mud, preparing the earth to receive them.

LaRouche glanced over his shoulder. “Jim…”

The ex-priest put his hand on the back of the girl’s head. “Close your eyes, sweetie. Just keep ’em closed, okay?”

The Humvee rolled to a stop about fifteen feet from the nearest shelter.

“You see anything?” LaRouche called up to Joel.

The turret rotated back and forth slowly. “No. Looks clear.”

“Come on down with me.” LaRouche nudged open his door, grabbed his rifle. “Jim, stay with the girl. Wilson, help me out.”

The gravel drive crunched under his feet. He could taste the smoke in the air.

Wilson exited the vehicle, his rifle shouldered, looking questioningly at LaRouche while the sergeant moved quickly to the first pile of bodies. A man and two little boys, perhaps four and five years old. He looked into the tent they lay beside, cleared it with the muzzle of his rifle, then bent in quickly and came out with a bloody blanket, which he threw over the bodies. They had not truly begun to rot, so the smell was not bad, save for the slight whiff of stale shit from when they’d voided themselves, either upon death or upon knowing that death was imminent.

Wilson and Joel quickly followed suit, covering the other bodies with tarps, plastic, even an old truck bed cover. They counted as they went, tallying up a grisly scoreboard. Three women. Six children. Four men. Thirteen altogether.

Bad number, LaRouche mused.

He’d never been one for superstition. Had even been ballsy enough to eat the Charms out of his MREs while deployed. But lately he’d found himself seeing portents in things he would have ignored in the old world and doing things he would have mocked if he’d seen another man doing them. Like always putting on his right boot first. Refusing to discard the stripper clip he’d recently found inside the map pocket of his chest rig. And keeping his old dog tags dangling from his neck, though he couldn’t see a reason for them now. All of these things now seemed like they were just barely keeping him alive, and if he were to put on his left boot, or lose the clip, or take off his dog tags, the next ten seconds after that would see him with a bullet in his brain or infected ripping him limb from limb.

Stupid, he knew.

But there was no denying the psychological power these little rituals and objects held. And if the only benefit they could give him was some strange perception of confidence, some mental placebo effect, then he would take it anyway. He would take any benefit he could get.

The only problem was that he couldn’t just believe in good luck. He had to believe in bad luck too. So when he counted thirteen bodies, it gave him a little cold feeling in the pit of his stomach, that little cringing tension, like descending a rickety staircase into a dark basement.

He shifted the chaw around in his mouth with his tongue. Faced the Humvee and waved.

After a moment, the door popped open and Jim stepped out, then helped the little girl down.

Wilson stepped to his side, rifle relaxed across his chest. “What are we doing with her, Sarge? She shouldn’t be seeing this shit.”

“Well, I’d hoped…” He looked around at the piles of dead bodies under their poor disguises. He shook his head, a very small gesture of regret. “All we can do now is ask her questions. See what she can tell us.”

“Pump her for info?”

LaRouche nodded. “S’pose so.”

“Sarge.” Wilson looked around. “Who the fuck’s gonna take care of her?”

LaRouche shrugged. “First decent person we can pawn her off to.”

“That’s fucked up.”

“Yeah. The world is fucked up.”

Jim approached, walking slowly alongside the girl’s small, hesitant steps. She looked at the mounds underneath the blankets, could clearly see a foot sticking out here, some fingers there, a woman’s long hair curling up from under a tarp, the shadow of a face, the folds of skin oddly frozen in place by rigor.

The girl stared but gave no reaction.

Everything was being internalized.

Processed.

LaRouche looked up at Jim and mouthed quietly, What’s her name?

Jim mouthed back, Tessa.

LaRouche knelt down, touched the girl’s shoulder to get her attention again. “Tessa, are you doin’ okay?”

Tessa looked at him, her eyes darting back and forth between his. They watered. “Where’s my daddy?”

“Honey, I don’t know.” LaRouche let out a breath. The sweet chaw suddenly cloyed at him. He looked off to his right, where the wreckage of humanity lay in burned ruins and piles of bodies. The unrelenting acid in his stomach singed his throat. It’d seemed common sense to come here and see if anyone in the settlement had survived to take the girl. But now it seemed like a mistake.

Wilson pointed toward their Humvee, looking for any excuse to get out of the awkward situation. “I’m gonna tell the others to come on up.”

LaRouche waved him off, then draped his hands over the receiver of his M4. “Tessa, can you tell me anything about the bad guys who came?”

The little girl nodded.

“Do you remember where you first saw them?”

She pointed to the left of the farmhouse. “They were coming through the woods right there.” Then she turned and pointed toward LaRouche’s convoy. “And they were coming from the road right there.”

“So they were coming from two directions?”

“Yes.”

“Were the bad guys who came through the woods just walking?”

“No, they were running.”

“But I mean, they weren’t riding horses or anything?”

“No horses.”

“Did they say anything, or did they immediately start shooting?”

Tessa’s lip quivered. She looked around. “I don’t know. Daddy told me to run. And then there was lots of screaming and shooting.” Her breath came quicker. “I know what the bad guys do. Daddy told me they hurt people on the cross, just like Jesus.”

“Sarge…” Jim said quietly.

LaRouche looked up, nodded. He wasn’t going to get anything out of Tessa that he didn’t already know. And prying was obviously not helping. He was beginning to feel like a tremendous asshole. “Alright.” He stood up. “Come on. Let’s get us turned around and on the road.”

Jim put a hand on the girl’s shoulder and began to guide her back to their Humvee.

Joel suddenly crossed in front of LaRouche, whipping his rifle up and putting a hand on LaRouche’s chest as though to keep him from going any farther. “Heads up! Heads up! Tree line!”

LaRouche spun, his boots grinding out a horseshoe shape in the dirt as he took a wide-legged stance, shoulders hunched, elbows tucked into his sides. He raised the rifle to his eyes and he turned back and forth, looking at the tree line that Joel pointed toward but not seeing anything.

“You see him?” Joel shouted. “You see him right there? Right there in front of you!”

LaRouche strained to see in the woods, to sense movement. “What the fuck are you…”

He saw it.

A man in dirt-smudged overalls and an equally dirty white thermal. He stood at the tree line a few hundred yards from them, his hands high above his head.

“Hold your fire,” LaRouche mumbled around a mouthful of juice, then spat and raised his voice. “Everyone hold your fire!”

The man in the overalls had hesitated at first when all the rifles swung in his direction, but now, seeing that they were not firing, he stumbled forward and yelled across the distance between them. A single word. LaRouche couldn’t tell what it was.

“The fuck is he saying?” Joel said tensely.

“No idea.”

“Why is he yelling?” Joel stammered. “Doesn’t he know not to yell in the fucking woods?”

LaRouche initiated Joel with a slap on the shoulder. “Keep an eye on that idiot.” He glanced behind him and saw everyone facing out toward the guy approaching. “Don’t leave our asses exposed, people! Someone watch our backs!”

Two people spun and faced the other way.

“Sarge.” Joel lowered his rifle a few inches. “I think he’s calling for the girl.”

LaRouche squinted at the man, kept his rifle trained.

“Tessa!” the man screamed hoarsely. “Tessa!”

LaRouche took a few steps forward. The stranger was perhaps a hundred yards from them, still hollering, waving his arms, the picture of desperation. From this distance, LaRouche could see the pale remnants of blood smeared across his face, looking like it came from his nose and from a gash over his left eye. Drips had created vertical streaks on the chest of his white shirt. His sleeves were marred with it from when he’d used them to mop up his face.

No other obvious signs of injury.

“Keep coming forward!” LaRouche called out to him. “Keep your hands where I can see ’em!”

“Sarge, there’s more guys in the woods,” Joel said. “Wait…”

LaRouche looked past the man. Several pale shapes slipping through the dark timber. Moving fast. Spreading out.

“Shit!” Joel yelped.

LaRouche called it. “Infected! In the woods!”

The man in the overalls turned, saw the flitter of movement rushing up behind him. His hands dropped, his eyes went wide, and his legs began pumping. LaRouche could hear him as he closed the distance at a dead sprint. “Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!”

LaRouche backpedaled. “Joel! Get on the fifty!”

He raised his rifle again at the man running toward them. He wasn’t about to let a stranger just hop up into their Humvee, no matter what the situation. He waited until the man was about to run past him, then reached out and grabbed a handful of his overalls, stopped him in his tracks, and slammed him on the ground.

“Don’t fucking move!” LaRouche screamed in his ear.

“Lemme go!” the man cried out. “They’re gonna get me!”

LaRouche mashed his face into the ground, stood over him, and began to pat down his pockets for weapons. “Shoulda thought of that before you started hollerin’ at the top of your lungs, you dumb fuck!”

The man began to resist, twisting around. “Oh shit! They’re gonna get me! They’re gonna get me!”

LaRouche put a knee in the man’s back to pin him and did a quick assessment. He looked out toward the trees. The pale shapes of bare-skinned bodies were just now reaching the edge of the woods. They were spread out in a line, four or five of them. The right edge of the line closer than the left. Moving ridiculously fast. Faster than a human should have been able to move.

“I need some help!” LaRouche hollered.

Jim shot out of the Humvee, rifle in hand.

Joel squirmed into the turret, swung it in the direction of the oncoming infected.

Jim stuttered to a stop. “What do you need?”

“He’s clean!” LaRouche stood up. “Put him in the back and don’t let him fucking move!”

The man wailed. “I didn’t do anything! Don’t let them get me!”

Jim grabbed the man by the arms, hauled him onto his feet. “Come with me!” They began moving toward the Humvee, LaRouche backing up and keeping an eye on the infected. They burst through the wood line but stayed silent, which was unusual. By now they should have been screeching and barking and calling back and forth like a pack of wolves on the hunt.

LaRouche judged the distance quickly. There was no way in the world he was getting all of his vehicles out of there before the infected reached them. His stomach felt like it was going to start convulsing.

A flicker of movement to his left.

He spun in the direction of the farmhouse.

Three more of them, low to the ground, skirting the edge of the settlement.

Cutting them off.

LaRouche spun, sprinted for the Humvee. Just ahead of him, Jim shoved the man into the rear door and dove in after him. LaRouche was fifteen feet from his door when Joel swung the big .50-caliber M2 in his direction, the maw of the barrel pointed just over his shoulder.

“Behind you!” Joel yelled.

LaRouche ducked and spun as the air percussed. A heavy, ear-shattering chug-chug-chug. Dirt erupted just a few paces in front of him, and beyond the dark flying clods of dirt, a pair of sinewy arms outstretched toward him, and then the next two rounds slammed the creature back, ripping it apart.

LaRouche’s back hit the wheel well of the Humvee.

Another one bounded through the wreckage of the settlement, its movements more ape than man. LaRouche could see nothing about it other than the fact that it was coming right for him. The rest was a pale blur. He snap-fired two rounds. Couldn’t tell if they hit. Began firing more. The creature slid behind a tent, LaRouche’s bullets tracking it, ripping through the thin nylon fabric. It appeared on the other side and came straight at him. He kept pulling the trigger, but nothing happened.

It didn’t stop coming.

LaRouche backed up two steps and yanked open his door.

I’m not gonna make it…

He tumbled into the passenger seat.

The thing hit the door hard, slamming it into LaRouche’s arm, causing his M4 to fly out of his grasp. He cried out, more in fear than in pain. A hand like a robotic vise shot through the open window and grabbed LaRouche by the throat. He couldn’t see its face. Only the wild, dreadlocked hair and gnashing teeth. LaRouche tried to cry out but couldn’t get air past the grip on his throat.

He scrambled for his sidearm.

The head worked through the window, jaws snapping.

LaRouche found his Beretta M9, yanked it from the holster.

He felt the Humvee moving, could hear gravel slinging. The world out past the windows was a blur of gray. Centrifugal force shoved him toward the creature’s jaws. He tried to get the pistol up, but something blocked him, something was in the way. He just kept thinking, Why isn’t anyone helping me?

The teeth were so close that LaRouche could see the dark gums, smell the sickly breath. He recoiled, yanking at his pistol in a fever pitch of panic, but he couldn’t pull his face any farther from the jaws, and the pistol was not coming free. If the thing gained another inch, it would have him. It would bite him.

Something suddenly poked through from the backseat. A long, thin tube of black metal that jutted between LaRouche’s headrest and the side of the Humvee, and it speared the thing in the face, pressing against its jaw.

A flash.

Blood.

In his lap. In his face. In his mouth.

Smoke seeped from the thing’s wide-open maw like it breathed fire. The eyes rolled back. The grip loosened. LaRouche ripped it off of him, yanked his right hand free, still holding his pistol, then slammed the hunk of metal into the creature’s face and shoved it out of the window.

Above him, the M2 thundered.

The little girl screamed.

The stranger’s voice shouted hysterically.

Small-arms fire popped and crackled.

The Humvee fishtailed, hit a bump, lifted up, then slammed back down onto the ground.

LaRouche gagged, spat the coppery taste from his mouth, bits of tobacco coming out with it. His stomach heaved. “It got in my mouth!” he screamed, a sudden sensation of sickness coming over him. “It got in my mouth! It’s in my mouth!”

He spat again, this time the entire chaw coming out and falling onto the floorboard of the Humvee. He lifted his sleeve to wipe his tongue on it but realized that his sleeve was already coated in blood. He stared at himself, the blood on his sleeve, on his lap, all over his chest. His mouth hung open, and he didn’t know what to do with himself.

Something tugged at him.

He looked at his door, saw that it was still open. He hadn’t lost his rifle—it was still tethered to him by his sling. He pushed open the door, yanked his rifle inside, then closed the door. He felt strangely, immensely elated that his rifle was not lost. Then he crashed down again, odd, unruly thoughts vying for his attention.

It’s in my mouth.

Fucking thirteen bodies.

I shouldn’t have eaten the Charms.

Wilson slapped a bottle of water into his chest. “Rinse yourself out! Don’t fucking swallow!”

He grabbed the bottle. Twisted the cap. Squeezed a flood of cold water into his mouth. Spewed it out the window. More water. More spewing.

“How we lookin’?” Wilson yelled up to Joel, hunched over his steering wheel as the Humvee ripped off of the gravel easement and skidded onto paved road.

“I don’t know!” Joel screamed back, his voice cracking. “I can’t see them anymore!”

LaRouche hocked, retched, hung his head out the window and spit. He ducked back in so that he could wave forward. “Keep going, Wilson. Keep us going.”

They made a sudden turn onto a main highway—LaRouche couldn’t see the sign. Wilson floored it, maxing out the Humvee’s speed and putting another mile between them and the infected.

“What the fuck’s going on?” the stranger yelled. “Who are you people?”

LaRouche spit twice more, then spun around. “Who the fuck are you?”

The stranger lurched forward. “I’m this girl’s father, you sonofabitch! What the hell are you doing with her?”

There was a moment of surprised silence. And then LaRouche nearly climbed over the radio console to get to him. He punched him in the face with a quick left hand, then tried to reach past Joel’s legs to grab a piece of him. The man rocked back, holding his nose.

“Hey, hey!” Jim shoved LaRouche back toward his seat.

In the back, barely visible behind Joel’s legs, the girl sobbed.

LaRouche didn’t care. His mind was just a blank, red page. He drew his pistol and pointed it at the stranger, bellowing over the sound of the roaring engine and the girl’s crying. “Motherfucker, I will kill you! Do you understand that? Who the fuck do you think you are?”

“LaRouche! Put the gun down!” Jim yelled.

Joel tried to pull his legs out of the way. “What the fuck’s going on down there?”

The Humvee swerved, then braked hard.

Tires screeched.

One of the other vehicles crunched into their bumper.

No one seemed to notice.

The stranger still held his nose, staring at LaRouche’s pistol, scared into silence. The girl was still crying. Jim was still trying to talk to LaRouche, who had streams of drool coming from his mouth because he refused to swallow, and who stared at the stranger like he had already gone mad, though the pistol was beginning to waver.

Wilson reached out, touched LaRouche on the shoulder. “Sarge.”

LaRouche looked at him.

“Come on, man.”

It was not as though LaRouche suddenly realized that he was doing something wrong or that he “snapped out of it,” so to speak. He simply shook his head, then withdrew the pistol, as though he had weighed the risks and the rewards of executing the stranger and decided that it was not the best choice. He holstered the pistol, threw his door open, and hauled himself out.

Wilson turned to the backseat.

Jim threw his hands up in a beats the hell outta me gesture.

Wilson shot him a dirty look and then pointed one finger in the face of the stranger, still huddled there in the back. “What the fuck is your problem, you piece of shit?”

“What?”

Wilson wanted to punch the man himself. “Who the fuck do you think you are? That man just risked his life and all of our lives to save you, not to mention your little girl. And then you turn around and call him a sonofabitch?”

“I thought…” The man looked at Jim, then back at Wilson. “I thought…”

“How’s about you just shut the fuck up for right now?” Wilson snapped. “You’ve done enough goddamned thinking.” He kicked open his door and grumbled as he got out. “Should kick you out of my fucking truck, you stupid motherfucker.”

Jim opened his door.

Wilson leaned back in. “No! You sit down, Jim.”

Jim stared back, shocked.

Wilson shook his head. “Sarge don’t need any more of your bullshit right now.”

He closed the door behind him. LaRouche was several yards in front of the vehicle, on the shoulder of the road. He was bent at the waist, hands on his knees, his rifle slung onto his back. He breathed hard, retched, then spit.

Behind them, a few others jogged up to see what had happened. Wilson waved them off, made a cutting gesture across his neck. They stopped, looked between Wilson and LaRouche, then nodded slowly and began to back away.

Wilson walked to LaRouche’s side. They could hear mumbles behind them, doors opening and closing in vehicles as everyone hopped down, curious to see what they could see, trying to determine what had just happened in the lead Humvee. Whispering their suspicions to each other. After a moment, Wilson took a deep breath, hooked his thumbs into the strap of his rifle.

“You all right?” he said under his breath.

LaRouche stood up a little straighter. He stared out, away from them. The land dipped down from the road, hit a thin tree line, but beyond those bald trees were rolling farmlands. Unkempt and overgrown hills. Beyond that, blue sky, patchy clouds. Just another day in the country, perhaps.

LaRouche made an ugly noise, sneered. “Fuck that guy.”

“He didn’t know.”

“What if I’m infected?”

“You’re not.”

“You don’t know that.”

“How much got in your mouth?”

“A lot. A fucking lot.”

Wilson pursed his lips. Didn’t have anything to say to that.

“Fuck him. Wouldn’t have even happened if we’d’ve just left him there.”

“You don’t even know that you’re infected.”

LaRouche grunted.

The sounds of an abandoned world filled in the silence between them. The wind scoured the concrete, whistled through tree branches that swished together, hushed over dry grasses, stirred dead leaves. LaRouche blew his nose onto the concrete, first one nostril, then the other. Wilson used to wrinkle his nose when he saw LaRouche “farmer blow,” as he called it, but he supposed he’d gotten used to it. There weren’t many options when you couldn’t just grab a Kleenex.

“Besides,” Wilson offered, “you rinsed your mouth out quick. You didn’t swallow any.”

LaRouche growled, spit again. “You know, I hate to admit it. But Jim was right about me.”

Wilson rubbed a bit of dirt from the stock of his rifle.

LaRouche laughed, a tired, hard-knock sound. “Feels like I’m losing it.”

Wilson snorted. “Man, we’re all fucking losing it. The fuck do you expect? You think we’re gonna all run around as good as we once were?” He ran a hand over his shaggy black hair. “Nah. We’re all just”—his hands worked in the air, trying to find the right word—“harder versions of ourselves, I guess. There’s no one alive who’s survived this far and is still the good person they once were. So yeah, maybe you’re fucked in the head, but I don’t think it’s any worse than the rest of us.”

LaRouche coughed, cleared his throat. “Yeah…”

“Come on.” Wilson waved toward the Humvee. “Let’s find a better place to stop for lunch. Those fuckers are probably still running after us.”

EIGHTEEN

MORALITY

THEY FOUND AN OLD supermarket parking lot and the convoy pulled up into a rough circle in the middle of the wide-open cement expanse. Two remained on watch in the turrets while the others got out, stretched legs, drank water, and had a bite to eat.

LaRouche pulled out his map, laid it across the hood of the Humvee, and checked back to his last marker, about twenty-five miles behind them. It was strange to only go such short distances in the span of so many long hours. But caution demanded slow speeds and circumventing possible threats. Sometimes it took an hour or two just to get around a town that was little more than a blip on the map. Something that would have taken him five minutes to get around, going sixty miles per hour on an interstate.

He looked around him, shielded his eyes from the sun.

To the east was a cell phone tower. The rest of the horizon bore nothing that he could see would hold one of the radio repeaters. He turned back east and judged the distance of the cell tower at about two or three miles away. Which would put him just inside the thirty-mile range of the last repeater.

Not that it mattered much.

Still no comms with Camp Ryder.

But if the radio problem was with Camp Ryder and they managed to fix it, LaRouche didn’t want to be out of radio range.

As he considered this, he realized he was deliberately ignoring the gnawing feeling in his stomach. Focusing on the duties of his leadership role, rather than thinking about the possibility that some tiny bacteria could be sneaking its way through his body, hijacking his cells and multiplying inside of him. He was mentally hiding under the covers.

He looked up from the map, stared out at nothing in particular.

Am I infected? He toyed with the idea, felt himself strangely detached from it, as though he considered it someone else’s problem. He had thought many times about what it would be like to be infected. How sick would he feel? How long would he hold on to his sanity? Would he know what he was doing when he fed on humans? But in all the time he’d thought about being infected, he had never thought he would find himself so… numb.

Like it wasn’t real. Like it couldn’t possibly be happening to him.

Was it happening? Or was he just being paranoid?

Wilson seemed to think so. But it wasn’t Wilson’s mouth that blood had gotten into. And Wilson could just be saying that to get LaRouche to calm down, while he was secretly wondering when and how he would have to execute his leader.

There was simply no way to know. He couldn’t just go to the hospital and have his blood work done. Have a nice old doctor in a white coat with kind eyes explain to him the situation. No, he would just have to wait and see. He would have to wait, and agonize, and think about it at night, and see if he got sick, just like everyone else who had been infected, hoping against hope until they were wracked with fever chills and losing their minds but still just conscious enough to know that they’d been infected for sure and that there wasn’t a damn thing they could do about it.

He shook his head. And if you can’t do a damn thing about it, there ain’t no point in worrying.

He thought it resolutely enough, but it didn’t take away the doubtful feeling in his stomach; and in his mind, the future of his life past the next two days became a black unknown. Something theoretical. Something intangible. Like there was no purpose in planning for anything past that point. No purpose in planning anything except for how you want to be taken out if shit went downhill.

Bullet in the head, he thought. That would be best.

Or kamikaze it. Go out in a blaze of glory.

“Hey.” A voice brought him back.

He turned and found Father Jim walking up behind him. His pace was slow, methodical, almost hesitant. Like he feared drawing too close to LaRouche, and that alone gave LaRouche a twinge of irritation. LaRouche folded the map in half with a snap, forced the jutting feelings down. He had no reason to be mad at Father Jim, or anyone else for that matter. His short fuse was his own problem, and it needed to be controlled, not unleashed on anyone who looked sideways at him.

“Jim.” He nodded. “What’s up?”

Jim folded his hands in front of him. “How are you?”

“I’m dandy.”

Jim gave him a grim smile. “We have disagreements. That doesn’t mean we need to be opposed to each other. We’re both on the same team, even if we sometimes think things should be done a little differently.”

LaRouche thought of some choice retorts, thought about pointing out that it really didn’t matter what Jim’s opinion was. Thought about pointing out that Jim didn’t have much experience in these things and that LaRouche had been in a combat theater in a third-world country, not so different from this. But all of these smart arguments fell flat, because there was no comparison to this world and the old world. There was no comparison to this LaRouche and the old LaRouche.

LaRouche continued folding the map, meticulously lining up the creases. “You know, you get to a certain age in your life and you think, ‘This is it. This is the person I am.’ And I used to think that I knew who that person was.” He glanced up at Jim. “I’m not saying I’m having a personality crisis or any bullshit like that. It’s just…” He squeezed his fingers together like he was trying to grasp some fine, invisible filament that floated in the air. “I can’t remove myself like I used to. I can’t put these things on someone else. I can’t point to some big old chain of command standing behind me and say, ‘I’m just following orders. If you don’t like the way shit went, talk to them.’ They’re not there anymore. It’s just me. It’s just us. And there’s no support; there’s no one else to rely on.”

LaRouche pointed out to the horizon. “We’re fucking alone out here. And every decision that I make, I have to make for us. Not for whether I think it’s going to be comfortable, or whether it fits into my personal mental image of how I saw myself, or even if it fits into my personal code. All that ain’t shit right now, Jim. Because I can tell you right now, if my decisions land us in a bad spot and you’re lying on the ground, bleeding out and staring up at the sky, you ain’t gonna give a shit about the morals behind what decisions I made. All you’re gonna be thinking is that I made a decision, and it was the wrong fucking decision. And it got you killed. And all the wives and children back at Camp Ryder? They don’t give a shit about some sleazebag refugee and his daughter. They just want their husbands and fathers back. And I cannot—I will not—remove myself mentally or emotionally from that.”

Jim’s eyes were sad. “You can’t keep us all alive by sheer willpower. Only God—”

LaRouche cut him off. “I’m not getting into an existential debate with a priest. God will understand that I’m putting in my best effort here.”

Jim smiled wanly, nodded, and looked away. “I understand.”

Maybe you do, maybe you don’t, LaRouche thought.

“We’ve given the man food and water. Reunited him with his daughter.”

“Fantastic.”

“You should talk to him. See what he has to say.”

“Yeah.” LaRouche let out a beleaguered breath. “I suppose I should.”

Wilson and Joel stood with the man when LaRouche approached. The others sat on the tailgates and bumpers of their trucks, eating food of their own creation or dipping into the supply of MREs for a taste of good old processed food that made them feel like there was still civilization out there.

LaRouche took a good look at the man in the overalls and white thermal shirt. He seemed young to have a four-year-old daughter—only in his mid-to-late twenties. But he also had that weathered look of a farmer, and in LaRouche’s experience, most men in that culture didn’t wait too long to marry and have kids.

LaRouche scratched his neck, regarded the man placidly. “What’s your name?”

“Jackson.” The man put an arm around his daughter. “This is Tessa.”

LaRouche forced a smile for the sake of the child but dropped it when he turned his eyes back to Jackson. “We need to talk. Alone.”

Jackson looked at his little girl, then at Father Jim, whom he apparently was comfortable enough with. Jim gave him a very small nod as though to tell him that he was not in any danger. Jackson squeezed his daughter’s shoulder. “Sweetie, can you stay here for a minute? I’ll be right back.”

Tessa looked hesitant but nodded.

Jackson rose and LaRouche directed him between an LMTV and a Humvee so that when they stepped through, they were outside the circle of vehicles. LaRouche stopped, rested his hands on the rifle slung across his chest.

Jackson wrung his hands. “Listen, I’m sorry… I had no idea.”

LaRouche waved him off. “Forget it. That’s not what I’m here to talk about.”

“Okay.”

“We can’t keep you around,” LaRouche stated simply. “We’re conducting a very specific mission, and there’s no room on board for you and your daughter, understand?”

Jackson opened his mouth as though to protest. He stared at LaRouche, saw the deadpan eyes, saw that LaRouche would not be impressed by whatever he had to say, and then he closed his mouth. “So what are you going to do with us?”

“Well, I’m not gonna leave you on the side of the road,” LaRouche grumbled, then added under his breath, “no matter how easy that would be.” He twiddled his thumbs. “Your group must have known some other groups of survivors. We can take you to one of them.”

Jackson looked unsure. “Shit… we only knew two or three of them. There’s no telling if any of them are still alive. The Followers have been tearing us apart, man.” He looked up. “You guys look like you know what you’re doing. Weren’t you the guys who…?” He cut himself off, a look of terror and shame passing over his features.

LaRouche shifted his weight. Tilted his head. “Jackson…”

The younger man looked away, his chin quivering.

LaRouche shook his head as though he’d just heard sad news. He turned and spat on the ground. His mouth was dry, his spittle frothy. He fished in his cargo pocket for his packet of Red Man. It was down to its last bit of tobacco. He opened the pack, took a pinch for himself, then offered it to Jackson.

The young man declined, then hung his head.

LaRouche replaced the pack. “Jesus Christ,” he mumbled.

“Look,” Jackson said defensively, still not meeting LaRouche’s gaze. “We didn’t have a fucking choice.”

LaRouche shrugged. “I’m not judging you.”

Jackson breathed shakily. “They took another group of survivors a few days ago. They were a little farther west of us, near Fremont. So we thought we might be in the clear. We knew the Followers were coming out of the east. Thought maybe they skipped over us. Maybe they wouldn’t find us. But then yesterday morning…” He looked up, tears glistening on his lower eyelids. “There was no time. I didn’t have time to do anything. I just shoved Tessa out the back of our tent and I told her to run. Didn’t even tell her I loved her. Couldn’t put a coat or shoes on her.”

He buried his face in his hands for a moment. His shoulders shook, but when he removed his hands, his face was blank. “I just… came out with my hands up, because I didn’t want to die. They were going into everyone’s shacks. Killing them if they resisted. Dragging the cooperative ones like myself out in front of the farmhouse.” His voice took on a slow, monotonous tone, almost hypnotic, as though he spoke these memories out of a nightmare. “Took the women and children away. Tied ropes around their necks. Shot them if they tried to run or fight. Then they made us do this weird… oath… and we had to get down on our knees. But some of the guys wouldn’t kneel, so…”

LaRouche gave the man the only compassion he could muster: He leaned forward, touched him on the shoulder, and shook his head. “We know.”

Jackson nodded.

LaRouche looked off into the surrounding woods. “So you were with the group we hit yesterday.”

Another nod.

“And you just came back here?”

“Yes. I ran back here, but I… I was too afraid to go in. So I just sat in the woods and stayed quiet. Hoped that Tessa would show up.” He rubbed his forehead. “When I saw her get out of y’all’s truck, I didn’t know what to think. But Father Jim seemed so kind to her… and I couldn’t just let her go again. So I came out of the woods.” He glanced at LaRouche. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know what else to do. And I didn’t know there were infected that close to me in the woods.”

LaRouche sighed but couldn’t think of much else to say, except, “Well…”

“So, aren’t you guys going to help?”

LaRouche tongued the tobacco in his cheek. “Help with what, Jackson?”

“Help us with the Followers.”

LaRouche made a humorless chuckling sound. “Jackson, let me be completely honest with you. There are many, many times more of them than there are of us. It’s simply not a situation we have the time or resources to handle.”

“What do you mean you don’t have the time?”

LaRouche narrowed his eyes. “I mean I don’t have the fucking time. There are bigger things at play here. Much bigger things. You want my advice? You tell me where to find another group of survivors. A group that hasn’t been knocked over by the Followers. And when we drop you off, you gather everyone you can and every weapon and every supply that you can, and you head west as fast as you fucking can. ’Cause there ain’t shit I can do about the Followers, and if you decide to stick around, then it’s just a matter of time before you’re nailing someone to a fucking telephone pole or getting hung on one yourself.”

“What about my daughter?”

“Your daughter isn’t my concern,” LaRouche replied blandly. “I already saved her once. The rest is up to you.” He looked at the other man pointedly. “You’re her father.”

Jackson looked like he had just tasted something sour. “And what if I don’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“Where to find another group of survivors.”

LaRouche shrugged. “Then we leave you right here, Jackson. One way or another, you’re gonna be out of my hair.”

Jackson looked down, inspected his worn-out, dirty boots. “Parker’s Place,” he muttered.

“What now?” LaRouche leaned forward.

Jackson spoke up. “Parker’s Place. It’s another farm. About thirty people there. Few miles north of here. Last I heard, they were doing okay.” Jackson met LaRouche’s gaze. “If you take us there… I would appreciate it.”

“Okay.” LaRouche sniffed. “We can do that.”

There didn’t seem to be anything else to say, so LaRouche turned away from him and stepped back toward the circle of vehicles. He didn’t have much appetite, but he knew he needed to eat something. As he stepped between the Humvee and the LMTV, Jackson’s voice stopped him.

“I, uh…” Jackson started, then paused until LaRouche turned to face him. “I heard a few of them talking. The tall, older guy. I think he was in charge.” Jackson kicked at a loose chunk of concrete in the road. “This isn’t an expansion. They’re not trying to… you know… take over the world.”

LaRouche eyed him, wondered how fucked this man’s brain had become in the last twenty-four hours. “Sure seems like that’s what they’re doing.”

Jackson shook his head. “They’re being driven west.”

“Driven?”

“Something is pushing them this way.” Jackson looked around, shrugged. “Don’t know what it is, though.”

LaRouche felt a cold certainty settle in his stomach. Bet I know what it is.

Instead, he just flicked a salute to Jackson. “Thanks.”

Wilson and Jim sat on the tailgate of their Humvee, sharing a packet of Chips Ahoy that Wilson had long ago lifted from the glove box of a vehicle. They didn’t bother checking the expiration date—just sniffed it to make sure it didn’t smell offensive, and then split the pack.

Jim closed his eyes as he chewed. “What was my problem with these things again?”

Wilson shook his head. “I never had a problem with a cookie.”

Jim inspected the half cookie pinched between his fingers. “A while ago, I would’ve declined these when you offered them. Something about trans fats or whatnot. Now I don’t even remember what trans fats were or why I cared about them.”

Wilson smiled. “Yeah. They don’t make ’em like this anymore.”

“They really don’t,” Jim said wistfully, looking at the last bite with some regret.

Wilson sucked on his teeth. Glanced at the ex-priest. “Listen… I’m sorry about earlier. I shouldn’t have snapped at you, especially in front of a stranger.” Wilson crumpled the blue wrapper in his hands. “We shouldn’t show division when dealing with people we don’t know.”

Jim made a noncommittal noise. “It’s just…”

“I know.”

“Yeah.”

Wilson sighed.

Jim glanced around. “I really thought he was gonna do it.”

“Shoot him?”

“Didn’t you?”

Wilson’s lips quirked, but he didn’t seem to have a solid answer. “He gets a little intense.”

“That’s a nice way of putting it.” Jim snorted. “If he’d’ve pulled the trigger, that man’s brains would have been all over his daughter. She would have watched us murder her father after she asked for our help and we promised that we’d give it.”

“Cut the man some slack, Jim,” Wilson said. “He just got infected blood in his mouth.”

Jim looked unconvinced. “I don’t think you can contract it that way.”

“Would that make you feel any better?”

“It wouldn’t make me feel like I needed to shoot someone.”

Wilson looked his companion in the eye. “Jim. You’re my friend. And I’m asking you as a friend. Please don’t push LaRouche. The last thing he needs right now is to be worrying about looking over his shoulder at us—the people who should have his back no matter what.”

Jim looked pained. “I understand that. But I’m not just gonna allow him to murder someone in front of me.” He leaned in to Wilson, his voice growing harsher. “For God’s sake, he already tortured and murdered one man! It’s bad enough that I’m still following his orders when I’m doubting his mental stability, but I absolutely will not just stand by and watch him do it right in front of me!”

Wilson nodded and began to respond, but LaRouche turned the corner of the Humvee.

The silence that suddenly fell on them was brief, but obvious and painful.

LaRouche glanced between them, seeming to know everything.

“What’s up, Sarge?” Wilson broke the silence, then cleared his throat.

LaRouche tossed a thumb over his shoulder. “Get everyone loaded.” He gave Jim a sharp look. “Time to hit the road again.”

NINETEEN

HAUNTED

IT WAS AN OLD shopping center along Highway 61. Most of the suites in the brownstone building were empty. The ones with windows still intact had signs advertising that the leases were available. A few stubborn businesses had remained open until the bitter end. A New York–style pizza place. A liquor store. A small grocery store.

Harper directed Julia to pull in. They were getting close to the section of I-85 that ran between Burlington and Greensboro, and he didn’t want to stop. If any place was going to be bad, it would be the interstate between those two cities, and he wanted to hit it with a running start and not stop until sundown.

They rumbled into the parking lot, jostling over the remnants of a speed bump, the black-and-yellow-painted stripes barely visible anymore. The convoy rolled in behind them, and Julia brought their Humvee in a slow, wide turn, around the empty parking lot, and finally stopped, facing an exit.

Now the dark interiors of the suites were on Julia’s side, and she and Harper gazed out the driver’s side window at them, no one daring to open their doors or even take the vehicle out of gear before they gave it a long minute to see if the racket of the incoming vehicles had stirred anything that might be lurking in the shadows.

In the turret, Gray shifted his position. The hinges of the M2 creaked a bit. They were in need of some grease.

After a while, Julia’s shoulders relaxed a bit. She turned to Harper. “Clear?”

Harper nodded once, then grabbed the radio set. “Takin’ twenty minutes for food and fuel,” he said into the mic, then set it back on the cradle. He glanced at Julia, then pointed to the little strip of shops. “You gonna help me clear these things?”

Julia sighed, pushed her door open. “Yeah, why not.”

Gray grumbled wordlessly as he extracted himself from the turret. When he was in the cab of the truck and working his way toward a door, he said, “Holler if you need me. I gotta take a piss.”

Harper stepped out, slinging into his rifle and adjusting the collar of his jacket so it covered his neck. He sniffed the air, detected only the smell of human civilization long abandoned—a sort of non-smell, like frozen concrete. An absence of exhaust fumes, the smell of restaurants, or smoke from factories. But also the absence of anything natural, like trees or dirt. Just a plain, dead grittiness in the air.

“Doesn’t feel as cold,” Julia remarked as she started toward the shopping center.

Behind them, doors opened and closed, and conversation bubbled.

“Yeah.” Harper nodded. “Doesn’t feel too bad.”

Julia held her pace for a moment, allowing Harper to step in line with her. She looked up at the first business that Harper seemed to be guiding toward—the pizza place. “Think we’ll find anything?”

Harper let his hand fall to the grip of his rifle. “Well… we can always hope.”

The pizza place had three sections of windows. Two of them were shattered into a sea of dirty blue diamonds that crunched underfoot as Julia and Harper approached. In the last window hung an unlit OPEN sign and a graphic of Italy in green, white, and red.

Harper stopped in the doorway and peered in. The shattered glass littered an industrial rug just inside the door. Chairs and tables had been overturned. Mounted high in a corner, an ancient television sat blank on a frame. Black-and-white pictures of New York in the ’30s and ’40s hung askew on the walls.

To the left, a counter blocked the dining area from the kitchen. Beyond it, the stainless steel of the commercial appliances glimmered darkly in the shadows. The counter stopped before it touched the wall, leaving an open section for people to walk. Sticking out of this, Harper could see a single leg, and on its foot, a black tennis shoe. The way the pants draped, Harper could see that there wasn’t much left to the leg. Time and rot had withered it away, so the pants seemed to be clothing a stick figure.

Harper wrinkled his nose, but the odor of decay was faint. The body had been there for quite a while. He stepped through the shattered glass door, dodging a little bell that hung from the doorframe, the copper turned pitted and green from exposure. The pebbles of glass crunched mutely under their feet, the soggy rug squishing. Julia chose to go through one of the windows that no longer existed, stepped lightly around a broken table and a few shotgun shells that littered the floor.

Harper looked at the shells, then at the wall behind them, where little black holes stood out. Then he looked at the counter, where the body lay hidden, and could see the wadding from the spent shotgun shells and the clusters of holes where the lead shot had ripped into the counter.

Harper rounded the corner, then stared down at the remains of what appeared to be a middle-aged man, though it was difficult to tell at this level of desiccation. He lay flat on his back, face shriveled and eaten away. He wore a T-shirt bearing the name of the pizza place and had a big, ragged wound in the upper right portion of his chest, with the shotgun wadding still stuck in the dried, grizzled meat.

The dead man held a small black pistol in his right hand.

A single one-dollar bill fluttered in the space between his neck and his upheld right arm.

Harper glanced to the left, saw that the cash register was open and empty.

“Jeez,” Julia mumbled as she came within sight of the body.

“Fucker got robbed,” Harper said wistfully. “Must’ve been during the collapse. They never even picked up the body.”

“Pretty shitty. Get killed over a pizza place that’d be out of business in a day or two, over money that isn’t worth anything.” Julia clucked her tongue. “Amazing, amazing, stupid people.”

Harper knelt down, then furrowed his brow and looked up at his companion.

Julia stared neutrally down at the body, then must have realized Harper was looking at her. “What?”

Harper shook his head. “I liked you more when you were less gloomy.”

Julia sniffed. “Yeah… well…”

Harper waved it off. “I’m just fuckin’ with you,” he said, but he knew that a part of him wasn’t. A part of him missed the Julia who had first joined the team, before all the bodies started piling up. When she was a little kinder, a little softer. Still stubborn as a mule—that was just Julia—but a bit more pleasant to be around. Just slightly different from the rest of them. Like she was one or two steps removed from the cruelty that had become their lives.

Nowadays, though… nowadays her smile was rare, and her thoughts were dark and cold.

Just like the rest of them.

Harper grumbled under his breath, a nonsensical sound of dissatisfaction. Then he leaned forward and patted the pockets of the corpse, feeling for anything that might be of value. He felt something in the right pants pocket, reached in gingerly, trying to avoid touching the nearly mummified flesh through the cloth. He pinched the object between two fingers and slipped it out.

A little white square with a pair of earbuds trailing after it.

Harper held it in his hand for a long moment, smiled down at it.

“Not what you thought it would be?” Julia asked.

Harper shook his head once. “Nope.” He held up the device. “Now, what kind of music you think the purveyor of this fine establishment listened to?”

Julia put a hand on the counter, tilted her head as though to get a better perspective of the dead body. “Tough call. Still work?”

Harper looked the small square over, found a little silver switch, and flipped it. A small green light came on. “Well, what do you know? Shit’s still got a charge.”

He took the two buds, set them in his ears, and pressed play. The earbuds popped. Recorded silence hissed at him. He cringed, his eyes squinting and looking up and to the left as he anticipated an assault of something horrid to come banging through the tiny speakers that sat against his ear canal.

What he heard instead was the thrum of a classical stringed instrument—a cello, he thought. Once upon a time he had considered it to be one of the most beautiful-sounding instruments in the world, and for a moment it seemed like the music had been left there just for him. The notes resonated in his chest, and he loved them and hated them all at once, and for the same reason. For daring to barge into his drab, fearful life and reminding him of wonderful things that he preferred were left forgotten. This dichotomy of appreciation and resentment became a physical pain in his chest and it forced him, unwillingly, to think of Annette.

Annette when they were both young on the bench seat of his 1972 Chevy short bed, parked on the lookout. The tops of the trees green with full crowns of leaves, and beyond those nothing of the small town that hid among them was visible, save for the white steeples of two churches that rose above the treetops, one on each side of the town. Looking out over the hill, he could see the rain coming toward them, a sheet of it, like a bank of fog rolling toward them, and it swallowed one church steeple, and then the other.

The notes rose and fell.

Rose and fell.

And abruptly the memory became an image of Annette when she was older. Worn down. Dirty. Bedraggled. Trying to appear brave for him as she clutched a bag containing everything she owned in the world and was shuffled through a FEMA camp by National Guard soldiers with worried looks on their faces. Then there were bright searchlights, and the downdrafts of helicopters all taking off at once, and the screeches of the infected, and Annette running in one direction while the panicked crowd pushed him in the other. He reached out for her, screamed, tried to kick and thrash through the wall of people bearing him away, but she didn’t hear him and she disappeared into a crowd, looking scared and lost, and that was his last memory of Annette.

Harper ripped the earbuds out.

He looked at them as though they’d told him a dreadful secret, and then he dropped them back onto the dead body and stood up.

“You okay?” Julia asked.

“Yeah, fine.”

“What kind of music was it?”

Harper shook his head. “It was nothing.”

He put his hands on both sides of the counter and began to step over the body into the back of the pizza shop, when a voice drew his attention outside. Gray came crunching onto the glassy sidewalk just outside the door of the shop, pointing northward. “Got three of ’em comin’ up the road.”

Harper turned and looked at Julia. “You’re up.”

She looked heavily at the body on the ground, then nodded, pulling the rifle from where it was slung over her shoulder. “Alright. I’ll check it out.”

Harper gave a distasteful glance into the back of the pizza parlor, saw a mess of ransacked shelving, piles of excrement in the corners of the kitchen where people had relieved themselves while using the place as a shelter. He turned away from the wreckage. “Yeah, I’m comin’ out, too.”

Julia was already out the door, followed closely by Gray and then Harper.

Outside, the parking lot sprawled out in grays and blacks. All the vehicles lined up, one after the other, pointing toward the exit and ready for flight. The parking lot rose at the exits, meeting the road at a slight incline, and on this small crest, Harper could see Mike Reagan standing there in the center of the street, staring northward while the others crowded around in the bottom of the parking lot.

Julia quickened her pace to a jog as she hit the incline. On the street, Mike seemed to regard whatever he saw in the distance with a blank look, his rifle simply hanging from his fingers, not tucked into his shoulder. Nothing in his body language said that he was alarmed or on edge. He seemed apathetic.

“Mike,” Julia called as she neared him.

He twitched slightly, as though someone had touched him, but still he didn’t look around. Julia glanced back at Harper, then at the faces of the others. Harper turned, looking for Torri’s face and hoping that she could provide some explanation as to Mike’s odd behavior.

“Hey! Mike!” Julia raised her voice this time.

He snapped his head in her direction, eyes narrowed. The rifle jerked in his grip—a small movement, but enough for Harper to slow his roll and for Julia to put a hand up.

“You okay?” she said, a little edge to her voice, as though she really meant to say, Snap out of it!

“Huh?” Mike shook his head, reconnecting to reality. “Yeah. Fine.” He looked back down the roadway, clearing his throat and blinking rapidly. “Uh… three of them, I think. Just crested that last rise in the road.” He squinted. “I can see two of them now. Don’t know where the third went.”

Julia raised the rifle, not aiming but just using the scope to glass the farthest rise in the road. “I got three,” she said quietly.

Harper peered over her shoulder, saw them only as small, dark shapes—two of them walking on the road while the third seemed to dance oddly in and out of the tree line on the far edge of the roadway. Harper watched the strange movements for a second, wondering silently what the hell the creature was doing. Which crisscrossed neurons were firing erratically in its brain, perhaps making it see things in the trees? Or maybe it was simply like a dog, running in circles because it was excited.

“The fuck is that thing doing?” he mumbled.

Julia lowered the rifle, still squinting. “No idea.”

Mike rubbed his eyes. “You, uh, want me to go back and hit the horn a few times?”

Julia extended the rifle’s bipod. Her lips pursed for a moment. She looked down at the rifle, the chamber. Made sure the bolt was snug and the breech loaded. A bit of hair that had escaped her tieback flitted about restlessly in the wind and nagged at her nose and eyes. She worked some spit onto her tongue, then licked her fingers and pasted the hair back behind her ears.

“No.” She looked back up. “Don’t worry about it.”

She started to lean down, but Harper stopped her with a gentle touch of the shoulder. She turned to face him and he masked the concern on his face as best he could, but he knew that some of it bled through. “You sure about that?” he said quietly. “I mean, it ain’t nothing to hit the horn. If it’s gonna make you feel better about—”

“Honestly…” She trailed off as she took a knee, then settled into a prone position. She looked back up at him with a sad, tired smile that he’d grown familiar with. “I don’t think it makes a damn bit of difference anymore.”

She didn’t wait for an answer, and Harper wasn’t sure he really had one. But it hurt to see that little bit of her simply float away on the breeze. That stubborn part of her that insisted she give these deranged people the benefit of the doubt. It hurt him to watch it because he knew it was a piece of herself that she would never get back.

But he just laid his hand on the pistol grip of his rifle and thought, Welcome to the real world.

Welcome to cold, hard truth.

Welcome to a world with no room for delusion.

The rifle boomed. Harper flinched. Dust and cordite mixed in a swirl of gray in front of the muzzle and was gone. She racked the bolt action, seated another round in the chamber, settled over the rifle with the comfort of old friends embracing. She breathed in, exhaled slowly, fired again.

Harper put his eyes downrange, saw only one figure left, racing toward them. Whether it had seen them or just heard the sound of the gunshot and was drawn, Harper didn’t know. Didn’t really care. He shifted uncomfortably as he watched the thing run toward them, still a long way off, but there was something disconcerting about seeing the way it moved—some bastardization of human and animal alike.

The third shot brought it down.

Harper nodded. “Three shots… damn.”

Julia didn’t respond. She heaved herself up onto her knees, then her feet, then picked up the rifle from the ground and collapsed the bipod.

Harper looked behind him, thought to call out to Mike, ask him to help them go check the bodies. But when his eyes fell on the man, he was half sitting, half standing against the front bumper of one of the LMTVs, shoulders slumped, eyes staring off into the woods behind them. His rifle wasn’t even slung or in his hands. Now it simply stood against the bumper, an arm’s length from Mike. Like it wasn’t even his. Like he didn’t want anything to do with it.

Harper whispered under his breath, “What the fuck?”

He scanned around again, and this time he did find Torri. She walked toward them in the road, her own rifle ported against her chest, her oval face seeming to have been interrupted by a few harsh angles around her eyes and mouth, her lips downturned at the corners. She looked right at Harper and she shook her head.

For a moment, Harper thought she might have been angry with him, but then she looked back at her husband, leaning up against the LMTV, lackadaisical, in his own little world, and when she looked back her eyes showed worry instead of anger.

Harper gave her a questioning look, but her only response was to glance away from him.

Julia stood by his side, rifle propped against her hip. She leaned in to him, her words a murmur. “What’s wrong with Mike?”

Harper flapped his lips. “Hell, I have no idea. Ask his wife.”

Torri approached them, and the three tightened the edge of their group, as though their conversation were confidential.

“You guys need help going down there?” Torri asked.

Harper looked over her shoulder. “Yeah. I was gonna ask Mike…”

“I’ll go with you,” Torri said quickly.

Julia ducked her head a bit to find Torri’s gaze. “What’s wrong with him?”

Torri quickly glanced over at her husband, then down at her shoes, her pretty features clouded with concern. “I don’t know. He’s been like this ever since he shot that guy.”

Harper rubbed his neck. “He knows it wasn’t his fault, right?”

Torri just shrugged. “You said it. I said it. He’s gotta know… he didn’t have a choice!” She took a shaky breath, blew it out, and straightened, as though gathering herself up. “He’s just been out of it. He used to get like this sometimes. Back then. Stress, I guess. He’d get all quiet, but he’d just go on a fishing trip or backpacking or something and he’d be okay.” She smiled wanly. “Now…”

Harper put a hand on her shoulder and began to slowly move toward their Humvee, finishing her sentence in his mind: Now there’s no peaceful place. You can’t escape it. You live in it nonstop.

“Just keep talking to him,” Harper said gently. “We can’t have him out of whack like this. But right now we need to go check those bodies, so let’s get going and not make a big deal out of this.” He pointed Torri toward the convoy. “See if you can’t find Gray and tell him to get his ass in the turret.”

Harper and Julia walked quickly to their Humvee. When they had settled in and closed the doors, Harper checked the side-view mirror, keeping an eye on Torri as she flagged down Gray. The two engaged in a brief exchange that appeared silent in the reflection of the mirror. It involved much waving and hand-pointing and after a moment, the two of them walked toward the Humvee, side by side. Too far away to hear anything that was said inside.

Still, Harper spoke quietly. “We haven’t killed enough people yet?”

Julia gave him a questioning look.

Harper rubbed the top of his bald head. “How many people you think Mike’s killed since this shit happened? Even if you don’t include the infected, he’s probably still shot at least a half dozen or so.” His hand fell to his knee with a slap. “And he chooses now to blank out on us? He’s so fucking torn up about this one guy he shot? Makes no fucking sense.”

Julia disengaged the emergency brake and shifted into drive. “If I’ve learned one thing from all of this shit, it’s that everyone’s got a different way of handling what’s going on. You just have to… let them work it out.”

Harper growled. “He’s not working it out. He’s just fucking standing there.”

“Harper…” Julia had a warning tone.

Torri and Gray reached the Humvee and climbed in, Torri taking the seat directly behind Harper and Gray making tired grunts and groans as he sat himself on the canvas strap of the turret that served as his seat. He propped his foot up on the radio, and Harper looked down at the dirty brown boots and thought of how Lee would always cuss at LaRouche for doing the same thing.

It’s a radio, not a footstool, Lee would gripe.

Or he would just elbow them off.

But Gray didn’t seem like the type to appreciate that.

Harper looked forward again as the Humvee started moving out of the parking lot, the rest of the crews beginning to find their ways back to their vehicles. He wondered how LaRouche and Lee were doing at the moment. What they were doing. Were they fighting? Were they in danger? How close was LaRouche to reaching the Roanoke River? And had Lee found the man he thought was out to kill him?

They rumbled up onto the asphalt, and Julia cranked the wheel to the right. She looked both ways out of sheer habit. There would be no other cars to watch out for. No pedestrians to walk in front of them. Harper remembered an abandoned shopping center where he took that 1972 C10 to do burnouts, figure eights, and generally abuse it and waste gas. He could do anything he wanted in that parking lot, because there was never anyone else there.

The whole world was like that now.

Empty. Overgrown. Run-down.

The road dipped down. Ahead of them, the valley, and then a tiny bridge spanning over a creek, and then the steep rise to the hillcrest on the other side. The last one that Julia had shot lay in the center of the road, just a pale blob in the middle of all that charcoal-gray cement with the double-yellow lines bisecting it like it was some strange, fleshy bead suspended on a wire. A dark ribbon ran out of it, heading downhill and toward the shoulder, and as they descended into the valley, the ribbon caught the sun and shimmered brilliantly for a moment, like the dead thing bled quicksilver.

They crossed the small bridge, saw the slow-moving muddy water below them. Then they were up the other side and pulling to a stop. Julia left it running, out of gear with the emergency brake on. Harper opened his door, stepped out. The wind brought the scent of the infected to him, only slightly diluted. He wrinkled his nose, let the door of the Humvee swing closed behind him as he approached the first body. The wind buffeted him, sounded like roaring water for a moment.

He and Julia reached the first body, inspected it from a distance of about five or six feet away before going any closer. It was a male. Young. High school or college, maybe. Scraggly hair. Just the barest beginnings of a beard. Hairless torso. Two big slashes across its abdomen that looked swollen and angry. A crushed right arm that looked gangrenous. A big hole where its heart used to be.

Harper didn’t know where the other injuries had come from—fighting with other infected, perhaps?—but he knew that it was Julia’s bullet that had turned its heart to pulp, and the thing was as dead as a bullet could make it.

Harper wanted to make a comment on the quality of the shot, but he wasn’t sure how Julia would take it, so he decided to leave it be.

Julia made a help yourself gesture toward the body.

Harper sighed. “Suppose it is my turn.”

He stepped up to the body, knelt down.

The noisy wind died down.

But somehow the noise continued.

In fact, it seemed louder now than it had before.

Harper stopped with his hand halfway outstretched toward the body. He leaned back a bit, looked up the hill, then down the hill to the muddy creek at the bottom. It was a noise like a strong wind tearing through a forest, or perhaps it was indeed rushing water, but the creek at the bottom was slow and small. This was a sound more like white water.

“What?” Julia looked around.

“You hear that?”

She listened. “Sounds like a waterfall.”

“Yeah.” Harper withdrew his hand.

Julia regarded him. “You gonna search that guy, or do I hafta do it again?”

Harper rose up, his head turning this way and that, like a radar dish scanning. Triangulating. He faced up the road, almost positive that was where the sound was coming from. “No. Let’s get back in the Humvee.”

Julia snorted, a smile on her face like Harper was playing some stupid joke. But the smile cracked and fell away like dried and brittle plaster, and underneath was a look of dread. She knew when Harper was serious. And he was serious now.

They turned back to the Humvee. The heels of their boots hit the concrete with a little more vigor than usual. Gray eyed them from the turret, and Torri stood beside the vehicle, both of their faces bearing the same question that Julia had just asked.

Harper waved at them. “Get back in the truck.”

“What?” Torri called to him.

From behind them—yes, definitely coming from behind them—the noise had grown. It wasn’t a waterfall or a strong wind. It was a rumble in the ground that tingled their feet. A vibration in the air that pressed at their ears. Like a tornado was bearing down on them.

Or a freight train.

Harper yelled this time. “Get back in the fucking truck!”

He realized he was running.

The Humvee was twenty feet away now, and Gray looked past him, up the hill, his eyes wide and his mouth open. Harper slammed into his door, ripped it open like he planned to remove it from its hinges, and only then did he look back toward the top of the hill.

The first few crested the hill at a dead sprint. Behind them, like a tidal wave reaching its breaking point, hundreds more swallowed the hilltop, saw the Humvee and the people in it, and then they pitched into a headlong downhill run.

TWENTY

STRAGGLER

THE INTERIOR OF THE Humvee was chaos.

Julia slammed the thing into gear and hit the gas, whipping it into a tight left-hand turn before Harper could even close the door behind him. The centrifugal force almost pitched him out of the vehicle. Julia’s mouth moved rapidly, but Harper couldn’t hear what she said. The turret blasted, the brass hitting the roof, clanking down into the vehicle. Torri leaned out the window, her rifle stabbing at the air with spits of fire and smoke.

Harper could hear none of this. The only thing registering in his ears was a strange, basal tone like a rolling timpani drum, and it drowned out everything else. He just held on, trying not to fall out of the vehicle, the blur of pavement threatening to chew him up if he let go. His eyes rose to the hilltop again and all he could think was, There’s so fucking many of them!

The Humvee straightened. He pulled back and shut the door.

The guns still blazed.

“Cut it out!” Harper bellowed, elbowing Gray in the legs. “There’s too many!”

Behind him, he could hear Torri cursing and breathing, the clatter of metal on metal as she dropped her empty magazine and inserted a new one.

Julia shouted over the roaring engine. “We need some distance, Harper!”

Harper lunged at the radio handset, keying it before he even brought it out of the cradle. “Everyone turn around and get up the road!” he transmitted. “Turn around and get up the road now!”

Gray leaned down into the cabin. “Holy fuck! That’s a lot of crazies!”

“What do we do?” Torri yelped.

The Humvee hit the bridge again, clattered over it. Harper glanced in the side-view mirror, trying to size up the horde spilling over the top of that hill, but there didn’t seem to be an end to them. They just kept coming and coming. At least a thousand. Maybe more.

The radio barked at him. “Harper! What’s going on?”

Harper didn’t recognize the voice when it yelled. He keyed the mic back. “Lot of infected comin’ our way. We’re going back up the street.”

“Where are we going?” the radio asked.

Harper wasn’t able to force himself to sound calm and collected. “We’re fucking going someplace else! If everyone would shut the fuck up I might be able to figure out where!”

Julia pointed up the road. “There was an industrial park a few miles from here.”

Harper looked at her, released the microphone button. “What?”

“We passed it a few miles back. Big industrial park.” She pointed her thumb backward. “If we break line of sight, they’ll slow down a bit. We can hide out in one of the buildings, or at least off the road so they don’t see us. Maybe they’ll pass by.”

“Fuck.” Harper rubbed his head, suddenly overcome by the gravity of the situation. This was the biggest horde he’d seen since they’d cleared Smithfield, and they’d been contained in the city. He’d never seen a horde out roaming the countryside like this. He almost felt responsible to stop them before they railroaded some innocent group of survivors.

But what could they do? They didn’t have the resources to make an effective stand. And they didn’t have the time to hunt the horde, thinning it out over the course of a week like a herd of bison. He could no more stop it than he could stop the passage of a hurricane bound for them. Their only option would be to sit it out, wait for it to pass, and hope others in the way got lucky.

Camp Ryder, he thought. What if they follow the highway all the way back to Camp Ryder?

Unlikely.

But the thought still made his gut clench, cold and fiery all at once.

“Fine.” He waved up the road. “Go for it.”

The Humvee rolled past the shopping center on the left, the convoy pulling out into the roadway behind them, everyone hanging out windows and turrets and trying to get a look at the horde, pointing and yelling with wide open eyes and mouths like they were witnessing some seismic event, some crack in the earth’s crust that was racing toward them.

Torri was suddenly slapping the back of Harper’s seat. “Mike! Mike!”

Harper jerked away from her, but he looked out the left side of the vehicle as they passed by the shopping center. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but he assumed it had something to do with Mike. “What? What’s wrong?”

Torri was on the verge of hysteria. “Mike! They forgot Mike!”

They were too far past the shopping center now. Harper couldn’t see what she was talking about, only the snake of green and tan vehicles lumbering up and out of the parking lot behind them, diesel fumes pluming out of their pipes as their engines worked in overdrive. “Shit! Are you sure?”

Torri was sure enough that she seemed on the verge of throwing herself out of the moving vehicle, twisting every which way in a panic, hands going to the door as though she might open it at any moment. “Go back! Go back!”

“Fuck! Julia, spin us around.” Then he grabbed up the radio again and transmitted. “Everyone else keep going to the industrial…” He groaned, trying to keep himself upright as Julia chirped the tires, cutting a tight U-turn. “To the industrial park a few miles up. Everyone just keep going.”

The front end of the Humvee lifted as Julia accelerated back toward the shopping center. The string of their convoy ripped past them, the wind from their bulks shoving the Humvee around, the drivers and their passengers staring at Harper’s Humvee as though they were insane to go back.

Up ahead, Harper could see a figure that seemed to be running after the convoy, and it stopped in the middle of the road, stutter-stepped with anxiety, then turned and looked northward. Then the figure bolted back toward the shopping center.

“That’s Mike!” Torri cried. “That’s him!”

“Where the fuck’s he going?” Julia yelled. “Can’t he see us coming back for him?”

“C’mon, Mike,” Harper growled to no one in particular. “Don’t make us fucking chase you.”

Julia honked the horn, trying to get his attention, but either he couldn’t hear it or didn’t care. The figure disappeared back into the parking lot. “He’s gonna try to hide, dammit.”

Harper leaned forward in his seat. “Get in there, Julia!”

She hit the parking lot, taking the curb and screeching the tires. Out the driver’s side, Harper could see down the dip in the road and the wall of bodies racing toward them, close enough to see the insanity in their eyes, their gnashing teeth, their clawed fingers. The roar of them overpowered the noise of the engines, the thousands of them screeching madly, filled with some insatiable hunger.

Torri leaned between Harper’s and Julia’s seats, pointing out the windshield. “There! There! Mike!” she yelled, as though he could hear her.

Straight ahead of them, Mike ran for one of the closed businesses.

The Humvee shuddered violently and this time Harper could definitely hear the M2 thundering over their heads, the concussion of each gunshot seeming like a physical thing, slapping the roof of the vehicle.

Julia made a circle in the parking lot, blaring the horn the whole way, until Mike finally stopped running and turned around to see the Humvee pulling up alongside him. His wife threw open the door, leaning through Gray’s legs as he desperately tried to maneuver the turret to bear on the horde. Between the rapid blasts of the .50-BMG cartridges, Harper could hear Gray yelling, his voice like the barking of an old coonhound, “We need to go! We need to fucking go!”

Harper turned and looked out his open window at the street and the big open parking lot before him. All the exits out of the parking lot were suddenly choked with bodies, an imminent, inevitable avalanche of them pouring into the parking lot, coming straight for the Humvee, and Harper could see that there was no way they were getting out of this unscathed. He could see the bright red .50-caliber tracers punching holes in concrete, ripping through bodies, one after another. The targets so jam-packed together, running shoulder to shoulder and back to front, that each projectile shredded multiple infected, tearing limbs and opening body cavities and causing great spurts of blood and chunks of humanity to fly up into the air in the path of each round.

And it was barely slowing them down.

We’re fucked. We’re fucked. We’re fucked.

Mike leaped into the vehicle, landing atop his wife.

Harper slapped Julia’s shoulder. “Fucking go!”

She slammed on the gas.

Gray screamed, because he knew what was coming.

The Humvee lurched forward, and at the same moment was slammed in the side by the wall of bodies. Harper felt his stomach flip-flop as he registered the sensation of being lifted. The engine roared but the vehicle seemed to stall. All around them the noise was unbearable, the stench sudden and overpowering. Hundreds of starved, savage faces screamed at them, wiry arms clawing through the open windows, trying to get to the meat inside.

The Humvee’s front end suddenly pitched, the spinning tires ramming down onto crushed and trampled bodies, immediately grinding them down and sending up a great spray of blood to either side of the vehicle. Harper had the muzzle of his rifle just protruding from the window, amid all those grasping hands, and he fired indiscriminately, squinting his eyes and closing his mouth as the spray of blood washed back, both warm and cold at once on his face.

The Humvee trundled over the carpet of mangled bodies, found a patch of concrete on the other side, and caught some traction. There was nothing ahead of them but more bodies, a sea of bodies, all of them pushing in toward the Humvee so that the ones that reached the grille were immediately crushed. Not by the force of the vehicle but by the force of the horde compressing them. They twitched and howled and jerked about against the ram bars, eyes bulging, bones crunching, blood erupting out of mouths and noses and ears, and then they disappeared underneath the vehicle as the others clambered wildly over them, some of them falling to their deaths under the tires or the feet of the horde, some of them vaulting onto the hood, only to catch a .50-caliber round and be flung off in pieces.

And all the while, Gray just kept yelling at them to go, as though he didn’t understand that no matter how hard they pressed on the gas, the simple mass of humanity around them would not allow the vehicle to do more than plunge forward into bodies, get mired in filth and flesh, then plunge forward again when it found purchase. Harper could see the rise of the parking lot, the exits that led to the road, and they seemed close but didn’t seem to be getting any closer. For one sickening moment he thought he felt them move backward, but then they were forward again, toppling a wall of infected, only to be overpowered by another.

His rifle went dry, and he tried to reach for another magazine, but there were so many arms reaching through the windows that he couldn’t fight them off and simultaneously load his weapon. He felt the rifle jerk in his grip, didn’t want to lose that rifle, could not lose that rifle, so he just held on to it with both hands and began to pull back, ripping it back and forth.

He could barely focus on anything but his own terror. The filthy, blood-scabbed arms and fingernails black with grime that Harper could not even imagine, the faces behind them with their gaping mouths, reaching in desperately, trying to get him between their teeth.

In the turret, Gray’s shouts suddenly changed in pitch. The aggression went out of them and it was pure fear, high-pitched and unmanly, and it sent shivers up Harper’s spine when he heard the man scream, pride and all concept of shame lost.

He managed to rip the rifle away and turned his body inward, avoiding the clawing hands that reached for him. In the same movement, he looked back, his heart pounding hard and fast and his eyes searching up into the turret for what was wrong with Gray. Now the man’s legs kicked out, thrashed, his whole body convulsing. His screams were an ululating wave, and they reached a crescendo as his entire body seemed to lift out of the turret, like he was being sucked up by a tornado.

Harper dropped his rifle and lunged out with a cry of alarm, grabbing hold of Gray’s legs. “Gray!” he shouted. Then to Torri and Mike, “Help me! Help me!”

But Mike just sat there, blank-faced as ever. And Torri had the muzzle of her rifle in her window, firing madly with her eyes closed, blood from the bullet wounds she was inflicting splashing the window and speckling her face.

“Oh Jesus!” Gray screamed. “Oh Jesus, get ’em off me!”

Harper pulled back on the legs, but Gray only cried out harder, the sound of the M2 silenced as Gray fought for his last moments. Harper could only see the light pouring in from the turret, could not see what lay beyond it or what was happening to Gray’s upper half, but the cries suddenly became gurgles and the legs locked out, the feet twitching about loosely.

“Gray!” Harper shouted. He didn’t know whether to keep pulling at the legs or not.

The body lurched in his grasp, and then blood began to pour down it, into the cabin of the Humvee. Great gouts of it, and then flesh, and then coils of gut, pale and meandering. They dropped suddenly from the open turret and Harper recoiled as they wrapped his arm like a snake. Above them, dozens of hands and feet stamped on the hood of the Humvee, a hundred claws scraped against the metal and then dug into flesh, and Gray convulsed twice more as blood and urine poured down his pants legs. And then the only movement to his body was the thrashing of the creatures feeding on it.

“Julia!” Harper yelled, unable to control his voice. “Get us the fuck out of here!”

She didn’t respond directly, just screamed out a curse.

Harper could feel the death in the limpness of Gray’s limbs, knew there was nothing else that could be done for the man. Now it was their lives that were at stake, and he would not sacrifice the rest of them for the sake of saving Gray’s body, no matter how sick it made him. He let go of the legs, and almost instantaneously the body was pulled through the turret. One great heave and it was just Gray’s right leg dangling through the turret hole, and then that was gone too.

Mike seemed to suddenly realize what had happened. His voice was drunken, delirious with fear. “Oh my God! Oh my fuckin’ God, they got Gray!”

Whether it was Gray’s body that distracted the horde with the promise of a mouthful of flesh or whether it was simply luck, the tires once again rolled over a pile of infected, found the concrete on the other side, burned through the slime of blood, and caught traction. And when the Humvee lurched forward again, it kept going, the sea of bodies suddenly parting.

Julia hit the inclined exit at thirty miles an hour, almost left the ground, then screeched loudly and nearly spun out as she yanked a hard left-hand turn back onto the highway in the direction they had last seen their convoy only moments ago.

As they reached the pinnacle of the movement, Harper could hear the tumble of limbs falling from the roof of the Humvee. In the side-view mirror he could see the bodies—Gray’s and two others—hit the concrete hard and then roll limply along until they flopped off the road and into the ditch.

“Brakes!” he said to Julia.

She got up speed and then slammed them. They all flew forward, Harper catching himself before his face hit the windshield. But nothing else came off the roof.

“Okay, go!”

And then they rocketed forward again.

Harper twisted in his seat, shoved his head through the window as his fingers felt shakily for that magazine he’d been trying to get. The open window and the side of his door were a mess of gore, and even in the rushing wind of the moving vehicle, he could still smell the stink of it—all that blood mixed with shit.

Behind them, the horde spilled back out into the roadway, running after them desperately, a never-ending chase. How long could they run like that? At a full sprint? It seemed like they just kept going until they were dead. Until Harper or one of his team killed them.

Mike filled the sudden silence with sounds of panic. Each intake of breath a wheeze, each exhale a whimper, his whole body moving to the rhythm of his hyperventilation. His eyes were wide and red and building with tears.

Harper managed to get the magazine seated in the well of his rifle and charged it. He looked back at Mike, trying hard to mask a boiling anger that he had a hard time explaining even to himself. “Calm down, Mike,” he said, his voice a little harsher than he intended it to be. “Take a deep breath and let it out slowly.” He wanted to slap the guy, get some sense back into him. “Fucking get ahold of yourself, man.”

“Hey!” Torri punched the back of Harper’s seat.

Harper spun. “Hey what?”

Mike had his head in his hands.

Torri scowled. “I think he’s been through enough!”

Harper punched the top of the radio console, his knuckles skinning and stinging. “We’ve all been through enough, for Christ’s sake! What gives him the right to fucking tune out and cost us lives?” Harper felt his face heating up and he looked at Mike. “What fucking right do you have to tune out, motherfucker? Your life harder than the rest of ours? You had to do worse things than the rest of us?”

“Harper!” Julia yelled.

But Harper didn’t feel like stopping. It came out of him as uncontrollably as vomit from a sick man. Bad feelings that needed to be purged. “Why is it that you get to go off into la-la land, Mike? What has happened to you that is so fucking unbelievably horrible that you’re not fucking paying attention when I say on the radio to get in the fucking truck and get gone?! Gray’s gone because we had to come back for you!”

Torri punched him in the face.

Harper grimaced, his fist balling, and for a moment he thought he might punch Torri’s nose through the back of her skull. But just then the radio squawked, and it seemed to draw them out of the moment so that the anger was pulled back from the tipping point, like a kettle being removed from a heater coil.

“Harper! Julia! You guys okay?”

Torri looked surprised at herself but still angry at Harper.

Julia grabbed Harper by the arm, pushing him as though she were trying to get him to turn in his seat and face forward again. “Answer the radio, Harper. We’re almost there.”

In the backseat, Mike lifted his face out of his hands, looking somewhat in control of himself. “He’s right.”

Torri looked at her husband. “He’s not—”

“He’s right. He’s right about everything.”

Harper grabbed the radio handset but looked back at Mike. “Just fucking forget it, Mike. Torri. Both of you, fucking forget I said anything. I just… got a little heated.” Then he transmitted on the radio, “Yeah, we got out. We’re coming up on you guys in just a second. Which building are you in?”

Radio static, then: “All the way down on your right. Last building. We’re parked behind it.”

Ahead of them, a drive opened. The trees to either side of the road drew back like curtains and they could see the big square industrial buildings of the complex. Factories. Warehouses. Strings of small businesses that could not afford a storefront location.

Harper slumped in his seat, stared at the rifle between his legs, then picked it up.

Julia turned them onto the drive that led back into the complex.

For the moment, everyone was silent.

Harper looked out the window. Just looked at the passing buildings with the mold creeping up on the siding, steady and insistent. And he shook his head, and his voice was just a whisper, barely audible to anyone but himself. “What the hell is happening to us?”

TWENTY-ONE

BRUTALITY

LEE STARED UP INTO the sky as it turned from bright sapphire to a deep, murky cobalt. Like he was descending into the ocean, staring up at the dwindling brightness of the surface waters. He felt it too, like the compression you might feel on that descent—the sickness and fever crowding around him, making his brain fuzzy. The chill like that of cold waters that the sun hasn’t touched in eons.

I’m good to go, he kept telling himself.

His mouth moved to the silent words.

His brain conjured a spliced series of images from his life. Nomex gloves giving the thumbs-up. Eyes unreadable behind reflective visors. A medic shining a light into his eyes after an IED went off. The plunging feeling in his gut just before they hit a door. Near-delirium caused by cold and exhaustion and hunger, somewhere in a Florida swamp. All of these things preceded and followed by the same words.

I’m good to go.

I’m good to go.

Lee tilted his head just slightly. The last sliver of sun shot the western horizon through with an infected-looking pink. A small, localized wound that didn’t reach too far into the sky. It was almost dark. He listened and could no longer hear the sounds of the infected moving about below, and he could not recall when he’d last heard them. He could only hear the quiet thrum of the van, still sitting there, idling next to the curb. He thought he’d been in and out of consciousness but wasn’t quite sure. Maybe he’d fallen asleep. Maybe he’d been asleep for days. Time seemed like a slippery concept.

Gut-check time. He didn’t need to take his pulse to know that it was fast and weak. He didn’t need to run his tongue around his mouth to know that it was dry as paper. He was sick. He was dehydrated. These were facts that he knew without having to think about them.

You’ve got… It took mental pressure to squeeze out some math. Maybe ten hours left before you collapse? Maybe twenty-four before you actually die. He was fast approaching the point of no return. The point where he would need more than some water and antibiotics to keep himself alive. He would need an IV and medical attention, and he had about the same chances of getting that as winning the lottery.

Oh yeah…

A hint of a smile cracked his lips, caused them to bleed.

I did win the lottery once.

He thought of Jack Burnsides. He thought of the gas station where they’d found the water that saved their lives and the last scratch-off ticket, possibly in the world. A winner, no less. Payout of one hundred dollars. Lee had kept the ticket, though he couldn’t remember where it was now. Maybe he’d lost it.

He leaned up, felt his head pounding, but managed to right himself into a sitting position. Deuce lay at his feet and looked up, as though he was surprised to see Lee awake. As though he’d already counted him out and was simply sitting by his side, providing that last bit of comfort before he stopped breathing.

Lee touched the dog’s neck. Scratched it with numb fingers. “Good boy,” he whispered. “But I’m still here.”

This is me dying, but I’m not dead yet.

He looked down at himself.

A rifle in his lap. One full thirty-round magazine.

A knife in his pocket.

Three hostiles: Shumate, Corey, and the Quiet Man.

Based on the sound of Shumate’s voice, he thought they were in one of the buildings across the street and near the van. The fact that they hadn’t made a break for the van was proof that Shumate intended to make good on his promise that Lee would not leave the town alive. With the horde gone out of the street, it was possible they were already making their way over to Lee, trying to find him before he had a chance to escape under cover of darkness.

And, of course, there were the infected. However many there were. He hadn’t taken a look when they’d been down in the street, because he feared that Shumate and his crew might have been watching the rooftop, waiting to take a shot at him when he poked his head up. But their presence nearby meant that noise was an issue. A sustained firefight was not an option. Using the rifle at all was only an option if he could knock out all three hostiles in a relatively short period of time and make it back to the van and out of town before the infected found him again.

So there was the knife.

Lee pulled it out of his pocket and stared at it. A trusty KA-BAR. Wood handle. Worn blade. Still sharp. Good tip. He spun the blade in his palm—regular grip to inverted—and dropped it. Tried again. Dropped it again. Tried a third time and got it. Felt a little more confident.

Still not a good option. Three against one was bad odds either way. Three armed men against one with a knife was worse, regardless of his training and experience. He could be the baddest motherfucker in the world, and it would still be long odds. Tack on that he was weakened with fever and dehydration, and Lee had doubts.

Maybe if he had more time. Maybe if he could set up a defensible position on this rooftop or the next. Take them out as they came for him, and then be able to stick around while he waited for the infected to go back to their hole. But he didn’t have that kind of time. His body wouldn’t let him wait that long.

He supposed that escape was an option. Running. Hiding. Maybe he would make it out. The odds were better for that than a fight, for sure. He’d been trained to evade capture from worse people than Shumate and his crew. But Shumate was a painful reminder of something he had learned long ago. That loose ends always come back to bite you in the ass.

Shumate had tried to hurt Lee. Not once, but twice. And Lee would be damned if he would give him an opportunity to do it a third time. Lee would not show restraint. He would not show mercy. Those were the policies of a world with order, and he did not live in that world. What Shumate would receive would be what he had given.

So he threaded the knife and sheath onto his belt. Checked the chamber of his rifle to make sure it was loaded. Then he slung it on his back and stood up. It took a moment for the light-headedness to go away. He told himself it was okay. Told himself that it was better this way. And when the faintness left him, he was calm. His breath was even. His hands were steady.

I’m good to go.

I’m good to go.

They stood in the attic space of the building directly across the street from where they believed Captain Harden to be. Shumate, Corey, and that motherfucker who barely ever had anything to say. He’d introduced himself as Aaron, though Corey didn’t believe that was his name. He didn’t look like an Aaron to Corey and he’d failed to answer to the name on more than one occasion. “Aaron” generally seemed shifty to Corey.

The longer he sat in that attic space, half covered by the brick wall, half peering out of some murky glass, trying to spy movement on the opposite rooftop, the more Corey became restless. His thoughts were restless, his body restless. His mind flitted from spot to spot, his knees always jumping, his feet always tapping out some rhythm or another.

Night was when Shumate wanted to make a move. Night was dangerous, though the infected had gone away. Night was when they would be expected to hunt down and kill some fucking Navy SEAL, Special Forces motherfucker who didn’t seem like much to Corey, but who Shumate spoke about like he was something.

Corey searched his memory of the man for anything that seemed more than a beaten-down vagrant, anything more than a skinny coward. But there was nothing. Aside from the guy managing to escape Shelley and Kev. Which wasn’t hard, Corey didn’t think. Considering the fact that he’d probably made his move when the two were fucking. They had some sort of something going on, Corey was pretty sure.

Of course, Corey had tapped it a couple times. That’s for damn sure. But Kev seemed to be the main man for Shelley, and everybody knew it. Corey had to put up with “sloppy seconds,” as Shumate liked to call them, but after a month or so with no pussy around, it didn’t seem so bad.

So, super-secret-government-agent-turned-homeless-dog-whisperer makes his move while Kev is balls deep in Shelley and manages to take ’em both and get away. Corey nodded to himself, silently talking the fear out of his head. Bringing Captain Harden back down to size. Because knocking over two people while they’re fucking wasn’t that impressive. This guy who Shumate thought was dangerous… he wasn’t that impressive.

He was skinny.

He was sick.

He seemed half crazy.

And Corey could deal with crazy.

Donald Weathers had been crazy. He’d been an alcoholic and a bum, with a few screws loose. He lived in the woods behind the corner store about a quarter mile from Corey’s old high school. Begged everyone coming and going for spare change and slammed King Cobras all day. The later it got, the more aggressive he got. By evening, he would paw at people’s arms. Cuss them out if they didn’t give him anything.

It was the closest convenience store to the high school, and naturally, if you skipped class or if you had a car and an empty period, it was the place to be. Unless Donald Weathers was hanging around, begging. He smelled bad, he looked horrible, and most of the girls were scared of him. And it wasn’t fun to skip class without a girl.

One day around two o’clock, Donald Weathers was out begging at the same time that Corey drove Carry Umpstead—“Corey and Carry” had a nice ring, didn’t it?—into the parking lot in his recently acquired 1998 Ford Mustang. Carry Umpstead with the mediocre face and the big tits. Because when you’re sixteen, your eyes don’t travel much farther than that. And all Corey wanted to do was go inside and show off by using his fake ID to get them some Marlboros, and if he felt really lucky, maybe even go for some Bud Lights.

But Donald Weathers had been hitting it hard that day. Maybe he’d received more contributions than normal and had taken a few extra forty-ouncers. He’d stumbled up to Corey’s new Mustang and he’d completely ignored Corey and went straight to Carry Umpstead’s open window. He leaned in, filling the car with his stink, and began pawing. Not just pawing but grabbing.

Carry swatted his hands away and rolled up the window. No harm no foul, Corey thought. And Donald stumbled away, cursing loudly at Carry and calling her every name under the sun. And Corey hoped to God he would just go away, because if Corey were being honest, it wasn’t just the girls who were afraid of Donald Weathers. It was Corey too.

But Carry just sat in the car, looking at Corey like he was the biggest piece of shit for just sitting there. Like he didn’t have a hair on his balls. Like she was suddenly embarrassed to be seen in his Ford Mustang. But Corey just stepped out of the Mustang and went inside anyway, his heartbeat slamming, not wanting to even look Donald Weathers in the eye, and feeling ashamed that he hadn’t done anything.

Carry wasn’t too interested in Corey after that. Stories were embellished. Rumors were spread. People around high school started looking at Corey differently. Because he hadn’t stuck up for the girl. Because actually, as the story was later retold, Donald Weathers had been grabbing Corey’s balls, and Corey had been too scared to do anything—another version of the story was that he was gay, and enjoyed it—and that Carry had to step in and defend Corey.

Naturally, the stories didn’t sit well with Corey.

Even the true ones.

So one night in early fall, Corey got his courage up with a six-pack and two friends, and they’d driven out to the dead end of Polk Mill Road, where it led into the woods where Donald Weathers lived. They found him living in a little shack, but he was already passed out, surrounded by a mountain of empty King Cobra bottles. The fact that Corey’s tormentor was asleep would not be acceptable, because this was all being videoed on one of their phones so that Corey could prove he wasn’t the coward everyone thought he was. So they woke up old Donald and he came out swinging. Whether he was aggressive because he was crazy or because he knew, even in his drunken state, that being surrounded by three teenagers in the middle of the night was a recipe for disaster, Corey would never know. But he easily dodged the man’s drunken blows and he pushed the old fucker down onto the ground and commenced to beating the fuck out of him.

They left him there in the woods, bleeding and unconscious, and Corey knew it was a strong possibility that Donald Weathers later died on that forest floor, because no one saw him again after that. But Corey didn’t care. Because he had his proof. And his manhood had been reestablished.

So whenever Corey thought of Captain Harden, smelly and filthy, his ragged beard clumped with dirt, he just pictured Donald Weathers, and he remembered that crazy wasn’t scary at all. Crazy was just crazy. And he wasn’t afraid of crazy.

Shumate leaned out from his position of cover on the other side of the window overlooking the street below. He peered through the dirty glass, then nodded, barely visible in the waning light. “It’s just about time, gents.”

Aaron sidled out of the shadows. “How you wanna do it, boss?”

Shumate leaned on his rifle, buttstock like a kickstand. “Me and you are gonna cross.” He looked at Corey. “You’re gonna cover us from here, until we have the interior of that shop cleared. Then we’ll call you across and handle this motherfucker.”

Corey fidgeted. “It’d be easier just to leave his ass up there.” He said it like he thought it was the best idea, like going across to kill the man seemed unsporting, like shooting a rabbit with a 12-gauge. “Fucker ain’t gonna live too long as it is. Let’s just get in the fucking van and get out of here.”

“No.” Shumate spat. “I’m not leavin’ this up to chance. I shoulda killed that motherfucker once already. He got away, and now I’m having to pay for it. He ain’t gettin’ away again. No fucking way. We gotta kill him now. Tonight. No exceptions.”

Corey shrugged like it didn’t matter. “Whatever.”

Shumate grew very serious. “Stay sharp when we’re out there. I know this guy’s beat the fuck up, but he was beat up when I first met him and it didn’t slow him down much. I ain’t saying he’s a badass; I’m just saying it would be dangerous to underestimate him. Okay?”

Aaron nodded calmly.

Corey watched him, wondered if he felt the jangling nerves and was hiding it behind a mask, just like Corey. Probably not. Aaron was a cold-ass bastard. Corey had never seen him lose his shit, never seen him scared or shaken or even wide-eyed. Everything that ever happened to them, it seemed he’d been expecting it from the get-go and he greeted it with a deadpan expression, as if to say, Yeah, I figured.

Corey didn’t consciously think it, but inside his chest, where the scared little kid was hiding, he wanted badly to be just like Aaron. He just wanted to be unafraid. He just wanted to live and not always worry about dying. It took up so much of his time that he never actually thought about living. Not that there was much of a life to be had anymore.

“A’ight.” Corey scooted over to the window. “I gotchoo guys covered.”

Shumate touched him on the shoulder. “You see anything pop up on that roof, you put it down. You got that?”

“Yeah, I got it, man.” Corey shook his head, as though he were miffed that Shumate felt the instructions needed repeating. “I got this shit.”

Behind his back, Shumate and Aaron exchanged a glance and just shook their heads.

Corey may have been a scared kid, but you don’t live through the end of the world without being smart. At least when it came to survival, which oftentimes came down to the little details that helped you shoot someone else, and not be shot yourself.

So, instinctively, he backed away from the window about two feet, kept his profile low. Not because some tactical range instructor had taught him this, but because in his own experience, he knew that someone far behind a glass window was a lot harder to see than a person right up against it. He kept his body low because he knew it took away those precious angles—the angles that his opponent would try to use to land a bullet in him, while Corey used the angles to do the same.

Angles, angles.

It all came down to angles.

And yet I failed trigonometry.

He propped himself up slightly on his elbows, just enough to give the fifty-round magazine of his AK an inch of clearance off the ground. Wasn’t good to use the mag as a monopod. Made the gun jam. Sometimes it made the mag come off after firing.

Even in the failing light, he could make out the opposing rooftop nicely. It was a redbrick building, but the top was crowned with white stone that stood out against the darkening sky. Captain Harden would be very visible, whenever he popped his head up to see what was going on.

“Keep an eye for us,” Shumate said quietly from the darkness behind Corey.

The kid grunted. A nonverbal sound of confidence he didn’t actually feel.

Behind him, the light sound of the steps creaking as Shumate and Aaron descended out of the attic space. Corey didn’t look back but just pictured them disappearing into the stairwell, and he felt suddenly and irrevocably alone. Chilled, like a growing doubt that he’d see the sun again. And the thought broke through all the fake macho, tough-guy walls he’d erected around himself, and he had the fleeting emotion of sadness. But he wasn’t sure about what.

No reason to be sad, he told himself. You’ll make it through this.

Because he’d made it through many other things. This was not the first time he’d felt that coldness in his gut. He settled his cheek onto the wooden stock of his rifle. Wondered how loud the blast was going to be in this attic space. Probably pretty bad, at least until he’d shot the window out and the noise and the concussion had somewhere to go. He considered breaking the glass, but that thought was discarded almost immediately. Breaking glass was noisy. Shumate and Aaron would have a fit.

From his vantage point, set back from the window a few feet, he couldn’t see down into the street. But he heard the creak of the front door opening. The building housed a little sporting-goods store, mostly football stuff but some other things as well. All the glass had been broken in the windows and the door, but there were bars on all of it, so that Corey had been able to reach his skinny arm through and unlock the front door when all hell had broken loose and the street started filling with infected. He and Shumate and Aaron had run inside, quickly locking the front door behind them and bolting for the back rooms, hoping for someplace a little more secure.

The last Corey had glimpsed of the street, he’d seen the van, seen the infected pulling Kev’s dead body out of the back. Ripping him to shreds. He’d looked away. Couldn’t bear to watch it for some reason. Wasn’t sure why.

It was strange. He would have thought the amount of violence and bloodshed he’d witnessed would have inoculated him to the shock of it, but it sometimes felt like it was only making him more sensitive. Like every time he saw someone ripped apart or when Shumate or Aaron shot some poor hobo, it took off a layer of his skin. Until he felt flayed. Laid open. Every dust mote a piercing needle. Every breeze a wash of acid.

Then other times, it didn’t affect him at all.

Honestly, he didn’t know which was worse.

He breathed heavily, and it carried across to the window, fogging it for a second before it dissipated. He closed his mouth, breathed through his nose. Fog behind the glass could’ve been a giveaway if someone watched the window.

Though he couldn’t see the street below, he could see just a sliver of the sidewalk on the opposite side, and the window was wide enough that he had a fairly panoramic view. Far to the right, he saw the murky flutter of two shapes, one quickly following the other, disappear around the corner of a building and blend into the darkness.

It made his heart jump, though he knew it was Shumate and Aaron. If you didn’t jump when you saw things sneaking around, you probably wouldn’t last long. Paranoia was an ally when it seemed the world was out to kill you. Plagues. Madmen caused by the plagues. Dangerous men caused by the collapse of law and order…

He almost scoffed at himself.

Hated cops when they were around. Disliked Shumate for being one before the collapse. Felt like they were out to get him. Never took a moment to consider that there were worse things than paying fines and going to jail. Things that had somehow been kept at bay by all those self-righteous motherfuckers with their badges and guns.

I can take care of myself, he used to say. And it was true. He didn’t need a fucking cop to defend him. But what he wouldn’t give now to be able to hop in a truck and take a drive without worrying about running into some rednecks at a roadblock and taking a bullet. What he wouldn’t give to meet a girl and be able to have a normal conversation because she knew he wasn’t going to put a gun to her head and rape her.

That got him thinking about Shelley, and that made him drop the whole damn subject. He wouldn’t shed a tear for the bitch, but there was something undeniably shitty about how it ended for her. How miserable the last months of her life had been. How she’d just deluded herself into thinking that it was okay. Like an addict. Except she never did it for drugs; she did it for safety. She was addicted to feeling safe.

And now she was just a pile of bones.

A bloodstain on the road.

Few patches of hair and skin.

Maybe some teeth.

Just drop it…

Across the street and slightly to the left, the two shadows reappeared. They looked up at Corey, hiding behind his window, their faces blue in the twilight. Shumate gave him a nod, and then the two began to move toward the door to the shop they’d seen Captain Harden slip into. The door that now hung open, shattered by the horde that had come through, looking for flesh. Looking for food.

They slipped into the darkness.

Corey swallowed hard, watching them enter that place.

Like a dragon’s lair. Like a spider hole. You go in. You don’t come out.

Funny how after all those mental gymnastics to turn Captain Harden into Donald Weathers, to minimize him to the level of an alcohol-addled bum, he couldn’t get rid of the knot in his stomach.

Corey squinted slightly, waiting for the muzzle flashes to light up the interior of the antique shop. Waited for the rapid pop-pop-pop of a gunfight. Bullets whizzing everywhere. Shattering through Grandma’s old rocking chair. Shumate and Aaron trying to hide behind musty old wood while Captain Harden moved like a ghost and tore them apart with the use of some strange, field-expedient weapons he’d constructed from old cedar chests and glass figurines.

Corey puffed out his lips. “Bullshit,” he mumbled. “That fucker’s almost dead already.”

He felt a slight prick on the back of his neck.

First thought: spider! And he almost reached up to swat the little bastard, but then all at once he smelled the smell of strong, rank body odor—someone else’s body odor—and felt the cold, ironlike grip on his shoulder.

The voice was barely a whisper, but it held all the substance of an anvil falling. “Don’t move.”

A million options, a million thoughts.

Terror screeching like locked tires.

To fight? To give up? The hand was incredibly strong, the voice resolute. He had snuck up on him good, took him by surprise. A nightmare of how Donald Weathers might have been, had he not been pass-out drunk that night in the woods.

The spider bite was a knife—had to be. Right at the base of his skull, and Corey just thought about his skinny neck, the fragile vertebrae just underneath his skin, such a weak defense for his spinal column, now that he thought of it. One shove, and he’d be gone.

Strangely, he felt the fear, but also something else. It was not peace. It was more like just… stopping. Like the zebra in the nature films when three lions are dragging it to the ground. The look in the animal’s eyes after it realizes that no amount of kicking and screaming and scratching and biting is going to get it out of the situation it is in. The inevitability of it. And somehow, the strange release. The freedom of no longer having to think about your next step.

The look in that zebra’s eyes.

Like, Well… shit…

Corey took his hand off the AK. Took his finger off the trigger and realized in a split-second epiphany that that was all Captain Harden wanted him to do. Just take that finger off the trigger so that when the knife severed the spinal column, he didn’t pull off a round and alert the others.

Well… shit…

TWENTY-TWO

GONE

LEE PLUCKED THE KNIFE from the back of the man’s head. Man was a generous term. Boy was more like it. But a boy with an AK-47 wasn’t a boy at all. He was a hostile. A threat. A target to be neutralized.

He looked down at the figure, lying there, face to the ground. Just a small drip of blood coming from the wound in his neck where the knife had slipped in between the vertebrae with a fatal scrape of bone. He did feel pity. Pity like you might feel for an animal that had stepped out in front of traffic. Stepped out and tangled with things it didn’t understand.

Stupid, Lee thought, remembering hazily the way the kid had talked. The tough guy, always trying to impress the others and failing miserably. And that was the extent of the thought that he gave to the kid he’d known as Corey. He wiped off the blade on his pants, like he was wiping away what little emotion he could muster.

He slipped the knife back into its sheath.

Nausea roiled; the room swam.

He closed his eyes, breathed deeply. When the swirling feeling went away, he blinked a few times, then looked around to see if perhaps they’d had some supplies they’d carried with them into the attic. But there was nothing. Just dusty old pieces of outdated sports equipment, languishing in the corners. Perhaps saved as memorabilia. Who knew.

Lee bent down, grabbed the AK-47 up off the ground, then backed up a few paces. He stood there for a moment, gathering his thoughts. Staring out the half-moon window in front of him like a high diver might stare at the pool below him. Planning it out. Going through the motions in his head. Knowing he only had one chance to get it right.

He realized his eyes were closed. His mind wandered into some half-light dream state, then jerked back, still holding the threads of whatever his subconscious was weaving. Something about money. Something about bullets being currency. He rode out a wave of sickness, then refocused himself.

Almost there.

He pulled the M4 he’d taken from Kev off his back and set it on the floor by his feet. He would need to make a fast transition from the AK to the M4. From his current vantage point, he could not see the street through the window, but he could see the front door of the antiques shop where he’d been. And he could see the roof. Where Deuce was still probably pacing about, wondering why yet another human had abandoned him.

“I’m comin’ back, buddy.” The words came out of his mouth in a slurry.

He was in bad shape. How he’d managed to sneak up on the kid, he didn’t know. He could barely remember coming up the stairs into the attic space. Remembered slipping down through the buildings and across the street a few blocks down, working his way toward the building where he now was. He remembered seeing Shumate and the Quiet Man slip out the front door of the shop and scurry down and across. He’d been in the shadows not thirty feet from them.

Then the space between when he’d entered the door they’d left open and when he stood behind the kid in the attic space was kind of a blur. Like he was drunk. Bits and pieces left out. The chronology of it skewed.

Bad shape, but still operating.

I’m good to go.

With the M4 at his feet, he shouldered the AK-47 and pointed it toward the rooftop but slightly down and to the right—didn’t want to accidentally shoot Deuce. His only hope was that his position inside the building would muffle the sound of the gunshots enough so that they didn’t draw the attention of the infected.

He took a breath and pulled the trigger. Five shots, randomly spaced. The rounds punched jagged holes in the window—one, two—and then the window shattered completely. If Lee could have heard the crashing glass over the ringing in his ears, he would have winced at the racket, but there was nothing else that could be done.

He was committed.

He dropped the AK and picked up the M4. The smaller cartridge would be quieter, and the rifle was more accurate. He brought up the rifle and he pulled himself into a shooting stance, then he mustered his energy for the next part. For the physical strain of it and the energy to make it sound legitimate. In the most excited and boyish voice he could manage, he screamed, “I got him! I fuckin’ got him!”

Then he sighted down the rifle, put it on the front door, and waited. His heart pounding in his chest. A trapper with his hand on the trip wire. Close to grim success. Waiting for the prey to enter the kill box.

His vision puckered along the edges.

Righted itself with a few blinks.

Hold it together just a bit longer, Lee.

Movement. Dark shadows. Pale faces.

Slow is smooth… Smooth is fast… Be accurate… Conserve your ammo…

The ring of the AR’s rear sight encircled one of the faces, just covered up the top of the head. The post of the front sight bisecting the body. Breathe out. Wait for the natural respiratory pause. There it is. Slow, steady squeeze on the trigger. Hope he doesn’t move…

The crack of the rifle. A body pitching backward, and then Lee transitioned, vision blurring slightly for some unknown reason. Couldn’t worry about it now. Just focused on the target, put that front sight post on it. On the Quiet Man. Moving right, toward the cover of a mailbox. Lead him just a bit. Maybe one body’s width.

Fire.

The Quiet Man stumbled, dropping the shotgun, catching himself from hitting the pavement with one hand, barely shoving himself off, and then rolled into cover behind the blue box.

“Shit…” Lee inched closer to the window.

He could see the legs partially sticking out from behind the mailbox. They moved, but only slightly. The shotgun lay several feet away. Far out of reach. Lee considered putting another round straight through the mailbox—the little tin can probably wouldn’t stop a rifle round.

He scanned left, saw Shumate lying, curled in the fetal position at the front steps of the antique shop, his back to Lee. He didn’t move.

Dead?

Maybe. Possibly just dying.

Lee ported the rifle and moved to the stairs. He stumbled a bit, caught himself, and forced himself to go a little slower than he wanted. His body was slow and unresponsive. He made his way down the stairs to the main level. To the front door. Stood there again, looking out from behind the bars that covered the doors and windows, his feet crunching mutely in a sea of glass shards, trying to listen past his own heartbeat for the sounds of infected.

Outside the shop, there was only silence. That big, empty sound of an abandoned place. All the nearby highways that would have filled the air with background noise, the white noise of trucks downshifting, the river-flow sound of cars passing, all of it silenced now. Just a hush like freshly fallen snow.

At the antique shop door, Shumate’s body had not moved. Between it and the mailbox, Lee could still see the Quiet Man’s shotgun. Still in the same spot it had been when he’d spied it from upstairs. And then to the mailbox. The shadow of a man leaning up against it. Dead or alive, there was no way to tell. Very still, though.

He could put that round through the mailbox, but he felt like he’d been lucky enough to manage to get both men with two shots. And maybe those two shots hadn’t been quite enough to get the infected out of their den, if they’d heard it at all. But he felt that the third one would be pushing it.

Had he not been uncomfortably close to the edge of his body failing him, and had he been alone, he might have put an extra shot in both men and hopped in the van to make his escape. But he still had to get Deuce from the roof, and he knew it would be a mistake if he drove out of this town without water and medication.

Maybe none of that made sense.

Maybe it was just delirium talking.

He pushed open the door to the sporting-goods store, stepped out onto the sidewalk. He swayed. Found himself standing in the middle of the road. Looked both ways, then shook his head to clear it and continued on. He stopped at the curb and looked left, where the body of Shumate lay on its side, still facing away. Like he’d rolled over in his sleep. No rise and fall to his chest. No breath pluming in the cold air.

Just like that, Lee thought, with a mental snap of his fingers. You thought your buddy popped the dude you were looking for and you come running out like a moron, and then a split second later you’re a goner. Just like that.

He looked right. Saw the two eyes staring at him, dark and moist. The Quiet Man leaned up against the mailbox, his legs splayed out before him, one hand hanging loosely on the pavement like he’d made a halfhearted effort to reach for his shotgun, and the other hand was wrapped around his midsection, glistening.

Chocolate syrup, Lee thought. They used to use chocolate syrup for blood in old black-and-white movies, because in black and white, you couldn’t tell the difference.

A random fact. Something floating around his disjointed subconscious.

The Quiet Man made a movement with his head, like he was about to lurch to his feet and try to run, but then he seemed to give up and laid his head back onto the mailbox with a huff. He grumbled something, his voice strained, but Lee couldn’t make out what it was.

Lee took a few strides in the man’s direction, then stopped again, standing about five or six feet from him. The pavement underneath the mailbox was bloody, the Quiet Man sitting in a puddle of it. Lee eyed the man’s hands, saw that they held no threats, then was glad he’d even remembered to do that.

The Quiet Man looked up at him. “You gonna shoot me?”

Lee thought it was an odd question. “You gonna die?”

The Quiet Man looked down at his wound. “Well, I’m gutshot.”

The world felt surreal. Like Lee was dreaming it up. “How’s that feel?” he asked, not out of sarcasm or malice, but because he was genuinely curious. And dream conversations are always brutally honest.

The Quiet Man shut his eyes. Tears ran out of them. “Feels like… someone’s got a hot poker in my guts.”

“I’m sorry,” Lee said absently. “You should have left me alone.”

“Yeah.” The Quiet Man opened his eyes again, looked skyward.

Lee looked up and down the street again. It was very still. If the infected had heard the gunshots, they would have been there by now. He looked back down at the man. “You want me to kill you now?”

The Quiet Man gave it thought. Shook his head. “No.”

Lee swayed. Closed his eyes, then jolted them open with the disorienting sensation that time had passed, though it had only been a second or two. He refocused. “Where’s the medication?”

The Quiet Man breathed heavily, clenched his teeth. “Shumate’s got it… in his pocket.”

“Okay.” Lee turned away. “I’ll leave you alone.”

“Wait…”

Lee forced down a fever chill that shook his whole body. He looked back.

The Quiet Man still stared into the sky, like he was counting stars. Both hands clutching his belly now. He let out a sigh, almost like a sound of relief. Like perhaps shock was finally leaking its way into his system. “It won’t take long…”

Lee was so taken aback by it that he just stood there and stared. There was something about it that beleaguered him. Broke him down in the hardest parts of his heart. The sadness of it. And part of him envied the Quiet Man, because Lee was incapable of giving up, and so had sentenced himself to a lifetime of pain. Earning the scars brought on by “fighting the good fight.”

He knelt down beside the man. “What’s your name?”

A hitched breath, then, “Aaron.”

“What did you do before all of this, Aaron?”

Aaron’s mouth twitched in a weak smile that couldn’t quite break through the pain. “I was a landscaper, if you can believe that.”

Lee tucked his cold fingers under his armpits. “Did you enjoy it?”

“Yeah… hard work… but…”

“What did you like about it?”

“The sun.” Aaron’s voice grew faint. “Working outside.”

“Well, you think about that for now.”

“Okay.”

Aaron’s breath slowed deliberately, like he was meditating.

Lee hoped it wouldn’t be long. He was cold. He hurt. He needed water. But he seemed to have already made up his mind that he wasn’t going to leave the man to die alone, wasn’t sure why he felt compelled to do it. It wasn’t guilt. More like… responsibility. Strange, because he’d never felt like that before, and even in his hazy, fever-clouded brain, he still realized that he might not be thinking clearly.

Doesn’t matter, Lee decided.

It didn’t take long. Lee watched him fade, watched the breath go out of him with the blood. Pressure in his veins dipped down to unsustainable levels. Not pumping to his brain. Systems shutting off. Maybe he wasn’t clinically dead right then, but he was no longer conscious, and death was no longer something you could haggle over in an emergency room. Nowadays you were dead the moment the bullet hit you, though it might take minutes, or hours, or even sometimes days.

Maybe Lee was dead now. Maybe that bullet from Eddie Ramirez was the one that would eventually kill him, but it was just taking its sweet time.

He came to his feet. Wandered over to Shumate’s body. Rolled it with his foot. Shot through the chest. Probably did some damage to the heart and lungs. Probably all of seconds for him. He bent down, groaning as the ache in his bones seemed to grow. Riffled through Shumate’s pockets, found a bottle in Shumate’s jacket. A white bottle with a fish on the front.

FISH MOX, it claimed.

Five hundred milligrams of amoxicillin.

Captain Mitchell had a thing for predatory fish. Had a favorite called an Oscar. Lee remembered talking with him about the upkeep of fish, remembered Mitchell saying he had a medicine cabinet full of medications just for his fish. Just pop a tablet in the tank, let it dissolve in the water. Not FDA-grade, by any means, but it’d do for humans in a pinch.

He rattled the bottle, heard about a half-dozen tablets ringing around inside. Hoped Shumate hadn’t replaced them with rat poison, just to fuck with him, but wasn’t sure if it really mattered at this point in time. Wasn’t sure if he could even reverse the infection.

He looked at the weapons lying on the ground but knew that he could barely carry himself and his rifle, let alone any more firearms or ammunition. He pointed himself in the direction of the van and began putting one step in front of the other. He realized about halfway there that this was more than just the fever getting to him. It was the crash that came after combat. When your body shut down after all those little stress toxins had been purged from your body. When your body simply threw its hands up and said, I’m done.

He’d seen guys fall asleep standing up. Fall asleep in the middle of a firefight. Bricks and mortar became soft pillows. Cement floors became featherbeds. Like a junkie crashing. It felt like you could sleep for days.

Put a pill in your mouth, Lee ordered himself. Get some water from the van—God I hope there’s water. Don’t close your eyes. Don’t stop moving for a second. Go get Deuce. Gotta remember to get Deuce.

He fumbled with the bottle of Fish Mox. Managed to defeat the childproof lid. Rattled a tablet out. A big, round white pill. Popped it in his mouth. It tasted bitter on the back of his tongue. Powdery. He couldn’t feel it dissolving very much on his tongue, then figured there probably wasn’t much saliva to dissolve it in. His mouth was dry and gummy.

He reached the van, leaned into the back.

Lot of blood. Some bullet holes. Either Kev or Shelley had been ripped apart in the back. There were pieces of them on the concrete behind the van, like little bits and pieces of two broken toys scattered about and intermingled.

Lee laughed.

He rummaged around in the darkness, finding objects and squeezing them to see what they were. A can here. A box there. Something fleshy over there. Finally, he felt a plastic bottle. Picked it up, felt the weight of it like picking up a gold bar. Relief, and a desperate want that overpowered his fatigue for a moment.

He pulled himself out of the van and looked at his prize by starlight. An unopened bottle of water. Factory fresh. He twisted off the lid, hands trembling. Put the bottle to his lips and drank, got enough of a swallow to take the pill still sitting on his tongue, but then his dry throat seized on him and he coughed and spluttered.

He bent over slightly, felt the cold water running down his tongue, over his lips, dripping off onto the pavement. It was one of the most wonderful things he’d experienced in his life. The relief of drinking that water. The quenching of that desperation. He lifted the bottle again, drank with more self-control this time, and managed to get in two gulps.

Good enough for now, he thought. He would need more, but right now, he needed to get Deuce. And they needed to get somewhere safe. Somewhere out of town…

Then he thought about it. Out of town wasn’t safer. He had the whole goddamned night ahead of him, and he had no idea where he was, or in what direction to go to get back to safety, or even which direction safety was in. Besides that, he barely had the strength to carry himself and his rifle. How the fuck did he think he was going to get that damn dog down from the roof on a ladder?

Could just leave him.

“No,” he murmured to himself. “Fuck that.”

He took another small sip of water, capped it, and slid it into one of his pockets. Then he lumbered clumsily into the van, searched around for another bottle and perhaps something to eat. Came up with an old candy bar, smashed and melted but still in its wrapper, however deformed it was. Found another bottle of water. Then he leaned up through the two front seats and turned the van off and plucked the keys from the ignition. Before that, he noticed the gas gauge hovered over “E.”

He stumbled out of the van and looked up at the building across the street where Deuce was probably pacing the roof, cold and alone. “I’m sorry, buddy.” Lee’s voice was a dry croak. “I’ll come get you tomorrow. I’ll get you tomorrow. I promise.”

Like a sleepwalker, he made his way to the front door of the sporting-goods store and went in. Forced himself to turn around and lock the door behind him. Made it to the stairs. Looked up them like they were a mountain.

One foot in front of the other.

And he did.

One shoulder leaning against the wall, rifle clanging against the banister, water bottle and chocolate bar cradled in his arms, he made his way slowly but surely up the stairs and finally found the landing where the stairs twisted. For some reason it felt warmer there, so he just collapsed where he was.

Eyes drooping, head nodding, he finished the first bottle of water and took nearly a full minute to manage unwrapping the candy bar. He knew he needed hydration. He knew he needed calories to help his body fight the infection. But his extremities were cinder blocks. His muscles were useless putty. He got the top of the candy bar unwrapped and took a bite.

Chewed.

Chewed.

Swallowed.

Fell asleep.

TWENTY-THREE

COMMUNICATION

ANGELA BURST THROUGH THE door of Marie’s shanty without a word or a knock, ushering Sam and Abby in before her. Marie stared at their sudden appearance, taken by surprise. She’d been about to give herself a wipe-down. She was still mostly dressed, but her plaid shirt was unbuttoned and open and she quickly pulled it closed when she saw Sam.

Marie took one look at the woman standing in her doorway and saw the trouble scribbled across Angela’s face. Marie immediately doused her surprise and quickly buttoned her shirt. She motioned in the three of them. “Come on. Get in here.”

Angela pushed her two kids into the shanty. She pointed to the far corner, where a few plastic crates served as both tables and chairs. “Go sit over there,” she ordered stiffly. Angela turned to Marie, emotion cracking through the wooden expression. “We have to talk.”

Marie braced herself, glancing at the kids. “Jesus, Angela…”

“Greg just threatened the kids!” Angela hissed the words, as though she were afraid the children might hear, which was mostly unavoidable at this point.

“What?” Marie was taken aback. She didn’t like Jerry, didn’t buy any of his bullshit, suspected the shoot-out between him and Bus wasn’t as clean as he wanted everyone to believe. That disgust for Jerry trickled down to disgust for his associates, which included Greg. But Greg had never been anything but cordial to Marie and helpful to anyone who needed anything from him.

The statement from Angela simply did not compute.

Angela looked at Abby and Sam, stepped a little closer. She lowered her voice even further. “Marie, there’s something going on. Something bad.” She touched her head like a headache was encroaching. “Did you know Keith is missing?”

“Keith Jenkins?” Double hits.

“Yes. Keith Jenkins.” Angela nodded fiercely. “Nobody knows where the hell he went! And then Jerry calls me up into his office and basically accuses me of… of…” She searched frantically for the right word. “Conspiring or something! I don’t even know what he was accusing me of! But he was making it sound like it was my fault that Keith went missing.” She balled her fists over her face. “And then I go back to my house and I find Sam… crying, Marie. Crying. And he won’t fucking tell me what it’s about!”

Marie rubbed her forehead. Massaging the haphazard information into her brain. “So what does Greg have to do with all of this?”

Angela threw her hands out. “Because I saw Greg walking away from my house! And then I find Sam and Abby in there, scared to death, and they won’t tell me what happened.” She made an unpleasant noise of frustration. “You tell me what that means! I’m just putting two and two together.”

Marie put a hand on her shoulder. “Alright, Angela, you need to calm down.”

Angela took a deep breath and held it for a minute, blinking rapidly.

“I’m here for you,” Marie said. “Anything you need.”

Angela became very serious. She shook her head. “No. No, you can’t just offer that. You need to know what you’re getting into.” She looked around again, around the entire shanty as though she might have missed someone who stood quietly in the corner, eavesdropping. “If you want me to stop talking, I’ll understand. But if I tell you everything, then… then…”

Marie didn’t know quite what to say for a moment. She lowered her head, searched Angela’s eyes, then finally said, “This is more of Jerry’s bullshit, isn’t it?”

Angela nodded.

Marie’s face became resolute. “You tell me everything, Angela. That piece of shit wouldn’t dare touch me.”

They sat at the edge of Marie’s bed, side by side, their backs turned to the kids. Angela took a deep breath and launched into it, starting at the very beginning. Starting with how Bus had really died. Marie closed her eyes as she listened, as though the words brought her physical pain. It was clearly a difficult story for Angela to tell, and it was difficult for her to tell Marie specifically, knowing the danger she was putting the other woman in. But when Angela would stall out, when the words would become too much, Marie would prod her along gently with a nod. Marie absorbed the information silently, bearing the burden with Angela.

When Angela was finished, the two women sat without speaking for a moment.

Marie looked at the ground, rubbed her palms on her legs. “Angela, Keith was helping you.”

“Yes. He was talking to people for me.”

Marie looked up at her.

Angela covered her mouth, horrified. “No…”

Marie put a hand on Angela’s knee. “There are a lot of people around here who can’t keep a damn secret, Angela. A lot of people who will run to Jerry or Greg as soon as they know something. Given the threats Jerry told you, I don’t think he would have let Keith slide if he found out what he was doing.”

Angela was stricken. “So what happened to Keith? Do you think they have him locked up somewhere?”

A new voice chimed in. “Mr. Keith is dead.”

Both Angela and Marie turned their heads and found Sam standing there, head down.

A simple statement of fact. Like he’d read it from a piece of paper from which he derived no meaning or understanding. Just sounding out consonants and vowels, making syllables and stringing them together to form a sentence that meant nothing to him.

Angela moved to Sam and knelt down, taking him by the shoulders and looking him in the eyes. Suddenly the reality of his statement crashed down on him. Sam sobbed, choked, stumbled over the words like they couldn’t get out of him quickly enough. “He’s dead! I wasn’t supposed to tell you! Greg told me not to tell you, and now Greg’s gonna kill us! He’s gonna kill all of us, and he said he’s gonna smash Abby’s skull, and I think he’s gonna do it! He’s gonna do it; I just know he’s gonna do it! They killed Mr. Keith! They killed Mr. Keith and now they’re gonna kill us!”

“Alright, alright.” Angela pulled him in, held his shaking frame. Her own eyes were squeezed shut, and from the creases came wet streaks. Still sitting on the crates in the dimly lit corner of the room, Abby’s bottom lip stuck out, emotion welling on her face. Though she couldn’t have quite grasped the details of the situation, she knew that bad things were happening.

“Sam.” Marie spoke steadily. “How do you know they killed Mr. Keith?”

“I saw them do it.” Sam sobbed. “I saw it!”

“Who did it? Greg?”

“No… the other guy.”

“Arnie?”

“Yeah.”

“Where?”

Sam hung his head, pointed in the general direction of the Camp Ryder building. “In the back lawn. Way back there.”

Marie and Angela glanced at each other. Marie opened her mouth for another question, wanting to know how they had killed him, but she realized that it wouldn’t help her piece any more of this together, and Sam probably didn’t want to recall what he’d witnessed in any more detail.

Angela wiped her nose, her eyes. “Marie… I have to get them out of here.”

Marie looked at Angela like she was insane. “What? No!”

Angela stood. “We’re not safe here!”

Marie made a gesture around her. “You’re not safe out there! Where the hell do you think you’re gonna go?”

“But Greg—” Angela cut herself off with a glance back to the two children. Didn’t want to say what had come to mind. “We have to figure something out.”

“There’s nowhere, Angela.” Marie was vehement. “OP Lillington is all but abandoned at this point. Jerry’s crew runs both OP Benson and Smithfield. Jerry’s pulled back the patrols. Those roads aren’t safe anymore. They were barely safe when we were patrolling them. Who knows what’s out there? The only route Jerry has patrolled is between us and Smithfield, and you sure as hell aren’t welcome there.”

Angela looked surprised. “What happened to Lillington?”

“I don’t know.” Marie took a step in, lowered her voice. “Professor White’s group and Old Man Hughes’s group were the only ones staying there, and White’s group has moved back here. Old Man Hughes never supported Jerry, and they’ve cut him off. There hasn’t been any contact between them and us since this shit went down. There’s no telling what the hell happened to them.”

Angela raked her hair back, her face flushed. “Well, it seems like we don’t have a lot of options.”

Marie crossed her arms. “I don’t—”

Angela pointed. “Those are my kids! My kids! And I’m running out of options on how to keep them safe, Marie. Because if I can’t take them somewhere safe, then what else can I do?” She raised her eyebrows in question. “What else can I do, Marie?”

Marie didn’t have an answer for her.

She looked at Marie, angry and ashamed at once. “Look at us, Marie. What are we doing? This is our home. If we can’t be safe here and we can’t go anywhere else, then there’s only two other options.” She held up her fingers. “We can either sit around, scared to death, and hope someone else comes along and solves the problem for us. Or we can start doing something about it. And I’m not prepared to just sit around, Marie. Not when the kids are on the line.”

Marie rubbed her eyes. “Angela, you know I’m with you. But right now it’s just us.”

“There are others.”

“We don’t know who they are.”

“We’ll find out.”

“And end up like Keith?” Marie shook her head. “Come on, Angela!”

“What about the other groups?” Angela said. “What about the people at Broadway? What about the people at Newton Grove? They’re our friends! And you’ve all but written off Old Man Hughes and everybody from Dunn, but you don’t know. They could still be out there. They could still be alive and wondering if they have any friends left inside Camp Ryder. And we’re here, Marie. We’re here and we need help. We just need to figure out how to get a message to them.”

Marie spoke evenly but with an edge of irritation. “We’ve got no access to radios. We can’t leave the camp. We can’t trust anyone to deliver a message for us. Barring smoke signals, I don’t know how else you plan to contact them.”

Angela compressed her lips, looked intensely thoughtful. “We don’t have the luxury of going on what we know. We’re gonna have to take a leap of faith. If any of those other groups know anything about what happened here at Camp Ryder… then maybe they’re keeping an eye on us. Maybe someone is watching.”

Marie was dubious.

Angela nodded. “It’s a long shot, but do you have anything better?”

Marie considered it for a moment. She mulled some things over in her head. Made a face as she discarded one idea, looked thoughtful again as she considered another. It became obvious by the gravity of her facial expression that she was settling onto one idea. One that could be dangerous.

She glanced up at Angela. “I’ve got something we can try. But you have to let me handle it.”

It was dark by then, but not quite late. People still milled about the camp. The fires had just reached their brightest and hottest points, from which they would gradually die down over the course of the next few hours. Black silhouettes crowded close to the flames, backs turned toward Marie as she strode through The Square, shoulders hunched against the cold. A small child standing beside its parent looked in her direction and Marie couldn’t tell whether it was a young boy or girl, its eyes glistening in the firelight, the side of its face a molten glow.

She continued on. Passed only one person close enough for him to see her face in the darkness, and he smiled and nodded to her, free of suspicion. She smiled and nodded back. This was the relationship she had with most of Camp Ryder, probably the reason why she’d been able to say the things she’d said to Jerry during the last group meeting and not be shouted down by his supporters.

Or disappear.

There wasn’t a person in the camp who hadn’t been fed by Marie. Not a child inside these fences who hadn’t been by her little kitchen with an empty plate, before Jerry had seized control of all the supplies. She’d slipped extra portions to the people who needed it the most, the hard workers, the growing children.

In the beginning, she’d been one of the only women who knew how to take care of herself without a grocery store and a pharmacy—one of the only people, for that matter. Though a lot of the men around these parts were country boys and fancied themselves some sort of backwoods survivalists, she’d taught them a thing or two as well.

She’d been invaluable.

Now, it seemed she was being forced into some sort of stasis.

Too well liked to get rid of and too dangerous to keep around.

It’s good to be needed again, Marie realized. Even though her heart jacked in her chest and she despised the situation she found herself in, hated it not only for herself but for Angela and the children, she could feel the satisfaction of just doing something. Of being integral. Of being useful.

She and her sister alike. Always needing to be doing something. Always needing to be busy. Never a minute for quiet. Thoughts and silence were just what happened when you were going from one job to the next. And that was all right with them. It made life simpler in a lot of ways.

The wind kicked up, seeming to freeze-dry her, leaching both moisture and warmth from her so that she felt the unpleasant burn of her lips starting to chap. She thought of her sister. Wondered where she was and what she was doing. Hoped to God she was okay. Hoped that she knew that Marie was okay. Hoped she would get to see her again. A big, aching want that just wasn’t going to be filled. Not anytime soon.

She reached the Camp Ryder building and looked up the stairs. The inside glowed dully from lantern light. There was no one outside the front doors, and a quick glance around her revealed that she was alone. All the others were in The Square or in their shanties.

She took the stairs quickly, head down, hands in her pockets. Shoved through the double doors and into the big cement building. She stopped there, breathing in the heavy air, thick with smoky smells, and she let the door close behind her quietly. Directly ahead of her, she could see the main floor of the Camp Ryder building. The tables and chairs that had been used as a sort of communal dining hall were now mostly abandoned. A few old-timers played cards on them or shared a rare, hand-rolled cigarette they’d made from tissue paper and the tobacco pinched from old cigarette butts. When they’d been able to scavenge, a pack of cigarettes was a hard find. A carton like striking a mother lode of gold. There wasn’t quite enough to feed an addiction, so it was simply one of those luxuries that people enjoyed while it was around, knowing full well it might be their last ever.

Marie looked to the right, to the metal staircase that rose up to the office. She still thought of it as Bus’s office, but she knew exactly who might be lurking there. That was going to be the problem. If that sonofabitch was still in his office, and if he had his door open, she’d be screwed.

A slew of excuses rolled through her brain.

I needed to talk to you about something…

I left something up here…

I thought I saw something…

She cringed, knew exactly how unconvincing she would sound if she was put on the spot. She wasn’t a great actor, especially under stress. But she was committed now. So she swallowed down her hesitation and turned onto the metal staircase, easing up the noisy risers as quietly as possible without looking like she was trying to be quiet.

In her experience, working in the makeshift kitchen, which was directly below the stairs, when someone just walked up them, it clanged and banged and creaked and made all types of ungodly noises. She hoped to God that no one watched her now, seeing how she ascended them without making a sound, because she knew no matter how hard she tried to make it look natural, it would raise suspicion.

Hey, Marie… what are you up to?

Oh, nothing. Just sneakin’ around for no reason.

Halfway up the stairs, she could see the door to the office—Bus’s office, now Jerry’s office—and it was closed. She felt a tense little sprig of hope. The door was closed. All the old-timers on the ground floor enjoyed their cigarettes and gin rummy. She might make it. She might just squeeze by.

The door swung open.

TWENTY-FOUR

PASSING NOTES

MARIE STOOD THERE FOR a half a beat, then turned quickly and clomped down the stairs. She could hear someone’s footsteps on the landing above her, the door closing behind him. She found herself shaking, her heartbeat thundering, felt like her pulse was bulging her eyes out, and she tried hard to appear calm and normal.

“Hey.” A man’s voice. Slightly deeper than Jerry’s.

Marie halted, turned around with her hand on the banister, trying to hide her jittering legs so they wouldn’t shake her whole body. She looked up the stairs and found Greg frowning down at her.

“Yeah?” she said back.

He descended the last few steps between them, stopping one step above her. “What were you doin’ hangin’ outside the office?”

She cleared her throat, inwardly screamed at herself for how conspicuous it made her sound. She wanted to brush her hair back but fought off the urge, knowing it would only make her look nervous. “Seemed like you and the führer were in another supersecret Gestapo meeting. I didn’t want to interrupt.”

Greg sucked on his teeth, looked out at the ground floor. “You know, Marie, I like you. I always have. You’re a good person, and I can appreciate that about you. And that’s the only reason I’m going to tell you this.” He pointed a finger toward her, looked her in the eye. “You’re not making many friends around here talking like that. And if you keep it up you might find yourself losing the ones you got.”

Marie tilted her head. “How’s Caden doing these days? Seems healthy.”

Greg just stared. He knew damn well his boy would most likely be dead if it weren’t for her. He and his boy. Back in the day before Bus was truly the leader, and Jerry was still trying to secure that for himself, a beat-up Yankee in his New York baseball cap showed up at the gates with a very sick kid. Jerry—as usual—argued to kick them to the curb, not give them any food, even though the kid seemed like he was at death’s door. Dehydrated as hell. Marie was the one who snuck them food and water while Bus and Jerry argued it out.

“Interesting how the tables turn, huh?” Marie remarked. “I guess there’s not much paying it forward in this world. More of just looking out for number one, right?”

Greg just shook his head and edged past her on the stairs. “Jerry’s in the office. Feel free to go up.”

Marie’s mind raced. In the span of a second she pictured an entire imagined conversation that would occur later between Greg and Jerry: Greg would ask Jerry, “What did Marie want?” and Jerry would respond, “What are you talking about?” and Greg would say, “Marie didn’t come talk to you?” and Jerry would say, “No. Why?” and Greg would get angry and curse and say, “That bitch was sneaking around outside the office. I knew she was up to no good!”

And it would all go downhill from there.

“Actually,” she said just as he reached the bottom of the stairs, “I was coming to talk to you.”

Greg stopped. Looked over his shoulder in her direction but avoided eye contact. “And what can I do for you, Marie?”

Marie pulled something out of thin air. “You going scavenging anytime soon?”

“Tomorrow.”

“We need… uh… Gatorade. If you can find it. Or any kind of sports drink, really. For the sick people. Some of them can’t keep down food, but they need calories or their chances go way down. Calories and electrolytes.”

“Yeah.” He turned away from her again. “Already on it.”

Marie watched him leave. She stood on the stairs for a long moment, wondering if she was indeed that lucky, that Greg had actually bought it and would walk away, leaving her to her own devices. Wondering if he was going to come back around the corner and tell her to get lost and stop snooping.

He didn’t.

She faced back upstairs, realizing her next problem was getting up there without Jerry noticing her, and knowing that he would be a lot less forgiving and a lot more suspicious. She ascended quietly, hoping that the conversation hadn’t been loud enough for Jerry to hear, and that he wasn’t on the other side of the door at that moment, listening to her.

The door remained closed. She could see nothing through the frosted glass.

She reached the landing, halted to listen, but her nerves wouldn’t let her stay. She started down the catwalk, going a little faster than was probably prudent but unable to control herself. She felt like breaking into a sprint. It was as if you were walking through the woods at night and heard something rustle in the bushes behind you.

Her eyes were down, looking at the people below her through the slats in the catwalk, feeling as though her footsteps were like crashing gongs. But the people below her just kept sitting around. Cigarette smoke, sharp and fragrant, lifted up into the air. Cards were slapped down. Mumbled conversation lulled and rose rhythmically. No one looked up.

She reached the ladder. Realized she hadn’t breathed the entire time. Her chest ached, but she only allowed herself to breathe in slowly, rather than gulp the air like she wanted.

Up the ladder.

She climbed. Her eyes went across to the office door.

It remained closed.

No one on the main floor noticed her.

She cleared the top and rolled onto the roof. Gulped air. Heaved it out. All that hot carbon dioxide stinging her lung tissue, being purged and replaced with the cold winter air. She lay there listening for a long moment, but nothing seemed to change down inside the Camp Ryder building. No one had noticed her.

She stood up cautiously, looking in all directions to see what was visible to her. There was a trickle of firelight coming up over the lip of the roof, but no people. From her position on the roof, she couldn’t see Shantytown.

She took a deep breath, let it out slowly.

There was nothing else but to do it.

Hope and fear, making her teeth clamp together. Hope that, against all odds, this idea of hers would pan out. And of course there was the fear—always the fear. Fear of being caught. Fear of having her hopes destroyed. Fear that there were indeed people watching her but that they were the wrong ones.

She edged toward the side of the roof, just close enough to see the trees beyond the fence and not much farther. She pulled a flashlight from her back pocket and held it up, facing north. Then she clicked it on and clicked it off, slowly and steadily, in the pattern of the only Morse code she knew.

Dot-dot-dot… dash-dash-dash… dot-dot-dot.

SOS.

She couldn’t even remember how she knew it. Some scene came to mind, her and her father back in the times when she was three feet tall with pigtails, sitting on the couch and watching some old black-and-white movie about naval warfare in the South Pacific. Some ruggedly handsome characters with their sailor hats standing about some sort of spotlight contraption and signaling to neighboring ships.

Maybe that’s where she knew it from.

She repeated the sequence five times, very deliberately.

And then she waited.

Breathlessly.

Wondering if she remembered the sequence wrong. Then realizing that it really didn’t matter. If there was anyone from Old Man Hughes’s group who had eyes on Camp Ryder, she didn’t think he would need a solid understanding of Morse code to know that someone was on the roof, trying to send a signal. And no one sends signals like that unless shit has gone bad.

She got antsy, staring out into the dark woods and wondering if she was going to get a response. She didn’t want to miss it by turning away too soon. She desperately wanted to try the other two sides—the only other two that faced woods where an observer might possibly be. Because she was so sure that Old Man Hughes would have sent someone to recon Camp Ryder, to see what was happening. And he would do it cautiously, not wanting to rush into a bad situation. And a good observer would sit there a while and get a solid idea of what was going on before he reported back.

Maybe he didn’t send someone.

Maybe he did, but they’ve already left.

Maybe they haven’t gotten here yet.

Maybe they died on the way.

What if the infected got them?

What if Jerry got them?

She forced herself to turn to the next side. She tried to calm herself, but it wasn’t easy. The thoughts were pressing, obsessive, the taste of something so near but so unattainable. It made her want to curse out loud. Bury her head in the blankets. Forget the whole thing. Give in.

At the western-facing edge, she repeated the sequence.

Waited. Heart sinking slowly. Gut feeling sludgy.

This time a full minute went by as she stared into the darkness that surrounded Camp Ryder. Huddled around it. The concrete building and the fires like a tiny island of humanity in a sea of wild.

“Come on,” she whispered to no one in particular.

She turned to the last roof edge—south—and once again repeated her little light signal.

Dot-dot-dot… dash-dash-dash… dot-dot-dot.

Three times. Slow and deliberate.

Waited like someone at a slot machine, waiting for the wheels to stop spinning. Disappointment every time. Always expecting that this time will be the time. It had to be this time. She’d signaled into the woods in every direction that anyone could be watching them from. If she didn’t get an answer, then no one was watching them—or at least no one she wanted to be watching her.

Maybe some bandits are watching me right now.

“What the fuck is this bitch doing?”

“What an idiot.”

“Who gives a shit? I call dibs on her ass.”

She breathed heavily. Stood for a while longer. For a moment, the cold breeze hit her and she forgot about the bandits and Jerry and Greg and the plan to try to get in contact with Old Man Hughes that was quickly circling the drain. For a moment the wind seemed strong enough to lift her up off the roof, and she thought about flying off that edge and felt a sense of peace.

The feeling crashed, just like she would if she stepped off the edge.

Crash and die.

She stepped back toward the center of the roof, flashlight hanging in her hands. A useless prop. She thought about Lee, tried to bolster herself up by taking inspiration from the memory of him coming through those gates after Smithfield, and every big fight he’d been in since then. The hitch in his leg from where he’d fallen down that elevator shaft, covering the retreat of her sister and her patients. The missing tooth. The scars that kept on collecting on him from every wound that had been delivered to him but hadn’t been able to stop him.

He never stopped.

What would he do in this situation?

And then the thought occurred to her, sneakily, like it was whispered to her from someone else to undermine her. Like a weed poking up in the middle of a flowerbed—obstinate, divisive.

He’s dead.

Lee was dead.

They’d stopped him.

He’d finally lost a battle, and now he wasn’t coming back. All that “never surrender” bullshit hadn’t gotten him anywhere. He ended up the same as everyone else in this world: dead. Fucking dead. Missing and unaccounted for, actually, but nowadays it was the same damn difference.

She turned her mind away from him, like one turns away from a gravestone.

Her thoughts went to the new worry: how to get down from the roof without being caught. Although now, she supposed she could just say, “I was just trying to get some fresh air and be alone for a bit,” and she supposed that would be fairly close to the truth, since that was pretty much all she had accomplished.

She stepped to the square opening in the roof with the ladder rungs curving up and out of it and looked down. The coast looked clear below her. She put a hand on the ladder, and just by chance, she glanced up toward the northern wood line. And there in the darkness between the trees, a light flashed.

Angela stood near the cook fire, sharing it with another family that lived on her same row of shanties—a middle-aged couple with a ten-year-old boy. They were reserved, and Angela knew they were two of Jerry’s supporters. They didn’t speak but instead offered a quiet nod when Angela had approached with her little pot with rice and water in it.

Sam and Abby huddled near the fire, warming themselves by it. They were quiet as well, as though they understood that the people they shared their fire with were neither friends nor enemies. Or perhaps a little of both.

Angela looked at Sam and Abby by firelight. The way it glowed on their faces and the way the shadows accented every crease in their young faces. There were far too many creases for children their age. In Abby’s face, it was all around the eyes. A darkness and a brooding that she’d been harboring since the death of her father. Since this all began, really.

With Sam, the wear of all those negative emotions began to bleed through to other parts of his face. His mouth. The wrinkles around his nose. His lips were constantly compressed, as though trying to keep something in. The dark line of them always in a slight downward curve. A permanent frown.

Angela knelt in front of her pot of rice, elbows resting on her knees, chin resting on her hands. She regarded those two young people and felt a sorrow so overwhelming she thought she might break down right there in public, with the other family watching. It hurt so badly, she almost didn’t care. Everything hurt.

Losing Bus.

Losing Keith.

Losing Lee…

And her two children—one blood, one adopted—watching their innocence bled out of them day by day, like a thousand tiny cuts opening them up, when all she wanted to do was stitch them back together. Show them safety and love. Give them some semblance of a childhood. And knowing full well that those days were gone. Knowing that whether or not they survived with their souls intact wasn’t up to her but to some predetermined chemical makeup of their brains. Could they filter out all the bad and glean what good was possible from this life? Or would it all overwhelm and destroy them?

She closed her eyes against the burning sensation in them.

Heat from the fire. Or the sting of salty tears.

“Hey.”

She opened her eyes, blinked rapidly.

The woman from the other family knelt next to her. Short. Petite, like Angela had always wished to be. Elfish little hands and feet. Very delicate in appearance, like something not meant for this world. Like the one piece of china still intact after the bull had run through the shop.

Angela saw the swirling blur at the bottom of her vision and swiped quickly at her eyes. “Hey.”

The woman nodded to the pot, which was beginning to boil. “Here.” She produced a little white bottle. A saltshaker—the disposable kind you get in a two-pack with a pepper shaker at the grocery store. “Got it on our last scavenging trip. Right before they told us we couldn’t leave the gates.”

She leaned over the pot, shaking it generously into the boiling mixture of rice and water.

Angela watched the salt granules fall in, highlighted by the fire. She wanted to stop the tiny woman, didn’t know if she could receive their kindness gracefully. But the lump in her throat had grown too large to get words around.

The woman turned to Angela and touched her on the shoulder the way a friend would. She smiled and it was sad, like a child learning about cruelty. Then from her pocket she retrieved a small, brightly colored box and put it in Angela’s hands. It was an unopened package of Fruit Roll-Ups.

“For the kids,” the woman said. “Maybe it will cheer them up.”

Before Angela could protest, the woman stood and retreated to the opposite side of the fire, rejoining her family. Angela watched her rejoin them, and then couldn’t. She looked down at the little package in her hands, finding it difficult to accept kindness, and it almost broke her down.

She pulled the boiling rice away from the fire. Inside the rice had grown, soaked up most of the water. She wrapped her hands with a few cloths, double- and triple-folded, then picked up the pot by its handles, the whole side of it black from being so near the fire.

“Abby. Sam.” Angela spoke with a tone absent of thought. “Come on.”

She turned away from the fire, feeling the cold night pressing up against her face. The two kids fell in beside her, walking so closely abreast that their shoulders touched. Angela remained facing straight ahead, like the steam rising from the pot was putting her into a trance. She walked down the narrow little corridor that separated this row of shanties from that one, so many of them vacant with everyone gone away with LaRouche and Harper.

She heard quick footsteps behind her. Heavy. Like an adult’s.

She turned quickly, almost quickened her pace, but found that it was only Marie.

The other woman drew up beside her, hands stuffed into the pockets of her jacket that seemed too big on her. Immediately Angela could sense the tension coming off of her like an electrical field. Everything about her was tightened, thin cords standing out on her neck as she looked this way and that.

“You okay?” Angela asked, lowering her voice simply because of how Marie acted.

Marie nodded. “You need help with that?”

“No, I got it.” Angela quirked an eyebrow. “What happened?”

“Inside.” Marie pointed.

They’d reached Angela’s shanty. Marie opened the flap for them and Angela and the two kids scurried in, steam trailing after them like a locomotive. Marie stood in the doorway, not quite letting the flap fall just yet, looking both ways down the row, seeing if anyone was being nosy and watching them.

Angela put down the pot and hurried over. “Marie!” she said quietly. “Did you do it?”

Marie didn’t directly answer. Instead she drew out a crumpled piece of old newspaper, the ink faded and sun-bleached. She handed it to Angela, delicately, as though it were more than just a piece of trash. Like it contained diamonds.

Marie stepped away, holding the tarp door open with a single hand. “We’ll talk later.”

Angela looked from the piece of trash in her hand up to Marie, confusion evident on her face.

Marie just pointed to the paper, then let the tarp drop.

Angela looked behind her. Saw the two children sitting next to the warm pot, watching her with curiosity. Then she looked at the paper in her hands. Slowly unfolded it, feeling her heart beating faster. Some sort of writing on it. Thick, bold letters written in what looked like charcoal. In handwriting that Angela knew was not Marie’s. Heart beating much faster now. Because Marie had gone to the roof to try to make contact and then she came back with a note. A note from someone. And it said who it was right there at the bottom.

WE ARE HERE. CHECK AGAIN AFTER MIDNIGHT.

—CAPT. TOMLIN

TWENTY-FIVE

A WAY OUT

LAROUCHE SAT ALONE IN the cab of the LMTV. It was roomier than the Humvee and he had a little more space to spread out his legs and try to sleep. That was his excuse for dismissing himself—trying to catch some sleep. In reality, he simply had no desire to mingle with these strangers from Parker’s Place.

It was a little community, tucked back into some woods. Almost the same setup as the camp where they’d found the girl’s father earlier in the day, except this one was surrounded by forest rather than open cropland. Judging by the cluttering of tents and scrap-made shelters, there were about twice the people living here as there had been in the other.

A few of the men who had been captured by the Followers and had escaped during LaRouche’s attack had made their way to this group. Jackson met them with grieving embraces, but they remained silent about anything that had happened. All that LaRouche heard them tell the people from Parker’s Place was that they’d been attacked by the Followers and had managed to escape.

No mention of being captured.

No mention of hanging their friends on crosses.

Instead there’d been much backslapping and eager questions and sudden bouts of trading back and forth between the people of Parker’s Place and LaRouche’s group. LaRouche felt suddenly lost in the middle of it, looking about at his people like they were insane. How could they so easily switch back and forth? Not like him. He seemed stuck in the “on” position.

Feeling awkward and out of place, he’d slipped away, mumbling about getting sleep.

Now he just sat in the cab of the LMTV, unable to close his eyes, unable to quench that roiling, acidic burn in his stomach as it tried to creep its way up his throat. He reflexively pressed his gut when it pained him. Kept pressing there without thinking about it until he noticed that the flesh felt sore and bruised from doing it so often.

He stared out the window of the LMTV, through the dark woods, and into the little settlement. He could just barely see the shadowy figures of his group and the group of strangers, all mixed together like it was some sort of bonfire in the woods, like nothing was wrong, like they were all just best fucking friends forever.

He leaned his head back, tried to get comfortable. Shifted positions several times. Kicked his feet up so he lay back against the door, his feet on the driver’s seat. His mind wandered to and fro, kept coming back to Nick and wondering if the man was going to reach Camp Ryder, and if so, what he was going to find. But it felt like fruitless worrying, so he closed his eyes. But then his heart started beating. The feeling like he’d forgotten something. The feeling that something was sneaking up on him.

Finally, he sat up. “Fuck this shit,” he grumbled to himself.

He stared blankly out the front of the vehicle for a moment. All around him, except to his left where the camp of survivors was set back into the woods, everything was dark. Black. Stars not even shining through the treetops. From some source of ambient light he wasn’t able to figure, he could just barely make out the pale face of one of his team, keeping watch from the turret of one of the LMTVs a few spaces in front of him.

He could find no other way to occupy himself, so he reached down into the floorboard where he’d stowed his chest rig and rustled around in it. He touched the plastic bottle of whiskey that he’d taken from the man he’d interrogated, but he pushed past it and found his map. It was creased in odd places, tattered a bit along the edges. It was wearing out with the frequency with which LaRouche pulled it out and unfolded it. Like rosary beads for a Catholic, but rather than touch the beads and utter a prayer to God when he needed comfort, he would unfold the map and look at the lines, look at his progress and try to plan ahead to meet his goals. A prayer to the god of strategy. Just like people thought they could pray enough to make bad things go away, he thought he could plan enough to keep them away.

All just a giant distraction anyway.

All just a way to try to forget about what could be metastasizing in his bloodstream. His mind kept returning to it, despite every effort to push it down another track, like all roads led back to the most worrisome thought yet: I might be infected.

Like an arachnophobic person constantly feeling the tickle of a spider crawling up their neck, he kept feeling the first flushes of fever that would begin his violent illness. Kept feeling sick, though he knew it was probably more from worry than from anything physical.

Don’t let me go this way, he thought to no one in particular. Not to God, because he didn’t believe in Him. I’ll take a bullet. I’ll take a knife to the chest in hand-to-hand fighting. I’ll even take a fucking heart attack. But not this. Not this thing that isn’t dead and isn’t alive. I don’t want to simply exist like an animal. And I sure as shit don’t want to have to kill myself when I feel it happening. Really don’t want to kill myself.

He didn’t believe in God, but didn’t know who else he could be talking to.

Just focus on the map. Focus on tomorrow.

He didn’t have an exact location, but he’d notated with a circle where he thought they were, based on the roads he’d seen in the area. They were nearby the very small town of Bethel. Were actually only a few miles from the Roanoke River, which was their target objective, but they were too far inland. They needed to find the easternmost bridge, which would be close to Swan Bay. The quickest route to take out to Swan Bay, where the Roanoke River began its trek through North Carolina, would be Highway 64. But that would also probably be the most dangerous route, so LaRouche immediately dismissed it. They would keep parallel to Highway 64, between it and the river, and make their way to where Highway 45 crossed the river. That was the first bridge that needed to be blown or blocked or manned.

He wondered what it would be like when they got there, probably within the next day or two, depending on how slow caution demanded they go. Would there already be swarms of infected trundling across the river? Would they have to fight their way through to blow it? Would it even be possible?

Another, more disturbing question in LaRouche’s mind was, Where the hell is Captain Harden?

The plan had been for them to go east, and then when Captain Harden had finished dealing with the “mole” situation, he would join them. So that they could access the few bunkers he had out here. LaRouche didn’t know the exact location, but he knew that one of the bunkers was on the northern side of the Roanoke River. If he started blowing bridges before Captain Harden got there, it would make it that much more dangerous and difficult for them to access the bunkers.

But was the captain even coming?

Still no word from Camp Ryder. No word from Captain Harden. No bleed-over from Harper, though the two were heading in separate directions and LaRouche doubted that Harper’s transmissions would bounce all the way to him.

Complete silence. Like they were orbiting around the dark side of the moon.

He would have to make this decision on his own.

A knock brought his attention up and to the right.

Just Wilson’s eyes, peering in the window at him.

LaRouche snapped the map closed and reached over, pushing the door open. Wilson hung on to the side handle of the LMTV cab with one hand and let the door swing past him, then righted himself again and stood there in the frame, half smiling in a hesitant manner, as though he were feeling out LaRouche’s mood.

LaRouche folded the map. “What’s up?”

Wilson shrugged and looked off. “Just gettin’ ready to turn in. I see you’ve been catching up on your sleep.”

“Oh, yeah.” LaRouche stuffed the map back into the pocket of his chest rig, then leaned back. “I feel fuckin’ fantastic.”

Wilson nodded thoughtfully. He reached into his jacket pocket, squirming in his weird, three-fingered hand and wincing as the fabric brushed past the scar tissue. LaRouche could tell the stumps of his fingers pained him—mentally and physically—but he rarely spoke about it and LaRouche figured he preferred not to dwell on it.

After a minute, Wilson produced a small silver roll from his pocket. Two or three inches long, like a roll of dimes. Faded paper wrap on the outside that read TUMS. He held them out to LaRouche and mumbled the jingle from the old commercials: “Tummmm-tum-tum-tum.” He smiled. “Found these for you.”

LaRouche looked at them for a moment. “Jesus… what’d you have to trade for these?”

Wilson made a dismissive noise. “Don’t flatter yourself, Sarge. I just had them thrown in on another deal I made for some goodies of my own. Plus I figure if you don’t have heartburn, maybe you’ll sleep more and then maybe you won’t be so goddamned grumpy all the time.”

LaRouche grinned. Somehow the ribbing made the gesture easier to accept. He took the item and immediately unwrapped one of the tabs. “Well, what’d you score for yourself?”

Wilson looked a little embarrassed. “Couple odds and ends.”

LaRouche quirked an eyebrow.

Wilson rolled his eyes and reached into his vest. He pulled out the corner of a cloth. Red and white. “One of them had an old US flag. And I wanted it.”

LaRouche regarded Wilson, and then the flag protruding from his vest. He shrugged. “Whatever.” He popped the Tums tablet into his mouth and changed the subject. “Goddamn, you have no idea how much I needed one of these things.”

Wilson looked off, stuffing the flag back into his vest. “Maybe if you were a little more sociable, you would’ve found ’em yourself.”

LaRouche chewed the tab, pinched off the foil end of the tube, and slipped it into his own jacket pocket. “That’s what I have you for, Wilson. To be sociable for me. And to run interference with the Pope.”

Wilson looked uncomfortable. “Yeah. I’m not a fan of being your go-between. Y’all got some problems that you need to work out man-to-man. Not through me.”

LaRouche sighed, swallowed the chalky mix, felt a slight ease of the burning in his throat. “Thanks for the Tums, man.”

Wilson still hung on the door.

LaRouche looked at him pointedly.

The younger man glanced over his shoulder at the camp behind him. “What are we gonna do with these folks?”

LaRouche leaned back in his seat. “Nothin’.”

“Nothin’?”

A shake of the head. “We’ll leave at first light tomorrow. Wish them the best of luck.”

“They could help us, you know.”

“How’s that?”

“Lot of them have a bone to pick with the Followers.”

LaRouche pursed his lips. “Wilson, be honest… do I give the impression that I don’t give a shit?”

Wilson considered it for a moment. “Yes.”

LaRouche turned, his gaze intensifying. “That’s my fault. I apologize if that is the impression I give. I don’t like what I’m seeing. I don’t like what the Followers are doing. I wanna put bullets in their heads just like the rest of you. I want to find all those girls they’ve captured and get them back to their families. That would feel real nice. Be the hero and everything. Save the fuckin’ day. Get a goddamned parade.”

Wilson sensed the biting sarcasm. “It’s about doing the right thing.”

“I know what the right thing is,” LaRouche said. “I’ve got fucking morals of my own. And you know what? Sometimes they get broken. Sometimes I break my own fucking rules. Sometimes I walk the line and I step over pretty far. And that’s something I need to deal with. But I do those things because they need to be done in order for everyone else to live. I don’t do them because they feel good. I don’t do them because they benefit me in any way.”

He pointed out in a nebulous direction. “We’re just miles from the river, Wilson. And at any point in time, if it hasn’t happened already, there’s going to be some big-ass hordes of infected coming over every bridge that spans that river. And they are going to come down here and they are going to overpower everyone. And everyone is going to die. And the only thing that stands between our current reality and that future reality is me and you and our team. And if we get sidetracked, if we lose focus on what needs to be accomplished in the big picture, we’re going to all end up dead. And the fact that some girls got raped and some guys had to nail their friends to a cross is going to be a moot point because everyone is going to be dead.”

“Fine.” Wilson held up a hand. “Jesus, man, I’m not arguing that point.”

“Well, what are you fucking arguing?”

“Give ’em guns and ammo,” Wilson said with exasperation. “Let them fight the good fight while we continue on to our objective. It will make them an ally to us in the future, if we ever come back through, rather than having to deal with hurt feelings because we abandoned them. And they’ll run interference for us by keeping the Followers distracted while we do what we gotta do.”

LaRouche stared straight ahead, feeling like a dumbass and suddenly understanding why dozens of commanding officers over his military career would shoot down his common-sense thinking. Because it was easier to do that than simply admit that you weren’t able to see the forest for the trees. That you were wrong and somebody under you was right.

LaRouche huffed. “When you’re right, you’re right.”

Wilson lifted a brow. “So…”

LaRouche nodded. “We’ll do it.”

Wilson didn’t make a big deal over it. Just kind of shrugged it off and sighed. “Well, I’ll let you sleep, then.”

He started to get down from the LMTV but LaRouche reached out and grabbed his jacket sleeve. The younger man stopped and looked back at his bedraggled superior. Bags under his eyes, creases all over his face like he’d been wrung out and left to dry.

“You’re gonna be a good leader,” LaRouche said quietly. Then he released his grip on Wilson’s sleeve and crossed his arms over his chest, closing his eyes and seeming to situate himself for sleep. “Now get out of here before you let out all my warm air.”

Wilson smirked, then hopped down and closed the door behind him.

While night deepened, Harper’s group to the west lit no fires and remained mostly silent. Their place in the industrial park had not changed. The horde of infected had come and had slowed and had meandered around the area, all while Harper’s group waited in their vehicles, the engines at idle while Julia stood atop one of the buildings and occasionally glassed the road out with her scoped rifle.

For hours the distant clamor of the horde went on, so that Harper would sometimes think they had passed and he would have to focus on listening in order to hear them again. By the time they could truly not hear the horde anymore, the sun was already touching the horizon and they shut off the engines and decided to make camp. Double watch due to limited fortifications.

They ate quietly. The mood of the group was in a downward spiral, it felt like. First the clash with the other group of survivors, and then the loss of Gray, which everyone bore without a word or a tear, simply bore it up like another burden to be carried on their backs. Winced like it caused them pain when they looked for him and Harper only shook his head.

And Mike. Mike losing his shit. Now sitting wordlessly with his back to the cold corrugated steel of the building they’d parked next to. His head was tilted back, eyes to the sky. And then he would nod forward and stare at the ground. Harper ate a meal that he wouldn’t remember and didn’t taste, and he watched the man repeat the movement over and over. The upward look of pleading. The downward look of despair.

A man begging God and not hearing an answer.

Harper needed Father Jim with him. He needed someone to tell him that there was a plan to all of this. He needed a scripture, some hocus-pocus from three thousand years ago that somehow pulled everything together. He’d never believed, but he wanted it now. Wanted something to believe in.

Harper drank some water. Took a piss, watching the last bit of twilight fade.

The land behind the industrial park fell away into some flood zone, a low point in the land cleared by the construction crews to build the park, and then abandoned back into the clutches of nature where it was now half engulfed, sprouted with adolescent trees and weeds as high as a man. A wisp of fog was just beginning to gather at the base of the land, like nitrogen pooling.

Harper saw no beauty in any of it. Just something cold and unknown. Just a place for danger to hide, like a shadow or a cave. He shivered when he looked at it, zipped himself up and turned his back to it, wishing to be in the relative safety of the Humvee, only to remember the blood inside of it. Gray’s blood.

He went to it anyway. Empty on the inside, like an abandoned house. Julia and Mike the first two on watch. So it was just Harper and what was left of Gray. Harper and his old ghosts. Annette, and Miller, and Josh, and now Gray. Good company, but they didn’t talk much. He just replayed them in his mind like a favorite album, like a treasured vinyl full of songs that made you sad, but you just kept torturing yourself with them because you couldn’t help yourself.

He stared out the windshield until the heat of his body had fogged it and then he closed his eyes. He fell asleep quickly, though it was not restful. His aging body didn’t react well to long nights and long days cooped up inside the cramped vehicle. His lower back woke him often, forcing him to shift positions and alleviate the pain for another half hour or so. He didn’t dream. Just slept.

It was three hours into the night when he woke up suddenly, a gunshot echoing back to him. There was a moment of pause where that rolling crack of a bullet bouncing off the buildings and trees was the only sound, and then shouts could be heard.

Harper threw his door open, blinking his foggy eyes, trying to clear his head. His back protested the sudden movements, every joint screaming at him as he forced his body to be more limber than it was after three hours of no movement. He grabbed his rifle, didn’t think to grab anything else. His boots hit the ground and he hobbled toward the back end of the Humvee, trying to figure out what was going on in the darkness.

There were no other gunshots. Just shouting now.

Desperation. Panic.

“What the fuck? What the fuck? What the fuck?” he growled as he hitched along, rifle already tucked into his shoulder, his head scanning stiffly this way and that, looking for a sign of what the hell had just happened. Someone ran by on the other side of the vehicles. Doors opened, more of the group stepping out to see what had happened.

Someone yelled, “Mike! Mike, stop!”

Harper sprinted the last few vehicle lengths. He could see two others gathered around the back end of the next-to-last LMTV, and he didn’t like the way they looked. Like they were taking cover behind the tailgate. Just barely peeking around the corner.

Harper didn’t stop. He moved around the corner, saw Julia, saw Mike, felt a sudden gush of relief that they were both alive. Then a tightness in his chest as he pieced together what he saw. Tightness like the sudden intake of breath before you shout.

They stood at the last LMTV in the column. Julia, directly in front of the vehicle, right in the middle of the space between its grille and the tailgate of the next one. Mike off to the side, near the driver’s side door, which hung open. Julia held her rifle into her shoulder, but the barrel held low, as though she felt threatened but wasn’t sure what to do. Mike held his rifle as well, facing Julia, but he didn’t threaten her with it.

He held it inverted, one hand stretched out to touch the trigger, the other holding the barrel directly under his chin.

This isn’t happening, Harper thought. This is a nightmare.

“Mike,” Julia said tightly, her feet moving about as though she couldn’t decide whether to move toward the man or away from him. “Put the gun down! Put it down and talk to me!”

Mike closed his eyes. “No… no… no going back now.”

Already one gunshot. Who fired the shot?

Harper’s eyes tracked to the open driver’s side door. This was the LMTV Torri and Mike always drove. The driver’s door hanging open. A single brass shell casing, glittering on the pavement. Blood on the passenger-side window.

“Oh, fuck…” Harper choked. “Mike…”

Mike shook his head vehemently, raising his voice above Julia’s and Harper’s. “It’s done. It’s fucking done.” He sobbed, a wretched, garbled sound. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry… so sorry…”

Harper couldn’t think straight. “Mike! We need to see Torri! We need to see if she’s all right!”

Mike looked at him like he was a stranger. “She’s dead!” he screamed at them. “I fucking shot her in the head!” He glanced toward the cab of the LMTV, like he feared she might be alive, then his face contorted and he looked away. “I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I can’t do it.”

Harper’s voice cracked. “Mike, just stop! Stop what you’re fucking doing and put the gun down! Stop pointing that thing at yourself!”

Julia was suddenly silent, just standing there, the barrel of her rifle raised just slightly now.

Mike didn’t seem to notice. He sobbed several times, the whole frame of his body melting toward the ground, gummy-looking spittle frothing at the corners of his mouth and flying off as he wept violently. Harper and Julia exchanged a microsecond glance, and in their looks it was like they already knew.

Mike suddenly stood up straighter, his face blank, though still streaked with tears and snot and spit. His voice was a mumble. “I’m sorry, Harper. I couldn’t let her live in this world. We… we weren’t meant for this.” Bleary eyes tracked back to the cab of the LMTV. “She was so beautiful… but she was dying inside. We both were. All the killing. No peace. Never any peace. Always afraid. We weren’t meant for this.” He smiled a ghastly smile full of fear and hatred. “There’s no other way out for us. No other way.”

Harper shook his head, reached out his hand. “Mike—”

“Sorry.” He opened his mouth and stuck the barrel of the rifle in. Eyes went skyward. The same pleading look from earlier. Everyone shouting now. Trying to break through to him in that last second. But he pulled the trigger anyway, and his mouth seemed to strobe like lightning came out of it, and he crumpled, trailing gun smoke and blood from his nose.

There was a collective cry, and then stunned silence.

No one moved to him or to the LMTV where Torri lay dead. Not immediately, anyway. Somehow there wasn’t a question in any of their minds. As though death were a given. An unstoppable force that could not be resisted. As though the simple act of checking the two bodies for a pulse would be a useless waste of hope.

Julia didn’t move from her spot, but she knelt down, her rifle cradled in her arms, and she seemed bent over it, hair hanging in front of her face so that Harper couldn’t see her. He found that his hands didn’t know what to do and they flew about his person, raising his rifle, reaching into his pockets, touching his head, wiping his palm across his face like it was something he could wash away.

He could find nothing to say that made any sense. Just swore up and down. Like each swear was a puff of steam, bleeding off pressure. He paced back and forth between the two LMTVs, three steps between them, then spin and three steps again. Back and forth.

Eventually, he broke the pattern. By now the entire group had gathered around. They wailed. They wept. They asked questions, because they had not seen for themselves. The answers were shouted back, and then the askers wept as well. Or simply stared down at the bodies with that blank face that was becoming more common than any expression of grief. That stare that didn’t see. Just internalized everything. Put it away someplace where it wouldn’t bother them. Like burying nuclear waste. Out of sight, out of mind. Deal with the toxicity of it later.

Mental stability on credit.

Ridiculous. Ridiculous. All so fuckin’ ridiculous.

“Who the fuck does that?” Harper suddenly shouted. He pointed to the body. “Who does that?”

Julia stood, eyes red, face splotchy and wet. Wiped snot on her hand. She looked at him and in Harper’s mind, she thought it was his fault. That he should not have been so hard on Mike after the breakdown earlier that day. That he was the reason Mike had done this.

Or maybe she wasn’t thinking that.

Maybe it was Harper’s own guilty conscience.

“Shitfire,” he murmured. “Fuck me.”

He slapped down his rifle unceremoniously on the bumper of the LMTV and stalked around the front of it to the driver’s side door. Hated what he was going to do. Hated to do it. Hated that no one else could bring themselves to do it, but somebody had to and it might as well be him. Might as well be the “man in charge,” if you believed that horseshit.

Might as well be the man whose fault it was.

He yanked himself up into the cab, found her body lying sideways across the center seat. Blood dripping on the passenger window. White chunks visible even in the darkness. A hole in her left cheek, just below her eye. Powder burns all around it. The eye nearly popped out of the socket from the pressure. It glared at him, blatant and unblinking.

A single sob escaped him. He gagged. Then swallowed hard and closed his eyes.

It’s nothing. It’s nothing. Just another sack of flesh. Not a person anymore. Just rotting flesh. Gotta get it out of my vehicle. It doesn’t mean anything anymore. Just an object. Like a broken machine that’ll never be fixed.

He opened his eyes again. Refused to look at her. He grabbed her by the legs and pulled her toward the edge of the seat, then stepped down to the ground and hoisted her onto his shoulders. Then he walked. He walked off to the edge of the parking lot where the pavement met the overgrowth, nature reaching out to consume it all.

He left her there in the tall weeds. Then he returned for the other one—couldn’t think of them as people anymore, couldn’t think about their names, their personalities, their faces. Just whitewashed it all. Julia helped carry him by the legs. They laid him next to the wife he’d killed. Didn’t know if that was appropriate. But didn’t know what else to do.

The others talked about burial.

Harper checked his watch, knew he would not sleep for the rest of the night.

The others gathered around the bodies by cold white lantern light. Tried to make sense of it. Some need to meet death with ceremony, like they’d planned it all along. Like they were prepared. Someone found a shovel and started digging.

Harper escaped them. He took his rifle with him, and he walked and walked through the complex, not really afraid of what might be there anymore. Inoculated to it for the time being. He walked until he found a quiet spot between two buildings where he could no longer hear the sound of the shovel stabbing into the dirt, and he knelt there and let out what he could not let the others see.

TWENTY-SIX

ESCAPE

LEE STOOD OVER HIMSELF. Knew that it was some sickly fever dream. His crumpled form on the landing of the stairs, curled up into a ball. His consciousness hovering there over his body, like it had seeped out of him and floated up to hang there in the air. He tried to wake himself because the infected were coming up the stairs, but his shouts were silent soughs of wind, and then the infected fell upon his body.

He woke up in a panic, scrambling for his rifle, and almost pulled off a shot before reality pierced the haze of sleep enough for him to realize that he was still alone in the stairwell. From his position he could still see the front door of the shop that he was inside, and he could see that the barred and locked doors and windows still stood intact.

And it was still dark out.

Early morning, or midnight, or ten minutes after he’d fallen asleep, he had no idea.

The panic subsided quicker than Lee thought possible, like a faulty engine that roars to life and then immediately stalls out. He felt the drowsiness sweep over him again. He forced himself to take another bite of the candy bar, another swig of water, before it overcame him and he fell back asleep.

He opened his eyes, thinking, I’m still dreaming.

It was light out. Blazing-hot midday light.

Just the presence of the light sent a shock of fear through him that he couldn’t explain for a moment, but as he gathered himself and stood on the steps, he realized what it was. The daylight meant the infected would be out. They would be out and hunting and the chances of his safe escape from this town had suddenly been greatly diminished.

Deuce. Gotta get Deuce.

He stumbled down the stairs. His feet and limbs felt like a scarecrow’s: just clothing stuffed with straw. Clumsy and without sensation. The rifle dangled from the sling around his chest and shoulders, and he didn’t even bother to take hold of it. He made his way to the front door, checked both ways, and didn’t see any infected.

Gotta get Deuce.

Hope he’s okay.

He unlocked the door. Stepped out into the street.

The daylight was blinding. Everything seemed washed out for a moment. He squinted against it, tried to look both ways down the street again, but then gave up and simply walked out, not really caring about it anymore. Just feeling a welling sense of dread as he wondered about the dog he’d left alone on the roof.

Into the shop across the street.

Noting that Shumate’s and Aaron’s bodies were gone.

Not even blood on the sidewalk to mark where they’d been.

Odd.

He went up the stairs inside the antique shop. Into the upper level. To the ladder that accessed the roof. The hatch at the top was ripped from its hinges. Daylight poured in.

“Oh no,” Lee whispered. “No, no, no…”

He climbed. Into the daylight. Like swimming to the surface of a dark ocean. On the roof, the sunshine felt hot on his skin, like a burning fever. He looked around the roof, but Deuce wasn’t there. There was nothing on the roof except for… in the corner…

He walked over to it, unsteady, chest hitching as he knew what it was.

A patch of blood, dried dark brown in the sun. Bits of tawny fur still clinging to it.

“Deuce,” Lee whimpered. “Deuce, I’m sorry.”

“You did it again,” someone said from behind him.

Lee turned and found Angela there, standing on the roof. She stood in the oversize OD Green jacket he’d given her, hands outstretched and covered in sticky blood. Her eyes were sad and forlorn and she shook her head slowly, her blond hair swaying slightly.

Lee found tears in his eyes. Shame for them. Shame for leaving Deuce on the roof. “I didn’t mean to… I just… I just…”

Angela’s eyes were downcast.

Somehow, her disapproval crushed him, leveled him, brought him to his knees. He wept bitterly and tried to think of something to say to justify himself, to prove to her that he had not failed, that he was still strong, that he was still worth something. But he had nothing.

Angela spoke quietly, voice full of grief and betrayal. “Everyone you know dies, Lee. All your friends and everyone you come into contact with, they all end up dead. Because you fail them every time. Because you’re just not strong enough. Because you’re cursed.”

The force of his own sobbing awoke him. The tears on his face were ice cold. His mouth felt gummy from them. His nose running. He lay there awake for a few moments, trying to wait for the overpowering sensation of the dream to leave, but it clung stubbornly to him.

He was alone in the dark.

Still in the stairwell.

He sat up, swallowing hard, gathering up all those emotions that had spilled out of him while his conscious mind wasn’t looking, and he stuffed them back down as best he could, though he could not clean the traces of them. Still felt it in the tightness of his throat. The hollow sensation in his chest.

Put them away. Save them for a time that matters.

Save them for a time when your life is not in danger.

No matter whether the dream was nonsensical or not, he couldn’t leave Deuce up on that roof any longer. It was still dark, and it made sense to move the dog before daylight. Daylight would only increase their danger. And as far as his body went, he felt a fraction more stable after sleeping for… however long he’d slept. The headache was still there, his body still shivered with fever and ached to the touch, but it seemed to have lost its edge, and the exhaustion was not so unavoidable now. He felt somewhat awake, or at least able to sustain himself for a little while longer.

He finished the candy bar and the bottle of water. Then he stood slowly. Fought off a bout of light-headedness. He leaned against the banister in the stairs and brought the rifle up in his grip. Pulled the mag out and checked its weight with an experienced hand. Clicked it back into the mag well and checked the chamber to make sure he was loaded.

“I’m good to go,” he muttered.

He moved down the stairs, shoulder still against the wall, sliding along the whole way down. He reached the bottom and moved to the door, just like he had in his dream, only now it was dark outside. Streets were empty. So he unlocked the door and moved on.

He feared the bodies of Shumate and Aaron would be gone, but they lay where he’d left them. The puddles of blood had grown stagnant. No longer glistening, but glazed over. The bodies were cold and blue looking. The flesh sagged on them like it was slowly liquefying.

He found his way around the interior of the antique shop, stumbling into old furniture and hoping that there was not an infected hiding somewhere inside, having been split up with its horde and deciding to bed down amid all these old wooden memories.

Into the splintered, broken door. Up the staircase. The cavernous storage space with very little stored in it. The ladder leading to the roof. The hatch still closed, just like he’d left it. And behind that hatch, a quiet whimper and a snuffle from a canine snout pressed against the cracks, smelling for who ascended that ladder.

Lee’s heart beat hard with relief, the force of which was surprising.

He climbed the ladder and pushed open the hatch. Two paws draped over the edge and the long, lupine snout poked over the edge, sniffing and chuffing and licking in the panicked way that a dog does when he realizes that you did not leave him forever. Lee put his arm around the dog’s neck, thought for a brief moment that Deuce might pull away from such aggressive affection, but the mutt just let Lee grab him up tight, buried his face in Lee’s chest, tail wagging.

“I got you, buddy.” Lee almost choked on the words. He put his arm around the dog’s chest. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

He hefted the dog up and worked his way down the ladder. He moved slowly, and Deuce seemed to understand the level of his exhaustion and didn’t squirm around or fight. It took him almost a full minute to get down the ladder again. He had to stop and rest often, and by the time his battered old boots hit the ground, an oily sheen of sweat had broken out across his forehead and the nausea had returned.

He stopped there, leaning on the ladder. Deuce threaded the space between his legs, whined at the staircase, then looked up at him plaintively. Lee looked toward the stairs himself, wondering if the dog’s vocalization meant there were infected nearby, but Deuce remained quiet. Lee caught his breath and let the sweat dry from his brow before moving on.

Deuce stayed with him as he made his way down the stairs, every joint in his body seeming to have aged thirty years in the past day. He held the banister and slid along, clutching it as he limped down to the next step, eyes squinted against invading light-headedness like you would squint against the sun. Deuce took the stairs just as slowly, looking up at Lee with what seemed like concern.

“I’m doin’ okay,” Lee mumbled to the dog at his side. “I got pills and a candy bar. I’m livin’ the high life.”

Deuce quirked his head, closed his jaws so that his lip was caught on the edge of one of his teeth. The picture of intense interest.

Lee grimaced. “Sorry, bud. I ate it all.”

The dog appeared disappointed.

“When we get back.” Lee huffed to the bottom of the stairs, took a breather as he looked around and made sure no dark shadows moved around in the interior of the antique shop. Made sure nothing had snuck in behind him. “When we get back, I’ll find a big-ass piece of deer meat for you. And that is a solemn promise, my friend. If I fail you on that, I give you permission to eat me instead.”

Deuce trotted away a few steps, uninterested.

“Yeah.” Lee shrugged. “I know I’m not much to look at, but there’s still some meat left on me.”

He quieted as he moved through the antique shop again, approaching the open front door. Deuce sauntered around casually and seemed relaxed to Lee. He sniffed at a few pieces of furniture, pissed on them, then moved on ahead, nose to the wind and giving no bad reaction to what he smelled.

Despite the cold and the sickness and the brutalized body that complained from every region of nerves, Lee felt suddenly and inexplicably at peace. Perhaps it was just some random firing of chemicals in his brain, a little sugar and chocolate and a heavy dose of relief. He stepped out of the doorway with the rifle snug in his shoulder and moved as smoothly as he could across the street, though his feet felt like sacks of sand, his limbs shaky like rickety sticks.

He climbed into the cold van, Deuce sniffing around before jumping up and climbing clumsily across Lee’s lap to the passenger seat. He closed the door and looked into the back. Still some supplies left over. He could feel the hunger in his stomach. A sharp, mindless ache that nearly overpowered his thought processes. He’d gone hungry during intense training, but he could honestly say that it was never this bad. He was actually starving now. A sensation that gave the word new meaning and made all his previous uses of it seem like bullshit.

He pulled the rifle strap off his shoulders and laid it between the two front seats. Made sure the doors were closed and locked, and then climbed into the back, telling himself repeatedly, Whatever you do, DO NOT fall asleep back here. You CANNOT fall asleep back here.

Earlier, his fishing around in the dark had yielded the bottle of water and the candy bar, but he was sure there was more to be had. He went through it again, trying to see the items in the darkness, seizing upon small shapes and holding them close to his face, trying to identify them. He found a few more items of junk food—didn’t know what they were, but he opened them and ate them without hesitation. Sweet, creamy, cakey. Probably Swiss Rolls or something. He wasn’t really paying attention.

A bag of peanuts. He ate a handful.

Mouth was dry, so he rooted around for water, found two more bottles. Gulped half of one down and then started to feel his stomach rebel, so he went a little slower. He offered the remainder of the peanuts to Deuce, pouring them into a cupped hand and putting them under the dog’s muzzle. A gentle wag of the tail and a soft, warm tongue scooped them out and let him know that Deuce was appreciative. He tried to find something to put the water in but came up empty, so he used his hands as bowls again. Though it was clumsy and his hand-bowls leaked badly, Deuce got down most of a bottle of water.

“We good to go?” Lee asked quietly, feeling that dangerous drowsiness come swooping in again. “Because we need to go.” He blinked. His eyes shot open a few seconds later, realizing he’d nearly fallen asleep. Deuce stared at him. He pulled himself forward toward the driver’s seat. “I’ll stop for coffee on the way,” he muttered.

He sat in the driver’s seat for a long moment, fighting off sleep and wondering where they would go. He had no idea where they were and when he looked up, he saw no stars to tell him which compass direction he faced. Even if he did know, he had no idea which direction would bring him back to friendly territory.

He’d been northwest of Camp Ryder. He was sure he hadn’t run too far on foot during the first few days when his head was a jumble of shorting wires. Probably hadn’t gotten farther than five miles. Ten at the most. No idea which direction he’d run in. Then Shumate and his group had found him and they’d put a hood over his head before they drove him to where they had their little camp set up. The little auto garage somewhere out there. Location a mystery.

Perhaps if he just knew the town he was in.

“I’m gonna drive,” he said to himself.

He’d spent hours looking at maps of the region. Knew the cities and towns by heart, and the roads that connected them. If he could just stumble across one highway junction or one sign that told him which municipality he was in, he would know where he was… hopefully.

Putting a lot of faith in my scrambled brain right now.

But he wouldn’t stay here through the night. Not with a horde of infected sleeping somewhere nearby. Not with his death clock ticking, the bit of food and water and the antibiotics meant for fish just staying the advancing hands for a moment, giving him a little breathing room. Not at all taking him out of danger. He still needed help. Still needed to find his way back to Camp Ryder or some friendly outpost as soon as he possibly could.

And he was awake now, at least for a time.

He cranked the van, felt his mind focus around a tiny little jolt of adrenaline, as the sound seemed like a shotgun blast in the stillness of the night. Or early morning—he really had no idea what time it was. The clock on the dashboard said 2:34 and he had no way of knowing whether it was correct or not.

He pulled up his rifle so it leaned between the seats, barrel up. Easily accessible.

He dropped the van in drive and rumbled forward along the street. He went on through the darkness for a moment, then risked turning on his running lights, and then his headlights. The light scared him, like a beacon screaming for attention, and it made him press the accelerator down. He glanced at the gas gauge, reminded himself that it was on “E” now. But the light hadn’t come on yet, which meant he had at least thirty miles to go before—

As if to tell him he was not quite so lucky, the light came on.

He stared at it and thought of the dream he’d had.

The one where Angela had told him he was cursed.

He looked up just in time to see something in the road, felt the hard crunch of it hitting the front right bumper, the jolt of the wheels going over it. Deuce yelped and Lee cried out in alarm. He looked in his side-view mirror, heart slamming the weariness out of him. He couldn’t see anything in the redness of his taillights and he wasn’t going to stick around to find out.

He slammed on the gas, feeling at any minute an infected was going to crash through his window.

The road roared underneath them.

Buildings turned to trees.

Deuce whined, unsettled.

A speed limit sign.

A caution sign depicting a T-intersection, but when they reached it they only found a gravel farm road.

His heartbeat eventually settled.

He came to another intersection and this time slowed to a stop. The road he was on terminated in a larger highway, and the signage directly across from Lee bore the state highway symbol marked 421. The relief that came over him when he saw that signpost nearly made him tremble, but it was tempered by reality. Highway 421 was a very long highway, and there were still many, many things that could go wrong. Not the least of which was determining where on that very long highway he was and which direction he needed to turn to get back to friendly territory.

He looked around but could see no sign telling him what road he was on that intersected with Highway 421. Each corner of the intersection was just a black overgrowth of weeds and trees. An abandoned car sat across from him on the right, a small subcompact that seemed nearly buried in the overgrowth now. The windshield was smashed in, and the hood showed some damage. From underneath the front of the car, Lee could see the reflective green panels of a road sign.

He put the van in park and slowly opened the door. Deuce grumbled and whined, but he made no overt reaction when he scented the air. Lee swung his legs out, taking his rifle up. He felt the exhaustion in every bit of him. He was back to that little ledge of consciousness where he knew it was no longer a question of whether his body was going to give out on him but when. And he knew it was going to hit him hard when it came, just like it had in the stairwell, leaving him barely able to move another foot.

Even now, every muscle fiber felt like a rusted steel cable, creaking under a too-heavy load. When he stood up, his legs complained stiffly. Holding his own rifle sent waves of fatigue up his arm. For the first time that he could recall, he was genuinely nervous about the possibility of being forced to fight, because he knew he wouldn’t last long. He knew there was nothing he could do about it, but somehow he still felt ashamed by it.

Grimacing, he forced movement out of the bound-up machine of his body, around the front of the van and to the side of the right shoulder of the road, where he could get a better vantage point on the sign that the little subcompact car had run over. He tilted his head and saw the numbers on the green road sign:

2195

A second wave of relief, stronger than the first. He knew that road. He knew where he was. And he was not far from OP Lillington. Not far at all. Maybe another half hour of driving? If he went fast and took some chances. Kept the windows down to stay awake. Talked to himself to keep his mind engaged. Yeah. He could make it.

Did the van have enough gas?

Maybe. Hard to tell.

He would just have to go for it.

Lee moved back to the van, his legs articulating stiffly. Deuce waited for him as he climbed in the van, licked his face tentatively. Doing his part to keep Lee awake. Lee slumped in the driver’s seat for a moment, gathering himself for the effort that it took to pull the door closed and put the van in gear. Then he drove on, making the right-hand turn onto Highway 421 toward Lillington.

The highway stretched on hypnotically in the dark. The reflectors still shone brightly when his headlights hit them, though a thick layer of debris from storms and recently fallen leaves often covered the road. He watched the reflectors pass underneath the van, one after the other, like a pocket watch swinging back and forth. He kept closing his eyes and then snapping awake. Closing his eyes. Snapping awake.

He kept the van at seventy but tried to keep an eye on the road ahead of him, and he slowed down for curves so that he wouldn’t run into a roadblock. But mostly he just hoped and prayed that nothing would stand in his way. That nothing would stop him from reaching Lillington. Because at this point, he couldn’t slow down. It was a race against his own body. Betting against when the exhaustion would take over and force him into unconsciousness.

It almost went by without him noticing, but the road turned into four lanes with a double-yellow dividing them, and when he eventually realized this, he knew he was close to Lillington. He began to see abandoned convenience stores and small gas stations, and the houses were grouped together in small clusters. Everything dark and dilapidated, but he recognized many of the landmarks and knew that he was going to make it to Lillington.

If his memory served him, he would be able to see OP Lillington just over the next rise in the road.

The car beeped at him urgently and he looked down at the gas light. The needle firmly on the “E.”

He looked up.

A shape loomed out of the darkness in front of him. An abandoned car, his sullied brain managed to register, and he slammed on the brakes. They screeched loudly, then locked. He jerked the steering wheel to the right, but the van only gave him a minor course adjustment, and he collided with the abandoned car going forty-five miles per hour.

TWENTY-SEVEN

LOST

COMPLETE DARKNESS. AND FIRE. A dark fire that he couldn’t see.

Lee’s mind swam around, halfway to the surface of consciousness, like a submarine with a broken ballast that couldn’t quite rise out of the water. In his mind’s eye, he knew he was in a vehicle, but he saw himself when he was sixteen, sitting in an old hunter-green Ford Ranger pickup, still gripping the wheel as steam rolled out of the crumpled hood and he sat terrified and wondering what the hell he was going to tell his father about how he’d wrecked the truck…

Lee did not wake up, so to speak.

Lee became more aware of what was going on around him. None of it made any sense to him, but nevertheless, his brain began interpreting signals from his eyes, from his nose, from the nerve endings on his face. None of the facts came together coherently for him, but rather just drifted around in some mental amniotic fluid, half developed.

He could smell acrid smoke. That sharp, harsh smell from when the air bag deployed. And he could feel the burning sensation on his face, but he knew it wasn’t actually a fire. He could see the big white bulk of the air bag deflating in front of him. He tried to reach out to push it away from him, but suddenly it seemed like it was miles away. His arm felt like it was stretching out for miles to reach it.

More unconsciousness.

Deuce growling loudly.

Lee reached over, started trying to find the dog, though he wasn’t sure whether he was dreaming about doing it or actually doing it in real life.

He opened his eyes and realized he’d just been lying there, motionless, his hands still limp at his sides. He tried to sit up a bit but couldn’t really complete the motion. Unconsciousness pulled at him like a black hole. He looked to his right, his eyes crossing as they moved, and he could see Deuce there, crumpled on the floorboard of the front seat, whimpering and shaking, one paw raised up as though it was injured.

“Deuce,” Lee let out in a dry whisper.

He heard a high-pitched motor. Something small. Like a dirt bike.

He reached out for Deuce with the last bit of anything he had, managed to touch the dog on the neck. Then his eyes rolled out the broken windshield and he could see a single headlight bouncing toward him as the noisy whine of the dirt bike’s engine drew closer.

I won’t go again, he thought as he slipped. I won’t let them take me again.

Not again.

Not again.

He dreamed dreams of reality.

Deuce was barking madly and Lee wanted to fight, but his body felt like something made of cast iron. He thought of Angela on the rooftop and how she had told him he was cursed. That everyone around him died. Just like Deuce was about to die. And Lee couldn’t stop it, because he was going to die too.

He felt himself falling, his feet tumbling over nothingness. Hands grabbed him. He felt cold and warm, all at once. This world collided with another full of his memories, and all the pieces intermingled. Mom and Dad in double coffins, and Deana standing next to him, except that it wasn’t Deana—it was Angela.

“Everyone around you dies,” she said sadly.

And then Dad was looking at him, angry. “What the hell’d you do to my truck?”

Then another face, and he was on his back and the face was leaning over him. An infected, its mouth open wide, about to bite him. Lee struggled for his knife, felt his hands gripping it, but the hardwood handle felt more like sand in his fingers. The infected yelled at him as he brought up his knife.

“Captain Harden!”

Then the infected grabbed Lee by the wrist and twisted the knife out of his hands. Lee jerked back and forth as best he could, trying to punch or kick at the infected or get a hand around its neck, but again drifted into another place and the face of the infected was the face of Jacob and he was laughing like a madman.

“They’re all dead!” Jacob shouted as he laughed. “They’re all dead, Lee! All your friends! Everyone you knew! Everyone in the world! Everyone is dead! Complete and total and unequivocal extinction, my friend. You’re completely alone. The only person left on the face of the planet.”

Other infected came. They all bore the faces of people he knew. He was carried. There was shouting. There were gunshots. Then he was carried farther, and he was laid down again and it was cold metal that he lay on. Captain Brian Tomlin crouched next to him, shouting at someone else, and Lee wondered abstractly if Tomlin were still angry with Lee for throwing him in that metal box when he first showed up.

Maybe this was Tomlin’s revenge. He came all the way from South Carolina, only for Lee to wrongly imprison him, and now he was an infected, and he was hell-bent on revenge. He was going to put Lee into a metal box and in the dark he was going to eat Lee alive while he was barely conscious and couldn’t fight…

Tomlin looked down at him. “We got you, buddy.”

Lee reached for Tomlin’s neck, planning to choke him to death, but Tomlin just took his hand and held it firmly.

Back down into blackness. Back into a formless void, like floating in a vacuum. And then like a meteor, he streaked through the firmament of his own mind, slamming down into earth, embedding there, dark and solid and shapeless and surrounded by megatons of smothering soil and there was nothing but him and the darkness, and his thoughts and memories could not reach him there.

When he did awaken, he knew instantly that it was reality.

Lee’s mind was instantly in high gear. The fever that had clouded his brain seemed lessened or perhaps broken completely, and the exhaustion was gone and replaced with a sudden and horrible energy, the positivity that he was being held somewhere, perhaps in an infected den. A live bit of food for the pregnant females who were lurking in the darkness. The notion that he had to escape rippled through him like static electricity.

But it wasn’t completely dark. He lay on his back and he could see rafters above his head. A high ceiling. Something like a warehouse or maybe a large showroom. He got the impression of a vast space. There was movement around him. Voices.

The next thing he noticed was that he was not bound, and it set his heart to slamming. He would have to make a run now, while he still had a chance. He would have to just get up and start running.

He leaned up just slightly.

Stared in shock. Confusion.

It was a wide-open space, dimly lit. Some old classic cars, once shining and beautifully maintained, were now covered in a layer of brown dust and shoved off into the corners and against the walls to make room for a Humvee and a big bus. A big white church bus. Just like the one that Old Man Hughes and all the survivors from Dunn had used.

And there were people. People standing around. People milling about. Engaging in casual conversations. Not infected. Just regular people. And none of them was pointing a gun at Lee. None of them guarded the exits of this big open space.

“What the fuck?” Lee murmured to himself.

His hand went to his side, reaching for his knife, but it was not in the sheath that still hung on his belt.

“Hey!” a voice hollered.

Heads turned toward Lee.

Adrenaline surged through Lee. He twisted rapidly toward the sound of the shout, which had come from directly behind him. It was a face he recognized. A thirty-something man with dark hair and a stern face. He was smiling broadly at Lee, and that confused Lee more than anything else.

“Captain Harden!” the man said, then raised his voice louder. “Hey! Captain Harden’s awake! Get Captain Tomlin!”

Lee stared at the man, still not convinced that he was friendly. “Nate?” he breathed. He was almost positive that it was Nate. Nate Malone. The first guy to come forward and volunteer when Lee had come up with his plan to blow all the bridges along the Roanoke River. But Nate had gone with Harper, right? He’d gone with Harper’s group, north toward the town of Eden. What was he doing here? For that matter, where the fuck was “here” and what was Lee doing there?

And where was his rifle?

He wanted his rifle badly.

“Lee!” a voice called out. Familiar.

He turned and found Captain Tomlin walking briskly toward him. He was flanked by two other familiar faces—Old Man Hughes and Jacob—and Lee was suddenly certain that this was just another dream. This was just some less-damaging reality that his warped brain had conjured up to avoid facing the fact that he was in an infected den, waiting to be eaten alive. It had to be, because he couldn’t figure out why those three men would be together in this mysterious place.

Old Man Hughes hung back a bit, his skinny old arms folded across his chest, the beaten-up trucker’s cap still perched on a head with barely any hair left on it. Jacob and Tomlin continued forward and they both knelt down next to Lee, Tomlin on Lee’s right and Jacob on the left. Lee still did not trust his mind to tell him the truth, and he found his eyes wandering to Tomlin’s rifle, which was strapped to him and dangling at his side. He wondered if he could get it away from Tomlin.

Jacob shone a light in his eyes. He spoke very clearly and deliberately. “Can you tell me your name?”

Lee stared at Jacob, not sure whether he should go along with this or not. Still utterly confused.

Jacob and Tomlin exchanged a concerned glance.

“Lee Harden,” Lee said cautiously, and his voice came out like the rattling of a jar of rocks.

The two men looked relieved.

Jacob: “Do you know where you are right now?”

Lee was irritated. “I have no fucking idea where I am! What the fuck is going on?”

Tomlin put a hand on Lee’s shoulder and smiled. “Easy, buddy. We just need to see how bad your head injury is.”

“It’s fine.”

Jacob spoke again. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

Lee had to think about that one. “Uh… driving, I think. A van.” His eyes suddenly juked between the two men kneeling next to him. “Where’s my dog? Where’s Deuce?”

Tomlin nodded, his voice relaxed. Soothing. “We got him, Lee. He’s got a busted leg, but we got him and he’ll be fine.”

“So you remember driving?” Jacob asked. “Do you remember the accident?”

Lee blinked rapidly. “Uh… I don’t… Yes. There was a car in the road.”

“Do you remember what happened then?”

Lee shifted, growing frustrated. “Enough of the fucking questions! Can one of you tell me what the fuck is going on right now? Where the hell am I and how’d I get here?”

“You’re just outside of Lillington,” Jacob said. “That’s where you had the accident.”

“I know that.”

“Good.” Jacob smiled. “Your brain isn’t as jangled as we thought. Although you did punch Nate in the face when he was trying to pull you out of the wrecked van.” Jacob and Tomlin both looked slightly amused.

Tomlin nodded. “And you tried to stab him.”

“So we were a little concerned about your mental state,” Jacob said plainly.

Lee looked back over his shoulder at Nate. The man pointed to his cheek, which Lee could see was just slightly swollen. Lee shook his head. “I, uh… I don’t remember that.”

Nate shrugged. “It’s okay. You were barely there, Captain. I’m just glad I got the knife out of your hand before you gutted me.”

Lee closed his eyes. “I still… I’m not…”

“Like Jacob said, we’re just outside of Lillington.” Tomlin took up the reins of explanation in a slow, even tone. “Not a whole lot is going to make sense to you right now. No one knows where you’ve been or how much you’ve missed, but I’m going to start from the beginning, okay? And I’m gonna tell you some shit you probably don’t want to hear. But you’re gonna hear it anyway.”

Lee swallowed. “Okay.”

“When you were gone, Jerry took over Camp Ryder. He did it with the help of Professor White from Fuquay-Varina, who we believe to be dead right now. When Bus realized what was going on, he told me to get out of Camp Ryder and try to hook up with the other outposts, to let them know what happened, because Jerry severed the radio communications.”

Lee’s eyes opened wider, his lips compressing tighter. But he said nothing.

Tomlin continued. “Old Man Hughes had a good idea what was going on when Professor White and his crew, who had typically refused any guns or ammunition from you, suddenly wanted all they could get, and they left OP Lillington loaded down for a firefight.”

Lee put his head in his hands. He could feel that they had wrapped his head wound with fresh bandages. He squeezed his eyes shut. “I gave them those fucking guns.”

“There’s no way you could have known, Lee.” Tomlin looked at the ground. “But when the radios went down over the Camp Ryder Hub, Old Man Hughes saw the writing on the wall and decided to get the hell out of Lillington. He packed everybody up within the hour and moved them across the river into this warehouse. But he kept an eye on Lillington, to see who would show up looking for them. Put a scout on a dirt bike in the woods right outside of OP Lillington. I was the first one who came looking for them, and they brought me in. And that’s essentially how the rest got here, too.”

Lee stared at the people all around them. “Who all is here?”

“Old Man Hughes’s group from Dunn,” Tomlin listed. “Couple families who got out of Camp Ryder right when Jerry took over. Jacob and a group of survivors he met over at Smithfield. And Nate and Devon, as of yesterday.”

Lee looked behind him at Nate. “But aren’t you supposed to be with Harper?”

Nate nodded. “When the radios went down, Harper sent me and Devon back to see what was going on at Camp Ryder. The scout recognized us when we made our way through OP Lillington.”

From behind Nate, Devon came jogging up. He smiled excitedly, held a hand up in greeting. “Good to see you awake, Captain.”

Lee nodded at him, seeming a bit overwhelmed. Then he turned back to Tomlin. “So, what the fuck’s been going on at Camp Ryder?” Lee asked. “Has anybody been able to get in? Has anyone made contact with them? Do we know what the hell Jerry’s doing?”

Tomlin raised a placating hand. “Relax, buddy; I got you covered. I’ve been watching the place on a nightly basis, and in fact last night I was able to make contact with Marie.”

“You talked to Marie?”

Tomlin shook his head. “No, we exchanged notes. But it’s the first communications we’ve been able to make with anyone inside Camp Ryder. We’re trying to determine how many friendly people we have inside the fence.”

“What about Angela?” Lee asked, and then almost seemed embarrassed by his own question. “And Bus? And the other people who didn’t support Jerry?”

Tomlin looked unsure. “Most everybody who supported you guys went with either Harper or LaRouche. There aren’t a whole lot of people left in Camp Ryder who aren’t supporting Jerry. But I’ve been able to put eyes on Angela. She seems okay. Both of the kids too.” Tomlin rubbed his knuckles. “Bus I don’t know about. I haven’t been able to get eyes on him. I don’t know if he’s even still in Camp Ryder or”—he glanced up at Lee—“or if he’s even still alive.”

Lee’s mind was pulled in a million different directions. He raised up his knees, felt the pain and stiffness in his muscles and joints and the nearly overwhelming hunger overtaking him, but he tried to focus, tried to apply himself to the problem at hand. “Okay. We’ve got to make contact with Marie again. Get an idea of how many people she can have armed and ready to go—”

“Lee.” Tomlin looked at him hesitantly.

Lee looked at his friend and comrade, watched the other man’s eyes track up to Lee’s head, to his injuries. Unconsciously, Lee raised a hand and touched the bandaging again.

“It was Eddie Ramirez, wasn’t it?” Tomlin said quietly.

Lee nodded slowly.

Tomlin rubbed his eyes. “I’m sorry, brother. I tried to tell you on the radio, but Jerry had already disconnected it. I don’t know if I would’ve been too late or not. But… I’m sorry.”

“It’s not…” Lee trailed off.

Tomlin found some dirt on the knee of his pants and rubbed at it with his palm. “Lee, I know this is a lot to process for you, but I have to ask you something else.”

Lee waited.

“When we found you, we looked all through your pockets and we couldn’t find the GPS. We were taking some contact from infected, so we didn’t stick around to check the van.” Tomlin looked cautiously hopeful. “Could you have dropped the GPS in the van? Do we need to go back for it?”

In all of the running and shooting and escaping that had happened since Shumate had captured him, Lee had not thought about the GPS. His only thought had been about how he was going to get back to friendly territory, and the problem of how he was going to recover that little piece of technology that meant everything to him had simply slipped into the background.

Suddenly, jarringly, it was there again. Right there in the middle of everything.

Lee stared at Tomlin, and Tomlin stared back. And they knew each other well enough that Lee did not need to speak the actual words to Tomlin—he already knew the truth. He could see it written in the dread that lurked behind Lee’s eyes.

“Fuck…” Tomlin suddenly stood up.

Lee clasped his hands together, knuckles white. “Eddie took it after he shot me.”

Tomlin tilted his head to the ceiling and swore again loudly.

“There’s gotta be something we can do to get it back,” Lee said. “I mean, you were working with Darabie to take me down, right? Didn’t he give you guys a rendezvous point or something? Don’t you know what route he’ll be traveling or some way to catch up with him and get it back?”

“Lee.” Tomlin faced him. “He’s got a three-day head start on us. He could be fucking anywhere. I was never given any special rendezvous points or any shit like that. I know that his ass is probably heading to Tennessee, but you already know that much. And there are dozens of roads that cross the Appalachians—and that’s assuming he’s in a vehicle. If he’s on foot… then fuck me,” he muttered. “This is bad.”

Lee gritted his teeth. “There’s gotta be some way we can get it back.”

Tomlin shook his head. “Ain’t gonna fuckin’ happen. We’re not gonna catch Eddie, and chances are that Darabie’s already taken that shit and turned it over to President Briggs, if they didn’t just destroy it outright. And we’re not getting in those bunkers without it, Lee. That’s the whole point of ’em.”

All this time, Lee had thought that somehow, Tomlin would know how to get the GPS back. He wasn’t sure why he’d latched onto that idea, maybe just the stress of his situation. Or maybe it was the destructive reality of the alternative. Maybe it was that he just couldn’t bring himself to accept what amounted to complete and utter failure. Rock bottom. Falling down a cliff with sheer sides—no way to get back up. No way to make up the ground lost.

Permanent.

Irrevocable.

A supreme fuck-up.

Almost every problem a human being encounters throughout his life has a remedy. Perhaps that remedy is unpleasant or perhaps it is difficult. Maybe that problem is not remedied simply because that person sees the remedy as worse than the problem. But there is always the hope. Always the possibility. Always a chance, however slight, to make things right.

But this?

He couldn’t remedy this. He couldn’t work his way around it; he couldn’t overpower it or overcome it. It was a sudden, jolting paradigm shift, a jarring ninety-degree turn in reality that made him question those deep parts of himself that he’d taken for granted for so long. Because if he wasn’t Captain Harden, Coordinator for North Carolina, there to reestablish civilization, then what the hell was he? Just another guy with a gun?

Lee looked around him, saw the faces of the people as they quietly watched this exchange, this quiet crumbling of men and their ideals. The faces of these people who looked at him and Tomlin like they were some sort of saviors. That somehow everything would be okay in the end, just because they were there.

Lee lowered his gaze to the ground. He kept trying to think his way out of it, but all those thoughts just led down dead-end roads. What was left? Not much. Just some desperate people, searching for another day. Trying to get through with their lives and the lives of their loved ones. And Lee was no different from them.

“What are you gonna do?” Lee asked rhetorically.

Tomlin just stood silently.

“Not much you can do,” Lee said, answering his own question. There were other things he could have said in that moment, perhaps something edifying to the others. Perhaps a grand speech about never giving up, never giving in. But it would all be a lie at that moment, because that was not what Lee was feeling. He wasn’t exactly sure what he was feeling. He’d just been given a giant load of Bad Fucking News and he was still picking his way through it, processing it a little bit at a time.

Instead he just looked around with a frown. “I need some food. And my weapons.”

Tomlin eyed him, his jaw muscles bunching. He seemed perplexed. Maybe he felt Lee should react stronger. And maybe Lee should have. Maybe all of that would come later, and Lee even suspected that it would. Nothing this damaging could ever be fully felt so soon after learning about it. The human brain did not like to be shocked, and it would only allow you to process it in small increments. The bigger the shock, the smaller increments it was sliced into.

Finally, Tomlin nodded. “Yeah. I’ll get them for you.”

“Are you going out to Camp Ryder tonight?”

“Yes.”

“I’m going with you.”

Tomlin gave him a sidelong glance. “I think it’d be best if you rested.”

Lee shook his head. “I’ll get a couple more hours in.” He stopped and Tomlin looked at him, saw how dead serious he was about it. Lee took a long, slow breath. “We’ve got nothing else now, Brian. All we’ve got is Camp Ryder. It’s our best chance right now, and I think if we can get it back, we might be okay. And I’m not gonna sleep through that.”

Tomlin nodded once. “Alright then.”

When Tomlin left to get his weapons and some food and water, Jacob stayed there next to Lee and set right back into checking Lee’s wounds, as though there had never been any interruption to his work. Jacob took his pulse, shone lights in his eyes. Took off his bandages, replaced them. Frowned the whole time in general concentration. He sniffed the bandage from Lee’s head and didn’t make too bad of a face, so Lee took some comfort in that—maybe the infection was on the retreat.

“You’re a fucking wreck, Captain,” Jacob said as he pulled a bottle of saline solution out of a little blue satchel at his side. He took a large plastic syringe and drew out a quantity of the saline solution, bending Lee’s head down and beginning to squirt the solution in high-pressure streams along the wound to irrigate it. “You show a magnificent propensity for hurting yourself.”

Lee winced, the irrigation feeling less like gentle saline and more like lemon juice. “Oh, trust me. I try to avoid it.”

“Here.” Jacob handed him a small cloth to dab at the fluid running down his face. He continued on in silence for a moment, then leaned back with a heavy sigh. “No, you don’t. Men like you…” He looked sad. “Men like Captain Mitchell. You just keep pushing until you’re dead.”

It sounded like a simple observation but felt more like an admonition.

Lee said nothing.

Jacob continued irrigating the wound a bit, then inspected it closely. He pulled out some fresh bandages, began wrapping Lee’s head. Lee watched the expressions on Jacob’s face cycle through concentration into sadness, then into something like anger. Like he was stuck in the middle of all three.

“So how’d you get here?” Lee asked carefully. “Why aren’t you at the hospital?”

Jacob faltered, but only for a split second. Almost unnoticeable. “I won’t go into my reasons right now, Captain. Suffice it to say Doc Hamilton was not on our side. I had to deal with him harshly.” He tied the bandage off. “The rest is just… boring science.”

“How did you find Old Man Hughes and Tomlin?”

“Same way you did.” Jacob sniffed. “Had a group come into Smithfield, looking for food and water. I had a disagreement with Doc Hamilton on how to proceed with them. Eventually, the group and I left Smithfield and came to Lillington, looking for Old Man Hughes. Lucky for me, they keep that lookout. So when they saw us show up, they made contact, just like they did with you, and brought us back here. The rest is history.”

Lee folded his hands in his lap. “What about your research? Your… test subject?”

Jacob inspected his work, then began to put things away in the bag. “There will be others. As far as research goes…” He zipped up the bag and stood, something bad crossing over his features, but only briefly. “Something to talk about another time. Right now you need food, water, and sleep. And you need as much of it as you can get.” He held up a gray, foil package with rows and columns of white pills. “And some real antibiotics. Not that fish stuff I found in your pocket. I brought plenty from the hospital.”

Lee accepted the cycle of antibiotics.

“Just follow the dosing instructions on the package. Take them with your food.”

As Jacob packed up, Lee watched a familiar form skirting around the edges of the warehouse. Deuce, moving with a limp, his right front leg splinted and wrapped heavily in bandages. The dog didn’t seem to be aware that he was injured. He just kept moving along the wall, his nose to the ground. He would stop at each of the rolling garage doors, as though inspecting the security.

Jacob followed Lee’s gaze to the dog and smiled. “He’s been doing that pretty much as soon as I got the splint on him—which, by the way, I almost got my finger taken off for. Been making circles around the warehouse ever since. Like he’s on sentry duty.”

Lee thought about who might take care of the dog while he was gone, but he supposed that Deuce was pretty good at taking care of himself. Deuce had survived this long without much help from humans, and he seemed capable of continuing that way. It seemed like Deuce took a bigger risk by being around these people who constantly put him in danger. But he would never complain about it. Because that’s what he was there for. That was his job. He did what was expected of him. And in that, Lee thought that perhaps he and Deuce were very similar.

Tomlin appeared with the M4 Lee had taken from Kev and Lee’s KA-BAR knife, along with a bottle of water and a whole MRE, which was probably more food than Lee could handle. He handed Lee the weapons first. Lee slid the knife back into his sheath, then checked the chamber of the rifle, put it on safe, and laid it next to him on the ground.

Tomlin handed him the food and water and looked like he’d relaxed some. “Eat up. Get some more sleep. I’ll wake you when it’s time to go.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

SENSITIVE ISSUES

ANGELA MET MARIE BY the same fire pit she’d used to cook the rice the night before. About half the camp was awake now, and most would be out and about within the next half hour. The sun was just beginning to get above the trees that surrounded the camp, and their little site remained in frosted shadows.

Sam and Abby came along, as Angela could barely let them out of her sight now. Sam immediately began to work up a morning fire, exposing the embers from the previous night and gathering a little tinder to let it catch. Abby hung about his shoulder like any younger sister would, watching everything he did with curiosity, asking questions the whole time. The two were consumed with their task and left the adults alone.

“I barely slept,” Angela mumbled, rubbing her puffy eyes and wishing for coffee. She looked intensely at Marie. “What happened? I don’t understand the note… I mean… I do understand, but…”

Marie took a good look around her before speaking. “I went up and shone the light, just like we talked about. Didn’t get a response until I was about to head down. I see a light blinking back out in the woods. I sat there watching it for a second and realized it was getting closer to the fence. Then it stopped for a little bit. Then it was right on the fence, shining down on this rock—like the size of a soccer ball.” She rubbed her face. “Then the light went out and I didn’t see it again. I couldn’t tell who was holding it, but I could tell what they were trying to get me to do. So I did it.

“I had to sneak down to the ground level. Took me a while, but when I finally got there I just sat on the other side of the fence, shining my light into the woods, trying to see something. I couldn’t see anything, so I went to the rock. Lifted it, and right there was the note I gave you last night.”

Angela chewed her lip nervously. She felt electric. Terrified, even. “So did you go back at midnight?”

Marie nodded. The dark-haired woman took another look around while she reached into her jacket pocket. A family sauntered past, carrying a water bucket and a pan with what looked like a freshly skinned rabbit on it. They nodded coolly to Angela but showed a little more warmth to Marie, who gave them a smile and a wave and waited for them to walk out of sight again.

When they were gone she pulled another tightly folded piece of paper from her pocket and handed it to Angela. “Don’t read it out here,” she said. “The quick version is that Captain Tomlin needs intel on our situation in here. Who’s with who. What types of weapons do we have. Et cetera.”

Angela nodded rapidly. “Okay. Okay.”

Marie looked at her, very serious. “We’re gonna need to start talking to people, Angela. It’s dangerous, but I feel a little better going at it with Tomlin right across the fence from us.”

“If things go bad, there’s not anything that Tomlin can do about it,” Angela said. “He’s outmanned and outgunned from the outside in. Jerry’s been putting up all these barricades on the fence line…” She shook her head. “We’d need to coordinate something. But it’s gonna be tough without any real-time communications.”

Marie smiled sadly. “Sounds like Captain Harden rubbed off on you.”

Angela dropped her gaze to the ground and she felt Lee’s absence hard in her chest, like being alone and out of your depth. Like trying to be an expert in a subject matter completely foreign to you. Six months ago, she was a housewife and a mother. Now she was trying to lead people into a fight.

Marie saw the look in her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Angela looked up and took a deep breath. “Is there any other way to do this?”

Marie just shook her head slowly.

Angela swallowed all those small, terrified feelings. The world was changing. And she was required to change with it. “People are gonna get hurt, Marie. There’s no way around it. But I think that more people will be hurt if we don’t do anything. I think Jerry will kill us all. I think he’s malicious, but worse, I think he’s naive. And I think the course he has us on will kill us if we don’t stop him now.”

Marie nodded. “I’ll gather the intel and get it to Tomlin. You focus on talking to folks. We need people on our side, Angela, or we might as well just try to find a way to get ourselves out of here.”

“There’re people on our side,” Angela said firmly. “They’re just too scared to speak up.”

“Well, you’re gonna have to give them some courage.”

“I know,” Angela said plainly.

Marie turned. “I’ll get up with you later.” Then she walked away as abruptly as she had the previous night, leaving Angela feeling keyed-up and tense. She still had no idea who Keith had spoken to, and so she didn’t know who might have sold him out to Jerry. Speaking to anyone would be risky. But without them, she had nothing.

At the fire pit, Sam was on all fours, head bent low to the ground, blowing steadily into a bundle of smoking tinder. At the bottom, a dull glow began, brightened as he blew, and then yellow flames leaped up. Sam leaned back on his heels, smiling.

Angela gave him a thumbs-up. “You’re getting good at that, Sam.”

His smile faltered and she knew it was Keith who had taught him.

She knelt down by the fire with Abby and Sam. They prepared their usual breakfast of oatmeal. Even that was running low. Sometimes she’d put raisins in to give it some flavor, but she’d run out a few weeks back. Kept meaning to get more—either by scavenging or trading. She knew that Abby and Sam preferred them, but they never complained if the raisins weren’t there. They rarely complained about anything.

She looked at her daughter, her girl, crouched down next to a fire and satisfied simply to be warm after a cold night. It filled her heart up and shattered it all at once to see her so happy with something so simple. She wanted to give her more, but there was nothing else to give. Food and warmth were all she had to offer her own daughter.

“Guys,” Angela said, mixing the dry oats in with a bit of water before she put the pot on the fire. “I’m gonna let Ms. Jenny watch you guys after we’re done with breakfast, okay? Just for a little bit.”

Abby smiled knowingly. “Ms. Jenny’s got a boyfriend.”

Angela glanced at her. “Why do you say that?”

“There’s a man in her house at night.”

“Oh?” Angela rolled her eyes. “Well, Jenny is a big girl, and that’s none of your business.”

Sam glanced up at Angela. “Why is Ms. Jenny watching us?”

Angela slid the pot close to the fire. “I’ve got to talk to some people.”

Sam nodded soberly, as though he knew exactly what she was talking about.

Jenny stared at Angela for a long moment, then bent slowly to tie the laces of her shoes. Most everybody had found the value in a good pair of boots. But Jenny insisted on wearing sneakers. A dirty old pair of white Reeboks. She sat now on a camping chair that was the only seat in her shack, set beside the pile of blankets that served as her bed. Angela stood awkwardly by the door, Sam and Abby beside her, and she watched her friend knot, then double-knot the laces, then stand up.

“Angela.” Jenny’s voice bore some edge. “What are you doing?”

“This has to happen,” Angela said resolutely. “There’s no way around it.”

Jenny grimaced and looked away.

“Lee was building something here—”

“Lee’s dead,” Jenny said suddenly.

Angela’s head pulled back like she’d been stabbed. “I…”

“He’s dead and so is Bus, Angela. We haven’t heard back from Harper or LaRouche—and Jerry told us he’s tried to contact them—so God knows what happened to them.” Tears came up in her eyes. “Look, I liked the old times too. But that’s what they are. Old times. They’ve come and gone. We have to make new friends now. We have to accept certain losses.”

Angela gaped. She thrust a finger out in a random direction, as though her woes were some omnipresent force. “What’s going on out there is unacceptable, and you should realize that. I can’t believe these words are coming out of your mouth! I can’t believe you’d just write everything off, just like that!” Angela blinked rapidly. “And you don’t know that Lee is dead, Jenny. And he hasn’t abandoned us either. Until I see a goddamned body, I won’t believe any of that shit that Jerry’s trying to sell. And neither should you!”

“I’m not…” Jenny hung her head. “I’m not siding with Jerry. You should know that I’m on your side. I just get tired of fighting these things, Angela. I just want to stop worrying about it. Let someone else take charge.”

“I’m taking charge,” Angela said. “And if you don’t want to be a part of what I’m doing, then that’s fine. All I’m asking you to do right now is watch the kids for a little bit. If you don’t want me to tell you why or give you any other information, then that’s fine. You’re just doing me a favor. And don’t say another word about it.”

Jenny sniffed. “Okay.”

“So can you watch Sam and Abby?”

Jenny rolled her eyes. “Of course I can. I wasn’t saying I wouldn’t. I just… I worry about you.”

Angela shook her head. “Don’t worry about me. Worry about them. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“I won’t take long. Just a couple of hours.”

Jenny nodded. “I’ll either be here or in the medical trailer.”

Angela hugged the other woman tightly and then she departed, kissing Abby and squeezing Sam’s shoulder before ducking out of the shanty and into the bright, cold morning sunshine. She looked left and right and started down toward the shanties that were nearest the fence line. She knew exactly where her first stop would be.

She found Katie Malone stepping out of her shanty, bundled up in a hooded sweatshirt with the hood pulled up over her head and a thick coat over that. She clutched a small pot in her hands and nearly dropped it when she turned and saw Angela.

“Jesus!” she gasped.

“Sorry,” Angela said, touching the other woman’s arm. “Didn’t mean to surprise you. How are you?”

Katie nodded, brushed some hair back. She looked beleaguered. Her eyes were clear and dry, but she had the worn-out look of someone who didn’t get much sleep. She looked around as though searching for an appropriate answer, the expression of someone who has a lot of things to say but all of them too personal and inappropriate to be shared between simple acquaintances. Finally she just gave the obligatory “Fine. Thanks.”

Angela motioned toward the flap that Katie had just closed. “I’m sorry to interrupt your breakfast. But can we talk?”

Katie seemed to consider it. She looked at her pot, the contents of which Angela couldn’t determine. Then she looked around. “Okay. We can talk.”

The two of them ducked back into the shanty and Katie stood stiffly in the center and set the pot down on the ground. Angela stood with her back to the door. Katie looked her up and down, not in an unfriendly way, but sizing her up as though she hoped to predetermine what Angela had come to say.

Angela sighed. She’d known she would come to Katie first, but she hadn’t really planned out what to say or how to broach such a sensitive conversation. As much as she thought she could trust Katie, there really was no basis for that opinion outside of the fact that she was Nate Malone’s wife, and Nate had been a staunch supporter of Lee and Bus.

“It’s no secret that I don’t see eye to eye with Jerry,” Angela said simply. “That’s putting it a little lightly, but there it is. Our conversation can end right now if you’re not comfortable talking about it.”

Katie crossed her arms. Raised her chin slightly. “Go on.”

Angela clasped her hands together. “How do you feel about Jerry?”

Katie’s jaw worked. “Angela… it’s not a secret whose wife I am. And it’s not a secret how Nate felt about Jerry. And now Nate’s gone, and Jerry is trying to tell me that he’s tried to make contact and that Lee and Harper and LaRouche have all abandoned us here.” Her eyes became very intense. “That’s fucking horseshit and you and I both know it. You and I both know that Jerry hasn’t done anything with that radio, and he probably deactivated it. Because that’s the type of idiot he is. And if that motherfucker ever comes near me and tries to say one goddamned word, I swear I’ll knock his teeth down his throat.”

Angela nodded firmly. “Well, we need to talk.”

LaRouche and Wilson didn’t have time to teach the survivors from Parker’s Place how to use the rifles. Some of them were already familiar with the AR platform and others had prior military service and were at least nominally informed about how to take it down and put it back together. From the group of nearly forty people, ten received rifles and two hundred rounds apiece.

Jim wanted to give them more, such as food and medical items, but that extended LaRouche’s generosity far past its breaking point. Or perhaps he simply rejected the idea because it came from Jim, and lately LaRouche found himself tuning the man out, immediately categorizing everything the man said as bullshit.

LaRouche took solace in the fact that in this particular situation, Wilson appeared to side with him. As Machiavellian as it seemed, Wilson agreed that the survivors from Parker’s Place were only valuable as a buffer between them and the Followers. Giving them the weapons was a strategic decision, not a humanitarian effort. Jim didn’t like it, but he shrugged it off and LaRouche was grateful for that. He had enough on his plate without worrying about butting heads with the ex-priest every damn step of the way.

LaRouche stayed away from the entire transaction and the farewells and the thanks. All of these people—Parker’s Place and LaRouche’s group alike—acting like they were lifelong friends. As though the simple fact that they were both alive somehow gave them all the common ground necessary to develop a lasting friendship.

LaRouche didn’t want a friendship with any of them. They were walking dead men. Just a matter of time before the Followers wiped them out.

Strange how even the definition of friendship had changed. A friend was no longer someone you liked or got along with. A friend was someone you believed would still be breathing in another month. No use wasting all that effort. No use exposing yourself to more heartache than you already had to deal with.

Maybe he had grown hard-hearted. Or maybe he took things harder than everybody else. Maybe he tended to internalize things more. Case in point, he didn’t see anybody else developing bleeding stomach ulcers. Sometimes he felt like he was tapped into deeper, swifter currents, while everyone else splashed around in the shallow waters and looked at him and wondered why he wouldn’t lift his feet off the ground.

Because he knew he’d be swept away.

Only way to stay present was to stay rooted.

Stay focused.

Their mission was to blow bridges, not make friends. When and if Captain Harden ever showed up, then he could decide whether or not to make nice with the folks from Parker’s Place. But as of right now, they were headed north to the Roanoke River to blow their first bridge, where Highway 45 crossed the river. If all went well, they would reach it before nightfall. If they made good time, perhaps they could get started setting charges before dark. Either way, the bridge would be rubble by tomorrow afternoon.

LaRouche ruminated on these things while he stood at the right side of his Humvee, leaning his back against the passenger’s side door and itching for some Red Man. He reached into his pocket and took out the pouch, the desire for a little buzz winning out.

“How you feelin’ this morning?”

LaRouche glanced up. Found Wilson standing there. “Fine,” he said, and tucked a wad of tobacco into his cheek, brushed his fingers off on his vest.

“No aches?” Wilson’s eyebrow went up, prodding. “No fever? No chills?”

LaRouche shook his head. “Nope. Seems I’m in the clear.”

Wilson shrugged. “Well… I’m glad.”

LaRouche snorted. “Go ahead and say it.”

“What?” Wilson laughed. “Say what?”

“You were right. Can’t contract it like that.”

Wilson held up a staying hand. “Now hold on. I never said you couldn’t contract it like that. I’m sure if you get enough infected blood in your mouth, you can get the plague. But based on what the guy from Virginia said, that’s the least likely method of infection.” Wilson clapped a hand on LaRouche’s shoulder. “But you never know. I’m glad you’re in the clear. And some people might say that you overreacted, but I’d like to see how they’d act if they got infected blood in their mouth.”

LaRouche smiled, a rare expression. “Thanks, buddy.”

Wilson looked behind him at the column of vehicles. They were all sitting at idle. The faces of LaRouche’s crew could be seen behind the obscuring reflections of the windshields. Off to the side, the people of Parker’s Place stood around and watched. The new owners of the rifles stood up front, weapons held across their chests proudly. Father Jim was the last to leave, still shaking hands with people.

“Think everyone’s ready.” Wilson hefted his rifle and shifted under the weight of his rig.

LaRouche opened his door and slid in. Joel was already up in the turret, and as Wilson crossed in front of the Humvee to take the driver’s seat, the door behind LaRouche opened up and Father Jim climbed in with a grunt and a groan.

LaRouche cleared his throat. “Y’all good back there?”

Joel mumbled something unintelligible from up top.

Father Jim reached through the narrow spot between LaRouche’s seat and the side of the Humvee and gave LaRouche a friendly squeeze of the shoulder. It took LaRouche by surprise a bit, forced down some of the latent hostility he’d been feeling toward the other man.

“Good to go,” Jim said. “Let’s get on with this.”

LaRouche watched the people from Parker’s Place shrink in the side-view mirror as they rolled out in a wide circle and retreated down the narrow dirt road they’d come from. Just before rounding a bend toward the main road, he could see the father and the little girl—Jackson and Tessa—standing there watching them leave. The little girl in her dirty old dress. A man-size coat draped over her shoulders like a blanket. One skinny stick of an arm raised up and waving to them.

LaRouche didn’t wave back. He faced forward. Let a slow breath out of his nose and hugged his rifle closer to him. “Bullshit,” he mumbled, inaudible to anyone else in the rumbling vehicle as they jostled over the potholed road, most of the gravel worn away and now just dirt and mud.

They exited onto paved road. Rolling pasture and cropland stretched out to either side, lines of trees delineating one property from another, the stands looking like short hedgerows in the distance. A defunct tractor standing in the middle of a half-harvested field of hay, the giant rolled bales at intervals behind it, marking its progress. The hay turned from golden to a grayish brown, the perfect circular form rotted and drooping, like it was in the process of melting into the earth.

They approached a junction marked 64.

“Make a right,” LaRouche said.

Wilson made the right without stopping, and the rest of the convoy followed.

“Gonna stay on this for a while.” LaRouche shifted in his seat as though preparing for a long journey. “It’s rural most of the way, so we shouldn’t hit too many snags.”

The scenery didn’t change.

A few vehicles on the road, but most of them were far enough toward the shoulder and sparse enough that they were able to dodge around them and didn’t have to stop to push cars out of the way. With a sigh, LaRouche dropped his window, feeling the cold immediately, as it sucked the body heat off of him. He rested the muzzle of his rifle in the open window and stared out. Behind him, he could hear Jim’s window drop as he followed suit.

LaRouche watched the world fly by past the muzzle of his rifle, a familiar view. A monotonous view. Melancholy in its compulsiveness. Obsessive caution that forced you to point a weapon at the world when the softer part of you only wanted to look at it and for once simply appreciate the sunrise lighting up the countryside or the low fog that clung to where the trees met the fields. But instead you only scanned, scanned, scanned for threats.

He stared at three figures that stood in the middle of a field. Human. Not sane, he didn’t think. They huddled over something that had fallen in the field, bending over it and feeding, then standing up as the sound of the convoy reached them. The three figures turned toward the road and followed them with the same blank sense of curiosity that any predatory animal gives a human in a vehicle. LaRouche stared back at them with an empty sense of apprehension, knowing that even if they ran after them, they would never reach them. Just before they passed out of sight, one of them bent back down to its meal.

LaRouche eyed the rising sun, giving a yellowed, aged look to everything. Late to bed? He wondered about the infected out in the field. Or “hunters” like we saw in Sanford?

The convoy trundled on. The gentle rocking motion, the rumble of the vehicles moving at a steady thirty-five to forty miles per hour, made his eyes droop with all the sleep that his spring-loaded mind had kept away the night before. He drifted off, snapped awake, back and forth like that for a while, unsure how much time passed because one mile of eastern Carolina farmland looked exactly like the next.

It was the braking that jerked him awake again. The vehicle coming to a stop and LaRouche’s head tipping forward, almost smacking into the buttstock of his rifle before he snapped alert again. The simple motion of the vehicle slowing set his heart racing on ahead.

“What happened?” he mumbled, sucking in a bit of drool that threatened to spill over his lip.

Wilson sat erect in his seat, neck craned out, eyes narrowed. “Straight ahead.” He pointed.

LaRouche saw it, maybe a few hundred yards ahead of them. They came out of a turn through some forested area, and this was the first straightaway. There ahead of them were two abandoned cars pushed together, their noses touching at the centerline, bodies angled so they formed an arrow pointing at LaRouche.

“You got it, Joel?” LaRouche yelled up.

“Yeah, I got it.” Joel’s boots fidgeted nervously on the radio.

Jim was between Joel’s legs and LaRouche, thrusting out a finger. “You see that? You see that guy right there?”

LaRouche squinted, saw a form walking upright between the cars.

Staggering, actually.

A man. Shirtless. His chest a bloody mess.

Infected, LaRouche thought instantly.

But the man looked like he was bound at the wrists, his hands secured behind his back.

“Holy shit.” Wilson’s face drooped. Some mix of astonishment and dismay. “Is that Nick?”

TWENTY-NINE

ONE SHOT

NO.

LaRouche immediately rejected it. Nick had gone back to Camp Ryder. Nick had gone back to be with his family. To make sure they were safe. To make sure it wasn’t just radio problems that kept them from making contact. Nick had left days ago. There was no way he could be here now.

He thought it, but he didn’t truly believe it.

He believed his eyes, which clearly saw the man. Knew him less from his face, which distance and blood obscured, than from the lankiness of his form, the way his shoulders sat high, like he held them in a permanent shrug.

Nick, you stupid sonofabitch…

“Cover me,” LaRouche spat out.

Wilson growled something but didn’t protest—knew better than to argue with LaRouche on things like this—and the other man was already out the door. Instead he turned to the backseat and looked at Father Jim. “Fuckin’ go with him!”

Jim shoved his way out, clenching his teeth together.

In the turret, Joel’s legs danced about. “Who is it? Did you say it was Nick?”

In the street, LaRouche had his rifle up. He sighted in on Nick as the two men approached each other, Nick moving with the look of someone half dead, bleeding from his head and chest, his eyes blank with pain and exhaustion, his mouth hanging open like a dead fish. LaRouche kept moving, slow and controlled, heel-to-toe, his rifle first on Nick, but then scanning, scanning to either side, scanning into the woods and behind the two cars that blocked the roadway ahead.

Somebody’s out there, he knew.

“Nick,” LaRouche called out as they drew within twenty yards or so of each other. “Stop right there! Stop where you are!”

Nick didn’t stop coming. He opened his mouth and a pitiful sound came out of him. “Sarge…”

“Fuckin’ stop!” LaRouche bellowed, putting his rifle back on the man. “Stop walking!”

Nick seemed to register the word, and his feet stuttered to a stop. His whole form drooped.

LaRouche didn’t know why, but he thought, He’s a suicide bomber. He’s gonna blow up the convoy. He could clearly see the man wasn’t strapped—at least not in the front. But he couldn’t see his hands. Couldn’t see whether they held a grenade or some other explosive device. He really had no justification for this feeling, didn’t know who would have captured Nick and put a bomb on him in the first place.

The Followers?

“Please,” Nick croaked.

“Don’t come any closer!” LaRouche shouted. “Turn around and face away from me!”

“Please…”

“Fuckin’ do it or I’ll shoot you right now!”

“Sarge…” A warning tone from Jim.

LaRouche turned his head to the right to project his words at Jim, but he kept his eyes on Nick. “Shut the fuck up, Jim! Either help me out or get the fuck back in the truck!” He re-faced Nick. “I said. Turn. The fuck. Around!”

Nick’s head lolled. He turned lazily back the way he had come. LaRouche squinted to see over his rifle’s sight post, could see Nick’s hands tied up with some sort of brown rope. The fingers and palms were nearly purple from loss of blood flow.

LaRouche moved forward again, closing the twenty yards at a steady pace, lowering his rifle just slightly as he came within arm’s reach of the man. “Turn around,” he commanded.

Nick turned. His face was a bloody mess of abrasions and purple-and-yellow bruising. Brown flecks of dried blood still clung to his upper lip and cheek, and crusted the insides of his nostrils. His right eye was swollen shut, the skin stretched tight. But it was not his battered face that made LaRouche’s jaw drop, his heart plummet. It was Nick’s chest.

“Oh, God…” Jim muttered.

Words. Words had been carved into Nick’s chest, the red meat almost invisible behind the red blood that still poured out of the wounds and slaked his abdomen. But here, up close and personal, where you could see the texture and the glistening, twitching muscle fibers, the writing was clear.

GO BACK OR DIE

LaRouche looked up, stared into Nick’s one good eye.

Nothing there but defeat.

Nick closed his eyes, as though he didn’t want LaRouche to see what was there. “Please… you should go back.”

“What?” LaRouche had nothing else to say.

Nick’s voice rose a bit. “You should go back and tell the others! Tell them not to…”

Nick’s chest burst.

A thunderous rifle report.

Nick’s eyes rolled up, and his body pitched forward.

Brutal pain exploded through LaRouche’s left arm. He twitched backward, dodging Nick’s falling body as it landed face-first in front of him. Tried to bring his rifle up, but his arm wouldn’t cooperate. Jim yelled, reaching down for Nick, getting on his knees and trying to plug the hole in the man’s chest that spewed out onto the concrete.

LaRouche looked at his arm, half expecting it to be hanging by a thread of skin or gristle, but there was only a dark hole in his jacket, just above his elbow, the fabric clinging to his arm and blooming with a glistening blackness. In one movement he let his rifle drop to his chest and swept up his pistol as he backpedaled, instinctively cradling his injured arm to his chest.

“Jim! Let’s fucking go!”

Jim looked back at him, then turned and faced the far wood line, where the shot had come from. He looped an arm through Nick’s bound hands, turning them into a yoke for dragging, and began to try to pull the man behind him. He looked up at LaRouche, as though asking for help.

LaRouche took one glance at Nick. Head hanging, tongue bulging out. Blood pouring from his mouth and from the wound in his chest. Enough blood that it streamed in rivulets toward the shoulder of the road. Too much blood.

“He’s fucking dead!” LaRouche screamed at Jim. “Leave him!”

Then he summoned every ounce of self-control, forcing himself not to turn and run despite every instinct to do so. Because no matter how much Jim had begun to grate on him, no matter how much Jim tried to drag that dead body and looked at LaRouche like he was wrong for leaving it behind, no matter how much that made him want to throttle the ex-priest, he wasn’t going to turn and run and leave Jim on the road by himself.

So, with his one good arm, he raised the pistol toward the woods, thinking, Whole hell of a lotta fuckin’ good a 9mm is gonna do me, and he spread his feet across the double-yellow, hoping to God that Jim got the picture before another shot punched LaRouche’s heart right out of his chest.

Jim looked at LaRouche for a second more.

A second that felt much, much longer.

Then he finally did get the picture.

He released his grip on Nick’s already dead body and began sprinting for the vehicles. LaRouche held his ground, held it with a clenched jaw and a tensed body, almost closed his eyes, just anticipating that next shot that would take him out. Jim ran past him, slapped him on the shoulder like it was a relay race, and LaRouche broke for the vehicles, two steps behind.

The vehicles were already in the process of turning around. LaRouche’s Humvee still sat stolidly in the road, Joel atop the turret with eyes gone wide. LaRouche exploded at him as he ran, waving his good arm manically behind them.

“Fucking cover, Joel! Fucking cover!” he yelled. “Light that motherfucker up!”

Joel started to protest, and LaRouche was just sure he was going to say some asinine thing like, I don’t know where he is, but instead he snapped his mouth shut and opened up with the M2. Because it didn’t matter where the shooter was. It mattered that they put some fucking rounds downrange.

They flew into the vehicle and Wilson already had it rolling before LaRouche’s boots left the ground. The rest of the convoy spun their tires on the gravel shoulder, kicking up dust and bits of rock that pelted the windshield as they clambered to get back on the concrete and get out of there as quickly as possible.

LaRouche breathed heavily, angrily. The air felt hot. Musty. Like there wasn’t enough oxygen in it. He pressed himself out the window, looking behind them at the improvised roadblock as it passed out of sight. He’d never seen the shooter. Could have been behind one of the cars. Could have been in the woods.

He tried to situate himself on his seat, relied too heavily on his left arm, and cried out. He looked down at his jacket as Jim came through the center and Wilson took his eyes off the road for a moment to stare, frightened, at the blood that had now soaked LaRouche’s entire sleeve.

“Oh my God!”

“You’re hit!”

LaRouche growled unpleasantly at them and touched the back of his arm, felt the raw exit wound there, fire at the touch of his fingertips. He winced. “It’s fuckin’ fine. Through and through. Just need a… need a fuckin’ tourniquet or somethin’.”

One shot.

Only one.

GO BACK OR DIE

“Fuck!” LaRouche yelled at the windshield. “Motherfucker! Turn this shit around, Wilson!”

The man behind the wheel looked at him like he was insane.

LaRouche closed his eyes, trying to level himself off. “They weren’t shooting at us. They were shooting at Nick. I was just in the fuckin’ way. Now turn this shit around and let’s take it to that motherfucker!”

Wilson didn’t directly disobey, but he tiptoed around it. “Fine. Can we park and patch your arm up first? Or do you just want to bleed out?”

“This ain’t gonna bleed me out,” LaRouche muttered without conviction.

Wilson was already stopping on the shoulder. They were around the bend and maybe a half mile down the road—out of sight and hopefully out of range. He snatched up the radio as he pulled the truck out of gear and engaged the emergency brake. “Everyone hold up here. Hold up here.”

Brake lights winked on.

LaRouche watched them. Strange that they hadn’t thought to shut those off. Always being in the lead Humvee, he hadn’t really noticed or thought about it. Wilson was talking, so he turned his face that way.

“What do you need me to do?” Wilson asked.

LaRouche’s prior service had sent him through the Combat Lifesaver Course—just the basics of wound treatment for when there was no medic nearby. But the knowledge he did have made him the most medically qualified person in the group, so he had to fix himself. Or direct the others.

LaRouche tossed his head back. “Get my pack.” Then he started shucking off gear.

Wilson slid out of his seat and ran to the back.

Jim was there. “What do you need? How can I help?”

LaRouche gave him a sidelong glance as he spilled his chest rig onto the floor between his feet and started stripping off the jacket and his microfleece. “Just find me something… like a pen or a pencil… or a hard stick.”

Jim was out the door, almost immediately rummaging through the wood line in search of the requested item.

LaRouche got off his top layer of clothes—just a bloody old T-shirt that stank of old sweat and fresh body odor. He could see the wound clearly now. A nice, swollen hole that poked up out of his flesh and spewed red like a little science-fair volcano. Right in the center of his bicep. The exit was a little more ragged. He clenched his jaw and winced, trying to straighten his arm so he could see the back of it, along his triceps—every movement became excruciating. A wider hole, but not by much. Bits of deep-red muscle tissue protruded.

“Oh, this is gonna suck,” LaRouche muttered to himself. “This is gonna fuckin’ suck.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Joel ducking his pale head down out of the turret and watching with a pinched expression of discomfort and sympathy.

LaRouche took a couple quick breaths to steel himself and then forced his arm to work back and forth. It obeyed, stiffly and painfully. But it did. That was good. That meant the bullet hadn’t broken his bone, just passed through flesh. Flesh could be fixed easily. Couple stitches. Couple bandages. Some wound irrigation and a little bit of antibiotics. He’d be okay.

Hopefully gangrene wouldn’t set in.

Hopefully there wasn’t any permanent nerve damage.

Hopefully his limb would continue to be usable.

He felt sick.

Wilson appeared in the doorway of the Humvee with LaRouche’s pack. By then, a few people had exited their vehicles and crowded the front of the Humvee, curious. LaRouche didn’t yell at them, but he stared at them like they were idiots, hoping it would be enough to get them to go away.

“What do you need outta the pack?” Wilson asked.

LaRouche looked at the wound again. Stitches and irrigation and all that bullshit would have to wait for later. He needed a quick fix now. “Middle section,” he instructed. “Grab me four of those rolled bandages and unwrap one of ’em.”

Wilson ripped open the middle section, started yanking out little clear packages containing white rolls of bandage. “These right here?”

“Yeah…”

Jim opened the passenger door, held up a stick thin enough to be used but about two feet too long. “Is this good?”

LaRouche choked on a crazy, frustrated laugh. “Break it down for me, buddy. Need it to be, like, four inches.”

“Oh.” Jim swiftly snapped the stick into a smaller section.

Wilson held out the unwrapped bandage. “What now?”

“Here.” LaRouche grabbed it, put one end in his teeth, let it unroll, then started wrapping it tightly around his arm, a few inches above the wound. He let the end of the bandage fall out of his mouth. “Alright, help me tie this shit.”

A simple double knot, fumbled through with too many fingers involved.

“Stick.” LaRouche held out his hand, and Jim placed it in his palm. He slipped it under the bandage, then used it as a lever to tighten the cloth band around his arm until he could feel it constricting his blood flow. Just two rotations, and then he stuck the tip of the stick through the double knot to hold it tight.

“Alright.” He pointed to the three unwrapped bandages. “Two of those.”

As he waited, he watched the blood flow begin to stanch. Slowing to just a slight welling and then trickling over, the drops all following the same path down to the point of his elbow, and then dripping off onto the radio console.

Wilson held up the two bandage rolls.

“Keep ’em rolled up like that.” LaRouche pointed to the entry and exit wounds. “Put one on each hole and hold ’em tight.” Then he pushed his head back against the seat and gritted his teeth because he knew how this was going to feel. And it did. Felt every bit as bad as he’d thought it would.

Deep breath.

“Okay,” LaRouche said shakily. He grabbed the last bandage and began wrapping it around the other two to hold them in place. Tight enough that it was almost painful. He tied it off, then started pulling his bloody clothes back on. “Alright, I’m good.”

Wilson and Jim looked at each other.

“Sarge.” Wilson glanced out the windshield at the onlookers, beginning to talk among themselves in concerned tones. “They captured Nick. And I think they tortured him. We need to assume that they know exactly where we’re going, what our numbers are, and what our firepower is.”

LaRouche bit his lower lip. “You think we should go back?”

Wilson shrugged. “I think we should take a minute and think.”

LaRouche buttoned his jacket and pulled the chest rig back over his shoulders, moving a little gingerly. “Yeah, we’re always taking a minute to fucking think. Always standing around discussing shit in a committee. And we’ve managed to take four days to cover miles we could have covered in two.”

“Because we’re being cautious.”

“Yeah.” LaRouche sounded like he hadn’t heard him. He pulled the map out of his pocket and looked at it. He’d folded it earlier so that he didn’t have to lay out the entire thing to see where they were at. He pointed to a position on the map. “We’re here, about three miles out from the bridge. I think it’s a safe assumption that it’s the Followers we’re dealing with here. And for the record, Wilson, I think you’re right. I know you’re right. At least about what happened to Nick.”

LaRouche looked up at Wilson to his left and Jim to his right. His two advisors. Also, the two guys who seemed constantly at odds with him. “One shot, guys. One fucking shot, when they had all of us dead to rights. You know what that means?”

Blank stares.

“It means there was one motherfucker out there with a rifle. And his job wasn’t to ambush us. His job was to kill Nick. After he’d delivered his message. Telling us to ‘go back or die.’ ” He put the map away. “You don’t make fucking threats like that if you have a superior fighting position. If they were confident they could take us out, they would have just ambushed us and been done with it.”

“You don’t know that,” Wilson said heavily.

“No, I don’t. As of right now, none of us knows anything. We don’t even know if it was the Followers who did it, but we can make a reasonable fucking assumption, can’t we? And I’m reasonably assuming that if you have a superior force, you plan an ambush and you take out the target. You don’t prewarn the target that you might be waiting for them.”

Wilson’s jaw worked, but he didn’t respond.

Jim looked lost, out of his depth.

“We’re gonna go back,” LaRouche said with finality. “We’re gonna punch out ahead of the convoy, recon the bridge, and see what’s waiting for us. We’re gonna roll fast and make hard targets of ourselves. If we make contact, we’re gonna throw a monumental fucking amount of lead at them while you turn this shit around and boogie back. Then we’ll regroup and figure out how we’re gonna take that bridge.” LaRouche snatched his rifle up off the ground. “But I ain’t pussyfootin’ around this shit anymore. They want a fuckin’ fight, they got one.”

Wilson made a harsh noise through his teeth. “A’ight. Let’s do it, then.”

LaRouche slid out of his seat so he could speak to the people standing around the Humvee. He held up a single finger. “I need one person to ride back left in my truck. We’re gonna go ahead and scout the bridge. Probably gonna take some fire.”

Two of the guys stepped forward quickly, but one didn’t wait for the other to yield the way. He had a look in his eyes that said he wanted to hurt something and he didn’t wait for LaRouche’s approval, just grabbed the door behind Wilson’s driver’s seat and yanked it open. It was Dorian. A middle-aged guy with nearly black hair that shot out messily in all directions. He had dark eyes and dark skin, looked vaguely of Mediterranean descent. He sat down in the seat and met LaRouche’s gaze.

LaRouche knew everyone in his crew by their first names but he really only dealt closely with Wilson and Jim. He did observe things, however, and he knew that Dorian had been close to Nick, even before they left Camp Ryder. Dorian also had a wife that he’d left back there, and the two families were often seen eating and working together.

Dorian didn’t explain himself, and he didn’t need to.

LaRouche nodded once. “Alright, then.”

Wilson shut his door with a slam. Windows dropped. Rifle barrels protruded. Joel’s feet kept fidgeting all over the radio console, the dirt from his boots mixing with LaRouche’s blood into a black paste. The Humvee cut a wide U-turn and faced back toward the bridge and started rolling at a steady forty-five miles per hour.

“We’re only a few miles out,” LaRouche yelled above the window. “Don’t hold back on that trigger. You see anything that doesn’t have its hands in the air, you blow its fuckin’ brains out. We make contact, don’t stop firing until we’re out of sight.”

“Roger.”

“Got it.”

“Yup.”

They trundled onto the shoulder and around the two cars parked in the middle of the road, all eyes fixated on the woods, looking for that muzzle flash, but none came. Wilson took the truck back up to speed and before LaRouche really had time to think about it, really had time to consider what he was doing, what he was getting himself and his guys into, they made the left-hand turn onto Highway 45, onto the long, straight mile of road between them and the Roanoke River.

THIRTY

CONSEQUENCES

A FEW OLD HOUSES. Field fencing. Mostly woods, trampled through by pasturing cows that had long since wandered off or died or been eaten by the infected. LaRouche watched them slip by, wanted to reach out and grab these things. He couldn’t explain the feeling. Only that he wanted to be able to stop what he was doing. Walk in the trees. Dodge fresh manure from well-fed livestock. No fear of infected. No fear of nearby enemies.

A smattering of buildings up ahead. An intersection with stoplights drooping dark and tired on the wires. Most of the buildings were indistinguishable, except for a small trailer park to the left, all the mobile homes still standing oddly pristine.

LaRouche narrowed his world down. No big picture. No thoughts of his family or how things had been before. No thoughts of dreams lost and unattainable. Just here. Just now. The present. His job.

He blew out slowly and when he opened his eyes, they were passing over a bridge. He caught the green sign at the edge of the abutment just before they rode out over the water. A smallish tributary.

“Is this it?” Jim asked warily.

LaRouche shook his head. “No. Roanoke River is straight ahead.”

An auto salvage lot with rusted cars on their right.

What had to be the tiniest airfield he’d ever seen on the left.

A few sandy-looking driveways that led off to God knew where.

Up ahead, the road curved left just slightly.

“Alright.” LaRouche hugged his weapon tighter. “This is it. Be ready.”

They went into the curve, everyone leaning to the outside, holding their breath and waiting for what was on the other side. The road straightened. Sunlight flashed across two windshields—then a third. Three vehicles facing them at the foot of the bridge. Behind them, the bridge rose over the Roanoke River in a pale hump. Dark figures scrambling behind the vehicles, standing behind doors, pointing things at them.

“Hit ’em, Joel!” LaRouche shouted.

The Humvee rattled, the M2 jackhammering away over their heads, and LaRouche could see the bright streaks of the tracers rocketing away from them and seeming to slow to a glide the farther away they got. The first few went low, sending up clouds of concrete, but Joel righted his aim and the next grouping punched holes across the center vehicle in the barricade. The figures using it for cover dove out of the way. One of them seemed to break apart as he leaped.

LaRouche brought his rifle up, started firing to the left side of the column, trying to aim as best he could, but more concerned with laying down fire.

“Turn it around!” LaRouche yelled over the fusillade.

Wilson didn’t hesitate. He yanked the steering wheel to the left.

The barricade rippled with muzzle flashes. Bullets meant for them.

The windshield spiderwebbed, then shattered. Someone cried out and the M2 suddenly stopped firing.

LaRouche spun into the backseat, about to ask who was hit, but a squirt of blood struck him in the face, followed by another almost immediately after. LaRouche reared back, saw Joel’s leg with the hole directly in the center of it, the pants leg soaking through with amazing speed and the arterial force of the blood shooting out in high-pressure spurts.

Joel screamed, thrashed. “Oh my God oh my God oh my God…”

LaRouche put a hand in front of his face to block the spray and then jammed it out so that his palm was pressed to Joel’s leg and he could feel the hot liquid pulsing against his own skin. “Somebody plug that shit up!” he yelled, as Jim began pulling Joel out of the turret.

Dorian’s face was like cut steel. He glanced at Joel’s leg like it was a minor annoyance, and then climbed over the man’s body to take the turret. LaRouche watched Dorian grab the gun and rip it with surprising speed into a rear-facing position, opening up on the barricaded position as they fled. And he didn’t know whether Dorian’s reaction to Joel’s wound impressed him or concerned him.

Like all that mattered in the world was the chance to put a bullet in one more of those fuckers.

“What’s going on back there?” Wilson said, his voice up an octave with stress.

“Joel got hit!” LaRouche said, pressing both hands down into the leg and still not cutting off the flow. Red spurted up between his fingers as the movement of the vehicle slipped him around. And Joel wouldn’t fucking hold still. LaRouche looked at Jim, who was trying to contort his body in the narrow backseat area to provide room for Joel to raise his leg.

“It’s the femoral,” LaRouche said, like it was a death sentence. “Caught his fuckin’ femoral.”

“My what?” Joel said, his words flattened out by the grimace on his face, strained and strangled by pain. “Is my dick still there? They didn’t shoot my dick off?”

LaRouche hitched his knees up onto his seat so he could apply more downward pressure. “Your dick’s fine, bro.”

Joel craned his neck and Jim failed to stop him from looking. His pale blue eyes stretched impossibly wide. “Lemme see… lemme see… HOLY SHIT! Oh my God, Sarge, that’s too much blood. That’s too much! I lost too much!”

“Shut the fuck up!” LaRouche yelled. “You ain’t a motherfuckin’ doctor!”

Joel gritted his teeth, screamed through them.

LaRouche looked at Jim. “Lemme have your belt.” Back to Joel. “Is Jim praying right now?”

Joel looked confused. “No,” he whimpered.

“Is he giving you last rites?”

“No!”

“Then you’re not dying! You got that? Don’t you fucking puss out on me right now!” LaRouche looked back over his shoulder and through the windshield. They were just coming out of that curve. The initial blast of adrenaline wasn’t strong enough anymore to keep his wounded arm from spiking, sapping his strength and preventing him from pressing down hard enough on the hole in Joel’s leg. “Wilson, stop here.”

The M2 fell silent as the barricade passed out of sight behind the curve.

Wilson looked around, seemed on the verge of questioning it, but then slammed on the brakes. “Why are we stopping?” he said before they’d even halted. “Why are we fucking stopping?”

“I can’t push with my arm.” LaRouche motioned with his head. “Put pressure right where my hands are until Jim gets that tourniquet nice and tight. We’re gonna switch places.”

“Aw, fuck…” Wilson squirmed out of his seat, reached through, and took over for LaRouche.

Jim wrestled his own belt from around his waist, already knew what to do with it. He leaned over all the arms and legs in his way and wrapped it around Joel’s thigh, above the wound, almost at his crotch, and tightened the belt as tight as it would go.

“Ah! Jesus Christ, that hurts!”

“You’re good.” Wilson nodded, pressing his body down onto the wound. “You’re good, man.”

LaRouche stumbled out of his seat and around the front of the vehicle, wiping blood-soaked hands on his jacket. He felt oddly dazed. Like none of it was real. He jumped into the driver’s seat, slammed the door, and threw the vehicle in gear. The sounds behind him were a slurry of encouragement, fear, agony. LaRouche blinked rapidly, felt his stomach twist up inside of him. He swallowed against the burning sensation clawing up his throat, tasted acid on the back of his tongue. Acid and blood.

He kept his eyes on the road but turned slightly to shout into the backseat. “Did you get that tourniquet on yet?”

“Yeah,” Jim replied, his voice raised. “What next?”

“Here.” LaRouche leaned over onto the floor of the passenger seat and swiped up his pack, stuffing it into the backseat where the others were crowded. “Hemostats in the side pouch. You gotta find the artery and clamp it. Glove up before you go in.”

LaRouche kept looking back, the vehicle swerving every time he did.

“We got this, Sarge,” Wilson said.

“Do what the sarge says,” Joel mumbled, beginning to sound out of it. “Don’t let me die, guys. You gotta… you gotta keep me alive.”

“We’re working on it, buddy.”

“We got you, Joel.”

LaRouche just stared straight ahead.

Abandoned houses.

Auto salvage and tiny airstrip.

Going back the way they came.

He balled one hand into a fist and punched the steering wheel.

Wilson glanced back at him.

LaRouche just kept his eyes on the road, kept that double-yellow line passing right between his tires. And before he could fully process everything that happened, before he could work his mind around what he had done and the implications of it, he found them back with the others. The LMTVs and the Humvees crowded up on the road. The occupants pouring out of them as they saw the bullet hole in the windshield and Jim exiting the backseat, covered in blood. LaRouche could hear the talking, the yelling, but it was like background noise. The dull hum of a crowd through thick walls. He could hear the emotion in their voices, the fear and the loathing at the sight of Joel being carried out of the back of the Humvee, his eyes half lidded, sweat dotting his upper lip. Everyone panicking to save him, everyone pushing and shoving, trying to help him in some way. And LaRouche standing off to the side, one hand on the hot metal of the Humvee’s hood, watching them with the expression of someone gone catatonic. Standing off to the side because he already knew the truth.

They laid Joel out on the pavement and he disappeared behind a wall of bodies.

He wouldn’t be saved.

All the care and all the prayer in the world couldn’t put all that blood back into his veins.

Wilson shoved through the crowd, parting it with his arms. “LaRouche!” he yelled. “Need a fucking IV here, man!”

LaRouche wanted to say, It doesn’t matter how many bags of IV you shove into him; it ain’t gonna make a shit’s worth of difference! But he couldn’t bring himself to say that ugly truth, not after everything he’d done. And it wasn’t so much that he’d given a command that had resulted in someone getting hurt—that shit happened and you couldn’t get around it. But he could see their trust in him flagging. He couldn’t simply act like he didn’t care.

He went into motion, shoving through the crowd. “Middle pouch,” he yelled at Jim, who still held his pack with all the medical supplies. “Gimme the IV bag that says ‘Lactated Ringers.’ ” He knelt down, started fishing for some latex gloves. “And get his jacket off.”

Dorian had wrangled himself out of the turret and knelt at Joel’s head. He began to work the jacket off.

LaRouche found a rolled-up pair of gloves and struggled to work his fingers into them, his skin catching, tacky with half-dried blood. As he did this, Jim placed the IV bag of clear liquid in front of him. It wasn’t going to save Joel, not by a long shot—it would only swell his blood pressure back into a seminormal range, and maybe not even that, depending on how much blood he’d lost. He glanced down at Joel’s leg, saw the hemostat dangling and the wound no longer squirting.

Maybe…

He shook his head. He wouldn’t allow himself that hope. He pressed his fingers to Joel’s radial, felt what could have been a pulse. Then checked the carotid and felt it there, but weakly. No. There was no hope to this. This was an exercise in futility. An empty performance. A dog and pony show for the rest of the people who wanted to believe that the man in charge of them actually gave a shit.

He pulled a sealed plastic bag out of the same pouch Jim had retrieved the IV from. Inside were a few needles, a few blood catheters, a coil of tubing, a green rubber strap. Your run-of-the-mill IV kit. He opened the bag, rummaged through for the iodine wipes—actually thought of not bothering with cleaning the needle site, but then stubbornly figured he might as well give Joel the best chance he could. He might as well do it right.

So he went through the motions. Swabbed the inside of Joel’s elbow, staining it yellow. Tapped the vein. Slipped the needle in until the blood showed in the catheter. Looked up at Joel’s face, saw that he was barely conscious, a look of serenity on his features, that warm, wonderful shock just washing over him like a blanket. A little gift that nature gives to make the end not so bad.

He connected the IV bag. Adjusted it to a heavy drip. He passed it off to Jim. “Hold that up high,” he said, realizing that he didn’t need to shout because everyone was deathly quiet. He didn’t stop working, because he couldn’t stand up and look any one of them in the eyes. So he turned himself to the leg and began trying to fix it. Wilson held the wound open with a pair of spreaders, the metal tongs grasping at Joel’s raw wound and not affecting him at all. His eyes just stared dreamily up at the sky like none of it mattered. He worked on pulling the artery out enough that he might be able to suture the two severed ends back together, but it was a long and painstaking process.

Maybe another twenty minutes had passed before LaRouche smelled the bowels, and when he looked over at Joel, he could no longer see the chest rising and falling. He leaned over the man’s body, touched his finger to the neck again, and this time felt nothing. Held his cheek over Joel’s mouth and felt no brush of breath.

LaRouche just stood up, his knees aching, his wounded arm screaming for attention. “Dorian,” he said, his words quiet and empty. Nothing left in him.

“Yeah.”

LaRouche began stripping off the gloves. “Grab some shovels. I’ll pick a spot.”

THIRTY-ONE

SECRETS

THE MOON HAD LIT the night so fully that they’d been able to drive without the use of their headlamps. Tomlin drove them on in silence and seemed to navigate by memory. They reached a wide swath cut through the woods to accommodate several sewer-access tunnels. They protruded from the overgrown grass like forgotten monoliths in the silver light.

Once in the woods, though, the light diminished into a confusing crisscross of dull moon glow and pitch-black shadow. The two men fell into a sort of rhythm, which came naturally and unconsciously to them. They’d both done their fair share of “walking to the X” in the dead of night, and every movement felt familiar. The slight ache in the wrist from holding their rifles at a low-ready. The tension that wound all the way up their legs as they moved smoothly across the dry, crackling leaves, always softly planting the heel, then rolling on the outside, steadily to the balls of their feet. Eyes wide to soak up light. Ears attuned to every sound.

They waded through the stifling darkness for what seemed like hours, Tomlin in the lead and Lee falling in behind. Tomlin pulled to a stop near a large pine and dropped quietly to one knee. He pulled a compass from his jacket pocket and maneuvered into a shaft of moonlight so he could see their course. As he worked, Lee sank down onto his haunches and stared back through the near-blackness they had just covered. He held his breath and listened to the forest, but it gave up no sound in the cold.

The quiet snap of the compass closing.

Lee turned his head.

Tomlin looked at him. He knife-handed into the forest—the correct direction for Camp Ryder.

Lee nodded and they moved out again.

The silence of the forest forced them to move slowly, fearing not only being found out by one of Jerry’s men but also knowing full well what hunted the woods at night. And in the quiet, the slightest rustle of their feet across pine needles and dried leaves seemed like it echoed through the forest.

It was sometime close to eleven, and Lee scanned the sky for a glimpse of the moon when he heard the barest tsst of a hiss through teeth. He stopped in mid-pace, found Tomlin halted about a dozen yards in front of him, frozen in place.

His left arm slightly extended.

The finger splayed, patting the air rapidly: Stop moving!

Lee wanted to sink to his knees—get low was his first reaction—but he didn’t want to move, felt like he’d stepped onto a trip wire and the slightest shifting of his feet could set something off. Though he wasn’t quite sure what that something was.

Slowly, very slowly, Tomlin turned his head partially. His hand came up, moving at the same chameleonlike pace. Two fingers to the eyes, then pointing straight ahead and a little to the right. Lee followed the motion, stared into the woods, his neck craning out as though willing himself to get closer so he could see through the darkness.

Moonlight framed it. Like white paint drawn on a black canvas. At first Lee couldn’t tell what it was, because it was jumbled together with so many other, strange lines, very pale so that they stood out almost preternaturally in the earthen colors of the forest. But when he focused on them, when he knew where to look, then he was able to see the line, the slope of shoulders, a draped arm. A leg. A face.

Maybe ten bodies all clustered together, about thirty yards ahead of them.

Dead?

No. He could see them moving. A slow squirm. Nestling into each other for warmth.

And just like that, his heart was suddenly hammering. But oddly he just kept thinking how he’d always wondered how they slept at night, wondered if they hid in dens or just slept out in the open like deer. He made eye contact with Tomlin, but neither dared speak loud enough to be heard. They tried mouthing some words back and forth, but clearly something was being lost in translation or their lips were not being properly read in the darkness, because they ended with matching facial expressions of, I can’t tell what the hell you’re saying.

One of them would have to move, and Lee knew that it was him. The simple action of having to turn around meant that Tomlin might make too much noise. So Lee clenched every muscle in his body until his abdominals ached and his vision throbbed and he very slowly, very painstakingly lifted his right foot out of the leaves and loamy forest dirt, then swept it forward and very carefully placed it down. Of course, every noise he made sounded like a brass band falling on top of each other, but he knew from experience that to a casual listener it might as well have been complete silence.

But was an infected a “casual listener”?

Lee had his doubts, but he kept putting one foot in front of the other, breathing through his open mouth because in the back of his mind, it seemed like the wind through his nostrils was too noisy. Eventually he reached Tomlin, who had managed to ease himself into a crouch. The two of them brought their heads close together, both pairs of eyes staring out into the darkness at the huddled mass of flesh.

“You see this shit?” Tomlin hissed, holding a hand in front of his mouth to direct the sound toward Lee.

“That’s not a pack,” Lee said. He tried to pry through the gloom with his eyes, tried to see a little more of what lay ahead, but the details were lost. “Packs don’t sleep at night.”

“It’s too small to be a horde. Plus, we’re in the woods.”

Lee touched the other man’s shoulder to garner eye contact. “Hunters.”

Tomlin searched Lee’s face, then bared his teeth, a tiny sound of dissatisfaction coming from between them.

Lee looked back out. It had to be hunters—had to be. Nothing else made sense. And if they were hunters, then Lee wanted no part of them. They would be too close to Camp Ryder by now to fire their weapons without being heard. And having seen the speed and strength of these strange specimens—people whose genetic makeup made them more adaptive, more aggressive, and stronger—he didn’t want to try anything hand-to-hand, especially since he wasn’t 100 percent.

“We gotta back up and go around,” Tomlin mumbled, clearly thinking along the same lines as Lee.

“I’ll cover you first.” Lee brought his rifle up and Tomlin turned without any further discussion, eager to be leaving the area, even if putting the creatures behind him made the skin prickle along his spine. Lee kept the barrel of his rifle pointing downrange at the creatures as Tomlin made his slow, quiet progress back.

He heard the steady rustling sound of his feet situating themselves in the dried leaves, the slow crunch as he settled his weight on them. Not even enough to make a cat perk its ears…

One of the infected stirred.

Lee stopped breathing. His finger touched the trigger. Stay asleep, he willed it. Stay the fuck asleep. Then he looked back over his shoulder to see if Tomlin had stopped moving, but he couldn’t even make out his partner in the shadows. He turned back around and found the thing looking at him.

From across the distance, Lee could see its dark eyes, and they seemed to be resting on him, but he forced himself to think calmly. There was nothing special about these creatures. They had not developed superpowers. They could see no better at night than he could, and Lee was hidden in the shadow of a tree, half his body behind it. If he just stayed very still…

He let out the breath he’d been holding, slow and steady. Not making too much noise and not creating steam from his breath. His lungs began to ache for him to breathe faster, but he wasn’t willing to do that just yet. He waited until his lungs were empty, then inhaled. Smelled the loamy scent of the forest. Bark. Cold. Stinging the back of his throat.

The thing just kept looking at him. Or at least in his direction. What had drawn its attention? Had the noises that Tomlin made been louder than Lee had thought? Or maybe the hunters just did this. Maybe they woke up every so often to look around. Check their surroundings.

Maybe it could feel Lee staring back at it.

But Lee dared not take his eyes off of it again.

The thing seemed to suddenly relax. It lowered its head back down. Disappeared behind the others. Lee felt a tremor work through him. Partially from holding his position so rock-still for the last few minutes and partially from all the stress chemicals coursing through his veins.

He didn’t move for another five minutes. Simply wouldn’t risk it. Wanted to give that tweeky bastard enough time to fall back into a deep slumber before he made his escape. And after five minutes, it felt like he had been imprisoned. His calf began to cramp and his shoulders ached from holding the rifle up. He rose with considerable effort, his knees popping loudly enough to cause him to freeze in place again.

He looked out.

No reaction from the sleeping hunters.

He turned and made his escape, maybe moving a little faster than he should have but unable to stop himself. He desperately, desperately needed to get out of there. He’d had run-ins with regular packs and they all ended in near-disaster, particularly when he was on foot. He had never had a run-in with the hunters, but he could only imagine that it would be worse.

He made his way through the trees, moving faster as he gained distance. He wasn’t quite sure which direction he was heading and sure as hell didn’t know where Tomlin was until he stumbled across him, hiding behind a tree.

“The fuck took you so long?” Tomlin stressed.

Lee looked over his shoulder, back into the woods. “One of them woke up. I had to wait for it to go back to sleep.”

Tomlin shook his head, wearing an expression like he’d just dodged a bullet. “Didn’t you tell me how those hunters were preying on the other infected?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ve noticed there hasn’t been much infected activity in these woods the last few times I’ve been in here.” He looked pointedly at Lee. “I bet I know why. And I sure as hell don’t like leaving those fuckers behind us. I don’t like it one bit.”

Lee agreed. “I don’t like it either. You think of a better idea, you let me know.”

Tomlin pointed them west again. “Let’s just get ourselves back on track.”

Lee stared at the dark compound through a thin curtain of tree branches. It seemed dark, like they’d journeyed to it only to find it abandoned, and it was a disquieting sensation. When Lee had been a child he’d had a recurring dream wherein he would leave his childhood house to complete some menial chore such as getting the mail or walking the dog, and when he went back into the house, it would be empty and dark. All the furniture gone. Cobwebs in the corners.

He felt the same feeling now that he’d felt waking from that dream as a child. Like he’d been too late. Like he’d missed something terribly important. Like life and all of his loved ones had moved on without him and he was left there, alone.

But here, he could at least smell the smoke from the smoldering fires.

And he knew that people were here.

They didn’t speak this close to the fence. The fortifications that had been welded and tied and strapped and chained to the fence to create more of a barricade for an attacking force also blocked large portions of their view, so they could never be sure where the guards who patrolled the fence line were, and whether they were close enough to hear a slight whisper.

Tomlin motioned for Lee to stay where he was, and then crept forward, crawling along the ground on his hands and feet, like a bear crawl but lower. Watching him, Lee thought it looked less like a bear and more like a lizard.

Tomlin reached the fence and dislodged a large white stone—a piece of quartz, perhaps—that had sunken into the dirt. It was a little smaller than Tomlin’s own head and he simply propped it up with one hand while the other pulled out the note and placed it under the rock. The rock was close enough to an open section of the fortifications, and it was in a section of fencing where the bottom of the chain links hung a few inches off the ground, so that someone on the other side could quickly reach through and access the stone.

He reseated the stone, then crawled back into the bush.

Then the two of them sat and waited.

Movement at the fence. Lee and Tomlin both hunched into the brush around them. A shadow passed between the gaps in the fortifications. Moving slowly, relaxed. As it came abreast of them, Lee could see that it was one of the sentries, though he did not recognize the face. It was an average-size man with longish hair and what appeared to be an M1A rifle held loosely across his chest.

Could use one of those, Lee thought as he watched the sentry pass.

There was a certain thrill to it. Something that appealed to the predatory nature in men in general and soldiers in particular. Something about lying silently in the trees and watching someone who didn’t know he was being watched. Knowing that you had the drop on him.

The sentry passed on, down the side of the fence to the back corner, where he stayed for a moment, taking a noisy piss through the chain link, and then continued on.

The moment he was out of sight, they heard the quiet thump of light footfalls in the compacted dirt of the Camp Ryder grounds. Another shadow appeared at the gap where the rock was, this one shorter, a tangled head of dark hair. Lee felt like a castaway seeing a ship on the horizon. The need to bound through the brush and scream and yell and be seen was almost overwhelming.

He didn’t scream or yell, but he did suddenly move forward. Tomlin reached out to try to stop him, but he had already moved out of arm’s reach. Lee moved as quietly as he could, but still the woman’s curly head of hair snapped up in his direction as he approached. She was bent, reaching under the fence and pulling the note out from under the rock, but seeing the dark shape of movement coming at her through the woods, she retracted her hand and took a step back, the note clutched between her fingers.

“Marie!” Lee said, holding out a hand.

She froze in place, one step away from the fence.

Lee reached the fence, stuck his finger through the wire, and gripped it like he might try to climb over. “Marie, it’s me! It’s Captain Harden!”

It seemed to physically rock Marie. Her whole body shook like she’d taken a sudden body blow. She bent slightly at the waist, then her hands came to her mouth. She took a step forward, and the two of them could see each other’s faces. “Holy shit, Lee…”

“Hey.” Lee stretched out his fingers and she reached out to grasp them through the fence, squeezing them fiercely so that they ached. “I’m here.”

She stared at him with confusion. “We thought you were dead! We didn’t know what happened to you… Where the fuck have you been?”

Lee couldn’t help himself from smiling at her. “I’ve been trying to get back here! Look, we don’t have much time. I’m alive. You just let everyone know that I’m alive, and I’m right here, and we’re gonna take this shit back. Okay?”

Marie nodded furiously. “Okay.”

“You tell them that for me.”

“I will.”

“Marie?” Lee squeezed her hands, his face intense. “Can you be ready at midnight tomorrow? Twenty-four hours from now? Can you have your people ready?”

“Uh…” Marie’s heart felt like it was seizing up. “Yes. Yes. We’ll be ready. For what? What are we going to do?”

“It’s in the note we left for you,” he said. “Twelve o’clock midnight, Marie. You’ve got to pull through for this. We have to work together or a lot of people are gonna get hurt. If we can coordinate this and do it quickly and decisively, then less people are going to die.”

She nodded fiercely. “Where will you be? If something goes wrong?”

“We’re just outside of Lillington.” Lee glanced around as he said it. “On 421, just before the turn for OP Lillington. If you get that close, they’ll be able to see you and they’ll come for you, okay?”

“All right.”

Then Lee pulled his hands away from the fence and disappeared back into the brush with a rustle of leaves and branches. She watched him fade into the shadows like an apparition, left her wondering if she had dreamed the whole thing up, but she knew she was awake because there was terror in her chest too. The certainty of coming bloodshed.

She gathered herself and turned away from the fence, scanned left, then right. Could see no one. No sentries. No busybodies wondering what others were doing at midnight. She shoved the note she’d retrieved from under the rock into her jacket pocket and ran away from the fence.

Angela lay awake because it was midnight.

Somehow, miraculously, her body had developed a keen alarm clock that managed to rip her from a full sleep, simply because she knew it was midnight. How her body knew this was a mystery—she hadn’t looked at a clock in more than a month. Time of day was estimated by how many hand-widths the sun hovered over the horizon, and the night just became a timeless black swamp. Much more difficult to determine the time during the night, which required knowledge of constellations or moon phases.

But it was midnight now.

Because she was awake.

She lay on her back, staring up at the ceiling of her shanty, stomach in knots. It was colder than usual, and even with three blankets pulled up to her chin, she was still chilly. She should have had Sam and Abby snuggle under the covers with her, but they were fast asleep, clinging to each other in a large sleeping bag, and she chose not to disturb them.

Her eyes remained open for a time and she began to wonder if the note had been passed, or perhaps her finely tuned sense of time was at fault and it was not as close to midnight as she thought—or far past and Marie was simply waiting until morning to speak to her about the note.

The urgency of it all began to drown under a sea of exhaustion.

Her eyes flickered shut again.

Weird half dreams intruded into her thoughts, creating a bizarre landscape of true concerns and imagined complications. Her eyes snapped open again, though she wasn’t sure why, so she looked to her right and found Marie slipping through the tarp covering her doorway.

Angela sat bolt upright in bed. She didn’t speak.

Marie peered through a crack in the tarp, checking to see if she had been followed. When she turned, she wore an unreadable expression.

Angela found herself gripping the blankets with white knuckles, jaw locked. Still, she didn’t say anything.

Marie stepped over toward her and knelt down, a hesitant smile playing across her lips. She held out a piece of paper, folded several times into a little square. “It’s Lee. He’s still alive. And we’ve got a plan.”

He came to her in the middle of the night, as he always did when his duties were finished. He moved quietly into her shanty, and she pretended to wake up, though she had been awake the whole time. He put down his rifle and his dirty old Yankees ball cap and he bent down to the bed of blankets and kissed her, his hands reaching under the covers and touching her.

He was not an exceptional lover, but he seemed to care for her, and she had not realized until lately how much she had missed being cared for. She spent so much of herself caring for others, day after day, that she felt empty when she went to sleep at night. Used up. But when he was with her, she felt loved again, felt the feelings that seemed to have been dead and buried with the rest of the world.

She finally found something that was hers. That she did not have to give away.

When they were finished, he moved to the edge of the bedding, pulling on his pants and his boots. He moved slowly, she thought, because he did not want to leave. He wanted to spend the night with her, but they knew the trouble that both of them would be in if people started to talk.

Jenny hitched herself up on her elbow, looking at him very seriously. She was caught now between that rock and a hard place her grandma had always told her about. She didn’t want to be where she was, but she found herself there nonetheless. She hated Jerry, wanted to see Camp Ryder turned back to what it was. But she didn’t want the violence that she knew would follow, because every time she thought about it, she pictured Greg being shot in the middle of it all. And then she would have to operate on him. And then she would fail. And he would die, because she couldn’t do enough.

Greg glanced back at her as he tied his boots, then stopped and turned. “What’s wrong?”

Jenny stared up at him, tears in her eyes, heart hammering.

Greg reached back, touched her face. “Jesus, babe. What’s goin’ on with you?”

She grabbed his hand. “If I tell you something, will you promise not to tell Jerry?”

THIRTY-TWO

FALLING-OUT

LAROUCHE DID NOT SLEEP.

His belly ached—hunger with no appetite. His brain nauseated itself with repetition. His heart just kept pounding like he’d just finished running a race, and no amount of controlled breathing seemed to take the edge off. The Humvee felt like a cattle car. The hole in the windshield stared back at him like an accusation. Like a scornful look, made in silence.

The others slept, though he doubted it was peaceful. They often moaned in their sleep or whimpered. In their unconscious state, they sounded less like the fighters he’d come to know and more like children. He wanted to cry for them. He wanted to feel something for them. But he felt disconnected at heart. Like the part of him that felt human emotions, that perceived them and granted them to others, had simply broken, or ceased working somehow.

The closeness of the Humvee, the sounds of his comrades’ intermittent snoring and crying out in their sleep, it all crowded him, made a cold sweat start to break out on his brow. He thought of leaving, of just walking away. Grabbing his rifle and seeing how far a bottle of water and an MRE could take him. He wasn’t cut out for this shit. He was just a simple country boy, born and raised in Tennessee, who got a wild hare up his ass one day and decided to join the military. He wasn’t cut from the same cloth as Captain Harden, and he never would be. He wasn’t a leader. He didn’t make good decisions. He was brash. He was impulsive. If he was designed for anything, it was grunt work—following orders and shooting guns at whomever he was told to shoot at. Letting other people ride the hot seat of responsibility. He’d never wanted it, and he didn’t want it now.

And yet here it was. Like a millstone around his neck.

Quietly he reached into his pack that rested between his feet. He slowly unzipped the main compartment, a kid sneaking into Mom’s purse. The steady breathing from the others in the Humvee remained undisturbed. He reached in and felt his way around several other objects, mostly the items that he’d used to operate on Joel. He closed his hand around the bottle of whiskey. Flat. Concave on one side.

He pulled it out, glanced back at the others, then gently opened his door and slid out. He pressed the door closed behind him, taking care not to slam it home. Then he stood outside of the vehicle for a moment and stared at his own reflection, and past it, into the dark interior of the vehicle where no one stirred at the sound of his escape. His rifle remained crammed in with everything else in the floorboard. Along with his pack. His chest rig.

But he still had his pistol. His old Beretta M9, the unwieldy piece of shit that it was. Still strapped to his leg as always.

He gripped the bottle in both hands, almost hugging it to his chest. Prized possession. There really wasn’t any denying that this was a terrible idea. He wouldn’t even be able to say that he hadn’t thought about it, because standing there, he clearly thought to himself, This is stupid and dangerous. Get back in the fucking truck.

He wasn’t sure why he turned away from the truck and walked away. The silly pride of a petulant child, perhaps. He was not above diagnosing himself in unfriendly terms. But he just couldn’t quite put his finger on it, couldn’t articulate what was coming to a rolling boil inside of him, cooking down to its hard, unpleasant reality.

A cry for help, maybe.

Really?

No. He didn’t want help from anyone. He was honest enough with himself to know that. It didn’t sound like much of a logical reason, but he just didn’t want to be there anymore. Didn’t want to be in that Humvee. Didn’t want to be with those people. Didn’t want to be saddled with the responsibility that Captain Harden had put on him. He didn’t want to fight a war. He didn’t want to save the world. He just wanted to be… gone.

So he walked. Not too far—he was trying to be alone, not commit suicide. Walking around in the dark had its inherent dangers, but to him it was an acceptable risk to achieve some solitude. He stayed out of the woods, though he wasn’t sure if that made a difference or not. He supposed that if there were infected watching him from the woods, they would come for him regardless.

He trudged through a field left fallow, stepping among weeds grown to chest height and then wilted in the frost. He was going north, he believed, toward a very small hillock, a rare geographical formation in the general flatlands of the North Carolina coastal region. The air smelled cold but also wet and fertile. Potential lying dormant underneath the wild growth. The kind of land that a settler may have walked out onto and known that this was where he was going to plant.

He walked to the top of the very small slope and just over the other side, until he could no longer see the convoy when he looked behind him. And then he walked a little farther. He finally stopped at a rock that protruded from the ground, just wide and flat enough for him to sit on. He sat for a while, just looking around him in the blue moonlight. Waiting for everything to stop feeling so strange.

After a while, he uncapped the bottle he still held in his hands, took a long, determined pull, then fought off the jittery feeling in his gut as the hot-cold liquid burned down his throat and into his stomach, where it stung him like alcohol on a wound. Which he supposed it was.

This will help me sleep, he kept telling himself.

He drank on. Stopped thinking. Watched the passage of time by the constellations inching toward the horizon. Felt it in the sinking feeling that soaked through him and seemed to root his feet to the ground. It soured and solidified, like compacted soil, until it was a brick in his gut. Not really painful. Just uncomfortable now.

LaRouche heard the footfalls long before he reacted to them. He closed his eyes and focused on the sound of them. They were steady, clipped. Urgent, almost. They rustled through the dried grasses and overgrowth and then came to an abrupt halt a short distance behind him. LaRouche opened his eyes halfway, sucked on his teeth, then spat.

An angry voice in the darkness said, “What are you doing?”

LaRouche clenched the bottle in his fist. “The fuck do you want?”

The footfalls stormed up behind him, then stepped around, forcing eye contact. Jim stood there, glasses crooked on his nose, face red even in the blanching moonlight, hair disheveled. In one hand he held his rifle, not by the grip but by the crook of the barrel and magazine well. The other hand gripped the top of his jacket close to his neck in an attempt to keep him warm. He looked furious.

“What do I want?” Jim said. “I want to not wake up in the middle of the night and find the man who is supposed to be in charge of our operation wandering around in the dark!” He glanced about, like he feared his rising voice would garner him unwanted attention from things lurking in the woods. Then he went right back to LaRouche, pointing at him with the hand that gripped the rifle and, perhaps unintentionally, pointing the barrel at him as well. “I want you to grow up! It’s the middle of the night in enemy territory and you’re out here by yourself, drinking?”

LaRouche’s face twitched just slightly. The creases on the sides of his nose flashing for a moment. An unfinished snarl. Then, calmly: “Preacher Man, you better get that fuckin’ rifle barrel out of my face before I beat you to death with it.”

Jim took a step back, incredulous. “Beat me with it? You’re going to beat me to death, LaRouche? Is that what this is about? Is this a personal issue between you and me because I’ve stepped on your toes one too many times? Hurt your pride a little bit? Didn’t make you feel like the big man?”

LaRouche stood up, felt the world sway uncomfortably, nearly tripped over himself. “Preacher…”

“Oh, here we go with the ‘Preacher this’ and ‘Preacher that.’ ” Jim shook his head. “You got a problem with me, then you got a problem with me. You don’t need to take shots at my faith.” He looked LaRouche up and down with disgust. “Look at yourself. Drunk. At this stage in the game?”

LaRouche held the bottle like a club. “I need you to shut the fuck up.”

“What were you planning on doing? Huh?” Jim threw his arms open. “Was it gonna help you forget, LaRouche? You one of those people who thinks he can drink away the fact that he’s responsible for the death of one of his friends?”

LaRouche’s eyes went wide. Jim’s words hitting their mark. He dropped the bottle and balled his fists. “I ain’t too drunk to beat your motherfuckin’ ass, Jim.”

Jim stepped forward. “Fine! I’m tired of you acting this way! You wanna hit me? Hit me!”

And LaRouche did. He grabbed the rifle and ripped it out of Jim’s grip, clumsily and drunkenly, but still too fast and too forceful for Jim to stop it from happening. Then LaRouche smashed his shin as hard as he could into the outside of Jim’s thigh, crunching the common peroneal nerve and making Jim’s knees buckle. Then, almost as an afterthought, he slammed the buttstock of the rifle into Jim’s nose, breaking the bone and knocking the man backward, glasses flying off.

LaRouche stood there over him as Jim squirmed around on his back, moaning and groaning and touching his bleeding nose. LaRouche swayed, feeling the fiery burn suddenly returning to his stomach. He burped and tasted whiskey. Still too pissed off to really care. Not about a bleeding ulcer and certainly not about a bleeding nose that deserved everything that it got.

He yelled. Didn’t care about the volume. “Fuck you, Jim! Fuck you! I made a fucking bad decision! You think I don’t fucking know that? You think I’m drinking to make it all go away? Bullshit! I know this shit doesn’t go away. It’s on me forever. On me! Forever! That’s why I’m drinking, Jim!” He held up a tight fist. “So maybe this fucking vise in my guts will stop squeezing so I can sleep!”

Jim tried to struggle up, but LaRouche just shoved the other man back down to the ground with a boot to his chest. “People fucking die! People especially die in war!” He shoved a finger in the center of his own chest. “I know this, Jim. You don’t. You might think you know it because you watched some fucking war movies, but I fucking know it. Goddamned intimately. I made a decision. It turned out to be a bad one. Get the fuck over it and move on!”

Jim rolled away from LaRouche’s boot, and the movement was too quick for LaRouche to react. Instead he just stumbled back, still holding the rifle, while Jim lurched to his feet, still holding his nose, taking his hand away and looking at the blood. “Yeah. You made a decision. Against the advice of everyone around you.”

“It’s not a fuckin’ committee,” LaRouche growled. “You got a problem with doin’ what I say, you shoulda stayed back at Camp Ryder. I can’t drive you back there now, but I can put a fuckin’ bullet in your head, you fucking insubordinate piece of shit.”

“Insubordinate?” Jim actually laughed at him. “Insubordinate? For what? Because I don’t want to follow the orders of a man who is clearly not in a stable frame of mind? You’re not General Patton, LaRouche. You’re just some guy who Lee put his faith in, and clearly that was a big mistake.” Jim spat blood onto the ground and reached out a hand. “Gimme back my rifle.”

LaRouche ejected the magazine and tossed it and the rifle in separate directions. “Fuck your rifle.”

The objects clattered in the darkness.

For the span of about two seconds, the two men just stared across a distance of about ten feet at each other, LaRouche’s face without expression, a simple challenge, as though to say, What are you going to do about it? And the ex-priest lowered his head, his face hardening, growing dark.

Jim sprinted across the empty space between them and slammed into LaRouche before his hobbled reflexes could respond, pitching both of them to the ground. LaRouche rolled, trying to get off his back and turn Jim over, but the sheer force of the attack was overwhelming. Jim grunted and panted and gasped like a wild animal in a death match, grabbing LaRouche by the collar and slamming his face with elbows so that stars spun in the corners of his vision, then rearing back and simply hammering at him with balled fists. LaRouche tried to ward them off, tried to block them, but he would have been more successful if he’d been sober. The blows slipped through his defensive postures and hit his face, his head, repeatedly. And it seemed like it was nonstop, like Jim was working through some raw explosion that had been building up like a volcanic blast over the course of the last few months. Everything that he had been through simply came out of him in a single, headlong rush of violence, and it all pummeled straight into LaRouche.

LaRouche tried to remember his training from the guard. Very simple hand-to-hand combat techniques taught to him what seemed like a lifetime ago.

Buck the hips. Trap the arm. Roll.

He thrust his hips up, causing Jim to sprawl and catch himself with his hands planted in the ground. In the same movement, LaRouche snaked his right arm up and around Jim’s left arm, pinning it close into his body. Then he put a hand on Jim’s shoulder and rolled with all the force he could muster. Jim tumbled over with a grunt and suddenly LaRouche found himself on top.

There was a scrabbling of hands, and LaRouche wasn’t quite sure what was happening. He only knew that whatever Jim attempted to do, he was opposed. And it seemed that Jim was trying to reach for something, though LaRouche couldn’t tell what it was. They fought back and forth for control of their arms, but Jim managed to slip one out and his hand reached through the grass, looking for something.

A rock. A rock to hit me with.

He’s gonna try to brain me with a rock.

And in that moment, it became very real in LaRouche’s mind. He pictured Father Jim on the ground below him, grabbing a loose stone, one with a sharp edge but still enough heft behind it to do some damage. And then swinging it—panicked, not thinking about the consequences of his actions—just swinging it with everything he had and catching LaRouche right in the temple, right where the bone was thin, and crushing his skull, immediately knocking him unconscious, his brain jarring around violently inside its shell of bone. Bleeding. Oozing out of his ears. Swelling up and crushing his brain stem, killing him just as surely as a bullet would.

Son of a bitch.

He’s trying to kill me.

It was part panic, part cold dread, part remorse, part anger. Everything swirling around and causing him to hesitate, which only made his panic worse, made it overcome him as he watched Jim’s hand reaching through the tall grass around him, and he wasn’t able to think about anything else but that hand, looking for that rock, trying to brain him, trying to kill him.

To kill him.

To kill him.

LaRouche ripped backward and then, with his left hand posted on Jim’s chest, he drew his Beretta M9 with his right hand, put it point-blank onto Jim’s cheek, and then pulled the trigger. The blast of it was jarring. The gore spilled out onto the ground. Sudden and absolute stillness followed, save for the peripheral twitching of Jim’s fingers through the grass.

Oh my God…

Oh my God, I killed him.

This can’t be happening.

This isn’t real.

“Jim!” LaRouche cried out, his voice suddenly choked as he struggled to his feet. “Fuck you, Jim! Wake the fuck up! I didn’t even… I didn’t… Oh my God… Oh my God!”

The world spun around him madly. An angry carousel. A bad trip. Just blurs of colors, if sudden and earth-shattering regret had a color. There was no possible way that that had just happened. There was no way that it had come to that. No way that Jim had tried to kill him—dear God help me—and there was no way he had just put a bullet through Jim’s head.

It was Jim.

Father Jim.

LaRouche reached down, dropping the pistol and grabbing Jim with both hands. He shook the body, though he knew it would make no difference. “Jim! Fucking stop! You motherfucker! Fucking stop! That’s enough! That’s fucking enough! Goddamn it! You never fucking listen! You could never fucking listen to any goddamned thing I say! What the fuck is wrong with you?”

He stood up, grabbed his pistol off the ground, turned in random circles, his free hand gripping his forehead like he was trying to keep some fragile structure from falling apart. He couldn’t help himself, he kept looking at the body lying on the ground, hoping that it would spring back up, do something, even argue with him—please, just do anything but lay there. So permanent.

He bent over without warning and vomited. Tasted the blood from his ulcer.

How am I going to explain this? I can’t. I can’t explain this. I can’t lie about this. I just don’t have it in me and they’re gonna know. They’re gonna know that I killed him. Wilson and Dorian and all the rest of them… I won’t be able to trick them. They’ll know that I killed Father Jim. Fucking killed him. Goddamn it, I fucking killed him!

And he wasn’t sure whether or not he had imagined it or whether it was real, but he thought he heard movement coming from over the hill, from the direction of the convoy.

The gunshot. They must have heard the gunshot.

He wanted to try to explain, wanted to try to convince them all why he had killed Father Jim. He wanted to try to make them see it from his perspective, but each time he tried to think about what he was going to say, it tasted fake and unbelievable. All the logic, all the reason that was left in him after the whiskey had washed it all away, it bled out of him with the rising panic and all he could think was that he had to get away from the body. He had to get away. He had to get away as quickly as he could.

Holding his pistol in his hand, he ran.

Wilson startled awake. Someone was knocking on the window, repeatedly, rapidly. He looked around, confused after being ripped from the deepest point of sleep. It was still completely dark outside, and as he looked around, he couldn’t see LaRouche or Father Jim in the truck with him, and he felt their absence like a swelling fear.

Knocking.

He turned to the window and was startled at the sight of Dorian standing there. He fumbled with the knob, then dropped the window. He took a breath to ask Dorian what the hell was going on and why in God’s name he was tapping on his window in the middle of the night when it wasn’t even his turn to be on watch. But Dorian began speaking before Wilson had a chance.

“There’s something wrong.” Dorian pointed out toward a field adjacent to them. “Just heard a gunshot. LaRouche walked out there by himself, like, over an hour ago. And then I think Father Jim went after him. And I just heard yelling, and then a shot.”

“Shit.” Wilson shoved the door open, began pulling on his gear. “This isn’t good.”

He just kept thinking, Father Jim and LaRouche… alone.

“Should I wake up the others?” Dorian asked.

Wilson slung into his rifle, checked the chamber. “Yes. Get everybody on standby. But just you and me and one other person go out, you got that?”

Dorian nodded, then ran down the convoy, smacking windows with the palm of his hand and yelling, “Everyone up! Grab your gear and stand by!” At the rear of the convoy, he pointed to another man as he climbed sleepily out of his vehicle and motioned for him to come along. Wilson knew the man only as Tim, and the sum of his knowledge about the man was that he hung out with Dorian a lot. They jogged back to Wilson, rifles in hand.

Wilson jerked his head toward the field and took off at a steady double-time, Dorian and Tim behind him. As he moved, he couldn’t stop his mind from trying to explain what Dorian had told him. And there wasn’t a feasible explanation that wasn’t bad. There was not a good reason why there would only be one gunshot, which was the thing that worried him the most. A flurry of gunshots at least would have meant a battle. But just a single gunshot…

He reached the top of a small rise and looked down the slope of the other side. It was an expanse of old, neglected cropland, and then forest. And beyond the forest would be the river. But Wilson saw the scene as clear as if a spotlight had illuminated it: the matted grass around a small boulder. The slump of a form, lying on the ground.

“Shit.” He broke into a run. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”

He hesitated as he drew close, perhaps out of caution or perhaps because he just didn’t want to see what he knew was lying there. He didn’t want it to be true, but the facts jittered around in his chest and made him sick.

He stopped a few feet from the body. He grabbed his face, then raked his fingers back to his neck. He didn’t bother to bend down and check for a pulse. He could see the brain matter coming out of the top of Jim’s head, a thick tube of it curling on itself like meat forced through a grinder.

“Is that Father Jim?” Dorian cried, his voice breaking.

Tim gaped. “What happened?”

Wilson couldn’t stop a sudden sob, an abrupt burst of emotion. He threw his head back and tried to strangle it off through bared teeth, but he couldn’t stop. He knew what had happened. It didn’t take a fucking detective to figure it out. And even through the blur of his tears, he could see the path through the field—matted grass where someone had just run through it. It led away from the scene and farther away from the convoy. Toward the forest. Toward the river.

Wilson began to pace. Trying to catch his breath.

Behind him, Dorian and Tim remained silent.

His eyes kept going to that little trail through the grass. It had to have been LaRouche. He went through the grass. He ran from the scene. And then Wilson thought, Should I go after him? What if something else had happened? What if they’d been attacked and someone had shot Jim and taken LaRouche hostage?

One shot. He shook his head furiously. One fucking shot.

If they’d been attacked, there would have been more than one shot.

He stood still for a moment, stretched his chest out and sucked down a deep enough breath to break through the dread and the panic and settle him enough so he could speak. But he could feel the weakness in his voice. Hated himself for it. So he blew out that breath and tried another. Finally he felt strong enough to turn to Dorian and Tim.

“Grab Jim and take him back to the convoy.” He stared at them, wondering what to say next. There would be rampant speculations. The rumor mill in small groups was viciously effective. If he didn’t give them an explanation for all of this, they would imagine one up. But he couldn’t tell them the truth. Partially because it was a heady accusation to make on what amounted to little more than a gut hunch. And partially because he knew it would destroy them. It would destroy the morale. There were those who felt strongly for Father Jim and others who felt strongly for LaRouche. He wasn’t going to turn them against each other.

He turned away from Dorian and Tim because he struggled to lie to their faces. Maybe not too much of a lie. “I think Sarge is in trouble.”

THIRTY-THREE

ABDUCTED

SOMEHOW, SLEEP CAME TO Angela, but in a disquieted form. It hovered over her and she wanted it to cover her, but she couldn’t control her mind from lashing out, throwing it off of her what felt like every ten minutes or so. She kept waking up, hoping desperately that it would be dawn. She kept thinking about what she had to do, as soon as the light showed itself. She kept thinking about how she was going to gather the nine people who had agreed to take a stand with her—Marie, Jenny, Katie, the Mathesons, the Scharfs, and the Crowleys. She had to figure out a place for them to meet and quickly coordinate with whatever Lee had planned for the following night.

And then her mind would be off and running, trying to think of how on earth Lee had survived, trying to figure out what he had survived, what he had been through the last few days. Had he just been with Old Man Hughes’s group the entire time? How had he dealt with the Eddie Ramirez situation?

The entire time, she held the folded piece of paper in her hands, clutched there and growing damp with the sweat from her hands. A message written by Lee, who was so unbelievably close and alive, but she hadn’t even seen him yet.

Tomorrow night.

Midnight.

All of this went on behind her flickering eyelids while she half slept. The sleep was purely an action of physical exhaustion while her mind raced on, tapping its foot and waiting for her depleted body to catch up. The sleep muted the emotions that she felt, but they were there nonetheless, like things bumping on the underside of a rickety old boat. There was fear—plenty of fear. But there was also a sort of breathlessness that came when something you wanted so badly was within reach and yet so vulnerable that it might disappear if you looked away for one second.

More vulnerable than she knew, actually.

It was with this tumult of thoughts that she awoke. Not much in those few seconds after waking made sense to her. She only knew that it was the sound of boots crunching on gravel that had awoken her, and then there was a dark figure standing in her doorway—not Marie because it was too big to be Marie. Then there were others, and they came piling in and seized her before she could say anything. A callused hand closed her windpipe, cutting off her cry of fear to a squeak, and then a cold blade touched the skin of her neck and a colder voice told her, “If you make a sound, I’ll slit your throat.”

She couldn’t see. A burlap sack over her head. Smelled of dirt and must. A hand scrabbling up into the burlap sack, like a spider trying to get at her face, but it held a cloth and it forced it into her mouth, tasted salty and oily, the fingers scraping against her teeth as they shoved it down her throat so that she gagged.

She was rolled onto her belly, and the knife stayed with her, cutting into her skin just slightly with the movement. Beyond the sting of the blade and the rustle of the burlap sack over her head, she could hear almost nothing. She could see no light coming in through the fabric. They were doing this quietly. They did not want to be seen or heard.

Abby and Sam. Abby and Sam. What about Abby and Sam?

The peculiar thought: Maybe this is Lee! Maybe he’s just trying to get us out of camp without being noticed…

But she knew that it wasn’t. She knew that Lee would never do something like this. She knew that this was someone else, and she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that something—she wasn’t sure what—had gone horribly wrong, and she began to go through all of the ways she might have fucked up and all of the ways she might have been found out, began to formulate excuses for each one, trying to make them sound believable, trying to craft them into something that sounded truthful, but it was difficult to focus on anything but the blade sawing tiny increments into her skin.

Still frozen by confusion and fear, she didn’t even remember the piece of paper in her grip until it was ripped away, and then her heart felt like it just stopped, like everything inside her body just seized up, her blood freezing in her veins.

No! No! Not the note!

The sound of paper unwrapping.

“My, my…” A soft voice. “This is very interesting, isn’t it?”

Duct tape wrapped around her wrists. Once. Twice.

Tight. Cutting off circulation.

“Get up,” the voice said.

There was no need for the command. Several pairs of hands hauled her to her feet and began to half carry, half drag her, and she could only assume they were taking her out of her shanty.

The kids the kids the kids…

As if reading her deepest fear, another voice whispered, “What about the kids?”

A pause.

Then: “They’re still asleep. You two stay behind—one of you outside, and one of you inside. Don’t wake them up, but don’t let them leave.”

“What if they ask about her?”

“I don’t know. Make something up.”

Then she was moving again. If she hadn’t had the burlap sack over her head, she would have seen what the men who had taken her could not see. She would have noticed the minor differences in the bodies of Abby and Sam. Because she knew how they slept from countless hours of watching over them. She would have known the difference, as any mother would, between when her children were truly asleep… and when they were faking it.

Sam’s eyes were wide open. He faced the opposite way, and he could almost feel the presence of the strange man inside their shanty. Every huff of his breath, every scrape of his boot on the ground. The stink of him that Sam could smell from the other side of the room. All of it made Sam’s back prickle with goose bumps as though the man was right there.

He felt wetness on his hand and looked down.

Lying beside him, Abby’s chest heaved up and down. Her eyes were stretched wide, tears pouring out of them, and she was touching Sam’s hand, which was clamped over her mouth. He met her eyes and slowly pursed his lips, forming them to say, Shh, but never making the noise.

He closed his eyes very deliberately, then opened them again and hoped that Abby got the message. She apparently did, and she closed her own eyes and kept them that way, though she was squeezing them shut and it wouldn’t fool anyone if they bent for a closer look. Her chest still rose up and down rapidly, and Sam could feel the hammering of her little heart against his arm. Almost twice as fast as his own. He could feel her nostrils flaring against his finger as she fought with herself to stop crying.

Moving so slowly that for a second he wondered if he was even moving at all, Sam began to slide his hand off of Abby’s mouth toward the edge of the blanket, where every night he stashed his rifle.

Angela could tell where she was going. She could smell the distinct odor of the interior of the Camp Ryder building, and she could hear the clang of the metal steps under her feet, leading up to the office. The sack over her head was completely unnecessary. Maybe just being used as a scare tactic. She tried to think about this, tried to minimize it and bolster some courage out of herself. But she was terrified, and she could not deny it.

Three thoughts, bouncing around frantically:

Jerry knows.

He’s going to hurt me.

He’s going to hurt Abby and Sam.

The thoughts continued incessantly, over and over. A perpetual-motion machine.

She was shoved to her knees. Her fingers tingled painfully from lack of blood circulation. Her pulse was a heavy bam-bam-bam that seemed to shake her entire body. A hand grabbed the hood and ripped it from her head, taking a few strands of hair with it and causing her to cry out, the noise coming as a muffled sound through the gag in her mouth.

She opened her eyes. It was the office, just as she’d suspected. Dimly lit by a single lantern sitting on the desk, and beside it, Jerry staring at her, his face all cold angles and sneers, arms clamped across his chest. His sawed-off shotgun lying on the desk next to him. Those two big 12-gauge bores staring at her like a dead man’s eyes.

Jerry looked right at her and smiled, a cruel look that scoured the edges of his face with wrinkles that seemed more severe because of the angle of the light. He looked at someone or something to her left. Angela followed, almost didn’t want to, but couldn’t help herself. There, against the back wall of the room, eyes red and face tear-stained, cheek swollen and red and beginning to bruise just under her eye, stood Jenny.

Angela tried to ask her what she was doing there, but the first word was just another incomprehensible murmur behind the salty rag stuffed into her mouth, and the rest of her question died halfway up her throat like someone had choked it off. Immediately the blank, faceless fear of the moment changed. It morphed into something else. Something more sinister.

Oh my God. All her organs flip-flopped over each other, her heart jumping into her throat, stomach sinking down, and everything else just squirming uncomfortably. She knew what this was about. No use denying it. No use acting like she didn’t know exactly what had gone down, what had led her to this point.

Goddamn you, Jenny!

She forced her face to be stony, eyes to stay blank.

I won’t give Jerry anything. I won’t give him anything.

Jenny was much worse. She opened her mouth, and her saliva was thick from weeping so that it strung between her parted lips like slime and made her look even more despicable. “I’m so sorry,” she said breathily.

Angela looked at her sharply.

Jenny’s eyes fell.

“She wanted to give us some half-truths and a couple pieces of straight-up bullshit,” Jerry said, bored. “So Arnie convinced her otherwise.”

To Angela’s left, she could see Arnie standing there out of the corner of her vision, smirking like he’d just heard an inside joke. He put a hand on the jiggling loose skin that flopped around his stomach. What used to be his beer gut. Was it funny to him? Was the situation humorous?

Angela craned her neck to see behind her, and she could see Greg standing next to Arnie, regarding him with an expression that bordered on disgust. But it was an expression that lasted only for a moment, and then it was gone. Buried. Put wherever things go when one can’t show them to others. He stared doggedly at the wall, his mouth tightened just slightly.

Jerry propelled himself off the desk and gestured to Jenny, contempt evident in his eyes. “Angela, your friend here has really been just… invaluable.” His smile turned to a mock-surprised grin. “I mean, I didn’t even know that she and Greg had a thing until he came to me and told me that she gave him this… amazing bedroom confession.” Jerry winked conspiratorially at Greg. “You know how it is. Pillow talk and all.” Back to Angela, bent over slightly, like he wanted to project his voice into Angela’s face. “Apparently they’ve been fucking each other this whole time! Who knew?”

He laughed. Ha ha. Just hilarious.

“Ah, well. It’s a complicated situation, and who am I to mess with love, right? Do I feel like maybe Jenny has more to tell? Sure I do. But out of respect for Greg, I’ve decided to get that information from you, Angela.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Jenny’s just… a go-between. But you?” He wagged a finger. “You’re the troublemaker, Angela. You’re the linchpin. You’re the little cog that’s turning all that clockwork behind my back.” As he spoke, his face went deadpan, and then a vein began to bulge under his eye and suddenly he leaned into Angela’s face again. “Behind my fucking back, Angela. Just like I asked you not to do.”

He clenched a fist in Angela’s face. “I’m trying to build something here. Why can’t you understand that? I’m trying to take something broken and make it into something better than we’ve had before. Something better than we’ve experienced with Captain Harden, and all the warmongering bullshit that came before him and which he insisted on propagating. But you…” He pinched his thumb and forefinger together fiercely, so the knuckles turned white and he spoke through clenched teeth. “You just insist on fucking everything up for me! You seem to be determined to ruin everything that I’m trying to do here and you’re quickly becoming a problem that I have very limited options to deal with.”

He straightened. “And don’t think for a goddamned second that all of this is my fault. This is your fault, not mine.” He took a step toward her. “I tried to reason with you, didn’t I? And I was very forthright with you, wasn’t I? I explained to you exactly the situation as I saw it, and I laid out for you in no uncertain terms the circumstances under which I was willing to allow you to continue to live here at Camp Ryder. The circumstances under which I was willing to allow your kids to live in peace.” He grabbed her by the chin, tilted her face toward him. He towered over her, and she got the strange inclination that he intended to spit in her face. But he only spoke, his words calm enough, but belying the undertone of rage that simmered in his voice. “Didn’t I, Angela? Didn’t I explain it quite clearly?”

She squeezed her eyes shut.

Jerry snatched a handful of her hair and yanked it back so her head was forced up toward him, then he ripped the gag from her mouth. “Answer me!” he screamed in her face, his skin instantly darkening into a bloody red. “Didn’t I tell you how this was going to happen?!”

She groaned against the pain, looking up at him and feeling every ounce of her wish that she could kill him. There was no thought of getting away. No thought of what Greg or Arnie might do if she lunged for him. The only thought was that if her hands were free, she would kill him. Somehow. Some way.

Bite his carotid arteries out.

Shove thumbs through his eyeballs.

Lee had not taught her any hand-to-hand combat, but he had offered her one piece of advice when it came down to a fight. “Shooting is clean,” he said. “It allows you to kill someone from a distance, and that affects you less emotionally. The more distance, the less real it feels. But with a knife… with a club… with your bare hands… it gets very real. And it’s very scary. Most people won’t do it, because they’re just not like that. But if you’re ever in a situation where it’s life or death, Angela, you just remember that it doesn’t matter how you kill someone. Dead is dead. They’re just as dead when you shoot them from a hundred yards as they are when you shove a screwdriver into their ear or brain them with a rock. So you do what you gotta do—tooth and nail—to make sure that they die and you live. And there’s never any shame in that, no matter how dirty you do it.”

At the time, it had turned her stomach.

But times had changed. She had changed. In a thousand ugly ways, she had changed. Or maybe it was just dormant in her, lying underneath layers and layers of civility, and gradually unearthed from the erosion of this savage new world. This ragged aggression, more animal than human. More mindless than logical.

Like the infected…

But the rage of it gave her strength. Set her teeth. Flared her nostrils. Made the pain shuffle off into the background of her mind. She looked right into Jerry’s eyes, and she spoke what boiled up in her. “I remember you saying that people would talk if you hurt me. People might turn against you.”

His face quaked with a spasm of anger.

She strained against the fist pulling her hair, just to show him that the pain wasn’t controlling her. “Is that why you snatched me up in the middle of the night? Is that why you sent your little crew after me when everybody had gone to sleep, when no one was there to witness it? Is that why they put a knife to my throat and told me not to make a sound? Because you’re scared, Jerry? Is that it? You’re scared?” She stuck out her chin. “Because you know they’d drag you out into The Square and beat you to death.”

He twisted her hair. “You cunt…”

“This isn’t what they signed on for, Jerry!” she yelled. “You’re all alone on this one, so you better keep this shit quiet—”

“Shut the fuck up!”

“Because you’re gonna have to answer for what you did here, Jerry! You’re gonna have to answer for it real soon, and you don’t want too many witnesses lining up against you!”

Jerry reared back and slapped her hard across the face. Hard enough to topple her to the ground.

He stood over her, pointing a finger down into her face. “You think you got it all figured out, huh? You think Camp Ryder is just one step away from kicking me out and going back to business as usual? But we’re not as dumb as you think we are, Angela. And you’re no fucking genius. No, you’re not.” He produced a piece of paper—the same piece of paper that had been ripped from Angela’s grasp when they’d taken her. “Let’s read, shall we?”

Despair flooded her veins like an injection of lead, weighing everything down.

No, no, no!

He unfolded the paper, pulled his head back to focus on the words. “Oh my, Angela. This seems like… well… this seems like a plan to stage a little bit of a coup. Here, let me read it to you: ‘Midnight tomorrow. Be ready. Secure The Square. We will take the building. First shot is GO.’ ” He looked up from his reading. “You know what, Angela? That really”—he shook his head disdainfully—“that really just pisses me off. That just sounds suspiciously like you’re trying to take over Camp Ryder, Angela. Like you’ve been plotting against me, just like I asked you not to do. And now your chickens are coming home to roost. Just like I always said they would.” He stepped over to her, his haughty composure regained for the time being, and he knelt down so he was at eye level with her. “Who wrote this to you? Who’s gonna help you take me out? Who are the other people in Camp Ryder who were gonna help you?”

Angela could only stare at the floor, feeling her pulse throbbing in her hands, and thinking, Don’t tell him anything. You can’t tell him anything. He doesn’t know about Lee, he doesn’t know about Old Man Hughes, or Katie, or any of the others. You can’t tell him anything.

Keep staring at the floor. The dirty concrete and crappy laminate tile—strange that she’d never noticed the tiling in this room. She’d always been big into flooring. Spent a lot of time and money putting custom floors into her old house where she’d lived in her old life where things like custom floors mattered. Hardwood floors in the living room. Large stone tiles in the kitchen. Small ceramic tiles in the bathrooms. So she always noticed floors, but she’d never noticed the dingy floors in this office. She found herself staring at them and wondering where the stain from Bus’s blood had gone, and she thought that it said something about Jerry that he would take the time and effort to erase that reminder from his floor.

Bus, I’m so sorry! I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t do it.

I fucked it up.

Jerry shook his head. “Aww… Angela… it’s just absolutely heartbreaking to see you like this. Just so… shattered.” He sighed. “But we have work to do. And I made a promise, didn’t I? I told you how we were going to deal with this problem. I gave you an abundantly clear warning about all of this, and you chose to ignore it. So what kind of a man would I be if I went back on my word now?”

Panic.

She couldn’t sound strong anymore. “Jerry, don’t—”

He looked up at Greg and Arnie. “Go get the kids.”

THIRTY-FOUR

THE KIDS

SAM DIDN’T KNOW WHAT was going on. He knew Angela had been taken, but he didn’t know by who. He pictured Greg, because Greg had already threatened them, and it only made sense. Or maybe they were punishing Angela because Sam had told her about Mr. Keith. Maybe they were going to kill her just like they’d killed Mr. Keith…

He couldn’t stop thinking about it. The flavor of the fear became stale in his mouth, and eventually he grew numb to it as his hand crept closer to the rifle. And all the while he could still hear the tiny movements of the man who was in the shanty with them. The man who never said anything. But Sam could hear the air going in and out of his nostrils; he could hear the rustle of fabric when the man shifted positions.

Is he watching me? Sam thought. He wanted badly to turn and look. Maybe if the man faced the other way, not paying attention, then Sam could make a move for the rifle. But then if Sam was caught looking, he didn’t know what he would do from there.

He probably doesn’t think I have a rifle, Sam thought. No one expects a fourteen-year-old to have a rifle.

What am I going to do when I get the rifle?

I’m going to shoot him.

You’re going to shoot him?

Sam pictured it. Painted the scene in vivid detail in his mind. Pulling out the rifle. Pointing it at the man. Pulling the trigger… He got as far as the big bang and then couldn’t picture it after that. He’d never fired the rifle at anyone. Just squirrels and rabbits. Mr. Keith had said that was all it was meant for—squirrels and rabbits. He’d said the bullet was too small. Just a .22-caliber.

What if it doesn’t kill him? Sam was suddenly terrified by that prospect, and conveniently, his mind was quite capable of picturing his failure where moments before he’d drawn a blank. Now he pictured pulling the trigger, the little yellow blossom at the end of the barrel, the bullet hitting the man right in the chest… and doing nothing.

The man lifting his own gun, apparently unimpressed by Sam’s squirrel-and-rabbit gun, and shooting him with bigger bullets. Bullets meant to kill larger animals than rodents. Bullets meant to kill people.

And then it suddenly became much more real.

Oh my God, I could die.

Someone opened the flap to the shanty, sending a spike of adrenaline like an electrical current down Sam’s spine. A quiet voice, barely audible over the pounding of his heart.

“They still asleep?”

“Yeah.”

He’s distracted. Now’s my chance. I have to do this now.

I can’t do this. What if I get shot and die?

How does Captain Harden do it? I wish I had asked him how he did it…

“Wake ’em up and bring them to the office.”

Hesitation. “Why?”

“How the fuck should I know why? Because Jerry said so.”

Resignation. “All right.”

Footsteps in the gravel.

Now! Now! Now!

Sam lunged, screamed at the same time, “Abby, run! Run! Run!” She sprang to life like a jolted cat, rolled, and suddenly disappeared underneath the tarpaulin wall of the shanty. His hand closed around the grip of the rifle and it felt clumsy, unwieldy, like some strange alien weapon that he’d never touched before in his life. His entire body was so overpowered by the adrenaline surge that he almost couldn’t feel anything. His hands, his fingers, they felt like he wore oven mitts.

He rolled, pointing the rifle up. Still screaming but now without words. Just terror.

The man, right there, stepping back, shocked and—was he scared?

Sam struggled to find the trigger, thinking, Where’s the trigger? Where’s the trigger? I’ve shot this thing a bazillion times! Why can’t I find the trigger? And not once did he think about the man staring down at him. Who he was or how many times they’d passed each other while they went about their business or whether he had kids who played soccer with him and Abby. He didn’t think about the deed, or the killing, or the consequences, or the fact that he was outgunned with his little .22-caliber rifle, or the fact that he had never killed anyone before. He didn’t think about it mostly because he didn’t have time.

He found the trigger.

Pulled.

Bang.

Pulled.

Bang.

The man jumped backward, trying to get away from him. And like a dog when the rabbit runs, Sam couldn’t stop. He jumped to his feet, and he just kept firing, still unthinking, unfeeling, almost elated now. Firing, firing, firing, and the man trying to get away, struggling, stumbling, clawing at the earth to get away, and then he started screaming too, and that was what got Sam.

The screaming. A man, screaming. High-pitched, like in the comedy movies when the bad guy gets hit in the crotch. But this wasn’t a movie. The bad guys never died in the funny movies. They never got shot. This was real life, and he was really shooting this guy. He was shooting him, and he was killing him.

I’m killing him.

I’m killing him.

He didn’t feel bad about it.

He felt ferocious.

The man was still alive, still screaming. Lying on his side, struggling to get away. Terrified of Sam, just absolutely, strangely, intoxicatingly terrified of him. Sam had never had anyone afraid of him before. It felt good to be feared. It felt good to shoot this man, to see him so desperate. It felt good to make him pay, because he was friends with Greg and Jerry, and so he was guilty of everything Greg and Jerry had done.

Sam stared down at the man and all he could think to say was, “You’re gonna die now!”

The man whimpered.

Sam’s tunnel vision opened just enough for him to remember that there was another man. He’d taken a dive when Sam started shooting, but he’d be back in a second, and this time he’d be shooting. It wouldn’t be as easy as the first one—not to mention Sam didn’t have any bullets left.

He almost didn’t want to turn away from the dying man, wanted to watch it happen for some reason. But he forced himself to look away, then dove for the ground and under the plastic wall of the shanty. It was cold inside, but it was colder outside, and it slapped his face and soaked his skin like diving into a cold pool. He rolled, got up onto his feet, and started running.

He yelled breathlessly, “Abby! Abby!”

He turned a corner—the next row of shanties—and he could see Abby’s small form running down the row, toward the center of Camp Ryder. He didn’t know where she was going, but he didn’t really know where he was going either. He was running, that was all. The entire world was his enemy now, and he needed to get away.

So he ran after her, as the camp seemed to rouse itself all around them, the shouts and gunfire causing heads to poke out of shanties and flashlights to spear the darkness and concerned voices to ask, “What the hell was that?” and “Is everyone all right?”

He ran by them all, too scared now to stop. The elation rolled off of him, evaporating in the cold air. Everything that was left was sickness and dread. Every person in Camp Ryder was now aligned with Jerry and Greg and Arnie, in Sam’s mind. And if he let any of them catch him, he was absolutely positive that they would kill him.

What happened? What did I do?

He ran. Abby ran, and he went after her. She looked behind her, eyes wide, blond hair flying about like it was caught in a hurricane wind. She slowed just slightly, waiting for him to catch up, and her mouth was wide open, gasping for air, trying to form words.

“Sam! What’s going on?”

Sam caught her, grabbed her by the oversize hoodie she always wore to bed that draped over her like a nightgown. “Shh!” he hissed, then pulled her between two shanties.

Shouting now, coming from the direction of their shanty. Angry shouting. Panicked shouting. People running. Cursing. Sam sorted through it all, tried to think about what Captain Harden would do. What was the situation, and how could he make it better? How could he fix it? He’d heard enough from eavesdropping when Angela and Marie talked. He knew that Old Man Hughes was out there, though he didn’t know where. And he knew that Captain Harden was with him.

Angela had been planning something. And now Jerry had her.

He needed to get to Captain Harden and Old Man Hughes. He needed to tell them what had happened. After all, they were just in the woods, right? Just outside the gate. That’s what he’d heard Marie and Angela saying. All he had to do was get out of the gate, get into the woods. He wasn’t sure what came after that—maybe he would just run and yell for Captain Harden and Captain Harden would find him.

He leaned out from behind their hiding place and looked at the front gate.

The guard ran, Sam guessed toward their shanty. Leaving the gate unguarded.

He put an arm around Abby. “We’re gonna run, okay? We’re gonna run for the gate and I’m going to open it and then we’re gonna get out of here, okay?”

Abby’s eyes were wild. “Okay… okay…”

Sam watched the guard disappear into the rows of ramshackle huts. “Go!”

They ran for the gate, Sam holding Abby’s hand in a death grip, tugging her along, looking back over his shoulder as he ran, the rifle in his grip growing heavy and causing his arms to ache. He could see the shapes of men running through the rows, congregating around their shanty, fanning out from there, looking for them. They all held guns. Rifles ready to shoot him and Abby.

Gotta get to Captain Harden. Just gotta get to him…

They crossed into the open air of The Square, exposed. Shouts behind him, but he wasn’t sure if they were meant for him or not. Maybe they hadn’t seen him. Maybe they were shouting about something else…

He looked behind him, saw a figure running toward him, rifle raised.

Don’t shoot me! Please don’t shoot me!

He hit the gate, the heavy reinforcements rattling languidly, despite his panic. He yanked at the gate, tried to pull it open, but it was secured by a length of thick chain, a heavy padlock linking one end to the other. He pulled at the lock, as though his skinny arms might break the steel. He began to weep in desperation, yelling at the lock.

Gunshots behind him. He flinched, hunkering down. The bullets struck the gate just above his head and he cried out, falling to his knees. Two more gunshots struck the gate and Abby started screaming loudly, high-pitched, wordless.

Sam didn’t know what else to do. He was caught. He was trapped. He had no bullets left in his rifle. He threw it away from him and held up his hands, sinking down to his knees. “Don’t shoot me! Don’t shoot me!”

Footsteps behind them, pounding up close.

Abby was suddenly whisked away from him, screaming and reaching out to him.

He tried to get up and reach for her, but something hard hit him in the face.

He watched the world upend but couldn’t feel himself lose his balance. Then he lay on his back, his brain tingling, his ears ringing, and Greg stood over him, shaking his head and murmuring, “Goddamned kids…”

The door to the office burst in and Greg came through, face rigid. Behind him, Arnie stood at the top of the stairs and pointed down at some unseen person or persons. He yelled in that odd, almost squeaky voice of his: “You keep those little bastards locked the fuck up! And if there’s anyone in the building who ain’t a part of our crew, you kick ’em the fuck out!”

Jerry rose from where he’d been kneeling in front of Angela, explaining in detail his intentions if Angela were to be uncooperative, and the mere distance of him getting out of her face and paying attention to something else allowed her to breathe air that didn’t stink of his breath and body odor and clear her head for a moment, try to make sense of things, try to see the path that might lead out of this situation.

When she heard what Arnie said, she came up off the ground with a jolt. “Are those my kids?”

Arnie pointed at her, eyes narrowed to little slits. “You shut the fuck up, bitch!”

Angela thrashed. “You stay the fuck away from my kids, you motherfucker!”

Greg put a boot in her chest, hard enough to press the wind out of her lungs, and leveled his rifle into her face. “You need to be still before I end this shit real quick.”

Standing there now, Jerry spread his palms, eyebrows up. “What the fuck’s going on out there, Greg? I sure as hell would like to know why you woke the whole goddamned camp by crackin’ off a buncha rounds!”

Greg looked to Jenny. “Paul’s hurt. He’s been shot six times. He’s downstairs.”

Jerry directed his attention toward Jenny. “You trust her, Greg? Even after she held back a bit? I don’t know. Maybe we should just take care of this little problem right now…”

“Jerry.” Greg’s voice was like slate—cold and flat. “Paul’s hurt. We need her.”

Jerry touched a finger to his lips, kept eyeing Jenny up and down while she avoided eye contact with him, kept glancing up at Greg then down like it shamed her to see him there. Shamed her to be in the same room with him. Maybe it simply shamed her that she’d allowed herself to be taken advantage of.

Jerry hummed and hawed. “I dunno…”

And all the while Angela lay on the ground, her mind in a panic, trying to figure out what she was going to do, how she was going to extricate herself from this situation, and most importantly, how she was going to get Abby and Sam out of this situation. There was nothing to call it but panic. Panic of having no options and no time and a problem that needed to be solved regardless.

There’s gotta be a way. There’s gotta be a way.

You can’t let him hurt your girl. Your sweet little girl…

She strained against the duct tape wrapped around her wrists. Thought maybe the pure nuclear energy of her exploding mind might simply power her out of it. She kept staring at that shotgun, still lying up on the desk. Ten feet away from her. Ten measly little feet.

Some shouting at the bottom of the stairs drew Arnie away from the door and he thundered down, cursing the whole way. Whatever it was that he responded to, it didn’t garner Greg’s or Jerry’s attention, and they remained locked with Jenny, who still wouldn’t look at them.

“So what do you say?” Jerry asked. “You gonna help us, Jenny? Whose side are you on?”

Angela watched, very still. Part of her wanted to see Jenny tell them to go fuck themselves, that she was on Angela’s side, on Lee’s side, on the side of what was right. But another part of her still, despite everything, ached for Jenny and the stupid position she’d put herself in. And that part of her just wanted Jenny to say that she was with Jerry and Greg and Arnie, because then they might let her go. Then they might not hurt her anymore.

Jenny deflected slightly, sweeping hair behind her ears with a timid hand. “I’ll help Paul. Of course I will.”

Jerry stepped forward. “That’s not what I asked, Jenny.”

Greg stepped forward too, but it seemed more so that he could intercede on her behalf. “Jenny…”

She seemed to snap out of some sort of haze. “Of course I’m with you guys,” she said, not much inflection in her voice. “I’ll do whatever you need.”

Angela just watched her, conflicted. Didn’t know what to feel. Had other things to think about. Still trying to wrestle the problem down. Still trying to figure out where she was going to go from here, from this dirty spot on these ugly laminate tile floors that would have turned her nose way back when, in the days when she gave a shit about anything but the survival of the people she loved.

Jerry stared the other woman down for another moment, but then seemed to relent. “Okay, then. Greg, take her with you.”

Arnie erupted through the door, out of breath. “Jerry, we’ve got a problem.”

THIRTY-FIVE

MANIPULATION

JERRY PEERED OUT OF the front doors of the Camp Ryder building, cracked just slightly. He recoiled at the sight: what appeared to be the entire populace of Camp Ryder, hovering around the front steps, their faces scowling with confusion and outrage.

He looked at Arnie. “What the fuck is this?”

Arnie squirmed. “It got messy. They heard the gunshots.”

“It got messy?” Jerry simmered. “That’s what you tell me?”

Arnie hung his head. “They saw us take Angela’s kids, and they want to know what’s going on. There was no way around it.” His voice became plaintive. “We tried to do it quietly, but the damn kid started shooting. What were we supposed to do?”

Jerry wanted to choke him, but he really didn’t have a good answer. Arnie had a point. The kid had started the gunfight, which had drawn the attention of the others. Shot up one of Jerry’s guys and then tried to scurry out the back. There really wasn’t any way to get around drawing attention. So people had seen them take Sam and Abby.

Now what?

Jerry put his face in his hands, breathed the musty, dirty smell of them. Comforting in its familiarity. Like the smell of your own pillow or blanket. Comforting because it’s coated in your dead skin cells, bound together with the rancid oils that you secreted out of your skin. Like a rat in a nest.

People were such disgusting creatures.

His fingers curled into claws, pressed in at his eyes like he was trying to rip them from his sockets. Eventually Jerry took a deep breath and released his face from the grip he had on it. Arnie was watching him with some concern, but his mouth seemed zippered shut. He blew the air out of his lungs and looked around, eyes blank and empty like a man who has just woken up and is still processing his surroundings.

He looked at Arnie, and his gaze focused. He raised a finger, pointed it inches from Arnie’s face. “Okay. I’m going to handle this, Arnie. Just…” Jerry shook his head, looking disgusted. “Just don’t talk.”

He opened the doors and the crowd erupted.

“What the hell’s going on here, Jerry?”

“Where are those kids?”

“Where’s Angela?”

“What aren’t you telling us?”

As Jerry emerged through the door, his face underwent a transformation. The harried, frazzled face of a man who was close to losing his shit was suddenly wiped away and replaced with a steadiness, a confidence, and a resolve that caused his expression to harden into the face of any great leader calling upon his people in tough times.

The crowd responded to his presence with respect. They quieted to let him speak, though they still watched him cautiously, still dubious as to why there had been a firefight in the middle of Shantytown. And particularly why it had involved two children.

Jerry stepped forward with his arms crossed over his chest, his head slightly pulled back in fatherly consternation. He looked out across the gathered people for a moment, letting the silence hang, appearing to make eye contact with everyone, though in fact not really looking at anyone in particular.

He looked down, as though what he was about to say was very difficult for him. “You’re all correct for asking about this. I know I would be asking about it if I were in your shoes, and to be completely honest, I’m ashamed that I’ve kept it from you. But I didn’t want to alarm any of you with what was going on until I had proof of it, and”—he sighed—“unfortunately, we now have proof. This is going to be difficult for you all to hear, but please, bear with me and let me explain the situation. Please, just do that much for me, and then I will answer whatever questions I can.”

He raised his gaze to them again. Struggled on. “Tonight one of our guards caught Angela exchanging secret messages with a group of outsiders. At this time, we don’t know who they are or what they want with us. To be honest, I’m not surprised that Angela would do something like this.” He put a fist to his mouth as though he were trying to contain his emotion. “All we know right now is that Angela has been planning on assisting this unknown and hostile group with infiltrating our homes and taking what we have through the use of force. I can’t attest to why they would do this to us. I can only lay the facts out for you as I know them.”

He raised his hands. “I wish I knew more at this time, but we are just beginning to ask questions. We are just beginning to try to understand what the plot is against us, but until we have more information, please, please remain vigilant. If something looks out of place, report it to one of the guards. If you see any movement outside of the fence, sound the alarm immediately. I don’t know if we’ve thwarted the attack simply by detaining Angela or if this hostile group still plans to attack. I assure you that we’re working as hard as we can to figure out what’s going on and to solve it peacefully and without bloodshed.”

The crowd murmured among themselves. There seemed to be a general consensus among the rumblings that Jerry was correct—it was not surprising at all that Angela would do something like this. Captain Harden had successfully brainwashed her prior to him abandoning them, perhaps leaving her behind as a sort of sleeper cell. Who knew? He was a government operative.

There was, however, some concern for the children.

A woman stepped forward. Older. Scowling. “What about the children? You’re not telling me they’re involved in this plot, are you?”

Jerry made a face as though to say, Well, anything’s possible. “Sandra, we just don’t know at this point. We have the children for safekeeping at this point in time. I don’t know how desperate Angela will become, and I believe that keeping Angela’s two children in our custody, protected, is going to be the smartest option right now.”

Sandra didn’t appear convinced. “What about the shots? We heard shots.”

Jerry nodded solemnly. “The young boy was very frightened when my men went to try to get him for me, and he reacted by firing shots and grievously injuring Paul.” Jerry made himself appear upset. “Right now, we don’t know if Paul’s going to make it. But we were able to get the two children under control without hurting them, and Paul was the only one injured. I will keep you updated on his condition.”

A ripple of voices.

“Oh no!”

“They got Paul?”

“I hope he’s okay!”

Sandra appeared mollified for the moment, even looked a little sad for Paul.

Jerry held up a hand. “Folks, right now the best thing we can do is keep a cool head. I know it’s going to be difficult. There are bad people out there, and they’re threatening to take what we have. But if we let them drive us into a panic, then they’ve already won half the battle.” He clasped his hands together. “Please. Try to rest if you can. But stay vigilant. If you can’t sleep, perhaps you might consider volunteering for a little extra guard duty—you can talk to Arnie here about getting some extra time in. We’re going to need all the help we can get until we have this situation sorted out.”

“Will you let us know what you find out from her?”

Jerry almost smiled at the way it was said: her. As in, that despicable piece of shit. He managed to maintain his gravity. “Yes. As soon as we know more, I will have that information disseminated out to all of you. I think that at this point we all need to be on the same page, working together.”

“We’ve got your back, Jerry!”

“We’re here for you!”

“Anything you need, you just let us know!”

Jerry smiled graciously but grimly at the outpouring of solidarity. Good people, he thought. Good people.

Marie stood at the back edge of the gathering, rooted to the ground, all her muscles frozen as though if she moved, Jerry might see her and just know. He would see the truth in her eyes, written as clear as a billboard on her face. She had the odd, intense, even thrilling sensation of hiding in plain sight. Jerry and his thugs were looking for her, and she was standing right in front of them. They were looking for her, but they just didn’t know it yet.

Oh, shit… what if Angela tells them?

Her mind began to catch up to her heart.

Maybe they already know, but he just isn’t showing his hand yet. Maybe right now Greg and Arnie are trying to figure out a way to sneak up and drag me off to their gulag… and make me disappear.

Jerry had apparently finished speaking, and now he was going back inside the Camp Ryder building. Everyone around Marie was moving, beginning to mill, their movements a little edgy, a little nervous, their heads up on a swivel even as they whispered and murmured to each other. Eyes scanning the woods beyond the fences, looking for the mysterious attackers.

The lying sack of shit.

Marie needed to start moving. She would only draw attention standing there in the same spot like a deer caught in headlights. She turned and started walking, woodenly at first, like she’d forgotten how to use her own limbs. Her footfalls felt clumsy and drunken, but she kept putting one in front of the other and eventually it began to feel natural again.

She made her way back to her shanty, a million imagined eyes tracking her every move, judging her, weighing her, determining where her loyalties were. But in reality, she knew nobody looked at her, nobody scrutinized her. Nobody cared. Because Jerry hadn’t told them about Angela having compatriots. Which meant that Angela hadn’t said anything yet.

Hopefully.

She swept her “door” closed tightly behind her, then stood in the middle of the little shelter, silently assessing her thoughts, trying to organize them into rank and file. Angela had been taken. Abby and Sam had been taken. Because Jerry had mentioned the attack planned for tomorrow night, Marie had to assume that they’d found the note that Marie had passed to Angela earlier. Not good, not good, not good.

Could the plan still work? Could Lee and Old Man Hughes still take Camp Ryder with Jerry and his goons waiting on them to do it? She was no strategist, but she knew the all-importance of the element of surprise, and she couldn’t just expect Lee to lose that essential part of his plan and everything still be hunky-dory. She wouldn’t just sit around on her hands and watch Lee walk into a trap.

And once she knew that, it seemed everything else became clearer. Not easier or less terrifying, but clearer. A dark, dangerous path that she didn’t like, but the only one that was available to her. She couldn’t simply stand around Camp Ryder, cross her fingers, and hope that Jerry didn’t find out that she was part of the plot or hope that Lee came riding in on a white horse to save the day.

She had to do something about it.

Marie emerged from her shanty. Trying not to look like she was guilty. Trying to look like everyone else—concerned, loyal, pissed off at the “threat” to their safety and security. She started walking again, felt things begin to loosen up even as her stomach continued to tighten, and tighten, and tighten, like someone was pulling a ratchet winch inside of her.

What’s the plan, Marie? She spoke silently to herself.

I don’t have a plan.

That’s a pretty shitty plan.

She wasn’t being fair to herself. She did have a plan. Kind of. It just wasn’t well thought out. Not completely formed. A spur-of-the-moment decision, and depending on how successful it was, she might make another spur-of-the-moment decision and maybe it would all work out in the end.

So you’re just gonna wing it?

Yeah, I’m just gonna wing it. Sometimes that’s the best way.

She found herself in front of the Camp Ryder building, two of the men who considered themselves part of Jerry’s “crew” standing by the doors, rifles slung on their shoulders, eyeing her up and down as she approached. Was that suspicion in their eyes? She couldn’t be sure.

She thought she heard her name, whispered somewhere behind her.

She reached the bottom of the steps, feeling stiff. Legs locked. Hands stuffed inside of her jacket.

One of the men lifted his chin slightly. “What’s up, Marie?”

“I need to speak to Arnie,” she blurted.

The two guards exchanged a glance.

“What about?”

She shook her head. “I’ve got information for him.”

“All right.” Hesitation. “Come on in.”

“No.” She pulled a hand out of her pocket. Held it up. “I… uh… need to speak to him… privately.”

“It’s private in there.”

She glared. “I need it to be more private.”

An exasperated sigh. “Fine. Lemme get him.”

Heart starting to beat hard again. Hoping it didn’t show.

She nodded as one of the guards ducked inside the building. She lowered her gaze, kicked at a rock in an attempt to look natural, felt ridiculous, and decided to sit still while she waited. This is a bad idea. This is such a fucking bad idea. I need to figure out how to extricate myself from this situation. There’s no way that this ends well. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. What do I do now? Dammit, what the hell do I do?

The door opened and Arnie emerged, scowling. “Marie?” he said in a bit of disbelief. “What the hell do you want?”

Too late. She was committed.

She plunged forward. “Hey… Arnie. Can we talk?”

“Sure,” he said, crossing his arms. “Talk.”

Marie felt her face flush with anger. “I’m not gonna deal with this, Arnie. If you want my information, you can come talk to me in private. Otherwise, go fuck yourself.”

She turned away, and for a split second she almost hoped that he would let her go, let her walk away. Nothing in the last minute or so had changed this from being the horrible idea it was into some brilliant plan. She was still treading deep waters here. Dangerous waters.

“Whoa, now,” Arnie barked.

Marie stopped where she was. Closed her eyes. Of course.

“You didn’t say anything about information.” She could hear his voice jiggling along with that strange, loose satchel of skin that hung around his waist, and she pictured him waddling down the stairs. Then she heard his boots on the gravel behind her. “Where you wanna talk, sweetheart?”

Biting her tongue, she turned to face him again, eyeing him up and down like, Maybe you lost your chance.

He smiled, and she was sure that in his mind it was a nice smile, but she found it feral and disturbing because she knew the mind behind it. He reached out and touched her gingerly on the shoulder, like one might try to carefully navigate a briar bush in an attempt to pluck fruit from the branches. “Come on. Let’s talk.”

She gestured with her head back behind the Camp Ryder building. “I can show you where they’ve been exchanging notes… or at least where I think they’re exchanging notes. I saw Angela creeping over here the other night. Wasn’t sure what was up.”

Arnie began walking with her, but he eyed her carefully. “I thought you and Angela were tight.”

Marie gave him a warning glance. “We are. And if you hurt her, I’ll fucking cut you up. But I heard Jerry talking about this group of people, and I don’t know who the hell they are, and I don’t want them in here.” She snorted. “I’ll even take Jerry over that.”

They walked behind the building.

Arnie kept a close eye on her. She could feel his gaze wandering over her, suspicious and lecherous at once. She let it happen because—well, she didn’t have much of a choice. She just kept walking, putting those feet down one in front of the other, until they were at the back corner of the building.

She pointed toward the fence. “There. Where that big piece of steel is hanging. You see that hole in the fence?”

Arnie stepped forward just slightly, beady eyes focused where Marie had pointed. “Where?”

“Right there.” She stepped a little closer to him so that he could aim down her outstretched arm.

He bent down just slightly, trying to see what she saw.

Maybe he heard the sound of metal sliding out of leather, or maybe it completely escaped him. He seemed to twitch, ever so slightly, when the sound reached him, but before he could truly react, Marie grabbed him by his greasy hair, yanking down as tight as her fists could go. His head jerked up, a look of pain coming over his face, and he followed as she thrust all of her 130-pound frame into him and slammed him against the back wall of the Camp Ryder building.

For a split second, the shock of the attack burst like a bubble and he began to reach for her throat with one hand, the other balling into a ham-hock fist. And if that were all there had been to it—her versus him—he would have pummeled her, possibly to death. But he had the presence of mind to feel the cold pressure of the knifepoint poking through the crotch of his jeans, just underneath his satchel belly, and pressing into his genitals.

And he froze.

Head pulled back by his hair, hands suspended in mid-counterattack. His eyes locked onto her, wide and scared, his mouth hanging open in a snapshot of terror.

Marie had to rise onto her tiptoes to whisper into his ear. “You feel that, Arnie?”

“Don’t-don’t-don’t-don’t…” he started to squeal.

She pressed harder. “Shut up!”

His face strained against it. A silent scream.

She pulled the pressure a bit. “I asked you if you feel that knife against your dick.”

“Uh-huh.”

She nodded. “I won’t stand here and tell you that I’m gonna cut it off, because, let’s be honest, it won’t happen like that. What I will do is stab this knife straight into your groin. Maybe sever the head off. Maybe pop one or both of your testicles. I don’t really know what will happen. All I know is that it’s going to hurt you a lot. It will hurt now, and it will hurt every time you have to take a piss, and it will hurt every time you see a pair of titties and your sad little mangled cock tries to get an erection.”

“Please don’t…”

“So you’re willing to work with me?”

“Okay. Yeah. Fine. Whatever.”

“Real slow, real careful, I want you to slide that rifle off your shoulder.”

He did. Real slow and real careful.

“Just drop it right there. Good. Now I need your keys.”

“You’re never gonna get away with—”

She pulled the knife away just enough to give him a quick punch to the groin. He doubled over with a groan. She straightened him up again by pulling his hair back once more and reapplying the knife to his crotch.

She could feel her own breath, hot and moist as she hissed into the side of his face. “Try me again, Arnie. Fucking try me again, you little bitch.” She couldn’t help herself; she jabbed the knife a little. A falsetto yelp came out of him, but he managed to strangle it down. “If you knew how fucking pissed I am right now, you’d be worried about your cock and balls and not what I want to do with your car. I’m two seconds away from just doing it for the sheer fun of it. Keys! Now!”

He fumbled into his pockets and produced a key ring with a single pair of keys attached. She plucked it from his hands.

Marie just shook her head at him. “Were you really gonna rape Angela if Jerry told you to?”

He glanced at her, then looked away.

“You sick fuck.”

And he knew what came next.

The sound of it turned every head in Camp Ryder. They could tell it was a scream, but no one could tell whether it was a woman or a man. At first, some thought it might be an infected, somewhere close by the fence, but it was not the sound of their screeching. This was a sound of agony.

Everyone stood frozen by it, until Marie tore around the corner of the Camp Ryder building, yelling and pointing. “Help! Help! They got Arnie! Somebody help him!”

People began to jog, then run, no one quite sure what the hell was going on.

Marie kept pointing and yelling, but she was heading in the opposite direction. No one seemed to notice. They were all racing to see what had happened to Arnie. The guards who had stood at the front door of the Camp Ryder building bolted off the stairs and around the corner, rifles in hand. They glanced at Marie but seemed not to give her a second thought.

The screaming seemed to die away into a strange conglomeration of animal noises. Shouts began to emanate from behind the building now, the kind of shouting that goes along with the empathy you might feel for a man with a knife in his crotch. Some of the people ran around, trying to help Arnie, while the guards raised their rifles and tried to figure out who had hurt Arnie, still not quite piecing it together.

Not until Arnie’s little red Geo sputtered to life and kicked gravel as it lurched through The Square, stirring up a cloud of dust while the tires spun violently, did anyone make the connection. Everyone who had a view of it simply stood and stared, their minds gone black with confusion.

In the driver’s seat, Marie watched them, as if she were in a dream. She watched their faces, flash-frozen as she hauled by, and then she redirected her attention up front, toward the front gate, keeping her foot mashed on the accelerator. The big reinforced gates hurtled toward her and she had the recurring thought, once again, that this was a bad idea. She actually had it several times in the span of the one or two seconds before she hit the gate.

It was reinforced, but it was still chain-link fencing, and the parts they had reinforced had only made it a little ballistically safe, not so much structurally strong. At least, that’s what she fervently hoped for as she glanced down at the speedometer and watched it climb to forty. She tried to aim for what she thought was the weakest spot, where the gate connected to the rollers.

Then she closed her eyes and ducked her head.

The impact was tremendous and jarring.

But she was still moving.

She opened her eyes, saw a lot of paint missing from the mangled hood, a lot of spiderweb cracks in the windshield, but she was on the other side of the gate, tearing down the dirt road that led away from Camp Ryder, and she still had power in the accelerator.

It wasn’t until she reached the turn for Highway 55 that everything hit her, almost stopped her just as surely as she thought the gate was going to. During the moment, her heart had been racing but she hadn’t felt that real, tangible fear. Just anger. Now, she could see every way that things could have gone horribly wrong for her and suddenly she couldn’t catch her breath.

She gripped the steering wheel, tried to breathe slowly. “Stupid, stupid, stupid!” She shook her head. But what else was she going to do? Perhaps she had acted too quickly or too recklessly. Or maybe if she had waited, her opportunity would have escaped and she would be locked up right alongside Angela.

Angela…

The rest of her worries melted into the background. All the maybes. All the bad possibilities. They didn’t matter because right now she was free, she had escaped, and she wasn’t hurt. She’d been successful, so why think about all the ways she could have failed? Now her focus needed to be Angela and Abby and Sam.

And reaching Lee before that sonofabitch Jerry hurt them.

Lee slept like he’d been knocked unconscious. His dreams ran amok in his head, no cohesive imagery or dialogue to them—just a haphazard mishmash of this day and a million others in his past, little bits and pieces of his entire life floating around nonsensically and in no particular order. He slept greedily, like his body was sucking every last bit of recovery that it could from the downtime, as though it was just certain that at any moment the bastard brain that enslaved it would snap out of its dream state and force it into action once again.

Despite all the excitement, Lee had been dead on his feet the moment they’d gotten back to the old showroom where the rest of Old Man Hughes and Jacob’s group slept. Jacob and some twenty-something girl with a desperate-looking set of Coke-bottle glasses were the only ones awake, she having drawn the short straw for guard duty and he simply keeping her company while he waited for Tomlin and Lee to return.

Lee thought he remembered mumbling his way through some basic questions about his well-being, having a light shone in his eyes, and being asked for a brief explanation of what had happened. Lee stumbled through it, just remembering how badly he wanted to sleep, how much effort everything took. Even just to answer a simple question. The opening of the mouth and the expelling of air to form vowels and the movement of the tongue to form consonants… all incredibly exhausting.

So he’d gone to his little section of blankets near the back wall, or perhaps Tomlin had helped him get there, recognizing the extreme fatigue overcoming his friend and maybe keeping an arm around his shoulder. Lee just remembered the sensation of lying on the blankets, like that thin piece of cloth with a cement floor underneath it was as soft as a cloud and he could have slept there for days on end.

He was completely shut down in seconds.

Sometime around four in the morning, bustling feet nearly woke him, familiar voices speaking loudly enough that he would have normally shot bolt upright, gun in hand. But now his mind simply pushed them away, paid them no attention. Still deep in the process of piecing itself back together.

It was the sound of the bay door rolling up that finally woke him.

And he awoke violently, confusion taking its toll again, his eyes wandering over everything that was going on around him but not truly seeing or comprehending it. His hand groped for his gun and eventually found it, his heart hammering because his mind had not yet connected the dots to tell him where he was or what the hell was going on.

A hand fell on his rifle.

He looked up into Tomlin’s face. “You good?” Tomlin asked.

Lee stared, slack-jawed, for a moment. Said, “I’m good,” out of habit, though he wasn’t.

Tomlin motioned him up. “You look like shit, but you need to be awake.”

“What’s going on?” Lee asked, hearing in his voice the sound of a child lost in a crowd.

Tomlin pulled him up out of bed. “That chick you were talking to at the fence?”

“Marie?”

“Yeah.” Tomlin pointed. “She’s here.”

THIRTY-SIX

THE MISSION

LAROUCHE WANDERED THROUGH THE darkness while night turned to morning. The sky began to gray. A few cold, ruffled birds made lonely noises from trees all around him as he crashed clumsily through the woods beneath them, as though the very sight of him saddened them.

He clutched the Beretta pistol in his right hand, held his wounded arm close to his chest, shivering violently in the cold as he tried to scan the woods around him but only lost himself in the darkness, everything made worse by the tricks of whiskey. His mouth was dry as parchment, tasted ashy in the back of his throat. His stomach roiled violently and he almost wished to vomit, if not just to wet his tongue.

He stopped all at once and fell against a tree, not for loss of balance but for loss of everything else. His mind, his friends, his family, his entire world. He felt it like he was shrinking, just shrinking down to nothing, until blades of grass would be as tall as trees and he would be lost among them, lost with no way out and no one who could hear him or save him.

He didn’t speak to himself, didn’t curse or question himself as to why he had done what he had done. He just wept. He wept until the sobs hurt his chest, until they tore at his face, ripped at his abdomen. He did so quietly, though in his own ears it howled like a hurricane wind. To the rest of the indifferent world, it was a rustle among the dead leaves and sightless trees.

He did not have any clear, coherent thoughts. It was as though everything had been distilled down to its essence. Remorse. Anger. Self-pity. All boiled down to their most primal, most elemental states. The feelings that human ancestors felt before they could put them into words. And after a time, even that was gone and it was as though he had exhausted every cell of himself and was simply reduced to mindless organic matter.

He stayed there for a while. Hours, perhaps. Maybe he slept. Maybe he just existed.

Sometime around dawn a man appeared.

LaRouche heard his furtive movements through the woods but did not react. At least, he did not react in any reasonable way. He did not raise his pistol, did not rise to his feet and prepare to run. He simply turned his head in the direction of the noise—just a soft crunch of dew-damp leaves that could have been a small animal moving through the forest but had the steady rhythm of a man’s pace.

The man stopped about ten yards from LaRouche, and the two men stared at each other. The stranger carried an assault rifle—what looked like an old HK91. He was tall, middle-aged, heavily bearded with gray shooting through at the corners of his mouth like he had been sloppily drinking milk. Short hair, wild and in all directions. He wore a gray-and-black parka with the North Face emblem over the left breast. A white cloth tied around his right arm, scrunched so that LaRouche could barely see the red cross-and-circle that it bore.

LaRouche must have looked as empty as he felt because the man cleared his throat and asked in a clear, almost eloquent voice, “Are you sane?”

LaRouche blinked slowly. His voice came out like sand. “Do you have water?”

The stranger lifted his rifle. “Let me see your hands.”

LaRouche looked down to where his right hand—and the pistol that it still held—lay numbly under his leg. “I… I have a gun.”

Silence.

“I’m going to throw it away.” LaRouche tried desperately to work some moisture into his mouth. “Don’t shoot me.”

“Okay. Throw it away.”

LaRouche lifted the pistol very slowly, gingerly, with his thumb and forefinger and the rest splayed out wide. Then he tossed it about a yard away.

“Roll onto your belly and put your hands behind your back,” the stranger said, his voice showing a bit of nerves.

LaRouche did as he was told.

The soft footsteps behind him. Hands clasping his wrists together. The click of handcuffs. LaRouche’s chin rested on a gnarled root of the tree he lay against, and he breathed steadily through his nose, feeling nothing but the sickness of his own body, the burn of his ulcer, the queasy feeling of the bloom falling off the whiskey rose.

The stranger pulled him to his feet. “You’re a prisoner of the Lord’s Army.”

Lee stalked back to the place where he’d slept. There wasn’t much there but his rifle—not even his rifle, really. Just a rifle he’d taken off of a dead man. Besides that, there was nothing else that belonged to him. Everything else had been taken away.

Tomlin followed behind him, head lowered. “Lee, talk to me. What’re you thinkin’?”

Lee snatched up the rifle, checked the chamber, then slung into it. “What am I thinking?” Lee’s tone was clipped. “I don’t know, Brian. I’m thinking about a lot of fucking things right now.” He spun on Tomlin. “That motherfucker killed Bus! He killed Bus. And now he’s got Angela?” Lee made a strained noise, grabbing his forehead with one hand. “And Abby and Sam? Fuck me, Tomlin. What the hell am I supposed to be thinking right now? I’m gonna slit his fucking throat. That’s what I’m thinking.”

Tomlin planted his hands in his pockets. “So you just gonna ride in, storm the castle?”

“Yeah, somethin’ like that.”

“Seems reckless.”

“Guess it does.”

“Lee!” Tomlin snapped. “Enough of this bullshit. You need to slow the fuck down right now. You need to start thinking about the big picture here, brother. I know you don’t wanna hear this right now, but I’m sayin’ it anyway.” Tomlin set his feet like he was preparing to receive a blow for it. “Is taking back Camp Ryder our primary concern right now?”

Lee stared at him for a long moment. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that rushing in is stupid.” Tomlin stabbed the air with a finger. “It’s stupid, and you know it is. At the end of the day, what does it gain you?”

“What does it gain me?”

“Yes! Quit being dense!”

“No, no.” Lee waved a hand. “I’m not being dense. Why don’t you just come right out and say it? I’m sure I’d love to hear this.”

Tomlin looked off, exasperated.

Lee took a step toward him. “Were you about to ask me what good it does me to take back Camp Ryder? What tactical advantage it gives me? We barely have any weapons or supplies back there, and only a dozen friends. So why risk two dozen people for their sake? Why risk my own life?”

Tomlin met his eyes again, accepting the challenge. “It was one thing when we had the element of surprise. But that’s fucking gone now. You can try to make it sound bad all you want, Lee. But one of us needs to think about the mission. I’m not saying that we can’t go back and take Camp Ryder when the time is right—I’m fine with that. But Jerry knows we’re comin’! He knows that we’re out here and he’s gonna have that place locked down and on high alert, my friend. Trying to take Camp Ryder right now is an unnecessary risk! Are you willing to put the mission in jeopardy for this shit?”

“Fuck the mission!” Lee suddenly shouted.

Tomlin looked like he’d been slapped. “Lee…”

“No.” Lee held up a finger. “You think this is about the mission anymore? Jesus Christ, Brian! Were you even listening to the words that came out of your own mouth?” Lee pinched his fingers together, enunciating his words. “Eddie Ramirez stole my GPS. And we’re not getting it back! Not now, not later, not ever! It’s in the fucking wind!” As if it weren’t deafeningly obvious enough, Lee drove the point home. “There’s no fucking mission anymore! Abe Darabie betrayed us. The fucking government that we were supposed to be somehow resurrecting out of this shit pile that they left us—they fucking betrayed us.”

Lee let his hands fall, and the sound of them slapping his sides echoed in the perfect silence of the room. Lee could feel the dozens of eyes on him, but he didn’t really care. It was just him and Tomlin now, and none of these other people—through whatever trials and tribulations they had faced in the previous months—none of them could understand what Lee and Tomlin felt in that moment.

To give so much of yourself to a cause, to believe in something so wholeheartedly, so blindly, that you willingly suffer the scars, and you do not complain when the little parts of you are chipped away. You keep telling yourself that it is for a greater good, that there is a higher purpose. And you do not think to read deeper until there is so little of you left that you cannot survive without it and be the same person. And it is then, when The Cause, with its greedy mouth, tries to take more from you, tries to take that part of you that you cannot give away, it is only then that you realize all of your sacrifices have been for nothing. You have given yourself to a fraud. And what is left to replace what has been taken is not a hero’s pride but a bitter emptiness that sours even that last little core of yourself that you cling to.

This is the destiny of the man who serves, the man who stands for others. This is the lot of the ones who go out to confront the wolf. This is the disillusionment of all those who protect the flock. This is their secret: that they have allowed their instincts to be used, not for the protection of others, but for the gain of a few. And their “honor” is a monument to the ashes of all those little pieces of themselves that they never got back.

“It’s not about the mission anymore,” Lee said. “It’s about the people who are counting on us. Angela and Marie and everyone else who’s waiting for us to get back. And Harper’s group going up north and LaRouche’s group heading east. All the people who have come to see the Camp Ryder Hub as a place where they can live again. They’re all counting on us. That’s who I’m unwilling to fail, Brian. And the only way I can fail them is by standing around here and not taking the fight to Jerry.”

Tomlin looked hard at Lee and seemed to be taking a hard stock of himself. Lee let him have the moment, because what he asked the other man to process was not easy. But he knew he was right. He had to be right. There was no other way.

Finally Tomlin looked over. Old Man Hughes and Jacob stood at a safe distance away, and Tomlin waved them closer. “Hughes, Jacob, bring it in.” He situated himself so he stood abreast of Lee. “If we’re gonna do this shit, we’re gonna do it right. Give ourselves the best chances for success.” The others came in, created a closed circle behind which the rest hovered to eavesdrop. Tomlin pointed at Jacob and Hughes. “That means we need everyone. If they have a gun and a finger to pull the trigger, we need them. The only way this doesn’t become a bloodbath is if we can take it quick and fast, and that means we need the numbers on our side, which is gonna be a stretch anyway.” Tomlin massaged his temples. “But we’ll work with what we’ve got.”

Jacob nodded. “I’m in. The folks who came from Smithfield with me”—he made a face—“I don’t really know them that well. But I imagine they’d be willing to help. And honestly, they don’t have much of a choice.”

Tomlin nodded. “Hughes?”

The old man just nodded, adjusted his ancient trucker’s cap on his head. “You can count on us.”

Tomlin gestured to Lee. “We’re all here, Lee. I hope you’ve got a plan.”

And that was all that needed to be said. With Tomlin on board, Lee had nothing else to discuss, nothing else to consider. There was no hesitation, no second-guessing. It was everything he had said to Tomlin, but it was more than that. It was Angela. It was every night she’d been there beside him when his nightmares woke him up screaming. It was every time he’d returned to Camp Ryder and she was waiting for him, just to make sure that he was okay. It was the quiet and unspoken connection between them. It was the fact that they knew each other through all of this and had somehow become each other’s support. Lee did not have family—his family had died while he fought in a desert thousands of miles away. But Angela was here. Angela had become his family. He had adopted her, as she had adopted him. And he could no more spend an extra second thinking about the benefits of rescuing Angela as he would if she were truly his blood.

He raised his head and called to Marie, who stood just behind Old Man Hughes. “C’mon, Marie. You’re our intel. We need the most up-to-date info possible.” He turned to the others. “We’re gonna keep this real simple. Simple is best, because the first plan never survives first contact. So when shit hits the fan, just remember: Your objective is the Camp Ryder building. We have to take that building. If we own that, we own Camp Ryder.”

LaRouche walked ahead of the well-spoken stranger. He could feel the heat of the man’s hand on his shoulder, guiding him through the woods. He’d tied a half-assed blindfold around LaRouche’s face, but LaRouche could still see out the bottom, so he was able to walk the forest floor with some accuracy, avoiding roots and brambles and keeping his feet.

His mind was still a slurry of remorse, self-hatred, self-pity. He had not gotten around to thinking about how he was going to get out of this mess, how he was going to get away from this guy. In fact, he just kept thinking, as though it were a foregone conclusion, that they would either execute him or convert him, and he did not think much past that point.

Either they would execute him.

Or they would convert him.

As though he had no choice in the matter. As though it had already been decided. And perhaps it had. Perhaps he had already decided what he would do if that option were presented to him. So he just kept walking along through the half-dark woods, wondering when he would reach the point of no return, when he would reach that ultimate decision. To continue living or to convert?

Because that was what these people did. They converted or they killed. So the only question that needed to be considered was whether LaRouche wanted to continue to live or not. Perhaps a sidebar question—was it worth living anymore, or was it time to just give up? Throw in the towel? Say that enough was enough?

He kept picturing in his head, his throbbing, slowly sobering head, the moment when he’d pulled the trigger. How sure he’d been at that time that Father Jim had been trying to kill him with a rock. So undoubtedly sure.

Now? He wasn’t so sure. He kept replaying it in his mind, and every time he did he came up with a different conclusion. Perhaps Father Jim hadn’t been reaching for a rock. Perhaps he had only sought some traction, trying to get out from under LaRouche. Maybe he’d just killed the man for no reason.

The man?

Let’s not mince words, LaRouche thought bitterly. He was your friend. You killed your friend. And now what do you have? You have nothing. Nothing but a big decision coming up on you and no one there to help you make it. Do you want to live, or do you want to die?

He remained undecided.

The ground passing beneath his feet, the narrow window that he had of it through the space between the blindfold and his cheeks, it grew lighter. The colors grew bolder. So slowly, so steadily, he almost didn’t notice it happening. There was the smell of dawn—the oaky smell of dew rising up from the ground and carrying with it all the particulates of dead and fallen plant matter that they rose from. There was also the smell of the salt water—LaRouche could not mistake that. It made his heart ache and brought to mind all the summer vacations he’d ever taken to the beach and would never take again.

In that moment, he wanted to walk on warm sand more than anything. But he knew he would never have the opportunity to do so. He tried to remember back to the last time he had gone to the beach, because that would soon become the last time he ever went. Tried to remember the shifting of the sand underneath the balls of his feet. The feeling of the grit between his toes. The heat of it. The sun beating down on his face. The sound of the gulls crying greedily as they rode the cross breeze. The steadily pounding surf.

But it was a half-finished painting. No sooner had he conjured it in his mind than he was pulled back to the real world and its cold, damp November chill. And the reality that he would never again walk on those beaches, never again be carefree. Those times, those times that he’d stupidly thought were the toughest of times, when he’d complained about such normalcies as rent and girlfriends and his ancient, ailing pickup… those times were gone.

All of this heartache, this remembrance, it was in the air around him, unavoidable. But there was something else in the breeze that caught his attention, something that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up, but he wasn’t sure why. Something that he couldn’t quite put his finger on but that his subconscious brain had somehow decoded and was apparently concerned about.

“You smell that?” LaRouche asked his captor.

“Smell what?”

“I don’t know.”

“You trying to fuck with me?”

“No… it’s…”

“Just keep walking. We’re almost there.”

So they walked on. The moment passed, and whatever LaRouche had detected faded either as he left it behind or his nose became accustomed to it. In either case, he did as he was told and just kept walking. He tilted his head back so he could see ahead of him a bit. The ground rose and he leaned into it, planting his feet firmly in the rise. There was gravel, and the leaves thinned.

Then there was blacktop.

The sound of a river.

He walked on the blacktop. Little white rocks passed under his feet like constellations, and he walked across them. He felt both sober and drunk now. Sick enough to be both. His stomach clawed at his throat. Like his insides had gone to war with each other.

“Praise God!” someone far ahead of them shouted.

“And peace to you,” the man behind him intoned.

It had the sound of a password. Something read out of rote memorization because it was required and not believed. LaRouche was not told to stop so he continued walking, continued thinking about the river and where it was going. Out to sea. Where he wished he was. Would it be so bad if he flung himself over the rail? Drowned in the waters with his eyes blindfolded and his hands tied behind his back? Would it be so bad if that dark, cold river bore him out to sea where he wanted to be?

It would be a good way to die. As good as any. And better than most.

The voice in front of them was much closer now. “What have we here?”

LaRouche’s captor put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. “Found him sneaking around in the woods.”

“Is he one of them?”

“He came from the direction of their camp, but I haven’t questioned him. He’s drunk.”

“Hmm.”

Someone poked LaRouche in the chest.

“Hey! Where are you coming from?”

“Tennessee,” LaRouche said, mumbled like there were cotton balls in his mouth.

“And what brings you so far east, my friend?” This was the man in front of LaRouche.

“Lookin’ for the beach. Lookin’ to die.”

There was silence for the better part of a minute. Perhaps the two men were discussing what to do with LaRouche in mouthed words and silent gestures. LaRouche stood blankly. The clay on the potter’s wheel. Formless and ready to be made into anything.

“Alright.” The man in front. “Take Darren and the car. Get him back to the FOB. Let Deacon Chalmers decide what to do with him.”

Then they walked some more.

At some point, LaRouche’s captor called out to another man—Darren, LaRouche presumed—and then led LaRouche to an old car. Through the little sliver of the world that he could see between the bottom of the blindfold and his cheek, he could see baby blue door panels. A ’90s model Toyota or Nissan, he couldn’t quite tell. Darren came and took the driver’s seat. LaRouche was positioned in the front passenger seat. The car smelled of stale cigarettes and gasoline, like the inside of a mechanic’s shop. It was cold and moist, like they’d left the windows down during a rain.

LaRouche’s captor sat directly behind him. “You do anything stupid, I’ll blow your brains out. Understand?”

LaRouche just nodded. “Yeah. Sure.”

Wilson could hear the river approaching. He was not much of a woodsman, but he’d followed the trail to the best of his ability, taking note of tracks in the mud that were barely visible in the early-dawn light, broken branches, matted leaves. Maybe he wasn’t even following LaRouche anymore. Maybe he’d just happened upon some old deer trail and was wandering off into nowhere.

Dorian and Tim remained with him. Tim was right behind Wilson, and Dorian was in the back. All rifles were up, pointed out into the woods. The gray trees each a sentinel, each a body that could come alive and attack them at any moment. They’d been at an intense level of caution since finding Father Jim’s body, and there still seemed no end in sight.

All the while, Wilson maintained his composure. Inside, he was a wreck. A blithering fucking wreck. Seeing Father Jim—hell, even thinking about him—lying there with his brains strewn across the ground made him want to drop right there. Bawl his eyes out. It made everything in his chest so tight that he was forced to push it away because he couldn’t breathe.

And then there was LaRouche. Goddamned LaRouche. What had happened? What was the reason? Was it as bad as Wilson thought it was, or was there some rational explanation? God, he wanted there to be an explanation so badly. He wanted to find LaRouche and have the former sergeant tell him how it was all a big misunderstanding. How one of the Followers had sniped Father Jim from the woods and now LaRouche was bravely tracking him down to exact revenge.

But Wilson knew.

He fucking knew.

LaRouche had killed Father Jim. Maybe there was some explanation why that had happened, but LaRouche taking off running through the woods didn’t make it seem like it had been an accident. So Wilson was forced to amend his thought.

LaRouche had murdered Father Jim.

Whether or not Dorian and Tim felt as strongly about the situation or were as close to being driven to their knees by the toll it took on them as Wilson was, he would never know. They tracked along behind him silently. Perhaps because they were struck mute at the murder of a friend by someone they had trusted. Or perhaps simply because they didn’t want to attract attention.

Wilson didn’t know, and he wasn’t so sure that he cared.

Emotionally, he was lost in his own world.

Up ahead, he could see the abrupt end of the trees, and the ground around them turned to a certain consistency that spoke of coastal marshes. Beyond the end of the trees, the river moved—turbulent, it seemed—and reflected back a sky as gray as gun smoke.

The trail led toward it, a slight depression in the earth, and Wilson followed it, though he realized that it had been some time since he’d last seen anything that looked like a boot track. He didn’t know what he was doing. He was no tracker. Who knows what he’d been tracking this whole time? And what the fuck did he think he was going to do if he actually did find LaRouche?

He had no idea.

Capture him?

Interrogate him?

He felt like he was just doing what he was supposed to do. Going through the motions. Maybe it was the nightmarish quality of it all, or maybe it was the half light of the almost-morning that always made him feel like he waded through some irresolute dream sequence.

They reached the edge of the river. The bank sloped down into mud. Already their boots sank into it, maybe an inch deep. It sucked at the soles of their shoes and slopped loudly. Wilson stood there at the bank, like another one of these gray trees that lined the river. Holding his rifle. Trying to look the part. A whitewashed tomb full of dead men’s bones.

He watched the water, almost entranced by it.

“What the fuck, LaRouche?” he murmured to himself. “What did you do?”

“Uh…” Dorian’s voice. “Wilson… you seein’ this shit?”

Wilson raised his eyes off the hypnotic movement of the water. “What?”

Dorian stepped up beside Wilson and pointed out across the water, toward the opposite bank. “You see that?”

Wilson squinted. The opposite bank was alive. The trees were moving. All their gray, leafless limbs sloshed in the shallow water as though they were trying to cross, but there were more trees on that side of the river than here. So many pale gray trees that it looked like a logjam. And they moved. Farther inland too. Wilson could see them moving with the river, moving east.

He stared. Didn’t react.

Dorian’s voice was higher than normal. “You fuckin’ see that shit? You see it?”

Maybe it was the lack of sleep, maybe it was the preoccupation with what had happened between LaRouche and Father Jim, but it took Wilson that long to figure out what he was looking at. And when he did, he felt like he was slipping into the river himself, being washed away.

“Holy shit.” He looked east, down the river where they were headed, and just in the distance he could see the bridge. The bridge where the Followers had set their roadblock. And he knew that Lee had been right all along. But now they were going to be too late. There was no possible way they could blow the bridge in time—not with the Followers still standing guard.

Madly, he thought that maybe, just maybe, the Followers would join them, since it was mutually beneficial. But who would go to them? Who would risk the white flag when they knew that in all likelihood they would be captured and killed regardless?

“How many do you think there are?” Dorian said breathlessly.

“I don’t know.” Wilson stared at them, tried to estimate, but it seemed his mind was not clear enough to focus on numbers and figures. So he simply threw out what he believed to be a safe guess. “At least a couple thousand.”

So jam-packed together that their homogenous gray skin seemed to be all parts of one massive creature that lumbered down the riverbank, searching for a way to cross, they approached the bridge over the Roanoke River, so many infected that they could not be counted.

Wilson gathered himself.

Think about what Lee would want you to do.

What should I do?

He turned. “We need to get the fuck out of here.”

They began to run.

They had gotten no more than twenty yards back into the woods when they heard it, and it stopped them in their tracks. It was the noise of splitting air, the roar of the earth cracking along its fault lines. A percussion that shook the trees around them and made their ears ring and caused the three of them to flatten themselves into the mud like the eastern sky had opened and the apocalypse had come to earth. There was a series of tearing sounds, almost simultaneous, like the fabric of the world around them was being rent, and then blasts that shook them, chattered their teeth together, and turned their stomachs.

“What the fuck was that?” Dorian screamed.

Wilson could barely hear him over the ringing in his ears. He just shook his head, made a noise like a deaf man trying to speak, tried to work his jaw to pop his ears, to make them stop the brutal assault of cymbals that seemed to go on forever inside of his ear canal. He stood up, a little unsteady.

“C’mon,” he said, waving them on. “Whatever that was, I wanna get away from it.”

THIRTY-SEVEN

SEMPER FI

JERRY STALKED TO THE medical trailer, simply not in the fucking mood. After his little speech reassuring the good people of Camp Ryder that he had everything under control, Jerry had retired into the building and told Greg and Arnie to lock the bitch and her kids up tight—and separately. He’d been awake since about one in the damn morning, when Greg had come to him with the information that he’d gotten from Jenny, which was apparently a sore subject between the two of them at this point.

He’d wanted to get some more sleep, so Arnie and Greg moved Angela into the empty old utility closet and locked the door. In the quiet of the building, they could still hear the mumbles and crying of the two rotten little bastards who had shot Paul. Jerry shut the office door so he wouldn’t have to hear them while he was trying to sleep, and when he lay down, he slept with the readiness of a man without a conscience.

Apparently, sometime during that first blessed half hour of early morning sleep, there had been some shouting, some stabbing, and some driving through the front gate. Jerry didn’t know. He’d slept through it. Until Kyle came through the door, sweating profusely, stuttering about how Marie had stabbed Arnie and there was a hole in the gate and two infected had already tried to get inside and had been shot.

So now Jerry found himself awake again, and walking, and cold, and not in the fucking mood. He approached the medical trailer and could hear a combination of moaning, groaning, and arguing. He couldn’t pick out the specific words because they hid behind the cries of the two wounded men, but he could tell that it was Jenny and Greg, and neither was thrilled with the other.

Un-fucking-believable. He wanted to strangle them both. You can’t possibly be doing a good job patching my guys up if you’re having a goddamned lovers’ quarrel in the middle of it all!

He turned the corner of the medical trailer and stood in the opening.

Jenny: “I told you that in confidence, you sonofabitch!”

Greg: “What the fuck did you expect me to do with it? Sit on my fucking hands?”

Jerry cleared his throat loudly and the arguing ceased. Greg stepped to the side and Jerry could see past him into the maul of blood and dirty bandages that surrounded Jenny and the two men who lay half conscious on the cots. Jenny’s sleeves were rolled up past her elbows and still managed to be soaked in blood. Her arms looked like they’d been dipped in it.

Paul lay on the far cot, his clothes cut away but still clinging to him. He twitched and mumbled and looked ghostly pale. His midsection was bandaged thickly, but there was barely any white left in the gauze. It was all soaked through and nearly black.

Arnie was a little more awake but seemed on the verge of falling into shock. His arms kept flailing about, but they were like a drunken man’s, and they seemed purposeless and random. Jenny sat there, bent over his naked crotch in some horrific parody of a sex act.

“Jesus…” Jerry grimaced. “What the fuck happened here?”

Greg left his position hanging over Jenny’s shoulder and stood before Jerry, his face clenched. “It was Marie. She fucking stabbed him in the cock and ran off with his car. Ran through the fucking gate. We have no idea where she went.”

Jerry stared. “You have no idea where she went?” Jerry felt a welling of rage, like hot lava flow. He swung his arm and slapped Greg on the shoulder, probably more painful for his hand than Greg, but the bigger man flinched away from it anyway. “You have no idea where she went?” he repeated, raising his voice. “Try ‘whoever the fuck is planning to take this shit over!’ Goddammit, do I have to think for everyone in this hellhole? How does this happen, Greg? How does this fucking happen? Please explain!”

Greg looked away. “Marie said she had information. Said she’d only give it to Arnie in private. Then I don’t know what happened because we haven’t been able to get Arnie to talk after that. All I can say is she stabbed him in the crotch and ran off with his car.”

“Oh.” Jerry shook his head. “Oh-ho-ho.” He shifted his gaze like a target tracker, landing and locking it on Jenny. He pointed at her. “You. You.”

“C’mon, Jerry,” Greg mumbled halfheartedly.

Jenny glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, still focused on her work.

Jerry stood beside her, watched her hands moving about what was left of Arnie’s genitals—white flesh and black pubic hair and a lot of red, glistening meat. “You fucking knew about this shit, didn’t you, you dirty little slut?”

Jenny stopped what she was doing, looked up at him. “What the fuck did you say?”

Jerry bent down, in her face. “You. Dirty. Little. Slut. You knew Marie was part of this shit, and you held that information back! Didn’t you? Didn’t you?”

Jenny lurched to her feet, bloody hands suddenly balled into fists. Jerry’s heart somersaulted—he hadn’t expected her to react so violently—and then he took a step back, raising his hands in preparation to ward off the incoming blows. But before she could start swinging, Greg swooped in and grabbed her arms, pinning them to her sides.

It didn’t stop her from kicking at him. “You sonofabitch!” she screamed at him. “I didn’t know shit! You stay out of my face! Get out! Get out of my trailer! GET OUT!”

Jerry dodged the blows. “Greg, control your bitch!”

Greg pulled her away, squeezing her tightly enough that it seemed he might crack her rib cage, and he whispered into her ear, his face buried in her flailing hair, “You need to calm the fuck down or this is gonna end badly for you. Please calm down, Jenny. Just calm down.”

She still struggled against him. Her voice was a little more subdued, if not slightly strained from fighting to get a breath past his constricting arms. “You tell him to get out! He has to leave. I won’t help Arnie if he’s in here. I’ll just let him bleed out, I swear to God!”

Greg looked pleadingly at Jerry.

If Jerry were honest with himself, he would have admitted that Jenny’s outburst had been unexpected and it had scared the hell out of him. He would have decided that perhaps this was someone he didn’t want to continue to poke at, since if he were to ever be injured, it would be Jenny who patched him up. She was the only one left in Camp Ryder with any medical experience, and that basically made her untouchable.

If Jerry were honest with himself, he would have realized all this, backed off, and maybe even apologized. You simply don’t fuck with nurses and doctors. You don’t fuck with the people who fix you when you’re broken.

But Jerry was rarely honest with himself, and instead he found himself livid that Jenny had managed to take him by surprise, had managed to humiliate him in front of one of his subordinates. So rather than walk away, he stalked toward her and slapped her across the face.

She went very still, as though it had shocked her.

He put a finger to her nose. “Don’t think that you’re special, Jenny. Don’t think it for one fucking second. You have a skill, and it is keeping you alive. But for your own goddamned sake, don’t become more annoying to me than your skill is useful. Do you understand me?”

She didn’t respond. Hung limply in Greg’s arms.

Jerry snorted. Looked down at Arnie and Paul. “And why don’t you give my men some fucking pain medication?”

She held Jerry’s gaze. Her voice was glacier cold and just as brittle. “Because we don’t have any more medication, Jerry.” The words seemed innocent enough, but their meaning was obvious. We used to have medication when Captain Harden was leading us. But you don’t have bunkers full of supplies. So now we’re starving. Now we’re sick. Now we’re in pain. And there ain’t shit you can do about it. Because you are not Captain Harden.

He worked saliva into his dry mouth, sniffed haughtily. “Fine. Do your fucking job.” He turned and began walking away. “Greg!” he barked. “Come with me.”

Greg worked his jaw and then released Jenny. He didn’t look at her. Just jogged after Jerry, shaking his head just slightly.

Outside, Jerry stared at the front gate, a mangled mess of metal with two guards standing around it with their thumbs up their asses, not doing shit but staring at it like it was some sort of goddamned mystery. They shone flashlights through the gate and illuminated the sprawled bodies of two infected that had come scarily close to that breach in their defenses. It was quiet now—no infected screeching in the woods—but Jerry was sure it wasn’t going to last long.

Jerry growled low in his throat, tried to shake off the feeling of crumbling, the feeling that everything was falling down around him. Too hastily built. Too structurally unsound. Maybe he’d made his move too early. Maybe he should have waited. Bided his time until conditions were better.

Or maybe he’d been too kind. Maybe he’d been too merciful. Perhaps he had tried too hard to play it safe, to please everybody. Perhaps it was time to play a little hardball.

“First things first,” he said to Greg. “Get that fucking fence fixed yesterday. I want four armed men on that breach until it’s put back together and the infected can’t get through. I want however many men you have left to be roving around the fence and on top of the building, ready for whenever these motherfuckers come for us. Once you have that set up, get Angela into my office. We need to address the threat of whoever might have allied themselves with Angela and Marie.”

“You want me to help you question Angela?”

“No.” Jerry shook his head. “We need to neutralize the threat of more people rebelling inside Camp Ryder.” He looked at Greg. “For their own safety, and to better equip the men who are defending Camp Ryder, I’m going to need everyone to surrender their weapons. If anyone objects to that, those are probably the people we need to be concerned with. Go door to door with three others, and if they give you any problems, lock them up.”

They drove slowly. The midmorning light came through the trees in slats of brightness, and it was caught in the smoke that hung over everything like a heavy fog. Part smoke and part dust. Wilson could smell it—the sharp smell of high explosives and the muted, gritty flavor of cement, so finely pulverized by a blast that the particulate matter seemed weightless in the air. It also reduced their visibility to maybe a hundred yards at the most.

Like they were driving through a cloud.

They approached the bridge over the Roanoke River. No one spoke. Just the steady thrum of the Humvee coasting down the road, the tires whirring across the pavement, occasionally encountering a bit of debris that had been thrown so far from the blast site and crunching over it. This had to be where the horrendous blast had come from.

Wilson had heard other noises when they’d been running back to the convoy. A sound like a giant buzz saw, and men screaming. A few smaller explosions. And then nothing after that. Just the wind in the trees and a rising column of smoke, a haze that clung stubbornly to the roadway. The faraway murmur of the river as it flowed east.

“Slow down,” Wilson instructed, leaning out of his open window, his rifle ready.

Ahead of them and to the right, a dark object lay sprawled in the road.

A man, Wilson was pretty sure. Or part of him, anyway. As they drew closer, the smoke and dust cleared enough to see the details. It was indeed a man, though one of his arms and a large portion of his torso were missing. He wore the white cloth around his arm, the cross-and-circle painted on it. All around him, the cement was cratered in vicious-looking lines. He lay in the middle of one of those lines.

Wilson didn’t say anything. Didn’t interpret what he saw, because he honestly didn’t know what to think. He was just an Air Force Academy cadet, not a modern warfare expert. He didn’t know what weapons made what wounds or what in the hell he’d heard or what could have caused it.

He waved with one hand. “Keep going.”

They continued on. Passed a pickup truck on the side of the road. Riddled with gigantic holes. They couldn’t see what was inside the cab of the pickup because blood and dark, fleshy matter clung to the interior of all the glass, evenly splattered. Two other bodies were in the bed of the pickup truck, still clinging to weapons, though not much else was recognizable.

“Oh, man,” Dorian mumbled from up top.

Tim echoed the sentiment. “I don’t know whether this is a good thing or really, really fucking bad.”

Wilson swallowed, tasted the smoky dust on his tongue. “Guess it depends on who and what did this.”

The road changed textures. From old, tire-smoothed asphalt to a rough white cement. The beginning of the bridge. Here the trees stopped and no longer provided a windbreak. Ahead, the smoke and dust were clearer, and Wilson could see the abrupt end of the bridge.

“Holy shit…” Wilson tapped Tim on the arm, signaling him to stop. The Humvee halted, and behind them through the open window, Wilson could hear the other vehicles’ brakes engaging, the rumble of their idles mixing with the noise of the river below them. “The fucking bridge is gone.”

Wilson opened his door, stepped out.

“Again,” Tim said as he engaged the Humvee’s emergency brake and stepped out, shouldering his rifle. “Seems like a good thing. But…”

Wilson glanced behind him as the others in his group began piling out of the vehicles. There was a certain funereal mood to the group. The loss of Father Jim weighed incredibly heavy on them, and despite Wilson’s best efforts, no one was ignorant as to the friction between Jim and LaRouche. And now LaRouche was missing? They were smart enough to figure it out on their own.

But for the moment, those negative feelings were forgotten. Everyone was tense, their eyes and their focus on outward threats and not on themselves. It was almost a welcome distraction.

“Let’s keep our heads on a swivel,” Wilson advised, because it felt like something a leader should say. He wasn’t sure if anyone wanted him to lead them, but they seemed not to object, and it seemed to have fallen on him by default, for whatever reason. He didn’t particularly want the job, but he didn’t see anyone else stepping up to take it.

Limited options.

He faced the bridge and began walking. More bodies and debris. Beyond the gouts of smoke, blue sky, crystal clear for moments before it was shrouded again. The edge of the bridge drew closer, the image became clearer.

The cement superstructure ended in a ragged, crumbling tear. The edges of the road were jagged, with twisted bits of rebar poking out of them. Below the cement, the structural I-beams had been completely sheared by the blast, effectively severing the bridge in half.

“Fuck me,” Wilson mumbled.

A gust of wind took the smoke away as he stopped, maybe ten feet or so from the edge, and he could see clearly beyond, see the river flowing beneath them, marshy at the banks, but swift and brown-black in the center. And he could see the other side of the bridge, a solid twenty-foot gap between the two halves.

A group of figures on the other side, staring at him.

He snapped his rifle up, finger going to the trigger.

The figures, standing erect when he’d first seen them, suddenly crouched, almost down to all fours, and they began scrambling about the jagged edge of the bridge, eyes fixated on Wilson, jaws open, slobber hanging in thick strands from them. Their tattered, filthy clothes. Their starved, sinewy frames. Maybe a dozen of them.

Infected, Wilson realized.

Tim was beside him, rifle aimed. “Should we shoot ’em?”

Wilson looked at them for a moment.

They paced and they screeched and chirped and chuffed at them. But it was sounds of frustration. A wild animal stuck in a cage. They could not cross.

“Where the fuck’s the rest of them?” Wilson asked. “There were thousands.”

“Maybe they got blown up.”

“No way they could blow up that many.”

“Maybe these are just stragglers,” Tim suggested. “Maybe the rest of them continued on toward the coast.”

The infected on the other side of the river paced for a bit more, issued a few screeches that curdled Wilson’s blood, and he considered firing on them but decided against it. He lowered his rifle. “Save your ammo. They’re not a threat to us right now.”

Tim lowered his rifle and glanced down at the obliterated section of bridge. “Damn, man…”

Wilson kept watching the infected on the other side. They grew still for a moment, almost tense. Almost cautious. They seemed to lose focus on Wilson and Tim, and one or two of them came out of their huddled postures and stood there, eyes on the sky, jaws working.

Wilson’s eyes narrowed. “What the fuck are they doing?”

Tim shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know, man… let’s just get the hell out of here.”

“They’re listening to something,” Wilson decided.

No sooner had the words come out of his mouth than one of the infected made a weird screeching sound, like the panicked sound a monkey makes, and the whole group of them burst into a headlong sprint—away from Wilson and Tim. It only took a second or two for them to disappear over the other side of the bridge.

Wilson felt his whole body shaking. “We should go.”

Tim grabbed his arm. “You hear that?”

It came on them fast. A sound that rapidly grew from a high-pitched but powerful whine, like a jet engine, to a heavy, chest-buffering throb. It must have been moving low and very fast across the water because it seemed to erupt into the sky, coming out of the riverbed in a blur. Just a long, gray body and a thunderous roar of rotors, scrubbing the last bit of smoke from the air with a powerful downdraft that kicked bits of debris into Wilson’s face and made him take a step back from the ledge, holding his hand up to shield his face.

Tim screamed something, but Wilson couldn’t hear what it was over the deafening noise. Tim wanted to run and had seized onto Wilson’s jacket, but Wilson shook him off and stood there, though he really had no idea why, and knew almost immediately that it was an incredibly stupid decision. Nevertheless he stood there, rifle pointed harmlessly at the ground, his other hand raised into the air, mouth wide open in shock and tasting not only the dust now, but the pungent stink of jet exhaust.

The thing seemed to hang there in midair, the tail of it whipping around as though it was simply on its way past and suddenly noticed them and was coming back around for a double take. It turned to face Wilson and a cold, jittery feeling took over his stomach, but he still didn’t run. Instead his hand plunged into his jacket, diving into that inner pocket, so close to his chest. Close to his heart. His whole body shook, trembled, uncontrollably. Tim was still screaming something, about to break and go for the vehicles, though Wilson doubted it would do them any good at this time. If they were going to run, they should have done it a long damn time ago.

It leveled off, floated there, about twenty feet above the bridge span, and it moved slowly in a horizontal drift. Just beyond the clear glass bulb of the cockpit, Wilson could see the helmeted heads, one behind the other. The bulbous, black, insectoid eyes. Staring back at him, perhaps as apprehensive of him as he was of them… or maybe not quite, since Wilson knew that it would only take a push of a button to turn his body into fragments of meat. That big 20mm cannon that sat under the nose already pointed right at him.

Wilson drew his hand out of his inner jacket pocket, holding the item that he kept tucked away there. It unfurled as he drew it out, the rotor-wash catching it and splaying the colors out. It was that old US flag Wilson had taken from Parker’s Place. And he knew that it would be either his savior or his death sentence.

A moment passed. Just long enough for Wilson’s heart to slam three times in his chest and for the thought to poke out its head—I don’t think they’re convinced. They might still think we’re the Followers. They’re gonna turn us all into jelly…

And then the AH-1W Super Cobra rotated in the air right in front of Wilson, turning counterclockwise, the three enormous barrels of its main gun no longer staring Wilson in the eye. The long tail of the attack helicopter was now displayed to them like a billboard, the front end pointed back east, in the direction it had come from. Wilson read the big block lettering printed on the side of the tail, just a slightly darker gray than the rest of the aircraft. Then the pilot held up his gloved hand, the thumb pointed skyward, and the bird took off, roaring away from them, just over the surface of the river.

Wilson was left there, the breath coming in and out of him in ragged gasps, his one hand still up in the air, clutching the US flag, the Stars and Stripes still fluttering, and he gaped down the river where the helicopter had disappeared.

Then he turned and looked at Tim with a grin. “Motherfuckin’ Marines!”

THIRTY-EIGHT

BREAKAGE

IT WAS A RECURRING nightmare. Angela, lying on the cold floor of a dark room, hands bound behind her back, wondering what was next. Wondering where Abby and Sam were. Wondering if they were okay. Scared for them. Scared for herself. Thinking about Bus being murdered. Thinking about Jerry.

Jerry.

Fucking Jerry.

She screamed and it seemed to shake the darkness. She thrashed around, kicked the walls, but it only succeeded in making her wrists hurt more than they already did. She couldn’t feel her hands anymore and she worried that they would forget about her here in this cramped, cloying darkness and her hands would eventually die and fall off.

She sobbed. From frustration more than anything else. The feeling of being trapped. Caged. No way out. Nothing she could do to help herself. Completely at the mercy of someone else, someone who she knew would hurt her. And knowing that her kids were in the same position destroyed her.

She called out to them, screamed their names as loud as she could, but the sound of her voice simply battered itself against the cement walls that surrounded her like a tomb and came right back to her until they gave her a headache. Her voice became raw, her mouth dry. She wondered how long they would leave her there and felt her heart beginning to pound, her breath getting ragged.

She was not claustrophobic, but it didn’t take claustrophobia to panic at being buried alive.

An oubliette, she remembered. A little dungeon where you put people to forget about them.

That’s what it felt like.

So when the door opened and light came pouring through like oxygen flooding her lungs, open air and not crushing, closed darkness, her relief was so strong that she almost didn’t mind the fact that it was Greg standing in the doorway.

But the feeling didn’t last long. Greg leaned in and grabbed her by the arm, once again avoiding her gaze. “C’mon. Jerry wants you in the office.”

Angela looked at the side of his face as he pulled her along toward the stairs. “Where are my kids, Greg?”

“They’re fine.”

“Let me see my kids.”

“Not right now.”

“When?”

“When Jerry says so.”

Angela twisted away from him and only succeeded in making him tighten his grip on her arm so that she almost cried out. She forced herself to look over her shoulder at him, forced a wicked smile onto her face. It was a bluff, but it was all she had left. “You’re gonna regret this, Greg. This will not end well for you; you know that, right? You know that Jerry and your little group of thugs aren’t gonna keep them out? You’re not gonna be able to stop them from coming. And God help you when they do. You’re gonna pay for this shit, Greg. You and Jerry both.”

Greg glanced around. The building was empty. All the guards were outside, watching the fence. Their limited manpower was spread thin as it was. With no one there to see him, he took Angela and slammed her against the wall, pinning her there with the weight of his body.

He put his face close to hers. “Who’s coming, Angela?”

Angela held his gaze. “It’s gonna be bad for you.”

One of his hands snaked up, ambled roughly over her breasts, and then came to rest, the heel of his palm against her throat, the fingers wrapped around her jaw. He leaned on her, just slightly, so that she had to tense her neck to keep it from constricting her airway. He turned her face roughly, forcing her to stare at the front doors of the Camp Ryder building.

“You know…” She could feel his lips just barely touching her skin, his nose brushing up against her ear, inhaling her like an animal. “You’re on such thin ice, Angela. And yet you still act like you’re so in control.”

She gritted her teeth. Forced herself to think about something else.

“Where’d you learn that from, Angela?” His whispers continued, making unpleasant gooseflesh riot across her skin. “Because I remember when you first came to Camp Ryder. You were just so… beaten down. But now? You’ve changed.”

Think about something else. Think about Abby. On the back porch of the house. When the lawn was still clean-cut and green. Early summer. Before you lost everything. Watching her play in the grass. Carefree. Good times. Those were good times. Think about that.

He turned her face toward him, and they were so close that their noses touched.

“Was it Captain Harden?” Greg smiled. “Did he teach you how to be all tough? That’s a real shame, considering he’s dead. Considering he abandoned Camp Ryder and everyone in it, and in all likelihood, he’s either running around in the woods like a savage with a pack of infected, shitting himself… or maybe he has become the meal that they are currently shitting out.”

Greg compressed his lips, searched Angela’s face. Then looked toward the door as though he were getting ahold of himself. He pulled her up off the wall and pushed her onto the stairs. “Go on, then. Walk.”

And she did. Up the stairs, trying to catch her breath, still feeling his hands gripping her throat. Thinking of all the times she had talked to Greg, of all the times he’d seemed helpful. But she’d seen it in his eyes as clear as a neon sign. He might keep it under wraps, but he had a cruel streak. And he would use it. He would use it if he thought it might benefit him.

He sat her against the wall of the office and he stood in the doorway so that they faced each other. And he just stared at her. She stared back, but it curdled her stomach, the way he looked at her. Maybe it was her own imagination running away with her fears, but he seemed blank. Emotionless. Like whatever happened to her, whatever he had to do to her or to anyone else, just wouldn’t bother him.

Sociopath, she thought to herself.

It wasn’t long before she could hear the clomping of someone coming up the stairs and Jerry appeared in the doorway, slipping in past Greg and looking at her icily. His face seemed alive with micro-movements, tiny twitches like he was about to break apart into a million pieces. He took a big breath and walked over to her, then he put a hand on her shoulder and drove her down into the ground.

She saw it coming and flinched.

He punched her hard in the side of the face, causing her head to rebound off the hard tile floors and her vision to darkle around the edges. She caught a glimpse of him, just before he punched her again, his face a rictus mask of rage. He hit her twice more, both in the same spot as the first, and each hurt monumentally more than the one before. The whole left side of her face tingled and burned.

She gasped for air like he’d been drowning her.

She opened her eyes and tried to focus, but something didn’t feel right. The colors were off. The clarity was off. Like she was watching reality through an ancient TV set. She could feel her eyes twitching and crossing, unable to focus on the image of Jerry standing over her, with that sneer so familiar to his face.

“That’s for not telling me about Marie,” he said. He took her arm, hauled her up into a kneeling position. Gripped her like he was trying to crush her bones. He shook her to get her to look at him and when her eyes were on him, his voice was venomous. “You are going to tell me everything you had planned. You’re going to tell me who was with you and who you were working with out there, and you’re going to do it because if you don’t I’m going to fucking destroy this pathetic existence that you call a life. I’m going to hurt you beyond physical pain, Angela. I’m gonna wreck your fucking world.”

He held up his thumb and forefinger, separated by a hair’s breadth. “And I’m this close to getting the kids, Angela. I’m this close to fucking up both of those little runts, starting with that little cunt you call a daughter. Just give me one dishonest answer, Angela.” He grinned, wild and insane. “See what fucking happens.”

Lee Harden moved through the woods with singular focus. He moved faster than he had the previous night. There was more purpose. More like a decisive action than sneaking in. He still remained cautious, but he did so out of habit. In his mind, his only conscious thought was Angela and the kids. He had to reach them, and everything else was just background noise. It became the one thing that his entire life, his entire existence, his self-worth hinged upon. If he could not save them, if he could not save the people who had become his family—not by blood, but by choice—then he was worthless.

This was the proof that he required of himself. To use the skills that he had, to use every tool at his disposal, to take back what was his. It was not about the mission anymore, as he’d plainly expressed to Tomlin. The stakes were far more than that now. This was for things that actually mattered.

This was for people.

So he moved like an animal stalking prey—his head lowered, his feet picking the ground underneath him. His body was beaten and tired, sore and sick. But he was in control of it. He would always be in control of it.

Behind him he could hear the breaths of the others, the rasp of their boots through the leaves. Devon, Nate, Jacob, Marie, and the others. He did not train them for this; he did not even look behind him to see if they moved with the ease of natural hunters or whether they clunked through the woods clumsily, like any old suburbanite. He didn’t look because he didn’t care. Beggars could not be choosers, and they were the only manpower he had.

Jacob, he trusted. If not solely because Captain Mitchell had apparently trusted him. He knew Devon and Nate were decent. To be honest, he’d never been outside the wire with Marie, but she at least had common sense that he could vouch for, and that in and of itself was a quality worth overlooking a lot of other faults.

He slowed his pace, and without speaking, the rest of the people behind him followed suit. Up ahead, just barely visible through the trees, Lee thought he could see the cement walls of the Camp Ryder building. He held up a hand, motioning for them to stay. This time he did look behind him and he watched them all sink slowly to the ground, no one uttering a word.

Good-looking group, he thought.

He made the motion for them to stay so that it was clear, and then he moved forward. The fatigue of woodland movement didn’t touch him. He could have gone on for days if that was what it took. It was not only about the overwhelming feeling of obligation, not only to Angela and the kids but toward all the people in Camp Ryder who had supported him.

It was also anger.

Anger seemed to fuel him, seemed to spur him on. Not a fiery anger or a righteous anger. It was a cold, despicable anger and it settled in his chest like a virus and he could not get rid of it, nor see a reason why he should. It was the type of anger that allowed one man to tear another limb from limb. It was the type of anger that enabled atrocities.

And at the center of it all was Jerry.

And all Lee could think of the man was, How dare he? How fucking dare he?

Fifty yards ahead of the others, Lee stopped, looked through the woods. He had been correct—it was the Camp Ryder building. A couple hundred yards ahead of him, the trees stopped and there was the building, the back of it where, according to Marie, Keith Jenkins had been murdered. Just another one of Jerry’s victims. Just another person who had to die to feed him.

Lee took a moment to look it over and didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, so he crept back to the others. When he found them, they gathered up into a tight group and Lee knelt among them.

“Camp Ryder is about two hundred yards straight ahead,” Lee said quietly. “This is our staging point right here. If everything goes to shit, this will also be our rally point, okay?”

A round of nods.

Marie looked nervous, clutching an old hunting shotgun in her hands. “What do we do now?”

Lee looked over his shoulder to where the earth rose up into a small hill. “We wait for Tomlin to initiate us.”

Tomlin settled down slow. Finding a good sniper’s hide took time. Like a dog choosing a spot to sleep. He shifted, picked stones and twigs away. Inspected his lanes of fire. Shifted some more. Broke a few branches that clouded his view. Didn’t feel quite right, so he shifted again. He set down the rifle, extended the tripod, hugged it into his shoulder. Took a few breaths.

Everything felt right.

He looked through the scope, felt that old familiar tingle. Long distance. All those tiny mil-dots lining up. A killer’s dream. To take a life without ever being seen. Without anyone knowing where you were. It didn’t matter who you were or whether you’d never hurt anyone in your life—looking through that scope and knowing that it was real, that you were truly there to take another person’s life, it was exhilarating. Some vestige of predatory instinct, first experienced by a caveman hiding in a bush with a spear. Just waiting for the prey to happen by.

He scoped the compound, took his time with it. He could see a few sets of patrols, what looked like two-man teams roving the fence line. He categorized them, prioritized them. When you were looking through a rifle scope, you had to prioritize everything. The guards? They were high on the list.

He didn’t know these people like Lee did, and Tomlin thought that maybe that was why Lee had tasked Tomlin with this job. So that Tomlin wouldn’t look through that riflescope and see a face he recognized and make a biased decision on whether or not that man should die. To Tomlin, if you held a rifle and you were unlucky enough to be patrolling the southern fence, then you were going to die.

Oh well. Hate it for you.

But it could not be avoided. Were they to live so that Lee and his team, trying to rescue their friends and loved ones, could simply be shredded when they attempted to make entry into the compound? Those poor bastards on sentry duty… they’d made a decision. And they’d made a bad one.

Best not to think about it.

He scoped the top of the Camp Ryder building, a big, flat gray square with a few air-conditioning units on it and an abutment surrounding it that stood about two or three feet high. If anyone got onto the roof, Tomlin would let them have it, and their only recourse would be to get the fuck off the roof or they could get real flat up against that abutment. Even then, a few .308 rounds would probably go through the concrete and get them anyway.

On the ground level, at least they could run. The roof was just a death trap. As were most high places. Never run up, Tomlin noted in his head, a paramount rule of evasion. Always run down. Just like water.

He shifted his view over into the woods around Camp Ryder, tried to see into the woods where the other four snipers might be sitting, ready to lay down suppressive fire, waiting for Tomlin’s first shot to start off the whole shebang. He couldn’t see them. Which didn’t mean they weren’t there. But it wouldn’t hurt to give them a few extra minutes to get in position.

Tomlin looked skyward. The sun was well above the trees. The other four snipers had inserted at the same time that Tomlin had, and they’d had a little less distance to cross than he had, but he felt he should play it on the safe side regardless. He laid down a bandanna just to the right of his rifle and began to arrange his .308 cartridges in a perfect row, ready to be snatched up and fed into the rifle.

What were a few extra minutes in the grand scheme of things?

Angela did not give a dishonest answer.

She did not answer at all.

She bore down into the center of herself, like she was trying to escape through her own body. Jerry howled and screamed at her. But his devices were unimaginative and clouded by his rage. He just kept hitting her. Screaming the questions and hitting her. Her face felt swollen and about to break. Like every nerve ending was exposed and every contact that he made with her face was like needles and knives all at once.

She could feel her blood rolling thickly around in her mouth. She could not hear Jerry’s questions; his impotent shouting was just noise to her. It battered her eardrums and signaled to her when she would receive her next blow. But he would tire and step back, breathing heavily, and Angela would take that opportunity to spit the blood out of her mouth.

She could not spit it far, and her shirt and pants were stained with it.

I won’t tell him anything. I’d rather burn in hell than help Jerry. Fuck him. Fuck Jerry and everyone out there who is helping him. I will not help him. I will not help him. I will not help him.

She tried to think of the green lawn, the warm spring air, the feeling of sunlight on her skin. Abby, running, laughing, carefree, as any little girl should be. Carefree in a way that Angela would never be able to give her again. Innocent in a way that was gone forever. Stripped away from her like a dried and dead husk. She would do anything to have that Abby back. She would do anything to stop the degradation from progressing. Because that’s what it felt like.

Like this world was a cancer eating her little girl alive.

Oh, honey, if I could do anything to make it better, I would. She could only imagine how Abby must feel right at that moment, locked in some dark room, terrified, not sure what was going on. Not sure what she’d done wrong. You didn’t do anything wrong, honey. It was Mommy’s fault. Mommy was just trying to do the right thing. But sometimes you get in trouble for doing the right thing, even though that’s not how it should be. Please, honey, please be strong for Mommy.

A hand on her face but not hurting her. It simply turned her face upward.

She tried to open her eyes, but everything was blurry. One of her eyes was swollen shut. Or maybe Jerry had knocked the sight out of it. Maybe he’d broken the bone around her eye and she was going to be blind now forever.

If he doesn’t kill me…

Jerry stood over her, his face masked by the light pouring in through the little window in the office. She could just see the side of his face, just white lines and beads of sweat along the creases of his brow and the deep furrows in his face that made him seem hellish and delighted by what he’d done to her.

“Angela,” he said, breathing hard through his mouth. “You’re starting to really piss me off. You’re really going to force my hand on this one, aren’t you? You’re going to force me to hurt one of the kids.” He swiped her head out of his hand, made a sound of disgust. “Have it your way.”

He stalked over to the door and flung it open. Out on the edge of the stairs was a younger guy who looked half sick, and scared that anyone might notice it. Jerry looked him up and down like he was disgusted that Greg had sent him, then just shook his head and started down the stairs.

“Watch her,” he growled. “Make sure she doesn’t move.”

Angela lifted her head, thinking for the first time about how she might be able to get the hell out of there. She tried to focus on the man standing in the door but couldn’t quite achieve enough clarity to recognize him. She cleared her throat, tried to speak, and found it too dry. She waited a moment, waited for the blood to gather, and she swallowed that, which seemed to help.

“Can I have water?” she asked, her voice barely there.

The man in the door looked around, unsure of himself. Angela could see enough of his face to know that he didn’t like what was happening to her. It struck something in him. This was not another Greg, not another Arnie. This was just a regular guy.

He looked over the railing, down into the main area of the building. Then he stepped into the room, pulled an old OD Green standard-issue canteen from a pouch on the back of his belt, and unscrewed the lid. “I’ll give you a little bit, but you can’t say anything about it, okay?”

“Okay.” Angela tried to nod, but her head just dipped and stayed down.

He raised the canteen to her mouth, tipped it back.

She raised her head, swallowing with some effort. She could see his face more clearly now that he was closer. He pulled the canteen away from her lips and she breathed heavily, felt the coolness of the water around her mouth. “It’s Kyle, right?”

He was in the process of putting the canteen back and seemed surprised by the usage of his name. He looked back at her. “Yeah. Look…”

Angela forced her eyes to open as wide as she could so that she could see through the swelling, so that he could see her, and maybe recognize the pleading in her eyes. “Kyle, don’t let him hurt my baby. You don’t have to help me—I’ll be okay. But please… please don’t let him hurt my baby!”

Kyle looked horrified. He backed away slowly. “I can’t… I can’t talk to you.”

Then he inched through the door and hid behind the wall where she could not see him, and where he could not see her and be reminded of her plea and his own goddamned cowardice.

“Please, Kyle!” Angela called after him, her voice catching. “Don’t let him!”

She was about to say something else, but a terrifying sound reached her: the sound of her daughter’s voice. Her mouth dropped. Her heart hammered. No, no, no! This can’t be happening! She wasn’t sure why she thought that Jerry wasn’t going to do it. Maybe she’d never really disbelieved him. But maybe she just didn’t think it would come to this. Something so horrific she couldn’t imagine it happening until it did.

“Abby?” she called out.

“Mommy!”

They were coming up the stairs.

Angela wanted desperately to see her little girl, to hold her, to kiss her, to tell her that everything was going to be all right. But in the same moment, she feared what Abby might look like, feared what expressions might cross over her when she saw how badly her mother had been beaten. Could she even tell her daughter that everything would be all right? Everything was not all right!

“It’s not okay,” Angela said, beginning to sob. “This is not okay. I can’t get out of this…”

Abby reached the top of the stairs, Jerry following close behind her, a hand on her shoulder. Abby was in hysterics, her face flushed from crying, her chest hitching up and down, and when she saw her mother sitting there, her eyes went wide with shock and she took in a big breath and began to scream.

Jerry turned back to Kyle. “Get in here and restrain this girl!”

Kyle looked in like he was scared to even enter the room. “Jerry…”

Jerry spoke through clenched teeth. “Restrain the girl.”

Kyle lowered his head, reached out, and put both hands on Abby’s shoulders.

Jerry stood in front of Angela, grinning. “Where to start, where to start? You think I should hurt you and make her watch, or hurt her and make you watch? You tell me. What’s gonna be most effective in this situation? I’ll let you choose.”

Angela looked at her daughter through the tears in her eyes and saw her stricken face. She had never seen her mother so damaged. And now this? Now all of this? It was just another little piece of Abby withering away. The Abby she knew and loved, taking another step away from her, another step further out of her reach. Damage that could not be undone.

I can’t do this anymore! I can’t do this, dear God, I’m so sorry but I can’t do this!

She hung her head, sobbing. “Don’t do this,” she gasped between sobs. “Just let her go, Jerry. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

THIRTY-NINE

THE ASSAULT

LEE WAITED. CROUCHED IN the woods, he stared straight ahead and could just barely see the side of the Camp Ryder building. He stared at that building and he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was not the same person he’d been when he’d first seen it months ago. He’d grown colder. His thoughts were darker. His inclinations more violent. But perhaps that was what he needed to be. Perhaps that was what the world required of him.

Marie stirred behind him. “What’s taking so long?” she whispered.

Lee felt the same impatience, but he knew better than to give in to it. “We just have to wait. Tomlin will initiate us.” He leaned back, looked behind him at Devon and Nate. “You guys ready when the shot comes?”

Devon and Nate nodded stiffly, their eyes fixated on the woods in front of them.

“Devon, you ready with the bolt cutters?”

He picked them up out of the leaves in front of him and held them up, snipped them a couple times in the air like an overeager barber. He tried to smile, but it looked shaky and unsure on him. “Ready, Cap.”

Lee nodded, faced forward. Closed his eyes and tried to center himself.

You cannot be who you were.

And maybe that’s best.

Greg worked his way along the second row, followed by three of his guys. Two of them stood there with rifles ready, but not held aggressively. The third held a large duffel bag from which protruded a few rifles—two of the M4s they’d received from Captain Harden and a hunting rifle. The bottom of the bag swayed with ammunition. So far they’d spoken with two families, both of which were staunch supporters of Jerry, and while they raised an eyebrow at the request, they seemed to be convinced by Greg’s statement that, if they were not going to help with guard duty or fighting for Camp Ryder, they should help the men who were by giving them much-needed equipment. It was this sort of pseudo-patriotic sacrifice that most people went for.

Now he came to Katie Malone’s house. The first person who he knew didn’t support Jerry. Not only that, but he was positive that she was a supporter of Bus and Captain Harden—after all, her own husband was out there with Harper’s group, wasn’t he? Out there trying to complete “the Mission” for Captain Harden.

For a brief moment of clarity, Greg stood there in front of the shanty that belonged to Katie and Nate Malone and he stared at it, taking in the old graying pallets that were used as walls. The tarps and plastic to seal out the weather. The pieces of corrugated roof over the top to give it that little extra staying power. It was a nice shanty.

Greg smiled forlornly. This was the world they lived in. When, with a little wood and plastic, you could be the proud owner of a nice fucking shanty. Only four months removed from central air-conditioning, big-screen TVs, disposable everything, and a thousand-square-foot house just being too damn small.

Four months. How quickly and how far they had fallen. What made anyone think they could fix that? What made Captain Harden and Harper and LaRouche think that with some ordnance and a can-do attitude, they could reverse the tides that had turned the United States of America into one big goddamned homeless camp?

Hopeless.

If you had half a brain, which Greg believed that he did, then you would find a new way. You would not try to get back what was obviously gone. You could not recreate that life. You had to make a new one, and you had to figure out a way to thrive in it.

Eventually, Camp Ryder would be his. Jerry would be a long-forgotten problem, and Greg would reap the rewards of salvaging the world around him. If anything could be rebuilt, it was the mechanical aspect of the modern world, and in order to rebuild mechanical things, one had to have scrap. One had to have salvage. Greg was on the cusp of having enough manpower and guns to exert his plan, to take the salvage, and to monopolize the last commodity this world had to offer.

But right now, he was still Jerry’s lackey. And he was content to do that for now. He was a patient man. He could wait for the right time. Wait for the right opportunity. No use jumping the gun early, so he would do what Jerry asked him to do, and he would do it with conviction. Because a lot of his goals matched up with Jerry’s, and disarming the populace of Camp Ryder was only going to make it easier to kick them the fuck out when the time came.

But then there was Katie Malone, and the wannabe “Freedom Fighters.” People who still believed in the good old US of A, who thought that they could resurrect that sad, rotting corpse. These were the people who were going to be a problem.

He knocked on the wood. “Katie! It’s Greg. Can you come to the door, please?”

There was a rustle inside.

The hair on the back of Greg’s neck stood up. He took a step away from the shanty, trying to make sure that his shadow did not play across the tarp, giving away his location. For some reason, he pictured Katie just behind those thin plastic walls with a shotgun leveled at his shadow.

“What do you want?” Katie barked from inside.

“I’d like to talk to you face-to-face, if you don’t mind.”

“I mind.”

Greg looked back at the others. The man with the duffel lowered it to the ground, unslung his rifle. Greg spread his feet just slightly, slipped his hand onto the grip, and his finger hovered over the trigger. “Can we not make a bigger deal out of this than it needs to be?”

“Can you just leave me the fuck alone?”

“C’mon, Katie.”

“So, no? You can’t leave me alone?”

Greg swore under his breath, held up his weak hand in a signal for the others to get ready. They slid over, stacking up behind him. “Katie. I’m not playing around.”

“Greg… why don’t you go suck Jerry’s dick, you fucking lapdog? Come in my house and I’ll blow your goddamned head off.”

Greg raised his rifle. The hand that he held up sank down and took the foregrip of his rifle. He tightened everything up. Dammit, I’m gonna have to take this bitch out. Not what I was hoping to do.

But that would be Jerry’s PR nightmare, not his.

He took a step, and then a series of odd things happened to him. First, he registered a rifle shot. It boomed, then crackled and rolled, the sound of a bullet traveling a long distance. He thought for a half second that it was Katie, but no, that shot had come from a long way off. There was another half second when he heard someone in the camp screaming, and then there was another boom-crack-zip, and then the entire world around him was suddenly alive with gunfire.

He didn’t know what to think in that singular, frozen moment. He could see straight down the row of shanties to the fence. Beyond it, in the woods, he could see the little bursts of gun smoke—it wasn’t Katie shooting at them; it was someone in the woods!—and he whipped around to look behind him, and two of his men fell, one with a hole in his gut, the other holding a spurting neck wound, while the third lay flat on the ground, screaming.

Greg turned, put one foot in front of the other, about to launch into a dead sprint to anywhere else. Then his calf exploded. He didn’t really feel it. It was more like a tug, like someone had tripped him. He just watched the world shift onto its side as he fell over, then he looked down at his leg, wondering what the hell had just happened, and saw the ragged exit wound on his shin, pieces of flesh exploded outward, little bits of bone shards blooming out like some gruesome flower.

He stared at it for another moment until the bullets popping into the dirt around him snapped him back into real time. He rolled onto his belly, as flat as he could make himself, the rifle trapped underneath him and gouging against his skin, though he could barely feel anything but the growing fire in his left leg, like it was being brought to a boil, and he knew that true agony was coming.

He began to crawl.

The two sentries had been walking along, carefree. Tomlin did not look at their faces, did not think about how young they were or whether they had families or loved ones inside Camp Ryder. He would not allow himself to humanize them. It did him no good. It did nobody else any good. It was only a recipe for self-torture in the future. They were simply Blue Shirt and Green Shirt.

Or Blue and Green, if you prefer.

So he put the reticle on Blue, accounted for the downward trajectory and the distance, and held up two mil-dots. No wind to speak of, so he held the vertical line of the crosshairs right in the middle of Blue’s body and breathed out, felt his body reach that one second or so of complete stillness in the moment between breaths, and slowly applied pressure to the trigger.

Follow-through, Tomlin reminded himself, keeping his eyes on the target.

Blue took the bullet in the chest, toppled over, most likely instantly dead.

No follow-up shot necessary.

Green began to panic.

Tomlin worked the bolt, seated another cartridge. The second shot was a little low and right, clipping Green in the side, and now the other snipers were firing, a fusillade of shots. He wasn’t sure what they were shooting at, couldn’t see Shantytown behind the Camp Ryder building, but it wasn’t his concern. He was focused on Green. His target grabbed his side, started trying to run. Tomlin slapped the bolt again. Fresh cartridge. Green was running now. Tomlin held the mil-dots two-by-two, leading his target just slightly. Fired.

Green fell. Tomlin watched him for a moment, unsure where he’d struck the man, but fairly certain he wasn’t getting up.

He hoped that Lee was moving to the fence, but he didn’t look. He kept his scope trained on the building and on the areas around it. That was his responsibility. That was his lane of fire. Watch your lane. Always watch your lane. He racked a new round into his rifle, waiting for the next target to show itself.

Waiting…

Lee ran for everything he was worth. The shots had been fired. The fight had been initiated, and there was no turning back now. His only option was forward. The others could retreat; they might have that in them; they might have the capability of giving up and not living the rest of their lives in shame for it; but Lee could only move forward. For him, his life had suddenly been distilled down into two very simple paths. In an hour’s time, he would either have taken the Camp Ryder building or he would be dead.

Over their heads, Tomlin took another shot—the distinct zzzip of the bullet splitting the air over their heads, followed closely by the whu-POW of the rifle report. Lee didn’t hesitate, didn’t stop or falter. Tomlin’s shots ringing over their heads were like a bullwhip spurring him on. He had to get there. He had to get to the fence.

Through the woods, Lee could see the fence drawing closer as he ran for it, still about fifty yards out. It was an eight-foot fence, and the fortifications there were sparse, leaving large gaps that could simply be cut through to make a man-size hole. Lee looked behind him as he closed the distance with the fence, slowing just slightly to allow Devon to take the lead.

“C’mon, Devon! It’s on you!”

Devon thrust himself past Lee, bolt cutters held out in front of him as he ran, like he intended to simply ram them through the fence. Lee and Nate flanked him in the last few yards, Jacob taking up the rear of their breaching element. The fence seemed to rise up to meet them in that last few steps.

Lee hit the dirt on one knee, like a runner sliding into first. He hit the fence, then backed up off of it just in time for Tomlin to fire another shot over their heads. He brought his rifle up, keeping far enough off the fence that the barrel didn’t get entangled in the mesh, and tried to scan for what Tomlin was shooting at. He couldn’t see anything.

On the other side of the fence, there was a section of dirt that had not-so-affectionately been named the “Back Lawn” of the Camp Ryder building. It was here, in this thirty- or forty-square-yard area of red clay and gravel, that they housed the single cargo trailer where they stashed all the broken, defunct machinery that they thought they might find a use for in the future.

Also where Lee had imprisoned Tomlin, less than a week prior.

Lee could see two bodies, several yards away from him, along the inside of the fence and to his left. They were down for the count. One was toppled neatly, probably in the middle of his patrol. The other looked like he’d made a run for it. Ultimately unsuccessful.

Past them, it was another twenty or so yards to the back of the Camp Ryder building—just a big square of windowless, doorless cement blocks. He eyed the top of the building, catching his breath, forcing himself to breathe through his nose as much as possible in an attempt to control his stammering heart. The top of the building looked clear. What he could see of the left side of the building looked clear.

“Nate!” Lee glanced across Devon’s back at the other man. “When we breach, you move to the right side of the building and lock down that corner. I’ll move to the left side, okay?”

“Gotcha.”

Lee checked Devon’s progress. The kid was sweating, despite the cold air, breathing through an open mouth and baring his teeth, his already pinkish cheeks flushed red. He trembled badly and at times it took him a few attempts just to get the mouth of the bolt cutters around a wire. He had only made four or five cuts so far—less than a third of the way down.

Lee grimaced, looked up at the building. Every second they were not in that building, the possibility that Jerry would pile up his men inside grew more and more likely. As soon as they figured out what the fuck was going on, that they were under attack, it would be the most common-sense, strategic response. And Lee would not make the mistake of assuming that Jerry was not intelligent enough to figure that out for himself.

“Devon.” Lee tried to sound calm about it but failed. “I’m gonna need you to go a little faster than that.”

The room seemed frozen like it had been blasted with liquid nitrogen. Jerry stood completely erect, arms stiff at his sides, fingers splayed like he was caught in the action of grabbing something. The look on his face was one of dawning fear. The look of things slipping away, out of his control.

Angela sat there, head buzzing uncomfortably, reality still swaying through the distortions of trauma to her face and head. She watched Jerry’s face through her swollen eyes, and at first, she was terrified. The first shot had not even echoed before she could hear screaming, and then a second shot, and it was in that penultimate moment, when the world outside of the Camp Ryder building abruptly turned into a war zone, that things changed for her.

Like he’d been hit with a cattle prod, Jerry suddenly lurched, jumped, scrambled to the office window that overlooked Camp Ryder. Kyle, who still stood there with his hands on Abby’s shoulders, holding her there just inside the door to the office, began moving his feet, seeming unsure of what he should do—go or stay?

Jerry clutched the windowsill and stared out, the daylight glowing in his wide-stretched eyes so that they seemed grotesquely large in his face. Angela could not see what he saw, but she just watched his face, felt like a block of ice in her gut was melting as she witnessed him grabbing his hair, his perfect white teeth seeming to glow as he grimaced.

This was no random smattering of gunfire. Angela was not stupid, and she had learned from Lee. She had learned by watching and by listening to him plan operation after operation, carried out in cities and towns and industrial and residential complexes around the Camp Ryder Hub. The first opening shots, the quick response, like a sudden thunderstorm that comes upon you within minutes of a clear sky.

This was a coordinated attack.

This was Lee.

Jerry turned toward her, his expression souring.

Angela stared back at him, feeling hot and cold at once. Giddy, almost. She did not do it as a jab, or an insult, or as a way to enrage Jerry, but simply because she could not help herself: A small smile touched her swollen, broken lips. She’d read news stories about miners trapped under the surface of the earth after a cave-in. Trapped there in the darkness with nothing but hope to get them through. And she thought that this must be what they felt like when they saw the first patch of daylight after a week of blackness, as the emergency crews rolled back the first stones, like opening a tomb.

Jerry stared at her, trembling. Though she couldn’t tell whether it was from rage or fear. Like a growling dog backed into a corner, simultaneously baring its teeth and tucking its tail to protect its genitals. Angela stared right back at him, her expression hardening.

He raised a hand, pointed a long, accusing finger at her. “You bitch!”

You bitch! You bitch!

She was suddenly in her backyard again, running from Tom, holding up that aluminum bat to ward him off as he staggered toward her, slobbering, sweating profusely, mind lost forever. She felt the fear, but she pushed it down and remembered where she was.

That was in the past. That was a weaker Angela. That was a jilted housewife just trying to survive. That was not the same person she was now. She would not feel terrified by Jerry anymore. She was done with fear for now. At some point, when you keep dissolving the same substance in water, it oversaturates and falls out. For her, fear had suddenly oversaturated in her mind and had fallen out.

She could take no more of it.

There was nothing left for Jerry but contempt.

Jerry snatched up his shotgun, brandishing it wildly. “Who the fuck is that, Angela? Huh? That your friends trying to break into my camp? Is that them? Fucking tell me!”

Angela’s face gave nothing. It remained undisturbed by his outrage, as though she had suddenly transcended this situation and she was above it, untouchable. She just stared at him with that damaged face he’d given her, like she was throwing it right back at him.

“No, Jerry,” she said quietly, so that he leaned forward unconsciously in an attempt to hear her. “It’s Lee. He’s coming for you.”

FORTY

COMPLICATIONS

“C’MON, DEVON…” LEE FLICKED his gaze back and forth between the left corner of the Camp Ryder building and the progress that Devon had made. He’d made ten cuts so far, almost halfway down. Lee knew that it had only been a minute or so since the first shots were fired, but it felt like time was dragging. He looked at the building again, wondering what Jerry was doing, what defenses he was setting up. Would they be barricaded inside the building? Would they have hostages?

Devon licked his lips. “I’m going as fast as I can.”

“You’re doing good,” Lee assured him.

Out beyond the Camp Ryder building, the gunfight raged.

“Alright,” he said, pulling back a bit and turning to face Jacob. “Backyard looks clear for now, so go run and get the others. By the time they get up here, we should have this fence open for them.”

Jacob nodded and took off running. Lee watched him go, sprinting among trees, dodging low branches and jumping fallen logs. What a strange transformation the man had made, from a bookish scientist to someone who could move as fluidly through the woods as though he’d been hunting in them his whole life. Lee was in the process of admiring this when Jacob stopped short, just before disappearing into the trees.

“The fuck is he doing?” Lee growled impatiently.

Nate craned his head back to see. “What’s going on? What’s he doing?”

“He’s just stopped there!”

“Fucking go!” Nate yelled, but not quite loud enough for Jacob to have heard.

Though Jacob hadn’t heard him, it seemed that he reacted to it. As the words left Nate’s mouth, Jacob turned partially, looked back at them. Then he started running again, back toward Camp Ryder.

Lee didn’t question Jacob’s actions a second time. “Nate! Watch the fucking yard!”

Something was wrong.

Lee turned his back to the fence and raised his rifle, sighting over Jacob’s shoulder as the man ran back toward them. Abruptly, Jacob stopped at the base of a large tree and spun again, turning away. He pointed his rifle and began waving his hands, as though urging someone on. Lee scanned through the trees and quickly saw what Jacob saw, though it made no sense.

The entire entry element sprinted toward them in complete disarray.

For the briefest of moments, Lee allowed himself to believe that maybe nothing had gone wrong, that maybe they were just running for the fence as instructed, and they were just a little scared of the gunfire going over their heads. But they kept looking behind them as they ran, twisting and firing wild shots into the woods. Jacob posted up on the tree and sighted his rifle, allowing the entire element to pass him by, providing cover for them.

They weren’t attacking. They were retreating.

This is bad, Lee decided.

He tried to peer through the woods, but they were too thick, even in their leafless state, for him to see much farther than Jacob. But Lee watched the soldier-scientist tighten quite suddenly, and he began to fire. Puffs of gray smoke erupted from his barrel, his muzzle swinging in this direction and then that, not from the recoil.

Fast-moving targets.

Oh shit…

Someone in the element began screaming as they came within a dozen yards of the fence. “Hunters! Hunters in the woods!”

Lee swore loudly. “Devon! I need that fucking fence open now!” He didn’t wait for a response. “Nate! Stay on that yard!” The element came abreast of Lee and he stepped forward, stood tall, and pointed back in the direction they came. “Everyone fan out along the fence and face out! Do not fucking move until I tell you to move!”

Eventually the fence would be open, and the last thing they needed was a logjam at the opening, too many panicked people trying to get through and fucking up the works.

Jacob ran back to them at full speed, and Lee could now see what they’d been running from. The shapes moved quickly through the trees, flashing between them with inhuman speed. They didn’t climb the trees, but they reached out and grabbed the trunks to swing around them, making quick directional changes and giving them a strange, apish quality.

Everyone opened up at once, Jacob barely making it behind the line before the air was riddled with bullets. For no other reason than it scared the shit out of him, Devon began to scream, but he never stopped clipping the fence.

“Almost there! Almost there!”

Lee tried to target one of the infected as they hurtled toward them through the woods, but the directional changes were so rapid that it became impossible. Lee simply aimed in the general direction and fired as fast as he could, hoping to score a hit simply from the volume of lead he threw downrange.

“Keep shooting! Keep shooting!”

The infected were close enough now that Lee could see them—lean, abnormally sinuous bodies. They did not have the same form of musculature as a normal, physically fit man. Compared to the rest of their bodies, their arms seemed lean and wiry. The bulk of their muscle seemed to be packed into their core and, oddly, their backs and shoulders, giving them a hunched appearance. Their necks seemed to have disappeared amid the veiny protuberance of their shoulders, and their jaws hung open loosely as they ran, disturbingly wide on their otherwise human faces.

Lee managed to sync his rhythm with one as it dodged through the trees, screaming an unearthly ululation, and he fired once, managing to halt the thing in its tracks, and then put two more rounds into it as it hung in the air for a half second before collapsing to the ground.

The victory was a small one—there must have been a dozen more coming at them.

They needed to get in the fence.

“Done!” Devon yelled.

Lee slammed a fresh mag into his rifle and recharged it, then reached for the nearest person to him and slapped the man on the back. “Move!”

The man didn’t waste any time. He hauled out of position and dove through the opening in the fence, followed quickly by Devon, then Nate. Lee moved down the line, initiating people with a slap and a command to move. He kept looking up as he went, kept judging how close the infected were getting, and every time he did he felt his heart sink a little more.

He stood tall, planted his feet. “Everyone go! Move!”

The remaining four people in the entry team made a mad rush for the opening in the fence. Lee didn’t watch them. He raised his rifle and began firing as he sidestepped toward the opening in the fence. “Jacob! Go!”

“I got it!” Jacob yelled back, standing maybe a yard or so in front of Lee. “Get in there!”

There was no time for argument. Lee turned for the hole in the fence. Jacob backpedaled as one of the infected took a giant leap and landed just in front of him. Jacob planted his muzzle right in the thing’s face and took it off with a double-tap.

Lee reached the fence just before Jacob did and grabbed the man by the back of his collar, guiding him through. Jacob didn’t miss a beat, letting himself be guided through as he kept firing, firing, until his rifle went dry and they were suddenly on the other side of the fence.

Lee saw the bolt of Jacob’s rifle lock back and stopped where he was. Jacob went down to one knee to reload and Lee moved in close to him, putting his legs up against Jacob’s back so that he would know Lee was shooting right over his head and wouldn’t stand up into Lee’s lane of fire.

Lee could see one of the infected moving toward the cut in the fence, down on all fours like an animal but still moving fast. Lee put three into it and it kept coming, so he simply gave it everything he had left in his mag. The thing died, one hand outstretched through the opening in the fence.

With Lee’s own rifle empty, he glanced down and watched Jacob whip out a magazine—and then fumble it. He tried to catch it but it just bounced off of his fingers and tumbled into the dirt. Lee swore and reached for his second of four spare magazines. It was always bad when both shooters were empty at the same time. Bad for business.

Jacob bent forward to grab the magazine off the ground.

Lee pulled the mag from his pouch. The two of them racing to get their rifles back up.

Straight ahead of them, a pale form scrambled over the body of its pack mate and slipped through the opening in the fence, seeming to explode onto its feet when it had cleared the chain link. There was no moment where it eyed Lee up and growled at him, giving Lee the precious second or so that he needed to complete his reload. No, this creature already knew what it wanted and it did not have to think about it. It launched itself at Lee, arms stretched out.

Then it simply fell to the ground, like God’s hammer had come out of the sky and smacked it down. A red hole on its back. The boom of the faraway rifle report. Tomlin, up on the hill, looking out for them. The thing twitched, raised its head. Lee put in his magazine, let the bolt fly forward, and gave the infected one on the nose to end it permanently.

Below him, Jacob put in the fresh mag. “I got this, Lee!” His voice was insistent. He turned and glared at Lee, not because Lee had done anything wrong but because Jacob didn’t want to leave any room for argument. Because Jacob was not going to let Captain Mitchell die for him all over again. It was his turn to stand tall. “You take that building, okay? Go get Angela and the kids!”

On the other side of the fence, the rest of the infected hit the chain link and began to climb. Four of them latched onto the fence like spiders, then five, then seven and eight. Jacob turned his back to Lee and raised his rifle, picking the target that was closest to the top of the fence.

Lee turned back toward the Camp Ryder building. The rest of the entry team was stacked up along the back wall of the building, staring at Jacob as he stood before the fence, slowly moving backward as he shot carefully, steadily at the infected, but failing to stop them from negotiating the fence.

Lee pointed to three members of the entry team. “Help Jacob! The rest of you get on my ass!”

Lee hit the left corner, pied it quickly.

Straight ahead, he could see the gate, unmanned, still hanging off its hinges from where Marie had driven through it to escape only hours before. Beyond that, there was Shantytown, predominantly blue and gray with its numerous sections of tarp and faded wood and metal. Far on the other end of it, Lee could see a small group of armed men—maybe three or four—huddling behind an empty Conex container and taking potshots at the snipers in the woods.

A few unarmed people running about in a panic.

No other hostile movement.

Watch that corner, Lee thought as he started moving. He kept the front sight of his M4 on the corner, just past the big rainwater bins they’d built. Waiting for that one enterprising motherfucker to pop out and try to take a shot at him. He moved a little quicker than normal because he needed to close the gap. He needed to take that corner. This long, straight, empty wall was just a shooting gallery. A no-man’s-land. A great place to get shot.

The corner was the next grounding point.

He stayed an arm’s length off the wall. Your first instinct was to hug it, but ricochets had a habit of traveling along walls, and the wall didn’t do anything for you but make you feel protected. Best to keep away from it.

Behind him, he could hear the footfalls of the others following him. Farther behind them, he could hear the furious shooting of Jacob and the other three as they tried to stop the infected from jumping the fence. The shooting became interspersed with shouting, and then there seemed to be more shouting than shooting.

They broke, Lee realized. They had to break.

He looked behind him and saw what he didn’t want to see: Jacob running, two of the three other men running with him, and the third on the ground, screaming bloody murder as an infected landed on him, clamped its jaws around his neck, and reduced his screams to gurgles.

Jacob was yelling. “They’re inside! They’re inside!”

It happened fast.

Life and fate always conspire to take you by surprise. Rarely are you allowed to sit and ponder or see the buildup, like a scientist reading a seismograph and determining when the mountain will blow. Rather, the circumstances are simply hurled at you without warning and you respond on instinct, and you hope to God that your instincts are true and correct. Then you are simply left in the dust, hoping you did the right thing and wondering, What the hell just happened?

Jerry stalked the room, caught in a brief moment of indecision as gunfire raged outside. He kept cursing, growling under his breath like an ornery cur. His eyes kept traveling to Angela, and there was still the bitter hatred there, but there was something else squirming around inside of him, and it looked to Angela like fear.

She stopped looking at him and looked at her daughter, because Jerry didn’t matter. Abby mattered. She didn’t want to speak, didn’t want to draw any attention to herself, or, God forbid, give Jerry any ideas, but she held Abby’s gaze and she nodded, tried to look confident, and mouthed the words, I love you.

Jerry stopped in the middle of the room and glared at her. “Angela, Angela, Angela… you stupid, stupid bitch. This is your fucking fault.” He turned and looked at Abby. “Go lock her up with the little brown kid,” he said to Kyle. “And do it quickly.”

Kyle took Abby and guided her out of the room. Abby didn’t like that at all and began to scream, but she walked along with him, somehow sensing that she should not fight. Angela watched her go, panic rising in her chest, causing her vision to narrow and darken at the edges—tunnel vision coming on. Don’t take my baby girl away! Don’t take her away from me!

Jerry stood in front of her. She turned on him and she could not see him as threatening anymore. She was at the end of feeling threatened. She was all out of fear. All out of compliance. She could only see him as craven and pathetic.

He grabbed her by the shoulder of her jacket. “I guess you’re my hostage.”

He pulled her up to her feet. She was already in that forward motion, and she watched the double barrels of that sawed-off shotgun float away from her as he tried to balance himself. And there it was—the chance, though she wasn’t sure why this was it and not a hundred other instances. It was simply the feeling of breaking inertia.

She launched herself forward. Put everything that she had into it, planting her head straight into his midsection and toppling him backward. He grunted as she hit him, screamed out a curse. She kept driving forward with her legs and let out a scream.

The shotgun blasted. Shook the room and deafened her.

Maybe she had been shot. She wasn’t sure.

They slammed into the desk with a giant sound, the metal crashing noisily, all the objects on the desk clattering over. She felt the stillness of Jerry’s body. Felt the ache in her own neck from the harshness of the impact. Rolled off of him.

He was slumped against the desk, eyes still open, still moving, still alive, still gripping his shotgun. Just stunned. Breathing little shallow breaths as he tried to get the air back in his lungs.

Angela was on fire. She didn’t think. Didn’t feel much else besides murder. She lashed out with her feet, kicking at the shotgun, and sent it spinning out of his hands. It jarred him slightly and he seemed to regain a little of himself, turned to face her with a look of shock.

Don’t let him get you…

She couldn’t find any words. She opened her mouth but all that came out of her were noises that had no meaning. She rolled onto her back, tucked her legs in, and managed to get her bound wrists underneath her butt. Then she rolled up into an almost-sitting position and began working her hands out from under her legs.

Just a few feet away, Jerry was getting ahold of himself, his hand going to the back of his head, where it had struck the side of the heavy desk and nearly knocked him unconscious—but no, she hadn’t been quite that lucky.

He shook his head, blinked away some cobwebs. Saw her getting her hands out from under her. He turned, lunged for the shotgun. It had already fired, but Angela didn’t know whether the thing had fired one barrel or both. There might still be a live round of buckshot in it.

She worked her bindings past her feet, then launched herself at Jerry, looping her arms over his head just as his fingertips touched the shotgun. She hauled back like a wagon driver trying to stop a horse, the duct tape that bound her wrists together now becoming a noose around Jerry’s neck.

Immediately, his hands left the shotgun. He catapulted himself backward, scratching at her hands. She landed on her back with Jerry on top of her, nearly knocking the wind out of her. He thrashed like a wild animal caught in a trap. Somehow her wrists moved from his throat to his face. He let out a wild yell and bit down hard on the meat of her palm. She screamed and jerked her hand away and at the same moment, Jerry twisted his head and rolled, like a crocodile trying to drown its victim.

This time she ended on top, straddling Jerry’s waist, the last bit of air still screaming out of her throat as she looked at her hand, a chunk of pale flesh missing from it and revealing the meaty workings underneath that quickly welled and began to spurt blood. She looked down at the bastard underneath her, saw him grin, the piece of flesh still hanging in his teeth. Then he spit it out and both of his hands rocketed up toward her neck.

She tried to lean away from them, but her torso was not as long as his arms and they slipped around her neck and constricted. The world around her took on strange shades of red and green. She tried to make a noise but couldn’t. The two of them, smashed up against the side of the desk and Angela thinking, Not like this. Not for this sonofabitch. I won’t die for him.

She strained to look to her left, her eyes bulging out of the already-swollen flesh of her beaten-raw face. She reached for the desktop, her blue, numb hands scrambling clumsily atop it as she suffocated, her vision blackening. She seized upon something long, thin, and metal. She wasn’t sure what it was, but she got the impression of a tire pressure gauge.

She could barely feel her hands, but she sandwiched the object between them and forced her hands together, not holding it by any grip but simply by the force of her arms, so that the stem of it pointed downward. Then she leaned forward, oblivious of anything but the singular, insane idea that she was going to plunge whatever was in her hands into Jerry.

The sharpness of an object had little to do with whether it could be pushed inside of you.

Mostly, it had to do with force.

Jerry’s arms attempted to lock out, attempted to keep her away from him, scared to death of whatever she had found on the desktop, though he wasn’t even sure himself what that thing might be. But she just kept pressing forward, her bloodshot eyes insane, purple veins standing out around them. She put the stem of that object against the right side of his throat and began to press.

He tried to recoil, but she just kept pressing. He lunged for her hand, trying to bite her again, but it only buried deeper into his skin when he moved. His grip began to loosen, panic taking its toll on him. Angela could barely see anymore. She could feel unconsciousness hovering over her, ready to take her out. She wouldn’t let it. She had to keep pressing.

Jerry gasped, let go of her neck with one hand, and that was the worst mistake he could have made. The shaft of the thing plunged past the barrier of his skin, embedding itself in his throat and breaking through his windpipe.

His reaction was immediate and violent.

He let go of her throat, and it was like his entire body had been jolted with electricity. The movement was so sudden that it threw Angela off of him and he scrambled backward toward the door, his throat making a strange, rasping, whistling sound as he tried to scream. Angela sat on the floor, trying to catch her own breath past her swollen throat. Jerry touched the little silver thing sticking out of his neck and tried to form words. Blood came out of it in a slow trickle.

Then he crawled through the door, rising to his feet as he went, clawing his way up the banister of the stairs and stumbling down them and disappearing from view. Angela watched him go for a moment, almost shocked at what had just occurred, almost sick to her stomach.

Almost.

She reached her wrists under the jagged metal corner of the desk and rubbed them, trying to get the metal burs to cut through the layers of duct tape. It took longer than she expected, but she didn’t stop. Sweat broke out over her forehead. She took a second to catch her breath, then went at it again. After a few minutes, the duct tape split and she ripped her hands apart with a cry of pain. It would be worse in a moment, she knew, as the feeling returned to them.

The shotgun still sat on the floor. She grabbed it with her ungainly hands, nearly dropped it twice. She had to put conscious effort into what both of her hands needed to do in order to grip the damn thing. After some negotiating, she managed to break the shotgun open.

She shivered uncontrollably as she looked at it.

One shell had a neat little pockmark in its primer.

The other was clean.

If Jerry had been able to reach that shotgun, her brains would have been all over the office. She would have died right here, right in the same spot as Bus. Killed by the same man with the same goddamned gun.

She swallowed all of that down. Ignored it for the time being.

Angela stripped the spent shell out, left the live one in. Slammed it closed.

She was going after her daughter.

FORTY-ONE

THE STEPS

JERRY STUMBLED DOWN THE stairs. Everything was a nightmare. Everything was falling apart. Why was this happening to him?

Maybe it’s not that bad, he thought desperately. I don’t feel like I’m going to die.

The thing protruded out of the side of his neck, like some cyborg creation inside of him had just sprouted through his skin, taking over his body. And he could feel it; he could feel the tip of it scraping the inside of his throat, like he had something caught in it, making him want to cough, or swallow, or just do some damn thing to make it go away.

He leaned on the banister with one hand as he descended, gripped the object with the other, terrified by having it there but even more terrified by the concept of pulling it out. It was in his neck! In his fucking neck! What if it was the only thing keeping his blood inside of him? What if it was like a stopper in a barrel, and if he pulled it, he would just drain out?

“I need a doctor!” He tried to shout to anyone who would listen, but all that came out was a wheezing sound, like a broken harmonica.

He reached the bottom of the stairs and looked to his left. Two of the volunteer guards were at the front door of the building. One had the door cracked open, the muzzle of his rifle sticking out. He fired intermittently, but Jerry could not see what he was shooting at. The brass casings pinged off the metal doors and rolled to a stop at Jerry’s feet. The second guard just stood behind his friend, looking scared.

Where was Greg? He spun in a circle, looking for the rest of the people who had volunteered to guard Camp Ryder. They weren’t really Jerry’s people; they were Greg’s people. Greg was the one who knew them, like the union representative knows all his blue-collar buddies. They did what Greg told them, and Greg did what Jerry told him, so Jerry considered them his people by proxy.

But the Camp Ryder building was empty. He couldn’t see any of those people. He couldn’t find anyone to help him. He turned back to the two guards at the door, realizing that there was a gunfight going on out there, that he would not be able to make it to the medical trailer to get help. He tried to call out to the two guards at the door, but they didn’t seem to hear him.

Finally, the one who wasn’t shooting looked over at Jerry and stared at him. There was no recognition in his features. Just the same old black fear. The look of knowing that things aren’t going to end well. He seemed not only unimpressed by the fact that Jerry was calling to him, speaking to him directly rather than through Greg, but he also seemed unimpressed by the object embedded in his leader’s neck.

The guard threw a thumb over his shoulder and shouted through the thundering sound of the rifle in the narrow hall. “They’re out there! We’re fucking trapped in here! We’re fucking trapped!”

Jerry turned his back to the guards, faced the interior of the building. It stretched out, all the abandoned tables and chairs. All the little bits and pieces of shanties left over from Jerry’s order to move them out. Under the stairs, the room where Marie had set up her cooking station, now being used to hold Angela’s little brat and the brown kid. Kyle stood outside of the door, looking like he didn’t know what to do with himself.

He gave no reaction either to seeing Jerry.

No one seemed to know him or care about his injury.

This had to be a nightmare.

He needed to find a place to hide. He needed a place to lock himself in, where he could take a moment and think, and maybe figure out what to do with the thing in his neck. He started to feel woozy. Was he gonna pass out? Was he losing too much blood?

He pulled his hand away from it and looked at it. It was coated in a slick layer of blood. He tried to speak again as he saw this, and he seemed to get a little better control of his voice. “I don’t wanna bleed to death,” he said, his voice raw, a murmur that sounded like a deaf person talking, which had always given him the creeps when he’d heard it. Even now. But he kept talking anyway.

“Somebody help me!” he mumble-screamed, ambling along the wall in his blank-minded state, looking for a place to hide. “Somebody fucking help me!”

But no one heard him, much less understood him.

Eventually he fell to his knees, less out of his body giving way and more from sheer self-pity. He found himself just in front of an open door, dark on the inside. Another one of the small rooms that used to be offices and now held supplies of some sort or another.

He wheezed and felt something trickling up his throat. Spat and saw blood. He crawled into the room, still calling for help in unintelligible murmurs, and he hid in the darkness, thinking, Why, God? Why do these bad things always happen to me?

Angela came out of the office like she’d been thrown out. She stumbled, barely caught herself from pitching headlong down the stairs. The interior of the Camp Ryder building was a racket of urgent noises. Two men at the bottom of the stairs, firing their rifles in that tiny space so that even their small arms sounded like the booming of cannon. They yelled at each other, and someone else was yelling but the noise of it was hoarse and nasally and no words could be clearly distinguished.

All of that was just distraction.

Below her, right below her, she could hear Abby crying.

It was the singular ability of a mother to be able to pull the sound of her children’s voices out of chaos, to hear them cry in between the screaming of wounded and the thunder of guns. She didn’t think about it, didn’t pride herself in it, she just moved forward, like a winch tethered her to Abby’s cries, pulling her in.

She clambered down the stairs, holding the shotgun between her hands. She still couldn’t get her hands to cooperate and she doubted that she could even pull the trigger. But if she needed to, she would find a way. She would figure it out, if it came down to it.

She paused at the bottom of the stairs, fearing that one of the two guards at the doors would notice her and take some sort of action. But the one man was entirely focused on firing shots out of the door and the other was barely holding his rifle anymore, his face stricken. Angela looked at them for what felt like minutes but was only a few seconds, wondering if she should risk simply walking out in front of them. Maybe she should hide the shotgun. Maybe…

The man with the sad face looked up at her and her heart felt like it was going to crumble. But he didn’t raise his rifle. He just shook his head and murmured something about being trapped.

Angela took the last step down, turned her back to him, and walked stiffly around the stairs. When she turned the corner, she could see Kyle standing there, rifle ported across his chest, pacing rapidly in front of the door behind which Abby and Sam were being held. She stood there, still as stone for a moment, not quite sure what to do. Kyle looked distressed himself, rubbing his head, his hand not on the grip of his rifle.

Angela raised the shotgun, somehow fumbled her finger into the trigger guard. She held the sawed-off piece out in front of her like a pistol, her elbows locked out, the entire structure of her body shaking violently. She marched forward, like the shotgun was a divining rod and she was forced to follow it toward Kyle.

“Hey!” she yelled, her voice harsh and cracked.

Kyle spun around and froze. He didn’t raise his hands in surrender, but he didn’t brandish his rifle either. It just hung there across his chest, muzzle pointed at the floor. Kyle’s eyebrows were squeezed up, jaw slack.

Angela shook the shotgun at him fiercely. “You have my fucking daughter?”

Nothing. Then a single nod.

“And you didn’t hurt her?” she said, tears breaking the hard edge of her voice.

Kyle winced as though the insinuation were painful to him. “No.”

Angela waved the shotgun off to the left. “Go!” she shouted at him. “Get the fuck out of here! If I see you again I’m gonna fucking kill you!”

It was strange, his reaction. He turned, faced deeper into the Camp Ryder building. Confusion passing over his face, like he no longer recognized it, didn’t really know where he was. He took a step. Stopped. Didn’t look at Angela again but asked a question of her anyway: “Did you kill Jerry up there?”

Angela thought about it. Her arms ached from holding up the shotgun. “I don’t know.”

And that was it. Kyle took a few steps, then broke into a jog, making a wide arc around her and heading back toward the entrance of the building where the rifles were still firing. Angela thought of shooting him anyway, because what if he went over there and started firing and shot one of Angela’s friends? What if he shot Marie?

What if he shot Lee?

“Mommy?” Banging on the door. “Mommy!”

She forgot all about it. She ran to the door and ripped it open. Inside, Abby and Sam were seated on the floor, up against the wall closest to the door. Both of them were bound behind their backs. And both of them immediately burst into tears of panicked relief when they saw Angela standing there in the doorway. She dropped the shotgun on the floor next to them and grabbed them, because she had to touch them, put her arms on them, make sure they were whole and not hurt. Then she pulled them into an embrace, telling them they were okay now, they just had to sit tight for a little bit until all the shooting stopped. Then she reached behind their backs and began to work the duct tape from their wrists.

“What about Jerry?” Sam cried out as she worked. “What if he gets us again?”

Angela shook her head. “Lee’s out there, Sam. And he’s gonna come for us. He’s gonna come for us.”

Lee’s entry team stalled at the front of the Camp Ryder building. The front doors were set back into an alcove, so that they would have to run upstairs to get to them, and during that time they would be completely exposed, backlighted, and hanging out in the fatal funnel. Possibly one of the worst doors Lee had ever encountered.

To make it worse, they had lost momentum on their push for the door because of a single guard, just inside the door, taking shots every time he peeked around the corner. It didn’t take long to develop a strategy to overcome this, but by then the momentum was gone. Ten long, slow seconds eked by as Lee stood there at the corner, blinking bits of dust and debris from his eyes as the man behind the door sent round after round exploding through the corner of the cement blocks, just inches from Lee.

A gunfight was not a sterile environment. No decision was pondered all by itself. It was constantly moving, constantly developing, constantly changing. And in those long seconds, there were plenty of other things vying for his attention and his focus.

Jacob at the back of the stack, hard on that corner behind them. The shrieking, barking, chuffing noise of an infected as it rocketed around the corner, and Jacob firing round after round, chipping off chunks of flesh and finally hitting it in the chest and neck and face and bringing it down just a few feet from where Jacob stood.

Out in Shantytown, people cowered, the men and women hovering over their children like hens over their chicks, their arms encircling them as though it would protect them from a bullet or an infected. There were still a few armed men running around from position of cover to position of cover, trying desperately to avoid getting caught by one of Lee’s snipers in the woods, but they had them caught in a cross fire and they were getting picked off one by one.

Ten seconds.

Lee looked to his left, having to keep his right eye closed involuntarily because he could not get the grit out of it. His stack was behind him, nearly flattened up against the wall, all bunched together and needing desperately to move from that spot, needing to get inside, away from the infected that kept pushing at them.

Decision time.

Lee grabbed Devon’s shoulder, for no other reason than he was the closest. He shouted, “You go low around the corner! I’ll go high!” He made a wide circling motion with his hand. “I’m gonna swing around you and go for the door. Don’t stop shooting until I’m in front of you.”

Devon nodded. “Okay. I got it.”

Lee shook his shoulder. “And hey…”

“What?”

“Don’t fucking shoot me.”

“Okay.”

Lee and Devon switched places quickly so that Devon was closest to the corner. Lee pushed him down to his knees and prepared to move. Behind them, another infected dodged around the corner, received a volley from Jacob that clipped its arm, and then jumped back into cover.

He took one breath, because that was all he could afford. Then he slapped Devon hard on the back and shouted, “Move!”

Devon popped out, began firing.

Lee jumped around him, took the center of the stairs, and charged forward, firing as he went. Little dots appeared all over the steel door as the bullets punched through. Lee could see the muzzle of the gunman’s rifle sticking out of the door, spewing out smoke in jarring concussions that tingled in Lee’s sinuses, but he just kept pushing forward because he knew that the motherfucker behind the door couldn’t see him. As all the holes appeared in the door, perforating it in every place that the gunman could possibly be, Lee could hear the man screaming, a high-pitched wail of fear and pain.

Lee slammed into the door with everything he had, trapping the rifle between the door and the jam. He reached down and grabbed the hot barrel, burning his skin, but he didn’t feel it. He pulled the door just slightly and ripped the rifle out of the gunman’s grip, sending it clattering down in the entryway.

He opened the door, saw the man on his knees, clutching his gut with blood-soaked hands, still screaming, and he kicked the man in the face. The teeth clacked noisily and the consciousness immediately left the man’s eyes. Lee didn’t think he would regain it before the wounds in his gut bled him out.

Another man was off to the side, his rifle lying at his feet, and he raised his hands and waved them, a dark splotch spreading in the seat of his pants. “Don’t shoot me! Don’t shoot me!”

Lee leaned on the door until it was as open as far as it would go and he could see farther into Camp Ryder. He pointed his rifle at the man begging for his life. It was strange for just a split second, because he knew the man. Walter was his name, Lee thought. He’d helped Lee build the new rain catches that sat on the side of the Camp Ryder building next to the original one. A little talkative, but otherwise a nice guy.

Lee put a foot into the man’s shoulder, pushing him to the floor. “Get on the fuckin’ ground!”

The man flattened himself, his hands covering his head.

Lee held the door, almost looked behind him to see if the others were moving up, but they didn’t require an invitation. Devon came staggering up the stairs, nearly tripping over the unconscious man in the doorway, and the rest of them followed.

And then suddenly the doorway to the building was jammed with bodies. Lee turned and looked and could see a column of perhaps fifteen or twenty people, all bunching into the alcove of the Camp Ryder building, mixing in with his entry team and trying to get the hell away from Shantytown. At first, Lee thought it was because of the gunfight going on. But then he saw the other shapes that slipped in and out among the shanties.

The hunters were in Shantytown, and they moved like foxes in a henhouse. Like a feeding frenzy. They reached out and grabbed at anyone who was within reach, their teeth gnashing wildly as their prey ran about in a sheer panic. Two of them seized upon a woman as she burst through the door of her shanty, screaming, and they dragged her to the ground where Lee could no longer see her, though he could see the creatures’ arms ripping at her, could see the blood spurting up onto the outer wall of the shanty, and then one of the hunters took hold of the woman’s leg and began dragging her toward the fence.

Lee kept his body pushed up against the door, people shoving past him, climbing over each other in a sheer panic. Most of them were unarmed, but Lee didn’t have time to check them—if he would have tried to stop them, he would have been trampled. Just inside the building, Lee could hear his team shouting commands at someone, and the column of people slowed to a standstill, unable to push into the building.

Jacob came around the corner into the alcove and stopped in the middle of the stairs, just before the jam of people that kept Lee pinned to the door, all of them still trying to squirm their way in. Jacob opened his mouth as though to shout, and Lee knew what he was going to say—that the infected were coming. But Jacob saw the people, saw their panic, and knew it would only make it worse. So he shut his mouth, and then turned his back to Lee and faced out.

One of the infected came around the corner, on all fours, its arms and legs scrabbling for purchase on the gravel. It propelled itself toward Jacob and he let out a small scream of surprise at the thing’s sudden appearance and danced backward a bit, firing several times to put it down.

Someone in the back of the crowd of people pushing through the door heard the gunshots and turned in time to see the infected crumple to the ground. He screamed, “Infected!” and the already palpable fear of the group exploded into full-blown hysteria.

Lee turned his head and bellowed into the Camp Ryder building, “Get these people inside! Get them inside the fucking building NOW!”

Lee took one breath, two breaths, and whatever was stopping the people from getting inside was abruptly removed and they began to pile in again. He turned to Jacob and waved. “Jacob! Get in here!” But even as he said it, he knew, he just knew that the infected would pile into the opening of that alcove before all of these people could get into the building and close the doors behind them.

And Jacob knew the same damn thing.

Two more infected rounded that corner, already fixated on Jacob.

Lee raised his rifle, began firing around and over the civilians who crowded him. He aimed to hit whatever Jacob did not shoot at, trying to give him time. Jacob stood in the middle of the stairs, shooting to his left, then shooting to his right. He fired three rounds into one infected, toppling it backward, then pivoted and fired four more rounds into another as it reached for him, stopping the thing dead in its tracks as the last round plastered through its cranium. An infected that he’d already shot continued to crawl toward him and he planted his foot on the brow of the thing, shoving it back and destroying it with two point-blank shots. Jacob was lost in the sudden orgy of violence and seemed for a moment to forget that he was in danger.

“Jacob!” Lee yelled. “Get the fuck in the building!”

Two more came at Jacob, came around the corner quickly, and Lee could not fire on them because he would have had to fire through Jacob. Jacob yelped, lurched backward away from them, tried to backpedal, but tripped. As he went down, Lee sighted in on one and fired, sending three rounds through its chest but not stopping it before it landed on top of Jacob and the man began to scream.

Lee pushed forward, breaking away from the crowd, just as the second infected landed atop Jacob and for a moment, Lee could not even see the scientist. He could only see the infected, how they were burying their faces into their victim and clamping down with their jaws, biting into his belly and ripping around until Jacob’s guts began to fold out onto the ground. Jacob’s screams became harsh and breathless and he tried weakly to push the creatures away from him with his rifle.

No matter how close they were to Jacob, Lee had to take the shot. He fired into the tangle of arms and legs and blood and the first infected jolted backward, its jaw ripped from its face and its left eyeball punched out by a well-placed round. But the second creature grabbed hold of Jacob’s legs and began dragging him backward. Trying to take him away.

Just like the lady in Shantytown.

Jacob tried to fight it, but he couldn’t maneuver the rifle in his grip anymore and either shock or the purity of his fear was causing his entire body to seize up. The rifle tumbled out of his grip as the thing pulled him down the stairs. The infected twisted and screeched at Lee, but Lee spread his feet, got a good sight picture, pulled the trigger, and put a bullet straight into its mouth, pulverizing its brain stem and killing it instantly.

It collapsed onto Jacob. Lee ran forward, feeling the blood pounding through the veins in his temples, warping his vision. He quick-footed down the steps, swinging his rifle back and forth, certain that another infected was going to come around the corner. But they were out in Shantytown now. They’d gone after the easier prey, and they were already beginning to pull back. Two of them clung to the tops of the fence with one hand, and with their other hands, clutched a body by the leg. Lee stared at the dead faces in horror, thinking that he recognized them. He knew those people, even if it was only in passing. Then the hunters slipped over the top of the fence, pulling the limp corpses over with them, where they seemed to disappear.

Lee’s first instinct was to shoot at them. He thought perhaps those people they were carrying were still alive, and maybe, just maybe, he could save them. But he could see how limply they swung against the fence and were pulled to the other side. It was not the looseness of a person knocked unconscious. It was complete lifelessness. So Lee just stared at them as they went, stunned and sickened.

Two other hunters vaulted the fence, both of them carrying parts of a body in their mouths—one with part of a leg and the other an arm. The last one of them looked back, and for a brief, strange moment, Lee was certain that it was looking directly at him. Just a strange, freakish, and mutated version of what had once been a person, crouching there atop a fence with a bloody limb hanging from its mouth. Then the thing simply dropped over the other side and was gone.

They had made their kills. They had taken what they came for.

Their hunt had been successful.

Lee remembered what he had descended the steps for. He looked down at his feet, saw the ruined man lying on the steps in front of him. He came down to his knees at Jacob’s side. The stomach had not only been torn open, but there was obvious damage to his organs as well. Even if Lee could have piled all of those guts back into Jacob’s body, they would have leaked their contents into his blood and Jacob would have gone into septic shock.

Jacob’s eye fluttered, his mouth lolling open. His body pumping all kinds of doping chemicals into his blood. Lee stared down at him, wanting to say something to keep him awake, keep him talking, keep him fighting. But for what? What good would it do? Besides the irreparable condition of his insides, Jacob had been bitten. All that infected saliva had gotten inside of him. The bacteria coursed through his veins, replicating, infesting, clustering at his frontal lobe.

“Fuck,” Lee muttered and grabbed Jacob’s hands.

They squeezed back. Jacob opened his eyes as though struck with a sudden urgency. “Notebook in my backpack,” he mumbled, blood working into the corners of his mouth.

Lee nodded. “Okay, buddy. Notebook in your backpack.”

Jacob’s head rose off the ground, trembled violently. “There are some things… Just read it.”

“Okay. I’ll read it.”

Jacob looked Lee in the eyes. “It’s not good, Lee. It’s not good.”

The sounds of the world around him seemed suddenly to envelop him, as though his brain could no longer block them out. There were people shouting inside the building behind him. A few people yelling out in Shantytown. A kid crying. A woman screaming, though Lee couldn’t tell if it was pain or grief. There were gunshots still coming from the woods, from the snipers shooting at gunmen inside Camp Ryder, or perhaps shooting at the hunters as they attempted to escape with their meals.

Jacob’s eyes crossed, looked skyward.

“Jacob!” Lee shook him. “What do you mean it’s not good?”

But the only response that Lee got was Jacob’s grip quickly fading, the hands that Lee held soon hanging there, limp. Lee looked at them, then dropped them, almost threw them away from himself and rocked back on his heels. He swore loudly, angrily. Looked around him to see if there were any threats that had crept up on him while he was distracted.

Motion drew his attention up. At the front gate, a man hobbled under the broken section, dragging his left leg behind him. As he moved, a jagged piece of chain-link fence caught the brim of his Yankees ball cap and it fell to the ground. The man turned back as though to get it, but then looked up and saw Lee staring at him.

“Greg,” Lee churned out, with all of the bitterness that could be imparted by a single word.

Greg turned away and began to run, as fast as his wounded leg would allow him, kept looking back to see if he was being pursued, his arms pumping madly to make up for the momentum lost on his wounded leg. For a second or two, Lee just watched him, thinking about what Marie had told him about Jerry and Greg and Arnie and their whole fucking team, and everything they’d done at Camp Ryder. All of the ways they had ruined what Lee had built. All the harm they had done to the people Lee tried to protect.

And then Lee thought about Shumate.

Thought about how loose ends always come back to haunt you.

No loose ends this time.

Lee began to run after him.

FORTY-TWO

WHAT IS REQUIRED

IN THREE STEPS, Lee pictured all the things that Greg had done. How he had worked alongside Jerry to overthrow everything that Lee had spent blood, sweat, and tears creating. How he was complicit in the murders of Bus and Keith Jenkins. But mostly, it was how he had hurt the people Lee called his own. Those who were dead and those who still lived.

Lee hit the gate, slid under it with a single hand steadying himself on the ground, the harsh gravel rasping through the knees of his pants and breaking the skin. He came up on the other side with barely a loss of momentum and continued after Greg. He was already gaining on him, Greg’s wounded leg slowing him to about half the pace of Lee.

Fuck it, Lee decided. I’m just gonna shoot him.

He raised his rifle and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

Empty.

As he ran, he looked down, hands slapping his chest rig for a spare magazine as he dropped the one in the rifle. But he had no more spares. He’d used them all up. He was out of ammunition, and too damn late to turn back now. He began to unsling the rifle from around his shoulders, preparing to toss it.

Maybe ten yards ahead of him, Greg fumbled in his waistband and he stopped abruptly and turned. Something small and black in his hands. Lee already knew what it was and put the brakes on his all-out sprint to catch up to Greg.

Pop.

Lee felt something hit his side. He didn’t stop to look at the damage. He gripped the rifle by the stock, holding it like a baseball bat, and he hurled it at Greg’s face. A wracking pain split through his stomach. The rifle spun through the air and Greg tried to avoid it by raising a hand to ward it off, but it struck him anyway with a nose-breaking clatter and Greg stumbled back, stunned.

Lee had already closed the gap. He leaped, his body horizontal, and he speared Greg right in the midsection. The two collided, air leaving lungs with an explosive hoomph. They landed in the dirt, rolling violently across the gravel, their scrambling feet kicking up dust and rocks. Lee grappled for the gun in Greg’s hand as Greg contorted his wrist, trying to get a close-range shot off at him.

Lee grabbed it by the barrel and shoved it up and away from him. It was a small, subcompact semiauto of some kind. It went off with an ear-splitting crack, so close to Lee’s head. Lee felt the slide work under his finger, ripping some of the flesh away, but he managed to hold his grip on it and the action jammed, failing to cycle back all the way and leaving the spent casing un-ejected in the chamber.

With both of Lee’s hands wrapped around the gun, Greg saw his opportunity and slammed Lee in the face with an elbow. Lee wasn’t sure how many times and in how many ways his nose could break, but he felt another crack and excruciating pain shot through his face, back into some parts of his skull that he didn’t even know had nerve endings. It jarred him, almost to the point of unconsciousness, and he felt his strength suddenly drain out of him simply from the magnitude of the pain.

Greg didn’t waste time or give Lee any chances. He rolled Lee onto his back and put his free hand on Lee’s chest, pushed the pistol up to Lee’s head with the other hand and, without thought, with the complete intention to kill Lee then and there, he pulled the trigger.

It mushed in harmlessly. It had never been reset.

Lee had recovered enough to act on it before Greg could truly wrap his brain around the weapon’s malfunction and how he was going to fix it. Lee seized Greg’s wrist with both hands and used the only weapon he had left. He already knew what he was going to do. He’d already decided on it. Brutality was required.

He lunged out and bit down on Greg’s wrist. It was not a bite to inflict pain or to simply scare Greg into getting off of him. It was a bite to inflict as much damage as possible. Lee buried his face in the man’s wrist, and Greg began to shriek. Lee pushed his teeth into the meat between the radius and ulna bones of the wrist, and when he could feel the hard, gristly cordage of Greg’s tendons between his teeth, he jerked back with his head. He could feel the gristle in between his teeth, could feel the tendons snapping as he clamped down and ripped back. Blood squirting into the back of his mouth.

Greg recoiled backward, nearly catapulting himself off of Lee. The pistol went flying from his grip as his hand contorted into strange shapes and flopped around like a thing possessed. Lee gagged and coughed out the chunks and tendrils of Greg’s flesh and kicked the man in the chest, sprawling him backward. Greg rolled, came up hunched over his arm, cradling it and screaming.

Lee launched himself for the pistol on the ground, landing stretched out on his left side, right onto the gunshot wound. Bright, lightning pain scorched him, but he reached out his left hand—his weak hand—because it was the closest, and he wrapped his fingers around the gun.

Lee’s eyes were focused on the gun. But he could hear Greg, could hear the wordless roar, and the sound of dirt and gravel scraping and shifting as Greg came at him, determined not to let Lee get the gun up. Lee held up one foot, trying to ward off Greg while he brought the pistol into his chest and racked the slide, clearing the jam. The spent casing flew out, a fresh one slamming into the chamber.

Lee felt his foot being swiped out of the way and he felt the heavy bulk of Greg landing on him. He rocked his hips up, gritting through the pain in his core and side, and he wrapped one leg around Greg’s midsection. He tried to get the other leg around, but Greg put his elbows down into Lee’s thigh, pinning it and spiking his femoral nerve.

The one leg was enough, though. It was enough to keep Greg from posting up on him. Greg thrust his arms forward, his one good hand grabbing massive handfuls of Lee’s clothing, the fingers digging viciously into the skin, desperate like a wild animal. Like he was trying to claw his way up to Lee’s chest, reaching for the pistol.

Lee pulled the pistol as far back as he could, then looked down the line of his body. He saw Greg, his head at about waist level, staring up at Lee with his teeth bared, mouth wide open, an incredible mask of rage and pain.

Lee punched out with the little subcompact pistol and fired.

The bullet entered the corner of Greg’s right eye, splashed through his cranial cavity, and erupted out of the back of Greg’s skull, near the spine. Greg instantly was still, all the weight of his body crashing down onto Lee, and everything that was in his head began coming out, pouring over Lee’s midsection.

Lee just sat there, staring at the mess of it and trying to catch his breath. He felt his whole body trembling and he wasn’t sure whether it was cold or exhaustion or adrenaline. For a moment, all he could hear was his rushing blood, but as his heart seemed to downshift, another sound came to him. The sound of feet pounding through the woods. Crashing through brush. Lee stretched out onto his back, looking at the world upside down, holding the little pistol out with both hands. Finger on the trigger. Ready to go again.

“Whoa!” A familiar voice. “Easy, buddy. Friendly fire.”

Tomlin stood there, breathing hard from a sprint, holding his bolt gun in one hand, the other waving at him.

Lee relaxed slightly and took long, deep breaths. He smelled the air. Tasted the dust and the scent of stone. Loam and leaves from the nearby forest. The sharp tang of cordite that clung to him. And blood. Familiar. Intimate. Bitter.

Some of it his. Most of it Greg’s.

Lee wiped his mouth. Pulled a piece of Greg from his tongue and shuddered violently. But he didn’t think about what he’d done. He didn’t contemplate the savagery of it. And perhaps that was a victory in and of itself. But it was a cold one. A broken one. That there was not enough left of his old morals or that he had strangled that part of himself into silence. He didn’t know and didn’t care. He’d done what needed to be done.

He’d done what was required of him.

Tomlin looked out into the trees. “C’mon, we need to get out of the woods.”

Lee leaned up, pushed Greg’s body off of him. Almost immediately his midsection grew cold as the blood that soaked his clothing cooled in the air. He rolled over painfully and lifted his jacket to look at the wound in his side. Two little red pockmarks, separated by about six inches of flesh, one entering just above Lee’s left hip bone, and one exiting just under his bottom ribs. The flesh between the two holes was swollen and puffy-looking.

Tomlin bent over it. “That hit any bones?”

Lee lifted his hips a bit, then maneuvered into a sitting position. It was painful—very painful—but not pulverized-hip-bone painful. He shook his head. “No. Think it’s just skin and muscle.”

“Well, shit…” Tomlin extended a hand to Lee. “That’s nothing.”

Lee accepted the hand and let himself be pulled to his feet. He steadied himself on Tomlin, blinking rapidly to clear his head, fighting off a bit of faintness. “Did they take the building?”

“I think they got it, buddy,” Tomlin said, taking a few steps away and stooping to retrieve Lee’s rifle. He held it up to Lee. “Haven’t heard any gunshots from inside. Hopefully that’s a good thing.”

Lee put the sling of his rifle over his neck, looked down, and regarded the dead man lying in the road. He stood there for just a second or two, watching the blood soak into the ground. He did not feel remorse or regret for the man. But he did feel a heaviness. A gravity.

“Come on,” Tomlin prodded, pushing him gently toward Camp Ryder.

Lee stumbled along. “He had a kid,” Lee said as he walked. “And there are others. Others just as guilty as Greg. But they still have children. Still have families. How the fuck are we gonna deal with that?” He spat in the dirt. “Everyone’s all fucking intermingled.”

Tomlin just shook his head silently, kept looking behind him to make sure there was nothing stalking them. Ahead of them, barely visible past the gates, a small crowd had formed, watching in a sort of daze as Lee’s team led two men out of the Camp Ryder building, their wrists bound behind their backs. They forced them to sit in front of the building, prisoners. They were quickly joined by a third and a fourth.

“How are we gonna treat ’em?” Lee said. “Criminals? Enemy combatants?”

“We’ll work on it.” Tomlin said, quickening his pace just slightly.

Lee shivered a little as the wind continued to chill the blood on his clothes. He didn’t think he’d lost that much blood, but then again, he didn’t feel quite right either. He could feel the hot and cold flushes over his skin. The tingling sensation across his face.

And goddammit, everything hurt.

Nose and stomach complained the loudest, but it seemed his entire body was at least grumbling at him. Protesting. Getting ready to throw in the towel. You can be big and bad all you want, but at a certain point, the body just starts to break. It is not built for days on end of combat, with little sleep and little nutrients and too many wounds to fix, too many infections to fight off.

Tomlin slowed a bit, turned to look at Lee. “You gonna make it?”

Lee waved him off. “I’m fuckin’ fine.”

Tomlin nodded. “Good to go?”

“Good to go.”

Ahead of them, Lee could see others were pouring out of the Camp Ryder building now. The sound of voices spiked as families and friends found each other alive. Some of them were supporters of Lee. Others were supporters of Jerry. There was also the sound of weeping. Lee would not have deluded himself to believe that the day could have ended without tragedy. It was simply unavoidable. It was the cost of doing business. All of the men who had allied themselves with Jerry, who had fought against this action, they had families, just like Greg. And their wives, their children, they would gather around the bodies of their husbands and fathers and they would scream and tear at their hair. And there would be others still who had simply gotten caught in the cross fire. Innocents.

Cost of doing business, Lee kept telling himself.

They navigated the broken gate and began walking toward the cluster of people in front of the building. Lee stared at it, thinking of how easily the infected hunters had vaulted over it. Thinking of how easily they could come inside Camp Ryder anytime they wanted. These people were not safe anymore. And if Lee had figured it out, so would others. It would only be a matter of time before that fear began to invade people’s conversations. The fear that they would wake up one night being dragged out of their beds by sinuous arms and slathering jaws. The fear that no place was safe.

We’ll have to build higher, Lee thought. We’ll have to adapt our defenses.

As he and Tomlin approached the gathered crowd, heads began to turn. Fingers were pointed. Eyes went wide with surprise. Some reactions were good. Others bad. Some people shouted and clapped, broad smiles over their faces. Others stared on sullenly and murmured among one another. As Lee and Tomlin made their way through the crowd, they searched faces, and perhaps half of the people drew away from them, while the other half grabbed their hands and shook them, slapped them on the back, and told them what a great fucking job they did.

Lee wanted to feel elated.

Mostly he just felt exhausted.

They reached the front steps of the building and stopped there in front of the four prisoners kneeling on the ground. Nate and Old Man Hughes stood with them, rifles ported but ready. When Nate saw Lee and Tomlin, his eyes immediately went to the bloody mess of Lee’s midsection, saw the hole in the fabric of Lee’s jacket.

“Holy shit, Cap.” He pointed. “You’re shot!”

Lee cleared his throat. “I’m fine. Are these the only prisoners?”

Nate blinked rapidly, then shifted his gaze from Lee’s wound to his face. “Uh… yes.”

Lee nodded, then pointed to the gate. “I need that gate fixed immediately. Put guards on it until it’s secure, and then we need to talk about how to increase the height—”

“Lee.”

He turned, found Angela standing on the stairs, one arm around Sam and the other around Abby. She descended slowly, a little unsteady on her feet. Her face was a swollen wreck. Blood scabbed around her nose and mouth. One eye nearly puffed closed, the skin around it shining purple and red.

He met her at the bottom of the steps to the Camp Ryder building. They approached each other cautiously, as though each feared the other was a mirage. They stared at each other for a moment, until Lee reached out and carefully touched the swelling around her face.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

“Sorry for what?” She wiped her blood-crusted nose.

“I wasn’t here.”

She reached forward and put an arm around him. It was stiff at first, Lee frozen as though he could not remember how to be around her, and he feared that perhaps that part of him had been killed off with the rest of his old self. And perhaps a part of him feared that she would see it. She would see the ugly changes in him, that he would not be able to hide it from her, and she would fear the new creature he’d become.

But she looked right at him and pulled him close anyway. And it was the smell of her that made it real. It was acrid with sweat and stress, but it was her, and there was an odd, subconscious familiarity to it. The two of them leaned on each other, and they were what they were. Just wretched people with nothing left. That was all any of them were. Just a bunch of desperate vagrants, broken and reprobate, with nothing in the world to call their own. Nothing but the people they could reach out and cling to.

Angela’s shoulders shook only once, and when she pulled back from Lee, her face was calm. She looked at Lee, her eyes traveling briefly over his face, and they did not recoil from what they found. And Lee thought he saw in her some of the very same coldness that he knew was in himself.

“You’re here now,” she said.

“Angela.” Sam’s voice was quiet and sober at their side.

Lee looked down and found the kid eyeing his wound.

“I think Lee needs a doctor.”

Lee put his hand on Sam’s shoulder. “I’m fine.”

Angela pulled back, looked at his midsection with wide eyes. “Lee…”

The doors to the Camp Ryder building flew open behind them and Devon came partially out. He looked around, seemed to be slightly surprised at the gathering of people. Then he found Lee’s face and he waved to him, his expression urgent.

“Captain! You need to come in here.”

Angela pulled away from Lee, her expression clouding as though she knew what they had found inside the building. As though on some level she was sickened by it. She took a single step back, then put her arms around Abby and Sam again.

Tomlin appeared at Lee’s side, touching his elbow gently. Lee looked at Angela and the two exchanged a brief, unspoken message. Lee nodded, just slightly, and then ascended the steps alongside Tomlin. At the doors, Devon ushered them through, careful to close the door behind him.

Lee stood there in the entryway and looked around bitterly at the building. It was all a defiled memory. He recalled the warm smells of Marie’s cooking, even remembered favorably the underlying mechanical odor, the smell of heavy grease and old, used engine oil that undercut everything in the building. Stains that time had a hard time erasing. And the warmth of it, from the cook fires and from the people who were always jammed in here, clustered about, talking, commiserating, sharing their woes, their struggles, their triumphs. The rumble of conversation. The office up the stairs to the right and the stillness that could always be found there. Bus sitting behind his desk, stressing over small things. Always thinking about what was best for Camp Ryder. A staunch supporter of the people. At all costs. Even until the end. This place of refuge where Lee went, retreating from the harshness of the world outside. This place that could be solitary and temple-like in the dead of night, when everyone slept. This place that Lee had called home.

Now it was smeared with blood. Now the smell of it was cold and heartless, and the walls screamed of murder. Now it was simply a cement box. A tomb, full of silence and chill.

There was another man there, standing outside of a door at the far end of the giant open space. He was one of Old Man Hughes’s people. He held up his rifle, pointing into the room.

“What is it?” Lee asked, his voice brittle.

Devon clenched his jaw. “We found him.”

Then Devon’s eyes drifted down to the far end of the building, where the other man stood, rifle trained on something Lee could not see. Lee lowered his head, his face becoming set in stone. He walked through the building, passing through the shadows of the support beams that held the roof up. He reached the door and stood there stiffly, looking in.

Jerry was still alive. Skin pale like the underbelly of a fish. Profusely sweating, making it appear just as slick and slimy. He leaned on a collection of five-gallon buckets of food supplies that Lee had brought from one of his bunkers—rice, oats, beans. He had one arm jacked up over them, his head lolled off to the side, displaying a metal rod of some sort sticking out of his neck, blood oozing from the wound at a slow trickle.

Jerry stirred a bit, eyes widening as he saw Lee. He groaned, made a strange noise that vibrated oddly through his throat and came out as an unpronounced mewling sound. Fear. The desire to self-preserve. Jerry kicked with his feet like he was trying to get away, but he was weak. It seemed that Lee’s mere presence brought Jerry to the point of anxiety, as he mindlessly tried to back away from Lee, though there was nowhere else to go inside the tiny room, crammed in with all the buckets that Lee had given to Camp Ryder.

Lee turned to the man at the door. “Thank you. I’ll handle this.”

The man looked slightly confused, but then Lee stepped into the room, and he closed the door behind him. The man stared at the door, then looked up at Devon and Tomlin. Devon’s expression was something of fascination. Like a kid who wants to go poke at the roadkill. Tomlin’s was more reserved, and he met the man’s gaze and simply shrugged.

Inside the room it was dark.

The doorway was just a bar of silver light along the floor. It took a few moments for Lee’s eyes to adjust, but then he could at least see the outline of Jerry’s body. The glint of the little metal object in his neck. Lee wondered what it was. Couldn’t quite tell.

He shuffled forward, his feet nudging up against Jerry’s legs, and he knelt down, hissing a bit as his side inflamed him again, punishing him for such movements. When he was settled on his haunches, he folded his hands and looked at Jerry. He couldn’t see much of his face in the darkness. Just a little bit of the light reflecting off his eyes. Off the wetness of his sweat as it pooled with the blood around his neck.

He reached forward, gently touched the object.

Jerry recoiled, gasping.

“Who did this to you, Jerry?”

The sound of Jerry’s mouth working. A wet, clicking noise. A gargled whisper: “Angela.”

Lee smiled, though he doubted Jerry could see it. That was fine. He didn’t smile to poke at Jerry. He simply smiled. Something like pride. “She’s strong, Jerry. Did you mistake her for something else?”

No response.

Then: “Help me.”

Lee stared through the dark, thought he saw the glistening of tears in Jerry’s eyes.

“Help me!” Jerry wheezed with a little more force.

No loose ends.

“No, Jerry,” Lee said softly. “We’re all just… done with you.”

Then, with nothing further to say, Lee simply reached forward and plucked the metal rod from Jerry’s neck. Lee felt the blood spurt out and he stood up, taking a step back. On the ground, Jerry began to thrash. His hands went to his neck, trying to keep the blood in. He tried to speak, but the blood from his clipped artery, the blood that had been mostly sealed by the metal rod, started pouring into the hole in his larynx, filling his throat with blood. He coughed violently, kept trying to take a breath, but every time he breathed he just sucked more blood into his lungs. He kept stubbornly coughing and taking gulps of air. He went on like this for almost a minute.

Eventually he drowned in his own blood.

Lee waited for absolute silence in the small, dark room. He waited for the last bit of air to bubble out of Jerry. Waited for the man’s foot to stop tapping against the buckets—the last involuntary twitches. He waited until it seemed he floated in a vacuum. Then he dropped the metal object—a tire pressure gauge?—and listened to it clank lightly on the ground.

He turned and opened the door. Light poured in. Bathed him.

He stepped out of the room, leaving Jerry behind.

FORTY-THREE

REPENTANCE

HARPER AND JULIA CROUCHED atop a water tower, facing north across the Dan River. Same thing as the Roanoke, just a different section of it. On the other side of the slow-moving brown water stood Eden. Small town. A lot of neighborhoods, it looked like. The downtown area bisected into east and west sections by an offshoot of the Dan River.

Smith River, according to the map.

Harper leaned on the rusted railing, chin resting on his arms, looking out at the little city ahead of them. Beside him, Julia had her rifle up and was squinting through the scope. She’d been surveying the city for the last ten minutes. Taking it slow and steady. Every so often she would shift to another section of the city, and she would watch that for a minute or two. A cross section of what was going on in Eden, North Carolina.

Harper rubbed his bearded chin against his arm to scratch an itch, eyed his companion. “What’s it looking like?”

Julia pulled her head back from her rifle, eyes still looking out at the town. She had a look on her face: lips pursed off to one side, eyebrows slightly cinched, eyes closed down to little concentrated slits. She slid the rifle across the rail toward Harper. “Here. Take a look.”

He accepted the rifle, settled down over it, and trained the scope.

A few minutes passed.

Julia picked at the peeling bluish-green paint of the water tower. It came off in big chunks, revealing dark, rusty metal underneath. The whole structure creaked and groaned every time the wind blew. Vibrated unnervingly beneath them like it might give way at any second. Who knew how old the damn thing was or how long it had been since it was last inspected? But Harper supposed they constructed these things to last for quite a while.

Besides, there were bigger worries than structurally unsound water towers.

Harper lowered the rifle, glared at Eden as though it had betrayed him. “Shitfire,” he mumbled, then passed the rifle back.

“Hey! Harper! Julia!” A voice yelled up at them from below.

They both leaned over the edge and saw one of the team standing at the ladder, banging on it with his hands, sending little reverberations all the way up to them.

“What?” Harper snapped.

“You gotta get down here quick!”

Julia and Harper both swore in unison and clambered to their feet, brushing particles of rust and ancient paint from their legs. They swung quickly over the rail and onto the ladder. Harper made it a point not to look down. The ladder swayed under the weight of both bodies and Harper felt a little sick for a moment, but he just kept working his way down—the faster he got his feet on the ground, the better.

It took a minute to descend the tower, but his feet had only just hit the ground before he felt a hand grab his jacket. He whirled, about ready to start swinging, from pure irritation if not for self-defense, but found himself staring at a grin.

A fucking grin.

Not an expression he saw very often. The man who wore it waved excitedly.

Harper almost wanted to punch his teeth out. What could be so fucking amazing that this idiot was grinning? He worded it only slightly nicer: “What the fuck are you grinning about?”

“We’re getting transmissions on the radio!” he almost shouted. “From Camp Ryder!”

Harper looked at Julia. A moment’s hesitation passing between them, the cringing feeling of a pessimist—It’s gotta be a mistake. But then Julia ran for the Humvees, her eyes suddenly alight with a guarded excitement. So Harper followed her.

They ran up to the first Humvee, ripping open the door.

A sweet sound came pouring out of the vehicle. The static hiss of the radio and the crackled sound of a transmitted voice nearly toppled Harper over right then and there. Nearly brought him to his knees. “Camp Ryder to LaRouche or Harper or anyone in their groups. Camp Ryder to LaRouche or Harper. Please answer.”

The man who had called them couldn’t seem to keep his feet from moving. “I didn’t know if you wanted me to answer or not! Should we answer? Should we answer it?”

Harper reached into the Humvee and snatched the handset, keying it before he’d even brought it to his mouth. Unbeknownst to him, he wore the same stupid grin across his face now, because he knew the voice on the other end of the line.

“Lee?” he almost shouted. “Is that you?”

Lee felt an astounding sense of relief and couldn’t help but close his eyes and smile, the handset held against his head. “Yeah, it’s me, Harper.”

There was a crackle, then a barrage.

“Lee! We’ve been tryin’ to get ahold of you guys for the past three fuckin’ days! What the hell happened over there? Did you guys have some technical difficulties or something? Jesus… do you have Devon and Nate with you? We sent them your way to try to make contact when we couldn’t get anything via radio. Is everything all right?”

Lee looked down. He was seated on the edge of the desk in the Camp Ryder office, wearing only his filthy pants and boots. His body was prickled with gooseflesh in the cold room, but Angela was still working on cleaning and bandaging his side.

He keyed the mic. “It’s a long story, Harper. Devon and Nate are with me and they’re fine. I’ll explain everything to you soon, but there’s a lot going on right now. A lot we’re trying to coordinate. I need a sit-rep so we can figure out what the fuck we’re doing.”

There was a long, uncomfortable pause.

Crackle. “Lee… we’ve, uh… we’ve taken some losses. We’re down three—Gray got killed, and…” Another long pause. The transmission clicked off. Came back a few seconds later. “And Torri and Mike too. They got killed. And we sent Nate and Devon down there to check on you guys, so we’re pretty much a skeleton crew right now. We need people, Lee. Badly.”

Lee tapped the handset against his forehead, trying to ignore the pain of Angela threading a needle through his skin. He weighed his words carefully. There was a fine line between disseminating necessary information and being a morale crusher. And it sounded like there wasn’t much left to Harper’s morale as it was. “Buddy, I’m sorry to hear that. We’ve all taken some losses over the last few days, okay? But we’re making it right. We’ll be sending Devon and Nate back up your way with reinforcements.” He almost added supplies but stopped himself. Because he didn’t have any supplies to give away. “What’s your location right now and can you hold it for the next forty-eight hours?”

“We’re, uh… just outside of Eden. I think we’re in an okay spot.”

“Can you hold it for forty-eight hours?”

“Yeah. I think so.”

“Have you had a chance to scout out Eden?”

“Just got done with that.”

“What’s it look like?”

“It’s not good, Lee. I think we might be a little late to the party on this one. The place is fucking swarming with ’em. All on the east side of the river, though.”

Lee swore, then keyed up. “You got an estimate?”

“Lee, all I can tell you is that Jacob was right. He was one hundred percent fucking right.”

Lee gritted his teeth. “Ballpark it for me, Harper.”

“Several thousand. At least. And that’s just what we can see. Lee, they’re everywhere on the eastern side of the town. And I don’t know how long it’s gonna take them to cross over.”

“How many bridges?”

“Five road crossings and one railroad.”

Lee rubbed his beard nervously, looked over at Tomlin. He raised his eyebrows in question.

“We’re gonna need a lot of manpower to blow those bridges,” Tomlin said thoughtfully. “And we’re gonna need them there quickly to get it before they start crossing into the western section of town. Plus we’re gonna need manpower to secure the demolition crews while they work. You back a couple trucks up onto those bridges, the infected are gonna hear it and come running. Then you have to fight and place charges at the same time?” Tomlin rubbed his eyes. “Crapshoot. Fucking crapshoot.”

Lee keyed the radio. “Harper, I want your honest, real-time, battlefield assessment. Do you think we can make a stand in Eden, or do we need to pull back and focus somewhere else?”

Lee expected a long wait while Harper mulled the question over, perhaps talked it out with a few of his teammates. But instead, the radio clicked back almost the second Lee released his transmit button. Only it wasn’t Harper’s voice on the radio.

“Hey! Wilson to Camp Ryder! Can I get a word in here?”

Lee stared at the radio. “Wilson? Where the hell have you been?”

“I been trying to transmit, but y’all keep hoggin’ the airtime.” There was a bit of hesitation in his voice. “Cap, I’m gonna come right out with it. I’m on the radio because LaRouche is MIA.”

Lee shook his head. “MIA? You mean MIA like he’s taking a shit? Or MIA as in you don’t know where the fuck he is?”

“Captain, I’m sorry; he disappeared last night.” A breath. “He, uh… well… I don’t know.”

Lee swore under his breath. Held the handset in front of him and looked at it. He closed his eyes and leaned forward, tapping the handset on his forehead. Missing? Did that mean he wasn’t dead? Did he just get lost in the middle of the night? Did something snatch him and drag him away without anybody seeing? Maybe it was the way Wilson had said it, but Lee felt like there was more to it than that.

“Captain,” Wilson continued, “I think we might be able to help with the problem at Eden.”

Lee forced himself to focus. He opened his eyes and keyed the handset. “Okay, Wilson. Talk to me.”

“We’re at the Highway 51 Bridge over Roanoke River,” Wilson said. “I got someone with me you need to speak to.”

Lee’s head felt sullied. “Okay. Go ahead.”

There was a click, a rustle, then silence. Then another transmission.

A different voice. Middle-aged. Soft-spoken. Midwestern accent. “Is this Captain Harden?”

“It is.” Lee frowned. “Who am I speaking with?”

“This is Colonel J. F. Staley, Sixth Marine Regiment,” the voice stated in its mellow tone. “Good to know we have some friends still alive out there, Captain.”

LaRouche was led blindfolded down a dirt road. That was all he could really tell of the place. He could still see just a small sliver of the world out of the bottom of his blindfold, and he could see the hard-packed macadam of an old, unpaved road under his feet. He listened to the world around him and he could hear it bustling. There was the sound of trucks rumbling back and forth, the sound of people talking. Even the sound of goats and chickens—the smell of them too.

There were trees, he thought. Their dappled shade splashed across his vision every once in a while. Plus the scent of the woods—bark, rotting leaves, composted soil under decades of natural mulch. He knew the scent well. He’d spent plenty of time in the woods as a child.

He could feel the well-spoken man’s hand on his shoulder. During the drive over, LaRouche had not spoken a word, nor had his captors asked any questions. However, they did converse among themselves, and LaRouche had discovered that the man who now walked with him, who sounded strangely like he had an Ivy League degree, went by Clyde.

Darren driving.

Clyde behind him, with a gun to the back of his neck.

Going to see Deacon Chalmers, whoever the fuck that was.

Do you want to die or do you want to live? LaRouche had pondered the question ad nauseam and come up with no definitive answer. There were benefits to both. Downsides to both. It was almost as though he just didn’t care. Like he would rather someone else make the decision for him. He was tired of trying to control the uncontrollable. Maybe it was best to let go. Ride the river instead of fighting the current.

Do you want to die or do you want to live?

Maybe he wouldn’t even be given the choice. What a relief that would be. If Deacon Chalmers simply took his head off with a battle-ax and was done with it. Or whatever the fuck these people did. He wasn’t sure. Of course, the concept of death made a cold little worm of fear wiggle its way through him. It was an unknown. It was a mystery.

So he simply walked along with them, compliant as he could possibly be. Save for the constant jockeying of that single question—to live or die—his mind was otherwise blank. Every once in a while he thought of Jim and Wilson and the rest of them. Even Camp Ryder sometimes. But mostly those felt like dreams. Like they’d never really happened.

He heard voices off to his left. They were women’s voices and they spoke quietly. The hush of them was what got his attention, the way their voices were riddled with fear. He turned his head and lifted it, trying to see through that narrow slot. He got a glimpse of a cage made of wood and rope and the impression that it was huge. Dozens of desperate faces crowded the bars. Women’s faces. Some of them were older, but many of them younger.

Clyde pushed his head down. “Keep your eyes on the ground.”

The hard-packed dirt turned into a narrow path. Dry, wintered grasses crowned either side of this little walkway. Not much more than a footpath. They slowed and LaRouche could see some wooden steps ahead of him. He navigated them, Clyde’s hand pushing him gently upward. Then the hand grabbed his shoulder, halting him.

“Stop here,” Clyde instructed.

There was the sound of fabric being pulled back. Boots on wooden planks, slowly walking toward them. A voice, slightly rough around the edges, but undeniably kind. The inflections were warm, not hostile, as LaRouche had expected.

“Clyde. Who’s this?”

“Deacon Chalmers, sir.” Clyde’s voice was nervous. “We caught this man moving through the woods, just west of the bridge.”

“Hmm.”

LaRouche watched two old, worn-out motorcycle boots stop right in front of him.

“Let’s take the blindfold off, yeah?” Deacon Chalmers suggested.

“Yes, sir.”

LaRouche felt Clyde’s fingers working the knot at the back of his head, untying it. The blindfold fell away and LaRouche closed one eye against the daylight, squinting the other painfully. The light was harsh and painful and it reminded LaRouche that the toxins from a bottle of whiskey had not been completely removed from his system. He felt almost instantly nauseated.

“Whoa.” Deacon Chalmers faced him and laughed. He was a medium-size man, but one of those men who seemed too big for his body, like the charisma for a much larger man was mistakenly given to him. He wore a beard, but it was well-trimmed, his hair pulled back into a short ponytail. “I thought I smelled bourbon when you came up, but the eyes don’t lie, do they?”

LaRouche supposed that meant that his were bloodshot, bleary, puffy. They felt that way.

“You hungover, son?”

LaRouche nodded slowly.

“I understand.” Deacon Chalmers leaned back away from LaRouche and took a long, hard look at him, crossing his arms over his chest. He wore a leather jacket and a black bandanna around his neck with white printing on it that LaRouche suspected would be a skull if the image were flattened out.

Deacon Chalmers is a former biker, apparently.

“What’s your name, son?”

“Everyone calls me LaRouche.”

“Everyone?”

“My…” LaRouche was about to say friends, but he didn’t suppose that he had many of those left in the world now. “People.”

“Your people?”

“No. Just… people.”

“Do you not have any people, LaRouche?”

“No.”

“You have God, my friend.”

LaRouche didn’t respond. Wasn’t really sure how to. He wasn’t trying to be rebellious or to prod at Deacon Chalmers. Frankly, he just didn’t have it in him at the moment for such things. In this particular case, he was just blank. He had no words.

“Kneel down, LaRouche. I’ll kneel with you.”

LaRouche considered it for a moment, then slowly lowered himself to one knee, then both. Deacon Chalmers followed suit so that the two men were on their knees, facing each other. Chalmers put a hand on his shoulder and gave him a look of pity, the look that any missionary might give a Stone Age savage.

“LaRouche, I’m going to have a very honest conversation with you.” He lowered one of his hands down to his side and when he raised it again it held a large silver revolver. LaRouche watched it glide toward him and for some reason he felt very little. Some slight apprehension, but muted. Nothing like he should have felt.

Chalmers, one hand still resting grandfatherly on LaRouche’s shoulder, placed the revolver against LaRouche’s temple. “LaRouche, I do not know your background. I do not know your sins. Only God knows these things. And God is who I answer to. I cannot allow evil to be a part of my body, and so I cannot allow an evil person to enter my fold. However, I am obliged to offer every sinner a choice, just as it was once offered to me.”

Deacon Chalmers slipped his finger into the trigger.

LaRouche met his gaze, and he felt very calm.

Chalmers spoke calmly, earnestly. “Listen to my words, because I’ll only say them once. In exchange for your life, will you renounce this world and all of its evils? Will you repent for the sins you have committed against God? Will you commit yourself to the Lord, the one true God, and His son Jesus Christ, the Almighty? And in so doing, will you serve with purity and sanctity, and with faithfulness and truthfulness? Will you promise to fight for the Lord your God, against all the wiles of Satan and Satan’s people, and thereby extinguish evil from the world and return this country to a path of righteousness?”

LaRouche lowered his gaze, still blank on the inside. An empty vessel.

“Make your choice, LaRouche,” Deacon Chalmers said gently. “No one can decide for you. Will you repent, son? Will you make these promises?”

LaRouche took a deep breath. Like he was smelling the world for the last time. Tasting it. Soaking it in. Then he raised his eyes to meet Deacon Chalmers, and his voice was solid and steady.

“I will repent.”

FORTY-FOUR

RATTLESNAKE

LEE SAT IN THE office of the Camp Ryder building, surrounded by the people he trusted the most. Tomlin, Angela, Marie, Old Man Hughes, Nate, and even Devon. There were others as well—people like Katie Malone, and some of the others who had supported Bus and Lee from the beginning. A man from the group that had come with Jacob from Smithfield.

There was a certain silence that had fallen over those gathered. It was the silence of reeling after a shock wave. Their eyes remained fixed upon Lee, and Lee had lowered his eyes to the floor because he could think of no more appropriate place for them.

Lee took a deep breath and continued. “Tomlin and I have discussed it, and we agree that it’s very unlikely that we’ll be able to find Eddie Ramirez and recover my GPS.”

“So.” Katie Malone rubbed her head. “There’s no, like, override code or anything? There’s no other way you can get into the bunker without the GPS? No backdoor coding? Nothing?”

Lee shook his head. “It was built to be that way. The whole mission, the whole structure of it is based around the Coordinators maintaining control of the bunkers. The GPS unit needs the Coordinator and the Coordinator needs the GPS unit. If one of those is missing, then you’re just not getting in a bunker. Period. No way around it.”

Katie turned her attention to Tomlin. “Well, you’re a Coordinator, aren’t you? Don’t you have a GPS unit?”

Tomlin shook his head. “My GPS is only good for the bunkers in South Carolina. Besides that fact, at the very outset of this thing, Major Darabie, our commanding officer, took control of all of the GPS units, and they are now essentially useless. All except Captain Harden’s. Until it was stolen, anyway.”

“And Major Darabie sent Eddie Ramirez?” Nate clarified, joining up with his wife.

Lee nodded. “Guys, if there was a way that I could fix it, I would be doing it. You know I wouldn’t give up, especially on something this big. You know I’d probably get myself killed over it if there was even a small chance I could catch Eddie Ramirez and get that thing back. This is just…” He held up his hands, let them fall into his lap. “It’s just the way it’s going to be. We’re going to have to work around it. We’re going to have to find other ways to adapt. It’s going to be a whole different ballgame, food and supplies–wise. We’re going to have to figure out a sustainable agriculture system by this coming spring, and we’re going to have to do overtime on scavenging to get us through the winter.”

“What about weapons? Ammo?” Nate asked. “Everyone’s running short.”

Lee glanced at Tomlin. “That’s where this Colonel Staley will come in.”

“The Marine guy?”

Lee nodded again. “Obviously, he’s expressed his desire to meet face-to-face with us. Which I take to mean he wants to make sure we’re not a bunch of psychos before he sends men and supplies to help us. But he’s going to be a possible source of all kinds of weapons, ammunition, ordnance, maybe even vehicles and fuel.”

Old Man Hughes cleared his throat. “But we don’t know this guy.”

“No.” Lee shook his head. “We don’t.”

“So he could be some wannabe despot, scoping out our shit and figuring our weak spots?”

Lee smiled grimly. “All due respect, Mr. Hughes, that ship sailed before I even got on the radio with him. They’ve got air superiority and probably a lot more trained fighters and war-fighting equipment than we do. If they wanted what we have, I’m pretty sure there wouldn’t be shit we could do to stop them.”

“So, basically, we don’t have a fucking choice?”

Lee shrugged. “Not if we want to have a fighting chance.”

Old Man Hughes considered it for a long moment, scratching the gray stubble of his beard. “Join or die, huh?” he said.

Lee smiled without humor. The image came to mind of the old yellow flag that bore the illustration of a rattlesnake, divided into thirteen sections. Written on the body of the snake were the words JOIN OR DIE. A revolutionary call to arms and the meaning was clear: They could put aside their differences, come together, and fight… or they could remain divided and allow themselves to be destroyed.

Lee nodded. “Yeah. Join or die.”

Camp Ryder was in quiet chaos. After the meeting, Lee watched from the single window in the office as the grounds below him swirled with activity, and from the disorder, he could not tell whether it was falling apart or coming together. Rather like the pieces hung suspended in the air.

Old Man Hughes’s group conducted a “house-to-house” sweep to make sure there was no one left in the shanties, hiding and ready to start shooting when they least expected it. There were no shots and no yelling, but instead a sort of tension, as families were found and it was apparently arbitrarily decided whether they were friend or foe, whether they were to be detained or not.

Those who were suspected of working with Jerry stood to the left of the Camp Ryder building, not bound, but simply watched closely by the group of survivors who had come with Jacob from Smithfield. The two groups eyed each other uncomfortably, the Smithfield group seeming out of place, while Jerry’s people seemed resentful, as though a hostile force were occupying the camp.

Lee stared at them, wondering what he was going to do with these people. Where was the line between mercy and common sense? Would he even be able to see it when it was right in front of him?

A cold nose touched his hand.

Lee looked down, found the tan dog standing at his side. Deuce had been on the first Humvee that had entered Camp Ryder after the place had been declared secured. Surprisingly enough, he’d allowed Old Man Hughes—and only Old Man Hughes—to put a leash on him and lead him, limping on his broken and splinted leg, into the Camp Ryder building.

Lee smiled faintly and scratched the dog’s neck. “Good boy.”

Hughes still stood in the room, and though he could not see out the window, he knew well enough the scene that Lee had been looking at. “We’ll figure all of this out. We’ll find a way.”

Lee nodded, tried to show some resolution, but felt it slip away from him. He looked back up and out through the window, his hand still idly touching Deuce. “Hughes, could you do me a favor?”

“Sure. Whatcha need?”

Lee drummed his fingers on the windowsill. “When you get the chance, try to find Jacob’s things. There should be a backpack with a notebook inside of it. I’d like you to bring that to me if you find it. There’s something important in it.”

Hughes looked at the floor, solemn at the mention of Jacob. “Yeah. I’ll check.”

Lee nodded. “Thanks.”

Hughes left the room, his footsteps down the stairs slow, almost plodding.

Lee turned back to his view. Camp Ryder. All the polarizing aspects of humanity stuffed into a fishbowl for him to observe and consider. From one man’s view, it was the bad guys who stood to the left and the good guys who stood to the right. From another’s perspective, it was the betrayed who stood to the left, sulking, while the betrayers celebrated to the right. The invaders and the invaded. The oppressed and the oppressors. Right or left, it didn’t matter. Ask ten different people, five would point in one direction and five in the other.

As he watched this silent tragedy, he recognized a face standing in the middle of the two groups. It was Jenny, and even from this distance, Lee could see the distress on her features. He could see her red, swollen eyes. She stood there at the edge of Shantytown, staring at the Camp Ryder building. She wrung her hands and looked from right to left, as though trying to decide which group she belonged in.

Angela appeared, walking out of the Camp Ryder building. Lee could not see her face, but he knew her from the slope of her shoulders and from the unruly head of blond hair that never stayed where she put it. She did not look to either side but instead went straight to Jenny. Angela stopped a few feet from the other woman, and they appeared to exchange words. Jenny’s hands covered her face and her shoulders shook violently. Then Angela put her arm around Jenny, like a friend or a sister, and she guided her to the right.

FORTY-FIVE

THE LINE

MAJOR ABE DARABIE SAT quietly on a chair beside the window. His face had weathered in the months since the outbreak of FURY. It was severely lean, less from starvation and more from stress. The dark circles under his eyes, already prominent in his olive complexion, made his eyes seem cavernous now. The only thing that kept him from appearing like a stick figure was his beard. Thick and jet-black, it added size to his features, much like a lion’s mane.

He chewed the cuticle of his right thumb. The skin was haggard from constant picking and biting, a nervous habit he’d developed. His thumb had become a barometer for others to judge his mood. Today his thumb was raw to the point of bleeding. His M4 lay across his lap, his free hand draped over it, fingers tapping the upper receiver. One boot kicked up onto the windowsill. Wiggling away. Eventually wiggling free of the sill, and it would drop down. He would kick it back up again and begin wiggling once more.

Outside, the Tennessee mountains seemed bearded by the white clouds all around them. The pass that this little highway ran through, crossing the border from North Carolina into Tennessee, was shrouded in fog, which was common this time of year. It gave everything a bleak, gray aspect. But worse, it muted sounds and reduced visibility.

The building he was sheltered in was an old gas station. Some mom-and-pop place. No other gas stations for sixty miles in either direction—a fact that was still displayed prominently on the small sign that lay toppled, half in the road. It also advertised Grandma’s Pickled Eggs.

ONLY GAS STATION FOR 60 MILES! GRANDMA’S PICKLED EGGS! YUM!

Fucking Tennessee. He shook his head, spit a little morsel of his cuticle skin out onto the ground.

“Don’t spoil your appetite,” a voice remarked behind him.

Abe leaned back, eyed his partner. Captain Lucas Wright leaned against the counter, his rifle slung onto his back as he flipped casually through an old nudie magazine he’d located under the cash register. He was an odd-looking character, not at all what you would expect from a highly trained operative, formerly tasked with the preservation of the state of New York. He was short and stout; bright red hair; ruddy, freckled skin; and eyes that were a kind of odd version of hazel, perhaps closer to “tan” or “golden brown.” He was talkative but not overly loud, and he had no perceptible accent.

Abe just snorted and looked back out the window. “You cooking?”

“Yeah…” Boredom in his voice. “Grandma’s Pickled Eggs.”

“Mmmm.”

Their sense of humor was flagging.

Abe leaned forward to see if he could catch the bright spot in the sky that would denote where the sun was hanging, but the fog was too thick. Everything above them was just a big off-white smudge. “What time you got?”

“Thirteen fifteen,” Lucas said and went back to flipping through the magazine that he’d flipped through about a dozen times already. Probably not even looking at the pictures anymore. Just giving himself something to do. Each time he flipped it, the glossy pages crinkled lightly, the only noise in the building. Even and methodical. Like a metronome.

Abe leaned back into his chair. Took a deep, quiet breath.

Another few minutes passed. Forty-three flipped pages. Abe was counting.

A sound worked its way into the old convenience store. An engine thrumming up the road, through the fog. Abe came upright from his reclined position, put his shoulder up against the wall, and peered through the window, looking off toward the North Carolina border.

Lucas unslung his rifle. “That him?”

“Can’t see yet.”

Lucas moved quickly around the counter and took up a position on the other window, on the other side of the front door with the little hanging sign that said, SORRY… WE’RE CLOSED. Abe squinted into the fog, annoyed at how brightly it refracted all of that sunlight, without actually letting any sunlight through.

It came on them quicker than Abe expected, because of the color. But the shape was unmistakable. A Humvee. One of the cargo truck variants with no gun on top. Tan in color. Abe raised his rifle and moved back a little farther from the window, putting the post of his front sight on the windshield of the vehicle as it approached.

“You got him?” Abe asked.

“Yeah… I see the truck. Can’t see who’s in it.”

Gotta be him, Abe thought. Hoped. Prayed.

The truck was already moving slowly, but the sound of the engine faded off and the vehicle slowed to a coast as it drew up to the old gas station. It rolled almost to a complete stop in the road, no doubt the driver eyeing the gas station, hoping he hadn’t come to the wrong place. Then the wheels turned and the Humvee rumbled into the lot, stopping just short of the single set of pumps.

“It’s him, right?” Lucas asked.

“Hold on.” Abe waited, still not wanting to jump the gun. He would let the guy in the truck get out, reveal his identity. If it was their guy, then they would make their presence known. If it wasn’t their guy, then they would hope that the unfortunate stranger would move on.

And if he didn’t, they would kill him.

The driver’s door opened.

Eddie Ramirez slid out, looking at the windows of the convenience store, trying to see inside.

Abe nodded. “It’s him.”

“Thank God.” Lucas smiled with relief.

They both lowered their rifles, moved to the front door, and opened it. Eddie Ramirez waited behind the engine block of the Humvee, cautious, until he recognized the two men coming out of the front door. He raised a hand by way of greeting, walked around the front of the truck.

“Major.” He nodded to Abe, then Lucas. “Captain.”

“You’re a little late, Ramirez.” Abe smiled, tried to force some good humor into it. He clapped Eddie on the shoulder to compensate. “You okay? Everything turn out all right?”

Eddie nodded. “Everything went fine.”

“Do you have it with you?”

Eddie reached into the cargo pocket of his pants and withdrew the handheld GPS device. He looked it over for a minute, seemed to be weighing it in his hands, judging its importance and coming up mystified as to why everyone would go to such great lengths to have it. He handed it to Abe.

Abe took it, turned it over. He activated it, watched the screen light up. No apparent damage. Still operational. He put it in his own pocket. “Thank you, Ramirez. You did a good job.” Abe turned and took a step away, his hand slipping into the grip of his rifle.

Eddie stretched, scratched the back of his neck. “You got a chopper inbound to take my ass home?”

“No, not today,” Abe said over his shoulder.

Then he turned quickly and put two rounds into Eddie’s head.

As Eddie Ramirez fell back, Abe transitioned smoothly to Lucas, putting his sights right where he’d put them on Eddie. Lucas stood there, still watching the dead body on its trip to the ground, still watching the spirals of blood and brain matter that hadn’t even splattered back onto the Humvee yet. By the time Lucas even registered that Abe pointed a rifle at him, Abe could have put half his magazine into the man.

Could have.

But didn’t.

“Don’t fucking move,” Abe commanded.

Lucas stared at him in complete shock. “What the fuck are you doing, Abe?”

Abe raised his voice over Lucas’s. “You listen to me, okay? I don’t want to hurt you, Lucas, I really fucking don’t. Eddie had to go because he wasn’t working for me and I don’t fucking trust him. But I trust you, Lucas. We’re friends. And I need you to trust me right now, okay? Can you trust me?”

Lucas bladed his body just slightly, like he might try to attack or make a run for it. “Abe, you’re not making any fucking sense. And could you please stop pointing that thing at me?”

Abe lowered the rifle, but only slightly. “Lucas, I need your help, man. This is me asking. Not Briggs or anyone else. This is just me.”

Lucas shook his head rapidly. “What are you talking about?”

“Briggs is out of control, Lucas.”

“Abe…”

“He’s out of fucking control,” Abe said more sternly. “We both know that. He’s maintaining power through force, and I’m not going to help him do it anymore. It’s not too late to fix what we’ve done. Project Hometown still has a chance to work, but we need to make a move now, before Briggs gets too powerful.”

“All the Coordinators are either with Briggs or they’re unaccounted for,” Lucas said flatly.

“Except Lee,” Abe said. “And I have his GPS.”

“You never slaved it. You can’t access it. And Lee’s dead.”

Abe shook his head. “Lee’s not dead. Eddie’s been using the sat phone to stay in contact with me. He called me right after he took the GPS. Told me that he’d shot Lee in the head, but that Lee was still breathing and seemed like he was coming to. Wanted to know if he should finish the job or just leave him. I saw my chance, Lucas, and I took it. I told him to just leave him alive.”

Lucas frowned. “Why didn’t he just kill him? That’s what Briggs wanted.”

“I lied to Eddie,” Abe said. “I know he was loyal to Briggs and I couldn’t just tell him to cancel the mission completely, because he would’ve known it was a lie. But about a week ago, when he told me he was getting close to Lee, I convinced him that Briggs changed his mind on Lee and was only concerned with the GPS. And he bought it.” Abe grimaced. “I had hoped that Eddie would have just taken the GPS quietly and without hurting Lee, but he said that Lee kept it close all the time. Said that shooting him was the only way.” Abe looked bitter. “Lucas, I thought we lost everything until Eddie told me that Lee was still breathing. I know it’s a small chance but—”

“Jesus, Abe!” Lucas looked pained. “Lee’s been shot in the head! Do you know his chances of surviving something like that? All the complications that can happen? The swelling on his brain probably killed him twenty minutes after Eddie left him!”

Abe blinked rapidly. He was not so hardened that he could not feel the shame of betraying a friend, of allowing that friend to be taken advantage of, possibly killed. He was Judas, trying to undo a crucifixion at the eleventh hour.

“Lee’s not dead,” Abe repeated stubbornly. “He wasn’t dead when Eddie left him, and if there’s ever been a motherfucker too stubborn to die, it’s Lee. And until I see evidence that he is dead, I don’t fucking believe it. And I don’t think you do, either.”

Lucas stood stiffly, trying to sort things out.

“Come on, buddy. We have to give Lee a chance. We need to help him. We have to make things right. Before Briggs gets control of everything.” Abe lowered his rifle completely and hoped to God that Lucas was the man he thought he was. “You with me, Lucas?”

“You know how strong Briggs is getting,” Lucas stated.

Abe shrugged. “He’s only going to get stronger. That’s why we move now, while we still have a chance.”

“A slim chance.”

“It’s the only chance we have.”

“Jesus.” Lucas fidgeted. “You’re putting me in a bad spot.”

“I know. But I need your help. This is the only way.”

Lucas nodded slowly. “Okay. All right.”

“You in?”

“I’m in.”

meet the author

D.J. MOLLES is the best-selling author of The Remaining series. He published his first short story, “Darkness,” while still in high school. Soon after, he won a prize for his short story “Survive.” The Remaining was originally self-published in 2012 and quickly became an Internet best seller. He lives in the southeast with his wife and children.

ALSO BY D.J. MOLLES

The Remaining

The Remaining

The Remaining: Aftermath

The Remaining: Refugees

The Remaining: Fractured

The Remaining: Book 5—Coming Spring 2015

The Remaining Short Fiction

“The Remaining: Trust”

“The Remaining: An Empty Soul”

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Contents

1. COVER
2. TITLE PAGE
3. WELCOME
4. DEDICATION
5. THANKS
6. CHAPTER ONE: A CAPACITY FOR VIOLENCE
7. CHAPTER TWO: ANOMALY
8. CHAPTER THREE: ISOLATION
9. CHAPTER FOUR: SEPARATION
10. CHAPTER FIVE: HEAD CHECK
11. CHAPTER SIX: GUT CHECK
12. CHAPTER SEVEN: SMOKE TRAILS
13. CHAPTER EIGHT: THE LORD’S WORK
14. CHAPTER NINE: CAPTIVE
15. CHAPTER TEN: PROBABILITIES
16. CHAPTER ELEVEN: VISITORS
17. CHAPTER TWELVE: BAD GUYS
18. CHAPTER THIRTEEN: DAYLIGHT
19. CHAPTER FOURTEEN: CLARITY
20. CHAPTER FIFTEEN: MISINFORMATION
21. CHAPTER SIXTEEN: WITNESSES
22. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: THE FATHER
23. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: MORALITY
24. CHAPTER NINETEEN: HAUNTED
25. CHAPTER TWENTY: STRAGGLER
26. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: BRUTALITY
27. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: GONE
28. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: COMMUNICATION
29. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: PASSING NOTES
30. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: A WAY OUT
31. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: ESCAPE
32. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: LOST
33. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: SENSITIVE ISSUES
34. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: ONE SHOT
35. CHAPTER THIRTY: CONSEQUENCES
36. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: SECRETS
37. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: FALLING-OUT
38. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: ABDUCTED
39. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: THE KIDS
40. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: MANIPULATION
41. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: THE MISSION
42. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN: SEMPER FI
43. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT: BREAKAGE
44. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE: THE ASSAULT
45. CHAPTER FORTY: COMPLICATIONS
46. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE: THE STEPS
47. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO: WHAT IS REQUIRED
48. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE: REPENTANCE
49. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR: RATTLESNAKE
50. CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE: THE LINE
51. MEET THE AUTHOR
52. ALSO BY D.J. MOLLES
53. ORBIT NEWSLETTER
54. COPYRIGHT

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Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by D.J. Molles

Cover design by Lauren Panepinto, cover photo by Arcangel Images. Cover copyright © 2014 by Orbit Books.

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitutes unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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Second ebook edition: January 2014

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ISBN 978-0-316-40423-5

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