After the Purge: AKA John Smith Box Set: Books 1-3
Author: Sam Sisavath
Date: 2020-12-22 08:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Post-Apocalyptic | Horror | Infected; Post-Apocalyptic | Infected
Description: Contains the first 3 books in the After The AKA John Smith post-apocalyptic western series. Including Mist City, Run or Fight, and Shoot Last. MIST A SHOOTER WITHOUT A TARGET. The man who calls himself John Smith once had a reason to He was committed to a crusade he was willing to kill and die for. Trained by one of the best gunmen alive, Smith’s natural instincts with a handgun were honed to almost perfection. But after suffering a devastating loss, Smith has turned his back on everything he once believed in. Now, Smith wanders post-Purge America, crossing paths with other survivors—some good
Publisher: Road To Babylon Media LLC

After The Purge: AKA John Smith Box Set

Copyright © 2020 by Sam Sisavath

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Published by Road to Babylon Media LLC
www.roadtobabylon.com

Edited by Jennifer Jensen, Wendy Chan & Grace Kastens

Cover Art by Deranged Doctor Design

Contents

Books in the After the Purge: AKA John Smith Series

Also by Sam Sisavath

Book 1: Mist City

About Mist City

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Book 2: Run or Fight

About Run or Fight

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Book 3: Shoot Last

About Shoot Last

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Books in the After the Purge: AKA John Smith Series

Mist City

Run or Fight

Shoot Last

Also by Sam Sisavath

The Purge of Babylon Post-Apocalyptic Series

The Purge of Babylon: A Novel of Survival

The Gates of Byzantium

The Stones of Angkor

The Walls of Lemuria Collection (Keo Prequel)

The Fires of Atlantis

The Ashes of Pompeii

The Isles of Elysium

The Spears of Laconia

The Horns of Avalon

The Bones of Valhalla

Mason’s War (A Purge of Babylon Story)

The Road to Babylon Post-Apocalyptic Series

Glory Box

Bombtrack

Rooster

Devil’s Haircut

Black

The Distance

Hollow

Daybreak

The Ranch

100 Deep

The After The Purge: Vendetta Trilogy

Requiem

Tokens

Remains

The Allie Krycek Vigilante Series

Hunter/Prey

Saint/Sinner

Finders/Keepers

Savior/Corruptor

The Red Sky Conspiracy Series

Most Wanted

The Devil You Know

About Mist City

Copyright (c) 2019 by Sam Sisavath

A SHOOTER WITHOUT A TARGET.

The man who calls himself John Smith once had a reason to fight: He was committed to a crusade he was willing to kill and die for. Trained by one of the best gunmen alive, Smith’s natural instincts with a handgun were honed to almost perfection.

But after suffering a devastating loss, Smith has turned his back on everything he once believed in. Now, Smith wanders post-Purge America, crossing paths with other survivors—some good, some bad, and some…unknown—while dealing with the monsters that still lurk in the darkness, forever waiting for unsuspecting prey.

Smith doesn’t go out of his way to find trouble, but no one who has gone up against him has done so more than once. One of these days, he might find something to believe in again, but until that time comes, cross John Smith at your own peril.

Mist City is a post-apocalyptic Western and is the first in a series of planned storylines starring an old breed of hero made for a new kind of world.

One

John Smith didn’t cut a very impressive figure, especially in the dark. A hundred and fifty or so pounds soaking wet, he just barely came up to five-ten, and that was thanks to a pair of Merrell hiking shoes providing a modest boost. He wore faded denim jeans and a sweat-stained, long-sleeve plaid shirt that was partially unbuttoned to reveal an equally trail-worn white T-shirt underneath. Instead of a Stetson or another branded cowboy hat, he hid his eyes from the sun and elements with a black ball cap with a baby blue bill featuring a cartoon of an “angry” fishing hook choking up on a baseball bat. The “angry hook” wore a red ball cap of its own.

Smith was an odd sight, but there was nothing strange about the Glock 19 pistol hanging off his hip. He wore it in a simple leather holster strapped to his body by a belt. The barrel jutted out at the bottom, and the setup rode slightly high on his waist. It didn’t look very comfortable.

The three Bozos who had stepped into Smith’s camp, drawn by the campfire he had made an hour ago, saw all that, but what they really noticed was Smith’s demeanor. He wasn’t afraid. Not when he saw them walking toward him, appearing out of the darkening evening like half-dead specters. And he wasn’t even a little bit nervous when they fanned out, forming a half-assed semicircle on the other side of the flickering flames. It wasn’t the fire that had brought them but the two big rabbits being spit-roasted.

Smith looked at them while remaining seated on a log covered with some dry twigs to spare him the wetness from this afternoon’s rain. It was raining a lot these days, and although Smith was used to inclement weather, he didn’t necessarily like it. But, he had to admit, it was better than the scorching heat of Texas. He wasn’t quite sure where he was at the moment, but it was not the Lone Star State. The cooler air was a dead giveaway.

The three Bozos didn’t say anything right away, not that they really had to. Smith knew what they wanted, and they knew that he knew. There was no hiding it, no denying their purpose out here tonight. They didn’t just want his food; they wanted everything else he had, too. Maybe they even wanted more than that. If Smith were a woman, it certainly would have been the case.

Smith focused on the one in the middle. He was bigger than the other two by a mile, a strong bull of a man with a neck almost as big as one of Smith’s thighs, wearing filthy cargo pants and an Army surplus jacket. He was clutching and unclutching a hunting rifle in front of his bulging chest. The high-powered weapon had a giant scope on top, as if King Bozo had bad eyesight and needed all the help he could get. He had a scar that appeared tailor-made just for him on the left side of his face, trailing down from his eye to one corner of his mouth. It painted a nasty picture that was only magnified by the grime on the rest of him, including the years-in-the-making mullet, the tail of which draped slightly over one shoulder like a furry squirrel.

King Bozo’s partners in crime were less intimidating. The one on the left was skinny and short, with a busted nose that appeared grotesque against the flickering light of the campfire. He was holding a silver-chromed revolver in a gloved right fist. It looked way too heavy for a man of his stature and made his skinny frame appear lopsided. For all Smith knew, Busted Nose Bozo could have just been suffering from a lifetime of bad posture that his momma never got the chance to knock out of him.

The one on the right of King Bozo was more average in every way. Somehow, the man had managed to pack on more pounds than he needed and was paunchy around the waistline. He was holding a pump-action shotgun and had a bandoleer only half-loaded with spare shell casings, forcing the sports jacket he was wearing—it was red and blue, and had something that looked like a strutting bird emblazoned across the front—to hug unnaturally against his robust frame. Paunchy Bozo was narrowing his eyes at Smith, maybe trying to figure out why their victim wasn’t the least bit worried.

Because Smith wasn’t worried.

He wasn’t even afraid.

Not even a little bit.

“We want—” King Bozo said.

Or he started to say, before Smith shot him through the mouth.

The 9mm round punched through the front of King Bozo’s forehead and exploded in a ghastly shower of brains and bone out the other side.

Smith had taken out his pistol and fired in less time than it took to even begin the process of taking a breath. And he hadn’t bothered to lift the Glock and extend his arm to aim, either. He had simply drawn and fired from the hip.

The gunshot echoed, invading the noise of crackling kindling.

King Bozo slumped forward, landing against the ground on his face, pinning the big rifle underneath his massive weight. His two partners looked over at his body, as if unable to fully comprehend what had just happened.

Smith had expected that. Men in gangs were always shocked when the alpha bit the bullet. In this case, literally. So he knew he had plenty of time to take care of the others. Not that he needed the extra five or so seconds they handed to him on a silver platter. He could have shot them all, one after another, if he’d wanted to. Smith’s ability to speed pull a trigger with uncanny accuracy could only be bested by one man, and that man was long dead.

Paunchy Bozo snapped out of it first, just as Smith had predicted. He looked way smarter than Busted Nose Bozo, who was still staring, mouth agape, down at King Bozo’s lifeless body next to the fire.

Smith turned the Glock slightly, without bothering to do the same with his body, and shot Paunchy Bozo in the throat while the man was trying to lift his shotgun. The would-be raider dropped his weapon and grabbed at his neck as blood spurted out of a big hole about an inch from the side. He began staggering around like a drunk, gagging loudly, while blood leaked out between his fingers.

Busted Nose Bozo finally came to his senses and began to lift the shiny revolver in his right hand. He started to, anyway, but never finished. He paused halfway while looking across the dancing flames at Smith.

Smith stared back at him.

One second became two, then five.

Then ten…

“You should probably run,” Smith said.

Busted Nose Bozo threw the gun down, turned, and fled into the darkness.

Smith looked over at Paunchy Bozo as the man gave up trying to stem the blood-red tide and fell to his knees. He collapsed a few seconds later and lay still in a pool of his own blood, very close to King Bozo, as if he had been attempting to reach the other dead man before finally succumbing.

Smith turned his attention to where he’d last seen Busted Nose Bozo. The man had already disappeared into the night, and although Smith couldn’t see the man anymore, he could still hear him just fine against the silence of the countryside. Busted Nose Bozo was breathing hard, and it was easy to pick up the thump-thump-thump of his heavy boots against the tough, hard dirt ground.

Smith stood up, the Glock still held at waist level, and turned his body slightly.

Bang!

He was rewarded with a final thump from the blackness, well beyond the light of the campfire.

Smith holstered his sidearm and sat back down.

The rabbits were ready to eat, and damn if they didn’t both smell great.

Two

Mist City wasn’t actually called Mist City. It had a real name, with a real sign, and had a real annotation on a map. Smith hadn’t taken the time to confirm or deny those theories, though. He didn’t care.

A city was a city, was a city.

And this was just another city. One that used to have a real population, once upon a time, but that was before the monsters crawled out of the shadows. That seemed so long ago now.

And at the same time, just yesterday.

He dubbed it Mist City because of all the mist that hung over it when he had first spotted the place from the flat country highway he’d been walking on. Smith usually avoided cities, but it’d been at least three weeks since he’d last scavenged for supplies, and the cities always had their fill of leftovers even many years after The Purge. The smaller towns were safer, of course, but also yielded the least. In terms of risk-to-reward ratio, the cities were preferable if he had to waste his time.

If he had to guess, Smith was pretty sure he was in some part of Kansas. He knew for a fact he’d walked straight across Oklahoma without looking back. There wasn’t much in the Sooner State to occupy his time, and Kansas, farther north, hadn’t looked any more promising.

Smith guessed Kansas because of the Jayhawks jacket that King Bozo had worn last night, with the blue and red cartoon bird. As with Mist City’s real name, all it would have taken was a map or noticing one of the many, many elements-caked signs for Smith to get clarity on his bearings.

If, that was, he cared.

Which he didn’t.

Just like a city was a city, was a city, a state was a state, was a state.

All Smith knew was that he wasn’t in Texas anymore. There was too much history down south. Too much pain and way too many bad memories. The farther he could leave it behind, the better he would be.

Or, at least, that was what he kept telling himself, and had been for almost a year now. Time had yet to prove him right.

But that was okay. He had all the time in the world. He could wait it out.

The three Bozos from last night had wanted everything Smith had, but he hadn’t needed anything they possessed. Their weapons were useless to him—they didn’t even clean them, from what he could tell. The revolver, though shiny-looking enough last night, was rusted and dirty up close—and they had nothing on them worth salvaging. He’d located their stash next to a pair of bushes about a hundred meters or so from his campfire, but it, too, was filled with useless things: half-empty bottles of whiskey, half-eaten candy bars that had mostly spoiled or gone very stale, and, of all things, porn magazines.

Killing the three Bozos had been easy for Smith. He was used to taking lives, used to how the world worked after The Purge. He’d seen bad people do extremely bad things up close, and he’d gone face-to-face with monsters—the unnatural and natural varieties. These days, Smith had to face more of the latter than the former.

Killing was easy. As easy as pulling a trigger.

That went for the ghouls that were still out there, too. Smith kept his Glock loaded with silver-tipped rounds just for that. The blade of the knife on his left hip was similarly layered with the precious metal. Silver had become even more valuable than gold or jewels these days. Unlike Smith, the three Bozos hadn’t been carrying the right kind of ammunition with them. That, again, just proved what bozos they were, and Smith marveled at how they had managed to survive this long while being so ill-prepared. But, as with most things these days, they had finally run their course.

Darwinism, as Smith’s mentor liked to say.

He stopped thinking about the three from last night as he walked along a raised highway into Mist City. There was no point thinking about dead people, even those he cared about, which were far and few. Once you were gone, you were gone. Smith had learned that the hard way when The Purge devastated the planet almost seven years ago. Or was it eight years ago now since the world went to hell in a handbasket? No, he was pretty sure it was seven years, not that he kept a calendar or anything. Sometimes even the seasons seemed to pass in a blur.

A season was a season, was a season…

He walked underneath large green billboard signs with names and numbers that weren’t familiar and that he didn’t care to commit to memory. He wouldn’t be in Mist City long enough to bother. There were plenty of vehicles on the highway, but the parallel feeder roads along both sides were mostly clear. Moving waves of mist revealed sedans and trucks and vans and semis, populating the world around him as he approached them one by one like some kind of impromptu magic act.

It was eerie how thick the mist was, but calming at the same time.

The highway was eight lanes deep, not counting the center lanes and shoulders, divided by a giant three-foot-high concrete wall. There were four lanes on the northbound side that Smith was currently on and four more on the southbound. Like most cities, the direction out of town was more congested than the one in as civilians sought escape during that miserable night where everything changed.

No one had bothered to clear out Mist City’s lanes in the years since The Purge. That in itself wasn’t too unusual. Smith had gone through plenty of places, even smaller towns, where things were still seemingly frozen in time, a daily reminder of when the universe stopped making sense and people realized monsters were real after all. Usually, though, there had been some activity, an attempt to drive through the sea of aluminum and metal. Mist City had been “spared” that.

He passed clusters of buildings in strip malls alongside the highway and spent the murky morning peering into the army of parked vehicles. Smith had enough supplies in the tactical backpack he’d been carrying with him since Texas to last for another week or so, but it was never a bad idea to add to it. Like bullets, there was no such thing as “too much” food and necessities. People who thought that way were like the three Bozos that had tried to take what Smith had last night.

Unfortunately, the cars he wasted time searching didn’t produce anything worth taking. He found plenty of very old and faded blood on upholsteries as well as useless clothing, jewelry, and other nonessentials. The scene around him wasn’t anything new—as if the drivers and their passengers had simply stopped their vehicles, gotten out, and disappeared into the mist. These days, a carpet of abandoned metal didn’t even register as odd. It would have been odd not to see them.

There were bones to be found, but not as many as he had been expecting. Usually big cities contained obvious signs of ghoul presence, and where you found nightcrawlers, there were deformed skeletal remains. He stumbled across only a half dozen or so in the two hours since he’d entered the city limits, which was a very low number. Were the creatures avoiding Mist City? If so, there could only be one reason for that: The lack of humans to feed on. Ghouls could subsist on animals, but that prey was more difficult to catch these days, as they usually had the good sense to shelter at night. Humans, on the other hand, weren’t always known for their judgement.

The highway seemed to just keep going, and Smith kept walking aimlessly on it until he spotted the familiar sight to his right alongside the feeder road. It was a three-floorer. That was a rare find. Usually it was two floors, tops. The box-like design, different from everything else around it, made the structure obvious even with all the mist partially hiding it from him. Someone in a pickup had bulldozed the sign up front, but there was no mistaking the modern and contemporary architecture and fluorescent chartreuse-on-white color scheme.

It was a Private Store-It, still in front of Smith. Unfortunately, he’d walked past the ramp that would take him down to the feeder road about ten minutes back. The only other way off the highway was to hop the guardrail and slide down the slanted side, but he’d need to reach one of the underpasses for that.

Smith backtracked instead, then went down the entry ramp and onto the street below. There weren’t nearly as many cars down here—the occasional truck or sedan—and it was impossible to miss the Private Store-It, nestled between Crankshaft—some kind of autobody shop—and a McDonald’s. He’d mentally noted a Walmart behind him earlier, but Smith had learned to avoid large retail stores like that years ago.

The city itself remained quiet around him, with only Smith’s footsteps to keep him company. He couldn’t pick up any sounds of animals or humans—or nonhumans—in the area, even after he stopped moving and listened for a good five minutes. That might have made Smith uneasy a few years ago, but it was a familiar companion these days.

He enjoyed the silence. He enjoyed the emptiness. Other humans would have just ruined the ambiance.

He walked past an Archers Sports and Outdoor, its parking lot sprinkled with haphazardly parked vehicles. Smith made another mental note of the store’s location. The Archers was only about one-tenth the size of the Walmart, and while that still left a lot of dark corners and spots for ghouls to lie in wait for some sucker, the risks were usually worth it. Besides, his Merrell boots were starting to get a little loose around the ankles. It was probably time for replacements.

He reached the Private Store-It after a nice, uneventful stroll. (That was always the best kind of stroll.) The pickup that had knocked down the sign up front was empty, its doors thrown wide open. The front windshield was cracked, and the maroon paint job had begun to peel after being left out in the sun for too long. It was an old sucker—at least twenty years—and probably wouldn’t have kept running even if The Purge hadn’t retired it early.

Smith went around the crashed car and up the driveway to the storage building. There was always something so gaudy and yet at the same time so charming about the chartreuse color that made up the Private Store-It buildings. Smith used to think it was a stupid idea, but he’d learned otherwise. The vibrant, almost neon-glowing shade wasn’t by accident, but a brilliant way to make the structure stand out from the more generally colored retailers around it. The sharp edges of its construction also lent a certain pizazz.

“You don’t get to be their size by accident, kid,” his mentor once said.

He was right. At one point, the company had convinced enough people to store all the unused shit they couldn’t bring themselves to throw away that they became worth nearly thirty-six billion dollars. Once upon a time, its stock was trading at over $200 dollars per share. Not that Smith had any frame of references for those types of things, but even he knew that thirty-six billion of something was a hell of a lot.

There was a reason he always took time out to explore Private Store-Its whenever he ran across them. There was always something decent to find, including a lot of very useful gear that people had put away because they no longer fit in with all the smart watches and smart phones and all the other smart technologies of a world before The Purge. These days, all those antiques were potential goldmines.

Smith passed the office at the front and its black-and-brown-smeared windows to check out the entrance gate. It was made of thick wrought metal and was, surprisingly, still locked in place, resting on rollers that were rusted over but intact. From experience, Smith knew that the only way to open them was with good ol’-fashioned muscle, but there was always a better option. The side door next to the long gate was not only also closed but locked. That was also surprising. Smith had gone through a half dozen Private Store-Its in his lifetime, and he’d never stumbled across one that was still secured like this one.

Not that “secured” was the right word, when Smith could just climb up the gate and hop onto the other side, which was what he did. The other way in was through the front office, but that was going to require opening a lot of doors, including the heavy and more reinforced metal ones near the back to gain access to the storage areas. The best and easiest way in was always through the path designed for customers. The idea was that if you were allowed through the heavy metal gate in the first place, then you were supposed to be here.

This particular Store-It had an access lobby with two elevators to reach the upper floors. Most places only had one floor with lines of garages spread out across a wide swath of land. This one had those, too, for bigger items like vehicles or whole living rooms. The second and third floors would be mostly used for smaller valuables that could be carried up. Smith had no use for cars even if he could get his hands on gasoline, but those goodies inside…

The small access lobby had an automatic sliding door activated by motion sensors that had, of course, stopped working a long time ago. The glass doors themselves were closed and, when Smith tested them, appeared to still be sealed tight. Another surprise. The room itself looked to be in good condition, so Mist City had never flooded or been the victim of a natural disaster.

The overly secured nature of the place had piqued Smith’s alarms early on, and it stayed that way as he circled the rest of the property. He was used to seeing thrown-open garage doors, and he saw those here. Looters had beaten him to the punch, but most of the storage boxes remained stuffed with their original renters’ contents. No one needed old clothes or old furniture or old vehicles or old arcade machines anymore.

Smith didn’t go into any of the garages. He was convinced his time was better spent inside the building. There would be smaller containers in there, on the first floor and above, that had much more potential to hold valuables. He could spend all day here. More than that, if necessary. It wasn’t like he was pressed for time or anything.

He had all the time in the world.

He returned to the access lobby, checking the black Casio G-Shock on his wrist along the way. Almost noon. He’d spent more time walking on the highway and then checking out the place than he’d thought. He tested the doors again, somehow expecting them to have come unlocked since the last time.

They hadn’t, which was entirely sane.

Smith stood back and thought about a way in. He could shoot the locks or even shatter the glass, but that would take away the security, and he wasn’t interested in keeping one eye on the lobby while he was upstairs poking around.

No, there had to be another way in without damaging the integrity of the doors.

Smith thought about all the things he’d seen in the ground-floor garages. It took a couple of minutes of scanning through his memory bank before he remembered the crowbar in a container filled with power tools. He could definitely use that to pry the doors open, but that would definitely damage the locks.

So how was he going to get in without breaking anything? Maybe he really should just—

Smith looked up, his right hand stabbing down toward his Glock on pure instinct.

What…

It was a big fluffy brown teddy bear, and it had jumped off the rooftop and was plummeting right down at him, as if it had been aimed at him.

Smith quickly backpedaled, and that quick reaction might have been the only thing that saved his life. The teddy bear’s furry foot glanced off his temple as it passed him before smashing into the concrete pavement in front of him with a crunchy thunk!

…the hell?

Smith took another step back.

No, he wasn’t stepping back; he was staggering backward. Both his legs weren’t responding to his commands. He managed to grab a pole indicating a Wheelchair-Only parking spot next to the ramp up to the front doors to steady himself. He reached up with one hand and swiped at his forehead.

When he brought the hand back down and looked at it, Smith saw blood on his palm.

Friggin’ teddy bear, Smith thought, staring at the toy. It looked horribly misshapen, and its legs were much bigger than its arms. There seemed to be bulky objects with extremely sharp edges poking out from inside its belly as it lay still, grinning stupidly at him.

Smith stumbled forward until he was leaning against the brick wall. He slowly slid down the jagged brick and mortar until he was sitting on the slightly damp concrete sidewalk, blood dripping down his forehead.

That had hurt. That had really hurt.

A friggin’ teddy bear, Smith thought again, blinking at the furry creature and its grotesquely-misaligned butt.

A child’s toy, of all things. His mentor would have laughed his ass off if he knew about this, and Smith wouldn’t blame him one bit.

Done in by a friggin’ teddy bear.

Jesus H. Christ.

Three

“Is he dead?”

“Nah, he’s alive.”

“How can you tell?”

“See the way his shirt is moving? That means he’s still breathing.”

“Oh. You’re so smart, Matt.”

“Thanks.”

Smith opened his eyes and stared at two small faces peering back at him. They were just kids. A boy and a girl. The boy was crouched in front of Smith, while the girl stood next to him, small hands on her hips while her head was cocked curiously to one side.

“Go get Ma. He’s awake,” the boy, Matt, said.

“I don’t know where she is,” the girl said.

“She’s cleaning up his blood outside.”

The girl pouted. She had short blonde hair that looked as if someone had taken a pair of scissors and blindly cut around her oval-shaped head instead of adhering to any actual styles.

“What if she makes me help her?” the girl asked.

Her face was scarred along the cheeks and chin. No, not scars, Smith realized when he stared a little bit longer. They were lesions and tissue damage. Smith remembered classmates back in high school who had bad skin. The girl looked like that, except a hundred times worse.

“Then help her,” the boy said.

His face was also as bad as the girl’s and was ravaged with acne scars, including two very fresh and big red bumps on the bridge of his nose. He had massive blue eyes that seemed to glow in the semidarkness of the room.

The room?

Smith was hogtied and sitting in one of the storage units inside the Private Store-It. His legs were in front of him, bound together with rope, and his arms were behind him. From the stickiness and texture of his bindings back there, he guessed duct tape around his wrists. Someone had set one of those small solar-powered LED lamps on the floor next to the crouching boy. It didn’t look like it had a full charge at the moment.

Smith was woozy and had trouble focusing on the two small figures, but eventually his vision improved enough that he could see past them and at the wide rectangular opening in the background. There was another storage unit directly across the hallway from them, its steel curtain door rolled halfway up. There was another source of light out there, probably another lamp. From the size of the other room, Smith guessed he was in a mirroring 10x10 space along with his captors.

His captors.

Friggin’ teddy bear.

Images of the furry toy dropping from the edge of the building and nearly lopping his head off flashed across his mind’s eye. If he hadn’t moved when he did, he’d probably be dead right now instead of just hurt. His skull was pounding, and he was pretty sure the boy and girl weren’t swaying back and forth. They were “moving” way too in sync for that.

“But I don’t wanna,” the girl was saying. “I hate cleaning up blood.”

“It’s not that bad,” Matt said. “He only bled a little.”

The boy reached over and flicked at Smith’s forehead. Smith tried to jerk his head away, but his instincts were slow to respond and he reacted too late. The boy got him across the temple, and a jolt of pain sliced through him.

Matt chuckled triumphantly.

You little shit, Smith thought but couldn’t make his mouth say. He had trouble feeling his tongue and had to work just to generate some saliva. Why was he so parched, as if he hadn’t drank anything in weeks?

Matt was standing up and turning to the girl. Shockingly, they were about the same size—barely five feet tall and visibly thin underneath their oversized clothes. “Go help Ma,” the boy said.

The girl frowned but obeyed. She stopped at the door and looked back. “Don’t do anything to him until we come back.”

“Just go,” Matt said, sounding annoyed.

“Promise?”

“Okay, okay. I ain’t gonna do anything unless Ma says anyway.”

“Good!”

The girl beamed before racing off, leaving Smith with the boy.

“Don’t do anything to him until we come back?” Smith thought. What the hell did she mean by that?

Smith focused on the boy standing with his back to him instead. Smith had a hard time trying to settle on an age, but he guessed Matt was probably twelve or thirteen. Of course, he could have been entirely off base, because his mind still wasn’t where it should be.

Matt turned back around to stare at him. “How’s your head?”

My head?

Then: Right. My head.

That friggin’ teddy bear…

He would have felt his temple if he could. There was some pain along the skin, but it had mostly numbed over. There was some kind of bandage over the wound because he could feel the fabric rubbing against the cut. The only real evidence that he’d almost gotten bludgeoned by a falling stuffed child’s toy was a general buzzing sensation that originated from around his forehead to the rest of his body. That, and his continued inability to think clearly and focus.

And, oh, his skull was still pounding…

Smith knew now that it wasn’t just a teddy bear that had almost killed him. These kids—or their ma—had filled the damned thing with either bricks or other hard lumps of metal. That was the reason for the toy’s misshapen looks.

Almost done in by a teddy bear.

Jesus.

Smith gazed back at Matt, trying his best to read his captor’s face. Besides the two big red bumps on his nose and the heavy evidence of acne scarring, Matt was a bit too small and short for his age. Smith was pretty sure now that Matt was older than thirteen. He might have even been fourteen or fifteen but had clearly suffered from malnutrition.

“It’s not good,” Smith said. “Am I still bleeding?”

“Not anymore,” Matt said. “We fixed you up pretty good.”

“Thanks. I guess.”

“Your welcome.”

“You’re welcome,” a voice said from outside the unit.

A woman appeared in the hallway behind Matt. Smith only knew it was a grown woman because she was much taller than Matt and the girl, who clung to the new arrival’s right leg as if she were afraid the woman would run away and leave her behind.

“It’s you’re welcome, Matthew, not your welcome,” the woman said.

“You’re welcome,” Matt said, stressing the you’re.

“That’s very good.”

Matt smiled widely. “Thanks, Ma.”

“Go get things ready for tonight.”

“Tonight? So soon?”

“Yes, Matthew. We have to strike while the iron is hot, otherwise we’ll waste too much. Everything’s always better fresh.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Matt said, and hurried out.

“Go help Matthew, Veronica,” the woman said.

“Yes, Ma,” the girl said, and peeled herself off the woman’s leg. She followed Matt up the hallway.

What the hell is this, a family? Did a woman and her kids just try to murder me with a friggin’ teddy bear?

The woman stepped inside the unit and into the small pool of light. Smith already knew she was taller than the two kids but was still surprised by how much more when she got closer. Unlike the two children, there was nothing wrong with her face; in fact, she was breathtakingly beautiful. So much so that Smith felt a slight tightening in his pants around the crotch area and hoped she didn’t notice.

Great. She and her kids tried to bludgeon you to death with a booby-trapped teddy bear, and you’re getting a stiffy?

Man, there’s something wrong with you.

The woman didn’t seem to have noticed his questionable response to her presence (Thank God) but maybe that was only because she was too busy staring at his face, as if she were trying to decide whether to kill him now or later.

Damn, he hoped that wasn’t what she was trying to decide…

“They almost had you out there,” the woman said.

She had long auburn hair that fell over her shoulders. She was wearing jeans and a simple long-sleeve plaid shirt with the top two buttons undone. Smith didn’t have to think very hard to know she wasn’t wearing a bra underneath, and all that just added to his sudden...discomfort.

“The teddy bear?” Smith said.

The woman nodded. “That was Matt’s idea. The bear is Veronica’s.” She smiled. “His way of torturing her at the same time.”

“They’re brother and sister?”

“Not by blood, no.”

She crouched in front of him, long elegant hands draping over her bent knees. Everything about the woman was entrancing, and the closer she got, revealing more of herself, the more Smith wondered what he would have done for her if she’d only let him in and he didn’t almost die from Veronica’s bear. Hell, what he might still do for her if she apologized and let him go now…

“You like me, don’t you?” the woman asked.

Fuck. She saw it.

But he said, “I’d like you more if you hadn’t just tried to kill me.”

“It wasn’t me; it was Matthew. Weren’t you listening?”

“They’re your kids.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Aren’t they?”

She shrugged, and Smith thought, Of course they’re not hers. Just like Veronica and Matt aren’t related.

He had encountered plenty of makeshift families over the years, during and after The Purge. What was in a name, anyway? Or blood? Even Smith and his mentor had formed something of a father-and-son bond that had continued long after basic training on Black Tide Island. That unspoken bond had only strengthened once they both went out there to fight for Black Tide.

The redheaded beauty tugged at the rope wrapped around his legs before leaning over and pulling his body away from the wall he was leaning against to inspect the duct tape around his wrists. As she did so, Smith inhaled her scent. Dirt and sweat and even a little bit of mold, but he didn’t mind at all.

Goddammit, man, stop thinking with your small head!

The woman returned him to his original position. “You’re not very big, are you? What are you? One-fifty?”

“Impressive,” Smith said. “Not that I go around weighing myself or anything.”

She smiled, looking pleased with herself. “I’d have preferred if you were beefier, but you look like a lean and muscled one-fifty.”

“Beefier?”

He wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to that and was still thinking about a proper comeback when she stood up, LED lamp in hand.

“But you’ll do,” she said. “I think you’ll do just fine.”

“Do what?”

“Tonight,” the woman said. She smiled at him again before turning around and leaving.

“Hey.”

She reached up for his storage unit’s door handle, looking in at him at the same time. “Yes?”

“What’s your name?” Smith asked.

“Allison,” she said, before pulling the door down.

The titanium bottom bar banged loudly against the concrete floor and echoed up and down the length of the building. Allison slid a lock into the latch before turning the key, and then he listened to her footsteps fading up the hallway.

Smith sat in the darkness for a while, trying to decide just how bad of a situation he was in and wishing badly that he had some light to see with. It was pitch dark in his 10x10 prison, but the lone LED light outside in the hallway allowed him to crane his neck and look up at the roof above him, on the other side of a mesh fence that prevented people from climbing from unit to unit but at the same time allowed air to flow in and out.

The room around Smith was empty, but there was something in the air that had been bothering him. It was an odd smell but at the same time, very familiar. It was a thick aroma, and it tickled his nostrils. He hadn’t been able to concentrate on it while the boy and girl were here, and then later, Allison. Hell, he’d been lucky he could think of anything except getting a boner while she was in the room.

He could smell it all around him now, though.

It wasn’t just packed in the unit with him, tainting every inch of space, but it was out there too, beyond his walls. In the next storage to his left, in the one to his right, and in the ones around him.

He knew, even if he didn’t know how or why, that the entire building stank of death.

Four

Smith lost his boner pretty fast after that and spent the next ten or so minutes trying to get a firm grasp of his situation while at the same time waiting patiently for his eyes to adjust to the new darkness. Not that he could ignore the cold, hard truth that he was sitting in some kind of death building, but he did his best to.

Jesus Christ. I can smell it everywhere.

He wanted to throw up, but when he opened his mouth to do that, he only dry-heaved. That lasted for a few minutes before he could again regain control. Smith leaned back against the seemingly colder-than-before corrugated metal behind him and gathered his breath before starting to breathe through his mouth to shield his senses from the lingering foul odor.

At first, he thought he was stuck in a building full of ghouls, but he’d put himself in enough nightcrawler nests to know that he wasn’t. No, this wasn’t ghouls. This was manmade.

He stared forward until he could make out the steel door. Slowly but surely, the ridges came into focus and he was able to distinguish the individual parts of the door, from the galvanized metal that made up the vast majority of it to the small section of slightly shinier titanium strip at the bottom. The door was sealed tight enough that very few streams of light from the hallway could make it in, which helped Smith’s eyes to quicker adjust to his new normal.

Smith took in his surroundings with fresh eyes now. Private Store-It buildings were perfect examples of cost-perfect construction, from the hard steel walls to the smooth concrete flooring. Except for the areas with climate control, there was very little wasted space. Every inch that wasn’t in use was preserved for their intended purpose—generating passive income from renters.

This particular Store-It was much newer than some of the others Smith had been through in previous salvaging trips. It showed less wear and tear, and all things considered, you could find a worse place to shelter during something like The Purge. It made Smith wonder how long Allison and the kids had been here. To get a better sense of the place and how lived-in it was, he’d have to find his way outside and look around.

And that was going to be a problem.

A big problem.

Smith had gotten a better look at the ropes around his legs. They were quarter-inch twisted nylon, which was pretty damn good stuff. They were designed for indoor and outdoor use, and besides being strong, were resistant to mold and mildew. Either Allison or her kids had wrapped Smith’s legs up and done it pretty well, which was evidence they knew what they were doing. Why was that? Was it because they had done it many times before? None of the three seemed to have been especially shocked at how well all of this had gone down. It was almost as if they had planned it.

He found it difficult to reconcile Matt and Veronica, not to mention their gorgeous “Ma,” doing something horrible in this place that would result in such a deathlike atmosphere. But then, all he had to do was remember how he’d ended up in this position.

They’ve definitely done this before. How many suckers have there been before me?

They had taken his tactical backpack. He felt the empty weight behind him as soon as he had woken up. The G-Shock was also gone—he didn’t have visual confirmation but he could feel the emptiness on his right wrist—and they’d taken his ball cap for whatever reason. More importantly, the Glock was missing, though they hadn’t bothered with the holster. That made sense since they’d have to take off his belt first, and that was probably more trouble than it was worth. The sheath on his left hip was similarly empty.

But at least they’d done him a favor by “fixing up” the gash in his temple. Smith wasn’t sure if the bandage was “pretty good” or not, according to Matt, but he wasn’t bleeding anymore. Or, at least, he couldn’t feel blood dripping down his face. And while he had woken up woozy and had difficulty concentrating, both those things had gone away. He was feeling more like himself again.

Well, mostly.

There was no way out of his prison while he was still tied up on the floor, and Smith had no intentions of sitting here waiting for Allison to reveal what she was going to do with him. In her shoes, Smith would have shot him a long time ago. There was no good reason to keep a dangerous man alive if you didn’t have to. And Smith definitely thought of himself as too dangerous to leave hanging about. The three Bozos from last night had found that out the hard way.

He also had a feeling he wasn’t going to like what Allison had planned for him. He tried to play back their brief interaction in his head, to see if she’d let anything slip, but couldn’t grab onto anything. There was, though, that back and forth with Matt and Veronica earlier that might hold some clues.

“Go get things ready for tonight,” Allison had said to the boy. “We have to strike while the iron is hot, otherwise we’ll waste too much. Everything’s always better fresh.”

“Strike while the iron is hot?” Smith thought then and did again now. What does that mean? What are they going to do, brand me like cattle?

He wasn’t going to wait around to find out. He wasn’t sure he could stomach the stench of the place for another hour or even day, or however long it would take the trio to “get things ready for tonight.”

God, the smell…

The smell!

He thought he might throw up again. But again, when he opened his mouth, he only dry-heaved for a few minutes.

Jesus, the stench…

He tried listening for sounds of Allison and her kids but couldn’t pick up anything besides his own slightly labored heartbeat. Wherever Allison had sent the kids to go in order to get things ready for tonight, it was apparently not in this part of the building.

That left him to sit in silence, with only the occasional creaking of foundation and galvanized steel around him to keep his ears busy. Not so much that they would be noticeable but plenty obvious to someone like him, tied in place inside a storage unit with nothing to keep him company but darkness and solitude.

Smith focused on his arms behind his back. The duct tape was pretty tight, with one wrist lying on top of the other in an X shape. Both his palms were facing upward, not that that knowledge was of much help. Whoever had wrapped his hands had done a solid job, because he could barely gain an inch of space on the tightness after ten minutes of constantly moving his wrists back and forth.

Fortunately, Smith knew something about himself that his captors didn’t. According to his mentor, Smith always had arms that were “freakishly long.” Not that Smith ever measured them or anything. His captors wouldn’t know that unless they really stopped to observe his limbs, which they hadn’t done. Why would they, after all? They’d likely done this before—knocked some poor bastard out and then tied him up to get him ready for tonight—so why would they believe there was anything special about him?

Maybe “special” wasn’t quite the right word…

Smith slowly tilted his body until he was lying on the cold floor on his left side. The only way out of his bonds was to slide his arms underneath his butt until his hands were in front of him again. Longer-than-normal limbs or not, it was still going to take a lot of work, and Smith was grunting and clenching his teeth to keep from screaming out as he overextended both arms to their limits. He imagined Allison or the kids (but especially Allison) appearing out of nowhere and getting the full sight of him on the floor, bound arms underneath his own ass, while his face was contorted in intense concentration. Talk about embarrassing.

He strained his arms and stretched his tendons to their limits, then kept going. He waited for a muscle to pull and for this gamble to all be over.

But he didn’t stop. He couldn’t.

Lying on his side helped tremendously, and Smith spent the next five minutes slowly sliding his arms back and forth, and at times doing the same with his backside. Slowly but surely, he was able to push his butt through the crooked O of his bent arms a little more each time.

Then a little bit more.

Then a little bit more still…

Smith listened for sounds of Allison and the kids as he worked. The absolutely quiet nature of the building helped with that, and he was able to tune out the natural creaks of the place around him. His own labored grunts were a little harder to shove into the background. It didn’t help that he was still breathing through his mouth, which wasn’t a natural act and took some concentration as well.

With a heaving sigh, Smith slid his bound arms underneath his legs until they bumped into the back of his knees.

Yes!

He bent both legs inward, knees toward his chest, and slipped his bound hands through them until both arms were in front of him instead of behind.

Hallelujah! Praise Jesus!

He lay still for a moment, enjoying the sudden freedom while still keeping both ears open for any sounds other than his own ragged breathing. He was somewhat shocked it had worked. It wasn’t like he’d done it before.

But it’d worked.

It had worked!

Now that his arms were in front of him, it was easy to work on the ropes binding his legs. The knot wasn’t anything he recognized—a series of loops and ties, something a person who’d never been taught proper rope-tying techniques would use. If he’d struggled hard enough he thought he could probably have loosened it somewhat, if not gotten out completely. Maybe.

He didn’t have any trouble loosening it now, pulling at the loops one by one until the nylon unraveled and fell to the hard floor. He stood up gingerly, taking his time. His legs were still sore from all the sitting, then all the effort of bending his limbs at odd angles in order to free his hands.

He leaned against the cold metal wall to gather his breath and to let his legs get used to being upright again. He breathed briefly through his nostrils to give his mouth a rest, but the choking stench in the air around him was too much, and he had to go right back to breathing through his mouth. He might not have noticed it earlier when he first woke up, but now that he did, he couldn’t ignore it.

Goddammit. What have they been doing in here?

He was careful not to make too much noise, but he couldn’t prevent his breathing from filling up the 10x10 unit in quick, slightly excited spurts.

Finally satisfied he could run if he had to, Smith went to work peeling off the duct tape from around his wrists. This wasn’t nearly as hard with his arms in front of him and his teeth available to work. He searched for and found the end of one strip and got a good hold of it with his teeth before pulling his head back slightly.

It took a little longer than he had anticipated—five full minutes instead of the one or two it should have taken—to get the gray tape loose enough for him to slide one hand out of the loop. He took his time peeling the rest of the tape off so as not to rip free more hair and skin than was necessary.

Smith moved to the door and leaned against it. It was as cold to the touch as the floor and the walls had been. Like most storage places, the unit’s door was 26-gauge galvanized steel, and while it looked flimsy, it was anything but. He wasn’t going to be able to break it down with his hands and boots even if he had all day, which he didn’t. He went down on one knee and got a good grip on the titanium bar at the bottom and attempted to push the rolling door up.

Attempted, because he didn’t budge the damned thing even a little bit. The lock wasn’t just in place—Allison had even slipped in an extra padlock. He thought that was a little overkill, especially given his condition at the time, but maybe she knew what she was doing after all.

Pretty and smart. If Smith didn’t have a very bad feeling about his current situation, he would have been tempted to try to get to know her. It had been a while since he’d settled in one place for longer than a week. The last time was in El Paso, but he’d gotten bored of it pretty fast and took off. That was about eight or nine months—

Footsteps!

Not just footsteps, but whistling, as someone walked down the hallway toward his unit.

Smith hurried back to where he’d been sitting and picked up the pile of duct tape before returning to the door. He slid against the wall and waited, using the moment to untangle enough of the tape to have it ready for what he had to do as he listened to either Allison or one of the kids get closer.

Whoever it was, they were still whistling, and it might just be Smith’s imagination, but he thought he could detect pep in those steps.

Someone’s happy.

They stopped in front of Smith’s door, and he waited in the darkness and listened to a key unlocking the padlock, then a second one undoing the one in the latch. A few seconds later, the latch itself was slid back and taken out of the slot.

Smith resisted the urge to grab the door and jerk it open, surprising whoever was on the other side. But he didn’t move as the door began to slide up slowly, its wheels turning effortlessly just as it was designed to do even without years of maintenance. It didn’t take a lot of strength to push the door open, either. After a brief heave, the rollers took care of everything, using the upward momentum to do the rest of the heavy lifting.

The door slammed into its housing, revealing the girl, Veronica, standing outside holding a pair of keys and the latch in one hand. Her eyes widened when she saw the empty back of the unit. It took almost a full second before she realized what had happened and began turning up the hallway to run.

Too late. Smith grabbed her from behind before she could run off, slapping the sticky side of the duct tape around her mouth—got a lot of both lips and some of her nose—just as the girl opened her mouth to scream. Her voice was mostly muffled, but enough got loose that Smith was slightly annoyed he hadn’t gotten to her faster.

He swung her into the room like she was a rag doll and felt instantly guilty when the girl slammed into the floor, rolled over, and banged! loudly against the back of the unit. She groaned and turned over onto her side, the duct tape hanging off her face like a tattered mask.

Smith hurried over to her. He tied another piece of tape around her mouth, then used the rest to bind her arms behind her back. He didn’t bother with the rope; it would have taken too long, and tape was more effective anyway, even when you had to reuse it.

Veronica appeared dazed, her eyes big as saucers as her mind clearly tried to keep up with what was happening. He wasn’t sure if she was terrified of him or—No, that was definitely terror on the kid’s face.

Another pang of guilt. He hadn’t wanted to do this, but it wasn’t like he was going to harm her. Just the thought of hurting the kid made him queasy. Still, the persistent, frightened look on her face made him feel like a real piece of shit.

Smith stood up, dragging her up with him. She struggled, but he had a firm grip on one of her bound arms. As soon as she was back on her feet she tried to run off, but he held on and her sandals only slid fruitlessly against the floor, running in place like something out of a cartoon. Smith wasn’t a fan of cartoons, but the other guys at Black Tide Island always used to watch them during downtime in their barracks. The ones with the stupid coyote was always a crowd pleaser for some reason.

When the girl finally realized she wasn’t going to break free from him, she stopped trying. Instead, her entire body went slack and she started breathing hard—until she stopped breathing altogether.

What now?

Veronica was hyperventilating, and he could feel the weakness in her body as she sagged against his hand and back down to the floor. He thought she might be faking it, trying to get him to relax his grip so she could try running off again, so he didn’t let go.

Instead, Smith crouched next to her and checked her vitals.

Her pulse was erratic, and it really did look as if she was having trouble breathing. Her face had started to turn blue—

“Jesus Christ, don’t die on me now, kid,” Smith said as he removed the tape from her mouth.

That seemed to—

“Help!” the girl screamed, her voice bouncing off the corrugated metal around them before echoing across the building. “Help!”

Smith sighed.

How was it possible that someone so small could be so goddamn loud?

Five

The way he saw it, Smith had only two options: He could slap the tape back over Veronica’s mouth to shut her up, but that really wouldn’t do anything. She’d already gotten two—

“Help!”

—make that three— cries of “Help!” out while he was still trying to figure out his next move.

So the cat was out of the bag. How fast Matt and Allison came running would depend almost entirely on where they were in the building at the moment. If they were on the same floor as him, then the answer was pretty quick. But if they were somewhere else—say, one of the other floors—then he’d have some time. If it were the latter, they might not even have heard Veronica shouting for help.

Was he willing to take that chance, though?

Not right now.

Smith’s only other option was to run. That was it. Just abandon the girl and run for it. That would mean leaving her to scream to her heart’s content. He doubted the kid would give chase. Why would she? And why would he care if she did? She was just a little girl. A little girl with scarring on her face and a surprisingly loud scream.

Damn, she was loud!

The first choice was the preferable one, but it also came with risks. Veronica had almost fainted the last time he covered her mouth with tape—and he was still pretty sure she hadn’t been faking it, even if she did take advantage of his good deed by immediately shouting for help once he freed her.

There was something wrong with Veronica physically, well beyond the scars and lesions on her face. The last thing Smith wanted to do was kill her, either accidentally or on purpose. Yes, she and her “brother” and “mom” had almost killed him with that teddy bear of theirs, and God only knew what they had planned for him later, but that didn’t mean he wanted the girl’s death on his conscience. Three bozos with guns in the middle of the night, on the other hand, was a no-brainer that Smith hadn’t lost any sleep over.

But a kid…

“Help! Matt! Help! Help!”

Smith sighed. “Give it a rest, kid,” he said, and rolled Veronica onto her stomach.

He grabbed the spool of nylon rope lying nearby and tied her legs together, then connected them to her wrists behind her back. He would have gone for a Hondo Knot if he’d had the time, but it wasn’t like the girl was going to be able to squirm out of the one he’d thrown together in about twenty seconds anyway.

She was still screaming Matt’s name when Smith got up and stepped into the hallway. The battery-powered LED lantern hung from a hook along the wall, providing just enough light—albeit weak—to see with.

Smith grabbed the lamp and turned right to go up the hallway. He couldn’t see much of anything at the end of the long corridor. No exits, no elevators. Nothing. But the only other way open to him was left, and there was a wall about twenty meters farther down in that direction. It was barely visible in the semidarkness, but it was visible nonetheless. Which meant he was pretty sure turning right would lead to the way out.

Well, mostly sure. Pretty sure was a bit of a reach at the moment.

He jogged past row after row of opened units, along with connecting hallways featuring even more storage areas. He stopped long enough to make sure these new corridors weren’t the ones he was looking for, but it was too dark to tell with any certainty. The lamp was too weak to see more than five meters at a time, and the damned thing seemed to get weaker with every step he took, but that was probably just paranoia on his part.

Probably.

All of the storage units he passed were opened, their contents mostly visible against his light. Many of them contained boxes stacked along walls, some still unopened. Smith looked for weapons among the junk, spending five seconds at a unit that looked promising, but could only find a heavily-dented aluminum baseball bat and a variety of sports equipment. He took it (Better than nothing) but held out hope for something better. That led to him wasting another thirty or so seconds on a 10x5 unit that only produced clothes scattered around a bulky massage chair.

Smith kept going, with the only sound accompanying him coming from his breathing and Veronica’s annoyingly shrill voice still shouting for help behind him. The lack of response to her screaming was a good sign. Maybe he had nothing to worry about after all. Maybe Allison and Matt weren’t even on the same floor. If that were the case, the girl could scream herself hoarse, and no one would hear her.

Even as he thought that, another one popped into his head:

What are you so afraid of? It’s just a woman and a teenage boy.

Yeah, but he had no way of telling if that woman and teenage boy would be armed when they came running to assist Veronica. He hadn’t seen either one of them wearing a gun or even a knife earlier, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have them. He was already subdued when they came to see him, so maybe they didn’t think they needed weapons. Still, he was holding out hope that he wasn’t dealing with killers here.

Captain Optimism, huh? Smith thought, remembering something from his basic training days. His mentor liked to say it to the recruits; the saying itself was an inside joke among the Black Tide commanders, though Smith never found it especially funny.

A part of Smith wanted to look for Allison—or wait for her to find him—and see if he could convince her that he wasn’t a threat to her and her kids. He’d been wandering around the southwest for a while now, and it was rare to come across a beauty like Allison.

Maybe—

Stop thinking with your little head, you idiot!

He sighed loudly to himself. If he could only convince—

The boom! of the shotgun blast was ear-shattering, and it snapped Smith out of his idiotic reverie and sent him dropping to one knee. That hurt; his kneecap slammed into the hard concrete floor.

Ouch!

Through the jolt of pain, he looked up and to his right—at Allison, standing about twenty meters down the length of a connecting hallway. She was holding a shotgun, and as soon as he saw her, she racked the weapon and an empty shell ejected and bounced off the door of a storage unit nearby.

Smith spent one—two—seconds trying to understand why he wasn’t on the floor bleeding out. Even a shotgun with limited range should have nailed him with some buckshot. Except he was still intact, and as far as he knew, there were no lead rounds sticking out of any part of his body.

He glanced over his shoulder and saw the big crater in the concrete wall to his left, the obvious result of a slug round missing his head—or whichever part of him Allison had been aiming at—by God only knew how much. Not that he particularly cared about the specifics; a miss was a miss, was a miss.

Thank God it was a miss!

Smith said, “Allison, wait—”

But she didn’t wait.

Boom! as she fired again, and Smith dove forward and to the floor.

More sudden stabs of pain as his chest slammed into the hard pavement, but it would have been much worse if she’d taken the time to aim before pulling the trigger the second time. The LED lamp in his left hand went flying, shattering against the floor.

The light went out, and the hallway dimmed.

Great. His vision had been shit before, but now he could barely see anything!

Smith scrambled forward, crawling on his hands and knees while still clinging to the baseball bat. He eventually located his footing, launched himself up onto his feet, and raced down the darkened corridor seconds later.

Without the lamp, the end of the hallway seemed a million miles away. If there was even an end out there. Thankfully, his night eyes had mostly adapted to his surroundings, and it must have been daylight outside, because there was just enough natural light for him to see with. Not that he was afraid of running into a wall. Public storage buildings like these were always basic in layout, individual units connected by straight corridors. It was all about going in the right direction.

God, he hoped he was going in the right direc—

Boom!

Smith ducked as something large and fast zipped! over his head and struck a wall all the way in front of him—not that he’d seen the impact in the darkness.

He wasted a second glancing over his shoulder and could just barely make out Allison back there. Somewhere back there, in all that shadow. She might have already transformed into some grotesque Cthulhu tentacle monster from the depths of hell for all he knew.

Smith was surprised he’d put as much space between them as he had, though. Maybe he was faster than he thought. Then again, running for your life tended to get the adrenaline pumping, he’d found.

Because he could only guess he was looking at Allison, he hoped it meant she couldn’t really see him, either. Though of course she didn’t need to see all of him in order to hit him with that shotgun. He was just thankful she was using slug rounds instead of buckshot, otherwise he would be dodging bullets instead of just a bullet at a time.

Allison must have realized he had put too much distance between them, because she didn’t fire again. Either that, or she’d run out of rounds. Had he heard her racking the shotgun yet? He couldn’t be sure. Smith was too busy trying to ignore the pounding in his ears—the result of his own haggard breathing—to really pay attention to any external noises.

He turned forward again—

Yes!

A bank of elevators at the end of the hallway. He would have missed it in the semidarkness if the metal doors weren’t so smooth and hadn’t made them stand out from the wall of black. He’d turned and run in the right direction after all.

Thank God. Thank God.

Twenty meters…

Fifteen…

Smith was expecting something to pop out in front of him (Any second now. Any second now!) to thwart his escape, but there was nothing. No Matt, no fourth person that he hadn’t seen yet—nothing.

There were just the elevators to his left, and when he glanced right, one stairwell door. There were two big pieces of lumber over it, held in place by metal brackets that looked as if they had been drilled into the concrete walls. Not very well, too, but they’d done the job. Smith grabbed the pieces of lumber and tossed them to the floor, then threw open the door—

—and almost ran right into a shelf waiting on the other side.

Goddammit!

It was some kind of bookcase made of mahogany wood, and it had clearly been put there not only to stop someone from coming up the stairwell, but also from going down. There was enough space that, if he had time and patience, Smith thought he could squeeze through. Unfortunately, he had neither of those things, so he rammed his shoulder into the bookshelf instead of trying to go around it.

The big piece of furniture shook and leaned backward slightly, but held its ground.

He hit it again.

And once again it moved but didn’t fall.

Smith took a second to glance down the hallway. He couldn’t see her, but he imagined Allison coming up the narrow passageway toward him, shotgun in hand. She would already know that he’d have to deal with the blockade in the stairs. Chances were very good that she, along with Matt and the girl, had put the shelf here—

“Ma?” a voice shouted from somewhere down the hallway. It wasn’t Veronica, who had stopped screaming her little head off a while ago, but Smith hadn’t noticed until now. No, it was Matt. “Ma, where are you?”

“Stay with your sister!” Allison shouted.

Shit, Smith thought, because Allison had sounded way too close. She wasn’t exactly standing next to him, but was near enough that he hadn’t had to strain his ears to pick up her voice when she responded to Matt.

“Where is he, Ma?” Matt asked.

“I said stay with your sister, Matthew!” Allison shouted again. Then, in a lower voice that was probably directed more at Smith, “I’ll handle this.”

Smith wasn’t so much afraid of Allison as he was wary of that shotgun of hers. He’d seen what a slug round—a much chunkier version of a regular bullet—could do to a human body. It wasn’t pretty.

Which was probably why Smith began alternating between kicking and throwing his shoulder into the shelf. He thought he could hear Allison getting closer, still taking her time, while he worked on the bookcase. He didn’t blame her for taking her time; why rush it when she knew she had him cornered? Also, she hadn’t brought along any light, so she was moving in the dark as much as he was. The woman was being very, very cautious—and she was definitely getting closer.

Smith kicked harder and threw himself with more intensity into the shelf. He slammed into it over and over, using his body as a battering ram—

The shelf, at last, tumbled backward and down the stairs, revealing…

Mother…

…even more junk stacked up in piles upon piles on the flights of steps.

On every single flight of steps.

…fucker!

Six

“Come on out!”

Yeah, right. That’s not going to happen, lady.

“I know you’re still in there!”

You’re just guessing. You don’t know that.

“I know you’re waiting for me to come in after you!”

Or do you?

“Sorry to disappoint you, but that’s not going to happen.”

Well, shit.

Now what?

Smith didn’t move. He hadn’t flexed a muscle for the last ten or so minutes while he waited for her to get closer. Her footsteps had gradually grown louder as she neared, her sneakers squeaking against the hard pavement.

“Come out!” she shouted again.

Very, very close to him now. In fact, she was probably right outside the open stairwell door looking in.

And that shotgun, of course, was likely aimed at the doorway, her finger on the trigger. Allison had already proven herself to be quick on the trigger. How many shells did she have for that thing? More than what he had, which was zero. He believed that she wasn’t empty because she wouldn’t have chased him all the way down the corridor. Even she would know she had no chance against him without that shotgun. Nothing the woman had done so far had convinced him she was an idiot. Far from it, in fact.

“I’ll make you a deal,” Allison said.

A deal?

“Since you didn’t hurt Veronica, I won’t retaliate,” she said. “Come out, and I’ll walk you back down the hallway. I promise.”

She promises, Smith thought. He almost wanted to snicker. Yeah, right. I was born at night, not last night, lady.

She was definitely right outside the door, but not close enough that he could see her or her weapon. There wasn’t much of a light to cast her shadow into the stairwell and across the second-floor landing either, because otherwise Smith would have been able to see it.

“Well?” she said. “Are you coming out or not?”

That would be not.

When he didn’t answer, she continued. “Don’t make me go in there after you! If I have to do that, I’m going to be really annoyed!”

Smith smiled. Like he was ever going to just give himself up. Even if he could believe Allison and her kids had no intentions of harming him, he wasn’t going to surrender to a woman with a shotgun. She’d already proven she didn’t have any qualms about blowing his head off. If she’d been a better shot, he’d be lying out there with a big slug round in his gut right now. Or the side of his head.

No, he wasn’t going anywhere. If she wanted him, she was going to have to come in and get him.

And right now, judging by the tenor of her voice and her attempts to lure him out, Smith didn’t think she wanted to do that. She had shown great patience as she pursued him down the corridor. Allison was nothing if not incredibly cautious; annoyingly so, in fact.

After the last exchange between Allison and Matt, Smith hadn’t heard from the boy again. Even the girl, Veronica, had gone silent. He pictured them back there, watching their “mom” work.

They’ve definitely done this before.

Whatever this was, it had something to do with the still-pervasive stench of death that lingered around him. Even breathing through his mouth couldn’t completely get rid of it. The odor was now in his hair and on his skin and making his cheeks itch.

He didn’t scratch the itch, of course; his hands were too busy pressing against the wall, steadying him while he perched on top of a big aluminum cabinet. It was the tallest and steadiest piece of furniture in the entire stairwell that he could reach without having to fumble his way in the dark, and it was perfectly situated along the side of the second-floor landing while staying out of view of the open doorway. Unfortunately, while that meant Allison couldn’t see him from the hallway, he couldn’t see her, either.

But Smith didn’t have to; he could hear her voice and feel her presence.

She was close.

So, so close.

And that shotgun…

“Ma,” a new voice finally spoke up. It was Matt. “Is he still in there?”

“Yes,” Smith heard Allison say. “He won’t come out.”

“So what are we gonna do?”

“What are we going to do.”

“Yes, ma’am. What are we going to do?”

Allison didn’t answer right away. Smith pictured her thinking, trying to decide how to get him out. He still didn’t think she would come in after him. It was simply too risky to step into a dark stairwell. Smith wouldn’t have done it if he’d had a choice. She did.

He wasn’t sure how long it took—A few seconds? Half a minute?—but eventually Allison said, “Go get the fire extinguisher, Matthew.”

The fire extinguisher?

As if reading his mind, Matt said, “The fire extinguisher, ma’am?”

“Yes, Matthew,” Allison said. “Go get the fire extinguisher. If he won’t come out voluntarily, we’re going to have to smoke him out.”

Oh, fuck me, Smith thought as he listened to Matt’s eager footsteps as the boy jogged away. Smith didn’t think for a second Allison had gone with him.

She confirmed it by saying, “You heard what I said in there? Since you don’t want to do this the easy way, then fine, we’ll do it the hard way.”

Like I have any damn choice, lady. Drop that shotgun, and we’ll see how tough you are.

Of course she wasn’t going to do that. Right now, she had him by the balls.

By both fucking balls.

Smith came up with different scenarios where he could be “smoked” out of the stairwell, and every one of them involved fire. Which was the only reason she had sent Matt off to fetch the fire extinguisher.

Were there other possibilities? None that he could think of.

It wasn’t really the prospect of dying in a fire that he had to worry about; the biggest threat about being stuck in a building during a fire was never the fire itself. The flames were always a secondary concern, as most people generally died of smoke inhalation first long before the fires got to them.

Smith didn’t fancy going out like that. Which meant he could either wait for Matt to come back and for Allison to put her plan into motion, or…

He looked down at the piles of boxes and furniture.

The sofas would be the softest targets. There was no way of telling what was inside those boxes or what else was waiting that he couldn’t see in the semidarkness. For all he knew, there were more shelves like the one he was squatting on right now, or the bookshelf he had knocked down earlier.

One wrong sharp edge and he was done for.

Or worse: if he wasn’t done for, he would end up at the bottom bleeding out.

Yeah, that’s definitely worse, Smith thought just before he jumped off the cabinet, aiming for the hideous lime-green couch below.

He hit the soft cushion with both feet (Bingo!) and bounced up slightly, the springs underneath the upholstery doing their job. The sofa was already starting to topple with his added weight when he hopped onto its tilting armrest and dropped off the edge.

He landed on the smooth side of some kind of tabletop that was already pointing at an awkward angle and lost his footing immediately. As he slid uncontrollably down the length of the surface top, he reached for something to grab, which was difficult with one hand still holding onto the aluminum baseball bat. It was his only weapon so far, and Smith didn’t want to lose it.

His fingers were nearly decapitated by the insides of a box spring mattress, forcing him to let go quickly. Smith stuck out his legs as he continued to fall, hoping that the soles of his Merrells would take the brunt of whatever was waiting for him down there.

God, don’t let it be sharp. Don’t let it be sharp!

Smith hit something soft and continued sliding downward. Boxes fell on top of him as he skidded farther down, but they were holding nothing too dangerous—clothes, paper, some office supplies. A stapler bounced off the side of his head, just close enough to his wound to make him wince and remember what had happened earlier with the teddy bear, and something sharp pricked painfully at his left arm through his shirt.

He kept crashing into things—more furniture, more boxes—and bounced off others.

But he was still going down, so he hadn’t been impaled or gotten tangled in anything yet.

Down and down we go! Where I land, who knows!

He wondered how long it would take Allison to realize what was happening. If she continued to be cautious, it would be a good while before she figured it out. Heck, she might even think he was trying to trick her into coming into the stairwell before Matt came back with that fire extinguisher and whatever else she would need to “smoke” him out.

He stopped thinking about Allison and that gorgeous body of hers when he landed on a floor of glass that instantly cracked underneath his weight. It hurt, but it would have hurt a lot worse if the glass had shattered into pieces and those shards had pierced him. But they hadn’t, and they didn’t.

Smith rolled off a big-screen TV lying flat on the first-floor landing. The screen had cracked when he impacted it but hadn’t shattered into a few hundred pieces as he feared. Thank God for that.

Thank God!

He got up on his knees, the baseball bat still gripped tightly in one hand, and looked up toward the second floor. Not that he could make out very much except all the boxes and furniture and shelves between him and up there. He could see how the setup would have made for an effective barrier to anyone wanting to climb up to the upper floors. It wasn’t impossible, but he imagined it would have been hazardous and loud work.

Getting down, on the other hand, while just as hazardous, had been easier. At least he was still alive, even if every part of him ached. He couldn’t see well enough to know if he was bleeding—he didn’t think so, though—but it did feel as if every bone in his body were bruised and every socket out of place.

Smith stumbled to his feet and looked for an exit, spending a few seconds to check the bandaging on his forehead to see if his wound had started bleeding again. His fingers came away dry. So far, so good.

There was still the pervasive smell of death circling him, though. That wasn’t so good. It was in every inch of the building and now on him, too, clinging to his hair and face and clothes. The only way to get rid of it was to get the hell out of this place.

He was hurt and aching, and he stank of death.

But he was still alive.

At least he was still alive!

Hallelujah!

Unlike the second-floor stairwell door, there wasn’t anything blocking the one into the lobby access area. All Smith had to do was push some furniture and an old fridge out of the way to get to the door. That achieved, he swung it open and rushed outside, desperate to get out of the darkness and the stench of death that filled every inch of it.

In his mind, he fully expected Allison to follow him down and try to shoot him. Or maybe she might attempt to pick him off from upstairs. Except she did no such thing. The woman had been incredibly patient as she stalked him through the second floor’s hallway in the dark and even more (annoyingly) cautious while he waited for her to step into the stairwell so he could jump down and surprise her.

Too smart. Too beautiful.

And way, way too crazy for me.

Smith was convinced Allison and her “children” had been living in the Private Store-It for a while now. It was a sanctuary for them, a way to ward off the dangers of the outside world. Smith didn’t blame them for resorting to whatever it was they had resorted to. A woman like Allison, with two young kids to take care of, wouldn’t have stood much chance out here. What would have happened if they’d encountered the three Bozos Smith had taken out last night?

No, he didn’t blame Allison for any of this. In their shoes, he might have done the same thing. But just because he didn’t have any ill will toward them, it didn’t mean he was going to stick around to tell them that.

Smith wasn’t surprised to see fading sunlight outside the lobby’s glass doors when he stepped out of the stairwell. There was still some daylight, which was a relief. Smith had no issues with nightfall; even now, with only a baseball bat, he was used to moving around at night when necessary. It didn’t mean he did it on a whim, but darkness no longer held the same kind of dread it once did when he was younger.

The front doors were locked like last time, but Smith had no qualms about smashing the shit out of one of them the second go-round. He used the baseball bat he’d brought down from the second floor with him, taking out the glass in one of the doors, then slipping outside into the still-swirling mist, careful not to cut himself on the shards still sticking to the frame. It would have royally sucked to have survived his jump through the dark stairwell only to cut himself to death now.

Once outside, he hurried away from the spot where the teddy bear had nearly caved his head in. There was a big crater on the sidewalk where the toy had landed, and he was reminded again of just how close he’d come to being killed. He remembered hearing from Matt that Allison was busy out here cleaning up the mess. She’d done a decent job, but Smith could still make out drops of blood, though he might not have noticed them if he didn’t already know where to look.

He glanced up at the rooftop, just to make sure Allison hadn’t retreated up there in an attempt to intercept him with that shotgun of hers. But there was no one up there, as far as he could tell. Then again, there hadn’t been anyone up there earlier before the teddy bear incident.

He jogged toward the small door next to the main front gate and hopped it. The place looked just as deserted as it had when he first arrived, which was probably what Allison counted on.

She was most definitely a clever woman.

And beautiful, too…

Goddammit. Stop thinking with your little head!

Smith jogged away from the Private Store-It. Not quite running but not walking, either. He passed the same destroyed sign up front with the pickup parked next to it. He hated losing his pack and supplies and hated the naked feel of the empty holster on his right hip even more. The equally empty sheath was more tolerable, but it was the missing gun that really gnawed at him.

When he was finally across the street and on the sidewalk, with the elevated highway in front of him, Smith allowed himself to catch his breath. He sucked in the mist-filled air, as clear and refreshing as anything he’d tasted since. It was almost as good as the fresh air of Black Tide Island during all those months of basic.

He looked back at the chartreuse-colored building and thought he might have glimpsed a figure on the rooftop. It was there one moment and gone the next, and Smith didn’t completely dismiss it as being a figment of his imagination.

Mist City was still living up to its name, and he didn’t want to think about being stuck out here at night, because there was no way in hell he’d make it to the city limits on foot before nightfall. That was fine. There were plenty of buildings to shelter in. He just needed to find the right one.

Smith remembered the Archers from earlier and began jogging toward it. There would be guns there. Hopefully. The bat swinging at his side was a good weapon, but there was nothing like a gun…or two.

…or three…

Seven

Smith stopped to check a half dozen cars in the parking lot of the Archers before he proceeded into the store. There were more vehicles, but he didn’t have the time to search all of them. It was wasted time anyway, because he didn’t find anything useful; not that he expected to. Anyone who had gone through Mist City in the years since The Purge before him would have already taken anything worth taking. That included the Archers itself, but Smith had to be sure. Besides, even if he couldn’t find anything inside, there would be a room he could use to wait out the night.

The outdoors outlet had four doors at the front, both leading into a middle waiting area, with two more doors on the other side. It was a pretty common setup for an Archers. There were signs that people had attempted to barricade the doors, but no hints if they had been successful or not. Shards of glass clung to all six door frames, which meant there would be no way to “close up” the store if he needed to defend them. He noted the absence of fresh prints—booted or otherwise—which was a relief.

Smith gave the darkening skies hovering over the parking lot another glance before he headed into the store. He had, as far as he could tell, an hour max before nightfall. He would need more than that to give the Archers a thorough search. If push came to shove, he’d already decided he would sleep in the building. There was bound to be a room somewhere to spend the night. He didn’t want to, of course, but these days, he was used to not getting what he wanted.

He stepped into the waiting lobby, crunching broken glass underneath his Merrells. He made a mental note to look for a new pair, along with some socks, food, supplies, and…well, pretty much everything he had lost back at the Private Store-It.

Most of all, he needed a gun.

He kept the bat at his side, tightening up his grip for an easier one-handed swing, if necessary. There was more glass inside the store, spread generously across the tiled flooring. He sniffed the air and liked what he found—which was nothing. Well, there was the usual smell of abandonment and some decay, along with plenty of dust flitting across the dwindling light around him, but none of the familiar stench that usually accompanied the presence of a ghoul nest.

Just to be sure, Smith didn’t move for the next five minutes, allowing his eyes to adjust to the (fading) natural light in the building and for his nostrils to take in all the available smells. Jayhawk merchandise hung off racks around him, with long counters featuring glass displays on top offering discounted watches, sunglasses, and glittery sports memorabilia flanking him. The gym equipment was on his left, with more clothing in front of him, and rows of unattended cash registers to his right.

Softening light flooded into the store from high windows around the Archers, giving him plenty to see with. For now. He was down to thirty minutes, give or take, before he wouldn’t be able to see much of anything with the naked eye. At least, not without some difficulty.

That was all the incentive he needed to get moving. He ignored the clothes and went straight for the outdoors section on the right side. Every Archers he had ever been to was laid out exactly the same, with the shoes and sports equipment dominating the left, the camping gear and coolers at the very back, and the fishing and guns on the right. The clothes made up the center part of the buildings, but those were luxuries he could forego at the moment.

He passed aisles of baby blue Kansas City Royals jerseys and shirts, followed by racks of red and blue Kansas Jayhawks merchandise, before finally reaching the fishing aisle at the very end. The guns would be near the back, slightly hidden from consumers who didn’t already know they were there or were looking for them.

Smith was optimistic he could find something useful. It was very much possible that all the firearms would all be gone, but he doubted it. These days, even in the more gun-restricted northern and western states, there were still more weapons lying around waiting to be picked up—in homes, but mostly inside stores—than people to do the picking up.

A handgun. A shotgun. He would be satisfied with anything as long as it made a loud noise when he pulled a trigger.

Hell, anything with a trigger would work.

Not surprisingly, the counters at the front of the gun section were in pieces, with glass everywhere among the leftover firearms. But there were leftover firearms waiting for him, and Smith reached for a pump-action shotgun on the floor. But the real prize were the six handguns scattered behind the counters.

Yes!

It wasn’t the haul to end all hauls, but it was a lot more than he had expected. The Archers had to have housed hundreds of firearms before The Purge, and these were the only ones left that scavengers hadn’t already taken. There were bound to be more in the back, in the warehouses, but Smith was wary about going back there if he didn’t have to.

It was a good thing he didn’t have to now.

There were no Glocks among the pistols, but there was a pair of SIG Sauers—a full-sized P220 and a P210. Smith would have opted for the lighter P220 as his primary piece, but it was chambered for .45, while the other one used 9mm, the more popular and more readily-found caliber of ammo. He took both guns anyway, slipping the smaller P220 into his holster while the heavier SIG went behind his back.

Ammo was more plentiful, which made sense. Bullets were heavy in bulk, and most people didn’t carry more than they needed. Smith sifted through the boxes before locating the right ones. He helped himself to a right-size tactical pack from a nearby aisle and shoved the rounds into it, along with some spare magazines. He didn’t bother with the other handguns; two were more than enough, and he needed the space for food and supplies. You couldn’t eat guns or bullets, and they were heavy as hell to lug around.

Just thinking about eating made his stomach growl. The last time he’d eaten was this morning, before arriving in Mist City.

Damn, he was starving. What were the chances he could stumble across some beef jerky? He’d have to check the checkout aisles. That was usually where the store kept its nonperishable junk food. Right now, he was so hungry he’d settle for a roll of Mentos.

And some bottled water wouldn’t be so bad, either.

Smith picked up the shotgun and grabbed some shells for it. There were other weapons in the back, including crossbows and machetes. Smith had no use for them but did find a knife to fill his empty sheath. It was a good blade, but it wouldn’t be the “right” kind until he could coat the sharp end with silver. The same went for the guns and bullets. Nothing was right without a silver payload. That mantra had been driven into his brain ever since basic training.

He couldn’t believe how much better he felt with a gun at his hip and another one behind his back. The shotgun slung over his shoulder was a good backup, but if he had to use it, it was probably his first clue that he was in trouble.

Now for those replacement Merrells…

The building was much darker the second time he went through it, which was probably the reason Smith was almost running, the shotgun bumping against his back. He continued sniffing the air to make sure he wasn’t sprinting headlong into a ghoul nest like an idiot. God only knew he’d been an idiot most of the day—

He slid to a stop, the soles of his shoes squeaking loudly against the polished tiles. Smith looked to his left, toward the front doors. There was still enough light—not very much now compared to the last time he’d looked—that he could make out the entrance.

Alarm bells were ringing in his head, because he’d stopped for a reason.

Voices.

He’d heard voices coming from the front doors.

And he’d just made a loud sound, alerting whoever was over there, when his shoes squeaked loudly against the floor just seconds ago.

Sonofa…

Eight

…bitch!

There were three of them, and for a second Smith thought Allison and her children had found him. He wasn’t sure if he was happy or annoyed by that possibility. This time he was armed, and there was no way they were going to get the drop on him, so maybe it was more of the former rather than the latter.

But that was all a moot point anyway, because it wasn’t Allison and her kids. He knew that, because they were all much too tall, and although he could only make out their silhouetted outlines thanks to the fading sunlight, he could tell there wasn’t a kid among them.

Two women and one man. It was a guess, but he was pretty sure he was right. The shoulders, hips, and waistlines gave the genders away. They hadn’t come on foot but had arrived at the Archers on horseback. Two were handling the animals outside the building while the third—one of the two women—stepped through one of the outer doors and unslung a rifle.

Yup. She definitely heard me.

“What is it?” the man asked.

“I heard something,” the woman who had come into the Archers said.

The biggest of the three figures—the man—handed the horses’ reins to the other woman and hurried through a door, drawing a pistol from a holster as he did so. He had his own rifle slung over his shoulder but hadn’t gone for it yet.

“What was it?” the man asked.

“I’m not sure,” the woman said.

They stood side by side, weapons in their hands, and though he couldn’t see them, Smith guessed they were sweeping the middle part of the Archers with their eyes. He didn’t think there was any chance they could make him out from all the jeans hanging off the rack in front of him or the thick working clothes around him. He’d gotten down and slid behind cover as soon as he realized he’d squeaked his way into being noticed.

Smith had the P220 already in his hand, hoping he didn’t have to use it. Three against one wasn’t terrible odds—he’d taken out the three Bozos last night without much of a problem—but there was no telling how many more riders were out there that he hadn’t seen yet. Mostly, though, Smith preferred not to kill someone unless he had to.

“You see anything?” the woman was asking the man.

The guy shook his head. “No. You sure you did?”

“I didn’t see anything, but I heard something.”

“What was it?”

They were still too far, and it was too dark (and getting darker) for him to make out what they looked like or what kind of weapons they were carrying.

“I’m not sure,” the woman said.

“Haven’t seen a soul since we made it into the city,” the other woman, still outside, said. She was holding onto the reins of all three horses just beyond the outer doors. “You sure, Mags?”

“Yes,” the woman named Mags said, even more confident this time.

“Animals?” the man said.

“Maybe,” Mags said, but Smith didn’t think she believed it.

“Guys, it’s really getting dark out here,” the second woman said. She sounded slightly younger than the one called Mags, and she was slimmer and shorter than the other two.

The man glanced back at her, before saying to Mags, “We gotta make a choice.”

Mags didn’t, at least not right away. It took about ten seconds before she nodded, though Smith noticed that she hadn’t lowered her rifle.

“I’m going to look around,” Mags said.

“Let me—” the man began.

“No,” Mags said, cutting him off. “It’s getting dark. We have to secure the doors.” Then, in a softer voice, “Okay?”

The man nodded. “Be careful.”

Mags returned his nod and stepped into the store. The man went back outside to help the other woman with the horses.

Their intentions were pretty clear to Smith: They were going to bring the animals inside with them. That was smart, and something Smith had done himself back when he’d had a horse. That was before the animal decided it didn’t need Smith nearly as much as Smith needed it and took off one morning while Smith was looking for supplies. Horses, Smith had found, could be pretty damn insightful.

He focused on the woman, Mags (What kind of name is that?) as she walked past the display counters up front. He appreciated the way the woman held her rifle, like she knew what she was doing. But he also felt good about his position. It wasn’t exactly pitch-black where he was hiding, but the area around him was definitely very dark. Unless the woman had lights—

He heard the click, followed by a flashlight beam shooting past his line of sight.

Of course she’d have lights!

Smith wasn’t feeling quite as good about staying incognito as before, but he didn’t panic just yet. There were too many clothes, too many racks, and too many shelves for her to pick him out across the distance between them.

At least, that’s what he told himself.

While he kept one eye on Mags as she stopped to run her light along the gym side of the Archers, Smith turned his attention back to the man and woman as they led the horses inside. The animals were a little skittish, or maybe they didn’t like all the glass scattered across the floor. Most horses were unshod these days since horseshoes were simply too bothersome to put on and replace every four to six weeks after they had worn out. Most people didn’t even know how to make a proper horse—

A beam of light flashed across Smith’s eyes, and he jerked his head back in alarm.

Shit. Had she spotted him?

“There’s someone in here!” Mags shouted.

I think that’s a yes, Smith thought as he crawled backward out of the circular rack and picked himself up, just before he heard the first pop-pop-pop of gunshots ringing out.

Smith was up and running when he nearly lost his footing as his Merrells slipped on the slick floor. Ironically, that was probably what saved his life as rounds zipped over his head, about the same spot where his actual head had been mere milliseconds earlier.

He scrambled back to his feet and darted behind a series of shelves as bullets slammed into them from the other side, some punching through and flicking splintered wood at him in waves of whistling missiles.

Damn, damn, damn!

Smith never considered stopping and returning fire. He had two pistols and a shotgun, but they had rifles, and that gave them too much advantage with the distance. Besides, given how the woman was shooting—the continuous pop-pop-pop of her shots ringing off the Archers’ walls and ceiling like thunderclaps—he didn’t like his chances in a stand-up gunfight. Especially when the man and the other woman started pitching in. They hadn’t yet, but—

The rapid-fire brap-brap-brap-brap of another rifle unleashing on full-auto nearly made Smith go deaf. The sudden burst overpowered even Mags’s semiautomatic shooting. It had to be the man, joining in on the fun.

Brap-brap-brap-brap!

Too bad they didn’t invite me to the party! Smith thought as he ran as hard and fast as he could even while clothes shredded and more shelves exploded, even more chunks of wood and plastic flicking around his head like bees. A few might have found their mark along the length of his arms, but he didn’t stop to find out.

Brap-brap-brap-brap!

Brap-brap-brap-brap!

Smith slid to a stop and turned left before diving headfirst into the camping aisles. He landed on his chest, grunted with pain, but ignored it and quickly rolled over onto his back. He was on his feet and retreating toward the back seconds later, even as the echoing sounds of magazines being changed echoed all the way across the store.

Thank God they’d run out of bullets! Well, not run out, but good enough!

He made it to the rear of the store in one piece and took temporary refuge behind a shelf of igloos, half of which were already spilled on the floor even before his arrival. Smith made sure not to kick any of them as he waded his way farther toward the back of the building. He also made damn certain he didn’t squeak again the entire time.

After the barrage of gunfire, Mags and her companion hadn’t let loose again. He was hoping that meant they couldn’t see him, though they probably knew where he was—or his general area—since they’d been pretty good about throwing rounds in his direction during his mad dash to safety. Smith thought about lying in wait for them—should they decide to pursue him, that was—and take them out, but decided it was probably a better idea to look for another way out of the Archers. He had what he needed, after all. Maybe not everything, but he could go a day without food if he had to. And it was starting to look as he was going to have to, tonight.

The problem was that he couldn’t find an exit anywhere in his current location. That left him with only one option: return to the gun section and use the back hallway next to it, which led into the restrooms and doors marked employees only. One of those doors might give him access to the warehouse next door; or, if he was lucky, a way out of the building.

Smith slid the SIG back into its holster and unslung the shotgun. He liked its spreading power better and had a feeling if he got into a gunfight it was going to be at close-range anyway, with so many shelves and aisles in the way. In those kind of conditions, the lethality of a buckshot-loaded shell was augmented.

He was still slowly—and carefully, not to mention quietly—picking his way from aisle to aisle, shelf to shelf, when a new burst of thundering pop-pop-pop sent him lunging to the floor.

Smith smacked face-first into a pair of rubber boots and got the barrel of the shotgun tangled up in a fishing net as he landed before skidding across the floor. All of that, and no one was even shooting at him.

The action was coming from the front of the store, he realized.

Who was doing the shooting, who was being shot at, and why?

He scrambled back to his feet and hurried over to a shelf carrying fishing rods. Smith moved toward the other end and leaned out. He peeked past the cash registers and racks of clothing—Christ, there were a lot of racks—and toward the front entrances.

He couldn’t see Mags or her companions from back here, but he could hear the volley of gunfire—semiautomatic rifles and pistol fire—mixed in with the clatter of glass falling and rounds pinging! off metal frames just fine. Those shots hadn’t come from inside the store, but outside. Which meant it was now Mags and her companions’ turn to see what it felt like to be shot at.

Smith had to grin at this latest development.

Nine

Mist City hadn’t looked very active when Smith first saw it from a distance, but things had certainly picked up in the day or so since he’d been in the place. Not that that was a good thing. Getting captured and almost killed—or whatever Allison and her kids had planned for him—hadn’t been “good” at all, and nearly getting his head shot off with rifles just now had been even less “good.”

Still, he had to admit, things were getting interesting, and it had been a while since Smith had “interesting” to look forward to. The last time his adrenaline was pumping this wildly was during the action in the days after Darby Bay, when Black Tide soldiers were scouring the Texas countryside for remnants of Buck’s Mercerian army. Or what the bastards were calling an “army,” anyway.

Darby Bay. Mercerians. A flood of ghouls that seemed to have come out of nowhere.

All those things seemed like another lifetime ago, now. They were also ones Smith would rather forget.

He inched out of his hiding spot, as careful not to make any sound now as he had for the last ten minutes or so. Mags and her friends were concentrated around the inner doors of the Archers, clearly trying to keep whoever was out there, well, out there. Smith could hear the tap-tap-tap of nervous horses on the smooth store tiles all the way from across the store, filling in for the sudden silence. The noise would have been even louder if the animals weren’t unshod.

He assumed the trio at the front wouldn’t forget completely about him and probably had one of them looking out just in case Smith tried to sneak up on them. Which was exactly what he was doing. He stopped briefly and wondered if finding out what was going on was worth the risk, but decided that it was.

If nothing else, at least it’d make the night less boring.

Smith stopped alongside a shelf filled with baseball caps. From his angle, he couldn’t quite see all of the front entrance, but there was enough of it to make out the bobbing heads of two of the three that had entered the store after him. The man was easy to pick out just from his outline alone, and one of the women, the one who had been outside when Mags tried to kill Smith, was blonde. Mags, a brunette, was nowhere to be seen, but Smith assumed she was near the doors if the other two were further back using the counters as cover.

The blonde had been given lookout duty for Smith, which explained why she had her back turned to the other two and her eyes on the rest of the store while they paid attention to the parking lot outside. So he’d been right about that. They hadn’t completely forgotten that he was still in here with them.

He couldn’t hear anything from outside the Archers, but could just barely pick up the trio in front of him whispering back and forth. It was mostly Mags—whom Smith still couldn’t locate—talking with the man. The blonde seemed to be out of the loop and was scanning the Archers with what looked like intense concentration. Looked like, anyway, because he couldn’t really see much of her face. He couldn’t even be certain if she was armed, but what were the chances that she wasn’t?

That’s as unlikely as me going back to the Private Store-It and sweeping Allison off her feet.

Whoever was outside the store hadn’t come in peace. From what Smith could piece together from the little information he had at his disposal, Mags’s people had fired first, and the newcomers had responded. And now the two sides were locked in a stalemate, neither firing again after that brief but hellacious back and forth.

The whole situation was amusing to Smith, even if he was certain it wasn’t so much for Mags and the other two. But hey, they had tried to kill him not more than ten minutes earlier, so he couldn’t quite muster the sympathy for them.

He was still pondering his next move when he heard the faint tap-tap-tap of footsteps—except it wasn’t coming from the horses like last time.

He glanced to his right, away from the trio at the front of the store.

There. Movements—very, very quiet movements, but not quite quiet enough—coming from the back of the store.

Footsteps.

Soft, deliberate footsteps.

Human footsteps.

He turned back toward Mags and her friends. Their shadowed outlines remained calm, oblivious to the newcomers. Well, the man and the blonde’s outlines, anyway. Smith still couldn’t make out Mags anywhere.

Smith tried to get a better look at the blonde, but she had chosen a good spot next to the counter. If not for the color of her hair, Smith wouldn’t have been able to convincingly assume she was a woman at all.

He refocused on the back of the store, which was closer.

The footsteps were still there—as quiet as before, and still not as completely silent as whoever was making them thought they were being. Smith had to admit, they were doing a damn good job of advancing while staying undetected by the blonde. Whoever they were, they’d found a way into the store that he had missed. Either that, or the entrance was somewhere on the other side of the building that he hadn’t had the chance to search yet.

Smith couldn’t make out how many of them there were. It could be just one or two, or more. But that was just a guess, because they were still too well-hidden even from him. He wondered who was going to spot them first—him or the blonde?

The answer came when Smith glimpsed two shadowy forms emerging out of the pitch-dark back half of the Archers. His eyes picked them up as they appeared in his line of sight and crouched next to a shelf filled with Levi’s. They couldn’t have been more than twenty meters from where Smith sat, as silent and still as a popsicle mouse. He might not have even seen them at all if they weren’t almost exactly parallel to him. They were also closer to the front doors than he was at the moment.

Smith turned back to the blonde, who was staring in the wrong direction. Smith could just make out the shape of a rifle—or maybe that was a shotgun—in her hands.

Turn your head, blondie.

He wasn’t sure why he had even thought that. It wasn’t like the trio’s fate mattered to him, not after that barrage of bullets they’d unleashed on him earlier.

All that shooting…

Smith wondered if that was how the other group had found Mags and her companions. No doubt all that gunfire could be heard for miles. So when you got right down to it, the trio’s current troubles were almost entirely their own fault. Smith hadn’t asked them to try to murder him.

He was very willing to sit back and watch the events unfold, until he saw the blonde stand up, a pool of moonlight from the front doors splashing over her. The light also revealed her face to Smith for the first time.

She was just a kid. She was just a goddamn kid.

Smith wasn’t the only one who saw the girl standing up. The two bozos in front of him did, too, and they ducked down as the blonde scanned the darker section of the Archers in front of her. Had she noticed them after all?

“Donna, get back down!” a voice hissed. It was Mags, somewhere closer to the front doors but still invisible to Smith.

The girl, Donna, turned around to look back at Mags—or where Smith assumed the other woman was. “I think I saw something, Mags.”

“Where?” a third voice asked. The man.

Donna was about to answer when one of the two silhouettes across from Smith raised himself up from the floor into a kneeling position. The long shape of a rifle appeared in his hands a second later, and just as Smith figured out what was about to happen—but before he could decide if he should shout out a warning or not—there was a loud pop! and Donna fell down.

“Donna!” Mags shouted.

Smith finally saw Mags again, lunging to her feet near the front doors, and running toward where Donna had fallen back into the shadows. The woman didn’t seemed overly concerned about exposing herself. Smith had to admit that was damn courageous on her part. Either they were related or were close friends. Either way, Mags was determined to get to Donna, despite knowing what had just happened.

Pop-pop-pop! as the same shooter fired again, and he was soon joined by his buddy. They were both on their knees now, stabs of flame spitting from their rifles as they shot at the running Mags, who wasn’t deterred by the volley of lead being directed at her. She didn’t jump behind one of the counters for cover or even bother lowering her profile. She wanted—she needed—to get to Donna, and nothing would stop her. Not even a hail of bullets.

Goddamn. Now that’s impressive.

For a split second, Smith thought about giving the woman a helping hand. He wasn’t a fan of guys sneaking up on someone. That was cowardly, if you asked him, and Smith had been trained by people to have some sort of standards when it came to warfare. Then again, he’d been in more than one situation where it was preferable to sneak up and shoot someone in the back, especially if it meant saving lives.

But there was also something to be said about doing nothing and keeping your own head attached. This wasn’t his problem. He didn’t know Mags and the others from Adam, and he was still smarting over the fact they’d tried to kill him for no reason. Her and the guy in her group.

Speaking of the guy, where was he now? Shouldn’t he be lending a hand? Or providing some kind of covering fire for Mags?

Just as that last thought raced across Smith’s mind, he heard the sudden roar of brap-brap-brap-brap! as the guy’s full-auto weapon opened up in the direction of the attackers.

Both men lunged to the floor and began crawling away as bullets ping-ping-pinged! off metal racks and pek-pek-pekked into wooden shelves around them. Even more ripped into hanging clothes and littered the air around them with clouds made of shredded fabric.

The brap-brap-brap-brap! of the man’s continuous gunfire was thunderous and impossibly fast. Too fast. That was the problem with squeezing everything out in one burst—you ran out of bullets faster than you would have if you’d gone the semiauto route.

In the aftermath of the man’s relentless full-auto fire, the only sounds Smith could hear were metal ranks clanging against the floor and the thunks of broken wood toppling over. Pieces of fabric continued to flutter in the air like millions of down pillow feathers, making it difficult for him to relocate the two attackers—

There’s Waldo.

They were both very much alive and still crawling their way to safety. One went away from Smith, but the second one was crawling right toward him.

Wrong direction, dude.

The man was on his belly, his chest raised slightly as he scrambled away from his old spot. He had his rifle—an AR-15—in front of him, gripping it with both hands like he was back at basic training and crawling underneath barbed wire.

Definitely wrong direction, my dude.

The man suddenly stopped, looked up, and locked eyes with Smith.

Smith wasn’t sure how long they stared at one another. Maybe it was just a few seconds or even less than that.

Maybe just a heartbeat.

Or half of one.

The attacker was scrambling to get up on his knees while fumbling with his rifle when his head disappeared in a shower of buckshot.

Ten

The boom! of Smith’s shotgun might not have been as loud if Mags’s male companion were still firing his rifle on full-auto. But the man had stopped, likely to reload, and it was suddenly very quiet again except for the falling racks and displays when Smith unloaded on one of the attacker’s faces.

Smith was on his feet and scrambling away from his spot a second later, waiting for Mags’s guy pal to try to pick him off. The trio wouldn’t know that Smith had just helped them out. Not that that had been his intention, of course, but it had ended up serving the same purpose anyway.

And Smith did hear the renewed brap-brap-brap-brap of full-auto fire, except the bullets weren’t buzzing around his head.

Well, at least he’s not shooting at me!

Smith didn’t stop until he’d retreated almost all the way to the fishing area again and slid up against a row of plastic baits. The Archers had gone silent once more, Mags’s partner having stopped shooting almost as quickly as he’d let loose the second time. He couldn’t have been out of bullets again, could he?

Maybe, maybe not. Smith wasn’t going to find out, though.

At the moment, there was just silence except for Smith’s slightly accelerated heartbeat. If nothing else, at least all the running and shooting had taken his mind off his hunger.

His stomach growled as soon as he thought that.

Or not.

Smith moved to another shelf just in case someone had heard his gut rumbling a second earlier. It was highly unlikely, but the store was so quiet that Smith wasn’t willing to take any chances. He would just hate to find himself on the wrong end of that full-auto rifle once again.

He had located a new spot when he heard the pop-pop-pop of a semiautomatic rifle firing. Like the last volley of bullets, these weren’t directed at him. He learned where they were being sent when there was return fire from outside. The parking lot.

Then, out of nowhere, a man’s voice shouting, “Your boys are dead, Freddy! Send more of them in here, and I’ll kill them, too! You hear me? Come on in if you want! I’ll kill you, too! I’ll kill you fuckers!”

Someone’s mad. Either that, or he’s doing a really good job of selling the tough guy.

The voice had come from inside the store, near the front entrances, so it had to be Mags’s friend. The “boys” he was talking about were, of course, the two attackers that had snuck into the store unnoticed until they shot Donna. (Gotta find the back door that they used…) But Smith found the guy’s comments amusing.

“Your boys are dead, Freddy! Send more of them in here, and I’ll kill them, too!” the man had said. He was taking credit for the one Smith had shotgunned in the face also, not that Smith was going to correct him.

Right now, he was still trying to decide his next course of action—

“Don’t fucking move,” a voice said from behind him. “You fucking even twitch, and I’ll blow your fucking head off.”

Fuck.

Me.

Mags. It had to be Mags. The voice was female, and Smith knew for a fact Donna was in no position to sneak up on him or anyone else. If the kid was even still alive.

“The shotgun,” Mags said. She was almost whispering, which was why he wasn’t sure it was Mags in the beginning.

Dammit. How’d she get so close?

“Put it on the floor,” Mags said. Then, before he could act on her command, “Slowly.”

Well, at least she hasn’t shot me yet.

Yet.

He bent his knees, then laid the shotgun down on the smooth floor. His right hand was very close to his waist, and all it would have taken was barely one-tenth of a heartbeat to grab the SIG Sauer from its holster and…turn around.

Yeah, he wasn’t going to be able to make both moves. He was fast enough that Smith was convinced he could reach the gun, but it was the twisting around to take aim at Mags that was going to take more speed than he could muster—

“Go ahead,” Mags said.

Smith froze.

“I know you want to,” the woman continued. “Go ahead and see where it gets you.”

He smiled, knowing that Mags couldn’t see it. He’d been pretty impressed with her when he saw her running toward the fallen Donna despite all the gunfire directed at her, and now she’d found some way to sneak up on him. And then she’d even known what he was thinking while not being able to see his face.

Smart woman.

Then: What’s the deal with all the smart women in this city wanting to kill me?

Instead of going for his holstered sidearm, Smith lifted both hands into the air and held them high. “Don’t shoot.”

“Get up,” she said.

He did, keeping both arms as high as possible. “I saved your life.”

Mags didn’t reply and Smith thought, She knows about the guy I killed. Either she deduced it by the headless body or—

Yeah, she probably deduced it from the headless body.

Whether she believed him or not, Smith decided to jump feet first into his story. After all, what did he have to lose? If Mags had wanted to shoot him, she could have already done it. But she hadn’t, which meant she wasn’t sure about his loyalties. That just further convinced him she’d already found the shotgunned attacker.

“I didn’t have to do it,” Smith said. “But I did. Even after you and your buddy tried to kill me.”

Mags still didn’t say anything, and he learned why when a hand snatched the shotgun off the floor next to him, and she immediately retreated. He hadn’t heard her at all, and when Smith turned his head to look back, saw why: She was standing behind him in her socks. Her shoes were tied together by the shoelaces and hung off one shoulder.

He grinned, and thought, Goddamn, she’s smart.

Smith looked up at her face. She was probably in her early thirties, with short brown hair and equally brown eyes. She wore jeans and a long-sleeve plaid shirt, and if he had any doubts that she could shoot him dead at any time, all he had to do was pay attention to the way she held the AR-15 in her hands while peering at him from behind the iron sights.

“I’m not your enemy,” Smith said.

“Then what are you?” she asked.

“I’m just looking for supplies, that’s all. If you’d introduced yourself earlier, we would have gotten along. I wouldn’t have shot first.”

“You know who doesn’t shoot first out here?”

Smith had a feeling he knew the answer to that, but he asked anyway (because he wanted to keep her talking). “No. Who?”

“Dead people.”

Yeah, he knew that was coming.

He said, “Speaking of which, who are those guys trying to kill you and your friends?”

“That’s none of your business,” Mags said.

“You don’t think so? What about their friends? What—”

“Mags!” a voice shouted from all the way across the store. It was the man. “Mags!”

“I’m good!” Mags shouted back. “I got him!”

“Tell him I saved your life,” Smith said.

“Shut the hell up.”

She hadn’t lowered her rifle even a little bit. If Smith had to guess, she was still trying to decide whether to shoot him now or later.

He said, hoping to change her mind, “How’s your friend?”

“What?” Mags said.

“Donna.”

Mags squinted at him from behind her weapon. “How do you know her name?”

“The guy shouted it out.”

“Well, she’s fine.”

“She’s hurt.”

“She’ll be fine.”

“I’m just saying, you’re down to two able bodies.” Smith turned all the way around, keeping both hands raised high. “How many are out there?”

“That’s none of your concern.”

“More than two? More than five?”

He was just throwing out numbers, but he had a feeling he was close.

And Mags hadn’t done or said anything to convince him otherwise.

“I’m just saying,” Smith continued, “that you can use another gun.”

“You?” Mags said. She might have almost smirked.

He shrugged. “Why not?”

“We almost killed you.”

“Yeah, you did. But I can overlook that.”

“Why would you?”

“Look, can I lower my hands? They’re getting tired.”

“No.”

“Pretty please?”

“You want me to shoot you?”

“Of course not.”

“Then keep those hands up there.”

Smith sighed. “You need my help. We both know it.”

Mags didn’t respond. Maybe she was actually starting to think about his proposal. Or maybe he was reading her body language all wrong. Right now, she could be trying to decide where to shoot him for maximum pain, for all he knew.

“I’m not a bad guy,” Smith said. “I was just looking for supplies when we, uh, met. That’s it. I’m not your enemy. I don’t want to be your enemy.”

“So why would you want to help us?”

“’Cause I get the feeling whoever’s out there isn’t going to just let me walk out of here, especially after I killed one of theirs. The way I see it, you’re my best shot at seeing morning. Look, I’m just looking out for myself here. It’s win-win for the both of us.”

She didn’t answer, and he could almost see the cogs turning behind her eyes.

Smith decided to keep going for it. “You know I’m right. We need each other. I want to get out of here, and so do you. I figured, together, we have a better chance. Am I right or wrong?”

She remained quiet.

“Right?” Smith persisted.

“Right,” she finally said.

Then, she did what he was hoping for and lowered her rifle.

Smith breathed a sigh of relief and slowly put down his hands. He could have gone for the SIG Sauer then and there but decided against it. While he was trying to convince Mags, he had ended up convincing himself.

There was little chance that whoever was out there was going to let him just walk out of this place. Even if they didn’t know he’d shotgunned one of their friends to death, there would be a lot of questions and suspicion, and those things might lead to them deciding Smith wasn’t their friend. Not that Smith thought his odds were better with Mags and her companions, but it was better than getting shot by her.

“Don’t make me regret this,” Mags said.

“No, ma’am,” Smith said.

She sat down on the floor and untied her shoelaces before putting her well-worn sneakers back on. The soles were caked with dry mud. “I’m Margo.”

“John Smith.”

She stared at him.

“What?” Smith said.

“John Smith? That’s what you’re going with?”

“It’s my name.”

She got up and walked over, handing him back his shotgun. “So, that’s a yes. That is what you’re going with.”

“A name’s a name, is a name.”

He could see it in her face—Margo was about to keep bugging him about his name—when her male friend from the front doors called out, “Mags!”

“That’s Clark,” Margo said before turning and jogging toward the sound of Clark’s voice.

Smith followed on her heels. What was he going to do, hide in the back of the Archers while she and her friend fought off this Freddy guy’s attacks? Right now, keeping however many guns out there out there was good for his own hide, too.

“Coming back!” Margo shouted. “What’s happening?”

“They’re coming in!” Clark shouted back just before he opened fire.

Eleven

Clark, Margo’s male friend, had switched to semiauto as Smith followed Margo back to the front entrance of the Archers. Margo was in excellent shape as she maneuvered around random piles of clothing and other debris on the floor, and Smith struggled to stay with her. Of course, she was only carrying a gun belt with some pouches, along with her rifle, while Smith had his pack and everything inside it.

Yeah, that’s why. It’s definitely not because she’s faster than me.

Nope. Nosirree.

By the time they reached Clark, Smith was already slightly winded, but Margo seemed fine. She went into a quick crouch next to the guy, who was leaning over the side of a counter to get a better view of the parking lot beyond the blown-apart entry doors. Clark heard Smith coming and glanced over, saw Smith, and started to turn around with his rifle.

“Clark, no,” Margo said. Then, when Clark gave her a puzzled look, Margo said, while looking over at Smith, “We have an understanding.”

“What kind of understanding?” Clark asked.

“The let’s-all-get-out-of-this-alive kind,” Smith said as he walked the rest of the way over.

There was fresh blood on the floor where Donna had fallen. Smith tracked the drips to the girl herself, lying nearby on the carpeted part of the store where the gym equipment was. She was squeezed in between two treadmills and looked unconscious. There was a big bundle of bandage around her left shoulder; not the best-looking field tourniquet Smith had ever seen, but apparently it did the job.

“She okay?” Smith asked.

“She’ll live,” Clark said.

He was a big, strapping guy, probably over six feet tall, and even broader in the shoulders than when Smith had seen him from afar. He had the kind of square jaw Smith had only seen in comic books, not to mention piercing blue eyes.

Right now, those eyes were narrowing in Smith’s direction. “You shot one of them.”

Smith nodded. “That’s why I’m in here with you and not out there. I don’t think they’re going to look too fondly on me shotgunning one of their guys in the face.”

“No, I don’t suspect they would,” Clark said. He turned to Margo. “A couple of them made a run for the door, but I sent them scurrying back.”

Margo nodded and peered above the counter at the parking lot. Smith walked over to join them.

The parking lot would have been pitch-black if not for the bright moonlight above it, allowing Smith to see the vehicles sprinkled out there, along with black head-shaped objects peeking over or around them. The combination of nightfall and mists made it difficult to make out how many bobbing heads were looking back at him. They were also keeping a respectable distance, which didn’t help.

Farther back in the wide open space of the lot were ghostly silhouettes. Those would be the attackers’ horses, grazing on the grass alongside the street. Smith couldn’t get a firm number on the animals, either. Half a dozen? A dozen?

“How many are out there?” Smith asked.

“Ten, I think,” Clark said.

“Ten?” Margo said, looking over at Clark for confirmation.

The man nodded. “Around there.”

“That’d be all of them.”

“Yup.”

“Shit. I was hoping it wouldn’t be all of them.”

“Yeah, me too,” Clark said.

The disappointed look on Margo’s face, coupled with Clark’s regretful tone, made Smith think they had some inside baseball knowledge about the attackers that they weren’t sharing with him. He waited for them to do so, but neither did.

Smith said, “Is that ten more, or they came here with ten, and are now down to eight or so?”

“The former,” Clark said.

Ten or more. Dammit. Maybe I chose the wrong team.

After all, even though he’d told Clark that the gang outside wouldn’t welcome him with open arms after he had killed one of theirs, they didn’t necessarily know that. Smith was well aware of that fact himself and had only mentioned it to convince Clark that he wasn’t a threat.

Maybe it wasn’t too late to change rosters…

“Hey,” Margo said. Then, when Smith looked over, “I need you to find out how those two got in here. There has to be a back door.”

“Pretty sure there is,” Smith said.

“You were here before us. Where is it?”

“My guess would be somewhere in the shoe area. I was on my way there when you opened up on me.”

“I need you to find out for sure and deal with it.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Smith said, probably with a little more sass than he had intended. “Anything else you’d like me to do while I’m doing that, ma’am?”

Margo narrowed her eyes. “Just that for now, smartass.”

Smith grinned before jogging away from them. He didn’t mind securing the back—it was the first thing on his mind anyway. In fact, he was surprised that whoever this Freddy was, he hadn’t sent more people in through the same rear exit. Maybe he thought Margo and Clark would have been ready for it after the first attempt.

He darted around still-standing racks and through aisles to reach his destination faster. A few seconds faster, anyway. The left side of the Archers was still in one piece, unlike the right half, which had taken a pounding from gunfire and, well, a lot more gunfire.

Smith reached the shoe section and slowed down, then cautiously picked his way between shelves toward the back.

There, an open door into an employees only room.

Smith peeked into the hallway, then spent the next thirty or so seconds listening for sounds of more attackers in the area. When he couldn’t pick up any, he went inside, then cleared two rooms—an employee lounge and a small bathroom. There was a metal door at the end with a sign marked exit on top of it. Smith hurried over and shoved the deadbolt into place, then just to be sure, dragged a vending machine out of the break room and pushed it against the door. That solo effort took a lot of sweat and made a lot more noise than he would have liked, but he got the job done. The machine wasn’t going to stand up against a sustained assault on the door, but it would last long enough for him to run over and defend it in case of an attack.

That done, Smith headed back. On the way, he tried to remember if there was another way into the Archers. A second rear entrance/exit? A side door, perhaps? He’d been through his share of Archers, but he’d never really combed every inch of them. They were just too vast. Maybe not as big as a Walmart, but they weren’t convenience stores, either. And while most of the outlets he’d visited in the past shared almost identical layouts, there was always the possibility of a variation in the blueprints…

He made a mental note to be sure, later. For now, his hunger was killing him, and his stomach growled loudly as he approached Margo and Clark. The duo had split off and were hiding behind separate counters, with open space between them and the doors in front.

Margo glanced over as Smith approached her. “What was all that noise?”

“I barricaded the back exit,” Smith said.

“Could you make more noise?” Clark asked.

Smith rolled his eyes, though he didn’t think Clark could see it in the semidarkness of the Archers. “Got the job done. Relax.”

“Relax,” Clark said. “Yeah, right.”

Smith crouched next to Margo and peered out at the parking lot. It was more lifeless now than the last time he looked out. If he didn’t already know there were men hiding behind the vehicles, he’d think it was just the three of them in the whole city watching an empty patch of concrete pavement. The clouds of mist had shifted again, taking away his vision of the horses.

“They still out there?” Smith asked just to be sure.

“Of course they’re still out there,” Margo said. “What did you think, they’re going to give up and run off?”

“I was hoping.” He glanced over at Donna’s sleeping form nearby. “How’s the kid doing?”

“We gave her some morphine for the pain and sedatives so she could get some rest. She’s okay, but she lost a lot of blood.”

“Is she your sister?”

“No.”

He waited for Margo to continue, but she didn’t.

Before he could ask another question, Smith caught a flurry of movement from the corner of his eye and glanced out at the parking lot just as a dark figure popped up from behind a truck and raced forward.

Clark stood up and fired twice at the man. He missed with both rounds but did send the figure scurrying behind another, closer vehicle.

Pop-pop-pop! as half a dozen rifles returned fire into the store.

Bullets pek-pek-pekked into the counters, most missing and disappearing into the darkness of the store behind Smith. Freddy’s men stopped firing after a few seconds, leaving glass to pelt the outer lobby. Smith was surprised there was even any glass left hanging off those frames to fall.

Then, when the last shot faded and the world was silent again, Smith said, “So. Who’s Freddy?”

“He’s an asshole,” Clark said.

“Can you elaborate on that?”

“He’s a fucking asshole.”

“What I’m getting out of this is that Freddy is not your friend, Clark.”

Clark snorted but didn’t say anything else.

Smith looked over at Margo, crouched next to him, but she apparently didn’t have anything to add to their conversation.

She said instead, “Do you have a rifle?”

Smith shook his head and tapped the shotgun. “Just this and a pair of handguns. And I didn’t even have them until a few hours ago.”

Margo gave him a disbelieving look. “You’ve been walking around out there without a weapon until now?”

Smith thought about Allison and her “kids.”

He said, “It’s a long story.”

“I’m sure it is.”

“Probably not half as interesting as yours and this Freddy character, though.”

“No, probably not.”

Again, he waited for her to elaborate.

And again, she didn’t.

Like pulling teeth with these two.

Smith said, “You guys, uh, wouldn’t happen to have anything to eat, would you? I’m starving.”

As soon as he said it, his stomach growled again, this time longer and, if possible, louder.

“How long has it been?” Margo asked.

“Just a day,” Smith said.

Margo nodded at the horses loitering in the nearby gym area. “Supply saddles. Help yourself.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Smith said, and started to get up.

“Don’t eat everything,” Clark said.

Smith nodded at Margo. “She said to help myself.”

“That doesn’t mean to eat everything we have.”

“What does it mean?”

“Eat until you’re not hungry anymore, then stop. We’re not made of food, John Smith.”

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out,” Smith said.

He walked over to where the animals were, his stomach growling again at the prospect of food. He passed Donna, who hadn’t woken up despite the additional gunfire. She looked even younger than Smith had originally thought, and couldn’t have been older than fifteen.

The horses fidgeted as he approached them, but they calmed down quickly. That wasn’t a surprise. They hadn’t run when all the shooting began, which probably meant they were used to being around violence.

Smith found a supply bag draped over one of the saddles and pulled it down. He had no idea if it was Clark’s, or Margo’s, or Donna’s, and he didn’t care. He was starving and found a bag of jerky. He could tell by the smell that it was deer meat. It was a bit hard on the teeth, but he tore it up and relished the taste.

He finished up the first one and was reaching for a second piece when he heard the sudden pop-pop-pop of rifles mixed with the bang-bang! of handguns. Smith reflexively ducked down next to one of the horses, until the realization hit him that no one was shooting at him.

The shooting was coming from outside, in the parking lot, but the rounds weren’t being directed at the store.

Now what?

Twelve

Smith was chewing on the second stick of jerky when he hurried back to the front of the store and crouched next to Margo. She was still looking over the counter at the parking lot outside. Smith could see muzzle flashes in the darkness, like firecrackers popping inside the thick, swirling mist, but he couldn’t tell what they were shooting at. A few stray rounds pekked against the brick-and-mortar wall outside the store, but it was clear they were accidental and not intended for them.

“What are they shooting at?” Smith asked.

“Ghouls,” Margo said.

Ghouls. Shit.

For some reason, Smith was surprised to hear that nightcrawlers had finally come out to play. But the more he thought about it, the more he realized it was an inevitability. Even if there were just a few of the undead things in Mist City, they would have heard all the gunfire and would be drawn to the hotbed of action like moths to flames.

But he asked anyway, “Are you sure?”

Margo nodded. “Saw a couple of them running across the parking lot.”

“How many?”

“A dozen. Maybe more. But not—”

Margo didn’t finish, because the shooting had stopped. The last shot echoed, then faded…and there was just the sound of the three of them breathing inside the Archers again.

Smith could just barely glimpse a couple of figures moving around in the mist, possibly dragging something on the ground with them. Were they moving bodies? And if so, were those human or ghoul corpses?

“Silver bullets?” Smith asked.

Margo nodded. “What idiot would run around out here without silver weapons?”

Smith grinned and thought, Me, for one, though of course that wasn’t the case before he ran across Allison at the Private Store-It.

But he kept that to himself and focused on the seemingly empty world outside. No, not really empty. There was still a hell of a lot of mist. Too much to see anything besides flashes of movement. Clark, nearby, almost fired a couple of times but always held back when the silhouettes vanished, only to reappear somewhere else.

Smith was thinking about the ghouls that had attacked Freddy’s group—and from the sounds of it, had been dispatched—when he glanced in the direction of the rear door that he had just barricaded.

“What?” Margo said.

“I was just thinking,” Smith said.

“About what?”

“Where you find one ghoul, you usually find more. And they love cities.”

“Yeah, they do.” She seemed to think about something for a moment. Then, “Is there another way into this place? Besides the one you already dealt with?”

“I don’t know. I was still searching the building when you guys showed up. I don’t think there is, but…”

“But what?”

“But I can’t be sure. Like I said—”

“You didn’t get a chance to go over the place before we showed up.”

“Yeah.”

“What’s going on?” Clark asked.

Margo shook her head at him. “Maybe there’s another way in. Smith’s right; if there’s one ghoul nest, there’s usually more. This is a big city. The ones that showed up can’t possibly be all of them.”

“You think more might be on the way?”

“Or already here.”

That prompted Smith to sniff the air, but there was nothing in the place that he hadn’t already smelled earlier: sweat, blood, and gunpowder.

But none of the rotting, garbage stench of ghoul presence. The creatures gave off an unmistakable odor, the kind of violating stench that once you got a taste of it you could never, ever forget.

And Smith didn’t detect that now.

Not yet, anyway.

“What is it?” Margo asked.

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

“All I smell is gunpowder.”

“Yeah, me too.” And the blood and the sweat, Smith thought but didn’t add. He looked past the front doors and into the parking lot and said instead, “Let’s hope however many of them showed up, they took a couple of Freddy’s boys with them.”

“Let’s hope,” Margo said, though she didn’t seem to have that much faith.

“Who is this Freddy guy, anyway?”

Margo didn’t answer, and neither did Clark across from them, even though he clearly had also heard the question.

“Look,” Smith said, “if I’m going to fight this guy, I should at least know something about him.”

Margo still didn’t say anything, and Clark seemed to be dead set on pretending he hadn’t heard any of Smith’s questions.

“Freddy—” Smith began.

“—will kill all of us and won’t lose any sleep over it,” Margo said, cutting him off.

Well, at least she’s talking now.

He said, “So you know him.”

“Yes,” Margo said.

“How?”

“We used to run together,” Clark said.

Smith looked over at him. “Run together how?”

“There was a time when we depended on one another for our survival,” Margo said. “We watched each other’s backs. We fought together—against humans and ghouls.”

“So what happened?”

“Everything went to shit, is what happened,” Clark said.

“Can you be a little more specific?”

“No,” Margo said. She pulled her rifle off the counter where it’d been lying and sat down on the floor with her back against the display. “All you need to know is that he’s a vicious fuck and he didn’t come here to make friends.”

Jesus Christ, Smith thought, chastising himself for not hiding in the back room when the trio started exchanging gunfire with Freddy’s crew earlier.

Would that really have been any better, though? If he couldn’t find a way out, he’d still be stuck in the Archers once Freddy’s two shooters had taken care of Margo and her friends. He’d never know—

Wait.

…hiding in the back room…

Like a warehouse where inventory was kept. Those always had their own entrances and exits. There wasn’t always one—especially if it was a smaller Archers—but this one was just big enough…

Shit.

Smith got up. “I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?” Margo asked.

“There’s another back hallway behind the fishing gear. There might be a warehouse on the other side. I have to make sure either way.”

“Hey,” Margo said. Then, when Smith looked back, she drew her knife from a sheath and held it out to him grip first. “I’m guessing that knife isn’t silver?”

Smith took her blade. “No. And thanks.”

He took out the one in his sheath and put it on the counter, then slid hers in its place. Not a perfect fit, but it would do.

“What are you strapped with?” she asked.

“SIG Sauer,” Smith said.

“No, I mean, what caliber.”

He patted his hip holster. “Forty-five.” Then, patting the other SIG behind his back, “Nine mil.”

“I only have spare nine mils in my pack. You can have some of them when you get back.”

“Thanks again.”

She nodded. “Be careful.”

“I didn’t think you cared.”

“I don’t.”

He grinned before hurrying off.

Don’t let there be a warehouse, Smith thought. No warehouse. No warehouse!

But no matter how hard he wanted to believe that, Smith had a feeling he was going to be disappointed. This Archers was just too big not to have its own surplus inventory stacked in a big warehouse next door.

Shit. There’s a warehouse. I just know it…

He slowed down when he reached the fishing aisle and walked between shelves filled with hard and soft bait. Unlike other parts of the Archers, this area hadn’t seen much looting, probably because very few people had uses for fishing gear these days. Smith didn’t need them either, but only because his time on Black Tide Island had taught him to fish with nothing but a string and a stick. That, and just about anything could be used as bait. He didn’t need fancy glowing lobsters or worms—

Smith stopped in his tracks, his right hand immediately reaching across his body for Margo’s knife. He drew it slowly, making as little noise as possible.

The air. Something had changed in the air.

His nostrils began to twitch, and the skin along his cheeks—as well as the rest of his face—started to tingle at a growing and very familiar smell.

Goddammit. Why couldn’t I be wrong for once?

He twisted, stabbing upward as the creature lunged down at him from one of the shelves. The ghoul let out something that almost sounded like a shriek as Smith’s knife plunged into its chest. The point of the blade easily broke through the emaciated thing’s weak cavity, a combination of Smith’s swinging momentum and the monster’s falling motion.

The knife cut its way through the creature’s body and out the back, even as the rest of the ghoul’s skeletal form sank down the length of Smith’s arm. It was difficult to gauge the size of the nightcrawler because every inch of it was so pruned and unnaturally shrunk, as if it had been soaking in water for years. It should have weighed more than it did, but the monsters were always impossibly light. That weightlessness was why they were always so fast and quiet when they moved.

The creature wasn’t so quiet now as its body slid along Smith’s arm and flopped to the smooth floor with a dull thud, spindly arms and legs splaying out as if in sacrifice. Thick black blood oozed out of the gaping hole in its chest and another one in its back, spreading across the glossy tiles. More dripped from Smith’s arm as he sacrificed a second or two to wipe the sludge off on a polyester fishing bib hanging nearby.

He stared down at the creature. It lay still, dead, the silver coating the blade on Margo’s knife having killed it on contact.

As he gazed at the dead thing, the words When there’s one, there’s usually more raced through Smith’s head just before he took one, two, then a half dozen steps backward down the aisle.

He looked up—

—and his eyes widened at the sight of them hopping across the top of the shelves toward him.

Five—ten—too many to count.

They poured out of the dark shadows in waves of pruned black flesh and hollow dark eyes, the air around Smith turning rancid. Breathing through his nostrils suddenly became unbearable.

Smith turned and fled.

Thirteen

The stench was unbearable, like a landfill that had been hidden away in a vault somewhere for thousands of years to rot was suddenly allowed to burst free into the world. It filled up his nostrils, making breathing difficult and forcing him to switch to his mouth again. That didn’t do anything to help with the foul odor clawing at his face, like physical spikes trying to mutilate his flesh and reach the soul underneath.

Smith ran, because he had no other choice. He had a silver-bladed knife, but that was it. He had the shotgun and two handguns, not to mention the spare magazines in the pack thumping against his back. All those things would slow some of them down—some of them—but it wouldn’t stop them. The only thing that could stop a ghoul was silver.

And he was very aware of how heavy the shotgun was, along with the pack.

But especially the shotgun. Damn, it was heavy!

He twisted around until he was backpedaling, threatening to fall down on his ass with every step. By some miracle, he remained upright.

He knew they were back there—he couldn’t just smell them, he could feel them violating the same air that he gasped for—but seeing the horde rushing through the store, crashing into shelves, knocking down racks, and getting netted by layers of clothing almost took his breath away.

It had been too long since he’d come face-to-face with this kind of number. Too, too long. People he knew said there had been thousands, maybe more of them, in Darby Bay during the battle, but Smith hadn’t witnessed it in person. He had arrived too late, after everything was over, after all their friends were gone—

Stop thinking and shoot!

He did, firing and racking, then firing the shotgun again. He had to slow down—but he never stopped—to do it, but that couldn’t be helped. Flames stabbed out of the barrel, and buckshot ripped into black flesh that glistened against the random strays of moonlight pouring in from the high windows. They were spread out, coming at him in a jagged line of spidery legs and wild, swinging arms and deformed heads. A few were missing eyes, others had lost limbs, but none of it stopped them.

They were fast. Too fast.

He pulled the trigger and racked, and pulled the trigger again.

But the shadows continued to spit the creatures out one after another. There weren’t nearly as many as he’d first thought—thirty, maybe forty, if his eyes weren’t deceiving him—but the combination of darkness and the deep, dark black of their skin made it seem as if there were more than there actually were.

At least, Smith hoped he was right.

God, he hoped he was right!

The shotgun ran out of shells faster than he’d anticipated, and rather than reload, Smith tossed the weapon and twisted back around and continued running. He picked up speed with every stride, hearing but not caring to look back as the ghouls continued their pursuit.

He didn’t bother shouting at Margo and Clark to alert them that he was coming. They would have heard the shotgun blasts by now unless they were—

The pop-pop-pop of gunfire coming from the parking lot to his left signaled that Freddy’s crew was, once again, fighting for their lives. Which meant the horde behind him hadn’t come alone. The ones that hadn’t found their way into the store had gone around it, toward the parking lot—

Something splashed against the back of his neck, and Smith glanced back, just as a ghoul reached for him with bony fingers.

Jesus Christ! How’d it get so close without him realizing it?

He unslung the pack and swung backward with it, knocking away the creature’s outreached arm and nailing it across the elongated head. The impact threw the ghoul off its feet and sideways, sending it crashing into three other nightcrawlers. All four splattered to the floor like wild coyotes in a Looney Tunes cartoon.

Not that Smith expected that small victory to stop the rest.

And indeed, it didn’t.

They were still coming, still spread out, still catching up to him little by little…

He dropped the pack to lessen his load and could instantly feel himself picking up speed. He still had the SIG Sauers and Margo’s knife, and they would have to do. All the extra ammo in the pack wasn’t worth a damn if he didn’t have time to reload. Besides, they weren’t the right bullets anyway, and at this very second he needed the right ones. Badly.

“Get down!” a voice shouted from in front of him.

It was Clark, appearing in the aisle like a ghostly apparition. The big man was lifting his rifle to aim.

Smith did exactly as Clark ordered. He dropped to the floor and slid along the smooth tile, scattering footballs and basketballs and other sports equipment that had fallen off their shelves and into his path.

Almost instantly, Clark unloaded, firing on full-auto and oscillating his shots left and right, then right and left. The brap-brap-brap of his continuous gunfire filled Smith’s eardrums as he glided past the shooting man, casings ejecting from Clark’s AR clink-clink-clinking against the floor around them. More than a couple of empty brass casings bounced off Smith’s head, and at least one made its scalding-hot presence felt when it ricocheted off his left cheek.

Smith snapped up to his feet as soon as he was past Clark. He spun around, his hand going for his holstered SIG and drawing it—

Clark flew past him, shouting, “Run, run, run!”

Ghouls. They were coming.

Of course they were still coming.

Except now there weren’t nearly as many. Clark’s gunfire had decimated the creatures, leaving only half—maybe less than that—of their original number. Some of the remaining ghouls were picking themselves up from the floor where they had fallen after tripping or colliding over the bodies of their fallen nightcrawlers. Not that they wasted even a second mourning.

Ghouls didn’t feel. Ghouls didn’t care about anything but reaching their prey.

And right now, that was him.

Smith shot the closest ghoul in the head, punching out its right eye. That didn’t even slow it down. The damned thing’s head snapped back briefly, but it never lost its stride.

Smith turned and ran after Clark.

“Incoming!” Clark shouted.

Smith didn’t have to wonder who Clark was shouting at. That would be Margo, waiting for them near the front entrances. She had stayed behind to watch the doors while Clark came over to assist him. There was no fear in Margo’s face as she waited, patiently, for them to reach her.

Margo lifted her rifle and took aim, but she didn’t fire until Clark—then Smith—had run past her. Then she opened up, the pop-pop-pop of her shots ringing out almost in sync to the battle going on outside in the parking lot at the same time.

Clark, in front of Smith, stopped and spun around and began reloading his rifle. “The doors!” he shouted at Smith.

Smith nodded and ran toward the doors as Clark pulled on his rifle’s charging handle and stepped toward Margo and began firing on semiauto. Ghouls fell in front of them in waves. Margo smashed a nightcrawler in the skull with the butt of her rifle when it got too close, then spun the weapon back around and continued shooting.

Damn, she’s good.

They both were. Margo and Clark didn’t need his help, so Smith focused on the doors. He turned around just as two ghouls bounded across the parking lot, black flesh flickering like glitter underneath the moonlight.

Smith drew his knife as the first ghoul lunged through one of the destroyed inner doors. He kicked it in the chest, and the creature seemed to ricochet off the sole of his Merrells as if it were a beach ball, landing at least ten feet back.

That allowed the second nightcrawler to reach Smith, but he was ready and stabbed it through the forehead. The blade penetrated the skull without much trouble, and blood sprayed a nearby wall in a nasty shade of black when Smith pulled the knife out.

The first creature was already on its feet and coming again. Smith waited for it. Not that he had very long to wait. He grabbed it by the throat as it launched itself at him and sank the knife into its face.

Smith let the lifeless corpse drop to the floor and looked out at the parking lot.

The action outside was just chaotic, with muzzle flashes moving away from the store, almost near the street now. Either Freddy’s boys were running for it, or—No, that was exactly what they were doing. However many were left, they were now fleeing the Archers and the ghouls in the parking lot, firing their weapons as they went. Smith couldn’t make out how many were running or how many undead were in pursuit. There was just too much night and mist.

Not that Smith gave a damn. All that mattered was that the creatures out there weren’t attacking the Archers. Even better, Freddy’s group was drawing the remaining ghouls outside with them from the looks of it.

Better you boys than me.

He turned around just as Margo backed up toward him, ejecting and snapping a new magazine into her rifle. Clark followed, but instead of reloading—or maybe he’d already reloaded but didn’t want to waste a bullet—he had his knife out and was slashing at two ghouls as they threw themselves with wild abandon at him. He got one, and Margo shot the other, clipping it in the shoulder. That was more than enough to introduce the silver-coated bullet into its bloodstream, and the ghoul collapsed to the floor next to Clark’s victim.

Those two were, Smith realized, the last of the wave that had made it inside the Archers.

And he had survived them.

Goddamn, he had survived them!

“Freddy?” Margo was saying, looking back at him.

“Took off, with ghouls in pursuit,” Smith said. He walked over to join her. “My suggestion is to find someplace to hole up in case they come back or more show up. And I’m not talking about Freddy and his boys.”

“I’ll go get Donna,” Clark said. He slung his rifle and hurried past Smith.

Smith looked after the big man and toward the gym area. He had missed it earlier in all the action, but the horses were gone. “Shit. The horses…”

“They smelled the ghouls before you even started shooting,” Margo said. “We tried to stop them, but they stampeded for the door. It was chase after them and confront what was out there, or save your life.”

“Then you made the right choice.”

“We’ll see about that.”

Smith smirked. “How did they get loose?”

“Donna.” Margo sighed. “I guess she didn’t tie them down well enough.”

Margo looked over at the pile of dead ghouls. There were so many of them that they all but covered up the floor, with the fallen clothes around them splattered with so much black liquid it was hard to tell they weren’t black to begin with.

And the smell…

Smith grabbed a shirt from a nearby rack and tied it around his mouth. “The employee lounge in the back. We should go there. It’s defensible.”

“What if Freddy comes back?” Margo asked.

“Assuming he makes it through tonight, you really think he’ll take the risk of coming back here? Before morning?”

She shook her head. “He’s a violent psychopath, but he’s not stupid.”

“Good to know.”

Clark came back with Donna, still unconscious, in his arms.

“Lead the way,” Margo said to Smith.

He did, heading toward the back. Clark followed with Donna, and Margo brought up the rear.

It was quiet inside the store again, except for the sound of their squeaking shoes, but it wasn’t so silent outside. They could still make out the occasional pop of rifle fire, sometimes mixed in with those of handguns. So that meant some of Freddy’s gang were alive.

At least for now.

Smith looked back at Clark, following closely on his heels. “How’s she doing?”

“So far, so good,” Clark said. “I think I might have given her too much sedative, though.”

Smith envied the serene expression on the teenager’s face as she slept. He wondered if she was having a good dream at the moment.

“Thanks for saving my life,” Smith said to the big man.

“Yeah, well, we did try to kill you earlier, so I guess that makes us even,” Clark said.

Smith grinned and thought, We’ll see about that.

Fourteen

Smith opened his eyes sometime in the middle of the night. Clark was sitting on the room’s lone couch across the employee lounge from him, the big man’s eyes closed while the still-unconscious Donna lay with her head in his lap. They were both snoring, Clark’s noticeably louder. They looked natural together, like father and daughter.

It didn’t take Smith very long to find Margo. She was sitting next to the door, her rifle in her lap. Even in the semidarkness, with no lights between them, he could tell that she wasn’t just wide awake but looking back at him.

“Go back to sleep,” Margo said.

“Don’t think that’s gonna happen,” Smith said. He picked himself up from the floor and stretched. “Anything happen while I was out?”

“No signs of ghouls or Freddy.”

“You think he made it?”

“I don’t know. And I don’t care.”

“What are you hoping for?”

“What do you think?”

Smith smiled.

Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.

He walked over to where Margo was sitting and sat down across the door from her. It was locked with a deadbolt, and there was no other way in or out of the room. Smith didn’t like those lack of options, but for tonight it was the best they could get without leaving the Archers in search of a better spot.

He glanced down at his wrist before remembering he didn’t have his Casio anymore and hadn’t had the opportunity to find a replacement. “What time is it?”

“Time for you to get a watch,” Margo said.

Smith grunted. “I had a watch, but someone took it.”

“Who would take a watch from you when there are two-tone gold and diamond Rolexes lying around everywhere?”

“You’d be surprised what kind of weird ass people are out there.”

“You’ve been around,” Margo said. It wasn’t a question.

“So have you.”

She glanced across the room at Clark and Donna, snoring on the sofa in unison. “We all have.”

“So you gonna tell me the story with you guys and Freddy out there?”

“Do you really want to know?”

Smith thought about it. Did he really want to know? He hadn’t really considered the question; it had just seemed like the thing to ask—to collect intel. It was what he’d been taught back at Black Tide: Know your enemy.

But now, looking at Margo, he wasn’t so sure.

Do I really want to know?

For some reason, he said, “Yeah, I do.”

“I told you, we used to run together,” Margo said. “Then things changed.”

“What changed?”

“Darby Bay.”

“Darby Bay, Texas?”

She nodded before giving him a curious gaze. “You know about it, don’t you? You know what happened there.”

That last sentence was another statement. Smith guessed that she could already read the answer on his face.

“I was Black Tide,” Smith said.

“Hunh,” Margo said with a smile.

“What’s so funny?”

“I was on the other side.”

“You’re a Mercerian.”

“Were. But not anymore. Just like you aren’t Black Tide anymore.”

Smith wasn’t sure if he should laugh or cry. He’d run away from Texas to get away from Black Tide—abandoned everything that reminded him of that night that made him question everything he thought he believed in—and here he was, locked in a room with a couple of Mercerians.

What were the chances of this? Maybe one in a million. Or one in a thousand.

Or maybe God was laughing at him. He might be tempted to believe that, if Smith believed in God in the first place.

“You, Clark, and Freddy,” Smith said. “You guys ran with Buck during Darby Bay. Were you also there?”

“We were somewhere else at the time, but we heard about what happened there,” Margo said. “That city changed everything for a lot of people.”

“How did things change for you?”

“Buck going missing, for one. That was a real kick in the ass.”

“You don’t know what happened to him?”

She shook her head. “You?”

“No.”

He had heard rumors in the days and weeks after the battle, but nothing that was ever substantiated. Not that he was in a position where someone would tell him all the latest developments even if they did know about Buck’s true fate. For all Smith knew, the man was still alive somewhere out there. A part of Smith held out hope for that. That way, Smith might, one day, cross paths with the man. There was nothing in this world Smith wanted more than to look Buck in the eyes just before he put a round between them.

“You must know more than I do,” Margo was saying. She was watching him closely. “About Buck. About what happened to him?”

“Just rumors.”

“What kind of rumors?”

“For a while, there were stories that Hartford had tracked him down to someplace in Mexico and taken him out.”

“Who’s Hartford?”

“He was a commander in Black Tide. After Lara went missing, he took over. People said that in the days and weeks after Darby Bay, Hartford made it his mission to find Buck.”

“You don’t know for sure if he did or not?”

“No, just rumors. Any one of them could be true. Or none of them. I left Black Tide a couple of months after Darby Bay. I haven’t spoken or seen anyone from my old unit—or any other unit—since.”

“Why did you leave? I mean, I know why me, Clark, and Freddy did. There were no more Mercerians. After what happened, the fastest way to get killed was to keep wearing those vests with the circled M’s on them. That doesn’t explain why you ditched Black Tide. They were winning, as far as we knew.”

Smith didn’t answer her, but not because he didn’t have an answer. It was very clear to him why he’d left. What wasn’t, though, was how much he wanted to tell this woman he’d only met a few hours ago when she tried to shoot his head off.

“Look, you started this Q&A,” Margo said. She sounded slightly irritated with his silence. “If you don’t want to keep it going, then fine. Just don’t expect—”

“My friends died in Darby Bay,” Smith said. “Then Lara disappeared. And suddenly I didn’t know what I was doing running around in a uniform anymore.” He looked over and held her curious gaze. “It was a moment of clarity that I couldn’t shake. So I left.”

“You were looking for a place to belong when you joined up.”

“Yes. Most of us were.”

“So were we.” She glanced across the room at Clark and Donna. “We just chose the wrong people.”

“We heard stories about some of the things you Mercerians did. Bad shit.”

“Yeah.”

He thought she might continue, but she didn’t. Just that one word: “Yeah.”

He guessed it was enough.

Smith sneaked another look at her and tried to feel something negative about what she used to be. Except there was nothing. He’d abandoned Black Tide just as they had done Buck’s Mercerian army. The situations were different, but Darby Bay had been the breaking point for both of them. He’d seen the port city in the aftermath of the attack. The rubble, the bodies, and all the MIAs that weren’t really missing. People didn’t go “missing” anymore, not with ghouls still out there. The nightcrawlers were lesser in numbers—even if last night made him rethink that notion somewhat—but they hadn’t gone completely extinct. Not yet—and not for a long time yet.

“I hope it’s true,” Margo said after a while.

“What?” Smith asked.

“Buck. I hope those rumors you heard about your side finding him and taking him out are true.”

Smith smiled. “Not a fan of the Buckster anymore, huh?”

“Not anymore, no.”

“So you guys left together? You, Clark, and Freddy?”

She nodded. “It was pretty obvious we were fighting a lost cause. Not that we really knew what the cause was to begin with. None of us were there when Mercer was still alive. We joined later, when Buck recruited us. After he vanished, we got the hell out of there as fast as we could.”

She went quiet for a moment, still staring across at Clark and Donna.

Then: “Every night after Darby Bay, we swore we could hear fighter jets in the sky. None of us even dared to breathe easier until we were out of Texas.”

“So what happened? How’d you and Clark split from Freddy?”

“We had a disagreement.”

“What kind of disagreement?”

“The kind where you see your friends doing shit they shouldn’t be doing, and when you tell them they shouldn’t be doing it, they threaten to shoot you in the face. That kind of disagreement.”

“That sounds like a disagreement, all right.”

“Yeah,” Margo said. And, like last time, she didn’t add anything else.

They sat across the door from one another in silence for a while after that, listening to each other’s breathing, along with Clark’s and Donna’s across from them. The duo had gone to sleep almost right away when they locked the door and hadn’t woken up since.

“They’re tired,” Margo said after a while. “We’re all tired.”

She closed her eyes, only to snap them wide open a moment later, as if catching herself.

“Go to sleep,” Smith said. “I’ll stay up.”

“I’m fine.”

“Now who’s bullshitting?”

“I’m fine,” she said again, adjusting her position against the wall.

“I already got my five hours in. I don’t need more than that.”

“You only need five hours of sleep?”

“That’s about it,” Smith lied. “Go ahead. I’ll wake you up if I feel myself starting to doze off.”

She stayed silent, with both eyes wide open.

“Go on,” Smith said. “If anyone tries to get in through this door, it’s not like you won’t hear it, right?”

“Right,” Margo said.

“So go to sleep. Don’t be such a drama queen.”

She smirked but picked up her rifle and laid it on the floor next to her, then crossed her arms across her chest before closing her eyes. “I’m going to get some quick shut eye. Wake me up in two hours, and we’ll swap guard duty.”

“Sure.”

“Two hours, Smith. I mean it.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Don’t be a smartass.”

Less than two minutes later, she was snoring next to him.

I guess she really was tired, Smith thought, wondering how long she and the other two had been fleeing from their buddy Freddy. However long it’d been, it’d taken its toll on all three of them, from the looks of it.

Smith crawled over to their packs in the corner and went through their supplies. He took out a box of 9mm bullets, then checked the tip for silver. Bingo. He swapped out his holstered SIG’s magazine for the “right” kind of bullets, feeling much, much better when he returned the gun to its housing.

Now he was ready for anything.

Fifteen

It turned out he didn’t need those silver-tipped bullets after all. The night went by without a hitch, and by the time Margo woke up and gave him the evil eye for not waking her earlier, there was already plenty of natural light in the room with them.

“I told you to wake me up so we could swap places,” Margo said.

“There was no point. I wasn’t sleepy, and nothing happened,” Smith said.

It was only partially true. He’d actually napped for about ten minutes or so, about an hour after Margo went to sleep, but had woken back up and didn’t do it again. He didn’t let her know that, though.

Smith stood up and opened the door, then stepped outside into the empty hallway. The Archers interior was flooded with natural sunlight, and he hadn’t gone more than a few feet before he could detect the strong—and very familiar—aroma of vaporized ghoul flesh.

He found the pile of bones where he expected them, strewn across the floor on the other side of the building. The ghouls that were still whole, that had managed to escape the destroying rays of sunlight were hidden in the shadows, giving off the familiar stink of nightcrawler presence. Even in death, they stank to high heaven. Smith considered dragging them out of the darkness to join their bony brethren but decided it wasn’t worth the effort. It wasn’t like they were going to be staying at the Archers for very long anyway.

Smith searched for and found the pack he’d tossed last night lying on the floor among the deformed bones. But when he picked it up, he flinched at the stink of dead ghouls clinging to every inch of fiber. Smith found a fresh replacement from the shelves instead, then transferred the spare magazines and supplies over.

Tired of forcing himself to breathe through his mouth, he grabbed some lightweight masks that covered just the lower half of his face and passed them around to the others. Donna, who was awake and walking again, also took one. Smith also found a Casio wristwatch to replace the one he’d lost at the Private Store-It but had to go hunting for a battery to swap out the dead one.

“I’m sorry about the horses,” Donna said when they were gathered near the front doors.

The half of the teenager’s face that was visible was slightly pink, and she looked older than her fourteen years (according to Margo) this morning. Clark had replaced her bulky tourniquet with a thinner bandage that was hidden underneath her jacket, and she wasn’t wearing the same bloodstained clothes from last night. For someone who had been recently shot, she appeared surprisingly in good shape. Clark and Margo made sure she had taken plenty of pain meds, so that probably had a lot to do with her improved condition.

“Don’t worry about it, kid; the walking will do us good,” Clark said.

Donna nodded, but she wasn’t buying it. She was young, but she wasn’t stupid and knew Clark was just trying to make her feel better.

“Maybe we should stay here awhile,” Margo said. “Those horses can easily outrun ghouls. They might come back here if they think it’s safe to return.”

“How long should we do that?” Clark asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe give it an hour?”

“Or two?”

“Or two,” Margo said, nodding. She looked over at Smith. “Any objections?”

“Walking’s overrated anyway,” Smith said. “I should know; I’ve been walking everywhere since Darby Bay.”

“You were at Darby Bay?” Clark asked.

“Long story,” Margo said to him.

Clark nodded, accepting her I’ll tell you about it later look, but it didn’t stop the big man from giving Smith a suspicious glance anyway.

“Let’s wait two hours to see what shows up,” Margo said.

“I’ll be in the sports department if you need me,” Smith said before walking off.

He found three possible choices to replace his lost hat, all Kansas State Wildcats merchandise. He tried a purple one with the wildcat logo at the front first, using a small mirror on top of one of the racks to check out the fit.

“It looks good on you,” a voice said from behind him.

Smith tilted the mirror slightly to pick up Donna. The teenager was sifting through some jerseys behind him. He still couldn’t get past how much younger she looked in the morning sunlight. Donna was going through the wide selection of sports clothing without any real enthusiasm, which told him she was just keeping busy so this—whatever “this” was that was about to take place between them—didn’t get too awkward.

I think it’s too late for that, kid.

“You think so?” Smith said anyway.

“Uh huh,” Donna said. “But I’d go for the black and white one myself.”

Smith tossed the purple cap and tried on the black and white one. The fit was too snug, though.

“Thanks, for last night,” Donna said.

“What happened last night?”

“You know, saving us.”

“Who told you that?”

“Margo.”

“She said I saved you guys?”

The teenager nodded. “Didn’t you?”

“She overexaggerated. I just did my part.”

It wasn’t like I had a choice, Smith thought but didn’t add. Last night had been an alliance of convenience, and he was surprised Margo had seen it any other way. She didn’t really think he had saved them, did she?

“Maybe,” Donna was saying. “But thanks anyway, just the same.”

“Sure.” Then, when Donna gave up pretending to look for jerseys and turned to go, he said, “She your mom? Margo?”

Donna gave him a surprised look that quickly turned into a smile. “Why? Do we look like mother and daughter?”

“I don’t know. Kind of?”

The teen shook her head. “She’s the closest thing I have to a mom, now.”

“Now?” Smith thought but didn’t ask.

The truth was, he didn’t know why he’d asked the first question to begin with. As with that conversation with Margo last night, did he really want to know this much about Donna and Margo?

“That looks good, too,” Donna said when Smith had switched to a white cap with a purple wildcat in the center.

“I agree,” Smith said.

Donna smiled, then turned and walked off.

Smith watched her reflection in the mirror for a moment, trying to figure out what all that was about.

* * *

They waited two hours, but nothing showed up. No horses and no people, and no Freddy. The only thing that appeared was even more mist to complement the already muggy atmosphere. Last night’s brief downpour hadn’t helped. He’d hoped Mist City would outlive its name, but the truth was opposite: It was stubbornly living up to it, and then some.

The presence of thick gray clouds swirling around the parking lot was both comforting and worrisome. Comforting in that the atmosphere limited their vision—and, in turn, would limit anyone else trying to get the drop on them, too.

But worrisome in that, well, their vision was limited.

They didn’t just loiter around the area, though. Smith toured the parking lot, finding plenty of empty brass casings from last night, along with deformed bones stripped of every inch of flesh. He counted thirteen ghouls in all, about half of those in the lot while the rest led toward the street in a jagged line as they gave chase to Freddy and his boys. Like Margo and Clark, Freddy’s gang was also well-equipped to deal with nightcrawlers. Smith also found blood on the pavement, which had to belong to humans, because ghoul blood, like flesh, evaporated against sunlight.

Margo eventually walked over to join him next to a bullet-riddled sedan. “Anything?”

Smith shook his head. “Just a lot of mist.”

“Yeah, there’s a lot of that.”

“Mist City.”

“What’s that?”

“This place. Mist City.”

“Is that what it’s called? I didn’t catch any signs on the way in.”

“Not it’s real name. Just the name I gave to it.”

“Oh.” Then, “I guess that’s as good a name as any.”

Smith looked over at her. “Clark said Freddy had ten or so men with him last night?”

Margo nodded. “Not counting Steve and Mitchell.”

“Who’s Steve and Mitchell?”

“The two in the store. Mitchell was the one you shotgunned in the face.”

“Ah,” Smith said. Then, “Anyways, ol’ Freddy had to have lost some men last night, given they were out here without cover against that horde.”

“Maybe.”

“You don’t think so?”

“I hope so. Like you said, they didn’t have any cover. Out here, they’d be prime targets for that horde.”

“He must have lost a few warm bodies. Must have.”

“From your lips to God’s ears.”

She glanced out at the street on the other side of the parking lot, with the massive structure of the highway just barely visible in the background. How much they could make out depended almost entirely on how the mist moved at any given second.

“Was there this much mist yesterday?” Margo asked.

“Not this much, no.”

“I can barely see anything.”

“That’s good, because it means neither can anyone else. Like Freddy, if he’s even still alive.”

“Yeah, if he’s even still alive…” She turned back to him. “I never asked how you lost your weapons and supplies.”

He pointed down the street to where the Private Store-It would be, not that he could actually make out any part of its colorful chartreuse angles against the pervading wall of mist. “There’s a Private Store-It down there. I was ambushed and lost everything.”

“I don’t see anything.”

“No, but take my word for it. There’s one down the street.”

“What happened? Who ambushed you?”

“A lady and her two kids.”

Margo stared at him.

Smith grinned shyly back at her. “Honest to God.”

“And they took your guns and supplies? This lady and her two kids?”

“They were going to do more than that.”

“Like what?”

“More than that. As to what, specifically, I don’t know. I didn’t feel like staying to find out. But I’ll tell you one thing: We shouldn’t go down that side of the street.”

“Jesus. They really scared you, didn’t they?”

“Scared me? No. I’m just being cautious.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, clearly not believing what he’d just said.

“Besides, that’s the direction Freddy went, too,” Smith said.

“And it’s not only because of this woman and her two kids?” Margo asked.

“Of course not.”

Margo smiled.

“What?” Smith said.

“Nothing,” Margo said, but for some reason Smith didn’t believe her.

Sixteen

After the first two hours expired, they waited another thirty minutes because, well, why not? When that came and went, too, they finally decided to leave.

They turned left after the Archers parking lot, walking along the feeder road until they could find a ramp that would take them up onto the highway. The elevated height gave them a better vantage point of Mist City. Not everything—that was impossible, given the conditions—but it was an improvement over the lower level, where it was like staring up at a cloudy sky thirty feet in front of you.

As they maneuvered around the unending string of cars left behind on the highway, Smith gave serious thought to ditching the trio. No, that wasn’t true. He wasn’t thinking about it, he was just trying to find the right time to do it.

He had no reasons to stick around. At least, not anymore. In fact, Margo, Donna, and Clark had become a liability, especially if they should run into Freddy and company again. Right now, Smith was free to roam. Although there was still the chance of a random encounter with Freddy, it would be less likely than if he stuck around.

He was trying to decide the perfect time to get the hell out of Dodge even as he slowed down, and soon Clark and Donna—who had been trailing behind him—caught up to him. Margo was well ahead of the group, having taken point without bothering to ask if any of them wanted the job. Smith was more than happy to let her assume command. The mist greatly limited their visibility, and he didn’t fancy walking into a bullet if one happened to be waiting for them up ahead.

Another reason to get out of here soon…

When he was walking beside Smith, Clark said, “So you were Black Tide?”

Smith nodded. “You were Mercerians.”

“Margo told you?”

“We didn’t have a lot to do last night.”

“I guess not.” Clark nodded. “Yeah, we were Mercerians.”

Then the big man stared at Smith as if trying to gauge his reaction.

Smith shrugged. “I’m not Black Tide anymore.”

“Why is that?”

“The same reason you and Margo and Freddy took off from Buck’s crew. It’s all bullshit.”

Clark chuckled and seemed to lighten up when he said, “Yeah, it is. It’s definitely all bullshit.”

“What’s all bullshit?” Donna, walking on the other side of Clark, asked.

“The world. Everything,” Clark said. Then, without missing a beat (and probably to not-so-slyly change the subject), “How’s your shoulder?”

“It’s okay,” Donna said. “Still hurts if I move it too much.”

“So don’t move it too much.”

“I’m trying not to.”

“Try harder.”

“Nag, nag,” Donna said.

Smith still didn’t know the two’s relationship. They really did sound and act like father and daughter, but that couldn’t have been it or Clark would have made the connection obvious right away. If not Clark, then Margo would have definitely mentioned it.

So what were they? And what was Clark’s relationship with Margo, for that matter?

All of those questions swirled around in Smith’s mind as he let Clark and Donna walk on ahead of him. They were still talking, oblivious to the fact that he had slowed down and was getting farther and farther behind.

Smith glanced back, just to make sure there was no one at their six o’clock. The fact that Freddy would surely pursue them once the man figured out they’d abandoned the Archers left him a little paranoid. Which was another good reason for him to leave the trio as soon as possible…

“Where are we going?” Donna was asking Clark up ahead.

“Don’t know yet,” Clark said. “We’ll just walk for a while.”

“Isn’t this the same direction we came?”

“You noticed that, huh?”

“Getting shot didn’t make me blind, Clark.”

Clark chucked. “Yeah, this is the same direction we came in yesterday.”

“Where’s Mags?”

“She’s up ahead.”

“I can’t see her…”

Clark and the girl stopped, and the big man glanced back at Smith. “You see Margo? She’s up ahead, right?”

Smith nodded. “Last time I checked.”

“I can’t see her,” Donna said. She was trying to peer through all the mist.

Clark had unslung his rifle when he turned around and called out, “Margo! Hey, Margo!”

His voice echoed for a moment with no response.

Two seconds…

Five…

Smith started reaching for his own holstered sidearm, alarm bells starting to ring inside his head, when they finally heard Margo’s voice calling back, “Yeah!”

Smith breathed a sigh of relief.

Clark did, too, because Smith could hear it in his voice when he shouted back, “Dammit, Mags.”

“What’s wrong?” Margo said. They still couldn’t see her but could hear her just fine, if slightly echoey with all the metal on the highway with them.

“You might wanna slow down,” Clark called back. “No one can see shit in this thing, and we lost sight of you.”

“I’m right in front of you,” Margo said.

“You can see us?”

“Barely, but I can hear you fine. Follow the sound of my voice.”

“Will do,” Clark said. Then, to Donna, “See?”

“I was scared for a moment there,” Donna said as she and Clark continued walking toward where they had heard Margo’s voice, but they could not see her.

“There’s nothing to be scared of,” Clark said.

Well, that’s not exactly true, Smith thought as he kept track of the pair as they walked alongside a black van, just before disappearing past its chrome back bumper.

Smith stopped completely when he couldn’t see them, then turned and jogged over to the side of the highway. He climbed over the guardrail and slid down the slanted grass on the other side, fighting for footing against the damp ground until he was finally on the sidewalk below. He jogged across the street, using the Walmart sign in the near distance as a marker. It had come out of nowhere, providing him with a nice beacon in all the mist.

Smith had no intentions of trying his luck inside the big retail store, of course. That was borderline suicide these days. Still, it was nice to have something standing out in all the fog to focus on.

If Margo, Clark, and Donna realized he had slipped away, no one chased after him. He didn’t even hear their voices, and certainly no one was calling out his name. Smith suspected that Margo quickly realized what he had done and was either unwilling to risk making a scene to relocate him, or she wasn’t interested in doing so. She had to know there was no longer any reason for him to remain with them. She wasn’t a dumb woman, after all.

In a way, he probably did both of them a favor by acting first. After last night, even she would realize their partnership had run its course and might have been trying to figure out a way to get rid of him.

You’re welcome, Margo.

Still, he couldn’t quite push away little pangs of guilt for ditching them the way that he did, without a good-bye or howdy-do. He’d liked talking to Margo last night despite the ugly and uncomfortable subject. Clark hadn’t been too bad after all. And the girl, well, she seemed like a good kid.

But he didn’t see any future in sticking around them. The only thing that would have happened was that they became friends.

And right now, Smith wasn’t looking for friends.

Keep going, chum. Don’t look back. Don’t look back…

He was doing exactly that, walking across the Walmart parking lot and not looking back, when he heard the first pop-pop-pop of gunfire coming from behind him.

He spun around.

The shooting came from the highway and slightly up the road, which would be about where Margo, Clark, and Donna would be right this second.

Smith didn’t know why he did it, but he was suddenly racing across the paved lot and back toward the highway. He hadn’t even thought about it, hadn’t taken a second to ponder the consequences. He had simply broken off into a mad run even as the clatter of gunfire grew…

…and grew still…

Pop-pop-pop!

Pop-pop-pop…!

Seventeen

Pop-pop-pop!

Ping-ping-ping!

Semiautomatic gunfire and the unmistakable sounds of bullets impacting metal. Smith heard the echoing cacophony as he ran back to the highway, the pack thumping against his back. He was moving too slowly (Faster. Gotta go faster!) and considered the pros and cons of ditching the bag.

Pop-pop-pop!

Ping-ping-ping!

Then he was running across the street and hopping onto the sidewalk and was already scaling up the slanted ground to reach the elevated highway. It would have been much easier if he’d gone for a ramp, but that required searching for one first. And in all this mist, he had no idea if he should run right or left. So he went straight up.

Pop-pop-pop!

Ping-ping-ping!

He had to fight for his footing every inch of the way, the Merrells doing a commendable job keeping him upright against the wet ground as he struggled his way up the incline. All the while, the clap of gunfire and echoes of bullets hitting cars continued from in front of him.

Pop-pop-pop!

Ping-ping-ping!

He didn’t hear voices, and he wasn’t sure what that meant, if anything. It was likely that Margo and Clark were too busy returning fire. Likewise for the ambushers, whoever they were. Was Donna also in the thick of it? Had she even rearmed herself this morning before they left the Archers? Smith couldn’t remember.

Pop-pop-pop!

Ping-ping-ping!

He was moving too slowly, having to fight way too hard against the slanted and dew-covered ground. He was only a quarter of the way up when Smith shouldered off the pack and let it drop, and did the same to the shotgun. Now free of the superfluous weight, he began to make better progress, using his hands to look for handholds—anything that he could grab a hold of to help propel him up faster, faster, faster.

And he was, moving steadily up.

Halfway…

Pop-pop-pop!

Ping-ping-ping!

Three-quarters…

This latest round of shooting was coming from in front and slightly to the right of him. That was because Smith had angled himself toward the ambushers instead of heading back to where Margo and the others would be. That had cost him additional time, but it was necessary. If he had guessed correctly—and he was sure he had (Mostly)—he would climb onto the highway behind the ambushers instead of in front of them and their guns.

Smith only slowed down when he finally (Finally!) reached the metal guardrail. He crouched in front of it in order to listen to the back and forth. He couldn’t see much of anything thanks to the mist, but there was nothing wrong with his hearing.

Pop-pop-pop!

Ping-ping-ping!

The closest gunfire, like before, was coming from in front and to the right of him. That would be the ambushers. Margo and the others wouldn’t have gotten this far up the highway before everything erupted.

There, return fire coming from farther down the road. That would be Margo and her friends. Unless, of course, his mental map of the structure was all wrong. That was possible, but Smith didn’t think so.

While he waited and listened, Smith took the opportunity to catch his breath. Now slightly less winded, he threw one leg, then the other over the railing and stepped onto the smooth pavement on the shoulder.

Smith put one hand on the butt of his holstered SIG (He briefly considered swapping out the silver-tipped bullets in the magazine with regular rounds, before remembering that the spares were in the pack he’d tossed earlier.) as he walked forward, the mist revealing a little more of the highway at a time.

He stepped around cars, using the rattle of gunfire up ahead as a guide. A couple of bullets pinged! off vehicles nearby, some shattering glass. The rounds had come from Margo’s side, which made him slightly hesitant to keep going. What were the chances either Margo or Clark (or maybe Donna?) had spotted him and thought he was one of the ambushers? How ironic would it be if he got shot by the people he was trying to save?

More like a fucking tragedy.

For me, anyway.

Smith started moving again anyway. He’d come this far; it was too late to turn back now. Well, not really. No one had seen him yet—that he knew of, anyway—and there was still ample opportunity to turn around and leave this alone. He could abandon the highway and let Margo and whoever she was fighting (Freddy. It has to be Freddy. Who else would it be?) kill each other. What did he really owe her?

He sighed and took three more steps. The mist shifted again, this time revealing a black-clad figure crouched behind a gray sedan that was conveniently parked vertically across the lanes, giving the man a perfect cover to shoot downstream behind. The man was reloading an AR rifle when Smith spotted him.

The shooter was slightly turned, and either he heard Smith coming or sensed him. However he knew Smith was there, the man began getting up before turning around even as one hand pulled back the charging handle on his rifle.

Smith couldn’t see anyone else in the mist, but he could still hear the shooting. The pop-pop-pop of someone firing nearby—about twenty meters farther across the highway—and the resulting ping-ping-ping! of those rounds hitting metal farther down.

But none of that mattered, because all Smith could see was the man in front of him.

He wore a black vest over a black shirt, and once upon a time there was a big, bright circled M in the very center. The letter and circle had either faded or been mostly scrubbed away, leaving behind just a slight reminder. Smith might not have even known what it used to be if he hadn’t had that talk with Margo last night. The man was ex-Mercerian, which made it pretty damn obvious to Smith why he was here.

The chank! as the charging handle snapped into place and the man began lifting the AR.

Smith drew and shot him in the throat with one smooth motion.

The man gagged, dropping his rifle and falling to his knees, hands grabbing at his throat as blood spurted free. He looked determined to keep the fluid inside, but he might as well be trying to hold back a leaking dam.

Smith hurried past the man and around the sedan.

Zip-zip! as two rounds nearly took his head off. Both had come from farther down the highway.

Shit!

Smith quickly got down on one knee. He didn’t blame the trio for targeting him. There would be no way for them to know he was back here. There was so much mist that Smith could barely make out a black van directly in front of him—

Two ghostly figures came around the vehicle, parting mists in their path.

Hello, boys!

One of the newcomers was struggling to unjam an AR rifle while his partner was squeezing rounds down the highway as he moved. Like the first one Smith had killed, these two were also wearing black assault vests, except theirs didn’t have any telltale signs of what used to be emblazoned on the front.

“I’m jammed, I’m jammed!” one of them was shouting.

“Then fucking unjam it!” the other one said just before he fired off two more shots—pop-pop!—and ducked down behind the hood of the van.

Ping-ping! as two rounds returned fire, drilling into the other side of the vehicle.

“I’m trying—” the one with the troubled rifle said when he looked up.

Smith strode toward them and shot the one with the working rifle through the back first. Then, as the man staggered into the front part of the van while trying to turn around, Smith put two more shots into his gut.

The other ambusher gave up on his weapon and dropped it, then went for his holstered sidearm. He’d gotten his fingers around the butt of the pistol when Smith shot him once in the face.

The man fell but somehow continued to move on the pavement. Smith walked past him, but not before putting two more bullets into the wounded man’s spasming backside.

Ping-ping-ping! as bullets punched into the other side of the van. Two buried themselves in the vehicle, but the third smashed through a window and zipped a few inches from Smith’s head.

Jesus Christ! Almost got me again!

He ducked behind cover, sucking in an exasperated breath. The more he waded into this, the more trouble he was begging for. Chances were pretty good now that he was just as liable to get shot by friendly fire as by the enemy.

So how was he going to change that? There was only one way he could think of…

“Margo!” Smith shouted. “Clark!”

He waited for a response, but there was just silence.

He tried again: “Black van! Don’t shoot the black van! That’s me!”

Then, from somewhere to the left of him—and close enough to his current position that Smith was taken aback—a voice said, “Who the fuck was that?”

No one answered. At least not with words.

Instead, there was the sudden explosion of gunfire as people began shooting at the black van he was crouched next to from the other side of the highway!

Smith lunged to the pavement, slamming chest first against the hard concrete, as bullets pounded the car next to him. Rounds sliced through metal with ear-piercing ping-ping-pings! and it was all Smith could do to clench his teeth and curse himself for making such a stupid, stupid mistake.

Eighteen

The torrent of bullets went on for what seemed like hours but was probably just a few minutes. No, not even that. Thirty seconds, tops. The only reason they stopped at all was because the shooters ran out of bullets and had to reload. He could hear the clacky noises of magazines being swapped in the sudden silence.

Smith used the temporary respite to crawl away from the bullet-riddled van, scattering empty brass casings that the men he’d shot had left behind on the ground. All four tires of the targeted vehicle had been punctured, and there wasn’t a single inch of glass still clinging to its frame. They were all on the ground that Smith was moving across, which meant he had to be careful not to cut himself on the shards. He still managed to get nicked once or twice anyway, but he accepted that as punishment for being a dumbass and shouting out his location to the ambushers.

He got back up on his feet only when he was two cars away and slid behind the front passenger-side door of a Prius that was permanently wedged between a BMW and a pickup truck. His breathing was slightly accelerated, and it took Smith a few seconds—five, ten—to calm it down to an acceptable rate.

“Horace!” someone shouted from nearby. Male. Hoarse. Smith couldn’t be sure if it was the same one that had started the shooting a few minutes ago.

When no one answered to the name, the same voice shouted out:

“Mike! Dunbar!”

Again, no response.

Horace, Mike, and Dunbar. Smith guessed those were the names of the three he’d taken out. One of them lay a few feet from Smith now, his hands still frozen around his blood-caked throat. Smith wondered if that was Horace, Mike, or Dunbar. Not that it mattered. Dead was dead.

Whoever had shouted out the names had gone silent, and for nearly a full minute afterward, no one said a word or fired a shot. There were just the occasional sounds of shoes squeaking against the highway pavement from somewhere in the mist. Smith couldn’t quite place the exact location where all the activity was coming from, but if he had to guess, it was somewhere behind him, close to the center concrete divider.

Smith swapped guns, putting the 9mm SIG behind his back and slipping the .45 into the holster. Truthfully, he should have done it earlier instead of wasting the silver-tipped rounds on Freddy’s goons.

Shoulda, woulda, coulda.

His ears perked up when someone shouted, “Freddy!”

It wasn’t the same voice that had called out the names earlier, which made Smith wonder if that had been Freddy himself. This second speaker didn’t sound any closer than the previous one, which was the only reason Smith didn’t immediately search around him for someone to shoot.

Instead, he got up and abandoned his cover to move behind a nearby SUV. He made sure his Merrells didn’t squeak against the pavement by taking it slow. The last thing he wanted was to be just as obvious as whoever was talking right now. Did they think he was dead? If not, they sure as hell were being reckless about giving their positions away.

Smith wasn’t the only one to think that, apparently, because someone else snapped, “Lower your goddamn voice.”

It was the same gruff voice from earlier.

Freddy, is that you?

Smith tried to peek through all the grayness that covered up the entire city, but he might as well be trying to see through lead. Whenever a piece of the highway revealed itself, it was almost instantly blanketed right back up by another flurry of moving mist.

“We gotta go,” the second speaker was saying. Smith had gotten a little closer to the voices and could hear the conversation with more clarity. “It’s all gone pear-shaped, man. We gotta go. We gotta go now.”

“She’s still out there,” the first one said. Smith put two and two together and accepted that this was, indeed, Freddy. “I’m not leaving without her.”

“She?”

Was Freddy talking about Margo or Donna? And did not leaving without her mean he wasn’t going anywhere until the she in question was dead or captured?

Smith left the SUV and picked his way toward a Mercedes, careful not to kick at empty brass casings that littered the ground like pebbles, making his trekking harder than it had to be.

It was so far, so good, because whoever was talking didn’t know he was getting closer to them. Unless, of course, they did know and were playing games to lure him in.

Nah.

Then: Hopefully nah.

“She’s dead,” the second voice was saying. “Mack said he popped her.”

“Popped her?”

“Gotta make sure,” the guy, who Smith had determined was Freddy, responded.

Smith reached the Mercedes and slid against it. He peered over its hood toward where the center divider was and was just able to make out the big slab of concrete. The fact that the chunk of cement was pretty much the same color as the mist made that a little tricky.

“Mack was sure,” the second voice was saying, still somewhere in front of Smith. Somewhere, but where exactly?

“Gotta make sure,” Freddy repeated, as if he hadn’t heard anything the other man had said.

“Goddammit. Mack said he’s sure.” Then, “Mack, tell him.”

A third voice spoke up. “I got her, Freddy. Swear to God. Got her in my sights and saw her go down.”

“What about Clark?” Freddy asked.

“Dunbar said he got him,” the second man said.

“Dunbar’s not answering.”

“Before he went silent. He told me he got Clark.”

The one named Mack said, “Come on, let’s get outta here. All this mist is freaking me out, man. I can’t see shit.”

“She could still be alive,” Freddy said.

“Then why hasn’t she fired a shot?” the second voice said. “I’m telling you, she’s dead. We got what we came for, didn’t we? We already lost too many men. You want to lose more? We got what we came for, Freddy. So let’s go.”

Smith was about to leave the Mercedes and continue toward the divider when Freddy said, “Let’s go.”

“Thank fucking God,” the second one, whose name remained a mystery, muttered under his breath—and Smith had still heard him!

He was close! Smith thought about rushing forward and taking all three of them out, but then it occurred to him: He’d only heard three voices, but what if there were more that hadn’t spoken up?

What was that Margo and Clark had said about Freddy’s gang? That there were ten or more of them?

Smith knew for a fact that two were dead, back in the Archers. And he had taken three out earlier. That left how many?

Five…or more.

It was the or more part that kept Smith from acting. He could be an idiot at times, but he wasn’t an idiot all the time.

Smith remained where he was and listened to Freddy, Mack, and the third guy (and however many else were out there with them) moving around. The sounds of their shoes scraping against the highway as they retreated was hard to miss. They were so close to him.

Slowly, very slowly, Smith lost track of the footsteps.

Then he couldn’t hear anything, except his own breath against the slightly chilled morning air.

Just to be safe, Smith remained where he was, crouched next to the luxury sedan, ears and eyes open. Or mostly just his ears since there wasn’t much his eyes could pick up but the mud-caked exteriors of dead cars around his immediate vicinity.

He thought about the conversation he’d overheard, including what the unknown second voice had said:

“We got what we came for, didn’t we?”

What exactly had they come for? That was the question.

Whatever it was, they’d gotten it. They’d achieved their goal. Was that the entire reason they had stalked Margo and the other two into Mist City to begin with? Was all of this just for a singular purpose? Which was what?

Smith didn’t get up for another ten minutes and only did so when he couldn’t hear anything but his own continued breathing. He finally stood up and let his legs stretch for a bit before backtracking down the highway.

He picked his way around vehicles, cursing the swirling fog around him. His vision was severely limited, and Smith bumped into two cars along the way, forcing him to move even slower. He told himself that with Freddy and his gang retreating, he had plenty of time to find Margo, Clark, and Donna.

Did he expect to locate all three of them, though? He wasn’t sure about that.

The fact that Margo hadn’t responded to his calls earlier was a bad sign. Freddy and his boys had heard him just fine, though, and unleashed on the van as a result.

But he hadn’t heard a peep from Margo or Clark during or after the onslaught. That was a bad sign. That was a really bad sign.

And the third guy, Mack, had been pretty sure he’d hit Margo, either before or during the firefight. The second guy had claimed someone else had taken down Clark. But no one had mentioned Donna.

Smith stopped when he almost stepped into a fresh puddle of blood on the ground. It was on the pavement and smeared against the front passenger-side door of a bullet-riddled Ford sedan. The wounded person had dragged themselves down the highway, leaving a trail so obvious even the dumbest person alive could track it.

He followed the dark red stains, making sure to walk alongside them to spare his Merrells a future cleanup. He didn’t know what he’d find on the other end, but Smith couldn’t bring himself to even hope for the best.

There was too much blood.

There was just too much damn blood…

Nineteen

“Smith.” Then, softer, “John…”

“You look like shit.”

“Can’t be. I feel worse than shit right about now.”

Yeah, that sounds about right, Smith thought as he crouched next to Margo.

She smiled at him. Or tried to, but the mask of pain was too much to overcome, and he could see her giving up just as quickly as she had attempted it. Sweat covered her pale face, and those soft brown eyes had faded noticeably since the last time he stared into them.

Margo lowered the handgun she’d been pointing at him as he stepped out of the mist and let it clank to the pavement. He suspected that just holding the weapon up had taken everything she had left. Did she even have the strength to pull the trigger if she had to? He guessed he’d never know.

Smith gave her wound a long, hard look. No. Wounds. She’d been shot in the right temple and in the left side of her stomach. But it was the head wound that looked the worst. Looked, anyway, because if it were worse, she would be dead right now. Blood trickled down the side of her face and collected under her chin before dripping down to the floor. It was nothing compared to all the wetness squirting out around the fingers of her left hand, pressed tightly against her side.

“I need to fix you up,” Smith said.

“You know how?” Margo asked.

“They taught us basic first aid at Black Tide.”

“My pack…”

He helped her lean forward, away from the trunk of the pickup she had been using as a crutch, and unslung her backpack. Smith unzipped it and took out what he needed.

“I need to remove your hand,” he said.

“My head…”

“That’s not going to kill you. But the hole in your side will.”

“You sure?” She blinked at him. “It feels like I’m bleeding out up there.”

“It just feels that way.” He focused on her stomach. “Ready?”

“No,” Margo said.

He forcefully removed her hand, then pulled her shirt out from her waistline and undid half of the lower buttons, enough to give him access to the wound. She was wearing a bra, so he didn’t have to worry about embarrassment on top of everything else they had to deal with.

Margo sagged against the car and closed her eyes as he worked. He cleaned, medicated, then bandaged up the bullet hole. The round had gone through her, which was the reason she had bled out so much. She didn’t know that, though, and was only stanching the front with her hand. Smith treated both sides, recalling everything they had taught him during basic. It was a good thing he had gotten over his queasiness around blood a long time ago.

He worked methodically and silently, not even sure why he was doing it. She had lost too much blood. That was a cold, hard fact staring back at him. Her face was mostly drained of color, her eyes all but lifeless. She barely moved as he stopped the bleeding with a clotting sponge and tied it in place with tape. Most people would have been grimacing or groaning in pain, but Margo hardly reacted.

She even dozed off a couple of times, always waking right back up with a start. Her eyes would snap left and right in alarm, while her hand searched for and found the handgun resting on the pavement next to her. Then, when she saw him, she calmed down again.

When he was done with her side, Smith cleaned his hands with water and a wipe, then fixed the graze along her temple. He could see bone underneath the opening, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as her side. The only danger up there was a possible infection.

Smith didn’t waste time putting the first-aid kit away. He left it on the ground next to them and made her drink some water.

“Clark?” Margo asked.

Smith shook his head. “You’re the only one I’ve found so far.”

“I saw him go down…”

“It was an ambush?”

She nodded. Barely. “They were waiting for us.”

“Freddy.”

Another just-barely nodding motion. “I guess he outthought us. Knew we’d go the opposite direction of where he went last night.” Her cracked and blood-smeared lips made something that might have been a smirk. “That fucker was always too clever for his own good.”

“I heard them talking. They said they’d gotten what they came for. What was that?”

Margo’s eyes widened, and she tried to get up.

Smith grabbed her shoulders and pushed her back in place. “Don’t be stupid. Stay still.”

“Donna,” Margo said. “They took Donna…”

“Donna? What do they want with her?”

“Not them. Him.”

“Freddy?”

Another nod as Margo stared up the highway, as if she could see Freddy and the others out there among the gray haze.

“Margo,” Smith said. “What does Freddy want with Donna?”

“She’s his,” Margo said.

“His? How is she his?”

“She’s his daughter.”

The revelation came as a shock to Smith. He’d never considered that possibility. And why would he? Nothing Margo or Clark, or even Donna, had said about Freddy’s pursuit of them had indicated this was anything other than a personal grudge against the two adults. It turned out that the man had been chasing his daughter this entire time. So why was she with Margo and Clark in the first place?

“You wanna tell me about it?” Smith asked.

Margo shook her head.

Smith sat down on the pavement in front of her. She finally looked back over to meet his gaze.

“What?” Margo said.

“You lost a lot of blood.”

“I know that. What’s your point?”

“My point is…”

“I know what your point is,” Margo said. She smiled. Or, again, tried to. “I can feel it, Smith.” Then, without missing a beat, “Is that really your name? John Smith?”

“Of course not.”

“What is it?”

“Does it matter?”

“Maybe…”

“No, it doesn’t. Why did Donna run away from Freddy? I’m assuming that’s what she did? It didn’t look like you and Clark were holding her hostage.”

“We weren’t.”

“So what happened? Why did she run away from him?”

“Because he’s a fucking asshole, that’s why.”

Smith had to smile at that. The way she’d said it, so empathically, almost made him think she might be all right.

Almost.

“He killed her mother,” Margo continued. She looked up the highway again. “He has a temper. It’s bad. It gets really bad. He was already starting on her before Wilma’s body was cold.”

Wilma? Smith thought but didn’t ask the question.

Wilma. Donna’s mother. Obviously.

“That’s why we left,” Margo said. “Clark and me. We had to get her away from him before he did it to her, too. He…didn’t take that too well.”

“I guess not.” Then, “The two back at the Archers. Why did they shoot Donna if they wanted her back?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they couldn’t see her and thought she was me. I don’t know, Smith.”

“I guess that doesn’t matter, either.”

Margo stared at him in silence. She didn’t say anything for a moment. At least, not with words.

Her eyes, as drained as they were, spoke volumes.

“I’ll get her back,” Smith said.

A flicker of surprise flashed across her face. “Why would you do that?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do.”

“It’s okay.”

Smith gave her a confused look. “What’s okay?”

“You leaving.” She smiled again. This time it was much more successful than the last few tries. “If you’d been up here with us, you’d just have gotten shot to pieces, too. They were waiting for us. God knows how long they’ve been waiting. Probably all morning.”

“I should have been up here anyway.”

“Forget about that.”

He shook his head and wanted to say, My conscience won’t let me, but when he opened his mouth, all he could do was let out a regretful sigh.

“Get her back,” Margo said. “Please. She’s a good kid. She’s probably the most innocent thing out here. She doesn’t deserve this. She doesn’t deserve Freddy. Please, John. Get her back.”

He nodded. “I’ll get her back.”

“Thank you.” She reached over and put her hand on his cheek. “Oh, shit…”

“What’s wrong?”

“I got blood on your face. I’m sorry, John.”

He smiled. “That’s okay. I’m used to blood.”

“Save her, John.”

“I will. I promise.”

“Save her, please,” Margo said, as if she hadn’t heard a thing he’d said.

And maybe she hadn’t, because she closed her eyes and whispered, “Save her, John. Please save her,” and then she didn’t say anything else.

Twenty

The first time Smith spilled blood while wearing a Black Tide uniform, he was doing a humanitarian mission in a small town outside of Atlanta, Georgia. He was two years out of basic training and was sent as part of the security detail to watch over another unit that was giving out food, water, and medicine. It was a busy week for everyone—the techs were helping to establish an infrastructure while the medical staff spent almost every hour of their weeklong stay seeing patients.

For Smith, it was a tedious job. Long, hot hours standing around with his M4 hanging in front of him, watching people come and go, and waiting for orders to do this and that. The only action his squad saw for five out of the six days involved an accidental fire that required everyone’s help to put out.

But then it happened.

Smith saw the signs right away, even if his partners didn’t. Lori and Miller were too busy talking about something. Smith couldn’t remember what the topic was that day between the two, even though they’d tried to get him involved. He’d just ignored them and kept looking at the man.

He was big and tall and stood a whole foot higher than everyone standing in line waiting to go into the medical tent to see the doctors. He had on cargo pants and a jacket, despite the fact that it was way too hot to be wearing the extra layers. His left hand hung loosely at his side, but his right was inside his jacket pocket. His head was completely shaved, and sunlight gleamed off the smooth dome, as if he’d just chopped everything off very recently and not a single hair had gotten the chance to regrow.

But it was the boots that really got Smith’s attention.

They were combat boots and were shiny despite it being a very dusty and dirty part of the countryside. Smith’s own clothes were covered in sweat and grime, and yet this man had managed to live in this town while maintaining a damn near polished pair of shoes. He was either the most fastidious man alive, or he didn’t belong.

And if he didn’t belong…

Smith was standing guard less than five meters from the line, far enough to stay out of people’s way but close enough to react if needed. He didn’t know exactly what he was looking at, just that it wasn’t right.

And Miller kept trying to talk to him, while Lori was laughing at him. She must have laughed a little too hard, because the bald man looked over at her—

Except his gaze was drawn to Smith’s, where it stayed.

Their eyes locked.

Smith wasn’t sure how long their connection lasted. Maybe just a second. Maybe less than that. Barely half a heartbeat, maybe.

It was long enough that the man recognized the look of suspicion in Smith’s eyes. He began to look away, and as he did so, took his right hand out of his jacket pocket. Sunlight glinted off something long and metallic, like a cigarette lighter. Except there was a cord connected to the bottom of it that disappeared into his jacket sleeve.

“Everyone get down!” Smith shouted.

The man turned to face Smith, raising his hand into the air as he did so. He shouted, “The Prez sends his regards!”

Or Smith thought the man’s last word was regards, but there was no way to tell for sure, because by the time the man had gotten his out, Smith had drawn his Glock sidearm and shot the man dead center in the forehead.

* * *

A day after the incident, Smith was debriefed while the rest of his squad prepared to ship out of town. Their mission was done, and Black Tide had already sent a quick reaction force to take over. Smith had a feeling something big was about to take place, but no one told him anything. It was, as the saying went, above his pay grade.

The woman who arrived to debrief Smith had been at a nearby assignment when she was sent to take charge. She was a small Texan with a noticeable country drawl, and though she asked a lot of questions, he never got the impression she was an enemy.

Smith had expected an interrogation, but it was more of an interview. A mostly friendly one at that. He answered every question truthfully, including why he had suspected the bomber in the first place.

And that was what the dead man had been, as it turned out. He was wearing a jacket despite the heat because there was a vest of explosives hidden underneath. The “cigarette lighter” was a detonator that only needed a push of a button to activate.

“But you didn’t know that at the time,” the interviewer said.

“No, not at the time,” Smith said.

“You suspected.”

“That he was a bomber? No, ma’am.”

“What did you think he was there to do?”

“I don’t know, ma’am. I just knew that he didn’t belong.”

“What tipped you off? Was it the jacket?”

“That was odd, too, but it was his boots.”

“His boots?”

“They were too polished. Too clean. He didn’t live here.”

The woman smiled. “His boots… Well, goddamn.” She chuckled, then took a flask from her back pocket and poured some liquid into a metal tin cup before pushing it across the table toward Smith. “You deserve this, kid.”

Smith stared down at the cup. He could smell the alcohol well before he even saw its contents. “I don’t drink, ma’am.”

“Not even a little bit?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Don’t mind if I do, then,” the woman said, and picked up the cup and took a sip. She winced at the taste but then smiled and took another one. “You know why we’re here?”

“We were told this is a humanitarian mission, ma’am.”

“It is, but it’s more than that. This town that we’re in right now? It’s almost perfectly located between two territories controlled by opposing warlords. Somehow, someway, the people here—their leaders—have managed to stay out of the fight. But there are rumors they might join up with one of the factions. I don’t think you’d be surprised to learn that the one they’re leaning toward is not run by a man calling himself The Prez.”

Smith remembered the dead man’s last words. Something about The Prez sending his regards. Or Smith was sure regards was the last word the bomber had intended.

“Last question,” his interviewer said.

“Yes, ma’am,” Smith said.

“You shot for the head. How did you know he had explosives underneath his jacket? That you could have set them off if you’d hit them with a bullet?”

“I didn’t, ma’am.”

“Didn’t what?”

“I didn’t purposefully not shoot him center mass so as not to detonate the explosives. I wasn’t aware he had explosives underneath his jacket.”

That seemed to catch his interviewer by surprise. “You didn’t know?”

“No, ma’am.”

“So why did you shoot him in the head? Wouldn’t it have been easier to aim for center mass? I remember that being what they teach in basic.”

“It is, ma’am, but it’s not where I always shoot in practice.”

“They teach you to shoot for the head?”

“Not during normal hours, ma’am. After hours.”

“You did range by yourself after hours, Private?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And all you did was practice shooting for the head?”

“Mostly, yes.”

“Mind telling me why?”

“I guess shooting center mass was too easy. Basic gets boring if you don’t challenge yourself.”

“You don’t say.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The interviewer grinned at him. Smith wasn’t sure if she was amused or impressed. “You know how hard it is to hit someone in the head with a pistol, Private? I know you weren’t exactly a mile away, but from what I read, he wasn’t exactly standing still for you to take him out, either.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m very well aware that it’s not an easy shot to make at any distance.”

“But you did. With one shot.”

“It took a lot of practice, ma’am.”

“I bet it did. I couldn’t have done it. Hell, I probably wouldn’t have even tried.”

“With enough practice, anything’s possible, ma’am.”

The woman smiled. “Maybe.” Then, “Who was your instructor at basic?”

“Captain Peters, ma’am. He’s also the one who taught me after hours.”

“Peters?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I didn’t know he did that.”

“I guess even Captain Peters gets bored teaching the same things over and over, ma’am.”

“I didn’t know Peters was capable of getting bored,” the woman said. “Well, he did a hell of a job training you, because you saved a lot of lives yesterday, Private. Saying good job to that seems almost like underselling it.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“You may go now. Helo’s arriving to pick up your squad and take you boys back to Black Tide for reassignment in about an hour.”

He got up to do just that, but for some reason Smith stopped at the last second and turned back around. “Ma’am. May I ask a question?”

“Shoot.” Then, with a devilish grin, “Just kidding, Private.”

Smith forced a smile. “Yes, ma’am.”

“What’s your question?”

“What happens now?”

The interviewer was closing the lid on her flask and putting it away. “In regards to what, Private?”

“The factions. The warlords. How will Black Tide respond to this Prez person’s attempted bombing of a civilian town?”

“Good question, but that’s way above your pay grade and mine. Let’s let the higher-ups decide how to proceed, shall we?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Smith said.

“Maddie,” the woman said.

“Ma’am?”

“My name’s Maddie.” She smiled. “I think you deserve to call me by my first name after what you did yesterday, soldier.”

Smith returned her smile. “Yes, ma’am. Maddie, I mean.”

“Get going or you’ll miss your flight.”

He nodded and left.

That night, he replayed the series of events in his head for the hundredth time.

The bald head…

The jacket…

The boots…

The detonator…

And each time it always ended with Smith pulling the trigger and his round entering the man’s forehead before exploding out the back of his skull in a shower of blood and bone and life. But instead of being concerned about what he’d done, Smith tried to figure out why it had taken him so long to draw and fire.

If he’d been a second slower on the draw or on the trigger, the bomber might have managed to press the detonator.

If his shot hadn’t been true—one inch to the right or left, or higher or lower—the bomber might have killed all those people.

If, if, if.

Smith came to one undeniable conclusion that night:

He had to get faster.

He had to get more accurate.

He had to do better.

Twenty-One

He found Clark two lanes over and just a little farther down the highway. He’d been shot three times—once in the cheek, once in the left shoulder, and the one that had done him in, a third bullet through the stomach. He’d bled out, though not immediately. Like Margo, Clark had survived long enough to exchange a lengthy gunfire with Freddy’s group until Smith could make his way back and pick off three of the ambushers.

There were no signs of Donna, but Smith did locate the pack she’d been wearing when he saw her this morning. It was a black bag with two red letter T’s on top of one another, and it sat about five car lengths ahead of where Clark lay dead. Smith didn’t have to think about her current whereabouts.

The answer was obvious: Wherever Freddy was.

At the moment, that was farther up the highway, not that he could see a damn thing with the unrelenting mist not having given a single inch of ground since this morning. It would probably stay that way well into afternoon. Right now, that was still a few hours off.

Smith wasn’t entirely sure what to do with Clark and Margo. He disliked the idea of leaving their bodies where they lay for the carrions to pick on. And if the animals didn’t finish the job, another kind of hunter would come along after nightfall. They were dead, so they wouldn’t turn, but that wouldn’t stop ghouls from dragging them away to violate their remains.

That last thought left him cold. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the time to carry Clark and Margo off the highway and dig respectable shallow graves for them. That wouldn’t stop the feeders anyway, and it would take too much time.

Time that he didn’t have if he wanted to catch up to Freddy and Donna.

Smith compromised and put Margo’s body inside a parked SUV, laying it down across the back seat. He’d intended to drag Clark’s body over to the same vehicle so the two could rest alongside one another, but Clark was too heavy, and Smith struggled just lifting him from the pavement. He made it only a quarter of the way before putting Clark inside the back seat of a nearby Audi. He closed the doors on both cars, then went about gathering what he needed.

Did he really think sheltering the bodies inside what was essentially their own metal coffins would spare them the indignity of being fed on later? No. But it was the best he could do given the time constraints. Besides, he didn’t think either one of them would mind if they could speak; both would have wanted Smith to focus on the real task at hand: finding Donna.

“He killed her mother,” Margo had said about Freddy. “He was already starting on her before Wilma’s body was cold. That’s why we left. Clark and me. We had to get her away from him before he did it to her, too. He…didn’t take that too well.”

Margo was definitely understating Freddy’s reaction to having his daughter taken from him. Smith guessed he couldn’t really blame the guy, even if, according to Margo, Freddy was an “asshole.” The man had certainly proven that by hunting the trio down and killing both Margo and Clark in the process. He’d even almost killed his own daughter. Or his men had, anyway.

Smith remembered the two voices other than Freddy’s he’d eavesdropped on earlier. That made three killers that Smith knew of. Probably more hiding in the mist but hadn’t made a peep during the back and forth. He was hoping he was wrong about that. Three was going to be hard enough, especially if they knew he was coming.

The question was: Did they?

He guessed he’d find out the answer soon enough. If it was just three guys, then it did provide a certain symmetry. There were those three Bozos two nights ago, then three of Freddy’s goons today.

And now, three more.

Smith liked that. It was almost as if fate was trying to wink at him.

Of course, fate wasn’t going to bring Freddy to him, so Smith would have to chase the man down. Fortunately, he had some advantages over them, including flexibility and mobility. They were traveling in a group, including a wounded and unwilling prisoner in Donna, and that was going to slow them down. Especially on foot. Losing their horses last night to the ghoul attack was probably not what Freddy had counted on. If Smith was lucky, his enemies would have also lost some of their supplies and would be forced to scavenge along the way. That would slow them down even further.

Smith didn’t bother going back for the supply pack he’d tossed while climbing up the highway and grabbed Margo’s instead. There was blood on the sides, but he didn’t bother wiping it off. It would work as a reminder of what he’d promised her: Get Donna back.

As for weapons, Smith stuck with his 9mm, but he reloaded the mag with silver-tipped rounds and made sure to have spares at the ready. He ditched the .45 and replaced it with Margo’s Glock. He thought about grabbing her AR-15, too. It had a basic but decent optic, which would be good if he needed to do some long-range shooting. It wasn’t exactly heavy, but it wasn’t exactly light, either.

But he needed speed on his side…

Margo’s pack would have to do. It had food and supplies, but was running low on water. He added a full canteen from Clark’s bag. He was probably carrying more than he really needed, and the extra weight was going to slow him down, but Smith wasn’t sure how long he was going to have to chase Freddy.

It could be an hour or two—or more than that.

It could be days.

He had to be ready for anything, and having to scavenge would only slow him down, too. Besides, it was always better to have too much than not enough. With too much, he could get rid of excess weight along the way. On the other hand, with too little, he couldn’t make supplies magically appear out of thin air.

Smith took off, jogging between vehicles.

The mist separated in front of him, revealing more abandoned sections of the highway. He wished he could see better but was satisfied that his limitations were also his enemy’s. If he couldn’t see them up there, then they couldn’t see him coming up behind them.

Or, at least, he hoped that was the case. Because if it wasn’t, then this was going to be a very short jaunt.

He was certain of one thing, though: Somewhere up ahead of him was Freddy.

No, not Freddy. He had to stop thinking about the man.

Donna. She was the goal. She was the only reason he was doing this. He had to remember that. What happened to Freddy would be incidental. If Smith had to kill the man—and he was pretty goddamn sure it was going to come to that—then so be it.

And what about Freddy’s partners-in-crime?

Them, too, if necessary.

The irony of it was that this was why he’d purposefully avoided people, because it always led to unnecessary entanglements. After Black Tide, after what had happened in Darby Bay, Smith had promised himself to steer clear of trouble.

Of course, that was easier said than done, especially these days when it seemed like every other person he ran into wanted either to kill or maim or in some way harm him. It was dangerous out here. He’d known that when he took off his uniform and never looked back. He’d tossed away his loyalty and abandoned his friends, men and women who had gone through some of the toughest times with him. They’d always relied on one another, but Smith had decided he’d had enough.

Sometimes, when it was very quiet out here—like it was now, except for the constant thump-thump-thump of his boots on the hard highway—he wondered what they thought of him. Did they even know he’d betrayed them? Maybe, one of these days, Smith would run across a friend from the old days. When that happened, would they understand when he tried to explain his reasons?

Hell, did he really knew why he’d left?

Yes, he did. Darby Bay. That goddamn city had changed everything. It had also taken everything from him.

Now he was out here, alone. What did they call someone like that?

A vagabond? Was that it? It sounded way too nice. Too…elegant.

The easiest thing for him to do in order to avoid a problem like this in the future would be to find a town somewhere and settle down. No more wandering. No more getting into trouble. It could work if he tried hard enough.

All he had to do was try hard enough.

Oh, who was he kidding? Smith knew what he was capable of, and just throwing his things down and shacking up with some woman wasn’t one of them. But then again, maybe he just hadn’t found the right woman yet. Maybe if he did—

Yeah, right.

It didn’t matter how hard he tried to convince himself. It wasn’t going to happen. It wasn’t him. It had never been him. He was, as his mentor used to say, a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. He’d done his best to fit in at Black Tide, but he’d never truly felt at home.

But he’d tried. God only knew, he’d tried. (“Adapt or perish,” someone famous once said.)

And for a while, it’d almost worked.

Almost.

Then Darby Bay happened.

Fucking Darby Bay.

The first drops of wetness hit him on top of his head. Smith stuck out his hands as rainwater collected in his palms. A drizzle. Not quite a rainstorm, but he had a sense that was coming, even if he couldn’t see the clouds up there with all the mist in the way.

Instead of slowing down and seeking shelter, Smith picked up his pace.

Freddy’s gang had a head start on him, but Smith thought he could catch up to them.

If not today, then tomorrow.

Or next week.

But eventually, he would catch up to them.

Eventually…

Twenty-Two

As it turned out, it didn’t take him a week, or two days, or even one day to catch up with Freddy.

It took him all of thirty-two minutes.

That was how long it took Mist City to go from drizzling on Smith’s head to dumping buckets of water on top of him.

He wasn’t the only casualty of the sudden thunderstorm, as it turned out, but Smith didn’t know that when he started hunting for a vehicle to escape the driving rain, only to get a whiff of cooking meat in the air. It came from nearby, but it took Smith walking over to the shoulder of the highway before he could pinpoint its location to the underpass underneath him.

Directly underneath him.

Smith hopped the guardrail and slid down the slanted side of the highway before eventually touching down in a large puddle of water gathering on the sidewalk pavement. That wasn’t his intention, but he’d moved too fast, the thought of suddenly catching up to Freddy (but more importantly, Donna) getting the best of him. As seemed to be the case for the last few days, he realized his mistake much too late.

Because there they were, camped out underneath a dry patch of the underpass. The smell was meat roasting over a hastily-put-together firepit that a man with long blond hair tied in a ponytail was tending.

Two other men sat nearby, along with a fourth figure.

Donna.

The girl turned her head as soon as Smith splashed water under his boots, and though it was slightly dark underneath the underpass, with sheets of water coming down on both sides of the opening, he saw the whites of her eyes as clear as day.

Smith wasn’t sure who was more surprised: Donna at seeing him there, or Smith that he’d done something so stupid.

Again.

The two men glanced over about a second after Donna did, and they launched up from their “seats”—an overturned pail and a large boulder. The blond at the firepit also stood up, a furry animal skewered on a long stick he was holding in one hand.

As with Donna, they were shocked to see him there, standing just inside the underpass with rainwater dripping from his wet clothes.

In the next five seconds or so—time had slowed down, and Smith couldn’t be sure how long it actually lasted—Smith decided that the big, burly man standing next to Donna was Freddy. He looked like a Freddy, too, with short red hair and a red goatee. He wore a gun belt—as did the other two—and he was holding a metal spork in one hand and an opened bag of MRE in the other. Early fifties, his face pockmarked with childhood acne.

He was also an ugly and mean-looking motherfucker.

The one behind and slightly to the right of Freddy—Donna, still seated, maybe paralyzed with disbelief, was to Freddy’s left—was tall and lean, and wearing a St. Louis Cardinals bomber jacket. The bright-red color of the clothes made him almost glow in the semidarkness of the underpass, but it was his face—and those hard, squinting eyes—that Smith noticed the most.

The blond at the campfire was the youngest one of the three by far. Early twenties, and he had been sitting on an overturned shopping cart, which was also where a camo-painted AR rifle leaned against at the moment. Blondie’s “dinner” had a sharp face and a fur-ridden body, but Smith would be goddamned if it didn’t smell good anyway.

However long the moment lasted—Five seconds? Ten? An hour?—it ended when Donna stood up.

Smith drew first.

He shot Freddy in the head, then was turning even before the redhead had collapsed—Donna screamed somewhere between the time Smith pulled the trigger and Freddy began falling—toward the one with the squinty eyes. He didn’t have to move very much because Squinty was right behind Freddy.

Smith shot Squinty next, striking the man somewhere in the midsection. Smith would have gone for a headshot on Squinty, too, but Freddy’s falling figure drew Smith’s eyes slightly, and in the split second before he pulled the trigger a second time, he decided to go for the safer shot.

It was a mistake.

Another one.

Squinty stumbled, grabbing at his stomach, but he didn’t go down.

Smith’s attention immediately turned to the third man. Blondie had already dropped his rat-on-a-stick and was reaching back for his rifle. That was a mistake. Had the man gone for his holstered sidearm, he might have stood a chance against Smith. Might. But the point was moot, because he went for the AR leaning against the cart behind him instead.

Smith shot him in the ass. Then, when the man jerked backward, shot him a second time in the back of the skull.

Donna screamed again.

Smith looked over just in time to catch Squinty sliding behind the girl. He wasn’t completely behind Donna when Smith finished his slight turn, and Smith could have probably squeezed off another shot, but he didn’t take the chance.

That, as it turned out, was yet another mistake.

Unlike Blondie, Squinty had gone for his sidearm, and the pistol was in his hand when he snatched Donna and pulled her in front of him. The girl, already hurt in the shoulder, was grimacing in intense pain as she was grabbed roughly.

Smith twisted and leapt out of the underpass just as Squinty fired once, twice, three times in his direction. Searing pain erupted from his right side as Smith landed on the patch of wet grass he was aiming for. The only other option was to slam into the hard concrete pavement.

He rolled away, the heavy pack strapped to his back, making it harder than it should have been.

A fourth round smashed into the concrete in front and about three inches from Smith’s moving head, kicking chunks of cement into the wet air.

Before Squinty could get off a fifth shot, Smith rolled his way out of the underpass opening, even as the rainstorm pummeled him with freezing-cold water. He scrambled to his feet and looked back to make sure Squinty didn’t have a clear shot. He didn’t.

Stupid. So, so stupid!

Smith stood under the rain, gun in one hand, and checked his side. He was bleeding down there, blood dripping to the flowing rainwater at his feet.

Dammit, he should have risked it. He should have gone for the headshot on Squinty back there after Freddy.

Dammit.

Dammit, dammit, dammit.

Smith shrugged off the pack and let it drop to the soaked ground next to him. There was a slash across the fabric, near the middle, that hadn’t been there before. Smith didn’t know how that bullet had missed him but got the backpack. At that moment, he was glad he hadn’t dragged Margo’s AR with him. The rifle would have made that mad dash out from the underpass almost clumsy as hell. Or, well, clumsier than it had been.

Smith didn’t bother swapping out the half-empty magazine in the SIG with a fresh one. He had plenty of bullets left in the mag to finish the job. Instead, he waited for Squinty to pursue, but there were no signs of the man.

But of course there wouldn’t be. Why did Smith think the man would come out here, in the cold rain, when he didn’t have to?

He’s smarter than you, but that’s not saying much, is it?

Smith sighed. So many mistakes in such a short amount of time. It was a miracle he was even still alive!

But he was. Somehow, he still was.

“Hey, you still alive in there?” Smith shouted.

He waited for a response, but there was none. He wasn’t even sure if Squinty could hear him over the pounding rain. But maybe the thunderstorm was just loud to Smith’s ears; after all, he was the one outside in it and not safely tucked away—and dry—under the highway.

No, not entirely “safe.” Smith might not have gotten in a killing shot, but he’d wounded Squinty. The man was bleeding even while he was making his move toward Donna, so there was that.

Of course, unless Squinty decided to drop dead in the next few minutes—Or hour. Could Smith outlast the man for an hour?—then Smith wasn’t sure what good that did—

“Yeah, I’m still alive!” a voice called out.

Smith couldn’t be certain, but it sounded like the second voice he’d overheard on the highway during the ambush earlier this morning. The same voice that had been encouraging Freddy to get the hell out of there.

“How’s the weather out there?” the man shouted.

Smith smirked. Smartass.

“Got you good, didn’t I?” the man continued. “You’re really bleeding out there! Bleeding like a faucet!”

That was partially true. Yes, Smith was bleeding, but the wound wasn’t as bad as it appeared. It just looked worse than it was, with the blood dripping from his shirt and down his pants to the stream of water flowing into the underpass next to him, thanks to the slanted construction he was standing on.

Smith took a moment to pull up his shirt and checked the wound anyway. There was a hole about half an inch from his side, but it didn’t feel like the bullet had hit any vital organs. Or his intestines, thank God. An inch more to the left, and it might have done just that. Then again, an inch more to the other side, and it would have missed him entirely.

But he’d take it. Squinty had had him dead to rights, and if Smith had hesitated for just another heartbeat, he might be dead right now instead of just shivering in the rain while dark-gray clouds continued to gather above him.

And it was cold. He was drenched from head to toe, and even the SIG felt slick in his hand. He changed up his grip, then had to keep flexing his fingers every ten seconds or so to make sure he still had a good handle on the pistol.

“Hey, you still alive?” Squinty shouted, his voice as echoey now as it had been the last few times. He also sounded way too strong and confident for Smith’s liking; that could only mean he, like Smith, wasn’t as hurt as Smith had hoped.

“Yeah, I’m still alive,” Smith shouted back. “Real manly thing to do back there, using the girl like that!”

The man laughed. Or he might have coughed.

No, Smith was sure that was a laugh, but the continuous pounding of rain and faraway cracks of thunder made it difficult to interpret the tone with any certainty.

“A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do!” Squinty shouted.

“What man?” Smith said. “I didn’t see any man in there.”

“Hardy har har, that’s a nice one. You got a name?”

“Why don’t I tell you in person?”

“Yeah, why don’t you do that?”

“I mean it,” Smith said. “Mano a mano. You and me. Guns in our holsters. What do you say?”

“Mano a mano means hand-to-hand, idiot,” Squinty said.

Smith grunted. He hadn’t known that. Maybe the guy was lying?

He said anyway, “You don’t say?”

“But why don’t you do that?” Squinty shouted. “Come on back inside. Just you and me. Dry and across from one another. Let’s finish this.”

“I will if you let the girl go.”

“You come in here first.”

“Let her go first.”

“Nah. You come in here first.”

Smith sighed. He thought about his options.

He could always climb back up the highway and cross over to the other side, then slide down behind Squinty. Of course, Squinty would probably realize Smith was doing that—or something else tricky—when he stopped responding to the man’s taunts for too long. The man didn’t look like a total idiot. Worse, he’d instinctively used Donna as a human shield, and Smith guessed the man wouldn’t care at all if the already-wounded girl died during their little standoff. It wasn’t like she was his daughter.

The only other choice was to take off. Leave Squinty with his two dead friends and…

Donna.

There was no way he could just leave the teenager now. But he also couldn’t stand out here all day. If the rain didn’t kill him, getting sick from being drenched would. A cold might not be the worst thing, but he knew of people who had died from more “innocent” sicknesses these days.

No, he had to make a decision.

Stay or leave.

Stay or…

Oh, who was he kidding? He couldn’t leave.

He slipped the SIG back into the holster, took a long breath, and stepped back toward the underpass opening.

Twenty-Three

Squinty laughed.

But at least he didn’t shoot Smith as soon as he showed himself. It was a lot more than Smith could have hoped for.

“You must be fucking insane,” Squinty said. “Either that, or you have brass balls. Which one is it?”

Smith smiled. He had to force it out, because Squinty was right. He must have been fucking insane, because he sure as hell didn’t have brass balls. Who would have done what he just did? No one, that was who. Every other person in the universe was too smart to pull a stupid stunt like this.

Everyone, except him.

What was one more stupid choice in a week full of them?

Squinty’s eyes went from Smith’s face to his holstered sidearm, then to his hands hanging at his sides, and finally to the blood dripping from Smith’s waist. Smith was hoping that it still looked worse than it really was, because he felt fine. Or maybe that was just his mind playing tricks on him. Adrenaline had a way of convincing you that you weren’t bleeding to death, even if you were.

Smith’s state did make Squinty slightly relax, not that the man let Donna go or came out from behind the already-injured teenager. He continued standing behind the girl, even bending his legs slightly to make sure she was completely in front of him and he was shielded. He was taller than her, so that must have taken some effort, especially since, like Smith, Squinty was also bleeding from almost the same exact spot.

And there was Squinty’s Glock—it was in his hand and aimed squarely at Smith’s face.

And yet, the man didn’t pull the trigger.

Why didn’t he just pull the trigger and get it over with? Maybe he really was shocked by what Smith had done and was still trying to process every little bit of it before making a decision.

Even he can’t believe you would make such a stupid move, buddy.

“You still need the girl?” Smith asked.

He didn’t look at Donna when he said it. His eyes were focused entirely on Squinty’s, well, squinting eyes, though of course he couldn’t completely ignore the girl. Or the sheer terror on her face as she stared back at him, her chest heaving against her clothes as Squinty clung to her, one forearm wrapped so tight around her throat that Smith wasn’t sure if the poor girl could even breathe. Her face was turning a shade of blue, but that could have just been from the pain. Fortunately, Squinty’s forearm wasn’t pressing down against the spot where she’d been shot and bandaged. In a world of bad news, that was the best he could find.

“I can just shoot you right now,” Squinty said. His forefinger was in the trigger guard, and he could do exactly that.

Except he didn’t.

Instead, Squinty flexed the rest of his fingers around the Glock’s grip. “Bang. One bullet, and I put an end to this.”

“Yeah, you could do that,” Smith said. “Or you could let the kid go and try your luck.”

“And why would I do something stupid like that?”

“Maybe because you’re not a pussy?”

Squinty chuckled, but his eyes betrayed him. Smith saw the killer instinct in the man warring with his pride.

Or, at least, Smith hoped that was what he was seeing.

“Well?” Smith asked.

“Well what?” Squinty said.

“Are you or aren’t you a pussy?”

Squinty grinned.

“That’s not an answer,” Smith said.

“You really wanna die, don’t you?” Squinty asked.

“No, I don’t. In fact, I could have left here and gone my own merry way and never looked back.”

“But you didn’t…”

“…but I didn’t.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I wanted to find out how good you really were.”

“Good?” Squinty asked. “What does that mean?”

“With that gun.”

“I’m good enough.”

“Show me.”

Squinty chuckled again.

And again, Smith didn’t believe him.

“Prove it,” Smith said.

“Fuck off,” Squinty said. “I don’t have to prove shit to you.”

Smith looked down at Freddy’s body, crumpled up on the wet pavement. As far as Smith knew, the redhead had died where he fell. The other guy, the blond, was still near the makeshift firepit, his rat-on-a-stick lying next to his prone body.

“That’s Freddy?” Smith asked.

“What?” Squinty said.

Smith nodded at the redhead. “Is that Freddy? I didn’t know what he looked like.”

“Yeah, that’s Freddy.”

“And I guess that’s Mack,” Smith said, nodding at the other guy.

Squinty narrowed his eyes some more. “Who the hell are you?”

“I’m the guy who killed your friends back on the highway earlier. Dunbar and two other meatheads. I don’t remember their names.”

“That was you?”

“Yeah. That was me.”

Smith allowed his gaze to wander slightly over to Donna. The girl had big eyes, and she hadn’t looked away from him ever since he stepped back underneath the highway. Maybe, like Squinty, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing because it really, really, really was a dumb thing to do.

Then Smith recognized something else in her eyes. It was fear, but also something else—

Determination.

Grim determination.

Shit. She’s going to do something.

She’s going to do something!

“This isn’t the Old West, and we’re not cowboys,” Squinty was saying. “And you shouldn’t have come back—”

Donna bit down on Squinty’s forearm. The man howled in pain and instinctively lessened his grip around Donna’s throat. She jerked her entire body downward, slipping free of Squinty’s grasp even as he groped for her with his hand—

Smith drew, and Squinty fired at almost exactly the same time.

Squinty’s round drilled through Smith’s left shoulder, and he was twisting slightly to that side when he fired from the hip. Instead of Squinty’s forehead, Smith’s bullet struck the man’s left ear, taking a chunk of flesh with it. The round continued and pekked! into the concrete wall farther back of the underpass.

Squinty jerked his head back and shot again, but Smith had sidestepped in the right direction, and something hot zipped! harmlessly past Smith’s body and vanished into the cascading rain outside. If he’d gone left instead of right, Squinty’s bullet would have hit Smith square in the chest.

Smith squeezed off two more shots in quick succession, hitting Squinty both times in the stomach. The man doubled over, blood dripping from his destroyed ear and midsection. Somehow, he managed to remain on his feet.

At least just long enough to look up a split second before Smith shot him in the face.

Twenty-Four

“Sorry about your dad.”

“It’s okay. He wasn’t a very nice guy anyway.”

Smith smiled. “Anyways…”

“Anyways,” Donna said.

They sat in the two front seats of an old SUV that smelled faintly of dead animals. It wasn’t enough to send them outside into the rain, though. The thunderstorm raged against the windows around them even as it wracked Mist City from end to end. It hadn’t slowed down since it began, and looking out at the harsh downpour, Smith wondered if it was going to take longer than a day for it to ease up. Fortunately, they had enough supplies that if it did take more than twenty-four hours, they would be fine.

Smith’s shoulder itched, and the hole in his side had numbed over thanks to the meds he’d taken. There was a little bit of pain, but he’d take a little bit any day of the week. Donna had been surprisingly adept at bandaging him up despite her own wound, though he’d had to talk her through a couple of steps. Still, the girl didn’t seem especially perturbed that Smith had just shot her dad to death in front of her, and his body still lay on the ground behind her as she helped Smith to not bleed out.

But, like she said, Freddy hadn’t been a very nice guy. Smith guessed she’d know more than him, having seen the man kill her mother—his own wife—and all. Smith had been right, though; the redhead was Freddy. Mack was the one with the rat on the stick, and Squinty’s real name was Harrison.

Smith didn’t ask Donna any details about any of the three dead men. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to lose sleep over killing them, and it was probably best for the teenager that she wasn’t forced to dwell on it.

What’s done was done, and dead was dead.

They sat in the SUV and watched the rain cascade down the windshield, washing away every little inch of dirt and grime still clinging to the vehicle when they found it parked a few meters from the highway underpass. The car was turned in the opposite direction, so they didn’t have to keep seeing the bodies behind them. Of course, all Smith had to do was glance at the side mirror to ensure they were still back there.

The last five times he’d looked, they were.

Donna hadn’t asked him anything about Margo or Clark, and Smith suspected that the teenager already knew. Either she’d seen them get shot or had heard the conversation between Freddy and the others about what had happened to them. Possibly, she had guessed all of it just by Smith’s lone presence.

However she knew, the kid didn’t bring the topic up, and Smith left it alone, too. Instead, he fell asleep to the rhythmic pek-pek-pek of rain against the roof of the SUV. That, and the medicine he’d taken made it easy to drift off.

When he opened his eyes again, it was dark and there was a slight drizzle outside.

Smith immediately looked over at the driver-side door to check the lock. He couldn’t remember if he’d locked it before drifting off and was relieved when he saw that it was. Had he done that?

“I locked all the doors,” Donna said from the front passenger seat next to him.

He glanced over. She was looking at a map that she’d found in the glove compartment earlier. She had it spread out in her lap and seemed wide awake despite the early morning hours. To look at her, he wouldn’t even know she was wounded, or that she’d just lost her dad in a violent shootout.

Tough kid, Smith thought.

He said, “What are you doing?”

“Looking for someplace to go.”

“Why?”

“I have to go somewhere, don’t I?”

“I guess.”

She gave him an amused smile that reminded him just a little bit of Margo. “You don’t know where you’re going after this?”

Smith shook his head. “Haven’t thought about it.”

“Where were you headed when you bumped into us?”

“Nowhere.”

“Nowhere?”

“Nowhere.”

“Then you can come with me, if you don’t have anywhere to go.”

“You don’t even know where you’re going.”

“That’s why it’ll be fun.”

Smith chuckled. “I’m not looking for fun.”

“What are you looking for, then?”

“I don’t know.”

“If you don’t know what you’re looking for, then how do you know it’s not fun?”

Smith stared at her in silence for a moment.

Then he said, “Why would you want me to come along with you anyway?”

“Duh,” Donna said. “Maybe because I’m fourteen and female, and I’ll be alone? I’m all for girl power and all that jazz, but it’s dangerous out there, dude.”

He smiled. “Yeah, it is.”

“So come on along. You don’t know where you’re going anyway. This way, you don’t have to think too hard about it.”

“You have a point.”

“Yup. Thinking’s hard.”

“Thinking’s very hard.”

Smith sat back in his seat. He looked out the wet windshield, watching Mist City start to fill up again in the aftermath of the torrential downpour. Just about anything could come out of all that universe of swirling gray clouds…

“You’re right; it is dangerous out there,” Smith said. He wasn’t sure if that was meant for Donna or himself.

“Yup,” Donna said quietly. Then, looking over at him, “What’s your real name, anyway?”

“Does it matter?”

She seemed to think about it for a second or two before shaking her head. “I guess it doesn’t. What’s a name, anyway?”

“A name’s a name, is a name.”

“In that case, I think I’ll change mine to Margo.”

Smith reached over to shake her hand. “Nice to meet you, Margo.”

“Yeah, nice to meet you, too, John Smith.”

“So,” Smith said, sitting back, “you find anyplace interesting on that map? Preferably someplace that isn’t covered in mist?”

About Run or Fight

Copyright (c) 2020 by Sam Sisavath

THE ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS.

All the man who calls himself John Smith wants to do is continue with his wandering ways. Explore the country and stay out of trouble, especially when it’s none of his business. Easier said than done.

His life gets overly complicated when Smith runs afoul of a man who calls himself the Judge, as well as the people who are opposed to the Judge’s tyrannical rule. Two sides, both looking for an advantage over the other, and Smith has just landed smack dab in the middle of their ongoing feud.

It’s a conflict that has simmered for years and is about to explode into all-out violence. All it will take is a match to light the powder keg.

What’s a wandering post-apocalyptic ronin to do? For Smith, there are only two available options: Run or fight.

One

Don’t get involved.

There were three of them, because they always came in threes. There had to be something about the number. Maybe a magical formula, only known to the wicked, that told them two were too few and four were too much.

Three, then, was the perfect number, for men like them.

It’s none of your business.

Not that Smith knew anything about how men like them thought or what drove them to do the things they did. He wasn’t one of them. He had killed, yes, but only when he had do. And certainly he had never done to the boy and the woman what this trio was planning to do, or might have already done.

Better yet, hide while they still haven’t spotted you.

It didn’t take long for Smith to conclude that the gang was going to kill the boy and rape the woman. Or maybe they would rape the woman first and then kill the boy. The other option was to kill the boy while raping the woman. Either way, the boy was going to die, and the woman was going to wish she had.

He’d seen it all before. Too many times to count. The world was full of these men. It’d always been, but the devastation wrought upon society by The Purge allowed them to let out their inner demons. Once upon a time, he’d been part of a group that tried to stop men like these.

Those days are long over. This isn’t your job anymore. You know what will happen if you get involved.

So don’t get involved.

The voice was right. The voice was always right.

All he had to do was just sit and watch but not get involved.

So that’s what he did. He sat and watched.

One was short and balding, and stocky in appearance. He could have just stepped out of a CPA office. Though, of course the wardrobe didn’t match the look. Sweat-stained cargo pants, boots (to give him some extra height, maybe), and there was a pump-action shotgun cradled in his arms. The exact opposite of dangerous-looking.

The second one was tall and lanky, almost skeletal from a distance. His leanness wasn’t because of the food he’d had to eat, because anything that could make you fat didn’t last since the world went to shit. No, the scarcity of fattening foods wasn’t why the man was so thin. He was probably like that long before he grabbed the woman by the hair and pulled her up from the ground with enough force to make her scream.

The third and last of the gang was the biggest by far, because of course there always had to be the big one. It was how the makeup of such a group was built—the small one, the medium one, and the big one to rule them all.

This one was broad-shouldered with short blond hair, holding an AR-15-type rifle in one hand as if it were a toy and not something that could kill another human being with the simple (so, so simple) pull of a trigger. Early forties, with obvious scars on his face that looked more like war paint. Smith wondered where the man had gotten those, though no doubt they lent credence to his status as alpha dog.

The leader had his back turned to his comrades as they manhandled the woman and boy, and seemed fixated on the sun setting in the horizon. Like his friends, he carried a bulging pack on his back, but he wore his effortlessly, whereas the other two seemed to struggle with theirs. The packs, along with the extra rifles they had slung over their shoulders, made all three men look more like pack mules.

It was a pretty part of the Midwest, not that Smith knew where exactly he was. He’d lost track of how far north he’d wandered after leaving Donna—or Margo, as she preferred to be called these days—behind with that friendly old couple a few weeks back. He imagined the girl looking for him after he snuck out of the cabin in the middle of the night, but it wouldn’t be long before she forgot about him. He wasn’t that memorable, after all.

He had a simple destination: North.

Once he found an ocean he couldn’t cross, he’d figure out his next step. That was the good thing about not having a home. No one to go back to, no one waiting for him, and no one to disappoint.

After a long day’s walk, he’d found a nice place to sit and watch the sun as it cast a thick orange glow across the field of swaying grass and solidago flowers, some so yellow that they looked almost golden against the setting sun. Thus the flower’s nickname “goldenrod,” he guessed. Smith had been here for half a day, sitting underneath the large elm tree and enjoying the shade and crisp air. He’d been alone all day—just how he liked it—until now.

Humans had a bad habit of ruining Smith’s day.

The boy was whaling on the stubby man who looked like an accountant. The guy was in his fifties as far as Smith could tell, and stood very still while staring at the boy, as if he couldn’t understand what was happening. The kid seemed to take the lack of action on the man’s part as permission and began swinging harder and even wilder at the Accountant’s legs. It wasn’t until he landed a little too high, near the crotch area, that the man finally took a few annoyed steps back.

The woman was shouting at the boy. Trying to calm him down. Which wasn’t quite working, because she was trying to talk through tears. Hard to convince someone everything was okay when tears were streaming down your face and your voice was choking.

Smith had no clue how the boy and the woman had initially crossed paths with the trio. All five of them had just appeared out of nowhere on the flat and empty highway in front of him. Their voices had woken him up from what had been, up to that point, a pretty good nap. Something close to a hundred yards separated him and the road. About the length of a football field.

There was nothing but knee-high grass and goldenrods separating Smith and the group, which was why they hadn’t seen him when he was lying down. Even now, all it would have taken was for one of them to turn in the right direction. It wasn’t like he was hiding. He hadn’t moved since being woken up by the commotion. The fact that he was wearing dark brown clothes probably helped him to camouflage against the tree trunk behind him.

He was sure the big man (the leader) would see him first, but the guy was too focused on the sunset just over two hills—like the breasts of a woman lying down on her back—farther up the road to notice. He told himself to lie down, to stay hidden. It would have been easy. All he had to do was slide down the trunk of the tree and disappear among the grass. As long as they didn’t leave the road, he’d stay invisible.

So why didn’t he do it? Why didn’t he just do the obvious thing? Why did he instead reach down and undo the clasp over the SIG Sauer holstered on his right hip, then make sure the safety was off the AR-10 lying on the ground to his left, next to the binoculars he’d used to spy on the fivesome earlier?

It was just as a precaution. That was all.

…that was all.

The woman released a bloodcurdling shriek as Tall and Skinny punched the boy in the back of the head. That was enough for Big Man to finally pull his focus away from the sunset and look over at the commotion behind him. Even from 100 yards away, his turn signaled clear agitation at the interruption of his view. As Big Man turned, his gaze fell across the big elm tree, along with Smith sitting against it.

Now you’ve done it, the voice said. Now you’ve done it…

Big Man did exactly what Smith was expecting. He lifted his rifle slightly, but seeing that Smith hadn’t responded, never fully raised the weapon into a firing position. Instead, he might have squinted at Smith as if trying to figure him out, or maybe how long he’d been there watching them. If the man had binoculars, like Smith did, he would have seen that Smith was not an immediate threat.

Not yet, anyway.

The leader said something to the other two, but 100 yards was too far for Smith to overhear, and the wind was blowing in the wrong direction. The Accountant and Tall and Lanky glanced over at Smith. So did the woman, who was kneeling over the boy. The kid had fallen to the blacktop when Tall and Lanky struck him and hadn’t gotten back up. Smith would have needed his binoculars to see what kind of expression was on the woman’s face as she looked across at him.

Would it be hope? Dread? Indifference?

She was wearing pants and a long-sleeve shirt. Both articles of clothing were slightly torn but not enough to show skin. It was slightly chilly, but not freezing. There was a time when people worried about weather patterns. Those were, as someone used to say, First World problems. These days, they were Who Cares problems.

Smith focused on Big Man as the traveler left the road behind and began walking toward him. Smith remained where he was, unmoving, and watched the other man approach at a steady, unhurried pace.

One hundred yards was a long walk.

Big Man was calm, but his comrades were fidgety in the background. The woman, meanwhile, had taken advantage of the temporary reprieve to care for the boy, who looked hurt. Or maybe he was just stunned from being punched.

The leader finally stopped about ten yards from where Smith sat and gripped his rifle in front of him. His finger, Smith noticed, was already in the trigger guard, though the barrel was pointed down and just slightly to the right. It would have taken precisely one second to swing the AR up and into firing position. His dark clothes made him stand out like a sore thumb against the field of goldenrods.

Smith wasn’t too worried about that, though. He was certain he could draw and fire the SIG first without having to move from his current position.

Reasonably certain.

“Hey,” Big Man said.

“Hey,” Smith said.

“Didn’t see you there.”

“I wasn’t hiding.”

“No?”

“No.”

One corner of Big Man’s mouth tugged upwards into an almost-grin. “Must have been the clothes. Made you blend in with the tree.”

“Happy coincidence.”

“Was it?”

“Yeah.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

Big Man shrugged, then looked around. “What’re you doing out here?”

“Same thing you are,” Smith said. “Passing through.”

“Is that right?”

“That’s right.”

“We’re new around these parts. You know what’s up the road?”

“Yeah.”

“You wanna tell me?”

“More road.”

Something that might have been a snort. “And…?”

“And what?”

“What’s after that?”

“Even more road.”

A chuckle as the man’s eyes fell on the AR-10 lying in the grass next to Smith. He had probably seen the SIG in the holster long before that. “Nice piece.” Then, when Smith didn’t bother with a reply, “AR platform, right?”

“That’s right.”

“10?”

“Yeah.”

“A lot of ex-military guys go for the AR-10. You ex-military?”

“Why do you give a shit?”

This time the other corner of the man’s mouth tugged upward. “Just making conversation.”

“You’re wasting your breath.”

“Not very friendly, are you?”

“Fuck off.”

Big Man snorted. “You alone?”

“What you see is what you get.”

“No one hiding behind that tree?”

“You know how long I’ve been watching the three of you manhandle that woman and child before you finally spotted me?”

“No. How long?”

“It was a rhetorical question. The point is, I didn’t have to just sit here and do nothing until you finally noticed me.”

“Point taken,” Big Man said. “So…”

“So, what?”

Big Man glanced back at the highway. Not at his two friends, or at the boy and woman specifically. He was just making sure Smith knew what he was talking about when he turned back around and said, again, “So?”

“So…what?” Smith said.

“Just wondering,” Big Man said with a shrug. “I’m Peoples.”

“I don’t give a shit.”

The man who called himself Peoples made a full grin this time. “Where you headed, mystery man?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Just being friendly.”

“You can stop. No one cares out here. Least of all me.”

“Ornery fellow, aren’t you?”

“I’m not your fellow, and you’re blocking my sun.”

“What were you doing out here, anyway?”

“You already asked me that.”

“I didn’t believe you the first time.”

“Look at my face. Do I give a shit what you believe? Turn around, keep going, and don’t look back.”

“There’s three of us and one of you.”

“There’s one of you. The other two aren’t going to do shit when I shoot you for wasting my time.”

“You think you can take me?”

“I don’t think anything.”

Peoples’s fingers, covered by fingerless gloves, tightened noticeably around his weapon. “Dangerous world to be talking like that.”

“Keep going.”

The big man narrowed his eyes. Smith thought he could see it—the urge to find out if Smith could take him. He’d seen it before.

Smith thought that he could. He had practice. A lot of practice. Reaching for the SIG was even easier because his right hand was in his lap, inches from the gun. All he’d have to do was slide it sideways and down, then pull the trigger as soon as the pistol cleared the holster.

Half a second, tops.

Peoples, on the other hand, would have to tilt his rifle upward and swing it around to aim at Smith. That would take at least a full second.

The man must have either come to the same conclusions or decided it wasn’t worth the risk, because instead of trying his luck, Peoples glanced back at the highway again before returning once more to Smith. “We’re gonna head off now.”

“You do that.”

“Don’t follow us.”

“Why the fuck would I follow you?”

A shrug. “People do crazy things these days. Stupid things they regret later. Don’t do anything you’ll regret later.”

“Turn around and keep walking.”

“See you around, tough guy.”

“Doubtful.”

Another grin from Peoples. Smith couldn’t tell if that was amusement or a threat. It was probably a little of both.

Peoples turned around and walked back to the highway. He looked over his shoulder twice—the first time after ten steps, to make sure Smith was still where he’d last spotted him, and the second time when he was halfway back to the road.

Smith couldn’t hear what Peoples said to the Accountant and Tall and Lanky, but the two men seemed to noticeably relax afterward. The woman, on the other hand, jumped up from the hard pavement and began running toward Smith.

Or she tried to.

Peoples grabbed her by the hair and jerked his hand. She looked as if she had slipped on a banana peel and fell back onto the ground on her back and head. She screamed with pain, her voice cutting through the 100 yards or so to Smith as if she was doing it right next to him.

This time, it was the boy who ran over to comfort his mother.

The Accountant, then Peoples, shot a quick glance in Smith’s direction, as if to confirm he was still where he was supposed to be.

He was.

Smith watched them continue up the highway. Peoples in the lead, while the Accountant and Tall and Lanky kept the woman and her boy, huddled together—Smith wasn’t sure who was supporting who now—between them. The woman looked toward Smith a few times before Tall and Lanky noticed and pushed her in the back after saying something. She stumbled, almost fell, but by some miracle managed to remain on her feet.

Smith watched them go.

He hadn’t moved, and didn’t plan to. He’d been at this same spot for half a day and didn’t feel like going anywhere anytime soon. He looked toward the sunset. The big round orange ball had snuck halfway down over the hills while he wasn’t paying attention, and the world around him would soon be bathed in darkness.

Not that Smith was afraid of the dark.

If anything, he welcomed it, because there were way less people to get on his nerves at night.

Two

That went well.

Mostly.

He hadn’t had to kill anyone, so that was a plus.

He didn’t feel like moving, so he didn’t. By the time the trio and their two victims had vanished up the highway, leaving behind no trace that they were ever there, he was already getting ready for nightfall.

Years ago, when The Purge swept across the country, sleeping on the ground out in the open would have been a death wish. These days, with The Walk Out having thinned out the number of ghouls, the chances of Smith encountering a nightcrawler even at night was minimal. The creatures didn’t hang out where there was no prey; they still had plenty of cities and towns to choose from.

But just because the chances of running into a ghoul was low, that didn’t mean he didn’t take precautions. He had special magazines for the SIG and AR-10 with silver-tipped rounds, which he swapped with the regular ones now. The problem with silver was that they were precious metal and not as easy to find, so using them in the daytime was an unnecessary waste of resources. Fortunately, the silver-coated blades that he carried—one on his left hip, another strapped outside his right boot, and a third inside his pack as backup—never had to be reloaded.

Smith laid the rifle on the ground next to him and leaned back, liking the rough feel of the gnarled tree trunk digging into his clothing. It hadn’t been cold enough last night for him to break out the poncho, and he didn’t now. Darkness came fast, and the only real warning was the growing cold around him. Not quite chilly enough to make him reach for the pack, but just enough to make him consider—

It was quiet.

It was too quiet.

The crickets had gone silent.

He knew they had clammed up because he’d been listening to them all morning and day. They had been droning in his ears, a constant companion besides the wind howling across the vast countryside and empty road. In the months since he abandoned his responsibilities and took up a life as a wanderer, Smith had trained himself to know what was out there and what didn’t belong.

This silence didn’t belong.

Smith casually moved his right hand until it was on the ground next to his holstered pistol.

He couldn’t hear them, but there was little doubt they were back there, approaching from the only possible direction. Only an idiot would come straight at him, and he didn’t think Big Man—or Peoples, as he called himself—was an idiot. Why were they back there, was the question. Did they think he was a danger to them? Hadn’t he been convincing enough during the chat with Peoples? What—

The snap! of a twig came from (predictably) behind and slightly to the right of him.

Smith lunged up and off the ground and was already twisting to face the tree before both legs were completely straight. It wasn’t the easiest move, given that he’d been sitting in the same spot for the last few hours. His joints protested, and the hamstrings on both legs threatened to snap.

He took two, three—five quick steps out from behind the tree, exposing himself willingly, and hoping to catch whoever was on the other side by surprise.

Eureka.

There was a silhouetted figure in front of him, stuck in a slight crouch. Thirty—maybe forty—yards away, though it was hard to gauge for sure with only the moonlight to see with. Smith didn’t get a good look at the man’s face, but he saw plenty of white as the man’s eyes widened when he realized he’d been caught. The only other thing Smith could be absolutely sure of was the long “stick” in the man’s hands.

A weapon.

Bang! as Smith drew and fired the SIG in one fluid motion.

He hadn’t bothered to aim before he pulled the trigger. He didn’t need to. Thirty or even 40 yards was a piece of cake.

The man stumbled, dropping his rifle, and went down on one knee. He clutched his chest.

A second bang! and the man collapsed into the grass as a portion of his skull flicked into the cold air. The first shot was meant to slow him down, while the second—a head shot—finished him off.

Even before the dead man had the chance to vanish into the sea of grass and goldenrods, Smith had sidestepped again, but this time in the other direction. He slipped back behind the tree just before the ambusher’s friends opened fire and bullets pek-pek-pekked! into the tree on the other side.

Right on time.

He knew they were out there, knew there wasn’t just going to be one man trying to sneak up on him. He was surprised there was just one out in the open, though. He’d been prepared to shoot at least two, but maybe he shouldn’t have been. Cowards who beat little boys and raped women weren’t exactly known for their loyalties. It made perfect sense they would send just one man to try to shoot him in the back while the others stayed hidden and watched.

Which meant the dead man was either the Accountant or Tall and Lanky. Smith was leaning toward Tall and Lanky, though the figure had been slightly crouched and there was no light, which made determining his true body shape and height difficult.

Not that it mattered which one it was. Dead was dead.

Smith just knew that it wasn’t Peoples. Oh no, the leader would never do the job himself. He would send either the Accountant or Tall and Lanky to do the dirty work. After all, if you couldn’t force other people to take chances when you stayed safe and sound, what was the point of being leader of the pack?

They continued firing into the tree, maybe under the mistaken delusion they could get to him if they could only cut their way through the thick trunk. He could have told them they were wasting their time, that the tree was there long before any of them were around and it would remain here long after they were gone.

Smith leaned his back against the tree and waited. He listened to the bullets impacting the other side, felt the tree trembling with each bullet.

Go ahead, boys. Keep at it.

Go right ahead and waste all those bullets.

They fired five more times before finally getting the hint. Eventually, the last shot echoed and faded and gave way to the silence once again.

Smith stayed where he was, the SIG back in its holster, and didn’t move. His breathing had accelerated slightly, and he spent the next five or so seconds calming it down. He’d been in firefights before, almost died way more times for his liking, but there was always the initial adrenaline boost of being fired upon that never went away. Ever.

He liked it that way. The day he stopped being affected by a gunfight was when he knew he’d joined the pack and might as well go looking for two other assholes to form a gang of his own.

As his breathing settled down, Smith kept his ears open and his eyes scanning the road in the horizon to his left and right. He didn’t think the dead man’s friends would be charging head-on. No, they would be back there, behind him, where the gunshots had come from. There had been too many bullets, and the shots were too simultaneous for there to just be one shooter.

There were two more back there. Peoples and the other one.

For the next few minutes, Smith tried to figure out why they had come back to kill him. Were they afraid he might follow them, try to stop them from doing what they had planned for the boy and the woman? Or was it something else? It couldn’t have been his weapons. There were more guns out there than any of them could use in a hundred lifetimes.

Maybe his supplies, even though the trio had been carrying their own packs. That didn’t mean they weren’t running low. Or, hell, they just felt like taking what he had because they could.

Or they thought they could, anyway. They’d just found out that they couldn’t.

Was that enough to dissuade the remaining two?

In their shoes, Smith would have hightailed it already. The supplies of a random guy on the road wasn’t worth dying for.

But then again, Smith was always a little more practical than most people.

He remained where he was, back against the tree, and waited. He breathed normally, the cold air pushing at his exposed cheeks. The crickets still hadn’t returned; if anything, the land around him had gotten quieter. Or maybe that was just his imagination, since it’d been pretty damn quiet before the shooting erupted.

He didn’t bother reloading the SIG. He was down two bullets, but he had plenty left. If he needed more than one magazine to deal with three assholes, Smith knew it was time to hang it up and start farming, or doing something else that didn’t involve getting into gunfights.

Then, the sound he’d been waiting for:

Tap-tap-tap of hurried boots pounding on the soft ground!

About damn time.

Smith spun away from the tree, this time going to his left.

Two shots—pop-pop!—rang out before he felt the heat signature of bullets zipping by over his head. Both shots were high and missed badly. He figured out why when he saw a figure running toward him at a fast sprint, trying to aim a rifle in his hands as he did so. The man was wide-bodied and stumpy.

The Accountant. Which meant the one Smith had killed earlier was Tall and Lanky.

For a brief second Smith watched the man run toward him. He was running as fast as he could and probably gasping for breath with every step. Not that Smith could be certain; the man was still too far away.

Sixty yards.

Fifty-five…

Three more shots—pop-pop-pop!—sailed over Smith’s head. One landed a few feet to his right, but Smith ignored the puff of dirt it kicked up. Either the man was a really terrible shot, or he couldn’t run and aim and shoot at the same time.

Probably the latter.

Smith had already drawn his SIG by the time he exposed himself, but he didn’t shoot the Accountant in the chest right away to stop his forward pace, which he could have easily. The man was now at thirty yards and presented a huge target.

Instead, Smith shot him in the right thigh, and the Accountant pitched forward wildly as if he’d gotten one foot stuck in a hole and lost his balance. The man’s rifle went flying, its silhouetted shape flashing against the moonlight for a brief second or two just before its owner slammed face-first into the ground, flattening more goldenrods in his path. Even with the distance between them, Smith could hear the satisfying thump! as the man collided with the unyielding field.

Smith quickly slipped back behind the tree for cover. He waited for Peoples to resume pelting the other side of the elm, but there was no return fire or further attempts on his life.

What are you waiting for, Peoples?

He didn’t move. He stood perfectly still and listened, but the only sound he could hear was the Accountant moaning somewhere behind him. The man was still alive, of course; Smith hadn’t gone for a killing shot.

He waited.

Five minutes…

Ten…

The moaning continued but got weaker as the minutes ticked by, until, eventually, the crickets returned.

Smith remained where he was and waited.

Sometime between when he initially fell and now—Smith didn’t bother checking his watch—the Accountant must have rolled slightly to the right, because his moans had moved to that new spot. But he was still back there, either because he couldn’t get up or he was too afraid to. Smith was betting on the former.

Peoples would have seen his men go down, but the leader hadn’t resumed his attack.

The night continued on, with the wounded man interrupting the crickets with his moans. He went on and on…until, after about thirty minutes, he finally stopped. Smith didn’t hear a peep out of him after that, so he assumed the guy had bled out. That was too bad. Smith was hoping to talk to him, maybe do a little interrogation. He was curious why they had come back when they didn’t have to, even if a part of him couldn’t care less.

The only one left was Peoples, but Smith had a feeling the man was gone. Once he saw Tall and Lanky and the Accountant fall, Peoples wouldn’t hang around. Men like him were cowards, when you got right down to it. Take away their army—even if it was just two men—and they crumpled like cheap suits.

After another thirty minutes of nothing happening, Smith sat down and leaned against the tree. The night carried on, and so did the crickets—now with two less human beings to interrupt their symphony.

Three

Peoples was surprised to see him.

So were the woman and the boy, both of whom sat huddled together on the ground while the big man poked at a fire with the point of his machete. It wasn’t nearly cold enough for a fire, but that hadn’t stopped Peoples from making one anyway. It was a mistake because the glow had allowed Smith to track him all the way back to his makeshift camp. It had taken Smith about two hours and two miles of walking.

Out here, gunshots traveled, and so did any hints of humanity.

For someone who had probably been wandering the countryside for a while now, doing many bad things that would stay secret until the day he died, Peoples was shockingly inept at staying under the radar. Smith had briefly considered letting him go, letting the disastrous attack on him slide.

Briefly.

Peoples was frozen in place, looking very unsure if he should reach for the AR-15 leaning against the log next to him or go for his holstered pistol. He wasn’t going to do anything with the machete—at least not while Smith stood a good twenty yards across the campfire from him.

The woman and the boy glanced from Peoples to Smith and back again. Up close, he realized he was wrong when he didn’t think the trio had done anything to her or the boy yet. Maybe they had left the kid alone, but she hadn’t been spared. Smith recognized the trauma on her face, in the way she was rocking back and forth. It wasn’t for the boy’s sake but her own. Smith knew, then, that she’d suffered long before the five of them ever accidentally crossed his path earlier in the day.

The boy, on the other hand, seemed excited for the possibility of what would come next, and the light from the fire almost danced off his round, shiny face. He looked as if he wanted to shout out a hundred different things but was too scared to do so. At any moment now, though, he might just blurt them all out in a row.

Peoples didn’t look quite as fearsome now as he had in the daylight. In fact, he looked downright miserable, as if the failure of a few hours ago had dragged him down and he wasn’t sure how to proceed next. Smith’s sudden presence hadn’t helped him to decide the best course of action, it would appear.

The only reason Peoples hadn’t made his move yet was because Smith had left his gun holstered, with the AR-10 still slung over his back, along with his pack. He could have shown himself with a weapon in his hand, but what would have been the fun of that?

Smith didn’t like killing, but sometimes he couldn’t help himself and a little enjoyment would slip through, especially when the other guy deserved it. And men like Peoples and his two buddies definitely had it coming.

Of course, some people could say the same about him.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Peoples finally asked, breaking the silence.

“Where are your friends?” Smith asked.

“My friends?”

“The one that looks like an accountant, and the tall and lanky one.”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“They must have run off. Did you see them out there?” Then, maybe because he thought he could talk his way out of this, “Those guys are bad news. I told them to get lost. There’s no telling what kind of trouble they’d get into. You didn’t see them out there?”

“Oh, I saw them,” Smith said.

“So why’d you ask about them?”

“Just wanted to know if you knew.”

“So what happened?”

“I killed them.”

“Why did you do that?”

“They were trying to kill me. It was self-defense.”

“Well, if it was self-defense…”

Peoples had resumed poking at the fire with his machete, though he wasn’t looking at what he was doing. His eyes were glued on Smith.

Like most people in the world, before or after The Purge, Peoples was right-handed. Smith knew that by the way he clutched his long knife. And, of course, his holstered Glock was on his right hip and so was the AR leaning about a foot away. To get to either weapon, he would need to drop the machete first.

“So what do you want?” Peoples asked.

“I came to see if the woman and her boy like being in your company,” Smith said.

“She does.”

“Why don’t we let her answer that?”

“Not necessary. She does. You know what they were eating when I found them? I saved their lives.”

“Did you, now?”

“It’s harsh out there. A woman and a boy alone…” Peoples shrugged. “I don’t know how long they would have lasted if I hadn’t come along.”

“You must be one of those Good Samaritans I’ve heard about.”

“You can call me whatever you want.”

“Why don’t I ask them anyway?” Smith said. He looked over at the woman. “Ma’am? You like being in this guy’s company?”

The woman opened her mouth to answer, but Peoples beat her to it. “She likes it fine. This is none of your business, remember?”

“It wasn’t, until tonight,” Smith said. He looked back at the woman. “Ma’am? You want to stay with this guy, or leave with me?”

“I said, she’s fine where she is,” Peoples said.

Smith sighed and turned back to the big man. “I’m only going to say this once: Interrupt her one more time, and I’ll shoot you where you sit. You understand me?”

Peoples narrowed his eyes back at him across the fire. The flames had gotten bigger and hotter because Peoples kept shoveling more tinder into them. “This is none of your business. You need to leave. Now.”

He’d said the now with great authority, as if he was used to giving orders.

And maybe he was, just not to someone like Smith. Which was to say, someone who didn’t give a flying goddamn what he wanted.

“One more time,” Smith said to Peoples. Then, turning to the woman, “Ma’am—”

Peoples went for his rifle.

That was a mistake, because in order to reach for it he had to drop the machete, twist around at the waist, and reach for the AR. He could have saved at least a full second by going for his holstered Glock instead.

As it stood, Peoples got both hands on the rifle before Smith, in no hurry, drew his SIG and shot the man in the left ear.

Peoples howled and let go of the AR, then tumbled backward and onto the ground on his back. Smith hadn’t expected that reaction, but he had to admit, it was pretty damn funny.

The only reason Smith hadn’t killed Peoples outright was because of the woman. She had suffered. He didn’t know how much, but it was enough. He had seen the thousand-yard stare on her too many times to mistake it for anything else. And because of that, Smith felt that Peoples needed to suffer a little bit before he could, finally, give up the ghost.

“This is what happens when you keep interrupting,” Smith said as he walked over.

The big man had drawn and was trying to raise his Glock even while he was still on his back. But in order to see Smith and shoot him, the man had to raise himself to line up a shot first. He was doing exactly that when Smith shot him again, this time in the right cheek. The bullet tore a healthy chunk of Peoples’s skin, muscle, and bone with it.

Peoples screamed again, but he was still trying to aim and get a shot off. Smith shot him a third time, this one in the right hand. Two of Peoples’s fingers flicked through the night air and landed somewhere behind him, while the gun dropped to the ground.

The big man rolled over and onto his knees. He grabbed at his mutilated right hand, even while blood dripped from his cheek and what was left of his left ear. All of a sudden he didn’t seem like such a tough guy anymore.

Smith holstered his SIG. “You shouldn’t have come back for me. I might have let you go if you hadn’t. But I guess we’ll never know for sure now, will we?”

Peoples looked up from his mangled fingers at Smith. “You fucker!”

“Relax. You still have eight perfectly good fingers left.”

“You fucker!” Peoples shouted again.

Smith had another witty comeback ready (something along the lines of “This conversation is boring me.”), but before he could say it, the woman stood up and ran over. Smith glanced in her direction, was about to yell at her to stop, when she picked up Peoples’s rifle and pointed it at its owner.

Peoples’s eyes seemed to bulge against their sockets as he raised his hands toward her. “Wait. Don’t. Don’t!”

But the woman didn’t wait, and she apparently knew her way around a rifle, because Smith heard the click! as the woman changed the fire selector on the weapon before she pulled the trigger.

Peoples’s body danced against the firelight as thirty bullets poured into him.

Smith thought it was a waste of perfectly good bullets, but he wasn’t about to tell the woman that. He had a feeling she wasn’t in any mood to listen anyway.

Four

Smith wasn’t looking for an instant family. If he were, he wouldn’t have gotten rid of Margo the first chance he got. Though, of course, he didn’t look at the situation with Margo as having “gotten rid” of her. More like he’d given her a better life since just about anything was better than wandering around the countryside the way he was doing. Aimless walking, with nothing to call home and no destination in mind, wasn’t any kind of life for a kid.

It was the perfect life for a guy like him, though.

So when he started walking and the mother and son decided to follow him, he was a little surprised. They stopped when he stopped and turned around, keeping about ten yards between them and him as if they didn’t quite trust him to get too close. Which, he guessed, he didn’t blame them after everything they had been through.

“You don’t have to follow me,” Smith said.

“What?” the woman said.

“You don’t have to follow me. You can go wherever you want. You’re free.”

“Free?” she said, as if she couldn’t comprehend the meaning of the word.

“Go wherever you want. Both of you.”

She stared at him, then at the boy. Then back at him.

The boy looked almost as confused as she was.

“You understand what I’m telling you?” he asked.

“We don’t know where to go,” she said.

“Where were you going when they found you?”

Just in case she didn’t understand the question, he nodded toward Peoples’s bloodied form, still on the ground next to the log. Smith could hardly tell what the man looked like because the woman had put all of the AR’s magazine into his face. Smith was fully prepared to tackle her and take the weapon from her if she tried to reload it, fearing she might turn it on him, but she had just dropped it like she didn’t know what it was doing in her hands in the first place.

She looked back at Peoples and lingered on his body for a moment. Maybe she hadn’t realized what she’d done until now, though Smith didn’t think so when she turned back to him and he didn’t see anything on her face that could even remotely be mistaken for regret.

Smith looked from her to the kid. He clung to his mother, both arms around hers, while peering back at Smith. The boy wasn’t very big and barely went up to her waist. He had short blond hair like his mother, and Smith didn’t have to look very hard to see all the other resemblances. The kid was clearly born after The Purge, which meant this was the only world he knew. Smith wasn’t sure if he should feel sorry for the boy or not. After all, Smith knew all the things they’d lost when the creatures tried to end humanity, but this boy would never feel those losses.

“We were in a group,” the woman said. “They…found us a week ago. They killed everyone except us. They killed Aaron’s father.”

Aaron, Smith guessed, was the boy.

“Where were you headed?” Smith asked.

“Nowhere,” she said.

“Nowhere?”

She shook her head. “We weren’t going anywhere. We were just moving around. It’s easier that way.”

He was going to ask “Easier how?” but didn’t. Smith knew what she meant, because he was doing exactly the same thing. He kept moving around because it was easier. Once you put down roots, you had to commit to the place, to the people. The last time Smith did that was with Black Tide, and that hadn’t turned out very well.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“Me?”

She nodded.

“North,” he said.

“What’s north?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I’m going up there. To find out.”

He wasn’t sure if she understood him, because she didn’t respond right away. It took a few seconds before she said, “Then we’re going north, too.”

“I’m not looking for companions.”

“Neither are we. You’re walking north, and so are we. Who says we have to go together?”

He gave her a wry smile. That was one way to put it.

“Yeah, okay,” Smith said, and turned back around and headed north.

* * *

He walked, and they followed.

Though not right away because they ran back to the makeshift camp and looted Peoples and, as it turned out, packs from the Accountant and Tall and Lanky, too. Peoples had confiscated both of his dead partners’ things after they no longer needed them.

Smith kept going, but he slowed down enough that mother and son didn’t completely lose sight of him until they had grabbed all they could. The woman, whose name he still didn’t know, carried two of the packs while the boy did his best to shoulder one of them. Eventually, though, they started ditching items from the bags to lighten their load. Smith pictured a long, jagged line of supplies connecting them all the way back to the campfire, which had started to fade slowly into the background.

He hadn’t wanted to stay at the camp for two reasons: Peoples’s faceless body being one, and the other was not wanting to press his luck when it came to ghouls. If he could spot the fire from two miles away, there was a very good chance others could as well.

Smith didn’t like taking chances if he could avoid it. This was one of those times when he could, so he did.

By the time the woman and Aaron had caught up to him again, she was only carrying one of the bags, and the boy was dragging his. Both of the remaining packs looked thinner than when Smith had seen them on the highway earlier yesterday, so he assumed they’d thrown away a healthy portion of the contents so they could keep up.

He felt a little bad about that.

Neither the woman nor the boy walked close enough to talk to him, which was fine with Smith. He could easily smell them back there, but it helped that the wind was at his back and carrying their scent. They were both sweating, and smelly, and every now and then he heard Aaron grunting and fumbling with his bag. But the kid was a trooper and never complained. Or if he did, Smith couldn’t hear them.

They walked through the night for a good two hours before Smith took pity on mother and son—and maybe on himself, too, if he were being honest—and decided to check an outcrop of boulders along the fields to his right. He’d avoided the highway since leaving Peoples’s camp behind, mostly because walking around in the open, even at night, was a good way to get shot. You could never tell who or what was lying in wait out there. Like, for instance, three assholes with guns looking for prey.

The rocks were hard and big enough that Smith decided to use them as a temporary shelter. There was also nothing within sight of them—not for miles in any direction. They’d left the prairie of grass and goldenrods behind and replaced them with gray, hard earth. He couldn’t see the paved highway from here, not even standing on the tallest boulder. With the distance and combination of night, he felt good about getting an interrupted night’s sleep.

Of course, he’d felt the same under the elm tree, and that hadn’t worked out as he’d planned.

Smith tossed his pack and leaned his rifle against a boulder when he realized he was alone. The woman and Aaron hadn’t joined him. He pulled out his poncho as he looked back at them, standing tentatively about twenty yards away.

“Come on, then,” Smith said.

That was all the invitation they needed, and mother and son walked over and claimed a spot across the outcrop from him. She opened her pack and took out a small blanket covered with what looked like a yellow sponge. Or a person in the form of a yellow sponge, complete with holes and a white hat on top.

When she caught him staring, the woman said, “It’s not theirs. It’s Aaron’s. They took it from him. I just took it back.”

Smith nodded. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was thinking—maybe that ol’ Peoples had a soft side that he didn’t want people to know about. That sounded ridiculous now that he knew the truth.

He was going to ask her “What else did Peoples and the others take from you and the boy?” but he had a feeling he already knew half of that answer. Or close enough to feel uncomfortable asking it.

He said instead, “What’s your name?”

“Mary,” she said, even as she put the blanket over Aaron, who had laid down on the ground.

The boy yawned and rolled over onto his side, his back to Smith, while clutching the blanket. He had closed his eyes almost right away, and Smith wondered how long it’d been since he’d slept.

“What’s yours?” Mary asked him.

“Smith,” he said.

“Just Smith?”

“Just Smith is good enough.”

“I guess.” She paused for a moment. Then, “That’s not your real name, is it?”

“No,” he said, and tucked the poncho around his frame. It wasn’t too cold, but there was a slight chill in the air. His right hand was next to him, close enough to the holstered SIG that he could draw it without too much trouble.

Mary sat next to her son and didn’t say anything else. She seemed preoccupied with scanning the darkness around them, as if she expected an attack any second now. After everything she’d been through, he couldn’t really blame her.

But that didn’t mean he had to indulge in her paranoia. Peoples’s attack earlier had ruined Smith’s sleep, so he was more tired than he thought as he closed his eyes.

“Thank you,” Mary said after a while.

Smith opened his eyes back up. He wasn’t sure if he was surprised to hear her say that or if he was just glad they were getting it out of the way. Not that he wanted to hear it or anything. Smith had given up caring what other people thought of him, even ones that he might have saved from a fate worse than death. In his opinion, it just didn’t pay to have too much faith in humanity anymore, even if “humanity” tonight was a woman and her son.

“You’re welcome,” he said, not because he thought he deserved her gratitude but because it was the best answer to nip this conversation in the bud so he could go back to trying to sleep.

“Why are you so good at it?” Mary asked.

I guess I’m not going back to sleep.

He sat up and looked across at her. She was still wide awake, but the boy was snoring loudly next to her.

“Why am I so good at what?” Smith said.

“Killing. The way you shot that man back there… Why are you so good at it?”

Smith stared at her for a moment, trying to decide if he should be insulted by her insinuation that he was good at “it.”

The truth was, he was good at it. He was a natural, in fact. His mentor had said the same thing to him.

“I don’t know,” Smith said. “I just am.”

She nodded, apparently accepting his answer. He thought she would continue talking, trying to get to the real him, but maybe she knew, just as Smith did, that there was no “real” him.

This was him. It’d always been. Just as it had with Peoples and his pals, The Purge had finally allowed the real him to come up for air.

Smith pulled the poncho tighter around his body. “Get some sleep. It’s been a long day.”

He closed his eyes and spent the next few minutes listening to the crickets in the land around them. There were less of them out there, but only because they’d left the grassy fields behind. There were no other sounds of humanity beyond the outcrop, which was the important part.

Mary, despite Smith’s encouragement, remained wide awake. He knew that because she kept moving around. Not loudly, but loud enough. He had a feeling she wasn’t going to close her eyes in peace for a while, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t.

Five

“What’s your real name?”

“Smith is my real name.”

“You already told me last night that it wasn’t.”

“Did I?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

It took about ten seconds before she asked again. “So what’s your real name?”

“John,” he said.

“John Smith?”

“That’s right.”

“John Smith?”

“It’s going to be the same answer even if you say it a third time.”

“John Smith…” she said.

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”

She’d had that familiar and incredulous look on her face that he always got from people when he told them his name. Or the name he was going by these days. It always made him wonder what the poor bastard whose real name was John Smith had to suffer through daily. Surely there would be some John Smiths still around now, even after The Purge decimated the globe. Not that Smith had ever encountered one of them, but there had to be at least one, right?

“So you’re not going to tell me,” she said.

“I already told you, but you don’t believe me. I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“Your real name, for starters.”

He sighed. “You shouldn’t ask questions if you have no interest in accepting the answer.”

“Fine, then.”

There wasn’t very much around them but flat land and more outcrops. The ground had gotten harder under his boots, with fewer stalks of grass and even fewer goldenrods anywhere to be seen. The emptiness might have convinced him he’d inadvertently gone backwards into Arizona or New Mexico if not for the constant chill in the air.

Mary’s question wasn’t anything he hadn’t had to answer before.

“So you’re just gonna walk around?” Gary, the old man who had taken Donna—Margo, now—in, had said to him when he informed the man of his intentions.

“Pretty much,” Smith had said.

“Like that guy from that TV show,” the old woman Gary was shacking up with, Natalie, had said.

The truth was, they hadn’t been that old—the woman was in her fifties and the man was just creeping up on his sixties—but they were the oldest people he’d encountered since he ditched his uniform and started walking. They certainly weren’t old enough that he felt Margo was in danger of being left alone too soon.

There was no guilt about leaving the kid with them, either. The way Smith saw it, he was giving both sides something they wanted: The couple would get a kid to take care of, and Margo would, essentially, have parents again. He hadn’t come to the decision easily, either. Smith and Margo had spent three days with Gary and Natalie before Smith made up his mind. If he’d detected even the slightest bit of crazy or danger from them, he wouldn’t have made the choice. But they were good people, and he liked to think he was an excellent judge of character.

“What guy?” he had said to Natalie.

“You know, from China?” she had said.

“I don’t know who that is.”

“It’s an old TV show,” Gary had chimed it. “Was on for a few seasons then they canceled it. But I think they did a remake or some such later on.”

“I don’t watch a lot of TV.”

“His name was Kwai Chang Caine, and he went around the Old West fighting bad guys and righting wrongs.”

“Righting wrongs? What does that even mean?”

“You know, a crusader for justice?”

“Like Batman?”

“I guess. But he didn’t wear a mask or anything. He just had kung fu.”

Smith had shaken his head. “Sorry, but that really doesn’t clear any of it up.”

“Well, it was an old TV show, lost in the past with everything else, now,” Natalie had said, with that thoughtful and nostalgic shake of her head so common with older survivors.

So Smith had left Margo (he guessed she would probably call it “abandoned her,” if he ever headed back that way and they crossed paths again) and never looked back. He didn’t know where he was going, just that he couldn’t stay.

Or want to.

* * *

They had been walking for almost the whole morning before Mary asked if they could take a break. Afternoon was peaking over some hills in the distance when they settled down on another outcrop of rocks. The trio of assholes had plenty of food in their packs, and Mary had wisely kept almost all of them while throwing away a lot of other things they didn’t need, including, according to her, bottles of booze.

Sometime between when they woke up and started their morning walk, Mary had also thrown away one of the packs, but not before transferring all the valuables—food, water, and whatever else she kept in there and didn’t show him—onto the one remaining bag. Aaron still carried—or dragged, really—his half-full pack behind him, but not because he was tired and more because, well, he was bored out of his mind. Despite everything he’d been through, he looked surprisingly well-adjusted. Or maybe it was all an act, but Smith didn’t think so.

Smith had plenty of food in his own pack, so he didn’t need to dip into mother and son’s. He took out the bag of deer jerky, a good-bye present from Gary, and chewed on it while Aaron ate some SPAM from a can and shared it with his mom. Mary didn’t look like she enjoyed the taste, but Aaron couldn’t get enough of the stuff.

“Are we in Nebraska?” Mary asked after a while.

“I don’t know,” Smith said. “Maybe.”

“You’re not sure?”

“No.”

“Did you see any signs?”

“I try not to.”

“I don’t understand.”

He shrugged. How did you explain to someone that you didn’t care where you went just as long as you “went?” Most people couldn’t grasp the simple concept. Even Gary and Natalie had looked at him strangely when he told them.

“You ever saw a TV show about a kung-fu guy in the Old West?” Smith asked Mary. “I think he was from China or something.”

Mary shook her head. “No.”

“What about you?” Smith asked the boy.

Aaron glanced up at him just long enough to blink once or twice, before going back to eating his food.

“He can’t talk,” Mary said.

“What?” Smith said.

“Aaron. He can’t talk. He’s never been able to talk.”

Smith stared at her for a moment, trying to remember if he’d heard the boy talk since they came into his company. Except she was right; Aaron had never said a word. Smith had heard him grunting once or twice, but those weren’t words.

Wow. How did I miss that?

“Oh,” Smith said.

“You didn’t notice before?” Mary asked. She was staring at him, maybe trying to decide if he was messing with her.

Smith shook his head. “I didn’t notice, no.”

If the boy heard their conversation, or understood it, he didn’t look up to let Smith know. Then again, he was too busy attacking the can of SPAM. If he wasn’t careful, he might gobble up the whole thing and leave nothing for his mom.

“We don’t know why,” Mary said. “Tom and I—” She stopped suddenly, before continuing a few seconds later. “Tom is my husband. Was my husband.” She pursed a smile and looked away.

Smith didn’t have to ask her what had happened to Tom. Probably the same thing that had happened to all the other members of their caravan when they ran into Peoples, the Accountant, and Tall and Lanky.

He said instead, “But he’s your son.”

Mary looked back at him. “Yes. Why?”

“No reason.”

“Why would I say he’s my son if he wasn’t?”

“It’s not like it hasn’t happened before. Plenty of people call kids theirs when they aren’t. Not by blood, anyway. Was Tom really your husband?”

“Yes. Why would I lie about that, too?”

“Is there a piece of paper that makes it official? Did you guys get married in a church?”

Mary opened her mouth to answer, but she stopped herself short and seemed to actually think about it for a moment.

“I guess not,” she finally said. “I mean, there’s nothing official or anything.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Smith said. “Just like with the boy. If you say he’s yours, then he’s yours. I was just curious.”

Mary nodded and looked away again.

Smith continued eating his jerky.

“So that’s what you’re doing out here? Just…walking around like this Chinese guy?” she asked after a while.

“Pretty much.”

“Was he a good guy? The kung-fu guy?”

“Apparently.”

“I mean, he has to be, right?”

Smith shrugged. “I guess.”

“Like you.”

“Like me?”

“Like you. You’re a hero, too.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“You saved us.”

“They tried to kill me. I was mad.”

“That’s all?”

He shrugged again. “That’s all it was to me.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Believe what you—” Smith stopped short and lifted his head.

“What is it?” Mary asked.

Smith didn’t answer. He stood up and hurried to the edge of the outcrop and looked out and down the direction they’d come from.

Men on horses, flying across the terrain.

Now what?

The riders were half a kilometer away, but closing in fast. If they didn’t already know where he, Mary, and Aaron were, then they did now, because Smith was pretty sure they could see him despite the distance. He had just stood up and revealed himself without realizing it. And out here, with nothing but open land and jutting gray boulders, he might as well put up a sign pointing straight down on his head.

Smith also spotted something he hadn’t seen before, but now that he was standing on a slightly elevated plane, couldn’t miss. It was a long and very obvious jagged trail cutting across the landscape, and right to their current position.

He glanced over at Aaron’s pack, covered in dust and dirt.

Dammit. How’d I miss that before?

The boy probably didn’t know he was doing it, anyway. He was just a kid, after all. Even if the riders hadn’t seen Smith—and he was pretty sure they already had—then they could have just followed Aaron’s very generous track all the way to them. Which was likely exactly what they were doing before now.

The question was, where did they come from, and what did they want? And were they tracking Smith, or the woman and her child? Or all three of them?

Mary had stood up and walked over, and saw what he did. “Who are they?”

“I don’t know,” Smith said, and walked back to pick up his AR-10. He fine-tuned the scope on top of the rifle as he returned. “Are you armed?”

“Yes,” Mary said. She hurried over to her pack and opened it. She took out a Glock handgun—it looked like the one Peoples had been wielding last night—and rushed back. “I should have brought the rifle, too, but it was so heavy.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Smith said, though what he really wanted to say was, If I can’t shoot us out of here, one more rifle isn’t going to make a whole lot of difference.

The AR-10 was a sniper rifle, with a powerful optic designed specifically for long-distance shooting. It was the only reason Smith still carried it around. Everything else on him was for close-quarter combat.

Not that Smith was going to kill anyone this afternoon, if he could help it.

He held up the rifle and peered through the scope.

There were at least half a dozen men, and they were wearing boots, chaps, and dusters, and for all intents and purposes looked like cowboys. A few of them even wore Stetsons, though a couple had on ball caps. The only other thing that set them apart from the cowboys Smith had seen in Westerns were their rifles. They were the automatic variety.

He watched them for ten long seconds, more than enough time to know they were headed right for him and Mary. If he had any doubts about that—or wondered if they’d already spotted him previously—that vanished when one of them pointed right back at him.

He lowered the rifle. “They’re headed for us.”

“Are you sure?” Mary asked.

“They’ve been following our trail. Probably all the way from the camp last night.”

“Who are they?”

“Maybe you can tell me.” Smith walked back to his pack and brought out a pair of binoculars and handed it to her. “See if you recognize any of them.”

She looked through the field glasses for a few seconds, before lowering them. Given how quickly she’d done it, Smith already had his answer.

Mary confirmed it: “I’ve never seen them before.”

The riders were getting closer, their mounts sending thicker puffs of dust and dirt from the flat, hard earth into the air behind them. It looked like a giant sandstorm was headed right at Smith.

And maybe, he thought, that wasn’t too far from the truth.

“What are we going to do?” Mary asked.

Smith sighed, and thought, “We?” Since when did this become a “we” thing?

Six

“Should we run?” Mary asked.

“I don’t see what good that would do,” Smith said. “They’ve already seen us. And last time I checked, it’s nigh impossible to outrun a horse unless you’re an Olympic sprinter. And even then, you’d have to be Usain Bolt.”

“So what do we do? Do we just stand here and wait for them to reach us?”

“No. We’ll finish our breakfast first.”

“And then?’

“We’ll play it by ear.”

“That’s it.”

“That’s it.”

“I feel like we should be doing more.”

“Why? They’ll get here when they get here. Nothing’s going to change that. We’ll deal with them then. Besides, I’m still hungry. Aren’t you?”

“A little bit,” Mary said, if a bit reluctantly.

Smith walked back to where he’d left his deer jerky and finished his breakfast. Mary rejoined her son, but she sat down tentatively. If the boy had even noticed what was going on around him he hadn’t looked up from his food; the kid was too busy rooting around the aluminum can for more chunks of meat. Or whatever it was that they made SPAM out of. Smith had never been entirely sure.

Mary spent the next few minutes looking at Smith across the small space of their camp—she’d willingly gotten much closer since last night—and over in the direction of the approaching posse, because that was what it looked like to Smith. A posse, like something out of a Western. Even if Mary didn’t know where the group of riders were coming from, all she’d have to do was look for the cloud of dust. And then there was the low rumbling noise of their horse hooves pounding away against the flat land.

“You don’t think we should be doing something?” Mary finally asked.

“Like what?” Smith said as he took a sip from his canteen.

Water was hard to find out here—especially the drinkable variety—so he only drank what he needed to stay hydrated. Even when you could find them, water was also heavy as hell to carry around. He had two canteens in his pack and was glad he didn’t have to share with Mary and her son. They had their own supply courtesy of Peoples’s gang.

“I don’t know, but something,” Mary said.

“They’ll be here when they get here. When that happens, we’ll find out what they want.”

“They have guns.”

“So do we.”

That was technically true, not that Smith was really counting on Mary to have his back if something were to happen with the posse. (Never mind the kid.) She wasn’t exactly a stranger around weapons, something she’d proven last night when she obliterated Peoples’s face with his own AR. But shooting someone when they were down and had no way to fight back wasn’t the same as being reliable in a gunfight.

Besides, one of Smith’s rules was not to depend on other people to watch his back. It was a steadfast rule, one that had been developed—and proven correct—over the course of many disappointments. If you don’t depend on others, then they can’t disappoint you.

“Let me see the gun,” Smith said.

Mary took the Glock out of her pack and handed it to him. A Glock 17. It was a nice weapon, with a 17-round magazine capacity. The weapon was in reasonably good shape, so Peoples had taken care of it. Not that it had done him any good last night, but oh well, that wasn’t Smith’s problem.

He handed the gun back to her. “You know how to use that? I mean, really know how to use that? Anyone can pull a trigger.”

“Yes,” Mary said, taking the pistol back. “Tom made sure I knew how to shoot guns. But I can’t do it the way you do it.”

“The way I do it?”

“You didn’t even aim when you fired yours last night.”

“Why do you say that? You think I got lucky?”

“No, but, I didn’t see you aim.”

“There’s a lot of ways to aim a gun. You don’t always have to straighten your arm and peek down the sights.”

“Tom never taught me any other way but that.”

Smith shrugged. “It’s a skill not many people have.”

“Can you teach me?”

“Why?”

“Why?”

“Why would you want to learn? It’s not something you can show off at parties. It’s a skill that’s meant for only one purpose: to put an end to someone’s life. I don’t draw my gun unless that’s exactly what I’m going to do. If you learn anything from me, it should be that. Don’t show your gun unless you’re going to kill someone.”

Mary nodded and looked down at the weapon in her hands. Smith wasn’t sure if she really understood what he’d said. Most people didn’t, so why would she be an exception?

He glanced over as the sounds of horse hooves increased noticeably. The posse was getting closer, and Smith could see the clouds they were generating getting bigger as they rose higher in the air.

“They’re almost here,” he said.

Mary looked over. “So we just see what they want?”

“Yes,” Smith said, even though he had a feeling he already knew.

Mary had put the Glock into her jacket pocket and kept it there, along with her right hand. Smith almost smiled. He hadn’t told her to do that, but he was going to suggest it.

I guess she’s learning, he thought as he zipped up his bag of deer jerky—he still had a few pieces left and didn’t want to waste them—and put it back into the pack, before standing up and brushing his hands against his pants legs.

“Stay to my right, and don’t do anything until I do,” Smith said.

Mary nodded and stood up. She put a hand over Aaron’s head, and the boy glanced up. “Stay here, okay? Don’t go anywhere. Mr. Smith and I are going to go talk to some people.”

Aaron nodded, not that Smith really thought he understood anything. As far as Smith knew, the kid still hadn’t noticed the approaching riders. Aaron all but confirmed that when he went back to digging for more SPAM with his all-purpose eating utensil.

Smith walked over to the edge of the outcrop with Mary and watched as the posse drew nearer. He had counted six before, and still did now. He left the AR-10 leaning against a nearby boulder, within easy enough reach.

“Still just six,” Smith said.

“‘Still?’” Mary said. “That’s four more than us, Mr. Smith.”

“Just remember what I told you: Don’t do anything until I do.”

Mary nodded, even as she adjusted her stance. Smith had a mental flash of Mary in an old Wild West town getting ready for a showdown with her Glock, hidden in her jacket pocket, her finger on the trigger.

It was kind of cheating, but hey, whoever said there was anything fair in a gunfight?

* * *

They didn’t have to wait long for the riders to finally reach them. The men—and they were all men—spread out as they neared the outcrop, giving Smith a good look at all six of them.

He picked out the leader right away: He was in the middle and had stayed there even as the others fanned out around him. Early fifties, gray hair visible along the temples underneath his wide-brimmed hat, which looked as if it’d seen more than a few winters, summers, and every other seasons in-between. He wore a gun belt like the rest, but instead of a semiautomatic, there was a revolver in the holster. That just further increased Smith’s image of the man as a sheriff leading a posse.

The question was: What was this posse after? Because you don’t put together a posse unless you were hunting down criminals.

The others were less interesting. They all looked like they knew their way around horses, though, and not a single one seemed awkward in their saddle. Besides their gun belts—they all wore one, though of different varieties—three carried automatic rifles in scabbards along their mounts while the other two favored pump-action shotguns.

They stopped about twenty yards from where Smith and Mary waited for them. The leader stood up slightly in his saddle to get a look at Aaron in the background, decided the kid was no threat, before settling his eyes on the two adults.

Then they fell on Smith, and stayed there. “You got a name?”

“Yes,” Smith said.

The man waited for Smith to continue, and when he didn’t, flashed something that almost looked like a smirk. “And what would that be?”

“You first,” Smith said.

“Fair enough. My name’s Hobson. These are my men. You don’t need me to name all of them, do you?”

“Up to you.”

“So what’s yours?”

“Smith.”

“Smith what?”

“John Smith.”

A man with red hair, wearing a Nebraska Cornhusker ball cap, chortled even as he leaned forward in his saddle. “John Smith, huh?”

“That’s right,” Smith said. “You got a problem with that?”

“You couldn’t have come up with a more believable fake name?”

“I’m not that creative.”

“Apparently.”

“That’s enough, Travis,” Hobson said. He focused on Smith. “You were involved in some shooting last night, Smith?”

“Are you asking or telling me?” Smith said.

“Asking. We found a body missing its entire face—hell, most of its head—at a campsite south from here. You know anything about that?”

Smith caught Mary shifting her stance slightly next to him. She had remained very quiet throughout the brief conversation between Smith and the riders, and this was the first time she even reacted. He didn’t blame her, considering that Hobson was clearly talking about Peoples.

“Yeah, I know something about that,” Smith said.

Again, Hobson waited for Smith to continue, and when he didn’t, the “sheriff” said, “And?”

“And what?”

“What happened to him?”

“He was a motherfucker, and he got what deserved. So what?”

Hobson seemed to sit up straighter in his saddle as if trying to get a better look at Smith. The others fidgeted slightly in theirs.

All except the redhead named Travis, who actually let out a small chuckle.

Smith concluded right then and there that he didn’t like the redhead. The man had what people back on Black Tide used to call squirrely eyes. And if Smith had learned anything in his life, it’s that you couldn’t trust someone with squirrely eyes.

“Any reason why?” Hobson finally said.

“I just told you,” Smith said. “He got what was coming. What’s it to you?”

“Well, this is our area. We take killings seriously around here.”

“He a friend of yours or something?”

“No. We don’t know him from Adam. But he was still killed in our jurisdiction, and we want to know why.”

“I already told you.”

“Saying he was a motherfucker isn’t enough justification, I’m afraid.”

“It is to me.”

“Unfortunately, your word isn’t law around here.”

“Is that right? Then whose is?”

“The Judge’s.”

“And who is the Judge?”

“The Judge is the Judge,” Hobson said, as if that should explain everything.

It didn’t. At least, not to Smith.

He said, “I don’t know any Judge. But that’s not a surprise; we’re not from around here.”

“Ignorance of the law is no excuse,” Hobson said.

“It is when you don’t give a damn.”

Again, the man named Travis chuckled.

“Something funny to you?” Smith asked him.

“You,” Travis said.

“What’s so funny about me?”

“The fact that you’re standing there, acting like a tough guy, when there’s six of us and just two of you.”

“There may be six of you, but I have ten rounds in my gun,” Smith said. “Seems to me like I’m ahead.”

Again, Travis chuckled. He seemed to do that a lot, though whether they were genuine or just an attempt to act tough was debatable. Smith was leaning toward the latter.

Travis sat two horses to Hobson’s right, with a thin man in a striped shirt between them. The man to the immediate right of Travis wore a similar but way more faded Cornhuskers cap and was about the same age. He looked bored, like he’d rather be anywhere else.

The two on the left of Hobson had remained quiet throughout the whole thing. An older man in his forties sat immediately to Hobson’s left while a much younger man—the youngest by far, he couldn’t have been older than twenty, if that—finished out the line of six riders. The youngster kept looking at Mary and Aaron, still somewhere in the background, and seemed preoccupied with mother and son and not much else.

As far as he could tell, Smith had three immediate targets: Hobson, Travis, and the older man.

Hobson, because he was the clear leader, and once you took out the leader, most, if not all, of the rest usually fell apart. The forty-something guy, because he was very composed and wouldn’t be startled by the sudden burst of violence.

And Travis, because, well, Smith just didn’t like the man very much right now.

“You need to come with us back to Gaffney,” Hobson was saying. “It’s not far from here. Once we get everything cleared up, you’ll be free to go.”

“I don’t think so,” Smith said.

“That’s not a suggestion. That’s an order.”

“Whose order?”

“Mine, by authority granted to me by the Judge.”

“And I’m telling you, I don’t recognize your authority or this Judge of yours.”

“Listen, mister. There’s no need for bloodshed. But you have to come back with us to face what you done. Either you do it willingly, or we’ll take you back by force.”

“He raped me,” Mary said.

She hadn’t said anything until now, and the sound of her voice clearly surprised Hobson and the rest. Even Travis, who finally seemed to notice her for the first time.

“What was that, ma’am?” Hobson asked.

“The man whose body you found,” Mary said. “He raped me. He and two others. They kidnapped me and my son, and killed people in our group. If it wasn’t for Mr. Smith, God knows what else they would have done to us.”

Hobson squinted at Mary for a moment before refocusing on Smith. “Is this true?”

“Yeah,” Smith said.

“Why the hell didn’t you say this before?”

“I don’t have to justify myself to you.”

“Goddammit, mister,” Hobson said. “This could have gone bad when it didn’t have to. You realize that?”

“I don’t see how.”

“You don’t see how? Are you kidding me?”

“Not at all,” Smith said. “If it’d gotten bad, all that would have happened was I’d have six horses that I didn’t have before.”

Seven

When it was over—and it was over when Hobson climbed off his horse to talk to Mary, then with Aaron. Not that the boy could suddenly say anything, but Hobson seemed to see the same things that Smith had when he looked Mary in the eyes. In fact, he even might have seen more when he talked to her son. Things that Smith might have missed, or maybe he just didn’t know what to look for. Smith wasn’t a father or a brother, and he assumed Hobson was either one of those things, or both.

Mary walked over to where Smith stood, her hands now outside her jacket pocket. From the expression on her face, Smith already guessed what was going to happen next.

“We’re leaving with them, Mr. Smith,” Mary told him.

Smith nodded and said, “That’s probably a good idea.”

“You think so?”

“It’s better than walking around out here with me. Aaron will appreciate the comforts of a town. You will, too.”

“I’m used to roughing it, Mr. Smith. Tom…” She pursed a smile. “But you’re right. Aaron will be better off in a town.” She glanced quickly over at the riders, before looking back at him. “You really think this is the right decision, though?”

“For you and the boy, yes,” Smith said.

“What about you? You should come with us.”

“It’s not for me.”

“You’re not the settling-down type, I take it.”

He forced a smile. “No.”

It was more than that, though. He didn’t know these men, and although Hobson seemed like a decent enough fellow, Smith didn’t care for Travis, the one with the squirrely eyes. He also didn’t know anything about this Judge character that Hobson kept talking about or why the man—and these men—assumed he had any authority whatsoever out here. As far as Smith knew, there were no reconstituted state governments anymore, so how did someone manage to get himself appointed “judge” of anything? Unless, of course, the man did it himself. That wasn’t the kind of authority Smith found convincing.

But Smith didn’t give voice to those doubts. It wasn’t his job to take care of Mary and her kid, and if Hobson was offering to take them off his hands, then, well, who was he to argue?

While Mary and her son packed their things, Hobson’s men climbed off their horses and loitered about. Travis and the other guy in the Cornhuskers cap—Smith assumed they were buddies, thus the identical ball caps—kept to themselves while the others did various things to fill up time. The youngest and the oldest ones were rubbing down their horses, while the fifth rider had wandered off to pick up something on the ground about fifty yards away.

Smith stood by himself and looked north, already charting his next move. He wasn’t entirely sure what was up there, but it would be interesting to find out. There was, after all, nothing for him back south or west. There was east, but he’d spent too much time out there when he was with Black Tide to want to go back anytime soon.

Hobson appeared next to him. “Where you from?”

“Here and there,” Smith said.

“Texas?”

“Why do you care?”

“Trying to be friendly, son.”

“No offense, but I’ve had enough of people ‘trying to be friendly’ to me this week.”

“You talking about the three that took Mary and her boy?”

Smith glanced over at the older man. The one thing he could say about Hobson was that the guy had the eyes and crow’s feet of someone who had seen some shit. He’d probably used that holstered sidearm of his more than once, and he didn’t seem like a bad guy. Then again, Smith had met plenty of people who hadn’t seemed like bad guys but had proven otherwise.

“I hear a pitch coming,” Smith said.

Hobson cracked a grin before tossing a quick look back at Mary as she continued helping Aaron pack their things for the upcoming trip. Then, turning back to Smith, “We could use a man like you back at Gaffney.”

“And what’s a man like me?”

“Someone who knows how to handle a gun.”

“This town of yours needs a lot of people who can handle a gun?”

“It doesn’t hurt.”

“Sounds like a dangerous job.”

“It is.”

“So why would I want it?”

“You mind danger?”

“I don’t go looking for it.”

“That’s not what Mary told me.”

“That’s her interpretation. Who am I to tell her she’s wrong?”

“The only reason others get to live in peace is because there are men like you and me willing to pick up a gun and give it to them.”

“Is that what you do in Gaffney? You uphold the peace, along with this Judge character?”

“The Judge is the reason we even have Gaffney in the first place.”

“If you say so.”

“So that’s a no, I take it?”

Smith shook his head. “I have places to go.”

“Mary told me you guys were headed north.”

“That’s right.”

“What’s north?”

“Not south.”

“You’re an interesting man, Mister Smith.”

“I’ve been called worse,” Smith said.

Hobson chuckled before turning around. “All right, everyone, let’s mount up!” Then, looking back at Smith, “Last chance.”

“Thanks, but no chance.”

“All right. Good luck out there, then. Try not to get into any more trouble.”

“Whatever you say, sheriff.”

“Sheriff? What gave you the impression I’m a sheriff?”

“So you’re not the sheriff of this Gaffney?”

“No. The Judge is the only authority in Gaffney. The rest of us just work under him to help uphold the law.”

“Sounds like an interesting character, this Judge of yours.”

“He’s something, all right.”

“Is that good or bad?”

The older man flashed Smith something that almost looked like a grin but wasn’t quite one. Smith wasn’t sure what it was, though.

“That’s for history to decide,” Hobson said as he walked back to his horse.

Smith looked after Hobson, trying to figure out what all that was about, when Mary and Aaron walked back to him. She looked a bit sheepish, as if she was feeling guilty about something.

Before she could say something—she was going to apologize, he guessed, though he didn’t know why or want one—Smith said, “Good luck.” Then quickly, to the boy, “I got something for you.”

Smith went over to his pack and unzipped it, then returned to the boy with a small can of SPAM. He’d picked it up about two weeks earlier and hadn’t had the courage to try eating it yet. The boy’s eyes lit up at the sight of his gift.

“Try not to eat it all in one sitting,” Smith said, handing the can to the kid, who grabbed it happily.

Mary pursed a smile at Smith. “Thank you,” she said, and she didn’t have to tell him that it was for more than just the SPAM.

Smith nodded. Then he leaned closer to her and whispered, “Keep the Glock in your jacket pocket. When you get to Gaffney, hide it somewhere safe. Don’t let them know you have it. Okay?”

When he pulled back, Mary gave him a concerned and slightly puzzled look.

“Just in case,” Smith said, in a softer, quieter voice.

She nodded. “I will.”

“Don’t let them know.”

She sneaked a look back at Hobson and the others, far enough from them that Smith didn’t think they could be eavesdropped on. She said, matching his pitch, “You think they’re dangerous?”

“No, but you can never be too careful.”

She nodded again, and said, in a louder voice, “Be careful out there, Mr. Smith,” before taking Aaron’s hand and joining the others.

Mary climbed onto the older man’s horse to ride double behind him, while Aaron did the same thing with the younger one. Hobson didn’t say anything else to Smith as he turned and headed off, with the others following.

All except Travis, the redhead, who tipped his cap at Smith. “See you around, tough guy.”

Smith narrowed his eyes back at the man. “You should hope not.”

Travis chuckled before turning and riding off. He caught up to the others in no time.

Mary glanced back once or twice, and she might have done it a third time or more, but Smith had already picked up his pack and continued walking. He thought Aaron might have waved at him, but the kid could have just been adjusting his arm to get a better hold on his rider to keep from falling off.

Smith wasn’t sure where he was going, but continuing north sounded like a good plan. The worst that could happen was he ended up in Canada. He’d probably need to pick up a thicker jacket along the way.

Or a big wool coat. Maybe two.

Either/or.

Eight

Was letting Mary and the boy leave with those men the right thing to do?

Hobson had looked all right, and he was in charge, so…

…maybe…

He was still debating with himself when he saw the smoke.

There wasn’t a lot of it, but in absence of anything that even remotely signaled the existence of other humans out here besides himself, it was unmistakable.

The other reason Smith kept walking toward the smoke and its source was because they were in front of him. It hadn’t been more than a couple of hours since his run-in with the posse from Gaffney, and Smith wasn’t looking for more potential headaches. But the smoke was directly in front of him, and he was going there anyway, so Smith thought, What the hell.

Then: Famous last words.

It was a house in the middle of nowhere—literally in the middle of nowhere, with nothing around it but hills and flat land—burning underneath the bright sun. There was no reason for something like this to be out here, but there it was.

Who the hell builds a house all the way out here?

Someone who doesn’t want to be found, obviously. Or messed with.

Smith stood over one of the many hills that dotted the landscape like camel humps, looking down at the building as fire engulfed it. He couldn’t tell what kind of house it used to be or how big. There wasn’t anything that looked like a barn or supply shed nearby, so it was a lone structure.

All of that struck him as odd, but Smith had seen plenty of odd things lately.

There was no way to save the place. The fire was in full rage mode and probably had been all morning before Smith even stumbled across it. Anyone caught in that blaze was long gone, along with everything else inside it.

He might have kept on walking past the fire if he didn’t catch a glimpse of the black horse grazing on some sporadic sprouting of grass about 200 yards on the other side of the burning house. There was no rider that Smith could see, but the animal was wearing a saddle and dragging its reins in the dirt behind it.

Smith confirmed all that with his binoculars. He couldn’t find any signs of the horse’s rider, and there wasn’t a body nearby. The house, too, was clearly gone. No signs of violence that he could detect, just a fire devouring everything there was to feast on. It wouldn’t take long before it ran out of fuel out here.

None of that explained the presence of the horse. It shouldn’t be out here. Just like the house.

But there they were.

Was it a trap?

He didn’t think so. Nothing about it smelled like a trap. If anything, it looked to him like the ending of something. What that “something” was, he had no idea. And, frankly, couldn’t care less.

Smith would have been perfectly content to keep walking, arriving at wherever and whenever he eventually found himself, regardless of however long it took to get there. But he had to admit: a horse would save a lot of time, not to mention exertion. It wasn’t like Smith was averse to physical labor, like endless walking, but, well, why not take advantage of something like a horse?

After all, it was right there for the taking, so who was he to turn it down?

Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, right?

Literally, in this case.

He jogged down the hill and walked toward the horse at a slow and unhurried pace. Smith kept an eye on the flat land around him, waiting for someone to pop up and declare the horse theirs and that Smith was out of luck.

But no one popped up.

It was a nice black mare, with a magnificent mane that gleamed under the sun, but Smith wasn’t good enough with horses to know what kind of breed it was. It didn’t look afraid of him as he neared it. In fact, it only lifted its head to glance in his direction once before going back to grazing. It wasn’t jittery or threatened by his presence, both of which were good signs. Smith could count on one hand the number of times he’d even ridden a horse, so he was glad he wouldn’t have to “tame” this one.

Smith took another long look at the burning house to his left. Closer, he still couldn’t see anything that looked like a body, or hints of a fight. In fact, there was no evidence of foul play at all, as if God himself had sent a thunderbolt down here to vanquish the place.

Of course, that was silly, but anything was possible these days. After all, who thought blood-sucking monsters were even a thing just a decade ago?

Smith continued to approach the horse cautiously, fully expecting it to take off at any moment. Except it didn’t. It knew very well that he was getting closer, because it kept lifting its head to give him a What do you want? glance before going right back to grazing what little grass there was in this part of the country. Soon, the animal would move on, because there would be nothing left to eat. It was a good thing Smith had stumbled across it when he did.

“Hey there, horsey,” Smith said. “And where might your owner be? He’s not in that house burning to death, is he? Because if he is, that means you don’t have an owner anymore. So I’m thinking maybe we should team up. Have you ever been to Canada?”

The animal continued chewing on bits of grass as if he wasn’t there or even talking to it. Smith took that as a further good sign and walked the rest of the way over.

The horse remained where it was when he put a tentative hand on its mane, then still didn’t move very much as he rubbed it down. It had a saddle and an empty scabbard for some kind of rifle, but as far as Smith could tell, its owner hadn’t been shot off because there was no blood anywhere on the animal or around the area where it was standing. Of course, that didn’t mean it hadn’t wandered away from the burning house. He was just close enough that Smith could feel some heat from the flames radiating across the distance.

He leaned in closer to get a better look at the horse’s saddle. It was brown and had a flowery pattern across, and with the word LUCKY on the side, flanked by a pair of stars.

The question was, was Lucky the horse’s name or its owners? And did Smith care?

Not really.

“Where’s your owner?” Smith asked the horse.

The animal wasn’t talking and continued chewing the sparse grass.

“Not in the mood for convo, huh? Hey, I don’t blame you. I’m not much of a conversationalist, I know. Hell, people say I downright suck at it, actually. So we should get along just fine.”

Smith wrapped one hand around the saddle’s horn and cautiously eased one boot into a stirrup.

“Don’t take off on me now, okay? I’m just gonna climb on.”

He started lifting himself up.

“Easy does it, horse. Easy does it…”

The horse lifted its head and turned to look at him as he settled into the saddle, but it was an expression of annoyance more than fear or something that would convince him it was about to buck him loose.

When it went right back to chewing on the plentiful grass, he knew he’d found himself a ride.

Smith leaned down and rubbed the horse’s head. “Oh yeah, we’re gonna get along just fine, you and me. Just fine.”

He picked up the reins and glanced over at the burning house. He might have been able to figure out what had happened to it—and maybe even why—if he got closer and did some cursory investigation.

But Smith didn’t care enough to do that.

He had a horse and an open road ahead of him, and Canada wasn’t going to come to him.

“Let’s go see Canada,” Smith said. “You like cold weather? You’ll love it.”

Smith began turning the horse around, when the loud echoing crack! of a gunshot sent him tumbling back down to the ground.

Nine

He’d been shot.

Shit, he’d been shot.

And it hurt.

But maybe it would have hurt even more if the round had hit where the shooter was aiming at. Which, from what Smith could tell by the blood dripping down the left side of his face, was probably his head instead of the temple, where the bullet had grazed instead and stripped away some flesh and scraped the skull underneath.

There was pain, but it was more of a stinging pain and not the You’re going to die at any second type, which was less preferable.

The last time he’d been shot, it’d taken him a good two months to heal. And that was with a lot of rest and food and water. This time he didn’t have that option; this time—

—he was still in someone’s crosshairs!

Smith was picking himself up from the ground, trying to blink the blood out of his left eye, when Lucky took off. Not that he blamed the horse. Someone had just taken a shot at them—at him, specifically, but the horse wouldn’t necessarily know that—and it was trying to save its own hide by getting out of the line of fire.

He didn’t blame the animal one bit, even if he was a tad annoyed.

Smith was straightening up, reaching to feel the bleeding along the side of his head to see just how bad it was, when he heard the crack! of a second rifle shot, followed by the round pekking into the ground about a foot behind him.

It might have gone right through his chest or head or some other part of him if he hadn’t been swaying back and forth, trying to get his feet under him like a drunk coming home from a bar. That lack of balance had probably saved his life.

Any thoughts he might have had about catching up to the horse and riding out of the line of fire disappeared when Smith located it, a good thirty—now thirty-five—yards away from him, and getting smaller.

Damn, that horse could run!

Smith ran after the horse because the mare was headed away from the shooter, which was exactly where Smith needed to be, too. The shots had come from the south, and Smith would put every cent he didn’t have that the shooter was perched on one of the hills Smith himself had been standing on not very long ago when he first glimpsed Lucky. It was the highest point in the area, and anyone who understood anything about shooting would take it in a heartbeat.

That was Smith’s guess, anyway. Not that he glanced back to make absolutely sure, because right now he was already at a great disadvantage and—

Slow. Why was he running so slow?

Right. The pack.

The very heavy pack—

A third crack!, followed by a sledgehammer striking Smith from behind and throwing him forward and down against his will.

Ouch!

He ate a mouthful of dirt and grass, but mostly dirt, and there was probably a huge welt on his forehead where it had smashed into the hard, unyielding ground.

But he was still alive!

And though he was sure he’d been shot, it didn’t feel like there was a bullet lodged in his back. Which was strange. Smith had been shot before, and he knew what one felt like, and this wasn’t it.

Wait. He’d heard a pinging sound when the bullet struck him in the back…

…and the pack. It’d hit either the frying pan he kept back there or one of the titanium canteens!

Smith scrambled forward on all fours before launching himself back up onto his feet. His legs were wobbly, but he managed to get control of it as he began zigzagging across the plains, hoping to give the shooter less of an easy target—

Crack!, followed by a puff of dirt erupting into the air in front and slightly to the left of him.

Close.

Too close.

But not close enough!

He was still moving too slowly for his liking, though. Not quite stuck in quicksand, but it sure as hell felt like it. He had to lose some weight on him, but he couldn’t afford to ditch the pack. Everything he had in this world was in there, including food and water. So how was he going to lighten his load so he could move faster?

The rifle. He didn’t need the rifle.

The AR-10 wasn’t very heavy. Just under 12 pounds, with a fully-loaded magazine. Except right now it was 12 pounds that he didn’t need, or couldn’t afford.

Smith shrugged the rifle off and let it drop, and continued running.

He thought he was moving faster than before when he heard another crack!, followed by something zipping! over his head and striking the ground well ahead of him.

Smith angled right, then left, then right again. All the while, moving away from the shooter after the fleeing Lucky.

The horse trotted on ahead of him. Well ahead of him, actually. Again, he didn’t blame the animal for not letting him catch up to it. It was just being smart. Surviving. Which was exactly what he was hoping to do, too, at the moment.

The shooter hadn’t fired again after the fifth shot, but Smith didn’t stop. For all he knew, the guy was trying to get a bead on him still. By now, Smith had put a lot of distance between himself and the hills, but he didn’t feel comfortable quite yet.

He kept zigging and zagging, randomizing his pattern. The trick to shooting was to aim at where the target was going, not where they were. Smith was fully aware of that and didn’t make his movements predictable as a result.

Or, at least, he hoped he wasn’t. For all he knew, he was overthinking it—

The crack! of another shot, but this one didn’t produce anything even close to a hit that he could see. It didn’t land in front of him, either, so he assumed it had struck behind him, having fallen short.

Smith began to slow down until he could turn around and backpedal safely without worrying about tripping over his own feet and going down on his ass. He scanned the horizon and easily picked up the series of camel humps in the distance. They were impossible to miss against the flat ground between him and them.

There, sunlight glinting off glass on one of the hills.

The shooter.

Crack!, followed by a puff of dirt as the bullet struck the ground a good ten yards in front of Smith.

Not even close.

Smith stopped moving and unslung his pack. He gasped for breath even as he dug out the first-aid kit. It was covered in water, and he realized why when he found the canteen with the hole in it. It’d stopped the bullet but had cost him half of his water rations.

He drank some of the remaining water, then used the rest to rinse the blood off his face. He could feel but not see the nasty gash along his temple as he cleaned, disinfected, then bandaged up the wound.

All the while, Smith kept an eye on the shooter’s hill in the distance. The shooter hadn’t attempted another shot since his last one fell grossly short. Not because the man was feeling generous, obviously, but because Smith was too far away now. At least 800 yards, or nearly half a mile. The guy could probably still see him with his scope, but hitting Smith was going to take some serious skills that the man, apparently, didn’t have. If he did, Smith would already be dead right now.

When he was sure he wasn’t going to bleed to death, Smith took out his binoculars and looked through them.

He zoomed in on the hump in question and could just make out a figure standing up on it, looking back in his direction.

There he is.

A lone man holding a rifle in one hand. Dark clothes, but of course Smith was way too far away to pick up any details on the man’s face.

The shooter waved at him.

Did that sonofabitch just wave at me?

Yeah, he had.

Cocky bastard.

Smith housed the binoculars back in his pack before inspecting the canteen. The hole could be plugged up, but you weren’t going to find a titanium canteen like the one he had lying around just waiting to be picked up. Besides, the damn thing had just saved his life, so it was the least he could do to hold onto it.

Smith didn’t move from his spot and continued watching the shooter back. Even with the naked eye, he knew the man had turned and left the hill when the dark shape got smaller and smaller, until it disappeared completely.

He thought the man might come over to finish the job. Or try to, anyway. Smith was ready for him this time, and even without the AR-10, he was confident he could take on a shooter face-to-face.

Except the man never showed up. That told Smith the shooter was alone.

So who the hell was he? And what was the reason behind all of this?

See you next time, asshole.

Footsteps behind him!

Smith spun around, his right hand stabbing down to his holstered SIG.

The horse, Lucky, was walking back toward him.

Smith relaxed. “There you are. What? You decided to come back? Why now?”

The horse lifted its head and snickered.

Smith rolled his eyes at the animal. “Okay, but this is the first time you’ve abandoned me. If you do it again, I’m going to start taking it personally.”

He waited for the horse to get closer just to show it who was boss. When it finally reached him, Smith climbed back into the saddle. Gingerly. He was feeling a little woozier than he had anticipated, and the sudden shift from ground level to sitting on the horse threw his equilibrium off momentarily.

For a second or two, he nearly fell out of the saddle.

“Whoa, whoa,” Smith said, not realizing until a little later that he was saying it to himself and not Lucky.

He fixed the hills in the distance one last look before turning the horse around. The vindictive part of Smith wanted to ride over and introduce himself to the shooter and ask for an explanation at the point of a gun. The other part of him, that felt lucky to still be alive, thought it was probably best to let it go. His ego was left a little bruised than before, yes, but it was better to have hurt feelings than be dead.

Way, way better.

He did consider going back to pick up the AR-10 he’d tossed but decided it wasn’t worth the effort. For whatever reason, he was feeling tired, and more than a little lightheaded. What he needed right now was to put a lot more space between him and where he’d last spotted the shooter. And if that meant losing the rifle, then so be it.

Besides, he still had the SIG Sauer, and that was enough.

Smith tapped Lucky on the flanks, and the horse took off north. He glanced back once at the burning house. The fires had almost completely burned themselves out, but they were still sending smoke signals into the skies. He wondered how that had happened, or if anyone had been caught inside during the blaze. Like, maybe, Lucky’s previous owner. The horse certainly didn’t show any affinity for the place.

He rode Lucky through the wide open ground. There was a lot of gray and brown around him, outcrops of rocks dotting the landscape on both sides. After a while, he could make out the highway to his left, the blacktop visible underneath the afternoon sunlight. He might not have seen it if he wasn’t in the saddle and had a higher-than-normal perspective.

Smith angled away from the road. It’d brought him nothing but trouble the last few days, and it was best to avoid it. Besides, he had a horse now, so that made the decision easier. He didn’t forget about the sniper, though—it was going to take a while before that happened—but he was glad to be alive, even if his head was pounding more so now than in the moments when he’d been shot.

Was there a drumline pounding away inside his skull and no one bothered to tell him about it?

It didn’t feel very good, and he considered stopping for a while to get his bearings.

But he didn’t. It was just a little discomfort. He could deal with it.

Smith shook the pain off and kept Lucky pointed north. He wasn’t sure where he was going, exactly, but it seemed like a good start.

What was north? South Dakota. Or was that North Dakota? Was he actually in Nebraska?

Well, it was one of the three. After that was Canada—

He fell off the saddle for the second time, the ground rushing up on him in a blur just before he struck it with a solid and painful-sounding thump!

The last thought that raced through his head before he lost consciousness was Well, this is embarrassing. I hope no one saw that…

Ten

It was bad enough he fell off a horse the first time, but to do it again, and in the same day? It was downright shameful. The only thing that could have mitigated the embarrassment was if no one saw him.

One can only hope.

He knew one thing for certain: Someone had found him after he fell off Lucky. Those same someones had then brought him here.

Not that he knew where “here” was.

Smith was still holding onto the chance no one had seen him fall off Lucky for the second time when a voice said, “Man, the way you just plopped off that horse, that was something.”

Or not.

He woke up on the dirt floor of some kind of shack. It was a small building made of flimsy, termite-infested wood with big slivers between each board, allowing the sunlight from outside to come through in gaping swaths. There was a particularly big pool of light on Smith’s face at the moment, and it was probably why he had woken up.

This is embarrassing.

He could turn his head slightly to the left to avoid most of the sunlight, but that meant keeping his head at the odd angle, which he could only do for a few minutes before straining the muscles along his neck. He certainly couldn’t move the rest of his body, which was fastened to a big wooden pole by thick rawhide ropes that were so tight they dug into his arms even through the fabric of his jacket and the shirt underneath. Whoever had tied him up had done a goddamn good job of it.

He’d expected to feel the headache to end all headaches when he opened his eyes, but that was oddly missing. The drumline that had been pounding away inside his skull like it was trying to win a Battle of the Bands competition during a football halftime game had mostly faded away. Mostly. It was still there, lingering in the background, but it wasn’t as prominent as before. Or, at the very least, it wasn’t making him feel as if his entire head would crack open at any second.

“Hey, can you hear me?” a voice said. “Yoooo hooo.”

Smith focused on the speaker. He was a young kid around fifteen or sixteen years old, crouched in front of Smith. Sandy blond hair, dust-covered boots, jeans, and a jacket. Other than a knife in a sheath along his right hip, he didn’t appear to be armed, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t have something behind his back.

And he was grinning stupidly at Smith, which Smith found extremely annoying.

“What’s so funny?” Smith asked.

“You,” the kid said.

“What’s so funny about me?”

“The way you fell. I thought you’d hang on, but…” The kid mimed a tree “falling” with his hand. “Tiiiiiiiiiiimber.”

“Funny.”

“Yeah, it was pretty funny.”

“Wait. You saw me fall?”

“Of course. Was watching you the whole time. If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be lying out there right now. Probably end up worm food by nightfall. Or worse.”

Or I could have woken up, with no one the wiser, and spared the embarrassment.

Smith couldn’t tell if he still had the bandage over his temple, where the sniper had shot him. But he wasn’t bleeding again, and he would have been able to feel it dripping down the side of his face. Of course, he didn’t know how long he’d been unconscious, so the gash could have started bleeding again and coagulated.

“Did you shoot me?” Smith asked the kid.

The teenager flashed Smith a puzzled look. “Huh?”

“I said, were you the one that shot me?”

“Why would I shoot you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe the same reason you brought me here and tied me up in this…whatever this is.”

“Storage shack,” the kid said. “‘Cept we haven’t really had anything to store for a while so we put you in here.”

“We?” Smith thought.

He said, “If you didn’t shoot me, then who did?”

“How should I know? I was just investigating the smoke. When I got there, you were already escaping on Sally.”

“Who’s Sally?”

“The horse.”

“You mean Lucky.”

“I mean Sally. Lucky is the guy who owns Sally. The guy you killed and stole the horse from, remember.”

Smith shook his head. “I didn’t steal the horse.”

“And you’re saying you didn’t burn down Lucky’s place, either?”

“I didn’t.”

“Of course you’d say that. You’re a thief and a killer, after all. Thieves and killers are notorious liars.”

Well, the kid right about one of those things.

“You got a name?” Smith asked.

“Of course I got a name,” the kid said but didn’t offer up what that name was.

“And?”

“And what?”

“What’s your name?”

“You don’t need to know my name, dead man.”

“‘Dead man?’”

“That’s you. Dead man.”

He didn’t like the sound of that.

Smith looked around him again, but there was just a lot of dirty and old boards to his left and right and above him. He tried to peek through the slits in the walls and could make out what looked like colorful…somethings.

Chrome? Metal? What exactly was he looking at, and where had the teenager brought him?

No, not this kid. He was too small and thin. He wouldn’t have been able to drag Smith all the way up here. Smith had to weigh twice as much as his captor. So the kid had help. How many more?

“Relax,” the kid was saying. “Mandy’s coming here and she’ll take of you.”

“Take care of me?” Smith thought.

The kid held up one forefinger to his throat and made a “cutting” motion. Then he grinned that stupid grin at Smith again.

Ah. “Take care of me.” Gotcha.

“Where is she? This Mandy?” Smith asked.

“You don’t need to know that,” the kid said as he stood up. “You’ll meet her when you meet her. In your shoes, I wouldn’t be so anxious.”

The boy turned around and opened the door behind him. It creaked loudly on rusted hinges, and Smith glimpsed what looked like a pile of car bumpers stacked outside. He was in some kind of car junkyard. Or maybe it was just a junkyard that happened to have car parts, among other throwaways.

As soon as the teenager with the stupid grin left, a girl with blue eyes and an easy smile came in to replace him.

She was older than the boy—Early twenties? Maybe mid-twenties—and taller, too, but maybe the boots she was wearing had something to do with that. She had long blonde hair tied back in a ponytail and was balancing a metal cafeteria tray in one hand like she’d been doing it all her life.

She stepped inside but didn’t walk over to where he sat right away. Instead, she stood at the open door looking at him. “I’m here to feed you. If you try anything stupid, I’m going to have to kick you in the balls. You understand what I’m saying, dude?”

Smith smiled. “Yes.”

“You gonna try anything?”

“I don’t wanna get kicked in the balls.”

“Yes or no.”

“No, ma’am.”

“So long as we understand each other.”

Unlike the boy, the woman had come in here completely unarmed, but Smith could see figures moving around outside, one of them just beyond the open door, ready to spring inside should Smith try something.

The woman walked over and placed the tray on the ground in front of him, then sat down Indian-style and took out a plastic spork from a jacket pocket. Lumps of mash potatoes and small strips of jerky. The tiny jerky size was to make feeding him easier. Not exactly gourmet stuff, but his stomach growled anyway.

He didn’t know why; he’d already eaten this morning with Mary and Aaron, so why was he so hungry again? Had he been unconscious that long? He didn’t think so. It was still bright outside, with no signs of nightfall anytime soon. Unless, of course, he’d slept through the whole day and this was already the next day, but Smith didn’t think that was the case. He would have felt a big difference if he’d gotten a full twenty-four hours of sleep.

“Someone’s hungry,” the girl said as she spooned some mashed potatoes and held it up for him. “Say Ah.”

He didn’t say “ah” but opened his mouth and let her feed him. They had seasoned the potatoes. It wasn’t great but not entirely bad, either. He’d had worse. Much, much worse, especially since he left Black Tide’s cafeterias behind.

She smiled, clearly pleased by his cooperation. She had freckles just under her left eye. They were cute freckles.

“Did you kill Lucky?” she was asking him while picking up another spoonful of chow.

“No,” Smith said.

“Billy says he saw you at Lucky’s place when it was torched.”

Billy?

That was probably the kid with the stupid grin.

“Billy’s wrong,” Smith said. “It was already burning when I stumbled across it.”

“Is that the truth?”

“Yes.”

He opened his mouth up for another spoonful of mashed potatoes and bits of jerky. It was better the second time for some reason.

“What happened to the horse?” Smith asked. “Sally.”

“She’s being taken care of. How did you end up with her? They said you were riding her when they found you.”

“It was just there, next to the burning house.”

“So you decided to just take her?”

Smith shrugged. Or as much as he could while roped to the big pole. “It would have been a waste to just leave her out there alone. Besides, I’ve been walking for a while and didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth.”

She grinned, but unlike with the boy earlier, hers was a lot more pleasing to look at. “That’s funny.”

“What is?”

“‘Gift horse in the mouth.’ Appropriate, in this case.”

He smiled and temporarily forgot that he was being held prisoner.

“What’s your name?” she was asking him.

“Smith,” he said.

“Is that your last name?”

“Yes.”

“What’s your first name?”

“John.”

She might have rolled her eyes. “Seriously?”

He attempted another sorta-shrug. “It’s a name.”

“It’s that, all right.” Another spoonful of potatoes and jerky. “I’m Blake,” she added, before he could make a comment, “I know, it’s a guy’s name. I’ve heard it all before.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“No?”

“A name’s a name.”

“Just like your name, Mr. John Smith.”

“That’s right. Nice to meet you, Blake.”

“Likewise. Well, mostly. You’re probably not feeling pretty good right now.”

“I’m feeling a lot better, actually.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I like this visit better than my last one.”

“Because I brought you food?”

“That, too.”

Blake smiled. “Cute. You’re cute.”

“Question…”

“No, you can’t leave. Not yet.”

Not until Mandy shows up, I take it, he thought, but said, “Not that.”

“What’s the question, then?”

“Am I bleeding? I was shot in the temple earlier.”

“No, you’re not.” She leaned closer to get a better look. “Bandage is still in place. You did a pretty good job with it.”

“I’ve had experience, unfortunately.”

“Ooh, dangerous man.”

“Stop flirting with the enemy and just feed him, will you?” a voice said from the open door behind Blake.

Smith looked past her at another woman, about the same age, except she wasn’t nearly as pleasing to the eye as Blake. Not that she was ugly, but compared to the blonde in front of him, everyone would probably come up short. His guard wore a ball cap over short brown hair, and hard brown eyes looked back at Smith with suspicion. Unlike Blake, she wore a gun belt with a pistol in the holster and wasn’t nearly as friendly.

Blake ignored the other woman and continued feeding and talking to Smith. “Don’t mind her. She’s always grumpy. That’s why we call her Gramps.”

“Gramps?” Smith said.

“Short for grampa. ’Cause, you know.”

“She’s always grumpy.”

“Uh huh.”

The woman Blake called Gramps rolled her eyes at them. “Hurry up and feed him already.” Then, as she turned to leave, “And stop flirting!”

“I wasn’t flirting!” Blake called back at her.

“Yeah, you were!” Gramps called back. Smith followed her through the slits in the wall as she went back to standing guard outside.

Blake was smiling at Smith. “I wasn’t flirting.” Then, holding up another spoonful, “Much.”

Smith opened his mouth and took another tasty bite of mashed potatoes and jerky. It occurred to him that maybe the food wasn’t really all that good after all; it was probably more the company.

Probably?

Yeah, it was probably just the company.

“Where am I, anyway?” Smith asked.

“Our place,” Blake said.

“Yeah, but where, exactly? Is this some kind of junkyard?”

“Uh huh.”

“What are you guys doing in a junkyard?”

Blake shrugged. “One place is as good as another. All I know is that it’s not Gaffney.”

“You guys are from Gaffney?”

“We escaped from there,” Blake said.

Eleven

He remembered the gratitude on Mary’s face and the simple “Thank you” she had said to him before she and her son rode off with Hobson and the others. Their destination was Gaffney, which at the time Smith thought would be a safer place for the two of them than walking around out here with him. Anything could happen where he was going. Like, for instance, finding a horse, only to get shot off said horse moments later.

There were a lot of dangers in the wilds of what used to be America. Smith had learned that the hard way multiple times. So had mother and son after what had happened to them with Peoples and his two pals.

Except maybe Smith had been wrong.

“You guys are from Gaffney?” he had asked Blake.

“We escaped from there,” Blake had said.

That…didn’t sound good.

It didn’t sound very good at all.

He’d tried asking Blake for more information about Gaffney and what exactly made it a “hellhole” according to her, but the woman wasn’t willing to talk too much about it.

“You don’t want to be there if you don’t have to,” was all she would say, and any further attempts he had to broach the topic got him nowhere. He could almost see the black clouds forming above her head with every Gaffney question he threw at her. She did not want to talk about that place with him.

After she finished feeding him, Blake produced a bottle of water. The container itself didn’t look all that clean, but the water inside was a different story. The taste was lukewarm against his throat, but it was better than nothing.

“Stay right here,” Blake said when she picked everything up to leave.

“Where are you going?” he asked her.

She didn’t answer. She opened the door and closed it after her, but not before glancing back and—did she just wink at him, before leaving?

He couldn’t be entirely sure. There was too much sunlight outside and chromed car parts trying to blind him, but he was pretty sure that was a wink. Or maybe he just wanted to think she had winked at him.

Now that he was alone again, but more importantly awake, Smith was able to finally get a better feel for his binds. The pole he was fastened to didn’t move when he pushed back against it. It also wouldn’t budge when Smith tried going side-to-side. The ropes were tight, and despite Smith having struggled against it for some time, he couldn’t feel any loosening anywhere along the length.

Unlike the last time when he was able to wiggle his way out of his bindings, he had no such luck here. His longer-than-usual arms weren’t going to do a bit of good with ropes that had his entire body lashed against what felt like a very stout telephone pole. And, for all he knew, that was exactly what it was.

He couldn’t get free, and no one had returned to talk to him. He could see glimpses of people moving around outside and could hear chatter every now and then. Unfortunately, the figures weren’t talking loud enough or weren’t near enough for him to eavesdrop on their conversations. The ones standing guard outside—he assumed the oddly-nicknamed Gramps was one of them—also weren’t very talkative. Smith counted two figures out there but couldn’t get a better look at the second one. They didn’t go anywhere, either, though one of them did leave for a few minutes before returning. Smith assumed he or she had gone to the bathroom or to fetch something to eat, because he smelled food a few minutes later. More seasoned beef.

He waited for this Mandy person to show up and get this over with. Though, if he had his choice, he was hoping for Blake instead. Eventually, the room around him started to dim noticeably, signaling the coming of evening. The shadows outside got darker, and both his guards were replaced by two new ones. Both guys this time, and they weren’t any chattier than Gramps and the other one had been.

Smith wasn’t sure when he drifted off. One moment he was awake, and the next he was in la la land. He blamed it on the wound, but that was probably just an excuse. He was just tired, though he wasn’t entirely sure why.

* * *

When he opened his eyes a second time, there were two people standing in front of him, both of whom he’d never seen before.

The first was a woman in her fifties, with almost entirely gray hair. She stood next to a young man in his twenties. They were both wearing gun belts and holstered pistols and were in the middle of a conversation before he woke up.

The interior of the shack was almost completely dark, and Smith wouldn’t have been able to see his new guests if one of them—the man—wasn’t holding an LED lantern in one hand. It was night outside the building, with only a few scattered lights here and there to keep the junkyard from becoming a complete sea of black. Smith guessed he’d slept through the entire day, which explained why he was feeling much, much better.

“Looks like Sleeping Beauty’s awake,” the man said.

The woman turned to look at Smith. “It’s about time. We thought you were going to sleep all day.”

“It’s been a long day,” Smith said. Then, looking from the woman to the younger man, “So, what have I missed?”

“We’re trying to decide what to do with you,” the woman said.

“Do I have a say in the matter?”

“No.”

“Just wonderin’.”

Smith had seen plenty of leaders and followers in his time, and it was very clear who was who here. The woman was the leader, even if she was an entire foot shorter than the man. It wasn’t the huge gap in their age, either, but the way she stood and stared at Smith, very much as if she was trying to decide what to do with him.

She was trying to decide, and not the “we” she had claimed earlier.

“Billy spotted you at Lucky’s when he was killed,” the woman said.

“You’re Mandy?” Smith asked.

“That I am. Now, tell me about Lucky.”

“I don’t have anything to tell you. Billy’s wrong. The house was already burning when I stumbled across it. I didn’t know there was anyone inside. Or who started the fire. Or why.”

“You’re saying Billy lied?”

“I’m saying Billy jumped to conclusions. Ask him again. I bet if you press him, he’ll admit to it.”

Mandy and the man exchanged a brief look. Smith couldn’t tell if they believed him or not. He was hoping his very honest face was believable, because it would have certainly been ironic if it wasn’t since, well, it was the truth.

The woman looked back at Smith. “Say we believe you about Lucky. And that’s a big if. When did you decide to steal Sally?”

“I wouldn’t call it stealing,” Smith said. “The horse was there, and I took it.”

“What do you call taking something that doesn’t belong to you, wise guy?” the man asked.

“Opportunity. I didn’t know what happened, or why. I just saw a horse that no one was using. It would have been a waste to just let it wander off.”

“So you took it.”

“Yeah, I took it.”

The man chuckled, before saying to Mandy, “Well, at least he’s not a complete liar.”

“I don’t have any reasons to lie,” Smith said. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You took what wasn’t yours,” Mandy said.

“I didn’t know that at the time.”

“You should have assumed.”

“You know what happens when you assume?”

“Who shot you?” the man asked.

“I don’t know,” Smith said. “I was hoping you guys might be able to tell me. Maybe it was the same guy who burned down your friend Lucky’s house.”

Mandy and the man exchanged another look. For some reason, Smith had a feeling they already knew everything he’d just told them, but either wanted him to confirm or…

Something else was going on that they were keeping from him.

Oh, who was he kidding. There were a lot of “somethings” going on here that he didn’t know but had stumbled into.

Hobson and that posse of his, for one.

This Judge person back at Gaffney, for another.

And thirdly, the death of someone named Lucky, whom Smith had never even met.

“You guys want to tell me what’s going on around here?” Smith asked.

Mandy looked back at him. “What do you know about Gaffney?”

“Nothing. I’ve never been there.”

“And the Judge?”

“I’ve heard the name, but that’s it.”

“Where did you hear it from?”

“Some guys on horses. One of them called himself Hobson.”

“You know Hobson,” the man said.

“I met the guy. I wouldn’t call that ‘knowing’ him.”

“How did you meet Hobson, and why?” Mandy asked.

“It’s a long story.”

“Look around you. You’re in no position to hold anything back from us, Mister…”

“Smith.”

“Smith?”

Smith sighed. “Yeah.”

The man chuckled. “Couldn’t have come up with something better, huh?”

“It’s a name,” Smith said. Then, to Mandy, “Blake told me Gaffney isn’t a nice place to be, but she didn’t elaborate. Is she right?”

“Depends,” Mandy said.

“On?”

“On whether you agree with the Judge or not.”

“I don’t know what any of that means,” Smith said.

“No, I don’t suspect you do.”

“What’s wrong with Gaffney? Who is this Judge person everyone keeps talking about?”

Mandy ignored him and turned back to the man. “We need to think this through. What we do next may set off a chain of events that we can’t take back.”

“This was a long time coming,” the man said. “We were never going to avoid this forever, Mandy.”

“I know, but it’s not something to take lightly.”

“You know I’m not taking this lightly. But it was going to happen, sooner or later.” Then, “Do we tell the others?”

“We have to. We don’t keep secrets from one another here, remember?”

Smith had a feeling they’d forgotten all about him. “What about me?” he asked. “What happens to me now?”

“We haven’t decided yet,” Mandy said.

“Don’t leave town,” the man said.

“Funny,” Smith said.

The man grinned, before he turned around and left the shack with Mandy.

“Hey,” Smith called after them.

They ignored him and closed the door. He heard chains jangling, then a lock snapping into place.

Swell, Smith thought as the shack around him started to darken even further now that they’d taken the only source of light away.

Outside, he could hear the crickets chirping, along with the shuffling of boots against the grounds.

Other than that, it was just him in the dark, lost with his own thoughts.

Most of all, the image of Mary and her son, Aaron, riding off to Gaffney, where he thought they would be safe.

“Shit,” Smith said out loud.

Twelve

Smith wasn’t sure when he dozed off for the second time (technically the third time he lost consciousness, but who was counting?), but it wasn’t long after Mandy and the guy whose name he didn’t know left. He was either very tired or the bullet had taken more out of him than he’d admitted, because he couldn’t remember the last time he fell asleep without realizing it twice in one day.

This time, it was different.

This time he didn’t open his eyes because he woke up. He was startled awake by the sound of gunfire, and Smith’s immediate thought was, That’s not good. That’s definitely not good.

Smith didn’t need to be able to see more than what he could at the moment—which wasn’t very much at all—to know there was a back and forth going on outside. The shack was lightless, which meant he was essentially sitting in the dark. That in itself was already an eerie feeling, but now he was stuck in the middle of a gun battle—

Pek! as a round slammed into the wall to his right.

The bullet easily punctured through the thin wooden board and exited the other side of the shack.

Close one!

Okay, so it probably hadn’t been that close, but when you were tied to a pole and sitting on the floor without the ability to do anything to save yourself, even a couple of yards was way too close a call.

He was listening to handguns and rifles firing back and forth, along with pings! of those rounds ricocheting off the vehicles and other metal junk that surrounded him. Someone—or, more likely, someones—was attacking Mandy’s group.

The question was who and why?

Or maybe the big question was, how was he going to—

Pek! as another bullet entered the shack from his right and embedded itself into the pole about a foot above Smith’s head. Splinters flicked across the air, a few of them landing in his lap.

Now that was closer, and it wasn’t just his imagination this time.

“Hey!” Smith shouted. “Someone out there? Hey!”

He couldn’t see his guards anymore through the cracks in the walls, but he did glimpse moving figures outside.

“Anyone!” Smith shouted. “Hey, I’m still in here! Anyone out there? Anyone?”

Apparently no one could hear him. Or, if they could, they were ignoring him. He wasn’t sure which answer made him feel worse.

Both sounds about right.

The moving figures weren’t close enough that he could tell who they were or what they were doing, but they were clearly in a hurry to do something. Anything and everything, from the sounds of it, except come and check in on him.

His night eyes had adjusted so he could see where the door was, directly in front of him. Not that he could do anything to open it, because he couldn’t even move. Goddammit, whoever had tied him up had done a hell of a job. Smith reminded himself to give the guy or gal a medal when this was over.

If he survived this. Right now, sitting here while people were shooting at each other around him, that was one bit if.

Imagine dying in here. In this dingy little shack. What a way to go, huh?

Not quite. He could think of a hundred different ways to go that would have been a vast improvement.

Beggars can’t be choosers.

That was true, too. Right now, he had no choice—

A figure flashed by across the thin slits in the door.

“Hey!” Smith shouted. “Hey! Let me outta here! Hey!”

But the runner didn’t stop, and soon Smith couldn’t see him or her anymore.

“Dammit…”

Around him the shooting continued, but it wasn’t the constant roar of gunfire that he was used to in battle. These sounded more concentrated, purposeful, as if the shooters were picking their targets carefully before pulling the trigger. Which made him wonder what idiot was shooting at the shack he was in. Maybe the ones that’d struck the wall were just stray shots. Again, he wasn’t sure which answer made him feel better, though.

Neither. It’s definitely neither.

More gunshots, these sounding even closer, and seemed to be coming from just behind him.

Getting closer. That’s not good.

Nope. That’s not good whatsoever.

Smith still had no idea where his shack was in relation to the rest of the junkyard, or even in which direction he was facing. The back? The front? The sides? All he knew was that he was stuck in here while a gunfight was going on out there, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. The helplessness was maddening, and all he wanted to do was bang his head into the pole behind him until it cracked so he could slide free.

Except, of course, he didn’t do that. He could feel the girth of the structure behind him and knew it’d take more than his head—as thick and stubborn as most people keep telling him it was—to break it in half. Or if not halve it, then enough to escape.

No, he’d need help to get out of this. That was the problem. He didn’t see help coming from anywhere. The only person he even thought might care if he made it out of here alive or not was Blake, and maybe that was just his penis talking again.

There was no clear, sustained back-and-forth volleys to the gunfire he was listening to, nothing that would indicate a full-blown assault was taking place outside. More likely, there were two factions shooting at each other from cover. And every now and then, one of them kept sending bullets in Smith’s direction.

That was the real problem.

Gee, just one real problem?

Well, one of many, anyway.

Bottom online: he had to get out. He had to get free.

He tried to wiggle out of the rawhide rope again, but it was just too thick and too strong and too taut. Jesus Christ. Who was the guy that tied him to the pole, Hercules himself? There was no slack in the rope whatsoever. At least, none that he could detect. That had been the case all day, and nothing had changed now.

Fucking Hercules, the rope magician, Smith thought, smirking at the darkness.

Then, for the first time, voices.

They were coming from somewhere to his right—or was that to his left? Behind him? In front?

Like with the shooting, it was hard to tell for sure. Sound was echoing, bouncing off all the abandoned cars and all the other junk stacked outside. Strangely enough, for a junkyard, the place really didn’t smell all that badly. There was a smell, but it wasn’t the putrid odor that usually accompanied something like a landfill. Smith guessed that made some sense; Mandy and her people wouldn’t have been able to stand it if there was a vicious stench in the air 24/7.

The pop-pop-pop! of someone unleashing with a burst rifle fire.

That’s new…

That was the first time he’d heard something beyond semiautomatic gunshots. Either someone was trying to pick off more than one target, or they were getting sick and tired of trading single rounds.

Smith’s only concern, though, was that none of that burst had found its way to his current location. He tried to imagine a worse way to die, but sitting here, tied to a pole, had to be at the bottom of the list. It wouldn’t exactly be painful, but it would still royally suck—

Shadows, as someone ran along the side of the shack.

Smith tracked the figure as it rounded the building.

“Hey!” Smith shouted. “Hey! In here!”

Even as he called out, he fully expected the figure to keep going—but he was wrong. Whoever was out there this time stopped at the door, and he heard jingling as they fumbled with the chains and padlock.

Smith tried to sit up straighter, to gather himself and get ready for what came next.

The door flew open, and Blake ran inside.

He breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe it was his penis talking again, but the sight of her was the best thing he’d seen all night. Hell, it might be the best thing he’d seen in weeks.

Yeah, that’s definitely the penis talking.

The shack was small enough that Smith didn’t have to strain his eyes to see the flowing blonde hair around Blake as she ran over to him. Flowing, because she’d undone her ponytail. From the looks of it, she’d been roused out of bed and ran straight here because she was still wearing what looked like pajamas and a long-sleeve nightshirt. The hem of one of her pajama legs was stuffed into her boots as if she’d put them on too quickly. Unlike the last time he saw her, there was a sheathed knife at her hip.

“Blake,” Smith said. “What’s happening? What’s going on out there?”

“We’re under attack,” Blake said.

“By who?”

“Sit still.”

“What?”

“Sit still.”

She had left the door open behind her, and a cold breeze swept over Smith, making him shiver slightly. He was surprised it was so cold out there, but he guessed the large holes along the walls of his prison still provided some cover from the elements.

Blake ran past him, and he was momentarily caught off guard, until he realized what she was about to do just before she did it. The sound of a knife coming out of a sheath, and then Blake was cutting the rope behind him.

“Blake,” Smith said. “Who’s attacking?”

“Gaffney,” Blake said.

She was close enough that he could hear her labored breathing, as if she’d been running a marathon just to reach his shack. For all he knew, that was exactly what she had done.

“Gaffney’s attacking,” Blake said.

Gaffney. Shit.

Smith thought again about Mary and Aaron, and how he’d essentially handed mother and son over to Hobson and his posse. They had taken the duo back to Gaffney with them, where he thought they’d be safe.

But maybe Smith was being too hard on himself. Mary herself had thought the same, and there was a good chance she would have gone with Hobson anyway, even if he had told her otherwise.

Then again, maybe he was just making excuses for himself.

Yeah, that’s probably it.

“Why is Gaffney attacking?” Smith asked even as he felt his arms loosening and thought, Haha, Mr. Hercules, I’m finally free of your binds!

His body followed suit quickly, and Smith breathed another large sigh of relief. You never really knew what freedom meant until it was taken from you.

“They were always going to come here,” Blake was saying. “We just didn’t know when. I guess tonight’s the answer.”

The ropes fell to the ground and Smith started to get up, but his legs were jelly and he almost fell back down.

“Easy; you’ve been sitting all day,” Blake said as she put the knife away and helped him up from the ground. “Mandy told me to get you to safety.”

Smith didn’t argue. After all, there were two bullets in the shack tonight that hadn’t been here earlier. There was nothing safe about his prison.

He managed to stand up, and this time stayed upright. Blake was tall for a woman—about 5’10”—but he still had a few inches on her. He couldn’t help but notice how good she smelled standing so close to him, even though he was pretty sure it was just soap and water.

“You okay?” she asked, watching him with some concern.

He nodded. “I’ll be fine.” He looked past her at the open door. “So does this mean I’m a free man?”

“Mandy decided you weren’t dangerous. She told me to come get you herself.”

“Where is she now?”

“Back at the main building with the others.”

“Where is that—”

The pek! of a round striking the wall behind him, followed quickly by the zip! of something very hot and fast slicing through the air about a foot to the right of his head.

Blake ducked instinctively, though of course that wouldn’t have done any good if the bullet had been true.

Thank God it hadn’t been.

“Geez, that was close,” Blake said.

“Where are we, anyway?” Smith asked. “I mean, in terms of this place. Middle? Back? Side?”

“Somewhere in the back. Why?”

“I just like to know where I am at all times. Let’s get out of here,” Smith said, when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye.

Another dark figure, this one racing past the side of the shack before turning the corner to where the open door was.

“Someone’s coming,” Smith said.

Blake turned around just as the smell hit Smith, and he thought, That’s not human. That’s not a human smell!

He reached out and grabbed Blake’s hand before she could walk the short distance to the door. She whirled around, eyes widening in a What the hell are you doing? expression, but before she could say anything, she smelled it, too.

Blake spun around as it peered in at them from the darkness beyond the open door.

It was a ghoul.

A lone ghoul.

It looked in at them, thick drops of saliva dripping from jagged teeth that seemed to flash in the moonlight as it opened its mouth wide, wide, and wider still.

Thirteen

“Tell me that knife of yours has silver.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No. It doesn’t have silver.”

“Why doesn’t it have silver?”

“Um, I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“I don’t know, okay?”

Smith sighed. He might have continued the back and forth with Blake if the ghoul didn’t pounce. When it did that, both of them stopped talking.

Blake had drawn her knife and taken a step toward the creature just before it made its move, but Smith grabbed her from behind and pushed her out of the way. She let out a surprised yelp and might have shouted something else, but Smith couldn’t hear it because he was too busy falling after the ghoul leapt at him and knocked him down.

It wasn’t so much that it was heavy, because it wasn’t, but rather the force of the impact that made Smith lose his footing.

And the stink. God, the stink. It was like spoiled garbage roasting in the hot sun. The stench invaded every pore along Smith’s face as the creature thrashed on top of him, scrambling to rise while at the same time lunging toward his face.

No, not his face. His neck.

It was going for his neck with its fanged teeth. Thick, sloppy wetness flicked across Smith’s cheeks and forehead, more of the rotten stuff splashing his shirt as it clawed its way up the length of his body, cold, bony fingers looking for footholds wherever it could find.

Smith would have thrown up if he could afford to, if he wasn’t too busy fighting for his life. Its putrid smell was simultaneously intoxicating and retch-inducing, and he had to fight through both sensations to start crawling backward, out of the thing’s reach. That wasn’t easy to do since he’d landed on his ass and back, but he managed to get his legs under him anyway and pushed off on the ground, his boots skirting the hard surface as he propelled himself back and—

Thwack! as his head slammed into the pole that had held him prisoner for the better part of a day. He’d forgotten it was back there.

He remembered now, as he tried to fight off the sudden burst of pain. It had to be the back of his head, too, that had impacted the unyielding piece of lumber. Jesus Christ, did Mandy’s people actually use a telephone pole to tie him up? If that was the case, did they bring the damn thing here or build the shack around it? Or—

The ghoul! It’s going to eat you!

Focus on the ghoul, you idiot!

He focused on the creature as it lumbered clumsily up the length of his body, using every part of him to grab onto and propel itself forward. Smith’s momentary halt after backing into the pole had given the monster the extra two or three seconds it needed to regroup.

Blake let out something that sounded like an insane yell just before she started stabbing the creature in the back with her knife. Smith wanted to tell her, Stop it! You’re just pissing it off! but he didn’t get the chance. Mostly, he was too busy holding up his hands to keep the ghoul’s blood from spraying him each time Blake pulled the knife out of its body and slashed again, then repeated the process over and over.

Her knife—her silverless knife—didn’t kill the ghoul, but it did draw its attention. The creature whirled around and leapt off Smith’s body and at Blake.

She stumbled back, slashing with the knife.

It was a big knife—just a shade over eight inches in length, about four or so of that making up the sharp metal part—and Blake wielded it like she knew what she was doing. It was probably that familiarity with the knife that allowed her to cut the ghoul’s right hand off at the wrist as it groped for her. The severed hand flopped to the ground, the fingers twitching as if still alive, while the thing that it was once attached to continued charging Blake.

The shack’s door, somehow, had closed in the aftermath of the ghoul’s entry—a big gust of wind, perhaps?—and Blake bumped into it. The entire structure shook slightly on impact, but she didn’t let that stop her and stabbed forward, the knife going into the creature’s chest and out its back.

Not that that was going to stop it. The undead thing simply pushed forward, letting the knife sink even deeper into its chest and out its back, as it reached for her with its remaining hand. Meanwhile, thick arcs of blood spurted out of the stump on its right hand, splashing Blake and the door and parts of the shack.

Blake screamed. It was even louder than when she’d launched her initial attack. This time it was full of fear and horror and just about every other emotion she could conjure up as black blood dripped from her cheeks and forehead and clothes.

Smith was on his feet and running toward them. He grabbed the creature from behind, wrapping both arms around its rail-thin body just as it managed to get its fingers around Blake’s face. He jerked it off her and swung it away, the very thought of touching the ghoul sending all kinds of sickening sensations through him.

It flew through the air and thwacked! against the pole in the center of the building, and Smith thought, How do you like that, fucker?

It liked it just fine, because almost as soon as it landed on the floor, it snapped back up and whirled around. It bared its teeth at him even as blood squirted from the stump on its right arm. Black eyes gleamed in the semidarkness of the shack’s interior, almost as if there was a soul behind them, but of course Smith knew better.

Ghouls were undead things, devoid of intelligence, and driven almost purely by the basic need to survive. Unfortunately for him and Blake, and the human race as a whole, their survival meant feeding on the thing flowing through their veins.

Smith had forgotten just how ugly, how unnatural the creatures were up close. This one was in a slight crouch as it raised itself up on its thin legs, but maybe that had more to do with the deformity that had befallen its skeletal frame. It didn’t so much as stand as it hunched over, drops of black liquid dripping from the cuts that Blake had inflicted on its body.

Not that the creature looked even remotely hurt. Or wounded. Or slowed down.

It charged without hesitation, half-running, half-scampering across the ground, flicking black blood all around it as it moved.

What was Smith going to do? He didn’t have a gun. He didn’t even have a knife. And even if he had one of those things, he’d need something with silver to stop it. Because the creature wouldn’t stop. Nothing in this world would end its attack permanently but silver and sunlight, and he didn’t have either right now.

“Move!” Blake shouted just before she swept him aside—similar to how he’d done to her earlier, he thought ironically—and jumped in front of him.

Blake swung with the knife in a wide arc as the ghoul launched itself at her. The blade sliced through the thing’s neck, cutting through it like a bullet through Jell-O. The creature’s momentum continued forward and it crashed into Blake and knocked her back and into Smith, and the two of them bumped into the shack’s closed door.

The ghoul’s body crumpled to the ground, where it began twitching even as blood poured from the stump where its head was, once upon a time, attached. That head was a few feet away, having bounced off a wall, blood leaking out of its neck.

Smith didn’t for one second think the creature was “dead.” He’d seen ghouls “survive” worse things than decapitation. So he wasn’t at all surprised when the decapitated body attempted to pick itself up. Blood continued to squirt out of the stump on its right hand as it groped the ground, searching for some way to push itself upright.

Smith opened the door and stepped through, dragging Blake with him. “Come on, let’s go. Let’s go.”

She couldn’t look away from the headless ghoul as it somehow got back up onto its legs—only to fall back down…

…before scrambling to get up again.

“Jesus,” Blake half-whispered and half-gasped.

You’ve never seen that before? Smith wanted to ask her. He had. A lot of times—and a hundred more grotesque things to boot.

“It’s still alive,” Blake was saying.

“No, it’s not,” Smith said.

“I mean, it’s not dead, yet.”

“And it won’t be, unless we hit it with something silver. Right now, this is good enough. Come on.”

Smith slammed the door shut so she wouldn’t have to see more of the gruesome—but in so many other ways, fascinating—sight. He grabbed the chains off the ground and slipped them through the door’s handle and snapped the padlock into place. He wasn’t sure how long it would take the ghoul to get back on its feet or if it would even know in which direction to chase them, but he wasn’t taking any chances.

“You did good back there,” he said.

“Thanks,” Blake said. Even in the moonlight, he could tell her face had paled noticeably. It helped that her skin was so fair.

“You going to be okay?”

“I’m not sure…”

“Give it a second. Just breathe in and out. In and out.”

“I think I’m going to throw up,” Blake said, even as she wiped at the thick sludge dripping from her cheeks and chin and forehead.

Smith took her by the shoulders. He had some of the stuff on his own clothes and, he was sure of it, parts of his face, but the smell and contact of ghoul blood was, at least for now, temporarily taking a backseat to the danger he was in.

Now that he wasn’t fighting for his life against a ghoul, Smith could hear the gunshots again. Not that they had stopped while he was in the shack with the creature, but he had forgotten all about them until now.

“Blake, breathe,” Smith said. “You’ll be all right. Just breathe.”

She did—or tried—even as she gazed back at him. She had amazingly deep blue eyes, and Smith thought, God, she’s captivating. Even covered in ghoul blood, this is probably the most beautiful woman—

Blake made a gurgling sound just before she threw up all over his boots.

Smith tried to jump back, but it was too late.

“Oh God, oh God, I’m sorry,” Blake said as she bent over at the waist, the smell of vomit in the air, having replaced the—

Stink of human sweat.

Smith spun around as they came out of the shadows.

Two large men this time—or maybe they just looked large because of what they were wearing: long black dusters and dark half masks—with rifles.

He had no idea how long they’d been there, but it was apparently long enough for one of them to chuckle and a familiar voice to say, “Looky what’s going on here!”

Smith focused on the speaker.

Travis, the redhead from Hobson’s posse, squirrely eyes sparkling in the moonlight.

Sonofa…

The man grinned at him. “Hey, tough guy.”

Before Smith could do or say anything, the one next to Travis struck Smith in the gut with the butt of a rifle. Smith doubled over, but that only presented a better target for the same buttstock, which crashed into the side of his head.

He flopped to the ground and would have eaten a mouthful of whatever was down there if he hadn’t managed to stick both hands out just in time. But that, again, only left him wide open for—

Something hit him in the temple, about the same spot—maybe even the same spot—as the bullet graze underneath the bandages from earlier, and Smith stopped fighting.

He heard a voice that sounded like Blake’s say, “Clarence?”

Travis, replying, “Miss me?”

Then Smith didn’t hear anything anymore, because he’d lost consciousness for the third time that day.

Fourteen

He opened his eyes while suffering from the monster of all hangovers. Instead of a drumline banging away inside his head this time, there were two of them. Maybe three, but it was a little difficult to discern the exact number when every inch of his skull was vibrating, threatening to come apart at any second.

Any second.

Any second now!

He was surprised it didn’t hurt the first time he woke up, but apparently all of that was being saved up for now. With interest.

A lot of interest.

A hell of a lot of interest.

“You okay? You don’t look okay. In fact, you look far from okay. Like, really, really far.”

That about sums it up.

Blake was sitting next to him, close enough that he could still smell the lingering vomit on her lips, not to mention on the boots he was still wearing. He decided to focus on the crisp blue of her eyes instead; they were very radiant despite the lack of light inside the room.

He glanced around him. They were in some kind of jail cell.

No, that wasn’t true. It wasn’t “some kind” of jail cell, but an actual jail cell. There was concrete walls on three sides and iron bars to his left, with a locked gate door. A hallway beyond that, just as poorly lit as the room he was sitting in.

Smith raised himself up from the bench, Blake’s warm hands keeping him from falling right back down, which he was very much in danger of doing, because Goddammit, his head was pounding like crazy.

“Relax, just relax,” Blake was saying, in that soft and comfortable voice people used on an injured person. Which, Smith guessed, he qualified as.

He leaned back against the wall, the hard and cold concrete behind him making for an unpleasant headrest. Blake was leaning in close, and it took him a while to realize she was getting a good look at his temple. The same spot where he’d been struck by a bullet, then later the buttstock of a rifle.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“In a jail cell,” Blake said.

“I get that. But where?”

“Gaffney.”

“We’re in Gaffney?”

“Yes.”

“How did we end up in Gaffney?”

“They brought us here. Clarence and his pals.”

“Who’s Clarence?”

“The redhead.”

“I thought his name was Travis.”

“It is.”

“But you just called him Clarence.”

“His full name is Travis Clarence. I call him Clarence because he hates it.”

“Two first names?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s a little greedy.”

“That’s Clarence in a nutshell.”

So he’d been attacked and brought back to Gaffney by Travis and his buddy, who Smith hadn’t gotten a very good look at. Smith wasn’t so much concern about the how—he assumed it took place during the attack on Mandy’s people—and the when was irrelevant. What mattered was now what?

“You’re bleeding again,” Blake was saying. She was kneeling on the bench to get a better look at his wound and had removed his bandages. She seemed to know what she was doing; or, at least, she wasn’t shying away from it.

“Bad?” he asked.

“No, not too bad. I can stop the bleeding.” She unzipped her jacket and pulled it off. “I need you to close your eyes.”

“Why?”

“’Cause I’m gonna take off my bra and use it to stop the bleeding. But first I need to take off my shirt, and I don’t want you to see my tits.”

“I can just turn my head—”

“Close your eyes, mister.”

Smith smiled. Her ability to still be embarrassed about any potential nudity while they were in Gaffney, locked inside what appeared to be a genuine jail cell, made him slightly amused.

He closed his eyes. “All right.”

He heard her taking off her shirt, then her bra, before feeling soft materials pressing against the side of his head.

“Okay,” Blake said.

He reopened his eyes and tried to look over at her, hovering slightly next to him on the bench. “How’s it look, doc?”

She rolled her eyes. “You’ll live. For now, anyway.”

“‘For now?’ What does that mean?”

“I know why they brought me back here, but I don’t know what they want with you. I’m guessing it’s not for the same thing they want with me.”

“What do they want with you?”

“Gee, what do you think, Mr. John Smith?”

He stared at her, trying to figure out what she was trying to get at. Maybe it was the throbbing in his head or the massive amounts of pain he was fighting through, but Smith had difficulty getting any clarity.

She must have seen the confusion on his face, because she said, “I’m a girl, and you’re a guy. Get it?”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” she said, and went back to paying extra attention to his wound.

He could see the strap of her bra dangling off the corner of his eyes, but not much else. That should have been embarrassing, but it wasn’t. At least, not when he considered everything that had happened to him so far. There were no windows inside the cell, so he had no idea if it was even still night outside, though he thought it was. If surviving The Purge and the ghoul-infested years since had done anything to him, it had honed his ability to judge the hour of day to the hour by just feel alone.

And right now, it felt like night outside their walls. Maybe past midnight. So, a few hours, give or take, since the events at the junkyard.

Smith looked toward the iron bars. “What happened at the junkyard during the attack?”

“Clarence and Stephens, the other guy, must have sneaked in from the back while the others were attacking the front. They took us out the same way. Me on my feet, and you on your back.”

Smith tried to picture his unconscious body being dragged across the junkyard.

Great. More humiliation.

This day will never end.

“You told me you used to live here,” Smith said.

She nodded. “Me, and a few others. We sort of stumbled across the place. It seemed like a nice town at first.”

“What happened?”

“The Judge…”

Again, the Judge.

Who the hell was this Judge person?

“What about the Judge?” he asked Blake.

“He had rules,” Blake said.

“What kind of rules?”

“The kind that favors only a small group of people in town. Namely, anyone with a penis. Everyone else was shit out of luck. Like me. Like the other girls who ran away with me. Gramps, Mandy…”

“They were here, too?”

Blake sat down on the bench next to him, but not before adjusting the bra around his head to make sure it didn’t come loose. He didn’t want to think about how silly he looked, but the fabric of her underwear was a lot better than the, by now, bloodied bandages he’d been using all day.

“Almost everyone who was at our place are originally from Gaffney,” Blake said. “Mandy led the exodus about seven months ago. Until now, we’ve had something of a truce with the Judge.”

“How far is the junkyard from here?”

“About ten miles.”

“Ten miles? That’s it?”

“Yes. Why?”

“You escaped, but you continued to stay within ten miles of Gaffney?”

“So?”

He looked over at her. “Ten miles, Blake. Why wouldn’t you guys keep running and never look back? Why just put ten miles between you and Gaffney if this place is the hellhole you keep saying it is? Why not a hundred miles? Or another state, for that matter?”

“Some of us have family and friends here,” Blake said.

“In Gaffney?”

She nodded. “Friends, families, sisters, and wives. We can’t just abandon them. We got out, but they haven’t yet.”

“You’re telling me they’re being held captive here?”

“Some of them.”

“What does that mean?”

“Not everyone understands how evil the Judge and his men are. Some of them are still here voluntarily; others don’t have any choice.”

“That’s why you, Mandy, and the others haven’t run across the country yet.”

She nodded. “We’re not leaving until we free everyone.”

“And how’s that working out?” Smith was going to ask, when he heard hands clapping and looked toward the bars as a figure stepped out from behind a block of cement wall and into the open.

Travis, his red hair easily visible in the shadowy hallway beyond their cell. He was clapping and grinning, looking as punchable now as he’d been when Smith first saw him.

“Stop it, you guys are gonna get me all choked up,” Travis said as he walked up to the bars and leaned against them.

He was still wearing the same black clothes and duster he’d worn during the attack on the junkyard. There were no signs of his partner, Stephens, or anyone else in the hallway, but for all Smith knew, they could be hiding just like Travis had until now.

Smith remained where he sat, looking back at the man. He wanted desperately to run over and grab a hold of Travis’s short hair and pound his ugly face into the bars, but he didn’t have the strength to do that. Besides, he didn’t think the guy would just let him, either; and maybe that’s what he wanted: An excuse to draw his holstered sidearm.

“That’s a nice look,” Travis said, grinning at him. “What do you call that? Bra-band? Bra-Gauze? Bra-something else?”

“Go fuck yourself, Clarence,” Blake said.

Travis turned to look at her. “Now that’s not nice. You used to be so nice to me before.”

“That’s before I figured out you were a piece of shit. You and everyone that licks the Judge’s boots for his table scraps.”

“You call them table scraps, but I call them nice, juicy three-course meals.”

“You can call them whatever you want; you’re still a piece of shit.”

A flicker of annoyance crossed Travis’s face. He had been playing off Blake’s comments as if he were above them, but watching his face closely, Smith knew differently. Blake’s cutting remarks were very much having an effect on the man.

“What were you doing, hiding back there all this time like a cockroach?” Blake asked.

“Someone had to keep an eye on you two,” Travis said. “Don’t flatter yourself. I drew the short straw.”

“Yeah, I bet you did.”

“Why did you bring us back here?” Smith asked the man.

“She belongs here,” Travis said, nodding at Blake. “She just doesn’t realize it yet. But she will.”

“When hell freezes over,” Blake said.

Travis shivered dramatically. “Maybe soon, toots. Maybe soon.” Then, turning back to Smith, “As for you, Mr. Tough Guy, that’s for the Judge to decide.”

Again with the Judge.

Who the hell is this Judge?

“You have to answer for those three you killed two nights ago,” Travis continued.

Two nights ago? Smith thought, before realizing Travis was talking about Peoples and his partners.

“You know what happened to them,” Smith said.

“We know what you told us,” Travis said. “That was until we did a little more investigating. Turns out, it might not be a clean kill after all.” He shrugged. “But that’s not for me to decide.”

“Let me guess: The Judge?”

“That’s right.”

“What’s he talking about?” Blake asked Smith, almost whispering the question. “Is he talking about Lucky?”

“No,” Smith said. “Three murdering rapists that I killed two nights ago. They had it coming.”

“Still clinging to that story, huh?” Travis said.

“The truth is the truth.”

“We’ll see about that,” Travis said, stepping back from the cell bars. “You’re going on trial tomorrow for those three killings, Mr. Tough Guy. You best get your defense ready, ’cause if you’re found guilty…” Travis ran his forefinger across his own throat before sticking out his tongue.

“So do I get a lawyer?” Smith asked.

The redhead shrugged. “Don’t know. Maybe if you ask nicely. Very, very nicely.”

The man turned around and walked off, whistling as he went, and Smith thought, One of these days, Travis. One of these days, I’m going to punch you in the face…

…then maybe shoot you in the head out of spite.

Fifteen

Smith was able to stand up and explore his prison. His second prison in as many days. Jesus Christ, it had been a terrible couple of days for sure. The last time he had it this bad was when he’d been shot and was laid up for a while. Before that, he’d almost gotten eaten by a cannibal and her two children.

But at least this time he wasn’t fastened to a pole like an animal. No, he was only jailed like one; fortunately he could walk around and get blood flowing through his limbs as he tried to shake off the growing headache. He forgot about how dumb he must look with Blake’s bra around his head and was just glad he wasn’t bleeding to death.

He was getting a better look at their prison, not that there was a lot to see. Three concrete walls, a ceiling, and a floor. Bars on one side, and when he pressed against them and tried to look up the hallway, he couldn’t see very much. There might have been one or more cells farther up the dark corridor, but he couldn’t see them from where he was.

If they were in Gaffney—and he had no reasons to believe otherwise—then the town was being incredibly quiet outside. According to Blake, Travis and the other man, Stephens, had delivered them back to the Gaffney lines before the group broke off their attack and returned home. She hadn’t known much beyond that because they had blindfolded her before putting her on a horse. Smith had gotten on a horse too, but on his stomach like a roasting pig. Another embarrassing moment he was glad he didn’t remember.

He had woken up about thirty minutes after they were deposited in one of the jail cells inside a police station, which was somewhere in the center of town. Not that he had any idea how big Gaffney was or how it was laid out. Besides his own occasional footsteps and Blake’s breathing, there didn’t seem to be another living soul awake in the whole town.

Even Travis had disappeared and not come back in the twenty or so minutes since their conversation. Smith had listened carefully when the man left, and he’d heard a couple of doors opening and closing, then the jangling of keys inside locks. Sure, there was a chance Travis hadn’t actually left, and was instead lingering about to eavesdrop as he had earlier, but Smith didn’t think so. It was late, and he’d just finished the attack on the junkyard with the others, and the asshole was bound to be tired by now.

“You should sit back down,” Blake said.

She remained on the bench, leaning against the wall, her eyes closed. They still had the smell of lingering vomit on them, but their captors had given Blake some water to clean most of it off, along with the ghoul blood that had splashed them. Not that they were completely clean—that was going to require a bath and an entirely new wardrobe—but the smell took a backseat to the pounding headache he couldn’t get rid of.

“You look silly with my bra around your head, pacing around like that,” Blake said.

“I don’t think I’ll look any less silly with your bra on while sitting down,” Smith said.

“No, you’re probably right.”

He leaned against the bars again and peered out at the darkened corridor. There were lights somewhere down there, but not enough of them for him to see much. “We’re the only ones in here?”

“I think so. I didn’t see anyone when they brought us through.”

“How many cells?”

“Three.”

“We’re in the back?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Just wondering.”

“We’re not going to escape, Smith. There are probably guards outside. Besides, you’re in no condition to fight even if we could get out of this cell, which we can’t.”

“I don’t need to fight anyone. I just need a gun.”

“Well, you don’t have one of those, either.”

“Not yet.”

Blake opened her eyes and stared at him. “Tell me about those three guys Travis said you killed.”

“Travis?” Smith said.

“Yeah, Travis.”

“Why do you call him Travis now, but Clarence when he’s here?”

“Because it annoys him.”

Smith chuckled. That made sense.

“Tell me about the three you killed,” Blake said.

“What about them?”

“What happened?”

“They murdered some travelers and kidnapped and assaulted a woman and her son.”

“Were they friends of yours? The woman and her son, I mean.”

“No. I didn’t know them until I met up with the three men.”

“So what happened to them? The woman and her son? Billy didn’t say anything about seeing you with anyone outside Lucky’s.”

“If this is Gaffney, then they’re here, too,” Smith said. “We ran into Hobson and your boyfriend, Travis, earlier yesterday.” Smith paused for a moment, before continuing. “I thought it’d be safer for her and the boy to come back here with them.”

“You let them come back with Hobson and Travis to Gaffney?”

“I thought they would be safe here. I don’t know anything about Gaffney.” He turned around to look back at Blake. “This town. This Judge. Tell me exactly why you and Mandy and the others fled.”

“What do you want to know?”

“All of it,” Smith said, walking back over and sitting down on the bench.

Blake pulled her legs up until she was sitting Indian-style. She was amazingly limber for a tall woman. “When we first got here, things were good. They had food, water, everything we needed. We got into the swing of things easily; joined groups, found jobs.”

“Jobs?”

“Well, not jobs, jobs. Not the kind that pays a salary, anyway. Just what needed to be done. Some people were cooks, others could help with construction, that sort of thing.”

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t exactly have a lot of skills before The Purge. I was still in middle school when that happened. But I learned a few things here and there, enough to join the clinic in town and help out doing whatever.”

“Doing whatever?”

“Yeah. Whatever.” She shrugged.

“Okay. So everything was good for a while.”

“For a while, yeah.”

“How long did that last?”

“A week.”

“Just a week?”

“That’s how long it took the Judge to tell us what he needed from us. What he really needed from us.”

“Which was that?”

“Gee, what do you think, Smith?”

He shook his head. “Why don’t you just tell me.”

She sighed and turned around until she was leaning back against the wall again. Blake folded her arms across her chest. “Wives.”

“Wives?”

“They wanted all the women to be someone’s wife. Me included.”

“You mean get married?”

“Yup. Official and everything.”

“Official how?” Then, remembering, “Right. Because he’s the Judge.”

“Uh huh. There were marriage ceremonies, papers were signed, and people swore on the Bible and everything.”

“Are you saying you’re actually married?”

Blake turned to look at him. “Yes. You’re talking to Mrs. Travis Clarence.”

“Hunh,” Smith said.

She smiled. “‘Hunh?’ I tell you some asshole who calls himself the Judge forced me to marry Travis, and all you can say is ‘hunh?’”

Smith shrugged. “I don’t know how else to respond.”

“Apparently not.”

“Are you guys…”

“What? Are we what?”

“I don’t know, Blake. You’re married to him.”

“Yeah, by the Judge.”

Smith shook his head again. “I don’t know what that means.”

“I don’t even think he’s a real judge, is what I’m saying. For all I know, one day he could have found a robe in a courthouse, put it on, and decided he was now a judge. Anyone can call themselves anything these days. Who’s to know?”

She had a good point. Smith himself wasn’t John Smith. It was just a name he’d chosen because, well, people needed names. And what he did before The Purge, before Black Tide, had nothing to do with what he was now.

“So he’s not a real judge?” he asked Blake.

Blake shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s the thing. He could be, or he might not be. All I know is that real judges don’t go around forcing people to marry other people they don’t love, never mind having only met a week earlier.”

“He forced all the women to marry?”

“After a week of arriving, yes. It’s the same with everyone.”

“They didn’t tell you ahead of time?”

“Hell no. You really think me and Gramps and the others would have stuck around for even a single day if they had? I mean, it’s not like I think Travis is an ugly ass fucker or anything, but why would I ever marry him? Besides, I’m only twenty-one. I didn’t exactly see myself getting married at that age. Or, well, ever now.”

“What else?”

“What else what?”

“I assume there’s more to Gaffney than just forcing the women to become wives. Or is that it?”

“That’s not enough reason for you?”

Smith gave her a noncommittal shrug.

“But you’re right, there’s more,” Blake said.

“Tell me.”

“We don’t have any rights here. The Judge thinks it’s still the 1950s. We’re to cook, clean, and get ready to spread our legs for our”—she made air quotes—“husbands when they come home. Everyone who’s not one of his chosen few are slaves. That posse of his has chased down dozens of people over the years, as far as I know. Some of the ones that made it out decided to stay behind.”

“Like you, Mandy, and Gramps at the junkyard.”

“Uh huh.”

“Why?”

“Why not just run away and never look back, you mean?”

“Yes. Exactly.”

“Because Gramps and me still have friends who showed up with us, who are still stuck in this place. I haven’t talked to them since I got out. I don’t know what happened to them. I owe it to them to find out.”

Smith had a lot more questions for her, but a few of them made him a little uneasy, though he wasn’t sure if asking them was going to be more uncomfortable for him or her. Maybe both of them.

“The answer is no,” Blake said when he didn’t say anything else.

“No what?”

“No, I didn’t consummate with Travis. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?”

“One of the things I was thinking, yeah.”

“Oh, he wanted to, but I kept putting it off. I managed for a good two weeks until I could finally run away one night when he was on his rounds. I was a mile out of Gaffney when Mandy and her people found me.”

“‘Found’ you?”

“It wasn’t an accident. Mandy was one of the first women to escape this place; she spends most of her time out there, watching and waiting for someone else to try to escape so she can help them. I was one of the lucky ones. Other girls…” Blake shook her head. “Not everyone makes it.”

“What happens to those?”

“The Judge reeducates them.”

“‘Reeducates them’ how?”

“It’s basically brainwashing. By the time he’s through with them, they think the Judge is the greatest person in the world.”

“How, exactly?”

“I don’t know. But I’ve seen the results. They’re not the same afterwards.”

“How long have Mandy and the others been fighting Gaffney?”

“I’ve only been around for six months. Mandy’s been out here for two years.”

“Was last night the first time Gaffney has attacked the junkyard?”

“There have been skirmishes in the past, but it was never like this. Never this intense.”

“But they have attacked before.”

“Yes. But they know we won’t just lie down for them. We have plenty of guns and people that know how to use them, too.”

“What about the ghoul?”

“The ghoul?”

“You remember? The one that attacked us?”

Blake nodded, then sniffed his clothes. “Oh, I remember. What about it?”

“Where did it come from?”

She opened her mouth to answer but stopped short.

“Blake?” Smith said. “Where did that ghoul come from?”

Blake stared at him, and he completely believed that she had forgotten all about the ghoul they’d fought back in the junkyard.

“I don’t know,” Blake finally said.

“Have you guys ever had ghoul problems at the junkyard before?”

“No, never. At least, not one that’s managed to get through the perimeter. We have a fence all around the place. Tall fences with barbed wire on top. Ghouls have gotten tangled up there before trying to climb over, but they’ve never managed to make it through. Besides, we have permanent guards stationed pretty much everywhere, day and night.”

“What about last night?”

“Last night, too.”

“But Travis and Stephens got through.”

“They must have lured people to the front, then snuck in the back.”

Blake went quiet and stared across the cell at the far wall, but of course Smith knew she wasn’t looking at the wall. She was probably running through everything she thought she knew—about their base, the fence, and last night’s attack—through her head right now and questioning everything.

“What are you thinking?” Smith finally asked.

She looked over at him. “I’m trying to figure out where that ghoul came from and how the hell it got inside the fence.”

Sixteen

Members of the Judge’s posse came to get him the next morning, rousing Smith from his slumber. He woke up to the sound of Blake shouting at someone to take their hands off her, and sat up on the bench to find Hobson and the young kid who had been a part of Hobson’s posse the day before standing in front of him. They were both wearing gun belts, with Hobson inside the cell while the kid, whose name Smith still didn’t know, stood waiting in the hallway. Blake was already on her feet and glaring at Stephens, the guy who had attacked Smith and her back at the junkyard.

“Leave her alone,” Hobson said to Stephens.

Stephens raised both hands in mock surrender before turning and walking out of the cell to wait outside with the young man.

“Asshole,” Blake said after Stephens.

Smith sat up on the bench and yawned. He guessed he should have been afraid, but he wasn’t. Maybe it had something to do with the fact he was feeling a lot better after getting a good night’s sleep; that, or because he didn’t feel like his life was in any danger. Certainly, Hobson didn’t have that punchable face that Travis had, and neither he nor the kid—or even Stephens—looked as if they had come here to kill Smith.

At least, not yet. That might come later, though.

“You’re going on trial tomorrow for those three killings, Mr. Tough Guy. You best get your defense ready, ’cause if you’re found guilty…” Travis had said last night.

Travis had then “cut” his forefinger across his own throat, a gesture that clearly meant Smith better talk fast or he would hang. Or worse. Did they even still hang people anymore? Maybe not, but then Smith had never run across a town like Gaffney before.

But just what kind of town was Gaffney? He’d find out, soon enough.

“Get up. You have a date with the Judge,” Hobson was saying to Smith.

“He’s not well enough to go anywhere,” Blake said as she walked over to stand protectively next to Smith. “Look at him. He’s whiter than a ghost.”

“He’ll be fine,” Hobson said. “Who put the bra on his head?”

“I did. Travis nearly killed him last night when they abducted us.”

“He looks fine to me.”

“I told you, he’s not in any shape to be going anywhere.”

Hobson glared at her. “He doesn’t have a choice, woman.”

“Go to hell, Hobson.”

“Maybe one day,” Hobson said. He turned and gestured at the young man, who stepped inside with his hand on the butt of his holstered pistol.

“Step back, ma’am,” the kid said. He looked even younger now than when Smith first saw him.

“Fuck off, Kyle,” Blake said.

The kid, Kyle, glanced over at Hobson as if to ask him what he should do next or how to respond.

Hobson sighed. “Don’t make this any harder than it has to be, Blake.”

“I told you, he can’t—”

Hobson drew his pistol—a Glock—and pointed it at her face. “I said, step the hell aside, woman!”

It was the first time Smith had seen Hobson be anything other than pleasant, and the switch caught him off guard. Apparently, it did Blake, too, because she stumbled and almost tripped on the edge of the bench trying to back up.

Smith caught her first and smiled at her. “I’ll be okay. Don’t worry about me.”

Blake obviously didn’t believe him, but it wasn’t like either one of them had any choice.

Smith turned around and nodded at Hobson, who had holstered his handgun. “Okay. Let’s get this over with.”

Hobson stepped back, and Smith walked over to the opened cell door. Kyle watched him like a hawk, his palm resting on the butt of his holstered weapon the entire time. Smith wondered if the young man was a fast draw.

“Eyes forward, spud,” Kyle said when he saw where Smith was looking—at the Smith & Wesson at his hip.

“Spud?” Smith said.

“Yeah, that’s you.”

“I’ve never been called spud before.”

“First time for everything, I guess.”

“I guess so,” Smith said as he stepped through the open cell door.

Stephens was outside waiting for him, the brim of his Stetson hiding his eyes underneath the squiggly yellow hallway lights. “Nice hat.”

“Wanna trade?” Smith asked him.

“Nah, I like mine better.”

“Your loss.”

Behind him, Hobson slammed the cell door closed, then locked it with a key that he pocketed. Kyle continued to stare at Smith, trying to intimidate him. Trying to, because it didn’t work. It might have been more effective if Kyle wasn’t twenty-something or had the fresh face of a kid who just came off the farm. Smith wondered again how good he was with that gun he kept touching.

“Let’s go,” Hobson said as he walked past Smith to lead the way.

Smith glanced back at the cell—at Blake leaning against the bars looking after him.

“I’ll be right back,” he said to her.

She forced a smile. “Yeah. You do that.”

“Don’t go anywhere.”

“Funny.”

“I try.”

“Try harder.”

“You smell great.”

“I smell like vomit and ghoul shit.”

“Yeah, but it’s awesome-smelling vomit and ghoul shit.”

She smiled. This one was much more convincing, almost as if she believed that he would, really, be right back.

“Funny guy,” she said. “See you when I see you, funny guy.”

“Count on it,” Smith said.

* * *

Just as Blake had told him, they were being kept inside a police station that didn’t look as if it’d gotten a whole lot of use over the years. There were plenty of desks and offices in the main lobby, but no one to make use of them. The place was abandoned but didn’t look, feel, or smell it, so it had clearly been looked after even when it wasn’t in use. There were no old stacks of yellowing paper on the desks or scattered across the floor, and cork boards along the walls had been cleared of whatever had been tacked on them before The Purge.

The large room was dark as Smith was led through with no one else inside the place except him and his captors. Hobson led the way, while Kyle and Stephens walked behind Smith. They hadn’t bothered to handcuff or even bind his hands, and Smith wasn’t sure if he should be grateful or a little insulted by that. Maybe they saw the condition he was in and how unsteady he was on his feet for most of the trip and didn’t think he was much of a threat. That, or the bra still wrapped around his head screamed “harmless.”

Not that Smith had any intentions of trying to escape. He was good with his hands, but he wasn’t that good. At least, not good enough to take on three guys. Three armed guys.

Now, if he could get his hands on a gun, then it would be another story.

“So where are we going?” Smith asked as they were halfway across the lobby and headed for the double doors on the other end.

“I told you, you’re meeting the Judge,” Hobson said.

“What does he want?” Smith asked, even though he thought he already knew.

Travis had pretty much laid it all out for him last night. He had asked anyway, though, because maybe he could glean more information from Hobson; or, at the very least, some idea of what he would be facing.

“He has some questions for you,” Hobson said.

“What kind of questions?”

“You’ll find out when we get there.”

“You can’t give me a hint?”

“No.”

“Come on, Hobson.”

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

Smith decided to try another tactic. “Where’s Mary and her son? They were supposed to be safe here.”

“They are,” Hobson said.

“After what happened at the junkyard, you expect me to believe that?”

“You don’t know anything about what happened at the junkyard.”

“I know that you guys attacked them.”

“Is that what Blake told you?”

“She doesn’t have to tell me anything. I was there, remember?”

“I was there, too,” Stephens said from behind Smith. “Saw you falling like a lump of coal.”

“‘A lump of coal?’” Smith said. “How does a lump of coal fall, exactly?”

“Like how you did last night.”

“Yeah, but can you describe it? ’Cause, you know, I was too busy being sucker-punched by an asshole with a rifle. So, I didn’t really get to see how a lump of coal falls.”

“Smartass,” Stephens said.

“Better than a dumbass.”

“Shut up, you two,” Hobson said.

“Just making conversation,” Smith said. “Trying to figure out why you would attack a bunch of girls in a junkyard, that’s all.”

“You don’t know anything, do you?”

“You saying that’s not what you did last night?”

“The truth is more complicated than that. Not everything is as black and white around these parts.”

“Seems pretty black and white from where I’m standing.”

“Because you’re not from around here. You don’t know the facts.”

“So why don’t you clear it all up for me?”

“That’s not my job.”

“What is your job, Hobson?”

“Take you to the Judge.”

“So you’re his lackey?”

Hobson’s shoulders tightened up slightly. It was almost imperceptible. Almost.

“Hey, I’ve been there,” Smith said, hoping to push for more information. “Playing the good soldier, following the orders to the letter. That was before I decided I wasn’t going to die for someone else’s war.”

“You need to shut up now,” Stephen said from behind him.

“Can’t. My tongue has a mind of its own.”

“I can fix that.”

“Sorry, Stephens, but I’m not into guys.” Then, to Hobson’s back, “So why are you running around town fetching things and people for this Judge, Hobson? Is it the free wives he’s giving out like candy? Is that all it takes to buy your loyalty?”

Hobson stopped and spun around, so fast that it actually caught Smith off guard. The older man poked Smith in the chest and leaned in close. “Shut up. Shut your fucking mouth, Smith. You don’t know me. You don’t know a damn thing about me.”

Then the sheriff turned and walked out the door without another word.

Someone—probably Stephens—poked Smith in the back to “nudge” him forward after Hobson.

Smith stepped outside and into the warm morning sunlight. It felt good, but it would have felt better if he wasn’t being taken to the Judge, where, according to Travis, he had to defend himself against three charges of murder.

Seventeen

Gaffney, home of the Fighting Panthers, was a good-size town. At least, the parts of it that Smith could see as he was taken out of the police station and walked down its main street, from which the rest of Gaffney was connected to. A water tower jutted into the sky about a block away like a rocket ship, a faded purple panther looking ready to claw someone’s eyes out with sharp talons plastered across the side. It was the tallest structure in the entire place by far.

Hobson led them down the sidewalk while Stephens and Kyle kept a respectable distance behind Smith, almost as if they expected him to try something. Or maybe they were hoping he would. If it was the latter, they were going to be disappointed.

Smith knew when he was up a creek, and he was there now. This was no time to play hero. He might have acted differently if he thought he or Blake were in imminent danger, but they weren’t quite there yet, as far as he could tell.

Not quite yet.

Gaffney was big enough for a few thousand citizens, but of course there wasn’t even close to that many taking up space. Smith only counted a handful on the streets or hanging out of apartment windows as he was led down the sidewalk. A few curious citizens stopped what they were doing to get a look at him. They must have realized by the way he was being flanked by Hobson up front and Stephens and Kyle in the back that Smith wasn’t there by choice.

As far as Smith could tell, the faces staring at him didn’t look like they belonged to people being held prisoner. During his time with Black Tide, Smith had seen what captives looked like and how they acted when they were being kept somewhere against their will. Nothing he was seeing on the streets jived with what Blake had told him about Gaffney—certainly nothing that would have qualified the town as a “hellhole”—and that only led to more questions.

Was Blake wrong about Gaffney, or were there things he still hadn’t seen yet?

Smith was leaning toward the latter, but he also had to remind himself that he didn’t know Blake all that well. And maybe, just maybe, he was thinking with the wrong head when it came to a woman like her.

Maybe? Probably is more like it.

Up ahead, an older man was brushing the sidewalk with a broom, while another was giving haircuts inside an old-fashioned looking barbershop, complete with striped pole out front. The man getting his hair cut glanced out the window to watch Smith being marched by. Farther up the street, Smith spotted two more people wiping down the sidewalks. Both, like the first one, were older people. Cleaning, apparently, was a job for the older survivors of Gaffney.

The others were loitering about, people waiting for something to do…or something to happen. A few kids chased a dog into an alley while a girl and her mom came out of a building carrying cleaning supplies. If he didn’t know any better, Smith would think he was in any ol’ Small Town USA, only with way fewer people.

“Clean town,” Smith said after a while. “You guys must have an army of sweepers working the place every morning and afternoon.”

Hobson, turning the corner, didn’t reply.

Smith turned with him. “Who decides who cleans the place, and who just watches?” When Hobson remained quiet, Smith glanced back at his two bodyguards. “What about you two? You guys help out with a broom every once in a while? Or is posse-ing a full-time job?”

Both Kyle and Stephens took their cue from Hobson and remained quiet.

“So it’s the silent treatment, huh?” Smith said.

Smith turned back around. He could see now where Hobson was leading him—there was a courthouse up ahead about another block away. It was a big red brick building with four Doric-style columns up front. GAFFNEY COURTHOUSE was written in bold black letters at the top, with a still-running clock above that. Five windows reflected back the morning sunlight—three on top, two at the bottom. Concrete steps led up to a highly decorated front door, the way flanked by guardrails.

It wasn’t exactly Washington, D.C., but Smith guessed it was good enough for Gaffney…and the man who called himself the Judge.

* * *

Hobson led him through the courthouse, which was mostly empty except for an elderly man sweeping the floors and a woman, about the same age, wiping down all the glossy and glass surfaces with a wet rag. Smith couldn’t help but notice that all the menial labor jobs were done by older people in Gaffney.

Their boots echoed off the polished tile floor and up the steps to an office on the second floor. Another man that Smith remembered from Hobson’s posse yesterday stood guard outside a door marked, simply, JUDGE. The man was wearing the same Cornhuskers cap and was eating breakfast from a metal tray when they arrived.

“Judge in yet, Dunham?” Hobson asked.

The guard nodded. “Inside.”

Hobson opened the door and motioned for Smith to enter first.

He did.

The Judge was at the window inside the large room, peering out at the immaculately clean streets outside. Sunlight reflected off his bald head as he turned it to look over at Smith. “Mr. Smith. Welcome to Gaffney.”

The man who called himself Judge was in his late fifties, with a balding head and a round shape that told Smith he hadn’t starved during The Purge, or the years since. He wore a flowing black robe that looked tailored for his generous paunch, and the sight of him in his “official” garb made Smith wonder if the man wore it all the time.

“Not your real name, of course,” the Judge was saying.

“What makes you say that?” Smith said.

“John Smith? Really?”

“You don’t think there are people out there actually named John Smith?”

“Oh, I’m sure there are. I just don’t believe you’re one of them.”

“That’s your prerogative, Judge.”

Hobson had taken up position behind Smith, while Kyle stood in front of the closed door. Stephens had remained outside with Dunham.

The Judge pulled down the curtains to cut off some of the natural light and walked over to his desk, where he opened a drawer and took out a box of hard candy. He unwrapped one and popped it into his mouth before working it around his gums and, on occasion, clamping down with pearl-white dentures.

The big man picked up one of those candies (Smith glimpsed Jolly Ranchers on the side of it) and offered it to him. “Did you have breakfast yet?”

“Not yet,” Smith said. “And no thanks. I don’t have much of a sweet tooth.”

“That’s my problem. Too much of a sweet tooth.” The Judge unwrapped the proffered candy and added it to the one already in his mouth. “Is that the latest fashion?”

“What’s that?”

The Judge tapped his own temple.

Ah, Blake’s bra.

“It’s all the rage with the kids,” Smith said.

The Judge chuckled. “That’s my other problem. No sense of fashion trends.”

One of many, I’m sure, Smith thought.

He said, “So what am I doing here? It’s not to discuss trends, is it? ’Cause I have to tell you, I’m going to come up pretty short on that subject.”

“Right to business, eh?” the Judge said.

Smith shrugged. “It’s early, and as previously pointed out, I’m hungry. I’m hoping that once we’ve had our talk, you’ll let me eat something.”

The Judge sat down in a swivel chair that squeaked loudly as he settled his large heft on it. The man heard it too, and glanced past Smith at Hobson. “Remind me to get Henry to put some WD-40 on this thing, will you?”

“Yes, sir,” Hobson said.

The Judge folded his hands on the desk in front of him and stared across the huge furniture at Smith. “I’m trying to decide what to do with you, Mister Smith.”

“Is that why you abducted me from Mandy’s junkyard?” Smith asked.

“Is that what happened last night?”

“You don’t know?”

The Judge shrugged but didn’t confirm or deny. The man said instead, “I read Mr. Hobson’s report. He says things were a little chaotic last night. You know what they say about the fog of war.”

“And what do you know about war? All you did was attack a junkyard full of women.”

The Judge smirked. “Dangerous women.”

“To you.”

“To all of us. To Gaffney.”

“From what I hear, they don’t want to be a part of Gaffney.”

“Is that what they told you?”

“It’s not true?”

The Judge shrugged before leaning back in his chair, which creaked loudly under the strain. “It’s complicated.”

“Of course it is,” Smith said. “But I still don’t know what I’m doing here.”

“Mister Hobson and the boys retraced your steps yesterday. They found the bodies you left behind. You killed those men in my jurisdiction, Mr. Smith.”

“And who gave you this jurisdiction, exactly?”

“I did.”

“Is that how it works?”

“It is, these days.”

“I suppose anyone can do anything they want, as long as they have the guns to back it up,” Smith said, turning his head slightly to “look” back at Hobson without actually following through with it.

“I brought law and order to a lawless land, Mr. Smith,” the Judge said. “The people appreciate that.”

“Not everyone.”

The Judge smiled without showing a single one of his gleaming white teeth. “Yes, well. As the saying goes, you can’t please everyone. So only a fool would try.”

“And you’re not a fool, I take it.”

“Far from it.”

The man leaned back across the desk, round black eyes focusing in on Smith with the kind of intensity that was supposed to be intimidating. Except Smith had been under the harsh glare of better, tougher men, and the Judge didn’t come close.

“What do you want?” Smith asked.

“I want you to go back to that junkyard and bring Mandy back here,” the Judge said. “Or, failing that, end her life.”

Ah. There it is. The real reason I’m being “judged.”

He wished he could say he was surprised, but he wasn’t.

“And if I don’t?” Smith asked.

The Judge leaned back and folded his hands across his wide chest. “I’ve gone over the evidence that Mr. Hobson presented to me. Having done so, I’m confident in making the judgement that you murdered those three men in cold blood, without just reason or due process.”

“You did all that in less than one day, huh?”

“Justice moves speedily around these parts.”

“I can see that.”

“As far as I’m concerned, you’ve been found guilty.”

“So no trial, then? Your boy Travis said I was going to get a trial.”

“Travis was…misinformed. I made my judgement based on all the evidence before me last night. Since there was very little doubt as to what the verdict would be, I saw fit to skip right to the judgement. You know, to save everyone time.”

“So I don’t get to defend myself?”

“You can, if you want, but it won’t make any difference. My decision is final.”

“That’s convenient.”

“This is Gaffney.”

“I guess so,” Smith said. Then, “So what’s the punishment?”

“Hanging, or death by firing squad. Your choice.”

“I get to decide, huh?”

“Or I can decide for you, if you would like.”

“What’s option number three?”

“I already told you.”

“Kill Mandy for you.”

The Judge shrugged. “Or bring her back here alive. Whichever is easier for you. I have no preference.”

“What do you want with her?”

“She has crimes to answer to. I have stacks of charges against her.”

“So unlike me, she gets a trial.”

The Judge smiled.

“Or not,” Smith said.

“The evidence against her is even more overwhelming than it was against you. And like your case, the judgement against Mandy wasn’t ever really in doubt.”

“More swift justice.”

“It’s the only kind that works out here.” Then, without a pause, “So what will it be, Mr. Smith?”

“Seems like I don’t have much of a choice.”

“Of course you have a choice. Everyone has a choice.”

Smith smiled.

The Judge returned it.

“I’ll need a gun,” Smith said.

“Of course you will,” the Judge said.

Eighteen

“So this is how it works in Gaffney, huh?” Smith asked.

“Just about,” Hobson said.

“No wonder you guys are so popular with your neighbors.”

“We get by.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because I took you for a decent man when we first met.”

“Did you, now?”

“I guess I was wrong.”

“I guess you were.”

Smith smiled and nodded, even as he thought, I’ll keep that in mind when we’re standing across from each other with guns in our hands, sheriff.

After the very short meeting with the Judge, where Smith was given his “do or die” options, Hobson and Smith’s other two guards walked him out of the courthouse. But instead of heading back to the police station to rejoin Blake, they took him to a small building that turned out to be a clinic, where a woman who called herself Amy took the silly bra off Smith’s head and treated his bullet graze and last night’s bleeding properly. The clinic wasn’t much to look at, but it had everything Amy needed to make sure his wound wasn’t infected.

Hobson had left after dropping Smith off at the clinic, but Kyle and Stephens remained behind. Both men stood watching as Amy worked on Smith, as if Smith was going to do anything.

Right now, Smith was biding his time. There was no need to take chances. Sooner or later, the opportunities would present themselves. When that happened, he would grab them, and God help anyone who stood in his way.

Amy was standing next to Smith, finishing up, when he noticed the tattoo on the interior of her forearm. It was two plain black X’s resting on top of one another. Except, of course, Smith knew what they really were. It was a rune called an inguz.

“You used to be Black Tide,” he said.

The doctor—he wasn’t sure if she was actually a doctor in the MD sense, but she was the closest thing Gaffney had to one—gave him a surprised look even as she taped the bandage into place. “How did you know that?”

“Your tattoo.”

“Oh,” she said.

From her slightly surprised reaction, he guessed she’d forgotten she even had it. She was young—early thirties, with curly brown hair and sympathetic blue eyes—and reminded him of a lot of the younger medic trainees back on the island. And maybe she had been one of them, once upon a time, so how did she end up here?

From the way Amy seemed to sneak a look back at Kyle and Stephens without letting on that she was doing it, it was pretty obvious to Smith that the two men didn’t know about her past, and she wanted to keep it that way.

She confirmed that by saying to him, “It’s history.”

“Understood,” Smith said.

She gave him a Do you? Understand? look.

He pursed a smile. “The past is the past, right?”

“Right.”

“Thanks for the touchup, doc.”

“Sure.” She walked to a wastebasket and snapped off her surgical gloves, then dropped them inside. “You should be more careful out there. That wound could have gotten infected easily.”

“I wasn’t looking to get shot, doc. It just happened.”

“You should still be more careful,” she said, looking at him as she said it the second time.

He nodded, and thought, Message received, doc. Message received.

“I’ll do that from now on,” he said.

“You done with wasting the good doctor’s time?” a voice asked.

Smith glanced over at Travis, brushing aside the curtain that separated the back of the clinic with the waiting area. He was wearing that Cornhuskers ball cap again and looked every bit as punchable as he had since the first time Smith saw him.

“He’s good to go,” Amy said.

“Come on, then,” Travis said to Smith. “Time for you to earn your keep, tough guy.”

* * *

Kyle took off, leaving Smith to be guarded by Stephens and Travis. The former remained behind Smith, while the latter took Hobson’s place up front. Smith thought they would take him right back to Blake, or somewhere else where he could get ready to earn his “keep,” but instead they walked him over to a park about half a block from the police station.

It was a nice, bright morning and there should have been a lot of people out and about, but most of the benches were unoccupied and birds were left to fend for themselves from the scraps, of which there weren’t that many because Gaffney was impossibly clean. Two large sandlots were empty, but there were kids hanging around the slides and seesaws across the park from them, while a half-dozen moms stood watching them diligently. The oldest kid couldn’t have been more than five, and the rest were even younger.

Next to the group of moms and their kids was a young blond boy riding a swing, while a woman pushed him higher and higher.

It took Smith only a few seconds to recognize them:

Mary. The woman pushing the boy was Mary.

And the boy, of course, was Aaron.

Travis was standing next to Smith, giving Smith a good whiff of the man’s strong aftershave, while Stephens hung in the back.

“What are we doing here?” Smith asked.

“Thought it was a day for a stroll, that’s all,” Travis said.

“That’s all, huh?”

“Don’t be so suspicious all the time. It’ll give you ulcers.”

Across from them, Mary pushed Aaron even higher, and the boy laughed as he soared. Mother and son both looked reasonably healthy to Smith. Certainly, he didn’t see handcuffs or chains on them, or anything keeping them in Gaffney against their will.

Travis feigned shielding his eyes from the sun as he looked across the park. “Say, aren’t those your old friends, Mary and Aaron?”

Smith grunted but didn’t say anything.

“Yeah, I think that is them,” Travis said, lowering his hand. “Small world, huh?”

“Yeah. Small world.”

“They look pretty happy. What do you think?”

“Looks can be deceiving.”

“It can, yeah, but they look like they really like it here. The boy, especially. I heard he was a mute.”

Smith remained quiet.

“You know,” Travis continued, “it would be a shame if something were to happen to them. To both of them.”

“Yeah,” Smith said. “It would be a shame.”

“But hey, Gaffney is a pretty safe place.” He turned to look at Smith. “What do you think? You think they’ll be safe here, while you’re out there doing what the Judge asked you to do?”

“Did the Judge tell you to bring me here?”

“Nah. I told you. It’s a nice day for a walk, and I thought you’d appreciate some sunshine after being cooped up in that jail cell all night.”

“Mighty kind of you.”

“Hey, that’s me.” He glanced back at Stephens. “What do you think about Mary, Stephens?”

“I think she’s a good-looking woman,” Stephens said.

“She’s definitely that. And single, I hear.”

“You don’t say.”

“Nope. Would be a real shame if anything was to happen to her.”

“Yup. Definitely would be a real shame.”

Travis looked back at Smith. “So why don’t you and me make sure nothing happens to her and that boy while Mr. John Smith here is carrying out his mission.”

“You can count on me to keep an eye on those two like a hawk,” Stephens said. “Especially her.”

Almost as if she could hear them talking about her, Mary glanced around the park. She shielded her eyes, the way Travis had faked it earlier, but Mary’s was genuine as she squinted, trying to get a better look at them.

At him.

Then, when she was sure it was him, she waved.

“Wave back, tough guy,” Travis said.

Smith smiled and did as he was told.

“Now what?” he asked.

“Why don’t you go say hi?” Travis said. “Would be rude not to.”

* * *

“What are you doing here?”

“Wanted to check up on you and the boy.”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“I was in the area.”

“Well, it’s good to see you again, Mr. Smith, even though it’s only been a day since we last saw each other.”

“Feels longer.”

“Yes. To me, too, oddly enough.”

Smith smiled. It was the best fake smile he could muster, and he hoped it was at least semi-convincing.

Mary narrowed her eyes slightly at him, almost as if she could see through it. He guessed it wasn’t all that convincing after all.

“We’re doing well,” Mary said. “Aaron is doing very well. He’s made some friends and is adjusting as well as I’d hoped. Better, actually.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

They both glanced back at the boy, who had moved from the swings and over to the slides, and was now taking turns to climb up and down with two other kids, both much younger than him. Aaron really did look like he was having the time of his life, though.

His mother, on the other hand…

Smith had to remind himself that he hadn’t known Mary long enough to be able to read her expressions with 100 percent certainty. Even so, it was hard to miss the not-entirely-comfortable smile she gave him when they first met; and now, as she talked about how well Aaron was doing.

He didn’t have to look back to see Stephens and Travis trailing behind them. Both men were keeping a respectable distance, probably because they knew Smith wasn’t going anywhere. Sure, he could take off running, but how far would he get? He already knew that Gaffney had horses, even if he couldn’t see the animals anywhere in the city. But they were there, ready to be used—and run him down.

Besides, he couldn’t go anywhere anyway even if he had such foolish notions. Travis had made it perfectly clear that Mary and Aaron’s lives were on the line. If he had doubts they might not carry out their threats, all he had to do was remember what they were asking him to do: Kill Mandy or bring her here to be killed. And people who could do that so cavalierly weren’t going to be above harming a mother and her son as vengeance.

Smith focused on Mary beside him. “But what about you? How are you doing?”

“I’m good too,” she said. “Why wouldn’t I be? Gaffney’s a nice town, with lots of nice people.” She tapped her forehead. “Looks like you had a bit of trouble out there, though.”

Smith reached up and touched the bandage Amy had placed over his wound. It reminded him that there was still a shooter out there, beyond Gaffney. Maybe it was even one of the Judge’s killers. In fact, it was a pretty good bet that it was.

“Yeah, it’s a little dangerous out there right now,” Smith said.

“You don’t have to tell me that, Mr. Smith,” Mary said.

“It’s a good thing you don’t have to worry about being out there with Aaron anymore.”

“No, thanks to Gaffney.”

Smith knew that both Travis and Stephens could hear parts of his and Mary’s conversation. It was the reason why he hadn’t come right out and asked Mary if she was being held hostage here.

He said, “So what do they have you doing around here?”

“I helped Amy out at the clinic yesterday, then did some stuff with the kids earlier,” Mary said. “Basically, whatever needs doing.”

So they didn’t try to marry you off yet, Smith thought. That would come later. Blake had said as much. The idea, it seemed, was to get people comfortable first, before the demands were sprung on them.

“So how long are you staying here, Mr. Smith?” Mary was asking him.

“Actually, I need to head out soon,” Smith said. “I have to run a little errand for the Judge.”

“Oh, so you’ve met the Judge.”

There was something about the way she had phrased the question that made Smith glance quickly across at her. He couldn’t quite read her expression, and maybe there was nothing to read.

And yet…

“Earlier, yes,” Smith said. “Have you met him?”

Mary nodded, her eyes trained forward. “Yesterday. He welcomed Aaron and me himself.”

“That was awfully nice of him.”

“He seems like a nice man.”

She looked over and smiled, and Smith thought Uh oh.

Because there was nothing convincing about Mary’s smile. It was forced.

Very, very forced.

“I’m glad you guys are doing so well in here,” Smith said.

“Yes, we’re doing fine,” Mary said. “Don’t worry about us, Mr. Smith. Just take care of yourself out there.”

He nodded. “I will.”

“Will you come back and see us again after you’re done with your errand for the Judge?”

“Yes,” Smith said. “You can count on it.”

Nineteen

“What are you doing back here?”

“I came to talk.”

“About what?”

“You know what.”

“Why don’t you tell me anyway?”

“Gaffney. The Judge.”

“What about Gaffney and the Judge?”

“You really going to make me say it?”

“Look, mister, the last time we saw you, you were tied up in a shack. You were supposed to be dead. But here you are, alive and well. So why don’t you explain to me what you’re doing here, and don’t skip any of the details?”

“All right, then. The Judge sent me here to bring you back for trial. Failing that, I’m supposed to kill you.”

Mandy stared at him, speechless. He wasn’t sure if she was surprised to hear why the Judge had sent him, or that he had just come right out and told her.

No, it was definitely more of the latter.

The first time he saw Mandy, he was sitting on the ground, tied to a pole, and looking up at her and her male companion, whose name turned out to be Roger. The young man stood next to Mandy now as Smith was led inside Mandy’s office, one of those mobile buildings that were dragged between construction jobs for the supervisors to do their paperwork inside while everyone else sweated their asses off in the sun. The walls were pockmarked with fresh bullet holes, and he didn’t have to ask where they’d come from, or when.

“There have been skirmishes in the past, but it was never like this. Never this intense,” Blake had said about last night’s attack by Gaffney’s crew.

It had been pretty intense, all right, from the reception Smith had gotten when he showed up out of the blue and nearly got himself shot as a result. He had arrived on horseback, one that Gaffney had provided him.

Given what he’d just told the duo standing in front of him, Smith wasn’t shocked to see Roger slowly reaching for his holstered sidearm.

Smith shook his head at the man. “If I wanted a fight, I wouldn’t have let the girls out there take my gun.”

Mandy put her hand over Roger’s, then shook her head when the young man shot her a questioning glance. “No. He’s right. He’s taking a big risk coming back here like this. Let’s hear him out.”

“But you heard what he said, Mandy,” Roger said.

Mandy looked over at Smith. “And he didn’t have to tell us any of that, but he did. The question is: Why?”

“I need you to come back to Gaffney with me,” Smith said.

“For what? My trial?”

“That’s right.”

“And why would I do that?”

Smith tapped the empty holster on his right hip. There was a SIG Sauer in there before Mandy’s people relieved him of it. He’d chosen it from dozens of weapons that Travis had offered him back at the police station. While there, Smith had wanted to see Blake again, but Travis wouldn’t grant the visit. Smith had considered taking it anyway, by force, but decided that it wasn’t the time. Not then, anyway.

“When I see the Judge for the second time, I’ll put a bullet between his eyes,” Smith said now, to Mandy and Roger.

A flicker of surprise flashed across Mandy’s face for the second time since Smith entered her building. “You’re going to kill him?”

“Yeah,” Smith said.

“Just like that?”

“I figured that will solve both of our problems.”

“What about the others?”

“What others?”

“The Judge has loyal men that are always with him. Hobson, Travis—the others.”

“I’ll kill them, too, if I have to.”

This time it was Roger’s turn to lift both eyebrows in surprise. “You know how many of them there are?”

“Six.”

“More than six,” Mandy said.

“How many more?”

“At least ten,” Roger said.

Ten, Smith thought. It was more than he’d expected. He’d only seen Hobson and his posse yesterday—that was six. This morning he hadn’t seen anything that would lead him to think the Judge had more men available.

But of course there was no reason for Mandy and Roger to lie about that. Better than him, they knew what kind of firepower the Judge had at his disposal.

“At least,” Roger said. “Who knows how many more has joined him since we last counted.”

“I thought you guys keep a close watch on Gaffney,” Smith said.

“We do what we can, but we can’t see everything,” Mandy said.

“So at least ten, maybe more.”

“That’s right. Maybe more,” Roger said.

“All right.”

“All right, what?”

“All right. I’ll kill as many as I have to to end this.”

“The Judge,” Mandy said.

“The Judge?”

“All you have to do is kill the Judge. And maybe Hobson.”

“What about the rest?”

Mandy shook her head. “Maybe Travis, or Stephens, but the others…” She paused, thinking about it some more. Then, “I think that’s it. The others shouldn’t be too much of a problem if you cut the head off the snake.”

He smiled at that. Cutting the head off the snake to kill the body was exactly what the Judge had sent him here to do, with Mandy. The portly man obviously knew that this whole “rebellion” was centered almost entirely around Mandy, and that once she was gone the rest would either fold or run away. One way or another, he’d be rid of his junkyard nuisance.

Smith had considered a lot of things in the hour or so ride from Gaffney over to the junkyard, the two locations linked by a country blacktop. Not that Smith used it, electing to ride across the flat plains instead. He could feel the eyes of his watchers in the background during the entire trip. He wasn’t sure if it was Travis or Hobson or one of the others; not that it mattered, really. They were making sure he went straight from point A to point B, which was what he did, using the fresh air and hot sun to cycle through his options.

He had only two that he could see: Follow through with the Judge’s orders—kill or capture Mandy—or turn her into an ally instead.

Well, that wasn’t actually true. He had a third option: Leave.

Except he couldn’t do that. Not with Blake still in the police station, and Mary and her son under the watchful eye of Stephens—or one of the Judge’s other men. If Smith even had any doubts the Judge might carry through with his threats, all he had to do was consider the chain of events that had led him here.

Yeah, the Judge was going to do exactly as he had promised if Smith didn’t fulfill his part of the bargain. Not that Smith thought he was going to get off scot free even if he did do exactly what the Judge wanted. There would be repercussions. The moral ones, Smith thought, he could live with; it was the other consequences that he wasn’t looking forward to.

No, he only had one real choice: Mandy.

Unfortunately he wasn’t sure if the woman believed everything he had told her from just the expression on her face. Then again, she had stopped Roger from pulling his gun, and she hadn’t called for the other armed people standing guard outside the building.

Mandy, who had been standing since Smith came in, finally sat down in a chair behind a large desk that was riddled with scars. Slivers of sunlight pierced the room from two holes in the wall behind and slightly above her head. Roger remained standing on her right, literally assuming the role of “right-hand man.”

For the next thirty seconds or so, Mandy stared at Smith, trying to read him. He welcomed that, since he didn’t have anything to hide.

Well, not too much, anyway.

“You took a big chance coming here and telling me all this,” Mandy finally said.

“I didn’t have any choice,” Smith said.

“You had a lot of choices. You could have ridden away on that horse they gave you.”

“No, I couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“They were watching me the whole time. Maybe even the guy who tried to kill me yesterday,” Smith added, tapping his bandaged temple. “Besides, the Judge has friends of mine back in Gaffney.”

“Blake?”

“Her, too. Along with a mother and her son.”

“What are their names?”

“Mary and Aaron.”

“How did they end up in Gaffney?”

Smith told them—everything, from the encounter with Peoples and his two dead friends, to Hobson’s posse tracking them down from Peoples’s faceless corpse, to Mary deciding to leave with the Gaffney men.

“She didn’t know what she was getting into,” Smith said. “I didn’t, either. We both thought they’d be safe there.”

“You know that’s not true now,” Mandy said.

Maybe, Smith thought, but he didn’t think that was the right answer. Right now, Mandy and Roger saw Gaffney as the enemy, and as much doubt as he had about the people there being “prisoners,” he gave the duo what they wanted.

“Yeah,” Smith said. “We had a short chat before I came here.”

“They let you talk to her?” Mandy asked.

“They wanted me to know what would happen to her and Aaron if I didn’t follow through on the Judge’s orders.”

“He’s using them as leverage against you.”

“Pretty much.”

“Sounds like the Judge, all right,” Roger said.

“Would he do it?” Smith asked. “Would he follow through on his threat if I’d taken off instead of coming here?”

“Yes,” Mandy said without hesitation. “He would do it, or worse.”

“What could be worse?”

“You were here last night. You saw the ghouls?”

“I saw a ghoul.”

“There was more than one,” Roger said. “And they didn’t get in through our perimeter fence by themselves. They were let in.”

“By who?”

“Who do you think?”

“Gaffney’s men?”

Mandy nodded. “It’s something new. They haven’t done it before—use ghouls in their fight with us.”

“How are you so sure it was them?” Smith asked.

“Because someone cut out a section of the fence last night to let them in,” Roger said. “They chose one of our few blind spots. Last time I checked, ghouls weren’t that clever, and they sure as hell don’t know how to use wire cutters.”

“We thought the ghouls had gotten you and Blake,” Mandy said. “Gramps was crying all day and this morning. A lot of people were.”

“Gee, I didn’t know you guys cared about me that much,” Smith said.

Roger snorted. “It was for Blake, genius.”

Smith smiled. “I know, Roger. Relax.”

The other man narrowed his eyes back at Smith, and he didn’t relax even a little bit.

Mandy stood back up and walked around the desk before leaning back against the front edge. She seemed to have lost any fear of him—if she ever had any to begin with. Smith had a feeling the older woman was used to fighting for her life and not giving a damn about the kinds of trouble she got into. Maybe that was why she had bucked the Judge’s reign in Gaffney, then stuck around just to remain a thorn in the man’s side.

“So you want me to go back to Gaffney with you,” Mandy said.

“It’s the only way they’ll let me back in there with a gun,” Smith said.

“You good with that gun?” Roger asked.

“I’m pretty good, yeah.”

“So how’d you get ambushed out there yesterday if you’re so good?”

“I got shot from a distance. Hard to do anything when someone has his scope set on you and you don’t even know he exists.”

“Sounds like an excuse.”

“It’s a good one.”

“Says you.”

“Enough,” Mandy said. Then, to Smith, “You know that they have spies watching us right now, don’t you?”

“You watch them and they watch you back. Makes sense.”

“My point is that those same spies the Judge has out there likely saw you come in here.”

“I figured.”

“Then how are you going to just take me back to Gaffney with you, and have it be convincing?”

“I haven’t thought that far ahead, but I’m sure we can come up with something. This is your place, after all. You know all the ways in and out. Besides, the Judge’s men can’t possibly watch every inch.”

Mandy smiled.

“So I’m right,” Smith said.

The woman shrugged.

“These spies,” Smith said. “Is it possible one of them is the asshole that shot me yesterday?”

“Maybe,” Mandy said. “Given the kind of shop the Judge runs in Gaffney, what do you think about the people—almost all of them men—who voluntarily works for him? I used to think Hobson was different. I used to even think he was a good man, but he’s just the same as the rest of them.”

I guess we both made that mistake, Smith thought.

“Mandy, you’re not seriously considering this,” Roger said.

Mandy looked back at him. “I am.”

“This is insane.”

“Yes, it is,” she said, turning back around to look at Smith, “but it might be the best chance to end this once and for all. We’ve tried, you know.”

“What?” Smith said.

“To take out the Judge. But we could never get close enough to the town to assassinate the fat fucker. Given the chance, I’d shoot him myself.”

“So here’s your chance.”

“I thought that was going to be your job?”

Smith shrugged. “I don’t really care who pulls the trigger, as long as the job gets done.” Then, “So. We doing this or what?”

Mandy smiled, then stood up and walked over and stuck out her hand. “All right, Mr. John Smith. Let’s try not to both get killed, huh?”

Smith shook her hand and thought, Yeah. That’s the trick, isn’t it?

Twenty

Mandy’s horse was a light brown gelding with a dark mane, and was just slightly smaller than the American Paint horse Travis had “handpicked” for Smith. She rode the animal with her hands bound with duct tape in front of her while Smith had the reins of her horse tied to the horn of his saddle, leading her across the open grounds back toward Gaffney.

They had left the junkyard in the back, almost at the same spot where the Judge’s people had cut the fence to let the ghouls in last night. According to Mandy, there had been three of the creatures, even though Smith was fortunate enough to have only encountered one of them. Unlike Blake, the rest of Mandy’s people did have silver weapons at the time and were able to defend themselves against the surprise mode of attack.

Mandy was certain Gaffney’s spies were confined to watching the front entrance, but just in case, Smith had “abducted” Mandy by gunpoint on foot out the back, before they continued on horseback. From a distance, it would have looked somewhat convincing.

Somewhat.

They had gone half an hour, and no one had shown up to intercept them yet. Smith wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or not, though. A part of him expected the Judge’s men, led by either Hobson or Travis or one of the others, to be waiting in an ambush as soon as he left the junkyard, either with or without Mandy.

But there was no one out there, just like there hadn’t been anyone when he first rode through earlier. At least, no one that he could see. He couldn’t help, though, feel eyes watching him, and that made continuing this charade with Mandy necessary.

Their path back to Gaffney took them near the remains of Lucky’s house, just as it had when Smith first rode through less than two hours ago on his way to the junkyard. There was still a black spot where the house used to be, but soon even that would disappear with the passing of the seasons. They were close enough Smith thought he could still smell some of the soot from the fire.

“Lucky,” Smith said.

“Don’t count your chickens yet,” Mandy said. “Luck has a way of turning on you out here, Mr. Smith.”

“No, I mean Lucky. The guy whose house was torched yesterday. What happened to him?”

“The guy whose horse you stole?”

“Borrowed,” Smith said.

“The guy whose horse you borrowed?”

“Yeah, him. I never found out what happened to him.”

“Someone burned down his house.”

“I got that part. But why? Who was he?”

“Once upon a time, Gaffney was called Miller’s Post. Then it became N23. You know why, right?”

“It was a ghoul-controlled settlement.”

“Uh huh. During that time, N23 was run by two people. The Judge and Lucky. Of course, back then he wasn’t going around calling himself the Judge.”

“What’s his real name?”

“The only person who knows that is Lucky, and I guess he took it to the grave with him.”

“Who killed him?”

“Who do you think?”

“The Judge?”

“There’s no reason anyone else would. We wouldn’t.” She paused and seemed to think about what she was going to say next before finally continuing. “Lucky was…complicated. There’s a reason his cabin was almost exactly halfway from our place to Gaffney. He was friends with the Judge from their N23 days, but he didn’t agree with everything that fat slob did. As far as I know, about four years ago they broke off their partnership and Lucky built himself that house in the middle of nowhere. I don’t know how he did it, honestly. But it wasn’t there until four years ago.”

“He sounds impressive.”

“He was.” She paused again. Then, after about ten or so seconds of silence, “He saved my life. When I escaped Gaffney, he was the one who took me in. Hid me, when the Judge’s people came looking.”

“He wasn’t scared of them.”

“Lucky wasn’t scared of anything. Why else would he build a house all the way out here? The guy was fearless. For four years, he lived his life alone out here.”

“So what changed yesterday?”

“I don’t know,” Mandy said. “Maybe the Judge just got tired of him helping us.”

“He didn’t know Lucky was helping you?”

“Oh, he knew.”

“So why finally do something about it now? After four years?”

“I don’t know, Smith. I really don’t know.”

“Something must have changed.”

“Something must have, but I don’t know what.”

From the look on her face, Smith could tell she’d been mulling over the question for some time now but was no closer to the answer. He had never met Lucky, so he didn’t know what kind of man he’d been, but for someone to stand up against the Judge all these years, he had to be a pretty impressive guy. Unfortunately for Lucky, impressive only got you so far out here.

“You really think this is going to work?” Mandy asked him.

Smith smiled. Not at the question but the timing. Mandy had waited until now, when they were halfway to Gaffney, to finally ask it?

“Having a change of heart?” he asked.

“No,” Mandy said.

“Good, because it’s a little too late for that now.”

“I haven’t changed my mind. I still think this is the best chance we have to take out the Judge. I just hope you’re as good with that gun as you claim to be.” Then, before he could respond, “Are you?”

“Yes,” Smith said.

“How good?”

“Good enough that if I’m in the same room with the Judge and I have this gun on my hip, he’s a dead man.”

“That’s if this works and you end up in the same room with him with that gun on your hip. What if they take it away from you?”

“I won’t let them.”

“Maybe they won’t give you a choice.”

“You don’t understand how this is going to work, Mandy. The easy way has me taking you into Gaffney and straight into the Judge’s office with this gun strapped to my hip. The hard way has me shooting my way in. One way or another, I’m going back into Gaffney armed, and I’m not leaving until the Judge is lying in a pool of his own blood.”

“All this because the Judge told you he’d kill a woman and a boy you’d never met until yesterday if you didn’t do what he wanted?”

“Yeah, that about sums it up.”

“It has nothing to do with right and wrong?”

“Who’s right and who’s wrong?”

“What do you mean?”

Smith shrugged. “You think you’re on the side of the angels. The Judge probably feels the same way.”

“Except we know he’s not.”

“You know. Or you think you know. Like I said, he probably feels the exact same way about your little feud.”

“‘Little feud?’ He keeps people there against their will, Smith. He makes women do things they don’t want to do. That’s a violation of their human rights. Everyone deserves to have a choice, even now.”

“If you say so. I’m not here to argue Gaffney politics with you.”

“Why not? Why don’t you care?”

“Because of exactly that.”

“I don’t understand…”

“Because I don’t care.”

“You don’t care?”

“Yeah. I don’t care. Why are you so surprised?”

He didn’t glance back at Mandy, but he could feel her staring daggers at his back.

After a long silence, she said, “But you were there, in Gaffney. How could you say we’re not in the right after seeing the place for yourself?”

“It’s not my cup of tea, okay? I wouldn’t stay there if they begged me to, or offered me a hundred virgins. But that’s me. Maybe the others want to be there. Did you ever think of that? Gaffney gives them security. There’s not a lot of that out there, you know.”

“What about your friend? You told me she wants out.”

“She didn’t exactly say that,” Smith said.

“What did she say?”

He shook his head. “Not much. We were being watched at the time. She probably didn’t say everything she wanted to say. The truth is, I don’t really know if she wants to stay there or not. But I’ll find out one way or another when I get back there.”

“I can’t believe you think Gaffney is a swell place.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“What are you saying?”

Smith sighed. He didn’t know why he was having this argument with her. He didn’t care about Gaffney. He didn’t care about Mandy’s battles with the Judge, either. But he’d been drawn into it, and the only way out was to help one side win. That meant either Mandy or the Judge would have to die. Smith wasn’t Mandy’s biggest fan, but he was even less of the Judge’s, so the decision had been easy.

“Look, I don’t know what you want me to say here,” Smith finally said. “I just don’t care about any of this. Once I get my friend out of Gaffney—if she wants to leave—then I’m gone. I have no interest in what you people do to each other; it’s not my problem. If I have to kill the Judge to untangle myself from all this, then so be it.”

“Jesus Christ,” Mandy said. “Remind me never to get on your bad side— What is that?”

“What is what?”

“That,” Mandy said.

Smith glanced back at her. She was looking off to one side.

He followed her gaze to a series of hills in the distance, not far from where Lucky’s homestead used to be. Smith recognized them. He’d been standing on one of them when he first saw the burning house, and then later—

…and then later the sniper was there when he took a shot at Smith.

In the second or two it took Smith’s memory to be jogged, sunlight glinted off a glass object resting on one of those hills.

“Get down!” Smith shouted even as he threw himself off the Paint.

The first shot was an echoing crack! that seemed to come from a mile away, the sound seemingly ricocheting off every hill and little thing jutting up from the flat Nebraska countryside.

Smith landed on his chest, his hands keeping his face from an up close and personal introduction to the hard ground and eating a mouthful of dirt. He rolled over, already reaching down for the SIG Sauer even as the horse took off like a bullet, kicking up thick swirls of dust around him.

He didn’t get very far, but not because he’d stopped rolling on purpose. It was because he had bumped into something and couldn’t get around the obstacle.

Smith turned his head—

—and stared into Mandy’s lifeless eyes.

She lay on the ground, having landed on her side, her legs and arms positioned awkwardly around her. She’d been wearing a gray shirt and navy blue jacket over it with the zippers pulled down halfway, exposing the bloody patch and the hole that was almost exactly in the middle of her chest.

Smith didn’t have to waste his breath asking if she was okay.

Mandy was dead. She was deader than dead. All he had to do was stare into her eyes and know she had probably died long before she crashed to the ground.

And he was next.

Twenty-One

First Lucky, who had gone years being a thorn in the Judge’s side.

Now Mandy, who’d had less time to needle the Judge but had needled him just the same.

Both were dead.

In the space of two days.

Coincidence?

Smith didn’t believe in coincidences.

“So what changed yesterday?” he’d asked Mandy about Lucky’s killing.

“I don’t know,” she had replied. “Maybe the Judge just got tired of him helping us.”

Maybe the Judge got tired of a lot of things, Smith thought even as he rolled away from Mandy’s body.

Another crack! rang out, and something fast and hot zipped over his head. A puff of brown cloud appeared spontaneously in the air about a foot in front of his face just before Smith rolled through it.

Then he was on his knees, springing up to his feet a second later, and running as fast as he could.

Run run run!

Don’t look back!

Just run run!

The horses were gone. They’d both taken off after the first shot. Mandy’s mare was chasing after Smith’s Paint, the two animals getting smaller. Smith went in the other direction, moving away from the hills to put more distance between himself and the shooter. He was very well aware that the last time he’d been shot at—likely by the same man—he’d only survived because his canteen had stopped one of the bullets meant for him.

He’d gotten lucky yesterday, but luck only got you so far out here. Wasn’t that the same thing Mandy had said? And look how it had turned out for her.

So Smith ran, zig-zagging like he had the previous day, hoping the shooter still couldn’t figure out a pattern the second time around. More than that, Smith hoped there wasn’t a pattern to his movements, because if the guy could—

Crack! as a round screamed past his left ear and sent up a cloud of dust about ten yards in front of him.

That was a close one, but it didn’t slow Smith down. He continued running at full speed, zigging left, then right, then right again.

No patterns! No patterns!

He waited for the next shot.

Ten yards…

Where was the shot?

Twenty more…

Where was the goddamn shot?

Thirty…

There wasn’t another gunshot. Instead, Smith heard something he hadn’t expected out here and hadn’t heard in quite some time.

Were his ears deceiving him? Was he imagining it?

He had to know. He had to know.

Smith slowed down just enough to glance back toward the hills.

A thick cloud of dust had plumed into the air as something appeared from the other side of the hills. The yellow color made it stand out against the brown and white of the Nebraska plains, but even if it had been perfectly painted to camouflage against its surroundings, there was no way Smith was going to mistake it for anything else.

It was a vehicle, painted bright yellow, moving like a banshee across the open ground toward him.

Sonofabitch!

He couldn’t tell the make or model, but that wasn’t going to matter a damn bit once it reached him. He had a feeling there were guys with guns inside it, and if they’d taken out Mandy, he was possibly next.

Possibly? Probably goddamn likely!

So that was why the sniper hadn’t wasted another bullet trying to take Smith out. He didn’t have to because they had something better that they were going to run him down with. And that was exactly what they were going to do: Run him down.

That is, if he stayed on this path. He had to get out of the open. Get—

The house. Lucky’s house.

It might have burned down to the ground, but there was still enough of it left to provide him with cover. Okay, not a lot of cover, but some. If nothing else, then it was better than him running out here with nothing that even remotely could be used as a defilade.

Smith was already turning toward Lucky’s house before he realized he’d even made up his mind.

He snapped a quick look back at the only working vehicle in probably hundreds of miles, maybe the entire state of Nebraska, though that was a bit of a stretch. Gasoline—at least the still-usable variety—wasn’t easy to find, but armies like Black Tide had figured out how to get the refineries working again. And if they could, why couldn’t some other enterprising asshole with people and time to spare? Though Smith didn’t see the Judge having those kinds of resources. Did Mandy know?

He wished he could have asked her, but she was dead. Besides, he didn’t even know if these were the Judge’s men, though the chances that they weren’t was probably about the same odds as a snowball surviving beyond a second in Hell.

Fortunately for Smith, the remains of Lucky’s house was closer than the vehicle speeding its way toward him, even if the sound of its engine made him think it was about to run him over any second. Smith gauged the distance to the house at a hundred yards. About a football field. It was a good thing he wasn’t carrying anything but the SIG Sauer in his hip holster. Travis hadn’t allowed Smith to take some spares.

“One mag should be good enough,” the man had said, back in Gaffney.

“Two would be nice; three would be better,” Smith had said.

“What would be the fun in that?”

“I didn’t know this was supposed to be fun.”

“Maybe not for you, but it definitely is for me,” Travis had said with that stupid and very punchable grin of his.

Goddamn, Smith wanted to punch that face in the worst way. Just one time. That was all he asked.

But he wasn’t going to get that chance now.

Unless, of course, he survived this.

Smith needed to reach Lucky’s old homestead and find some kind of cover. He wanted to believe it was a mistake on the sniper’s part to take out Mandy before him, but that was probably Smith’s ego talking. It was pretty obvious they’d killed Mandy first because she was the priority. He, on the other hand, was just a loose end. One that they could be easily rid of because they had a fucking car.

Where the hell did they get a car?

Smith could smell the remains of Lucky’s house as he neared it. He was going to reach it before the vehicle got to him, that much was clear now. So he had that in his favor. As for everything else, well, that would probably depend on how many men were in the speeding car and what kind of armaments they were carrying.

Fifty yards…

Smith checked in on the vehicle again even as his breath hammered out of his chest. Every breath seemed like a Herculean task, but he willed himself to keep going, to not slow down. If anything, he got faster.

It’d been a whole day since the house burned down, but Smith could still detect soot lingering in the air as he finally reached the property and made a beeline for the thickest part of it, which was easy to pick out from the remains. The wooden foundation was gone, along with the walls and roof, so it was hard to miss the section of brick wall still standing near the center.

It was a fireplace, made from brick and mortar. How the hell Lucky ever managed to locate, then drag blocks of bricks and cement out here, Smith couldn’t fathom. Then again, according to Mandy, the guy did have a lot of time on his hands. You could do a lot of things when there were no other pressing matters to attend to.

The top half of the fireplace had fallen, leaving behind a seven-foot tall wall for Smith to hide behind. Charred remains of the house crunched and fell apart underneath his boots as Smith ran through the place, glad to have the weight of the SIG Sauer against his right hip.

The gun was a full-sized P220 with a ten-round magazine. He would have preferred something with a higher capacity, but the pistol was a good gun and he was used to it. Besides, unless there were ten people inside that vehicle—

—Smith glanced over to check on them.

It’d been a while since he’d last looked, not that he really needed to see them to know they were still out there. He could hear the car getting louder and louder easily enough.

The screaming yellow paint job against the white and brown landscape made it stick out like a sore thumb. Maybe it was their way of advertising themselves. Here we are! Can you see us now? It was that obvious.

Now that it was closer, Smith could make out the shape of the vehicle. It was a Jeep Wrangler, probably running on diesel fumes. And it was fast. Or, at least, it seemed to be pretty goddamn fast as it sped across the flat grounds toward him.

Smith turned around and slipped behind the fireplace wall. He didn’t bother drawing the pistol to check it. He’d already done that before leaving the junkyard with Mandy to make sure her people hadn’t done anything to it.

It was fine. The gun wasn’t the problem.

The guys coming, on the other hand, was.

Smith took a breath and leaned against the wall. For a second or two, he was afraid he might knock it down, too, but it proved sturdy. Then again, it would have to be to have survived the fire that had ravaged the rest of Lucky’s house. Smith hadn’t seen a corpse while he was running through the remains of the living room, and he hadn’t asked Mandy if she had, either. It hadn’t seemed important then, and still didn’t now.

Dead was dead, and Lucky was dead.

Smith was hoping not to join him.

The Jeep was close enough now that Smith couldn’t just hear its engine overwhelming the land around it but also the grinding of its tires against the ground. He listened to it, trying to decide how much time he’d have before the men in the vehicle figured out where he was hiding. Maybe they might have even spotted him slipping behind the fireplace from a distance; it would be just his luck that at least one of them would have binoculars on them.

The Jeep’s tires squealed as the driver slammed on the brakes. They were somewhere at the front of the house, so if they had seen him, they weren’t bothering to drive around until they could outflank him. Either that, or they figured he didn’t stand a chance anyway and wanted to make sport of this.

He was praying for the latter, because that was the only option that gave him any chance of surviving.

Smith heard a familiar voice calling out, “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” and knew it was the latter.

Travis. But of course it was Travis. Who else would it be?

The sound of his voice—singsong, like he was having the time of his life—was all the proof Smith needed that Travis had come to play. And he was probably not alone. There would be at least two, maybe more with him.

They had just chased him like a rabbit into a corner and were probably brimming with confidence right now. This wasn’t a fight to them. This was a game. An execution. Smith was prey.

Or he was supposed to be.

That was the problem with being part of a gang instead of having to rely on just yourself. The presence of other people convinced you that there was strength in numbers. And that belief could make you stupid.

And careless.

Smith stepped out from behind the fireplace and drew.

Twenty-Two

There was three of them.

For some reason, they always came in threes these days.

Travis was among them. He was standing next to the Jeep’s open driver-side door. There were two others with him—Kyle, the kid, was climbing out the back, while a third man that Smith had never seen before was checking his rifle next to the open passenger side door.

The vehicle itself was surprisingly clean, as if it’d been hidden in a barn underneath blankets until this morning, when it was uncovered and then waxed. The yellow color practically beamed underneath the sunlight, standing out like a beacon against the gray and white background and the remains of Lucky’s soot-stained yard.

Smith’s eyes snapped from Travis to Kyle to the third guy, where it stayed. More to the point, it was the bolt action rifle that the man was cradling as he wiped dust off the front of the scope with a silk rag. A Remington, from the looks of it; a decent gun, made for long-distance shooting. Certainly the large optic on top of the weapon made every shot much easier.

The man was in his thirties, with a shaggy beard and dressed all in black. He wore an urban assault vest with pouches for emergency supplies and extra ammo. A canteen hung off one hip, over a sheathed knife. The man looked as if he’d been lying down on the ground all day and hadn’t managed to brush all the dirt off his clothes when he picked himself up.

…lying on the ground all day, or on top of a hill, waiting for some poor sucker to come through so he could pick them off.

Like Smith and Mandy, earlier.

Like Smith had, yesterday.

The sniper was the first person to see Smith as he revealed himself, stepping out from behind the fireplace’s wall. They were thirty yards apart, and Smith could see the man’s eyes widening to almost comically absurd levels. Shock and confusion flicked across the man’s face, because he and his two friends had done this before. They knew Smith was alone and running. They’d probably done it before—hunted down some poor sap that had escaped Gaffney, only to be recaptured and then taken back for, as Blake had said, “reeducation.”

And they had the numbers. That made them even more confident.

And cocky.

Smith saw all of that in the brief two to three seconds after he stepped out from behind the fireplace and looked across the blackened remains of Lucky’s house at the three men. They had parked their Jeep where the “front” of the building used to be. Maybe if Smith wasn’t so used to the situation and hadn’t been in one before, it might have taken him longer to see everything there was to see.

But he had, and it didn’t.

Mr. Sniper was scrambling to raise his rifle when Smith shot him in the forehead. The man collapsed, exposing Kyle just as the youngest member of the Gaffney trio was rounding the back of the Jeep.

Kyle froze and wasted a second of reaction time by watching the rifleman as he was falling in front of him. Not that it would have made any difference if he’d gone straight for his pistol. He wouldn’t have stood a chance anyway.

Smith shot Kyle through the chest, then was already swiveling around to find Travis even as the young man fell out of view.

Travis was gone!

Smith ran through what used to be Lucky’s living room, crunching charred debris under his boots as he did so. He kept his eyes on the Jeep, on the open driver-side door, even as he ran, jumping over a puddle that used to be a sofa—

Travis popped up from behind the driver-side of the parked car, squirrely eyes searching for Smith.

Smith squeezed off a quick shot, sending Travis scurrying back down for cover. The round wasn’t meant to hit Travis, just keep him from firing first. The Gaffney man had wisely stayed behind the cover of the Jeep, and Smith would have needed a near-perfect shot to hit him in the two or three inches of forehead he’d exposed.

As he ran, Smith kept count of his rounds. The gun felt lighter, but not by much. He’d fired three shots, which left him with seven. That was good enough. If he needed more than seven to take out Travis, Smith figured he might as well put his gun away for good and call it forced retirement.

Smith didn’t bother checking on Mr. Sniper as he ran past the man. No one got up from a bullet to the forehead. At least, no one that was alive when they took the bullet. Ghouls, on the other hand, could survive a whole lot more. But ghouls didn’t walk around in daylight while carrying a Remington rifle.

As for Kyle…

There was a chance the kid was still alive. One to center mass wasn’t always a fatal injury, and so Smith spent just half a heartbeat glancing toward the rear passenger side of the Jeep as he approached the vehicle to make sure Kyle hadn’t gotten back up.

He was still down.

Maybe not for good, but it was good enough for now.

Smith had almost reached the Jeep when Travis popped back up, this time all the way at the rear of the vehicle. He had his gun in his right fist and was aiming. Travis’s new location threw Smith off for about half a second. Maybe even less than that.

They both fired at the same time.

Smith felt the burn along his left leg, coming from somewhere around his thigh area, but he was too busy falling down to do much about it. Both feet gave out from under him, as if he’d tripped on an invisible wire, and Smith tumbled to the soot-covered floor and skidded into what used to be a section of wall.

Get up! Get up!

Smith got up and hobbled his way to the Jeep, then around it. He kept waiting for Travis to spring up like some kind of nightmarish version of a live Whack-a-Mole, but the man stayed down this time.

He found out why when he rounded the vehicle and reached the back, where Travis lay on the ground, gasping for air. Blood dripped down his face from the small opening in his hairline where Smith’s bullet had grazed him. It wasn’t a killing shot, but it’d shocked the man enough to drop him and kept him on his back.

When he saw Smith, Travis tried to raise his gun. Smith rushed over, grimacing against the sudden stabs of pain coming from his left hip, and stepped on Travis’s arm to pin it to the ground. Travis grunted, but didn’t let go of the gun.

“Don’t make me break it,” Smith said.

Travis unfurled his fingers around the pistol grip, and Smith kicked the weapon away. Smith took a step back before sitting down on the back bumper of the Jeep and, finally, looked down at his hip.

A graze, similar to the one that had taken Travis down, except Smith’s was in the right place. Travis had taken his on the forehead, which was probably interfering with his ability to focus right about now, because Travis kept blinking at Smith.

“Jesus Christ,” Travis was saying. “You’re crazy. Fucking nuts.”

Smith looked over at him. “Am I?”

“Yeah, you are.”

“Not the first time I’ve been called that.”

“Crazy…”

“Why? Because I defended myself?”

“Coming out like that…three against one…” He shook his head. Or tried to. “Who does that? A crazy guy. Fucking crazy guy does that.”

“That’s your problem, Travis. You’ve had it too good for too long. You’ve become too reliant on numbers.”

“Crazy fucker,” Travis said, as if Smith hadn’t said a word. “Crazy motherfucker.”

“Blah blah blah. So was this the plan all along?” Smith said. “Get me to bring Mandy out, then ambush us?”

Travis kept blinking at Smith and saying, “Crazy asshole. You’re fucking crazy.”

“Yeah, yeah, we’ve already established that. Moving on.”

“Who does that? Who does that?”

“Travis, pay attention. We’ve already moved on.”

“Crazy…”

Smith snapped his fingers in front of the man’s face to get his attention. “Hey, Travis, listen to what I’m saying.”

“…crazy…”

“Travis. Listen. Focus.”

“…crazy…”

“Focus. Was this the plan all along? If I don’t kill Mandy at the junkyard, then get me to bring her out—”

He stopped talking because Travis had closed his eyes.

“Shit,” Smith said, and crouched next to the man.

He felt for a pulse…and found one. Travis wasn’t dead, just unconscious. Smith made sure the guy wasn’t pretending by relieving him of his weapons—a gun behind his back and a knife in a sheath at his hip—before getting up and walking around the Jeep to check on the other two.

Kyle lay on his back, eyes wide open and staring up at the cloudless sky. He was dead. Smith didn’t know how long he’d been dead but dead was dead, so what did it matter? He couldn’t bring himself to feel any sympathy for the kid.

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

Still, he was young, and unlike Travis, there was nothing squirrely about the kid. Maybe Smith felt some sympathy for him after all.

Mr. Sniper was nearby, and he was a different story. Smith would have shot him again if he were still alive, but he wasn’t. A thin trickle of blood came down his forehead where Smith had shot him. The tiny amount of blood that had ended Mr. Sniper’s life was an interesting contrast to all the red that had dripped down Travis’s forehead from what was, essentially, a bullet graze.

Smith took a moment to check out the rifle. The scope, as Smith had guessed, was a powerful one, capable of shooting someone from a great distance. Smith still didn’t know if it was the same weapon that had nearly killed him—twice, now—and had taken Mandy’s life. For all he knew, it had also taken Lucky’s, since Mr. Sniper was up there in the hills waiting when Smith showed up. That seemed to be a favorite place of his.

Smith stared at the face. He didn’t know the man; didn’t even know his name. Not that it mattered anymore. Dead was dead, was dead. It’d always been the case, and it was even more so now.

He walked back to where Travis lay and took the keys to the Jeep from his pocket, then looked for and found a first-aid kit in the car’s glove compartment. Smith took off his pants and tended to his hip wound, washing and then taping up the cut. It wasn’t bad—he’d had a lot worse—though it felt like fire burning down there anyway. He swallowed some painkillers that came with the kit to help with that.

Next, Smith relieved Kyle and Mr. Sniper of their weapons and anything else useful on their persons, tossing them all into the back of the Jeep. He was surprised none of them carried radios, which meant Travis and Kyle were nearby when Mr. Sniper took his shots at Smith and Mandy.

That lent credence to his belief that this had been the plan all along. The Judge had sent him here to kill Mandy or bring her out. One way or another, the ultimate goal was always to take out Mandy.

“So what changed yesterday?” he had asked Mandy.

“I don’t know,” she had said. “Maybe the Judge just got tired of him helping us.”

Smith picked up Travis and dragged him to the car before pushing his unresponsive body into the front passenger seat. He located a roll of duct tape and fastened Travis to the seat, making it as tight as possible just, well, because.

Then he drove around looking for the horses.

Twenty-Three

The Jeep had a recent coat of wax on it, but the gas tank was only a quarter full when Smith took it for a drive. Instead of heading to Gaffney and the Judge and putting a bullet between his eyes, he instead headed south—back toward the junkyard.

Before that, he’d retrieved Mandy’s body and put her into the back of the car. He’d toyed with the idea of “sitting” her back there with Travis, her head on his shoulder, just to get a kick out of the man’s reaction when he woke up. But that was probably a little too much of dark humor for Mandy’s people when he drove up to the junkyard’s front gate.

He found the horses about a mile away, but only the Paint didn’t take off immediately when he approached them in the car. Smith tied the animal’s reins to the Jeep, then drove south slowly to allow the horse to keep pace.

The junkyard looked as uninviting and ready for a fight as the first time Smith had seen it clearly this morning. It was a large area with piles of metal and steel and chrome. Three modular homes—more modern versions of the old mobile homes, but these were designed for office space—sat in a U-shape in the very center. One of those belonged to Mandy, but the other two had been converted into living quarters. The buildings were visible as he drove over the hill but wouldn’t be so readily obvious from ground level until you got closer.

There were guards on the grounds, but they stayed away from the open areas where they could be picked off by a sniper from the nearby hills. Fortunately for them, most of the land around the junkyard was relatively flat. After last night’s intense battle with Gaffney’s men, Mandy hadn’t taken any chances. Smith was certain there were eyeballs watching him—along with a rifle or two, or three—as he drove over.

Smith parked the car in front of the gate and climbed out, his hands raised. He called out, “Don’t shoot!”

It took about twenty seconds before two figures appeared out from behind a pile of old appliances and rushed toward the entrance. One of them was Gramps, but Smith didn’t recognize the other one, another woman. They rushed over, rifles pointed at him.

Smith kept his hands raised as they approached the other side of the gate. He glanced to his left and right as more heads popped up from behind the larger piles to scan the outside area in case he wasn’t alone. They’d clearly been up there for a while but had stayed hidden until now.

He imagined they would have been able to hear the Wrangler coming for miles out here, and were probably just as shocked to see it as he had been earlier. Or maybe they weren’t. Did they know Gaffney had these kinds of resources and didn’t tell him?

Gramps lowered her rifle slightly as she reached the gate. “What the hell are you doing back here so soon? Where did you get that car?” Then, spotting Travis in the front passenger seat, “And what the hell is he doing here?”

“It’s about Mandy,” Smith said.

“What about her?” Gramps narrowed her eyes at him before looking around. The other woman with her—she was smaller, younger, with short blonde hair—did the same. “Where’s Mandy? Where the hell is Mandy!”

“She’s in the Jeep,” Smith said.

Gramps looked past him at the parked vehicle. “Where?”

“In the back,” Smith said. “She’s dead.”

“What?”

“She’s dead. One of the Judge’s men shot her.” Smith turned and nodded at Travis. “He was there. Ask him what happened.”

Smith walked back to the Jeep, then past it.

“Don’t be too gentle,” he added.

“Hey!” Gramps shouted after him. “Where the hell are you going now?”

Smith glanced back at her. “Gaffney. I have unfinished business to take care of. Give Roger my condolences, and tell him that he’s in charge now.”

He untied the Paint’s reins from the Jeep and walked her up the road.

“Hey!” Gramps shouted after him. “Hey, you can’t just leave like this! Hey!”

Smith ignored her. He climbed onto the Paint and hoped no one in the junkyard was feeling trigger-happy this morning. When no one shot at him, he spurred the horse and it took off.

“Smith!” Gramps, still shouting after him. “Goddammit, Smith! You can’t just leave like this! Wait! Wait!”

He didn’t wait, but he did look back when he was about fifty yards away. They had opened the gate, and Gramps, along with the other woman, were at the parked Jeep. Smith spotted Roger in the background, along with a couple of others, rushing over to join the two women.

He turned around and urged the horse north.

Back to Gaffney.

To unfinished business…

About Shoot Last

Copyright (c) 2020 by Sam Sisavath

FINAL JUDGEMENT COMES FOR EVERY MAN.

He wasn’t looking for a fight, and he did everything possible to avoid one, but the Judge and his lackeys refused to let John Smith go about his way. Things got out of hand, people ended up dead, and now Smith is on the offensive.

After being double-crossed, Smith returns to Gaffney, determined to conclude all unfinished business. It will mean taking the fight to the enemy at their own doorsteps, but Smith is just angry enough not to give a damn.

They should have left him alone. But they didn’t.

Now they’re going to learn that it’s not who shoots first that counts, but who shoots last.

One

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“What the hell does it look like I’m doing here?”

“You shouldn’t be here.”

“And yet here I am.”

“You shouldn’t be here…”

“You already said that.”

“You got away. You shouldn’t be here.”

“Yeah, well, that wasn’t my decision, was it?”

“You trying to get killed? Is that it? That must be it, or you wouldn’t have come back. You should have kept on walking.”

“Oh, I think we’re well past that, don’t you think?”

Hobson smirked. “You got a big set on you, son.”

“I’m not your fucking son,” Smith said. He motioned with the gun in his hand but otherwise didn’t bother getting up from the nice comfortable leather armchair that Hobson had in the corner of his living room. “What were you, raised in a barn? Close the door and lock it before all the mosquitoes get inside.”

Hobson did as he was told. The door clicked into place, followed by the clack as the deadbolt slid home. The de facto sheriff of Gaffney turned around and resumed staring at Smith from across the room.

“Now what?” Hobson asked.

“Now you tell me where the Judge lives,” Smith said.

“And why would I do that?”

“So I can go there and put him out of my misery.”

“You’re going to kill the Judge?”

“I ain’t going there to rock him to sleep.”

“That’s murder.”

“It’s justice.”

“For who?”

“Me, Mandy, Lucky.” Smith shrugged. “Your pick. Frankly, I don’t give a shit why he has to die. But he’s gonna die, and that’s all there is to it.”

“Wait. Mandy? What happened with Mandy?”

Smith squinted across the semidarkness at the man, trying to decide if Hobson was attempting to pull one over him.

Hobson lived alone in a small two-bedroom house on the southern edge of town. It was just close enough to the main center for him to walk to “work,” but far enough that he had some privacy. The residence was surrounded by bigger houses that Hobson could have chosen, but he had elected for this cozy place instead. The doors were closed but not locked, and Smith could have come through a half-dozen entry points besides simply opening the front door. Smith guessed you didn’t need to lock your doors in a place like Gaffney; it wasn’t like they had much trouble with outsiders.

At least, not until he showed up.

“What happened to Mandy?” Hobson was asking him now.

Smith still hadn’t gotten up from the armchair. It was brown and cool when he sat down but had warmed up noticeably while he waited for Hobson to come home. Sneaking back into Gaffney hadn’t been all that difficult. The town was just too big to be fully watched over by guards; the Judge would have needed ten times the number of lackeys in order to keep an eye on every possible way in. And with three less pairs of eyeballs at his disposal, what was originally difficult had become impossible. Smith had simply waited until dark, using the time to scout the area, and then picked a blind spot. He’d had plenty of choices.

“You know damn well what happened to Mandy,” Smith said.

Hobson shook his head. “I don’t.”

“Bullshit.”

“I don’t, son.”

Again with the ‘son,’ Smith thought, wondering if Hobson was doing that on purpose to get his goat. Sure, the man was old enough to be his father, but did Hobson really think Smith was going to feel any sympathy because of their age difference? Smith had shot older men.

“She’s dead,” Smith said.

He didn’t believe for one second that Hobson didn’t already know that fact, but if this was some kind of game Hobson wanted to play, then Smith would accommodate him. Worst case, he wasted a few minutes; best case, he gleaned some information from Hobson, whether the man wittingly gave it up or not.

“Mandy is dead?” Hobson said, looking very much surprised.

Or maybe he was just a good actor.

No, Hobson wasn’t that. The man didn’t look like he had an ounce of artistic ability in him. Certainly, he couldn’t act his way out of a wet paper bag.

What Smith was seeing now, on the sheriff’s face, was genuine surprise.

He doesn’t know about Mandy.

What exactly did that mean, though, in the large scheme of things?

Smith was trying to figure out an answer when Hobson continued. “How did she die?”

“She was shot.”

“When?”

“While I was bringing her back here, per the Judge’s orders.”

“The Judge’s orders…”

“That’s right. He got me to bring her out of the junkyard, and when she was in the open, his sniper took her out. Probably the same asshat that shot me earlier. He’s dead, too, by the way.”

“Who?”

“The sniper.”

“Roman?”

“Is that his name?”

Hobson nodded. “He’s the best shot we have; that’s why he’s out there.”

Smith shrugged. He didn’t know the sniper’s name, and it didn’t matter anyway. The man was dead, along with the kid, Kyle. Travis Clarence, the man with the two first names, was still alive, but he probably wished he wasn’t right now.

“Not anymore, I guess,” Hobson said.

Smith wasn’t sure if the other man sounded sad or was just stating a fact with that one. Maybe a little of both, which told Smith Hobson and this Roman character weren’t exactly drinking buddies. Not that he thought Hobson was drinking buddies with anyone. If the man even drank at all. Hobson looked way too much like a straight arrow to indulge in anything that could even pass for a filthy habit. Then again, a standup guy wouldn’t be doing the Judge’s bidding, so maybe Smith was all wrong about Hobson…again. He’d been wrong about a lot of things lately, and one of these days, those errors in judgement were going to get him dead.

One of these days, but not tonight.

Smith motioned again with the gun. “Have a seat, Sheriff. You’re making me a little anxious just standing there.”

“What about my gun?” Hobson asked.

“What about it?”

“You want me to put it on the floor? Kick it over? Isn’t that how these things work in the movies?”

Smith smiled. “Sheriff, I could shoot you before you clear leather even if I had my own pistol holstered. Having my gun already out is just for intimidation.”

“I believe you.”

“You should.”

As if to prove his point, Smith holstered the SIG Sauer.

The older man cracked a smile. “Balls, son. You got real balls.”

“Sit down.”

Hobson walked over to a sofa in front of the windows and sat down across from Smith. He’d kept his hands away from his holstered revolver the entire time, almost as if he expected Smith to be looking for an excuse to shoot him. Smith wanted to tell the man that he didn’t need another excuse. He already had a dozen reasons to put a round in Hobson even before he showed up at the older man’s residence.

The sheriff sighed as he sat down, hands pressing flat against his legs. All it would have taken was a quick jerk of his right hand toward his hip, and he’d be armed. Of course, Smith would have shot him well before he even touched his weapon.

Smith knew that without a shred of doubt in his mind.

And maybe Hobson did, too.

“The Judge,” Smith said. “Where do I find him?”

“You don’t know?”

“If I knew, why would I be here?”

“Just to say hi, maybe.”

“I don’t like you that much.”

“Ouch.” Then, his head cocking to one side slightly, “How did you find out where I lived, anyway?”

“The mailbox.”

“The mailbox?”

“You put your name on the mailbox outside.”

Hobson chuckled. “Right. The mailbox. I forgot about that.”

“Stumbling across it was an accident. Like a sign from God, if you will. But it did make me curious. Why the mailbox?”

The sheriff shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I wanted to make this place mine. Putting my name on the mailbox up front seemed like a thing to do.”

“It’s not your house.”

“It is now.”

“You get mail?”

“Of course not. Who gets mail these days?” Then, “So it’s just my bad luck you found my mailbox, huh?”

“Pretty much.”

“Swell.”

“The Judge,” Smith said. “Where do I find him? He’s not at the courthouse. It was the first place I looked. And I don’t suppose he’d lower himself to staying in the same buildings as some of the other residents.”

“No, he wouldn’t do that.”

“So where is he?”

“The big white house, about two blocks north from here. The one with the guards outside. I don’t know how you missed it in the first place.”

“It’s dark. You guys need more lights.”

“More lights bring more trouble.”

“Ghoul trouble?”

“We get them every now and then.”

Smith wanted to ask Hobson about the ghoul “trouble” that had plagued the junkyard exactly one night ago, when the Judge’s men attacked Mandy’s people. But he didn’t because it didn’t matter. Right now, only one thing mattered.

The Judge.

“So, the big white house,” Smith said, standing up.

“Yes,” Hobson said. His eyes tracked Smith the entire time. “What are you going to do?”

“I already told you.”

“Murder him?”

“You say murder, I say justified homicide.”

“You won’t be able to get to him anyway.”

“How many guards does he have?”

“I won’t tell you that.”

“Why not?”

“Call it loyalty.”

“To a man like the Judge?”

Hobson seemed to sigh. Or maybe Smith just misheard him. “Something like that. Whatever you think of him, he did bring law and order to this area after everything went to shit. If nothing else, he deserves credit for that.”

“That’s not what Mandy’s people think.”

“Yeah, well, opinions are like assholes. You know?”

“Yeah. Lots of those around these days, too.”

“So you’re going to go kill the Judge, huh?”

Smith ignored the question. He asked instead, “Mary and her son. Where are they?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t believe you.”

The sheriff shrugged. “That’s your prerogative, but it’s the truth.”

“You’re the sheriff. Aren’t you supposed to know everything that happens in your town?”

“Most of the time, but my area of responsibility doesn’t include where people are housed.” He shook his head. “I don’t know where the woman and her son are being kept.”

“Being kept?” Smith thought. Hobson hadn’t said where Mary and Aaron were “living.” Instead, he’d used the words “being kept.” There was a huge difference.

“Who would know?” Smith asked.

“Amy,” Hobson said.

“The doctor?”

“Yes. She’s also in charge of housing.”

“Interesting.”

“Most people here have multiple titles. It’s how we keep the place running. There’s not enough people to go around.”

“You mean, other than through intimidation?”

Hobson almost smiled that time. “Yeah.” Then, still staring across the semidarkness at Smith, with only a patch of moonlight coming in through the curtains of the windows behind him, “So what now?”

“You have two options.”

“What’s that?”

“Convince me you won’t alert anyone after I leave now, or I shoot you.”

“You shoot me, and everyone will be alerted to your presence.”

“Yeah, well, that’s a risk I’m willing to take.” Then, his eyes glued on Hobson’s face, “So convince me, Sheriff.”

“I can’t.”

“I figured.”

Hobson went for his gun.

Smith drew and shot him dead.

Two

Maybe killing Hobson was the wrong thing to do. After all, the gunshot would have alerted the people of Gaffney. Sound traveled these days, especially in the middle of the night with nothing else to blunt the noise.

Then again, Hobson had gotten on Smith’s bad side, and Smith was only human. He’d already concluded the sheriff wasn’t the good man Smith had taken him for when they first met. Everything Hobson had done since had only confirmed that. Maybe, once upon a time, he had been decent, but that wasn’t the man Smith had shot tonight.

That was his excuse, anyway.

Still, the gunshot would alert the Judge’s remaining men to Smith’s presence. Which was fine with him; he needed to get a better look at what he was dealing with anyway. He was pretty sure he hadn’t seen everything—or everyone—while he was scouting the place earlier, searching for a way in. He didn’t think he’d develop that full picture in the next few hours, but firsthand intelligence was always better than secondhand.

“You know how many of them there are?” Roger, Mandy’s righthand man, had asked him yesterday when Smith showed up at their junkyard and told them about his plan to return to Gaffney.

“Six,” Smith had said.

“More than six,” Mandy had said.

“How many more?”

“At least ten,” Roger had said.

“At least ten” wasn’t exactly a specific number. “At least” could be eleven or fifteen or fifty. Not that Smith thought the Judge had fifty men on the payroll, or whatever he was using to keep them to stay loyal to him. But “at least” could be as few as eleven and as many as twenty…or more.

Smith needed to find out one way or another. He was good with a gun, but even he didn’t think he could take on twenty men. At least, not in a straight-up fight, which was what he preferred. At least now he had one less man to deal with.

No, that wasn’t quite correct. Three less men to deal with, actually. He had forgotten to count Travis, the kid, Kyle, and the sniper, Roman. Travis was still alive but out of the game. (There was the possibility Travis was still alive. Who knew what Roger and company were doing to him now?)

Smith stood next to the window on the second floor of the house across the street from Hobson’s and watched as shadowy figures arrived. There were four of them—two on horseback, the other two on foot. All men, of course. The two on foot were carrying LED lanterns, the kind with solar-rechargeable batteries that Smith had seen often out here, while the two mounted ones had similarly bright LED flashlights fixed to the barrels of their weapons—one rifle and one shotgun.

They charged up to Hobson’s home, coming from two separate directions, almost as if they had orchestrated the approach. And maybe they had, for all Smith knew. It took them almost twenty-five minutes to respond, which was pretty fast given the size of the town and the fact they would have had to get together, figure out what had happened, and then assembled.

And where the hell did they keep the horses, anyway? Smith still didn’t know the answer to that one. Then again, he also didn’t know where they had kept the Jeep that Travis had tried to run him down with yesterday. There had to be a garage, or stables, somewhere in town that he hadn’t seen yet.

He concentrated on what was happening out in the darkened streets as the Judge’s men carefully entered Hobson’s home. Two of them went inside while the other two remained outside as guards. Smith glimpsed flashlight beams slicing across the home’s front windows within. It wouldn’t have taken the men long to find Hobson’s body. Smith had left him sitting on the sofa where he’d died.

The two sentries on Hobson’s front lawn were eyeballing the street, alleys, and buildings around them. They looked jumpy, clutching their weapons. It was too dark outside, with only the moonlight and limited glows of the lanterns that the men held in their hands for Smith to see with, so he couldn’t tell if any of the faces were familiar. The men actually scanned the home Smith was hiding in a couple of times, but if they saw him, they didn’t react. He was pretty sure he was well-hidden.

Pretty sure.

Or maybe he wasn’t that well-hidden and was hoping to be spotted. Maybe he wanted them to come into the house so he could take down a few more of them. Knock a few of those “at least” down a couple more notches. Was that why he’d remained so close to Hobson’s place after shooting the man to death?

Of course not.

Probably.

Voices, as the two that had gone into the house came back outside. The four men milled about the one-story structure, eyes scanning the area as if they expected to find him out here, as he watched them back.

Oh, if you only knew, boys.

If you only knew…

Two of them climbed back onto their horses, turned the animals, then proceeded down the street. The two on foot loitered around the property, still scanning for signs of him. Smith noticed that they hadn’t removed Hobson’s body; for all he knew, they had just left the sheriff sitting where he’d been shot.

He listened to the clop-clop-clop of shod horse hooves as they faded down one side of the block, while the lights from the LED lanterns of the ones on foot remained where they were. If they had noticed him and were planning some sneaky rear attack, he couldn’t detect it. He stayed ready anyway, a part of him still hoping they would try something.

Got ourselves a little death wish tonight, don’t we?

Maybe. Just maybe.

He was surprised there weren’t armed men roaming around Gaffney looking for him. There were two of them outside and two more on horseback, but where were the others? Asleep? Guarding the Judge? If he was the paranoid type, Smith would almost think they were setting him up and waiting to spring an elaborate ambush. What was it going to take to wake all of Gaffney up? A full-blown attack?

Maybe I should have blown up a building or two to really get their attention.

He waited patiently, but no one tried to sneak up on him or flank the house he was hidden inside. Smith didn’t keep listening for signs of something happening anyway. When he’d entered the place earlier, it’d smelled and looked abandoned. The uncovered mattress behind him was stained with rainwater from old leaks in the ceiling, and the wallpaper was peeling. The floor crunched as he walked across it, a combination of debris and fallen Sheetrock.

Smith didn’t move from the window or go anywhere, and about forty or so minutes later, the horsemen returned. This time they were dragging a wagon between them, with a third figure sitting on it.

A woman. Smith could tell that much by her shape.

The group stopped in front of Hobson’s house, and the woman climbed off, then disappeared inside.

Amy.

It had to be Amy, the former Black Tider turned Gaffney’s resident doctor. It made sense. Who else would be roused from sleep to take care of Hobson’s body? Unless, of course, the town had its own undertaker, but that was unlikely.

“Most people here have multiple titles. It’s how we keep the place running,” Hobson had said.

So it was a good bet Amy was also the undertaker when called for. The fact that she was in charge of housing as well was a little more out of the ordinary for someone of her skill set, but like Hobson had said, that was how they kept the place running.

He watched the group return outside Hobson’s home about ten minutes later, with Hobson’s body wrapped in a sheet and carried between two of the four men. They loaded him onto the back of the wagon while Amy watched on. She was looking around the street, and for an instant or two, settled her eyes on the window Smith was hidden alongside.

Can she see me?

Nah.

Probably nah.

Then Amy looked away, said something to one of the horsemen, and they moved on. The two on foot followed.

Smith stepped away from the window before moving silently across the bedroom. He remembered where the clinic was in relation to Hobson’s house, so it wouldn’t be hard to find again. Where else would they take the sheriff’s body? Unless he was wrong, but he didn’t think he was.

It was dark outside the house, but Smith could still hear the clop-clop-clop of horse hooves on the street behind him. He slipped out of the dark structure and into an alleyway, then made his way across the darkness.

Gaffney remained pitch-black and silent around him, reminding Smith to be very careful about every step he took. He kept his eyes on the rooftops of the buildings around him in case there were lookouts up there.

He didn’t see anyone. Not above him and not on the street. But he could still hear the fading clop-clop-clop of horse hooves. Smith followed them while sticking to the shadows. The air had grown chilly, but there were no telltale signs of ghoul presence in the vicinity.

He kept his senses alert anyway. You could never tell when the bastards would decide to pop out of the shadows at you.

Three

He wasn’t sure if he was surprised there were no guards outside the clinic—the same one he’d been in the day before—where they took Hobson’s body or not. He supposed it made sense; there was no reason to post anyone outside or inside, for that matter. From what he could see, the Judge’s men—a half dozen, now—were moving through town looking for something.

Someone.

If they even knew he was the one responsible for Hobson. After Travis had failed to show up after ambushing Mandy, maybe the Judge would have already assumed things hadn’t gone as well as he had hoped. Either way, his men were looking for someone out there.

Smith easily avoided them by sticking to the back alleys of Gaffney, winding his way through the shadows and brick buildings until he found himself at the rear of the clinic. There was a door, but it was unlocked, so Smith let himself in. There were two main rooms inside—the entry lobby and the back, the two spaces separated by nothing more than a curtain like before.

He found Amy standing next to Hobson’s body, jotting down notes on a clipboard. The sheriff lay on a gurney, his naked body exposed, with the hole in his chest where Smith had shot him underneath a single LED light.

Amy spun around when she heard his footsteps, dropping the clipboard and reaching for a scalpel on a tray nearby. Her eyes widened at the sight of him, and the words, “Jesus, Smith,” came out between her lips.

Smith wasn’t sure if she was scared to see him or relieved. “You’re up late,” he said.

“What the hell are you doing back here?”

He noticed she hadn’t relaxed her grip on the scalpel even a little bit after recognizing him. In fact, it was still clutched in her hand and in front of her—a clearly defensive posture.

“I’m looking for my friends,” Smith said. “I was told you’d know where they were.”

“What friends? And told by who?”

Smith nodded at Hobson. “Him.”

Amy glanced back at the dead man briefly. From the look on her face, it didn’t take long for her to put two and two together. “You killed Hobson.”

Smith nodded.

“Why?” she asked.

“He went for his gun.”

“That’s all?”

Was that all?

No, that wasn’t all, but he didn’t think the doctor needed to know that.

Smith had been careful about keeping his hands away from his holstered weapon. He knew he was taking a chance here; all it would have taken was for Amy to scream for help and the Judge’s men would swarm the place. Of course, it’d take them a while, and he was reasonably confident he could escape before then.

But still, he was taking unnecessary chances here. And yet, Smith didn’t really feel endangered. Something about his encounter with Amy before convinced him she was a potential ally rather than an enemy. Maybe it was their shared history with Black Tide.

His instincts were rewarded when Amy relaxed and put the knife back on the tray. “Did you have to kill him?”

No, Smith thought, but he said, “Yes. He didn’t give me a choice.”

She looked back at the sheriff and shook her head. “He wasn’t a bad guy. Not completely.”

Bad enough, Smith thought, but he hadn’t come here to talk about Hobson. Besides, if the doc had warm feelings toward the sheriff, Smith didn’t have any issues with that. And he certainly wasn’t going to try to change her mind. Not now, anyway.

“He told me you knew where to find my friends,” Smith said.

Amy turned back to him. “The woman and her son, that came in here yesterday.”

Smith nodded. “Where are they?”

“I don’t know.”

“He told me you did.”

“I did, when they first showed up. But I don’t know where they are now.”

“They were moved?”

Amy nodded. “After you left.”

Dammit.

He wasn’t sure why he was so surprised by the news. The Judge wasn’t a stupid man, and if he’d willingly used Mary and Aaron as incentives for Smith to do his bidding, why wouldn’t he take extra measures just in case Smith turned on him? Which, seeing as how Smith had done just that…

“You don’t have any ideas where they might be?” Smith asked.

Amy shook her head. “No. I’m sorry.”

“Who moved them?”

“Stephens and a couple of men.”

“Not Hobson?”

“I don’t think so.”

Well, at least the sheriff hadn’t lied about that part.

“What are you going to do now?” Amy asked.

“The Judge.”

“What about him?”

“I’m going to kill him.”

“Just like that?”

Smith shrugged. “Why not?”

“Is that why he’s so heavily guarded all of a sudden?”

“How heavily are we talking about?”

“There were at least a half dozen men with him when I last saw him before nightfall. It was the first time I’ve seen him with so many guns.”

“…before nightfall.”

That would have been more than enough time for the Judge to have found out that his ambush of Smith and Mandy hadn’t gone according to plan. The sniper, Roman, had managed to kill Mandy—his primary target—but Smith had slipped free. Smith wouldn’t have been surprised to know the Judge had men watching the junkyard; those same men would have seen Smith arriving in the Jeep with Travis. The fat man might not have known Smith would come back for him, but he was apparently not taking any chances.

Smart fucker.

“How many men does the Judge have?” Smith asked, Roger’s “ten or more” still echoing inside his head. “How many guns can he count on to do his dirty work?”

Amy thought about it, before glancing back at Hobson’s body. “Now?”

“Now.”

“Thirteen.”

“Thirteen?”

“Yes. Why?”

Oh, nothing. I’m just trying to figure out how many I’m going to have to kill to get to the Judge.

Smith said instead, “You sure about that number?”

“Yes.”

“Does it include Travis, Kyle, and Roman?”

Amy’s eyes widened slightly. Was that surprise? Yes, it looked like surprise. But surprised by what?

“Are they dead?” Amy asked.

“Let’s assume they’re no longer in the mix. How many guns does the Judge have left now?”

“Without those three? Then ten.”

“Ten? You sure about that?”

Again, Amy seemed to think about it. “I think so.”

“You think so?”

“People come and go. I can’t keep track of everyone.”

“I thought that was your job.”

“One of my jobs.”

Smith nodded. “Fair enough.” Then, because it just occurred to him, “You’re not married to any of them, are you?”

“What?”

“I heard the Judge likes to marry people off.”

“God, no.”

The way she had said it, “God, no,” made Smith think he’d chosen correctly to come to Amy, not just for information on Mary and Aaron but to gather intel about what he was up to.

At least I was right about one thing tonight.

“About my friends,” Smith said. “Where would they take Mary and Aaron?”

Amy shook her head again. “I don’t know.”

“You must have some ideas.”

“I don’t. I’m sorry.”

“How long have you been in Gaffney?”

“Long enough.”

“How long?”

“Two years.”

“And you don’t know where they would take Mary and her son? You don’t even have a single clue?”

Amy opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came out. She closed her mouth back up and seemed to think about it for a moment instead.

A moment turned into ten seconds.

Then twenty…

“Anything,” Smith said. “Tell me anything.”

“The ranch,” Amy finally said.

“What ranch?”

“Where they take people for what the Judge calls reeducation.”

Now where have I heard that before?

Ah, right. Blake.

“Where’s this ranch?” he asked.

“It’s nearby.”

“How near—”

The click of a door opening, followed by the sound of a man’s voice calling out, “Doc. You in there?”

Smith quickly stepped to his left, far enough that he was suddenly hidden behind the half-open curtain that separated the lobby and back of the clinic. The plastic sheet went all the way down to the floor, so he was assured his boots weren’t showing as whoever was on the other side walked over, the sound of their footsteps loud enough to wake the dead.

“Doc?”

“Yes,” Amy said, looking from Smith to the male figure approaching her.

“I heard voices,” the man said. “Who were you talking to?”

“Voices?”

“Yeah.” Then, with slightly more alarm in his voice, “Who were you talking to?”

“No one,” Amy said. “I was talking to myself.”

The voice belonged to Dunham, the man Smith had seen standing guard outside the Judge’s chambers back at the courthouse yesterday. He was still wearing the same faded Cornhuskers cap and had one palm resting on the butt of his holstered pistol as he stepped past the curtain and into the back room.

“You were talking to yourself?” Dunham asked.

“Yes,” Amy said. “I—” she continued, when her eyes shifted slightly to the right—right at Smith.

He didn’t think she’d done it on purpose. Or, at least, Smith didn’t want to think she had. It was probably a nervous tic on her part, trying to make sure if Smith was hidden well enough from Dunham.

Whatever the reason, the results were the same.

Dunham saw it and spun in Smith’s direction even as his hand grabbed and began drawing his sidearm. The first thing Smith noticed was the widening eyes, followed by the big nasty—and fresh-looking—scar that ran down his right cheek, starting from the bottom of one eye and ending next to the corner of his mouth. The man hadn’t had that when Smith saw him last time.

The surprised presence of the scar cost Smith almost half a second. Almost. But it didn’t stop Smith from drawing first and shooting Dunham once in the chest before the other man could even clear leather.

Well, this night’s going off the rails fast, Smith thought as he took a step toward Dunham’s body even as the man fell to his knees.

Smith shot the Judge’s man a second time, this one in the face because, fuck it, you could never be too sure these days.

Four

Footsteps around him, along with the echoing clop-clop-clop of shod horse hooves. Most of it was concentrated in the roads to his right even as Smith moved deeper into the darker parts of Gaffney. It was a good thing there were no lights along most of the buildings; the town concentrated most of their limited solar-powered LED light sources along the streets.

…a good thing there were no lights…

In another place, another time, Smith might have felt some trepidation about that little fact. Except he didn’t tonight, because the Judge’s men didn’t seem to have any concerns about moving around loudly—very, very loudly—as they hunted for him.

And that was exactly what they were doing: hunting. He was their prey.

Find me if you can, boys.

Smith thought about his brief conversation with Amy just before Dunham poked his nose into the clinic. Then, after Dunham was down for the count:

“You have to go,” Amy had said.

No kidding, he had thought but had answered her with, “This ranch. Give me a direction,” instead.

“South from here. You can’t miss it. It’s the only thing out there for miles.”

“How far?”

“Half a mile, maybe?”

“You’ve been there?”

“A few times, when they needed a doctor. But they wouldn’t let me see everything.”

“And that’s where they take people for reeducation?”

“Yes.”

“What else?”

Amy had shaken her head. “I don’t know. We’re not allowed out there without guards.” Then, quickly, as they heard the clop-clop-clop of approaching horse hooves, “You have to go.”

He didn’t go right away. First, he stared at her. “Are you going to tell them I was here?”

“I have to. But I won’t tell them what we talked about.”

“What will you tell them?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t figured that part out.”

“Painkillers.”

“Painkillers?”

“Tell them I came here looking for painkillers, but Dunham interrupted me first.”

“Okay.” Then, as Smith turned to leave, “You used to be Black Tide too, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Smith said, looking back at her.

“What happened to you?”

“Same as you, I’m guessing. I lost faith in the cause.”

Amy had nodded in reply but hadn’t said anything. She didn’t have to, either. Smith could read it on her face.

Then he left.

* * *

Mary and Aaron.

He was partially (Just partially? Okay, maybe more than partially.) responsible for them being here. And now, in danger. The Judge had put them in his crosshairs, and after what had transpired with Travis and the others, no doubt mother and son weren’t going to be allowed to just assimilate into Gaffney.

That was on Smith. He’d crossed the Judge, hoping he could end the man’s tyranny with a bullet. That hadn’t worked out, mostly because the Judge had had his own plans. One that didn’t include Smith returning to town alive.

You fucked up, fat man. You fucked up real good.

It was up to Smith to make the man pay, but not yet.

Not yet.

So Smith was headed toward the south end of town. To this ranch, wherever it was. He couldn’t remember seeing anything that would indicate there was a ranch out there. Then again, he didn’t even know Gaffney existed until he had his run-in with the Judge’s posse. When he’d scouted the town earlier, looking for a way in, he hadn’t ventured out far enough south to see everything. There hadn’t been any need to.

“The ranch,” Amy had said. “Where they take people for what the Judge calls reeducation.”

What was that Blake had told him about the Judge’s idea of reeducation?

“The Judge reeducates them,” she had said.

“‘Reeducates them’ how?” he had asked.

“It’s basically brainwashing. By the time he’s through with them, they think the Judge is the greatest person in the world.”

“How, exactly?”

“I don’t know. But I’ve seen the results. They’re not the same afterwards.”

Smith didn’t like the sound of that. His mind flashed through images of concentration camps and barbed wires. Was that what he would find once he reached this ranch? Anything was possible these days.

He listened to sounds of movements coming from his right. As long as they were on the other side of the buildings, he was in good shape. A part of him was hoping they’d confront him so he could thin their numbers some more. According to Amy, he was now dealing with ten.

Well, nine now, minus Dunham.

Nine was still a lot, but not as many as it had been just a few minutes ago. Smith wasn’t a math whiz by any means, but even he knew that nine was better than ten.

Now, if he could knock that number down some more…

Voices!

Smith stopped on a dime and all but lunged into a dark corner between two brick buildings, his right hand immediately stabbing down toward the holstered SIG Sauer. He didn’t draw the weapon, but he let it hover, waiting as he listened to the voices get closer.

They were approaching his position and making a hell of a lot of noises doing it, too. Either they wanted him to know they were coming, or they were just really bad at sneaking up on a target.

“Here?” someone said. Male. Young-sounding.

“Around here,” another voice said. Also male, also young-sounding.

“Where, exactly?”

“Nearby.”

“Be more specific.”

“I can’t.”

“You sure you even heard something?”

“Don’t be an asshole.”

“You’re the asshole.”

“Really? I call you an asshole, and you call me an asshole back? That’s mature.”

“You’re mature.”

“That’s what I meant.”

“Huh?”

“Exactly.”

“Whatever, man.”

Smith smirked to himself. Just what he needed tonight: A shitty comedy routine by two assholes.

“Where?” the first asshole said. He sounded much closer than the last time Smith heard his voice. “Here?”

“I already said nearby,” Asshole #2 said. “Now shut up. He might hear us.”

“If he’s here. You probably just saw a cat.”

“When was the last time you saw a cat in town?”

“Yesterday.”

“Where?”

“Behind the courthouse. Ask Tom.”

“I will.”

“You do that.”

Scintillating conversation, Smith thought. Simply scintillating.

He wanted to step out of hiding and put them both out of his misery out of pure spite, for forcing him to listen to them, but he didn’t. He could hear the clop-clop-clop of multiple horses nearby, on the other side of the approaching duo. That meant more men—more heavily-armed men—within earshot. He was eager to knock down the Judge’s numbers by a few more guns, but not if it meant having to outrun horses.

Of course, if he stuck to the back alleys, horses wouldn’t necessarily be that much of an advantage…

“Come on,” Asshole #1 was saying. “There’s nothing back there.”

“I heard something,” Asshole #2 insisted.

“No, you didn’t.”

“I did.”

“No, you didn’t. Or else there’d be something here. But there’s nothing here.”

“We should look some more.”

“We already have.”

“I mean, some more.”

“I’m bored.”

“You’re always bored.”

“I’m also sleepy.”

“You’re always sleepy.”

“Exactly. So why are you making me walk around back here when I’m bored and sleepy?”

The duo were standing about a dozen yards from where Smith hid in the shadows, but he could hear their breathing as well as their chatter as if they were right next to him. He could also see the shadowed barrels of their rifles across the dirty cement floor, the images elongated by the moon casting above them. He was reasonably certain he could take both out before they got off a shot, but it would have been pretty noisy.

Mary and Aaron. Find Mary and Aaron.

As much as he wanted to dispatch both assholes, Smith didn’t move. Right now, getting to Mary and Aaron was more important. As far as he knew, Amy hadn’t given him away. But that was just Smith having faith that she was on his side rather than the Judge’s. What if he was wrong?

He wasn’t.

Probably.

Footsteps again as the duo headed back in the direction they’d come from earlier. Back to the streets. Smith remained where he was, listening to them go. They were just as loud leaving as they had been coming.

Be a little louder why dontcha, boys.

When he couldn’t hear them anymore, Smith continued on his way, slipping through a series of back alleys and sticking to the rear of buildings. Stores, apartments, a VFW hall. Most of them were empty, like the majority of Gaffney. There was simply too much space and not enough people to occupy them. That was another reason he was confident he could avoid the Judge’s men as he made his way south.

A part of Smith wanted to turn back, to find the Judge instead of going after Mary and Aaron. After all, if he could take out the fat man, then all of this would be over. He could simply walk to the ranch and take Mary and her son. (Or he thought he could, anyway. It would probably not be that easy.)

But he didn’t.

Right now, he had to concentrate on getting Mary and Aaron back. He had to make sure they were safe. Even if he didn’t feel completely responsible for them being here, (Still trying to convince yourself, huh?) he had some culpability. That was all the reminder Smith needed to keep his nose out of other people’s business. How different would his last few days have been if he had stayed hidden when Peoples and his two pals showed up on the road?

But that was a moot point now. He was here, in Gaffney, and everything that had happened the last few days—Mary, Gaffney, Blake, and—

Blake.

Shit. He’d forgotten all about Blake.

Smith stopped and glanced north.

Toward the police station.

Blake was probably still inside it even now.

It took him about thirty seconds to decide what to do. Mary was south, but Blake was north. And Blake was closer…

Smith turned around and headed north. He told himself it wasn’t the blonde hair, the beautiful green eyes, or the amazing body, but who was he kidding? It was all those things. He was, after all, only human.

Five

Finding the police station was easy. Smith remembered it was in the center of town, which made it easy to locate even with just the moonlight to navigate with. He could have found it easier if he had access to the streets, but that was out of the question with the Judge’s men roaming around looking for him. Having decided to avoid conflict until it was absolutely necessary, Smith had to stay in the shadows.

There were no guards outside the station, but as Smith approached it, he glimpsed a figure on the rooftop. Smith quickly slid behind cover and watched as a man with a rifle appeared near the edge of the rooftop, looked around for a bit, before vanishing again.

The man was too far away and there was too much darkness for Smith to make out a face, but it was clearly a man. A lone guard. That was expected, given that the rest of the Judge’s guns were searching the town for Smith. Even now, he could hear them moving about the streets and the occasional doors opening and closing. What mattered was that they were behind him and not in front.

Smith waited for the guard to appear a second time, then didn’t move until the man had vanished once more. He hurried out from behind cover and made his way toward the police station, skirting around the corners of buildings until he was at the rear.

There was a back door, but it was locked. Smith took out his knife and waited.

There, the guard somewhere above him, crunching gravel under his boots as he neared Smith’s part of the building. After a while, the boots moved away, and when Smith couldn’t hear it anymore, he went to work on the lock.

It didn’t take long. There was just a simple tumbler lock that Smith was able to pry open with the point of the knife. He pushed the door open and stepped into a dark hallway on the other side.

He remembered the layout of the building from when he was last inside it, before Hobson came to fetch him to see the Judge. Smith fully expected a second guard—maybe even a third, but that was unlikely given the lack of manpower—inside. He got silence instead. Still, he made his way through the first corridor cautiously, listening for sounds of a presence other than his own.

It took him a good half hour just to traverse the first couple of hallways, but it couldn’t be avoided. Besides, he had plenty of time on his side. His watch had barely ticked past midnight, which still left him with a good six or so hours before sunrise. That was more than enough time to do everything he needed.

Easy does it.

Easy does it…

* * *

He wasn’t sure if it was surprise or relief on Blake’s face when Smith finally showed himself. The doors between the hallways were unlocked, so he hadn’t had any difficulty finding his way to the holding cells.

Blake jumped off the bench and ran over to the cell bars. “Jesus, you’re back!”

Smith quickly put a forefinger to his lips to shush her.

Blake understood and mouthed, “Oops. Sorry.” Then, in a lower voice, “I thought you were dead. Or being reeducated.”

Smith shook his head as he stared at her. Even locked behind bars as she had been for the last two days, she was…quite the sight. They hadn’t given her anything new to wear, and he could still smell lingering vomit on her clothes, and yet…

“What?” Blake said, squinting through the bars at him. There was just a small light hanging off the wall down the hallway, which was more than enough for him to make her out and vice versa.

“Nothing,” Smith said.

“No, there was something. What was it?”

“Just glad you’re okay, that’s all.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Have you seen where you are right now?”

“Good point.” Then, leaning even further against the bars until her cheeks were pressing against them, she peered down the hallway. Or tried to, anyway. “You snuck back in here?”

“Pretty much.”

“How’d you get away?”

“I made a deal with the Judge.”

“What kind of deal?”

The kind that got Mandy killed, Smith thought but didn’t say. Blake wouldn’t have reacted positively to the news of Mandy’s death and may even blame him for it.

Oh, who was he kidding? She would definitely blame him for it.

“Smith?” Blake asked. “What kind of deal did you make with that blob of a man?”

“The kind that got me out of town. But I’m back now.”

“Why?”

“Why?”

“Yeah, why? If you got out, why are you back?” She looked him up and down, her eyes lingering on the gun in its holster. Then, squinting at his face, “What’s going on? What are you doing back here?”

“I came back to make sure you were okay.”

“That’s all?”

“Among other things.”

“What other things?”

“I’m looking for my friend, Mary. I was told she was taken to be reeducated at the ranch.”

“The ranch?”

She knows about it, Smith thought, watching her carefully.

“Yeah, the ranch,” Smith said. “She’s at the ranch with her son right now. I’m going there to look for her. But I could use some help.”

“Me?”

“Why not?”

Blake didn’t take very long to think about it. “You have to get me out of here first.”

“I can do that.”

“How?”

“There should be a key.”

“It’s probably inside the lobby.”

Smith nodded. He’d thought the same thing. It didn’t make any sense for Hobson or the lone guard on the rooftop to carry the keys on him.

He was about to turn to go in search of those keys when Blake said, “Smith.” Then, when he stopped and turned back around, “I heard shooting earlier. Was that you?”

“Yeah.”

“So how many of the Judge’s men are we dealing with now?”

“Ten.”

“Did one of your victims happen to be Clarence?”

“He’s still alive, as far as I know.”

“As far as you know? What does that mean?”

“It’s a long story.”

“I have time.”

“Later,” Smith said, and hurried down the hallway before she could ask him any more questions.

The less he told her about Travis and yesterday’s ambush, the better. Because if he told her everything, he might have to reveal Mandy’s death, too. And right now, Smith wasn’t sure about how to do that quite yet. Maybe, if he was lucky, he would never have to.

Yeah, right. As if he’d been that lucky so far.

He made his way through the corridors and out into the lobby, but like before, not until he’d made damn sure he was the only one moving around inside the police station. He’d closed the door into the holding cells so he didn’t have to separate Blake’s movements from the rest of the building’s. Or his own. He could still hear the lone guard moving around on the rooftop above him, the man’s circular path crossing Smith’s twice as Smith made his way to the door that separated him from the lobby. If the guard had noticed anything going on below him, there was nothing about his steady movements that Smith could detect. Certainly, the guy didn’t sound very excited to be up there. The phrase going through the motions came to mind.

The keys to the cell doors were hanging from hooks near the door into the holding area. They were properly labeled, and Smith pocketed the one to Blake’s cell. Then he spotted the gun racks. Rifles, shotguns, and handguns. Smith helped himself to a few of them, including a Glock that he put behind his waistband, along with a spare magazine. Any more and he would have weighed himself down too much. Besides, if he needed to reach for the secondary pistol, he was probably already in trouble.

Blake was where he’d last seen her when Smith returned—leaning against the cell bars. “You’re back.”

He smiled. “You sound surprised.”

She shrugged. “I thought you might keep going.”

“Why would I do that? After coming here in the first place?”

“I dunno. Maybe you realized coming back here was a stupid idea and decided to rectify it.”

“You’re overthinking things.”

“Maybe. I tend to do that, sometimes.”

Smith opened her cell door, and Blake stepped outside.

“Do I get a gun?” she asked.

He handed her the Glock and the spare magazine, then the shotgun he’d also brought along. Blake gave him a surprised look as she took them.

“What?” Smith said.

“You’re giving them to me?”

“Yes.”

“What about you?”

Smith tapped his holstered SIG. “I have this.”

“Just the one?”

“How many do you think I need?”

She shrugged as she slipped the Glock behind her back, then turned the shotgun over in her hands. It was a Benelli M4 semiauto and looked a bit cumbersome in Blake’s smaller hands. She didn’t give it back to him, though.

“So what now?” Blake asked.

“The ranch,” Smith said.

“The ranch?”

“I’m going to the ranch.”

“What about me?”

“You can come with me, or you can go home. It’s up to you.”

Blake seemed to think about it. Then, “I’m coming with you.”

“You sure?”

“No, but it’s dark out there, and I don’t feel like walking around in the dark. I mean, it’s not like it used to be, but still…” She might have shivered slightly, but he couldn’t be entirely sure. “Safer with you.”

Smith chuckled. “You sure about that?”

“For now.”

You sure about that? he wanted to ask her but didn’t. If she wanted to stick around as he made his way to the ranch, who was he to tell her otherwise? Besides, he could use the backup. The Judge still had nine men that he knew about, even if he didn’t quite know how many more would be waiting for him at the ranch.

“All right,” Smith said. He glanced down at his watch. “We have five hours before sunlight. But I hear the ranch is nearby.”

“About half a mile,” Blake said.

“You know where it is?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve been there.”

“Sort of.”

“‘Sort of?’”

“I’ve seen it from a distance, but I’ve never been inside the property.”

“But you know where to find it.”

She nodded, if clearly reluctantly. “Yeah.”

“You sure you wouldn’t rather head right back to the junkyard? Last chance.”

Blake clutched the shotgun and looked down the hallway. “If I change my mind on the way there, I’ll let you know.”

She headed off, and Smith followed.

“You’ve been back at the junkyard?” Blake asked.

“Yes,” Smith said.

“How’s everything? How’s everyone doing?”

“Good, as far as I know,” Smith lied without missing a beat.

Six

“That’s it?”

“What were you expecting?”

“I don’t know. Barbed wire? Perimeter guards? This looks…”

“What?”

“Just like a hundred other ranches I’ve seen.”

“It’s not the exterior, but what’s inside it.”

“And what is inside it?”

“A place you want to avoid, because no one leaves the same.”

“Reeducation.”

“Yeah.”

“What exactly is that?”

“I don’t know, but when they come out of this place, they’re not the same.”

“But you don’t know exactly what happens in there.”

“No.”

So how do you know it’s as bad as you keep saying? Smith wanted to ask her but didn’t. He didn’t think it mattered anyway.

Blake, like most of Mandy’s people, had been taught to believe everything the Judge and Gaffney did were evil. For all Smith knew, it was true, but nothing he’d seen had really reinforced that. Sure, they weren’t exactly the greatest people, but he’d encountered plenty of folks in post-Purge America that were worse. Some were much, much worse.

But again, he kept those opinions to himself. Right now, Blake was providing him with backup. Not that Smith thought he needed it, but, well, it was better to have an extra gun watching your back than none at all. She seemed to believe everything she was saying, which was her prerogative, as long as she pointed the shotgun in the right direction.

He had to admit, though, that the ranch really didn’t look like much—a group of buildings spread out across a field, with two big two-story structures near the center and smaller ones surrounding them. There was a wooden fence that ringed the property, but Smith figured that was mostly for show because they certainly weren’t going to stop anyone from entering. A few lights dotted the place, but nothing that would point to the ranch’s existence from a distance if you didn’t already know it was here.

Fortunately for Smith, Blake knew where they were going, and they’d found it easily enough after about an hour of skulking their way out of Gaffney. They could have gotten here much sooner, but Smith had plenty of darkness to work with, so he was more than happy to take his time. Besides, morning was still a long way off.

“So what’s the plan?” Blake asked.

“Go in there, and find Mary and Aaron,” Smith said.

“And then what?”

“Get them out of there.”

“It’s not going to be that easy, you know.”

“Why not?”

“Why not?”

“Yeah, why not? I have surprise on my side. As far as the Judge’s people know, I’m still in Gaffney.”

“What about me?”

“What about you?”

“What happens when they find out I’m not in my cell anymore?”

“I don’t know. Probably that you’d run right back to the junkyard.”

“Makes sense. That would be the smart thing to do.”

Smith smiled. He was wondering how long it was going to take Blake to have second thoughts about following him out here.

He checked his watch just to be sure he still had plenty of nighttime to work with: 2:14 a.m. At least three hours, maybe a little more, before sunup. He didn’t think he’d need all of it; especially out here, in the open.

The open prairies were a lot safer these days in the aftermath of The Walk Out, but you still had to be careful. There were plenty of ghouls roaming about, some more daring than others when it came to potential prey. All he had to do was remind himself what had happened back at the junkyard when Gaffney attacked two nights ago.

Smith looked over at Blake, lying on the hillside next to him. They’d been at the same spot for about ten minutes now, waiting for signs that the ranch had guards on the perimeter. There were none that Smith could see, and Blake confirmed it. They were a good 200 meters (maybe more; it was hard to gauge distance accurately in the middle of the night) from the place, far enough that Smith felt good about not being spotted but close enough to see what he needed to. Or most of it, anyway. He considered getting closer but saved that for later. Right now, he just needed to get the lay of the land.

The hill they were on was wider than it was high. About twenty meters up and at least a football field at its base. It looked like a hump, sticking out of a mostly flat Nebraska field. There were similar ones around them, but this one was, by far, the highest; not that it was all that high to begin with.

“The house,” Smith said. “That’s where the reeducation takes place?”

Blake shook her head. “I don’t know. This is as close as I’ve ever gotten. I don’t know what happens in there, or where, exactly.”

There were lights hanging off the front of the big two-story building that was almost exactly in the middle of the property. Every ranch Smith had ever seen had a main structure that the ranchers lived in. This was it. The next-to-biggest building slightly to the left of it would be the barn. Smith could tell that by the red sides. Most barns out here were red.

Smith turned over until he was lying on his back. He looked up at the moon above them and thought about his next move.

“What are you thinking?” Blake asked.

“If Mary and Aaron are in there, I need to get to them. The problem is…”

“What?”

“I don’t know if they’re in danger or not. If they’re just being held here, then I could do more harm than good.”

“Smith, everyone who is brought here is in danger.”

So you keep saying, Smith thought but didn’t say.

He said out loud instead, “Maybe.”

He turned over until he was lying on the grass on his chest and belly again. Smith peered down the hillside at the property. It was certainly spread out, and it would be easy to get past the fence. After that, he could hop between the smaller buildings—supply sheds, he assumed—until he reached either the house or the barn.

The barn was two stories, with an arched second floor, and red all around. It was big enough to house a few hundred people—or plenty of stables for horses. That was likely where Gaffney kept their horses, and who knew what else. Smith was still wondering where the Jeep Travis had tried to run him down with had come from. That big barn was a good bet.

“It sounded like you didn’t believe me,” Blake was saying.

He looked over at her. “About what?”

“That this place is dangerous. That people don’t come here willingly.” She shook her head. “You didn’t sound like you believed me.”

“I believe you,” Smith said. It wasn’t a complete lie…but it wasn’t the complete truth, either.

“You sure about that, Smith?”

Mostly, he thought but said, “Yes.”

“Somehow, I don’t believe you.”

“Does it matter? You’re here. I’m here. And they’re here.”

Blake squinted back at him before smirking. “What does that even mean?”

“It means we’re on the same—”

He smelled it before he saw it.

“Blake!” Smith hissed even as he reached down for the SIG Sauer at his hip—and remembered that it didn’t have silver bullets.

Blake must have smelled it too, because she was already rolling over onto her back while reaching for the Benelli lying next to her on the ground, before he could completely get her name out.

It staggered up the incline toward them, the stink wafting off its body as it traveled.

A ghoul.

A lone ghoul.

It might have moved faster if it’d had two legs instead of the one and a half it was using to trudge up the hillside. Its right leg ended in a stump at the knee, but there was nothing wrong with its arms. Glossy black eyes, like glass marbles, glinted in the moonlight even as saliva flitted from its open mouth.

It could taste them. No, not them, but the blood pumping through their veins. Smith could see the hunger in its eyes, and he thought, How the hell didn’t I smell it before? Jesus Christ. How did it get so close?

Blake was lifting the shotgun and taking aim at the creature when Smith reached over and grabbed it before she could pull the trigger. Her eyes widened in shock as he wrestled the weapon from her grasp.

“What the hell are you doing?” Blake shouted. Too loud.

I hope no one back at the ranch heard that, Smith thought as he pulled the Benelli away from her.

“The ranch,” Smith said. “They’ll hear the blast.”

Blake instantly understood, not that Smith waited for the confirmation. He put the shotgun on the ground and drew the same knife he’d been using to pry his way through Gaffney’s locks all night from his left hip. The blade was coated with silver, which was the only thing that was going to stop the ghoul. And stop it quietly, which was the important part at the moment.

Fortunately for both of them, the creature was still far enough away that Smith didn’t have to rush. The knife was out and in his hand before the undead thing even did ten yards. It wasn’t exactly moving slowly, just awkwardly. He guessed that was what happened when you only had one good leg and a stump for the other one.

Not that the ghoul let its disability stop it. It scrambled up the hillside, eyes snapping from Smith to Blake and back again, as if it couldn’t quite decide which one of them to attack first. Finally, its hollowed-out black eyes settled on Smith—or maybe the silver-coated knife in his hand. It could probably smell the material, but if it was afraid of it, the ghoul didn’t stop. It kept coming.

“Stay here,” Smith said as he got up.

“Silver?” Blake asked.

“Uh huh.”

“Where’s mine?”

“I don’t know. Back at the police station?”

“You couldn’t have grabbed me one?”

“You didn’t ask.”

“Still...”

Smith scooted down the hill to meet the creature. It reached for him, and Smith lopped its right hand off at the wrist. Black blood spurted, but Smith managed to avoid the liquid as the creature toppled harmlessly to the side, then rolled back down the hillside—

Fuck, Smith thought as he smelled it.

Not the ghoul he’d just killed (re-killed?), but even more stink.

A lot more.

Three more ghouls, appearing out of the night at the base of the hill. These three had all their limbs and were scampering up the sloped ground, propelling themselves toward Smith with hands and legs working in unison. They looked more like crab monsters than things that used to be bipedal humans.

“Oh, shit,” Blake whispered behind him.

That sounds about right, Smith thought as he clutched the knife handle. Thank God for silver, otherwise he’d be forced to make a hell of a lot of noise to deal with these things.

The question, Where the hell did they come from? flashed across his mind for just a brief second before the threat of the moment took over and he stopped thinking and simply acted.

There were just three more of them, which he was grateful for. Any more, and he might question if he could handle them with just a knife. A small knife, at that. He couldn’t have used the SIG even if the bullets were silver; the gunshots would have alerted the ranch behind him, and that would ruin the element of surprise Smith was clinging to.

“Stay where you are,” Smith said without looking back at Blake. He heard movement back there as, he guessed, she rearmed herself with the Benelli.

“There’s three of them,” Blake said.

“I can deal with three.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

The ghouls didn’t show any tactical sense as they clambered up the hill toward him. There was no tact, no subtlety to their approach. Which was exactly how ghouls operated. They were base creatures that existed on primal instincts. They needed to feed, and he was the closest meal.

Well, he and Blake. But at the moment he stood between them and her, and if they even had eyes for her, he couldn’t see it in the almost rabid look on their pruned black faces as they zeroed in on him.

They were ugly. They’d always been ugly. It’d been years since The Walk Out, even longer since The Purge, but these things always reminded Smith that no matter how “normal” things seemed out here, they were far from what used to be. The world was irrevocably changed, and this was just a reminder of that sad fact.

“Smith?” Blake said from behind him. She sounded worried for some reason. Was she afraid he couldn’t handle three ghouls?

“Don’t do anything,” Smith said. “I’ll handle—”

The boom! of a shotgun blast left his ears ringing, and Smith spun around, ready to scream at Blake.

Except nothing came out of his mouth, because he knew why she’d fired. She didn’t have a choice, because there were ghouls climbing up the other side of the hill toward her.

There were three of them.

No, not three.

Four—five—more.

Blake was already on her feet and trying to keep her footing as she backed down the slanted ground toward him. The Benelli was a semiautomatic, so she didn’t have to rack the forend to reload the weapon. It was already reloaded, and all she had to do was pull the trigger to fire again.

Which she did now, and a ghoul about five yards from her stumbled as its head disappeared in a shower of buckshot. Not that that stopped the creature, as it continued to stagger after Blake, even minus a head.

Smith wished he could have said he’d never seen a sight like that before, but it would have been a lie. His time with Black Tide had exposed him to a lot more horrific sights, and this wasn’t even close to some of those.

Even so, it took him a second or two—or five—to get a handle on what was happening.

Not only were there ghouls behind him, but they were now in front of him, too. The creatures were coming at them from two sides. And whether they had purposefully tried to outflank them or not, that was exactly what had happened.

And oh, now that Blake had fired her shotgun—twice—it was a good bet the folks at the ranch were awake. If the Judge’s men didn’t know what was happening out here, they would get a pretty good idea very soon.

And just like that, Smith’s element of surprise went out the window.

Seven

It had never occurred to him that the shotgun he’d handed to Blake back at the police station might not have been loaded with silver buckshot. He’d just assumed they weren’t. After all, why would they be? Silver wasn’t exactly readily available before The Purge, and that hadn’t changed after. His instincts were proven correct when Blake blew the ghoul’s head off and it kept coming after her.

Well, this is going well.

It wasn’t, of course, but the snarky part of Smith couldn’t help but take it all in with a sense of resignation: The whole week hadn’t gone very well, so why would tonight be any different? Sure, he’d managed to skirt around Gaffney without getting shot and had even managed to thin out the Judge’s ranks some, but he had no illusions his luck was going to continue all day.

As it turned out, he was right.

Another boom! as Blake fired a second time, creating a hole in the sunken chest of the same ghoul that was charging her and sending the creature reeling backward on its heels. Not, Smith noticed with some amusement, because the blast had ended its life, but because the force of the 12-gauge shell had knocked it to the ground.

Not that Blake had any time to celebrate her sorta-victory. The other ghouls were already swarming, appearing over the top of the hill in front of her.

Christ, there were a lot of them. At least six that Smith could see, but the air was thick with their stench, telling him that there were a lot more in the area than just the ones he could pick out with the naked eye—

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up and Smith spun around, knife at the ready, as one of the three ghouls charging him from the base of the hill finally reached its target. He slashed, catching it across the bony chest. Normally that wouldn’t have stopped an attacking man, but this wasn’t a man. It was a ghoul, and to the creature, anything with silver was kryptonite.

It collapsed in front of Smith, going from lively (well, in a way) to lifeless in the blink of an eye. Frail legs ceased moving, and its thin body, the appearance of a malnourished child, tumbled to the grass in a heap of clacking bones.

Smith stepped to his right as the remaining two ghouls kept coming, even as Blake’s shotgun boomed once again behind him. Smith tuned her out and concentrated on the ghouls in front of him.

He stabbed a second undead thing in the face, the knife going right through the twin holes that used to be its nostrils and nearly out the back of its skull. Its bones were so weak, like papier-mâché, that it hadn’t taken very much force at all. Unfortunately, that wasn’t an advantage for Smith, because he’d struck with too much force and the knife went in too far and became lodged in the falling body, leaving him exposed as—

The third ghoul reached for him, icy cold fingers scraping against his right cheek as Smith jerked his upper body back to avoid it. He tried to pull the knife out of the second ghoul, but it was embedded too deeply, and ended up dragging the scraggly body with him instead. Thank God it was so light and weak, and it was like carrying a fake biology class skeleton instead of a real body, one that had some heft to it.

Smith lifted his right boot and kicked it against the dead ghoul’s chest—

Boom! from behind him, closer this time, as Blake fired again—

—and shoved it back, finally releasing the knife just as the third ghoul staggered toward him. It was having some difficulty maneuvering the incline up the hillside. Smith was too, but not nearly as much since he had two perfectly good working legs. The ghoul, on the other hand, was dragging its right leg behind it. Its face was smashed, like it’d been broadsided by a Mack truck before tonight. There wasn’t much left of its face at all except for two hollowed holes that used to house eyeballs, but no longer.

Goddamn that’s one ugly motherfucker, Smith thought even as he lunged at the ghoul and stabbed it in the chest, putting it out of its misery once and for all.

His right hand, gripping the knife tightly, was covered in black sludge. He wasn’t sure when that had gotten there. Probably when he’d stabbed one of the ghouls in the face, or maybe when he sank the knife into the third one’s chest—

Boom! Boom!

Blake, behind him, firing away.

Smith turned around just as she stumbled blindly into him. She was scrambling backward, not looking where she was going, only knowing that anywhere was better than the top of the hill where skeletal shadows were appearing, undeterred by however many shotgun blasts she’d sent their way.

“Smith!” Blake shouted. “I’m almost out!”

“Run!” Smith shouted.

She glanced over at him, eyes wide. “What?”

“Run!”

“Run?”

“Run!”

Smith ran, and Blake followed.

He hopped over two of the bodies, nearly lost his footing and fell on his face when he landed, but somehow managed to stay upright. Barely. The hill wasn’t very high, but it seemed to take way longer to get down to the base than it’d taken when they were climbing up it earlier.

“Smith!” Blake shouted.

Smith glanced over at her, running alongside him. She was reloading, shoving shells into the Benelli as she ran. And doing it very well, too, as if she’d done it many times before. For all he knew, she had, not that he wasted breath asking for confirmation.

“Where are we going?” Blake shouted.

“I don’t know!”

“You don’t know?”

“I don’t know!”

He shot a quick look over his shoulder at the dark figures pursuing them.

Five—six—ten.

He spent a second or two trying to comprehend their presence. How were there ten ghouls out here? And what were they doing out here in the first place? Did it have anything to do with the ranch? The creatures were drawn to human presence, but why hadn’t they attacked until now? Or did he and Blake just have the misfortune to stumble into their path while they were about to do just that? Why—

Two of the ghouls stumbled and lost their footing and began rolling down the hill. The sight would have been comical in any other situation, but not tonight.

“Watch out!” Smith shouted, pushing Blake out of the way.

He must have put too much effort into his shove, because she went down sideways on the grass even as one of the ghouls rolled between them and landed at the base of the hill. The creature unfurled its elongated limbs and snapped back up to its feet, turning just as Smith jumped down the last few yards and stabbed it in the forehead with the knife.

Boom! from behind him.

Smith spun around as Blake fired again—boom!—and tore a hole the size of his fist through the sunken chest of the second ghoul that had rolled down the hill after them. It staggered back but didn’t go down.

She fired a third time, and the creature’s head, already missing one side of its skull, vanished in a shower of buckshot.

“Blake, run!” Smith shouted.

She did just that, turning and following on his heels even as the rest of the ghouls came down the hillside after them. Another one tumbled down like a boulder, but the rest somehow managed to remain upright. They were fast, their lack of weight giving them additional speed, but Smith was in great shape, and so was Blake. He had no doubt they could outrun the creatures. Besides, even if they couldn’t, he still had the knife.

Smith clutched the blade, wishing badly he had silver bullets to use instead. A knife was fine, but he would have preferred to take out the ghouls from a distance instead of having to get up close and personal. All it would take was a bite or a scratch, and he could have easily been infected. Smith knew about men and women that went around the country killing ghouls as a profession. They called themselves slayers. It was a hell of a way to make a living and took some balls. Or a death wish.

“Smith!” Blake shouted.

“What?” Smith said.

“This is my last shell!” she said even as she shoved that last shell into the Benelli. She’d been carrying the spare rounds for the weapon in a pouch; that same pouch was bouncing freely and empty against her waist now.

He hadn’t seen it before, but there were speckles of black goo on Blake’s chin and cheek, and more clinging to the front of her clothes. He hadn’t realized how close the ghouls had gotten to her until now, but they’d been near enough for backsplash from the shotgun blasts to rain thick, coagulated blood on her. She looked okay, though, and was keeping up with him just fine. In fact, she was barely breathing hard.

No, that wasn’t true. She was starting to breathe hard.

And so was he.

Smith threw another glance over his shoulder.

There were six of them that he could see immediately, more in the back that he could only glimpse because they were either crawling or hobbling, having lost limbs—some, their heads—to Blake’s shotgun fire earlier. The ones with all their appendages were still coming but not catching up. They were fast, but Smith and Blake were faster.

For now, anyway. Sooner or later, they were going to get tired. They were only human, after all.

Meanwhile, the ghouls…

Not humans. Not anymore.

That was fine, though. Smith wasn’t panicking. At least, not yet. He still had the silver-coated knife, and Blake, her shotgun. True, the Benelli wasn’t going to kill a ghoul, but it could slow them down, especially if the buckshot was aimed at the right locations—like their legs. Ghouls could keep coming without legs, but they wouldn’t be nearly as fast anymore.

“Blake!” Smith shouted.

“What?” she shouted back.

“Get ready!”

“Get ready for what?”

“Aim for the legs!”

“What?”

“Aim for the legs!”

She squinted at him even as her breath hammered out between pale lips. “Are you crazy? Just keep running!”

“We can’t outrun them forever!”

She opened her mouth to argue—but stopped short. She understood exactly what he was getting at. It had taken a few seconds, but she got there eventually.

“Shit,” Blake said.

“Ready?”

“No!”

“On the count of three!”

“Wait, wait.”

“What?”

“Is that one-two-three, or three-two-one?”

Smith couldn’t help but laugh. “One-two-three.”

“Okay. Gotcha. Just wanted to make sure.”

“You sure, now?”

“Yup.”

“Sure, sure?”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Just do it, smartass!”

Smith grinned, then glanced back again to check on their pursuers. He couldn’t smell them anymore. The air was too crisp, too clean, and the creatures hadn’t managed to taint all of their surroundings yet.

Four of the ghouls were getting closer. Close enough that Smith could see the black of their eyes widening at the sight of him looking at them.

Damn, they’re ugly.

“One!” he shouted.

He glimpsed Blake clutching the Benelli next to him, getting ready. Like him, she didn’t break stride for one second.

“Two!”

Smith mentally prepared himself, and thought, I hope this works.

“Three!”

Eight

Smith acted first, stopping on a dime and spinning around. The knife was already back in its sheath on his left hip even before he drew the SIG Sauer with his right hand. The gun came out smoothly, like it always did. The move was instinctive, like breathing. He could have done it in his sleep, with his eyes closed, and without any feelings in any of his extremities.

He shot the first ghoul while it was about fifteen yards away, and the creature stumbled as its right leg buckled underneath it, the tibia bone cracking audibly as the 9mm round shattered it on impact. The nightcrawler pitched forward and slammed into the ground on its face, and was instantly attempting to pick itself back up. He fired again, striking it in the kneecap of its other leg, and the creature fell back down on its chest.

Smith felt queasy watching it, once again, attempt to get up. Instead, it began dragging itself forward with its hands, its head angled and eyes glaring back at him almost accusingly.

He retreated even while focusing on the next ghoul as it ran past the first one.

Boom! from his right as Blake fired and the left leg of the second undead thing vanished in a shower of buckshot. The creature collapsed to the ground. Like the one Smith had fallen, this one quickly attempted to pick itself up but found the task difficult now that it only had one functioning leg to work with.

The ghoul raised its right hand as if to ward off Blake’s next shot. It didn’t work. Buckshot tore away its fingers and continued on, also taking most of its right leg.

The creature slumped harmlessly to the grass.

A third ghoul leapt over its fallen brethren, but even before it had landed back on the slightly damp ground, Smith shot it—and missed. The bullet pierced the creature’s left leg but missed the bone entirely, before exiting the other side.

Dammit, he thought, hating the very idea of wasting a bullet, even though the gun was still heavy in his hand with its mostly-full magazine.

Blake did the job for him, taking the speeding creature’s left leg out from underneath it. The emaciated figure fell five yards from Smith, who was still backpedaling. Before it could stagger back on its one remaining leg, Smith crippled it at the kneecap with, this time, a sure shot.

“You owe me,” Blake said.

“Yeah, yeah,” Smith said.

Two more, coming fast.

Smith pivoted and fired, and this time hit his target where he aimed. Even before the ghoul could completely collapse to the ground, Smith shot it again, taking out its other leg from underneath it.

Blake finished off the last one with two blasts, and it, too, fell in a pile to the tall grass. A brief second later it was trying to claw its way toward them, dragging its elongated form by its hands, one inch at a time.

“Go!” Smith said, even as he turned and went back to running.

Blake jogged next to him. She had already thrown away the Benelli and was now holding the Glock. Like Smith’s SIG, her pistol was loaded with regular bullets. That wasn’t going to help them if more able-bodied ghouls showed up.

Fortunately, Smith couldn’t see more behind, to the sides, or in front of them. That was the good news. The bad news was that they had made a hell of a lot of noise, and there was no way the people at the ranch hadn’t heard all the commotion. No way in hell. The shotgun blasts by themselves was bad enough, but Smith had joined in with his pistol.

Yup. They definitely heard that, all right.

Which left him with only two options that he could see:

One was to keep retreating and hope no one from the ranch pursued them. If there was even a pursuit, that is. At the moment, Smith wasn’t sure. Would the Judge’s men come out of their sanctuary in the middle of the night, or would they take precautions? People that survived The Purge, while still not fearing the night the way they used to, were smart to be wary of it.

The other option…

Smith began to slow down.

Blake didn’t notice until she was a few paces ahead of him. After a few yards, she slowed down too, and looked back at him. “What are you doing?”

“Wait.”

“Wait for what?”

“Wait a minute.”

“Why?”

Smith slowed into a walk. He turned around and looked back toward the pursuing ghouls. He could still see them back there, but the threat was gone. The one-legged ones were hobbling in their direction while the headless ones were still far, far away. So much so that Smith could barely make out their thin outlines in the background.

Blake waited for him to catch up to her. “What? What is it?”

“The ranch,” Smith said.

“What about it? They would have heard all that. We have to get out of here before they come out to check.”

“Right. That’s what I’m counting on.”

Smith turned and went up the side of the hill, back toward the top. He thought he might have heard Blake sighing, just before hearing her moving behind him on his heels. If she’d kept running, he wouldn’t have blamed her one bit because even he wasn’t entirely sure what the hell he was doing.

And what was he doing?

Probably something stupid.

Again.

“Keep an eye on them,” Smith said even as he climbed the last few feet to the top of the hill and flopped down on his belly. He hadn’t bothered to elaborate on what “them” was. He assumed it would be obvious to Blake. He hoped it was, anyway.

Smith didn’t glance back to check on her but instead peered through the darkness at the ranch spread out about two hundred yards, give or take, in front of him.

Lights had come on along the house in the center, as well as around the big red barn nearby. He thought he could see shadows flitting across the windows of the two-story house but couldn’t be certain from this distance. He knew one thing for sure: His and Blake’s little adventure hadn’t gone unnoticed.

“Smith,” Blake said from behind him.

He glanced back at her. She was crouched a few feet away, the Glock in her hand, while her eyes were glued down the hill and toward the approaching ghouls. Smith couldn’t quite see them, but he thought he could smell them. Barely.

“What are we doing?” Blake asked.

“My guess is they’re going to send a party out here to find out what’s happening,” Smith said.

“So, shouldn’t we be running?”

“No.”

“No? What do you mean, no?”

“I mean, if they’re going to send people out here, there’s a good chance they might spot us, then run us down. I can’t outrun horses. Can you?”

“Of course not. I’m fast, but I’m not that fast.”

“It’s a big ranch,” Smith said, turning back around. He still couldn’t see anyone outside on the ranch property, but there was definitely activity happening inside the barn. He pictured the Judge’s men saddling up. Or maybe getting another car ready. How many cars did they have, anyway?

“And?” Blake was saying.

“And they can’t watch every inch of it. If they send people out here to see what’s going on, that’s less people to notice us going in.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“You are serious.”

“I just said yes.”

“But they’ll be alert now, not sleeping like before.”

She’s got a good point.

Even so, Smith thought his plan was a decent one. He didn’t like the idea of running around out here in the open, and potentially being run down by men on horses. The people at the ranch may have been alerted, but that still didn’t mean they could watch every corner of the place. And it was a big place, too, surrounded by rickety fencing that couldn’t keep out a crawling toddler.

“Smith?” Blake said. “This is a dumb idea.”

“I need to find out what’s happening in that place. Don’t you? Have any of you guys been in there?”

“No…”

“So here’s your chance to find out what this ‘reeducation’ is all about.”

“Yeah, but…”

“This is our best chance.”

“How you figure that?”

“We have a distraction. The ghouls. When they get out here, the Judge’s men will be dealing with them.”

“That’s not going to take them very long. Unlike us, they probably have silver bullets.”

Smith couldn’t help but agree with that. Out here, in the open, the people at the ranch would be dumb not to at least have silver bullets lying around, just in case.

“Long enough,” he said.

“You hope.”

“Yup.”

He picked himself up from the ground, then turned around and took the knife out of its sheath and handed it to her. “Take it.”

“What?” Blake said, staring at the knife.

“I’m going to the ranch to find my friends. I owe it to them. But you don’t owe them anything, so you can take off. You already paid me back by coming here with me. You don’t need to do anything else.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

She squinted at him. It was dark but not dark enough for him to see the momentary confusion, followed quickly by annoyance on her face.

“Go,” Smith said, motioning with the knife for her to take it.

Blake shook her head. “No.”

“No?”

“I’m coming with you.”

“Are you crazy?”

“Are you?”

He grinned. That was a good question.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said.

She smirked. “I know that. I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to, but I’m doing it anyway.”

“Why?”

“I want to know what’s happening in there, once and for all.”

“That’s all?”

“You need more?”

“No,” Smith said, and put the knife away.

He stood up on the hill, looking back down at the base. He could see a couple of ghouls getting closer, but they were still just silhouetted stick figures underneath the moonlight. Not dangerous whatsoever to them.

He turned back around and stared at the ranch.

There was continued activity inside the big red barn, but no one had shown themselves yet. That wasn’t going to be the case all night, though. The Judge’s men would come out to investigate the shooting. If he were lucky, they’d bring a lot of men, leaving just a few to watch all the many ways into the property behind them.

If he were lucky.

“Let’s go,” Smith said, and began hopping down the side of the hill.

“Smith,” Blake said behind him.

“What?”

“If you get me killed, I’m going to kill you.”

Smith grinned to himself. He hadn’t thought it was possible, but he was liking Blake more and more. Of course, it could just be his little head talking, but he didn’t think so.

Not entirely, anyway.

Nine

Three horses left the barn and trotted across the ranch grounds, heading for the hills. It was too dark for Smith to get a proper look at the makeup of the riders. It didn’t help that he and Blake were hidden about fifty meters away, hiding among the tall grass as the ranchers streaked toward the source of the gunfire earlier. If any of them even noticed Smith and Blake, no one stopped to investigate.

“They don’t see us,” Blake whispered. She didn’t really have to since they were so far away from the closest rider.

“No,” Smith said. “Let’s keep it that way.”

“Am I being too loud?”

“No.”

“It feels like I’m being loud.”

“You’re not. Relax.”

“Relax. Right. Just a walk in the park.”

Not quite, Smith thought as he pushed himself up onto his knees, then scanned the ranch in front of them.

The lights he’d seen come on earlier had remained lit, but there wasn’t any additional illumination. Three warm bodies had come out of the place, so how many were left? That was the question. One that he wasn’t particularly interested in finding out. If Smith had his way, he’d find Mary and her son and get the hell out of here.

Like you’ve had things go your way all week.

He checked his watch, the hour and minute hands glowing along with the indices in the darkness. Three-fifteen. He still had plenty of time before sunrise. Not a lot, but enough to do everything he needed to.

Blake got up onto her knees next to him and brushed at dirt clinging to her clothes. “So we’re really going to do this?”

“Having second thoughts?”

“Second thoughts? I’m already on fifth thoughts.”

Smith smiled. “You can still turn back.”

“Nah. I came this far; I might as well go through with it.”

“You know you don’t have to.”

“You keep telling me that.”

“It’s true, though.”

“Yeah, well, we’ve always wondered what was going on in this place.”

“You guys never tried to find out?”

“We scouted the place lots of times, but there were always too many guns around. Mandy decided the best way to free the people here was to take out the Judge. That was the plan, anyway.”

“Having fifth thoughts about that, too?”

“No.” She paused for a moment. Then, “Maybe a little.”

“Let’s find out what’s going on in this place,” Smith said, and got up.

He jogged across the field toward the nearest fence. There wasn’t any barbed wire, and it was easy to slip through two of the three pieces of rickety lumber. Blake followed suit and did likewise until they were both inside the perimeter.

Smith went down on one knee again, his right hand casually next to his holstered SIG. Oh, how he wished he had silver bullets. Not that he needed them to take out another warm-blooded human being, but he didn’t know what was waiting for him further inside the ranch.

That was the problem: He just didn’t know what he’d find.

He eyeballed the distance to the closest building. About 70 meters, give or take. It looked like some kind of supply shack. Not very big at all, but perhaps just enough room for a couple of shelves and tools on top of them. Wooden sides, faded white paint making it just barely stand out in the semidarkness.

“Ready?” Smith said.

“Yeah,” Blake said.

They got up and jogged over to the shack, when the first pop! of a rifle shot rang out from behind them.

Smith immediately went down on one knee even as his right hand dipped to his holstered sidearm. He didn’t draw the pistol, though, because the shot hadn’t been directed at him.

It had come from the other side of the hill.

Two more shots: Pop-pop!

Then the bang! of a handgun.

A series of shots, about a dozen in all, followed.

He exchanged a glance with Blake, crouched next to him. She had the Glock in her hand.

“They definitely have silver bullets,” she said.

Smith nodded. “Yeah, sounds like it.”

He knew that because the riders hadn’t continued shooting. Instead, they had only fired about a dozen times—which was about the same number of ghouls that Smith and Blake had left in their wake around the base of the hill. If the riders weren’t properly armed, then they would have been forced to keep shooting since the nightcrawlers wouldn’t have stayed down.

But they hadn’t. There was just silence in the fields around them again.

“Come on, before they come back,” Smith said.

He got up and jogged the rest of the way over to the shack. Blake was right behind him, then beside him when he finally reached his destination. They slid up against the cold wall, keeping to the darkest part of the building.

Smith glanced back toward the hill—a big hump in an otherwise flat land—but there were no signs of the riders. Right now, he imagined them performing some kind of investigation, trying to figure out what had happened earlier. They would have no doubt noticed the way the ghouls were crippled and put two and two together.

He looked over at the big barn, about fifty meters away. The house was in front of it—another fifty meters or so. The other structures—some bigger than the one they were hiding behind now, others about the same size—were spread out, though they were clustered around the eastern part of the ranch. Smith hadn’t realized that when he was looking at the place from the hillside. He guessed that had something to do with his angled perspective while he was up there.

The barn wasn’t much to look at up close—big, red, and ugly. The colors along the walls and slanted roof on the second floor were badly faded and peeling, with just as much strips of brown and white as there were sheets of red. Twin double doors at the front, with two large windows above them that gave the front of the structure the appearance of a menacing creature with wooden teeth.

“What now?” Blake asked. She was still whispering, small wisps of white clouds coming out between her lips every time she spoke. It had gotten noticeably colder, though not enough for Smith to wish for a jacket.

“The house,” Smith said.

“That’s pretty far away.”

“It’s not that far.”

“It’s pretty far.”

“Is it?”

She gave him a look that might have been annoyance. Or worry. “Is there something wrong with your eyes?”

“I don’t think so.”

He got up and hustled around the shack, moving in a straight line toward the next closest one. It was also white but had recently been repainted, and seemed to almost glow in the shadows. Smith slid up against it, with Blake doing likewise next to him a second later.

“Might want to give me a heads-up next time you move, handsome,” she said.

Smith glanced over at her. “Handsome?”

“What?” Blake said.

Smith smiled, and said, “Ready?”

“Where are we going now?”

“The house.”

“Not the barn? It’s closer.”

He shook his head. “We’d need to run across the property to reach the barn. The house may be farther, but we won’t have to expose ourselves to reach it. Stick to the shadows.”

She nodded. “Makes sense.”

“Does it?”

Blake shrugged. “As much as anything that’s happened tonight makes any sense, I guess.”

He moved again, and they hopped from building to building, eventually passing the barn all the way across the property. To reach it, they would have had to race across open grounds. It was still dark enough and there weren’t any bright lights to illuminate them if they’d tried it, but it was more risk than he was willing to take. This way, they could remain along the outskirts of the ranch by sticking to its darker parts.

It wasn’t hard to key in on the house—besides the barn, it was the only one with lights illuminating its frame. There were three that Smith could see: One above the double front entrance and two hanging off the corners from posts. He could also make out additional lights on the other side of a window along the first floor. There were more windows on the second, but those remained dark.

There was only one more shack before the house—this one was double the size of the first and had a fading mural of what looked like two kids playing on the side—and Smith and Blake reached it just as—

Voices, coming from the other side.

Smith flattened his back against the cold, wooden wall, his right hand dipping and scraping the butt of the SIG Sauer. Blake stiffened next to him, the Glock still clutched tightly in her right hand.

They exchanged a look, even as they heard a male voice speaking—not quite crisply but clearly enough to indicate he wasn’t very far—to someone: “…how many?”

The “someone” that answered was electronically muffled, telling Smith the other party was talking through a radio speaker: “A dozen.”

“That’s more than last time,” the nearby voice said. “They must know about the barn.”

“Yeah, but how?” the muffled voice said.

“I don’t know. Maybe they can smell each other.”

“They can do that?”

“How the hell should I know?”

“You said it.”

“It’s just a guess.”

Smith’s mind raced, trying to piece together the conversation.

“…a dozen…”

“…more than last time…”

“…smell each other…”

Ghouls, he thought. They’re talking about the ghouls at the hill. I guess this isn’t the first time ghouls have shown up at the ranch.

Then there was this:

“…they must know about the barn…”

The barn. The big, red barn that Smith and Blake had run past, because trying to reach it was too risky. (And now, knowing that there was a man outside, somehow hidden from them until now, was confirmation Smith had made the right choice.)

What was inside the barn? And why had it attracted ghouls? And not for the first time either, apparently.

What’s inside that barn?

Smith could see the puzzled look on Blake’s face. Maybe she’d even put the same pieces together as he had.

The man talking didn’t sound very far from them. Maybe twenty or so meters, standing somewhere between them and house. They might not have been able to hear him so clearly if the night wasn’t so quiet around them. He had to have come from the house. He was also alone as far as Smith could tell, because Smith hadn’t heard a second voice out there piping up. If there was someone else, they were being extremely quiet. Smith didn’t think so, though.

“…what happened?” that same man asked now.

“Looked like a fight,” the muffled voice answered, still coming through a radio speaker. “They didn’t have the right ammo. Shot the legs from under the ghouls. Looked like it worked; nightcrawlers were hobbling around while they skedaddled.”

“Can you track them?”

“It’s too dark. I can barely see shit out here.”

“You have flashlights.”

“There’s just three of us. Don’t know if we should even bother.”

“They came here for a reason. If those ghouls didn’t stumble across them, who knows what they were up to.”

“What did Gaffney say?”

“About what?”

“The shooting we heard earlier.”

“Some guy with a gun.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all they told me.”

Sounds like they’re talking about me, Smith thought. If true, he was surprised that he was just “some guy with a gun.” Heck, a man might be justified in feeling a little insulted by that description.

I guess I didn’t make the kind of impression I thought I did.

“Far as I know, they might still be around here,” the man on the other side of the radio said. “You see anything over there?”

There wasn’t an immediate answer. Smith imagined the man standing in front of the house, scanning the ranch grounds looking for potential intruders.

Finally, the man answered. “No. All quiet.” Then, “Get back to the ranch.”

“Roger that,” the voice on the radio said.

Smith remained still, his right hand close enough to the SIG he could draw it without even thinking about it. He listened to the soft crunch of boots moving around the hard Nebraska ground on the other side of the shack.

Next to him, Blake was just as silent and still, even if the look on her face told him everything: If she’d been having second thoughts (or fifth, as she had claimed earlier), then it was onto the sixth now.

The very loud squawk of a radio, followed by the same man asking, “You ready?”

“Ready?” Smith thought. Who is he talking to now?

There was no answer.

Instead, the man said, “Hit it.”

“Hit it?” Smith thought, just before floodlights snapped on all around them, and suddenly they were no longer so “hidden” next to the shack.

Smith sighed, and thought, And there goes my final element of surprise!

Ten

Smith only had two choices that he could see: Run or fight.

The former was the smarter choice. He was still unexposed, even if he was surrounded by pools of bright artificial light. In theory, he and Blake could take off east, away from the shack they were hiding behind. If they ran fast enough, and if the man they were listening to happened to be staring in the wrong direction—that was, anywhere but toward them—they could make it to the dark parts of the ranch and out of the lights before he could spot them.

Like cockroaches, running away from the light.

Is that it? Am I a cockroach now?

He didn’t like that idea. Even if the man didn’t notice them right away, he would likely hear them fleeing. He would turn, and the gig would be up. He’d radio his friends back at the hillside, and they’d come storming on horseback.

And then what?

Smith couldn’t outrun a horse. He was fast, but he wasn’t that fast.

And neither was Blake.

So what about the latter option? Fight?

The problem with that one was that, yeah, he could take out the speaker, but what about whoever—or however many—were still in the house? There could be two or three or ten of them in there, just waiting for an excuse to come out and shoot him dead. That is, if they heard him taking out their guy.

Smith still had the knife, and if he could reach the man before he was spotted…

“What the hell are you doing?” Blake hissed.

Smith wasn’t aware that he’d made his decision even while he was doing it, but suddenly he had pushed away from the wooden siding of the shack and stepped out into the open.

No turning back now!

His eyes blinked violently, trying to fight back the spotlights attacking him from different angles. There were at least a dozen lights strategically placed around him, encircling the ranch property, on tall poles that he hadn’t seen before in the dark. Or as much “encircling” as was possible with only twelve of them against such a big swath of land. They were wisely concentrated around the house and barn, along with the shack Smith and Blake had been hiding behind. There was the very loud hum of a generator in the background, coming from somewhere behind the house.

But Smith could only focus on the stabbing pain in his eyeballs, because goddamn it was bright all around him. Or maybe it wasn’t that bright but only appeared so because he’d been skulking around in the darkness for so long. Whatever the truth was, his head was spinning as he pushed through the discomfort.

There was no choice now. It was run or fight.

And he didn’t feel like running.

Smith’s right hand hovered over his holstered sidearm even as his left dipped, found, and jerked on the handle of the knife in its sheath along his left hip. The weapon—the same one he’d been using to stab ghouls all night—was nine inches long, with five of that made up of a double-edged, silver-coated blade. The handle was black rubber and cold against his palm but also strangely very reassuring as he slid it out of its housing.

When he made his move, Smith had turned toward where he’d last heard the owner of the voice speaking to the other man on the radio. He was hoping the guy was still there and hadn’t moved very much.

He was.

Tall and gangly, wearing a black jacket and cargo pants that might have made him blend in with the night if he wasn’t standing in a thick pool of bright light. He had a long beard that drooped down halfway to his chest and was, of course, armed. The man had a gun belt with a pistol still in its holster, and there was a rifle slung over his back, the black plastic buttstock jutting out from behind his right shoulder. He held a radio in his right hand even as he scanned the property, left hand shielding his eyes because apparently even he was somewhat caught off guard by the sudden flood of lights.

Well, at least it’s not just me!

It didn’t take the man very long to either hear, sense, or smell Smith’s presence, though. He began turning around, even as his right hand—with the radio—fell to his side. That was going to be problematic, Smith thought, because the man would have to drop the portable two-way first before he could grab his weapon.

A problem for the guy, but good for Smith, because it gave him additional time to take four quick steps toward the man, cutting the distance between them even further. Twenty meters became eighteen, then sixteen, then fifteen before the man’s hand released the radio and he went for his gun. He was at least smart enough to reach for the pistol instead of trying to unsling his rifle, which would have taken even more time.

The knife was already in Smith’s hand. He switched it to his right—he was shit with his left and had never made any effort to be ambidextrous—and raised it while gripping the sharp silver-coated point. He wasn’t going to need the precious silver for this, because his target was very much human.

Smith flung the blade and it—embedded into the man’s left palm.

Sonofabitch, Smith thought even as he watched the Gaffney man open his mouth and let out a surprised grunt. It didn’t actually sound like pain, but more surprise, if the look on his face was any indication.

Smith shared that emotion, because he hadn’t expected the guy to lift his left hand in an attempt to ward off the knife. But he had, and instead of landing in his chest where Smith was aiming, the blade had gone through the guy’s palm, the sharp end coming out the other end.

All right. Let’s do this the hard way, then.

Not that he had any choice now. He was still too far away to make up the distance and reach the man first before he could pull his gun. Thirteen meters, give or take. Not far, but not close enough, either.

And the guy was already drawing his weapon. It looked like a Glock.

Smith beat him to it, pulling the SIG and shooting the man in the forehead even as Tall and Gangly dropped his left hand—with the knife sticking out of it—while he raised his own weapon with his right.

He ran toward Tall and Gangly even as the man slumped to the ground, his drawn gun falling soundlessly beside him.

“Blake!” Smith shouted.

He didn’t look back to see if Blake had heard him or was responding. He streaked toward the fallen man and snatched the fallen gun—he was right; it was a Glock G34—and shoved it behind his waistband. He didn’t bother searching for a spare magazine along the man’s pouches or pockets, even though he was sure there would be at least one somewhere. There was no time. Instead, Smith pulled his knife out of the man’s palm and sheathed it, then rolled the dead body over—the man’s eyes glared back at him—and wrestled the rifle free.

It was an AR-15 with a collapsible stock. Like with the Glock, Smith didn’t bother searching for extra mags for the rifle. He stood back up even as Blake ran toward him, the sound of her footsteps reaching him just before—

Clop-clop-clop!

Horses, coming from the other side of the ranch.

Smith glanced over just as the first of the three riders appeared out of the darkness, flying across the property in their direction.

One horse, then two—then three.

“What now?” Blake was shouting as she reached him.

Smith whirled back toward the house, less than thirty meters away. He was shocked no one had burst out through the double doors yet, and he couldn’t see anyone moving around in any of the windows, on the first or second floor. Was it possible Tall and Gangly was the only one left in the place? Was he that lucky?

I can’t be that lucky.

Could I?

He turned, looking toward the barn, on the other side of the property. He couldn’t miss it. It was broad and red and practically shining underneath all the bright spotlight. No one was flooding out of it, either.

…underneath all the bright spotlight…

Shit. They were standing out in the open, looking very much like sitting ducks right now. Even a blind man could pick them off with a rifle.

Smith considered his options.

He had, again, just two: Run or fight.

No, that wasn’t true. There was a third option this time.

Take cover.

Smith ran toward the house.

“Where are you going?” Blake asked as she ran after him. He assumed she was on his heels. Just to be sure, Smith glanced back—

Yup, there she was, chasing after him, even if the look on her face was one of puzzlement and…was that annoyance?

Yeah, that was definitely annoyance.

“Smith!” she shouted when he didn’t answer fast enough.

“Taking cover!” he shouted back.

“Where?”

“The house!”

“Are you kidding me?”

The loud, air-splitting pop! of an incoming gunshot answered Blake for him. The round zipped over his head and pekked! against one of the double doors of the house, splintering wood as it embedded into the heavy frame.

Don’t be locked, Smith thought. Don’t be locked!

What were the chances Tall and Gangly had locked the doors after coming out of the building? That seemed unlikely. Besides, Smith hadn’t seen any keys on the man. Of course, he hadn’t exactly searched the body thoroughly—

Pop-pop-pop!

He ducked his head instinctively as the gunshots fought with the clop-clop-clop of storming horse hooves. Both sounds were getting louder as they neared. That was all the incentive he needed to run faster. The other reason to do so was bullets buzzing around him, more than a few of them striking the house in front of him.

Another round went into the door, while two others knocked loose chunks of brick and mortar along the walls that flanked the entryway. Puffs of dirt erupted in front and alongside him as other bullets fell short.

Smith thanked God the shooters were on horseback. Even the best marksman would have trouble hitting a moving target from a hundred or so meters away while sitting in the saddle of a galloping animal. He knew he would, and Smith was a better shot than most people.

“Shit!” Blake shouted just before she appeared on his right.

For a second, before she ran past him.

Damn, she’s fast.

Of course, she wasn’t carrying an extra sidearm and a rifle—

The AR. Why the hell was he carrying it? It was only slowing him down. Besides, if they made it into the house, a rifle was only going to become a liability in the small and probably cramped quarters.

Smith tossed the weapon and picked up speed. Or he thought he did, anyway. He was probably just telling himself lies again.

Blake reached the doors first, grabbed one of the handles, and began pulling it open—

Pop! followed by a pek! as a chunk of thick oak wood broke apart two feet above her head, showering her with splinters.

“Goddammit!” Blake shouted as she ducked her head instinctively.

She pulled the door—and it opened.

My lucky day! Smith thought as he watched Blake lunging inside.

Smith didn’t hesitate and followed her in. He spun on his feet and slammed his shoulder into the door even as the pop-pop-pop of rifle fire continued. He pushed and felt, as well as heard, the pek-pek-pek! of rounds striking the heavy slab of wood on the other side as he shoved it closed and back into its frame.

Bam! as the door landed, and Smith thought the entire house shook from the effort.

Smith searched for, found, and slid the large and heavy deadbolt into place.

“Smith,” Blake said from behind him. She sounded strangely calm.

“What?” Smith said as he took one, then two steps away from the door.

“Smith,” Blake said again. That time, there was something in her voice that wasn’t so calm.

What now?

He turned, his right hand dipping toward his hip and the holstered SIG.

Blake was in front of him, but there was another figure standing just inside a back hallway, holding a shotgun across the living room at them.

“I think you folks snuck into the wrong house,” the woman said.

Yeah, I think so, too, Smith thought.

Eleven

.3 seconds.

That was how long it would take Smith to draw and shoot the SIG from the hip. The fastest he’d ever managed the feat, when he still gave a damn about measuring such things, was .220 seconds.

But Smith had gotten slow in his old age. That, and the lack of opposing fast draws to test his speed, meant he’d let himself slip a little. Or a lot. How much he’d gotten slower was yet to be determined.

So, .3 seconds.

Give or take.

It wasn’t a very long time at all. The average human took anywhere from .2 to .25 seconds to react to something. So, in theory, Smith should be able to draw and fire and hit the woman where she stood—about fifteen meters away, on the other side of the living room—before she could get off a shot of her own.

In theory, anyway.

The reality was more problematic.

For one, Blake was in his way. The blonde stood almost exactly in front of Smith, hindering enough of his vision that he could only see a portion of the gunwoman standing on the other side of her. Not that Smith missed the pump-action shotgun in her hands or the fact she was wearing a one-piece cotton nightgown with floral arrangements. Clearly, the woman had been woken up in the middle of the night by all the gunfire.

That was the first problem.

The second was that the woman’s weapon was aimed squarely at Blake, who stood about a full meter in front of Smith. If she pulled the trigger, Blake was dead. And depending on what kind of shell that shotgun was loaded with, some of the buckshot that ended Blake’s life would also find its way to Smith. He’d be hurt, but alive, since he wouldn’t take the full brunt of the shell’s load. But if the shotgun was loaded with slug rounds, then he’d be spared the collateral damage.

Blake, on the other hand…

Either way, Blake was in trouble.

He was too, potentially, but not nearly as much even in a worst-case scenario. After all, he was pretty sure he could kill the woman before she could rack and fire her weapon a second time.

And that was what he was going to have to do. Kill a woman.

Could he do that? Yes. He’d done it before. He hadn’t liked doing it. In fact, it’d made him a little sick when he found out she was a woman, but he’d done it because he had to. Just like he was going to have to here, unless there was a way out of this.

And right now, Smith didn’t see any other way.

“Where is he?” the woman said. “Where’s Peter?”

Peter? Smith thought. Who’s Peter?

Then, as the clues slid into place…

Tall and Gangly. That has to be Peter.

Not that the dead man’s identity mattered anymore. He may or may not have been Peter, but the results were the same: Peter was nowhere to be found, and this woman with a shotgun pointed squarely at Blake was looking for him.

The woman stood partially in shadows provided by the back hallway opening, but Smith was still able to make out her long, red hair. It was spilled haphazardly over her shoulders, another sign that she’d been rustled out of bed. Unlike Tall and Gangly, she hadn’t gotten properly dressed, but she’d gotten properly armed, which was what Smith was concentrating on at the moment.

It was all he was concentrating on at the moment.

They were inside a living room that had been converted and made bigger. The entire first floor looked as if it had been gutted, the walls torn down, and all that remained was one large meeting area. It was too dark inside for Smith to make out everything clearly, but there was a kitchen to his right, many of its appliances exposed by shafts of light coming from the spotlights outside. A fireplace to his left, also partially illuminated, along with chairs and tables and possibly a sofa or two.

But it was the very obvious and very dangerous woman in front of Blake that demanded every ounce of Smith’s focus at the moment.

You’re going to have to kill a woman.

Goddammit.

Unless, of course, they could talk their way out of this.

“Peter?” Blake was saying. She had her hands raised, her back to Smith. He couldn’t see her face, so he couldn’t tell how scared she was right now. He looked for signs she was shaking, but he couldn’t find any. “Who’s Peter?”

“Where is he?” the woman said. There was an edge to her voice. “What did you do to him?”

“Nothing,” Blake said.

“Stop lying!”

“I don’t know who Peter is.”

“He went outside to see what the commotion was.”

“I still don’t know who Peter is.”

That was a lie, obviously. Like Smith, Blake would have no doubt already put two and two together, and reasoned that the dead man Smith had shot was this Peter the woman was looking for. And yet, Blake’s voice remained incredibly calm as she answered, almost as if she believed what she was saying. He still couldn’t detect any shaking in Blake’s posture, but damn if she wasn’t doing an amazing job staying calm as she answered the very agitated woman.

The very agitated woman with a shotgun. A loaded shotgun, no doubt. What were the chances it wasn’t? And could he really afford to entertain such thoughts?

No. No, he couldn’t.

“Where is he?” the woman insisted.

“Who?” Blake said.

“Peter! What did you do to Peter!”

“Nothing. I didn’t do anything to him.”

Well, that wasn’t entirely a lie. Blake hadn’t done anything to Tall and Gangly. Smith had. He’d shot the man dead.

The woman took a couple of steps forward, exposing more of herself. The one-piece nightgown was slightly faded, well worn. She was in her fifties, with heavy crow’s feet along the corners of her eyes, and wearing slippers, of all things. She didn’t look as if she had any spare shells for the shotgun on her, not that she needed them. The weapon—it looked like a Remington 870 to Smith—was steady in her hands. She had the forefinger of her right hand in the trigger guard, on the trigger itself, while her left hefted the heavy weapon underneath the forend, ready to rack the shotgun to reload it.

She knows how to use that thing. That’s not good.

“Look, this is all a big misunderstanding,” Blake was saying.

“Shut up,” the woman said.

“Let’s talk—”

“I said, shut up!” Then, her dark blue eyes snapped from Blake to Smith, who was standing behind her: “You. Step out from behind her and to the side so I can see you.”

Smith didn’t move.

.3 seconds.

He needed .3 seconds.

Maybe less than that, if he really tried his damnedest.

And right now, that was what he was going to have to do.

“You hear me?” the woman said. She sounded even more annoyed than before. “I said, get out from behind her, so I can see you.”

“Let’s talk this over,” Blake said. “This is just a misunderstanding. We can talk this out.”

“Shut up! Where’s Peter?”

“I don’t know.”

One step to the right. Draw, then fire.

Or maybe draw while stepping to the right.

Unless, of course, Blake could talk their way out of this. Smith didn’t have too much confidence in that, though. The woman looked determined to find out what had happened to Peter, and all she’d have to do to uncover the truth was look outside and see Tall and Gangly lying dead out there.

…look outside…

The riders. Shit. He’d forgotten all about the riders that were shooting at him and Blake earlier. They would be outside right now, either reaching the building or…already here.

Smith didn’t turn around to look back at the doors behind him. It wouldn’t have done any good. He couldn’t see through those thick oak slabs anyway, so he’d need to find one of the windows to see where the riders were. They had to have reached the house by now. How long had Smith and Blake been in here, staring at the wrong end of a shotgun barrel?

A second? Ten? A whole minute?

No, it couldn’t have been a whole minute.

Could it?

“Look, let’s talk this through,” Blake was saying. “We can help you find Peter. Where did you last see him?”

“I was talking to him on the radio,” the woman said.

The radio?

Then, remembering hearing Tall and Gangly telling someone to “hit it” just before the generators roared to life and the spotlights came on. He was talking to the woman, even though Smith couldn’t see the radio on her at the moment.

“Maybe he’s outside with the others,” Blake was saying.

“I don’t believe you,” the woman said. “You did something to him.”

“I didn’t. Neither one of us did.”

Smith had to admit, he was impressed with how calm Blake was. If he didn’t know better, he’d almost think she actually believed what she was saying.

But of course, he knew better.

Step to the right and shoot.

Step to the right and shoot…

The woman’s eyes zeroed in on Blake, leaving Smith temporarily. “You’re lying. I can see it on your face.”

“I’m not,” Blake said.

“You’re lying!” She had shouted the words, her face twisting, the agitation replaced by anger. “You hurt him, didn’t you? You hurt my Peter!”

“No.”

“You’re lying! Where is he?”

“I don’t—” Blake started to say but never managed to finish, because there was a loud thoom-thoom-thoom! from behind Smith as someone—or someones—pounded on the door, and everything went to shit.

The sudden loud banging startled the woman and she pulled the trigger, and Blake was thrown back and would have slammed into Smith if he hadn’t sidestepped, drawn the SIG, and fired twice.

The woman collapsed, the shotgun clattering loudly to the floor next to her.

But Smith was already on his knees next to Blake, grabbing her as she lay bleeding on the floorboards while gasping up at him like a drowning fish. There was a big, bloody mess in her stomach where she’d been shot, and her face was ghostly pale even in the dimmed environment of the room.

“Smith,” Blake gasped. “Oh God, I’m dying. Smith, I’m dying.”

He shook his head. “No, you’re not.”

“I’m dying…”

“No. No, you’re not.”

Blake struggled to suck in air, and the look on her face told him that she didn’t believe him. And she shouldn’t have either, because he was lying and had done a pretty bad job of it.

He was still on his knees, holding Blake, when one of the two front doors crashed open and men flooded inside. They were shouting something, but Smith couldn’t hear them over the sound of Blake gasping, even as blood pumped out of her stomach where she’d been shot by the shotgun’s slug round. Smith was holding onto her, one hand over her belly, even as red, hot liquid squirted between his fingers.

Someone cursed, but Smith couldn’t tell if that was directed at him or just the room in general. He remained where he was, with Blake staring up at him even as life faded from her face, and Smith couldn’t do anything but hold on. He did that—holding on, while maintaining contact with her weakening gaze—and hope, and pray, and—

Something struck him in the back of the head with the force of a dozen sledgehammers, and he fell to the floor on his face.

And…darkness.

Twelve

“Who is he?”

“Some guy named John Smith.”

“John Smith?”

“Yeah.”

“Seriously?”

“That’s what they said.”

“That’s gotta be a fake name.”

“Ya think?”

“Pretty sure.”

“I was being sarcastic. Anyway, why don’t you ask him just to be 100 percent sure? I think he’s waking up.”

Smith didn’t open his eyes. It hurt too much. There was a throbbing pain somewhere in the back of his head. Oh, who was he kidding? The pain was everywhere. He was pretty sure he was bleeding, too, the result of being struck in the back of the head by the buttstock of a rifle. He’d gotten hit before, almost at the same spot, and it hurt then as well. It wasn’t like in the movies, where you could hit someone in the head with a gun and all they did was fall down, then get right back up in the next scene. No. A gun was heavy. A rifle was even heavier. When someone hit you with one, it hurt. It hurt a lot.

“He’s definitely awake,” a voice said. Male. Gruff. Like he chewed glass for breakfast and then followed it up with gravel for lunch.

“I thought he was dead,” a second voice said. Also male, but not quite as gruff. “Cramer hit him hard enough.”

“He’ll probably wish he was dead pretty soon,” the first one said.

“What’d the Judge say?”

“Make an example out of him.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“Nope, it sure doesn’t.”

“Poor bastard.”

“Are you kidding me? You know what he did to Peter, right?”

“Oh yeah.” Then, with a harder edge in his voice, “Fuck him, then.”

Definitely fucked, Smith thought even before he managed to open his eyes.

He was lying on a cold hard floor, and there was no light of any kind. He was surrounded by seething darkness. He sat up—he was unrestrained, which was surprising—and reached back behind his head. Just as he had already assumed, there was a bloody patch back there, where the rifle buttstock had struck and knocked him out.

How long had he been out was the question. (One of many, anyway.) At the moment, Smith was only concerned about the throbbing pain.

And there was a lot of it.

Christ, there was a lot of it.

Even as he tried to get a handle on his condition, on his situation, his thoughts flashed back to Blake.

Dead.

Blake was dead.

He’d watched her bleed out as she lay cradled in his arms. A slug round in her gut. And all that blood. There’d been a lot of blood. But most of all, he recalled the shocked and resigned look on her face, in her eyes. The green color that sparkled so much when he first saw her had become dull.

I’m sorry, Blake. I should have forced you to head back to the junkyard instead of dragging you along with me.

I’m sorry.

Jesus, I’m sorry.

It was too late for I’m Sorrys now. She was gone, and he was stuck in…

Where the hell was he?

Some kind of dark room, without any lights and no windows. He couldn’t tell what time of day it was, but it felt like it was still night. How long had he been out? Maybe not as long as he thought. Or possibly longer. He had no idea. It was hard to think straight with all the pain.

The voices he’d heard earlier. Mr. Gruff and his Not-So-Gruff pal. Where had they come from? Smith couldn’t see anyone around him. Hell, he couldn’t see much of anything, but that was changing slowly as his night eyes started to adjust to his environment.

Slowly but surely, he could see…

…darkness. A lot of darkness. But walls were starting to take shape in the background. Walls and…a ceiling above him. And the hard, gray floor below him. Concrete. Unyielding and rough.

It was cold in the room, too, and Smith shivered as he reached forward and grabbed the nearest objects. Bars. Cell bars. Was he back in the Gaffney police station? No, it didn’t feel like it. It was too dark, for one, and the bars were slicked with wetness. Sticky wetness.

Sweat? Blood? Something worse?

Smith pulled himself up from the floor until he was on his feet again. Barely. He almost fell back down but managed to remain upright. He glanced around him, trying to get more of his bearings from a higher angle.

Where am I? Where is this?

They’d stripped him of his gun belt and, more importantly, his guns. The sheath with the knife was also gone. His whole body felt so much lighter without his weapons. It was a sensation Smith didn’t like.

Not one bit.

And goddamn if his head wasn’t pounding.

He reached back there again, staring at the blood on his palm. Not a lot, so the wound wasn’t still bleeding. That was good. He didn’t fancy bleeding to death in here, wherever “here” was.

He wiped the dark redness against his pant legs and grimaced against the continued escalating pain. For some reason, it was getting worse the longer he was conscious. Maybe he should lie right back down so he wouldn’t have to deal with it.

No. Find out where you are. Find a way out of here.

Find a way out of here…

That was easier said than done. There wasn’t nearly enough lights for him to even know how big the room he had found himself in was. Where was that ceiling again? Right, up there. Of course that’s where the ceiling would be.

He gripped the cell bars tighter despite the strange wetness that coated them. He was in a cage. They’d put him in a fucking cage.

“I think he’s starting to realize where he is,” the one with the gruff voice said.

“Yup, looks like it,” his partner, the one with the not-so-gruff voice, said with a slight cackle. “He looks confused. Poor bastard.”

The gruff voice laughed. “Fuck ’em.”

Fuck you, Smith thought, but of course he couldn’t say it. His mouth was parched, and just swallowing hurt. It didn’t help that he had no idea where to direct his curse. The voices seemed to be coming from everywhere…and nowhere at the same time.

But of course, that was impossible.

Wasn’t it?

Yes, it was. The voices had to have come from a direction. He was listening to two guys that could clearly see him fine, not to mention the shitty shape he was in. And they were enjoying every bit of it. That, more than anything, pissed Smith off.

“Ready?” the gruff voice said.

Goddammit, where was it coming from? Behind him? Or in front of him?

Smith tried to shake off the headache. It didn’t work. If anything, it just made the pain grow louder in volume.

Yeah, probably shouldn’t have done that.

“Do it,” the less-gruff voice said.

“This is gonna be fun,” his partner said.

“How long you think he’ll last?”

“Not too long.”

“I got five.”

“No way he lasts five.”

“Give me a number.”

“One, tops.”

“Nah, I think he’s tough enough to make it past one.”

“Look at the way he’s standing. He can barely stand.”

“Still think he’ll make it past one?”

“What you wanna bet?”

“Tomorrow’s shift.”

“You’re on.”

Sonsofbitches think this is a game, Smith thought.

Then again, maybe they were right. Maybe this was a game and he was a pawn, helpless to do anything but wait for—

The echoing clang! as something opened. A door of some type. A metal door. That was the only explanation for the loud—

The smell.

Jesus, the smell!

It came out of nowhere and filled the room. (It must not have been a very big room if Smith could smell it so easily. Or was it?) He winced and took a step away from the bars, sniffing the air for its location.

It was close.

Very close.

He spun around, hands forming fists at his sides. He didn’t have a gun or a knife, but he still had his hands. And Smith wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

It flew out of the darkness toward him and slammed into the cage, like a wild animal flinging itself forward with wild abandon. It might have even knocked Smith’s prison over with the force of its impact if the metal rods weren’t nailed into the hard ground. The entire cage shook anyway, but otherwise didn’t bend under the violent assault.

“Jesus Christ,” Smith muttered under his breath.

Somewhere behind him—and he was sure it had come from behind him this time—someone laughed. Then a second voice joined in.

His captors. Gruff and Less-Gruff.

Glad you’re finding this very amusing, boys, Smith thought even as he stared back at the ghoul. There was no need to worry about his human problem right now; not with this inhuman thing in front of him.

The creature peered in at him even as it clung to the bars, its body seeming to hover in the air. But, of course, that wasn’t true. It wasn’t hovering; it was clutching to the steel metal rods, bony fingers wrapped around two of them while two equally bony legs did the same nearer the bottom.

The suddenly very overwhelming stink made Smith want to vomit, but he held it in. Barely.

The ghoul glared at him for a few seconds before it attempted to push its elongated head through two of the bars, but couldn’t. Closer now, it exposed one hollowed socket to Smith. Its right eye was missing, leaving it with only one. There was nothing wrong with the rest of its body, though. Its chest was sunken, pruned black flesh seemingly rippling against the semidarkness. Smith didn’t need lights to see what the creature wanted.

Him.

The hairs on the back of his neck and all along his arms and legs spiked as its one good eye zeroed in on him. One eye was all it needed. Even if it couldn’t see him, it would have been able to smell his presence.

Or, more specifically, the blood pumping through Smith’s veins.

Smith waited for more to appear out of the darkness, but there was just the one. That was the only good news that he could see. If there were more, they would have made their presence known already. Ghouls weren’t known for their ability to hang back when there was prey on the table. And that was what he was right now. Prey.

So why was the creature trying to push its way through the bars? Why didn’t it just use…

…the door.

The door!

Where the hell was the door?

Smith spun around, looking for it. His eyes had mostly adjusted to the darkness, but he couldn’t find the door. But, of course, there had to be one. Didn’t there? How else would they have put him in here?

So where was it?

He started moving frantically around the cage, looking for a way in and out. Or anything that even remotely resembled a door. He could feel the ghoul staring after him, maybe wondering what he was doing. It remained clinging to the bars on the other side of the prison, still trying to push its way in, but failing.

For now. For now…

Focus on the door!

The door. Right. The door. Where was the door?

Smith felt along the bars, hoping to find some indication—

A soft, echoing click came from somewhere behind him. Smith whirled around just in time to see a part of the cage coming apart.

No, not coming apart, but opening.

The door.

The goddamn door. It was exactly where he didn’t want it to be.

…right underneath the ghoul on the other side of the cage…

Thirteen

He’d faced ghouls before. More than once, and more than one ghoul at a time. There had been about a dozen of them earlier tonight, and he’d gotten through that one unscathed. It’d been a little dicey at times, but he never thought he was in trouble. Blake’s presence helped, but he could have handled the whole thing if it’d just been him. Of course, at the time he had a silver-coated knife. He would have loved to have that right about now.

Among other things.

Many, many other things.

For a second or two—maybe three or four seconds max—the creature hopped down from the bars and squatted on the floor, looking as perplexed as Smith was that the door into the cage had suddenly snapped open by an unseen hand.

It peered in at him, almost as if it was suspicious. Was that possible? Were the creatures even capable of suspicious thoughts? The ones he’d encountered in the past didn’t; they were primal animals that streaked toward their prey when one was available. They didn’t sit back on their haunches the way this one was doing and seemed to narrow its one remaining eye at him, as if trying to decide if all of this was a trick or…

It must have decided pretty quickly that it wasn’t, because the creature lunged toward the opening.

Smith did the same, trying to reach the door before the nightcrawler did—

He lost.

Smith stopped at the last second and tried to pivot out of the way but—too late—as the creature entered the cage and slammed into him, knocking him to the floor. He landed on his right shoulder, the ghoul scrambling on top of him. It was all Smith could do to roll away, the ghoul falling off him and onto the hard ground.

He managed to scramble to one knee, but the creature beat him by half a heartbeat. Before he could react, it launched itself into him again with wild abandon. Its stink invaded his space and infiltrated his nostrils until the stench of rotting garbage filled every inch of Smith’s universe.

He fought through it—there were no other choices—and punched it with a balled fist. He got it across the left cheek and felt his hand sinking into the flesh, then striking the cheekbone underneath. The creature’s head snapped back, then sideways, and its body followed suit.

Smith pushed up onto his feet as the ghoul slammed into one side of the cage and collapsed to the hard floor. He wished he could say that the solid punch—which would have put down most men—did the job, but it wasn’t even close.

The ghoul was already back on its rail-thin legs a second later.

“Whoa, you see that?” a voice said. The less-gruff voice Smith had been hearing all this time, but was unable to trace.

“Nice one!” the gruffer of the two voices laughed. “He’s a regular Mike Tyson.”

“Who?”

“Mike Tyson.”

“I don’t know who that is.”

“Fuck, you’re young.”

Laughter, but Smith wasn’t sure who it was from, and he didn’t have the opportunity to give a damn because the ghoul was coming at him.

It charged like a runaway train, arms outstretched toward him. Saliva flitted from its mouth, which was wide open to reveal crooked yellowing spikes that were more caverns of fangs than anything resembling teeth. Black goo, like gobs of tar, dripped from the gash in its cheek where Smith had punched and tore through its flesh as if they were tissue paper.

Not that any of that stopped the creature. Nothing was going to stop it except silver. And Smith didn’t have an ounce of the precious metal on him right now. All he would have needed was just a tiny bit to introduce into its bloodstream and the ghoul would stop. Just like that, it would stop.

But he didn’t, and it wouldn’t.

Smith kicked out with his right foot and struck it in the chest with the sole of his boot. (At least they let him keep his boots.) The creature snapped back like a marionette with its strings pulled and slammed down to the floor.

Now what? How did he keep it down?

“Nice!” a voice shouted. Maybe the gruff voice, or possibly the less gruff one. Smith had given up trying to distinguish the two. All he knew was that they were having a hell of a good time at his expense.

The creature was spinning, limbs twisting as it began to rise back up. Smith didn’t let it and charged. He struck out with his right knee, catching it in almost exactly in the middle of its chest. The ghoul flung back and slammed into the bars. The entire cage rattled for a few seconds, and maybe it would have kept right on rattling, but Smith wasn’t waiting to find out.

He ran for the door.

He got halfway when he lost his footing.

No, he didn’t lose his footing. Something had grabbed him and pulled his feet out from underneath him.

The ghoul, its cold, bony fingers wrapped tightly around his ankle.

Shit!

Smith went from running to flying to crashing chest-first into the hard cement. He twisted his entire body, imagining himself flopping around like a fish out of water, but somehow managing to land on his back.

The creature was still holding onto his right ankle with one hand, its bony fingers seemingly digging into his flesh through the fabric of his pant legs.

He stared at it.

It sneered back. Its only good eye might have squinted, but maybe that was just the darkness in the room playing tricks with Smith’s vision. The smell stretched from every pore of the creature’s skin and reached across the space between them like physical tentacles that grabbed a hold of him and refused to let go.

Smith tried his best not to vomit, but he might have dry heaved.

Don’t throw up. This is no time to be throwing up!

But dear God, it smelled. It was impossible to ignore. The entire room seemed to be simmering with its stench, like garbage piled upon garbage inside a box that was then sealed tight and never opened again. And then someone shoved him inside.

Smith turned his head slightly with revulsion.

The creature reached for his left leg with its other hand, but Smith kicked out with his boot first and caught it in the face. The nose shattered, black goo spraying the floor and the sole of Smith’s shoe. Not that that did anything to make it let go of his right leg. If anything, it clung on even tighter.

Was that possible?

Apparently, yes.

“He’s done for now!” a voice said.

“No way. He still has some fight in him!” the other one said.

“We’ll see about that!”

“He looks like a fighter, this one!”

“They all look like a fighter until it’s over!”

Again, Smith wasn’t able to distinguish who was saying what, and he didn’t give a damn, either. The identities of the speakers were less important than what was happening to him inside the cage.

And right now, the ghoul was trying to claw its way up his leg. Fortunately, it only had a grip on his right leg, which meant Smith’s left was free to cock back and strike forward. He landed a shot to its temple.

The creature’s head reared back and that stopped its forward momentum temporarily. Before it could right itself, Smith struck again.

Thwap!

Again, the ghoul’s head snapped back, its grotesque and misshapen skull jerking against its elongated neck.

Before it could gather itself, Smith kicked it again.

Thwap!

And again.

Thwap!

He heard the very solid crack! as the creature’s neck finally snapped on the fourth kick, and felt it loosening its grip on his right ankle slightly.

Smith didn’t wait to see if it would release its hold on him completely. He pulled his leg free, then scrambled to his feet. The creature did the same, even as its head flung back and seemed to hang off its shoulders, the neck bone that formerly held it in place having been shattered by Smith’s last kick.

It was wobbly on its feet when Smith drove himself into it, catching it in the chest with his shoulder and slamming it into the bars on the other side. The entire cage shook, but Smith was too busy stumbling back, back—

He spun and darted toward the open door—and lunged outside the cage!

Smith turned and slammed the door shut. Heard the click! as the lock snapped into place. He hadn’t expected that, but he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. He stumbled back as the creature flung itself into the door.

Bang!

The cage trembled again against the impact, but the door remained closed.

Not that that stopped the ghoul. It reared back, its head dangling off the back of its shoulders like a hoodie instead of a head, and rammed itself into the door again.

Bang!

And again.

Bang!

Bang!

But the door held.

Bang!

Somehow, it held. Smith didn’t know why, or how, but the door wouldn’t budge.

He bent over at the waist and sucked in a deep breath, cold air flooding his lungs.

The bang! bang! of the creature throwing itself into the cage echoed inside the room around him.

Bang!

Bang!

“Goddammit,” a voice said.

Smith straightened up and turned around just as two figures stepped out of the shadows behind him.

“You got my shift tonight,” a second voice said, followed by a chuckle.

Two men appeared out of the darkness, and one of them was holding something in his right hand. Smith squinted, trying to make out what that “something” was, when about 50,000 watts of electrical current coursed through him and he flopped to the floor, where he lay shaking. There were two prongs sticking out of his chest that weren’t there earlier, connected to wiring that ran along the ground then up toward a device being held in one of the men’s hands.

“He’s a fighter,” the less-gruff of the two voices said. Smith couldn’t lift his head to see the speaker’s face. He was too busy trying not to bite his tongue off.

“Not anymore,” the gruffer of the two voices said.

“So what now?”

“I don’t know.”

“What did the Judge say?”

“Nothing about this.”

“You should probably radio him and ask.”

“It’s almost five in the morning. Fat man’s probably sound asleep by now. He’d have my hide if I woke him up.”

“Good point,” the less gruff of the two voices said.

Smith would have liked to keep eavesdropping on their conversation, but he was too busy trying to maintain his focus, even if the only thing he could see was the ghoul, still locked in the cage, flinging itself wildly against the bars.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang…!

Fourteen

“Mr. Smith.”

A female voice.

“John.”

It sounded familiar.

“Can you hear me?”

He snapped awake and sat up. He did it so violently that he heard a gasp and the sound of shuffling feet in response.

“John. It’s okay.”

Was it okay?

“Give it time.”

Where was he?

“You’re hurt.”

Yes, he was.

“But you’re safe now.”

No, he wasn’t. Smith didn’t know a lot of things, but he knew that much. He wasn’t safe. And he wasn’t going to be safe for a while.

“Don’t try to move too fast, too soon.”

He knew that voice. Now if only he could place it…

Smith opened his eyes to…darkness. (So what else was new?) Except there were silhouetted figures gathered in the room with him—

Ghouls!

“John, John. It’s okay. They’re human.”

Human? How did the speaker know he thought the figures were ghouls?

“They’re human, John. It’s okay.”

Slowly, the silhouettes took the shape of humans. Women. He could tell that from the shape of their shoulders, their forms.

So not ghouls.

Not ghouls…

He managed to sit up on solid and slightly cold floor. Concrete. The walls around him—or the parts of them that he could see, because there wasn’t much light in the room—were made of the same dark gray and ugly material.

They were inside a room encased in hard concrete.

The cage.

The cage!

No, no cage. He was out of the cage and in another room. A bigger room. Or it felt bigger to him, anyway.

He sniffed the air, searching for the telltale signs of ghouls.

None. Just sweat and dirt and…

Fear. He smelled fear all around him.

“John. It’s okay.”

Smith glanced behind him. Mary. She had a familiar voice. She was kneeling next to him, one hand holding him by the shoulder to keep him upright. He might not have even recognized her face in the darkness if she wasn’t so close.

“Mary,” Smith said.

She managed a smile, but he could tell it was very forced. “Yes, John, it’s me.”

“Where are we?”

“Underneath the barn.”

“What barn?”

“On the ranch.”

Oh. That barn.

“Your head,” Mary was saying. “It looks like blood.”

“Yeah,” Smith said, reaching behind the back of his head. At least he wasn’t bleeding anymore even if it probably looked like a real mess back there. The blood had coagulated and become tangled with his hair.

“What happened?” Mary asked.

“I came looking for you.”

“How did that work out?”

He looked back at her again and found her smiling.

He chuckled. “Not very well.”

“Well, at least you tried. I didn’t think you’d come back.”

“I promised I would.”

“I know, but…” She shrugged. “Not everyone keeps their promises these days.”

Smith spent a few extra seconds looking at her. As far as he could tell, she didn’t appear to be hurt. Her hair was slightly disheveled, but that was true for everyone inside the room with them, including himself.

The others, as he had guessed, were all women—three that Smith could see right away and a fourth one that had retreated to the back, in the farthest corner of the room.

…all women…

He remembered what Blake had told him, about how the Judge gave the women of Gaffney very few choices. Blake had also said—

Blake.

Jesus, Blake.

She was dead. Shot by the crazy woman with the shotgun. Well, maybe she wasn’t so crazy. She was looking for Peter, whoever that was. Maybe her husband. Or lover. Or brother. She’d been certain Smith and Blake had something to do with his absence, which was true. And she’d shot Blake for it.

I’m sorry, Blake. I should have made you head back to the junkyard.

I’m so sorry.

Smith sat by himself for a moment. Now that he didn’t feel endangered—or not in any immediate danger, anyway—he allowed himself a few precious seconds to take stock of his situation. Of everything that had happened. It was a long thirty or so seconds.

He hadn’t had very much time to dwell on Blake’s death, not after waking up in that cage and being confronted with the ghoul. He still remembered the two voices—Gruff and Not-So-Gruff—and how entertained they were about Smith’s ordeal. The bastards had even made a bet on how long he’d last against the nightcrawler.

But it was Blake that stuck out in Smith’s mind now. He remembered the green of her eyes, the way she moved…

Shouldn’t have gotten involved. Why do I always get involved?

Mary remained next to him. She looked poised to reach over and grab him at any second, should he threaten to topple back to the hard floor.

He glanced over at her. “How long have you been down here?”

“They brought me here yesterday, after you left,” Mary said.

“Why?”

“Punishment.”

“For what?”

“One of the Judge’s men tried to force himself on me. He wouldn’t take no for an answer. I think his name was Dunham.”

“Dunham?”

Mary nodded. “I think so.”

Dunham…

The man was dead. Smith had shot him inside Amy’s clinic back in Gaffney last night. That was after he’d stumbled into the place while Smith was talking to the doctor.

Dunham…

Smith remembered the scar on the man’s face. The very fresh scar that ran down his right cheek.

I guess now I know how he got that.

“They brought me here to be reeducated,” Mary said.

“Reeducated?”

“That’s what the Judge said, before he delivered his sentence.”

“They put you on trial?”

“It wasn’t much of one. They brought me into his office at the courthouse and he spent a minute asking Dunham what happened.”

“Let me guess: He didn’t ask for your side?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think he cares one way or another.”

Mary’s story explained Dunham’s scar, but why had Hobson lied to him? Certainly he would have known about her troubles.

“What about Hobson?” he asked.

“What about him?”

“Did he know what happened?”

“He was the one who led me to the Judge.”

Lying asshole, Smith thought, suddenly not feeling so bad about having shot the man in his own home anymore. Not that he was really feeling bad about it in the first place, but, well, he’d had second thoughts since. Not anymore.

Smith turned back to the other women.

Two of them stood huddled against a wall, almost leaning against one another, while a third had laid back down on the floor on her side, her back to Smith. The fourth one remained in the far corner, her knees pulled up to her chest. It was too dark—there weren’t any lights that Smith could detect, just his night eyes to see with—for him to tell what kind of shape the women were in, but he didn’t sense any fight in them.

Mary, on the other hand…

Smith turned back to her. “Are you okay?”

She pursed her lips. “I’ve been here less than a day. Some of them…” She stared past Smith and at the other women in the room with them. “They’ve been here longer. The one back there? In the corner? They told me she’s been here for almost three months.” Mary nodded at the one lying on the floor on her side. “She’s been here for a week. The other two”—nodding at the two standing against the wall—“have been here for just a few days. I think they’re sisters.”

It was too dark for Smith to see the facial resemblance in the two possible sisters, but it was hard to miss the protective way they stood together, away from everyone else. If any of the women heard Smith and Mary talking, no one said a word.

“So this is their idea of reeducation?” he asked Mary.

“I guess so.”

“What did they do to you?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing yet.” She shook her head, then indicating the one lying on her side, “Since I’ve been here, they’ve only come for her.”

“What did they do to her?”

“I don’t know. They brought her back a few hours later. She looked even worse off than when she left, and she looked pretty bad then.”

Smith couldn’t see the woman’s face, but the way she lay there, unmoving…

“What did they do to you?” Mary was asking him.

He told her about the cage and the ghoul.

“You beat it?” Mary asked.

“Kind of,” Smith said.

He stood up. Or tried.

He lost his balance and his feet went wobbly, and Smith collapsed back into Mary’s lap. She grabbed him, but he was much heavier, and she almost toppled sideways with him tangled up in her arms. Somehow, though, she managed to hold the both of them up.

“Easy, John. Easy,” Mary said. “You look like you’ve been through hell.”

Smith sighed. That wasn’t far from the truth. He’d been shot, shot at numerous times, and lost consciousness more than once. Nebraska was becoming a real pain in the ass, and Smith didn’t like it one bit. On second thought, and with the benefit of hindsight, he should have continued on his path after the run-in with Travis and the other two back at Lucky’s burned-down homestead. Instead, he’d come back to Gaffney on his own, looking for a little payback.

Shoulda done a lot of things these last few days, I guess.

“Okay?” Mary asked.

No, Smith thought, but he said, “I’ll be okay.”

“You sure?”

Not even close.

“Yeah,” he said instead.

He tried to stand up again, this time taking it slower. Much, much slower. He managed to remain upright even though his legs threatened to buckle. There was some pain coming from his chest that he hadn’t noticed before but was now impossible to ignore. The volts of electricity from the TASER they’d shot him with back in the cage room.

Flashes of Gruff and Not-So-Gruff’s conversations replayed in his head. Not the words themselves, but the joy in their voices. The two sonsofbitches were having fun at his expense. A lot of fun.

Just wait until I get my hands on you two bastards.

He would have stretched if every part of him wasn’t in pain. He wasn’t sure when that happened or how. Maybe when he was fighting the ghoul. Or later when he “won” and fell on his face as a reward. However it happened, his muscles were sore and moving his legs was painful. At least his skull wasn’t pounding anymore, so there was that.

Smith walked to the nearest wall and felt along the rough and cold concrete. There was nothing aesthetically pleasing about the room’s construction. It was cement poured into place and allowed to cure. But it did its job, whatever that was, initially.

Right now, it was a prison.

It might not have the bars of the cells back at the Gaffney police station, but they’d tossed him and Mary and the others into a prison cell just the same. Smith couldn’t see a door, but it had to be there somewhere. Probably in the parts of the darkness that he hadn’t reached yet.

Smith felt his way along the wall while Mary stood up and followed him closely behind. “What are you looking for, John?”

“A door.”

“It’s back there, across the room, but it’s locked.”

Smith walked to the far end of the room. There was a deceptive lot of ground to cover. The prison was bigger than a police station cell, and he counted ten feet before he finally reached the other wall. The room itself had to be over twenty feet long and about ten feet wide.

The entrance/exit was where Mary said it was, but grabbing the lever and trying to turn it yielded nothing. Even if he wasn’t slightly weak after being shot, then struck in the back of the head, then TASERed, he wouldn’t have been able to muscle the door open anyway.

Not that Smith allowed that fact to stop him from trying. He didn’t quit until beads of sweat had broken across his temples.

“I’ve tried it; it won’t budge,” Mary said from behind him.

Smith nodded and turned around. She stood in front of him, not quite looking defeated but not too far off.

“Mary,” he said.

“Yes?”

“Where’s Aaron?”

“In Gaffney somewhere. They took him away from me, John. The bastards took Aaron away from me. They said I wouldn’t get to see him again until I’d been reeducated and ready to assimilate back into society.”

“And they didn’t say how this ‘reeducation’ works?”

Mary shook her head. “No.” She crossed her arms over her chest, shivering noticeably for the first time. “But I have a feeling I’ll learn all about it pretty soon. They didn’t bring me here just to sit around.” She glanced back at the four women in the room with them before turning back to Smith. “What are we going to do, John? How are we going to get out of here?”

I have no idea, Smith thought, but he didn’t think that was the answer Mary was hoping to hear.

“I’ll figure something out,” he said instead.

Fifteen

I’ll figure something out, he had said to Mary.

How, was the question.

Or an even better question was, where did he begin?

He was locked away inside an underground prison, as far as he could tell, with no way out. The only path was sealed tight from the other side, and he didn’t have anything even resembling a weapon to work with. There was nothing inside the big room except the clothes they were wearing. Hell, they’d even taken his boots for whatever reason, something he hadn’t noticed until now. (Though they’d left his socks, which he guessed he should be grateful for, if nothing else.)

Smith was up the proverbial creek without a paddle. Worse, he couldn’t even see the creek and didn’t know how long it stretched, or how wide. He was being pushed around blind, and all he could do was adapt to the situation as problems arose.

So he sat with Mary and the others, plotting his next move. Which was…not much. He had to get out of here, that much was clear. He couldn’t allow them to subject Mary to their “reeducation.” Smith had a feeling that involved the cage in the other room, along with the ghoul, which was no doubt still alive.

Over my dead body.

Then: Famous last words.

Yeah, he probably shouldn’t have had that thought. It wasn’t like he could stop Gruff and Not-So-Gruff (or whatever their real names were) when they came to get Mary. He was unarmed and still wobbly on his feet, and he wasn’t entirely sure he could take on either one of their captors mano-a-mano. Hell, he wasn’t even sure he could take on any of the women in the room! One of Smith’s problems was that he’d always been so good with a gun—scarily good, according to his mentor—that he hadn’t developed any real hand-to-hand fighting skills. Sure, he’d had the same combat training during Black Tide’s Basic Training like everyone else, but he’d never really absorbed what he’d been told. He didn’t have to because of his proficiency with a firearm.

Now, thinking about all those classes and lessons, he wished he’d paid closer attention.

Another thing you shoulda done better.

One of many, as it turned out.

So he didn’t have very much to do but sit and wait with Mary and the others. Or just Mary, because as far as Smith could tell, the other four women were sound asleep. He didn’t blame them; from his internal calculations, it had to be almost morning now, or damn near close to it. If he’d had a window, he could have confirmed that theory. Heck, if he had a window, he could have tried to crawl out.

But he didn’t.

He didn’t…

Mary, like him, couldn’t sleep. The other women had no such trouble, and Smith could hear them snoring away. Even the sisters, whose names Mary didn’t know—because they were either too shy or suspicious to talk to her when she arrived—were huddled in their own corner. The young one, who had been here the longest, hadn’t moved from her spot. The one that had been lying on her side had turned over onto her back, and Smith could see long red hair and a pale complexion. None of the women looked as if they’d been physically tormented, but Smith knew from experience that assaults didn’t always produce visible scars.

“How did you end up here?” Mary finally asked after a while.

He told her about going back to Gaffney, rescuing Blake, then coming here.

“What happened to her?” Mary asked.

“She didn’t make it.”

“Oh.”

Yeah, Smith thought.

He didn’t say any more about Blake, and thankfully, neither did Mary.

Aaron’s mother said instead, “Maybe we should try to get some sleep.”

“You should.”

“You’re not sleepy?”

“No.”

“Neither am I.”

“You haven’t slept all night.”

“I know, but…” She paused for a moment, before continuing. “I’m scared of what will happen when I go to sleep.”

“What do you mean? What would happen?”

“They might come to get me.”

This time, it was Smith’s turn to say, “Oh.”

Like Mary’s “Oh,” that was all he needed to say. That simple, single word expressed everything he needed it to.

Smith said, “We’ll get out of here.”

“How?”

“I don’t know, but we will.”

“You sound so sure…”

“I am.”

“Why?”

“I just am.”

“But why?”

Because I don’t have any choice, Smith thought.

But he said, “I’ve been in worse situations.”

“You have?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Atlanta.”

Mary was obviously waiting for him to continue, and when he didn’t, she said, “What happened in Atlanta?”

Smith shook his head. He didn’t want to think about Atlanta. It was a bad situation from the start, and it only got worse as the week dragged on. But he’d survived it, against all odds, and he was sure he’d survive this, too.

He hoped, anyway.

“You know why smart people stay away from the cities?” Smith asked.

“Ghouls,” Mary said.

“That’s only one reason.”

“What are the others?”

Smith thought about how much to tell her. The things he saw, and did…

“There’s a reason people stay away from the cities,” he said, and left it at that.

Mary did, too, thankfully.

She said instead, “I miss Aaron. It’s only been a day—not even that—but I miss him so much already.”

Smith nodded, not that he knew what she was really feeling. He didn’t have a son or a daughter out there; or, at least, none that he knew of. He understood loss, of course, but it was probably not even close to the kind Mary was suffering right now.

Neither one of them said anything after that, and soon they both gave in to the silence and darkness. Smith lay down on the cold and unyielding concrete floor and closed his eyes. He tried to sleep, but it didn’t happen. It was easier for Mary, who began snoring softly next to him. She’d laid down not more than a few inches away. He envied her ability to go to sleep despite all that she’d gone through in the last twenty-four hours. Then again, it wasn’t like he’d had a barrel of laughs—

The click, followed by the clank, of a piece of metal moving, from all the way across the room (The door lever!) snapped him wide awake.

Smith was on his feet before he knew what he was doing, and jogging silently—or as silently as he could muster—across the room. He must have done a pretty good job, because neither Mary nor the other women were woken up by his sudden movements.

He slid up against the equally cold wall next to the door and waited.

Even in the semidarkness, he could see the lever moving. It helped that his eyes had adjusted to the pitch blackness and that the lever, along with the rest of the door, was a slightly different shade of gray than the scarred walls that surrounded him.

Another clank, as whoever was on the other side moved the lever another notch, undoing another locking mechanism. Smith watched silently, mentally and physically preparing for what was coming.

He was reasonably certain he could take on one man, especially with the element of surprise on his side. And maybe even two. He wasn’t 100 percent certain about two, but he thought he could.

Maybe.

Of course, if there was more than two…

Then you’re fucked.

But so what? You’re fucked either way if you stay in here.

The door creaked slightly as it opened. Not loud enough to wake Mary or the other women, but plenty loud for Smith, who was waiting next to it. A patch of artificial light flooded into the room as the door opened wider, allowing two shadows to fall through the opening.

Two men.

Of course two men, because one would have been way too easy for him.

Fuck my luck.

Their shadows were elongated because the source of light was behind them. A hallway, maybe even made of the same concrete material as the room he was in. Was he locked away in some sort of underground bunker? That was possible. The American Midwest was littered with them, built by preppers that thought the end of the world was coming. Or maybe hoping for the end of the world. They had the right idea, as it turned out.

Fortunately, the door opened onto the left side, so it didn’t careen into Smith, where he stood waiting. It also gave him a perfect view of the man that stepped inside first.

Sneakers, faded jeans, holding what looked like a black metal police riot baton that wasn’t fully extended. A belt, but no gun or a holster. Plaid long-sleeve work shirt, the sleeves partially speckled with dirt.

“Which one?” a voice said. It was a familiar voice, too.

Gruff. One of the two that had been taking bets on how long Smith could withstand the ghoul earlier.

“The new one,” a second voice answered. “It’s her turn.” Not-So-Gruff. Gruff’s partner-in-crime.

Smith wasn’t sure if he was happy to hear their voices so he could finally get his crack at them, or if he should have been concerned. They were obviously old hands at this and probably knew what to expect. Or they thought they did, anyway. Smith hoped that previously dealing with only vulnerable women would leave them open and maybe just a little too confident.

That was his hope, anyway, as a man with sandy blond hair stepped casually through the door like he owned the place. The guy had the baton gripped tightly—menacingly—in his right hand. He led with his left foot, followed by his right.

“Wakey, wakey, ladies,” the man said, almost in a singsong pattern that convinced Smith he was used to having his way.

Either he and his partner had forgotten all about Smith, or they didn’t think he was going to be any trouble. But then, there were two of them and just one of him. Assholes, in Smith’s experience, were always overly confident when they had numbers on their side.

That was their mistake. That was always all of these assholes’ mistakes.

Smith tackled the man before he could completely enter the room, and the two of them went flying, with Smith driving the man through the air with everything he had. His socked feet moved with speed and force against the floor while his hands wrapped tightly around his target’s waist. The man’s breath struck Smith in the face, but better bad breath than the baton the guy was holding.

“What the fuck?” a voice shouted from somewhere behind him—Not-So-Gruff, which meant the one with sandy blond hair was Gruff—but Smith was too busy slamming Gruff into the floor, using his weight to piledrive the man into the hard concrete in one of those wrestling moves he’d seen on TV.

Smith heard an audible grunt, but that was lost in the very loud—and incredibly satisfying—crunch of the man’s skull slamming into the floor. The body underneath him instantly relaxed, the right hand with the baton collapsing and staying down. Smith reached for the black object, wrestling it easily out of the weak fingers, and quickly scrambled to his feet.

He fully expected to fall right back down. After all, it wasn’t like he was 100 percent. He wasn’t even close to 100 percent. 50 percent tops, and that was being overly generous. So when he made it to his feet and stayed upright, he was probably more shocked than anyone. Maybe he wasn’t quite as injured as he had thought? Or maybe adrenaline was pushing him to stay on his feet, because falling back down now was not good for his health.

He was whirling around when the second figure—Not-So-Gruff—stepped through the open door. Like Gruff, this one was armed with an identical baton, but he had a holster on his right hip, with a gun in it. The man’s eyes widened—it was easy for Smith to see with the lights flooding all over Not-So-Gruff’s face—as he stumbled through the opening, before backpedaling at the sight of Smith.

Smith was almost on his feet when Not-So-Gruff dropped the baton and reached for his holstered piece.

Shit! Smith thought as he made his move.

But he was too far—at least five feet—and the guy was increasing that by backing up further. He was halfway to his target when Not-So-Gruff—he was about the same age as his partner—early thirties, with shaggy black hair—reached for, found, and drew his gun.

No, not a gun. A TASER. Maybe it was even the same one that had been used on Smith earlier. Smith knew that because of the weapon’s shape. It could be easily mistaken for a gun by an untrained eye, but Smith didn’t have untrained eyes.

Still, he wasn’t going to reach the man in time, and he mentally prepared to do a last-second pirouette to avoid getting tased a second time. He wasn’t sure how he was going to accomplish that, though. Maybe pull off something like in that movie about that guy who was caught in a computer program, then discovered he was “the one,” and—

“Hey, dickhead!”

The sound came from the rest of the room, and Smith, caught by surprise, turned to look. He wasn’t the only one, thank God, because Not-So-Gruff did, too.

Mary, running toward their captor, shouting, “You motherfucker!”

Smith knew exactly what she was doing: Drawing Not-So-Gruff’s attention away from him.

And he took full advantage of it, running toward his target even as Not-So-Gruff’s eyes snapped back in his direction.

Three feet—

Snap! as the rest of the riot baton came out of its housing with a flick of Smith’s wrist.

Two—

Not-So-Gruff raised the TASER to fire.

One!

Smith brought the baton down on the man’s extended hand and heard the crack! of bone breaking. The TASER fell, but even before it had the chance to hit the floor, Smith struck its former owner in the side of the head with the blunt metal object and was rewarded with another solid and oh-so-satisfying crack! echo.

The body collapsed in a pile, twitched for a while, and stayed down.

Smith snatched the TASER off the floor and turned to make sure Gruff had remained down on the other side of the open door. The man hadn’t moved from the spot where Smith had left him.

Smith crouched and checked Not-So-Gruff’s pulse. It was present, but weak. The man’s eyes, blinking rapidly up at Smith, was evidence he wasn’t a threat anymore. If he had a gun and a suppressor, Smith would have put the man out of his misery just to be sure. But he didn’t, so he didn’t.

Instead, Smith hurried back to Gruff and did the same. The guy was flatlined. Good. It saved Smith the energy of killing him. Smith took the opportunity to catch his breath. With the door open and the bright hallway outside visible, suddenly the air was less stale.

Mary was standing next to Not-So-Gruff, looking down at him. Smith walked back over and picked up the man’s fallen baton and handed it to her, before searching its owner for more weapons. He didn’t find anything that he could use. Smith turned the man over onto his back. He was still alive but not a threat. Smith didn’t think the man could even stand up. Blood dripped from the side of his head, and he probably had brain damage given how hard Smith had swung.

Footsteps, as the other women walked over to join them. Even the young one, who had been there the longest. She stood between the other three, hands wrapped tightly around her chest, peering at him as if too afraid to make even the tiniest sound.

Mary stood in front of the other four women, all five pairs of eyes staring back at Smith.

“What now, John?” Mary asked.

“Now we get out of here,” Smith said.

Sixteen

“How are we going to get out of here?”

“Carefully.”

“But how?”

“Like I said: carefully.”

Mary had stared at him.

“Carefully,” Smith said for the third time, though he didn’t elaborate on what that meant, which was probably what Mary was hoping for.

Smith didn’t go into details because he didn’t have any to tell her or the other four women huddled in the slightly dark room with him. Gruff’s body lay nearby, unmoving, while Not-So-Gruff had been rolled farther into the room and left to rest. He wasn’t going anywhere, if he could even move. The man was still alive, as far as Smith could tell, but very much out of commission.

Just to be sure, though, Smith had given Mary very firm orders. “Hit him with the baton if he wakes up.”

“Hit him?” Mary had asked.

“Yeah. Hit him.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere. Preferably the head, where he’s most vulnerable.”

“What if it kills him?”

“Then it kills him.”

“I’m not sure I want to kill him, John.”

You didn’t have any trouble shooting Peoples to shit, he thought and wanted to remind her but didn’t.

Smith said instead, “Just keep him down and out of our hair. The last thing we want is for him to be up and causing trouble. Can you do that?”

“Yes,” Mary said.

“You don’t sound sure.”

“I am.”

“Are you sure, sure?”

“Yes.”

“Say it.”

“I’ll keep him down and out of our hair.”

“Whatever it takes.”

She nodded. “Whatever it takes.”

“Now I believe you,” Smith said, even though he didn’t, really. But he didn’t think voicing his doubts was going to help them.

“What about them?” Mary asked, looking at the other women gathering around them.

The sisters looked perplexed by what was going on, and the other two…looked too scared to do anything. No one, Smith saw, had made an attempt to run for the door. It was almost as if they were waiting for him to tell them what to do.

So Smith did. “Everyone, stay in here. If it’s safe, I’ll come back, and we’ll all leave together.”

They stared silently back at him, and he didn’t think they were very convinced. The sisters didn’t even look as if they’d heard him.

“Stay here,” he said again, emphasizing the two words as much as possible without making it sound like a forceful demand.

* * *

They were being held inside some kind of underground bunker that, according to Mary, was underneath the big red barn structure. Smith took Mary’s word for it; she was, after all, conscious when they brought her to the ranch while he’d been dragged between rooms—first the one with the cage, then later, what he called the holding room.

Smith slipped out of that room now, peeking left, then right, while the thoughts, Carefully. Just like you told her. Do this carefully, ran through his head.

There were lights outside, but they were dimmed, probably to conserve power, and strategically spaced. Just enough to illuminate the hallway, but not enough to see every inch of the place. It was plenty to assure Smith that Gruff and Not-So-Gruff hadn’t brought a third friend with them, though.

He stepped into the hallway, the TASER with its unfired charge in his right hand, with the riot baton in his front waistband. Mary had the other one and stayed behind with the other four women. Smith didn’t think he could have convinced any of them to follow him even if he tried. He got the sense they thought all of this might have been a trick, that their captors were playing a sadistic game with them.

Smith didn’t think so, and as he moved left along the corridor—there was nothing but a solid wall to his right—he was further convinced there was no one waiting to pop out of the shadows and scream “Boo!” at him.

That theory proved true when he reached the corner and peered around it.

Another long hallway, this one ending with concrete steps leading up to the surface. The exit. There were two rooms between him and the way out, and both had closed doors. Smith had a good feeling one of those rooms led into the one with the cage, where he’d had to fight for his life against the ghoul.

So what was the other one? And did he really want to know?

Smith glanced back toward the holding room.

Mary was leaning out the open door. She was the only one.

Seeing him look back, Mary mouthed, “Anything?”

Smith shook his head.

“So now what?” she mouthed.

“Wait here,” he mouthed back.

“Here?”

“Yes. There.”

“Okay.”

She gave him a concerned look, but Smith didn’t wait for her to mouth an argument. He turned the corner and, TASER in hand, headed toward the stairs.

A trio of lights along the ceiling lit his path, but there were plenty of shadowy patches that he couldn’t see through. He wasn’t afraid of ghouls lurking within them, though. For one, there was no telltale smell. And two—well, any nightcrawlers walking around would have attacked him as soon as he peeked around the corner.

And nothing had.

…Not yet, anyway.

He wished he had a gun and not just a TASER. Then again, while he was at it, why not wish for two guns?

Or three…

But he didn’t have one, never mind three, so he had to make do with what he had. Which was a lot better than nothing. If he couldn’t tase someone with the TASER, then he could take their head off with the baton. Of course, that was if he got close enough.

That was the trick. Get them before they got him.

He was halfway to the steps that led out of this hellhole when the irrational part of him resurfaced, insisting that all of this was a trap. Surely the Judge’s people wouldn’t have just sent two guys to go pick up Mary (the “new girl” they were talking about earlier) when they knew he was there? That was highly risky, especially without guns to back them up.

Then again, they probably thought he wasn’t going to wake up anytime soon. He’d been hit in the back of the head by the buttstock of a rifle and then tased. He should have been sleeping both those things off. Instead, he’d woken up and was, miraculously, ready when Gruff and Not-So-Gruff showed up to do their job.

But why would they come so early in the day? Why not wait until sunup? Unless, of course, it was already sunup outside and he was wrong about the time. That was entirely possible, too. Smith’s intuition was good—it had to be if you wanted to survive The Purge—but it wasn’t foolproof.

So maybe he was wrong about everything.

…or nothing.

Goddammit. Just do it, already!

His inner thought was right. There was no point in playing the scenario over and over in his head. Either this was a trick or it wasn’t, and he’d find that out soon enough. If it was a trick, then he’d probably end up dead.

Then again, wasn’t he going to end up dead anyway?

Might as well get it over with, I guess.

There were tracks on the floor that he hadn’t noticed before. Dirt and muddy boot prints coming and going. That would be Gruff and Not-So-Gruff, probably as they made their rounds. Smith had to wonder how many other people were at the ranch. He knew for a fact there had been four—counting the two men in the holding room with the women, there was the woman that had shot Blake, and Peter, the man Smith had shot. And then there were the riders that had ridden out to investigate Smith and Blake’s incident with the ghouls on the hillside. Gruff and Not-So-Gruff could have been a part of that group, or not.

That was the big problem. He didn’t know what he was dealing with. There could be two more or three more—or more, more.

One of many problems, anyway.

But answers weren’t going to come to him down here. He had to go find them, and that meant—

Smith stopped when he reached the two doors. They flanked him on the right and left at opposite ends of the corridor. Metal doors, like the one back at the holding room. One of them likely housed the cage where Smith had been forced to fight the ghoul. So what was the other one, then?

He looked at one, then the other. Not that he could tell them apart. They were identical and missing writing or anything to indicate what was on the other side. Of course, all he needed to do to find out was to open—

Padlocks. Big padlocks, too.

He tried to remember if he’d seen keys on either Gruff or Not-So-Gruff while he was searching them. Maybe, but he couldn’t be sure. It’d been too dark, and it wasn’t like he was looking for keys, so…

Smith glanced back down the hallway. He could go and find out for sure one way or another. Or…he could keep going and see what was up there.

He continued on.

The answers were up there. Whatever was behind the two doors with him down here could wait.

Smith took the first step but didn’t go up right away. There were ten of them, leading up to what looked like a double door at the top. Not metal, which would have been too heavy to open and close, but large wooden slabs. There were rings that could be used to close the doors on this end. And, he assumed, similar rings on the other side to pull them up and open. There were no locks that he could see.

He went up.

Two steps.

Three.

Four…

All the while, Smith clutched the TASER, ready to fire it if necessary. Oh, what he wouldn’t give for a gun.

Or two.

Or three…

He stopped on the fifth step and listened.

Thankfully the absence of shoes meant Smith could move almost silently like a ninja. He’d taken a look at both Gruff and Not-So-Gruff’s boots, but one was too big and the other was too small. Smith had considered grabbing the too-big pair, but he decided against it. A part of him didn’t like wearing a dead man’s shoes (the too-big ones belonged to Gruff), while the other thought staying as quiet as possible in his socks was the better option anyway.

He went up the steps toward the double doors. Near the very top, Smith did his best to calm down his breathing and his slightly accelerated heartbeat as he leaned toward the entrance/exit and…just listened.

Nothing.

He couldn’t hear anything through the slabs of wood. Either there was nothing up there, or the doors were too thick to eavesdrop through. He didn’t think it was the latter, and the former didn’t seem possible. If it was a barn up there—and he didn’t doubt Mary about their location—then there would be horses. But horses wouldn’t make any sounds or be moving around if they were asleep, so the silence did make some sense.

Smith wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince himself or not, but it did help him to take the remainder of the steps toward the doors. There were two deadbolts at the top, each one nearly half the size of his wrist.

He paused again and listened.

Like before, there were no sounds.

Absolutely…nothing.

Smith took hold of one of the deadbolts and slid it out of its clasp. Then he did the same for the other one, all the while keeping the TASER in his right hand, ready to fire. Dammit, he wished he had a gun instead.

The door he was pushing didn’t fight back. It opened easily, without resistance, and chilly air surrounded Smith’s face almost immediately. He hadn’t realized just how stuffy it was in the underground hallway until now. It’d been somewhat cold inside the holding room, but nothing compared to what was in the world outside.

Smith poked his head up, ready for anything.

Pop-pop-pop!

Smith almost dropped the door and jumped down the steps and back to the bunker floor below. But he didn’t, because the gunshots (Gunshots! Those are gunshots!) weren’t being directed at him. In fact, they weren’t even in the same vicinity as him. They were coming from outside.

…they were coming from outside.

He looked up and saw black space and wooden walls. Even as he stuck his head further up and through the opening, Smith could hear what sounded like scratching around him.

No, not scratching.

Shod horse hooves moving around him.

Horses.

Because the animals could hear the gunfire just as he could and were reacting. They might have even been woken up by it. And now, startled, they were agitated and moving around in their stables.

And there was no one inside the room with him.

Smith threw the door all the way open and took the rest of the steps and almost lunged up and outside. He went into a slight crouch, the TASER at the ready, and listened to the continued pop-pop-pop coming from outside.

Two sides, exchanging gunfire.

It’s a party, and no one invited me, Smith thought with a smirk. Time to get in on the fun!

Seventeen

Pop-pop-pop!

Gunshots.

Pop-pop-pop!

A battle.

Pop-pop-pop!

Two sides trying to kill one another.

Fuck yeah.

Chaos was good for Smith because it meant no one was trying to kill him. Call him selfish, but Smith preferred that to having guns pointed at him.

100-friggin-percent.

So the question now was: Who was doing the shooting and why?

Or maybe the better question was: How the hell did he get out of here without getting shot at? Or worse, shot? And it wasn’t just him that he had to worry about. He had Mary and the other four women to take care of, too. Goddammit. That was going to be a pain in the ass.

And to think, the week had started off so well. He’d managed to ditch the girl on the old couple and was free to wander again, like that Kung Fu guy they told him about. But here he was, stuck with four women.

Five, counting Mary.

It was his own damn fault. He should have stayed low when he saw Peoples and his goons. He should have then let Peoples go, after the man’s two flunkies tried to kill him, but Smith had gone after the man instead. He should have… He should have done a lot of things.

So, so many things.

Instead, he’d come back to Gaffney to save Mary and the boy. Or was it just to take out the Judge? Maybe a little of both. Or maybe just most of the latter.

Or the former…

He didn’t know the real answer, even now. He’d been so pissed off that the Judge had double-crossed him. Which was ironic, because Smith had planned to do exactly that to the fat man.

Ha! Maybe he shouldn’t have been so mad at the fucker for doing to Smith first what Smith had been planning to do to him. What’s good for the goose and all that jazz. All that led to now, stuck in a big red barn with five women while people were shooting at each other outside.

The battle wasn’t close enough to the barn that stray rounds were peppering the walls. Smith would have known if they were, because those bullets would have sliced right through the wooden boards as if they were butter. The building was old and rickety and looked painfully weathered. It wouldn’t have been able to stop a flying hot round.

All that brought him back to his predicament. Namely, what was he going to do about Mary and the others? They were his responsibility now.

Or were they?

What did he owe them, really? He didn’t even know their names. He knew Mary, and that was it. One person to take care of was going to be hard enough, but five? He wasn’t a hero. He wasn’t this Chang guy the old couple had told him about. He was just John Smith. And that wasn’t even his real—

“John.”

He spun around, raising the TASER in his right hand to fire, but he didn’t pull the trigger because it was just Mary poking her head up through the open door behind him. He hadn’t realized it before, but the lights from the basement below cast an eerie glow in the small room he was standing inside. It wasn’t exactly blinding, but in the middle of the night, with the rest of the barn so dark, it might as well be a spotlight.

“Jesus, Mary,” Smith whispered.

“I’m sorry, but you weren’t answering me,” she said.

“You were calling me?”

“For about a minute.”

He opened his mouth to argue but stopped short. Maybe he’d been too preoccupied with the battle to hear her. Or maybe he’d been too caught up in trying to decide if he should run away and leave the women behind.

He told himself it was the former as he watched Mary climb through the basement door and rush over to him. She was holding onto the other baton and was amazingly quiet, but then he saw that, like him, she wasn’t wearing heavy shoes. Unlike him, though, she didn’t even have socks on.

“What’s happening out there?” Mary whispered.

“A gunfight.”

“Between who?”

“I don’t know. Someone’s attacking the ranch, that’s pretty obvious. But I don’t know who, or why.”

“Shouldn’t we find out?”

“Yeah, we probably should.”

“How are we going to do that?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“If they’re friendlies…”

“If they’re friendlies. That’s the question, isn’t it?” He glanced back at the glowing bunker entrance behind them. “Wait here.”

Smith hustled back to the doors and looked down at a pair of eyes staring back up at him from below. One of the sisters. The others were behind her, waiting inside the concrete corridor. He could see fear and anxiety and about a dozen other emotions flashing across their faces as he reappeared.

“Stay down there until it’s safe,” Smith said.

“What’s happening up there?” one of the sisters asked.

“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out. What’s your name?”

“Anne.”

“Okay, Anne. I want you and the others to stay down there for now.”

“Is it safe?”

“I don’t know. That’s why you should stay put until I tell you it’s safe to come up.”

“No, I mean, is it safe to stay down here?”

That was a good question, and one Smith hadn’t considered. What was down there with them, behind those two doors that he hadn’t had the time to investigate? Not that he could have opened them, since both were padlocked.

“Yes,” Smith said. “The other doors are locked. Stay away from them.”

He thought he sounded pretty convincing.

“What about them?” Anne asked. She shot a quick look over her shoulder, and at first Smith thought she was talking about the other women.

But no, she was talking about Gruff and Not-So-Gruff.

“They won’t be any trouble,” he said, once again doing his best to sound convincing.

He was only partially bullshitting the women. Gruff was definitely a non-threat, but there was a chance Not-So-Gruff could still become one. But even then, he wouldn’t be the danger he was before Smith took him down with Gruff’s baton.

Anne nodded back at him, and Smith thought, I guess I’m a pretty good liar, after all.

“I’m going to close the door,” Smith told her.

“What?” Anne said, suddenly alarmed.

“I won’t lock it, just close it back up. The lights from down there are too bright. You understand?”

She nodded again, but this time it was much more reluctant.

“Stay sharp,” he said, before swinging the door closed.

The room around him immediately got dark again, and Smith breathed a sigh of relief. How long had he been standing there with a big hole behind him shooting out bright lights? Thank God no one had spotted him while he was trying to decide whether to ditch the women.

Smith made his way back to Mary. She’d found the door—the only way in and out, as far as he could tell.

She looked over. “Everything okay?”

Not even close, Smith thought but said, “Good enough.” Then, positioning himself on the other side of the door from Mary, “I want you to hang back. Let me go out first. See what’s out there.”

Mary nodded. “Be careful.”

“I’ll be back.”

He took hold of the doorknob—it was cold to the touch—and turned it. It moved easily, but he fully expected it not to budge when he pulled it, because like the doors in the basement, there would be a padlock on the other side.

Except it opened easily, and even colder air from the rest of the barn flooded into the back room. Smith wasn’t sure if he was relieved by the lack of resistance or paranoid. But before he could think too much about it, he eased the door wide enough to be able to see out at—

A dark barn interior, with stables lining both sides. He could more easily hear the scratch-scratch of horses moving around in their housings around him. The pop-pop-pop of gunfire outside also seemed closer, but he knew they weren’t; the louder noises were only because he didn’t have an extra door between him and them.

Smith gave Mary a quick glance—she nodded back, even though he hadn’t said anything—before he stepped through the opening, ready for anything, but hoping for nothing.

Eighteen

Scratch-scratch!

Pop-pop-pop!

Thwump-thwump!

Scratch-scratch!

Pop-pop-pop!

Thwump-thwump!

Smith wasn’t sure what was louder—the sound of horses scratching the floor with their hooves inside their stalls, the gunshots from outside, or the rapid movements of his heartbeat inside his chest.

Jesus Christ. Get ahold of yourself. It’s not like this is your first rodeo.

No, but it was his first rodeo where he was only armed with a baton in one hand and a TASER with limited range—not to mention limited effectiveness—in the other. Then again, compared to what a gun could do, everything had limited effectiveness.

Pop-pop-pop!

Thwump-thwump!

Scratch-scratch!

Pop-pop-pop!

Thwump-thwump!

Smith threaded his way along the shadowy parts of the barn, moving from stall to stall. As he neared each one, the horses inside grew agitated and started scratching harder and louder, sensing—then later, smelling—his presence outside their doors.

Scratch-scratch!

Scratch-scratch!

Scratch-scratch!

As far as he could tell, he was halfway to the front double doors. Smith was hoping to find a side door—most barns had them—or a rear one, but was out of luck. Either they were all on the wrong side, or he couldn’t make them out among all the darkness that filled the barn’s interior like a deep, black ocean. There were windows along the ceilings, but they were closed, with only small slivers of moonlight allowed to pierce through the sea of darkness. Not nearly enough for him to see the full layout of the place with.

His night eyes had adapted enough that Smith didn’t stumble into anything in his path. He stepped over plenty of dirt, dry mud, and scattered hay that carpeted the floors. None of it was enough to stop him or made enough noise that he was worried about someone outside the barn hearing his movements. Besides, he’d have to make a hell of a lot of noise for them to hear him anyway through all the chaos out there.

Pop-pop-pop!

Thwump-thwump!

Scratch-scratch!

Pop-pop-pop!

Thwump-thwump!

Christ, his heartbeat was too loud. Or maybe they weren’t that loud but just sounded loud to his own ears. They were likely not noticeable to anyone else.

At least, he hoped not.

Smith stopped for a moment to calm himself down.

Slowly, very slowly, his heartbeat faded into the background, until all he could hear was…

Pop-pop-pop!

Scratch-scratch!

Pop-pop-pop!

Scratch-scratch!

There. That was better.

Smith focused on the double doors in front of him again. It was easy enough to make them out from all the shadows thanks to their outline, which was highlighted by moonlight shining through from the other side. Like a large, rectangular box with a slit in the middle—

The doors burst open—

Mother…

—and two figures stumbled inside.

…fucker!

Smith’s mind flashed.

Option one: Turn and flee back to the back room where Mary was waiting for him and regroup. Except that was risky because he would have to be moving fast and could easily be spotted. But even if he wasn’t immediately spotted, he’d make plenty of noise to draw attention.

Option two: Stay right where he was, hidden in shadows next to one of the horse stalls. The animal behind him was scratching louder now—

Scratch-scratch!

Scratch-scratch!

—like it was trying to get him to move on. Either that or it wanted someone to pay attention to his presence. Besides, how long could he stay still, standing like a statue in the darkness, before the two newcomers noticed his presence?

And then there was option three. He hated option three, but it was the right call.

It was the only call.

So Smith took it and began moving forward toward the two figures as they spun around and pushed the double doors closed. Smith had no idea why they’d stormed inside by opening both doors, since that seemed highly illogical. Maybe they just couldn’t figure out which door was easier so elected to go for both. Or maybe they just hadn’t coordinated their efforts and ended up working on both, separately, at the same time.

Whatever the case, the left door slammed shut first—bam!—followed by the right one—bam!—just as something struck the wooden structure on the other side.

“Jesus!” one of them—a male—shouted as he ducked. Smith thought he could almost see splinters flicking over the man’s head as a bullet punched through the door and landed somewhere on the other side of the barn.

“You hit? You hit?” the other one, who had also ducked his head, asked.

“Nah, nah, I’m good. I’m good.”

“You sure?”

“I think I’m sure.”

“You better make sure.”

“Yeah, yeah…” The man staggered away from the door, away from the stream of bright light piercing through from the single hole created by the stray—or maybe not so stray—bullet that had nearly taken his head off. He was patting himself down, looking for wounds. “I’m good. I’m good.”

“Goddamn, that was close,” the other one said as he, too, backpedaled.

Both men from the sounds of their voices—and their body shapes, as they slowly became visible to Smith. Both armed, wearing gun belts and holstered pistols. One of them had a rifle slung over his shoulder, while the other one was bending to pick up something off the floor. Another rifle. Apparently, he’d dropped it and was brushing it off now as they continued to back away from the doors, eyes in front of them instead of behind them…

…where Smith was, still advancing toward them.

Slowly, stealthily, as his heartbeat began beating loudly again.

Thwump-thwump!

Thwump-thwump!

Thwump-thwump!

He wanted to stop and gather himself again, force his heartbeat to lessen, but there was no time. Right now he had the element of surprise. The two newcomers had no idea he was behind them. They were too busy focusing on the doors, on what was happening outside.

The pop-pop-pop of a gun battle continued as it had for the last—five minutes? Ten? Smith had lost track of time. Maybe it’d even been twenty minutes? Or longer? How long had it been going on while he was in the basement? He hadn’t heard it until he’d exited the room downstairs, so the chaos could have been raging for an hour, for all he knew. Or—

One of the men began turning around.

Aw, hell.

Smith picked up his pace, raising the TASER in his right hand.

Ten feet…

He thought he saw the whites of the man’s eyes as they widened. Either the man had spotted Smith, or he’d seen something moving in the shadows. Whatever the case, he’d seen something, because he was already lifting his rifle.

Five…

Smith fired and the TASER let out a soft and barely audible pfft!, like a puff of air, followed by the staccato tick-tick-tick of electricity flowing through the twin prongs as they arced across the air and—

Eureka!

The figure seized up, hands trembling as his joints locked up, and he was collapsing to his knees—the rifle fell from his hands at the same time and clattered to the floor—before Smith made up the rest of the distance.

The second man turned, reacting to the clatter of the first’s rifle, but Smith was already driving himself forward and into the man’s chest with his shoulder. The body flung back and crashed into one of the doors, and Smith was pretty sure the entire barn shook against the impact. Not that he spent any amount of time confirming that, because he was already pulling back, raising the baton in his left hand, and swinging it.

He saw a pale white face and bright blue eyes exploding out of their sockets in front of him just before Smith struck—

The rifle!

Shit! The guy had managed to lift his rifle to protect himself and Smith’s metal baton pinged! loudly off the barrel of the weapon!

The shockwave of two metal objects colliding left Smith’s left hand shaking, but fortunately the same was true for his prey. But the man recovered first, and Smith felt a knee sinking into his gut, just before the buttstock of an AR-15 rifle hit him across the face. Either his nose broke or he lost a tooth—not that it really mattered, because it hurt just the same—and Smith flew backwards.

Stay on your feet! Stay on your feet or you’re dead!

Somehow, he managed exactly that, even if it was incredibly difficult. But he fought through it—Stay on your feet, goddammit! Stay on your feet, or you’re a fucking dead man!—and remained upright as his prey, now his attacker, stepped away from the door and raised his rifle to aim.

Smith flung the baton at the man just as he pulled the trigger—

Pop! as the rifle fired and Smith felt the heat trail of the bullet as it zipped! past his head, coming a few inches—maybe closer—from taking off a chunk of his right ear.

But it’d missed.

That was the important part.

It’d missed!

He thought he might have heard the pek! as the round hit something wooden behind him, way back on the other side of the barn, but Smith was too busy lunging forward again just as the man pulled the trigger a second time—

Pop! as the rifle bucked in the man’s hands and the round went wide, this time pekking into one of the stable doors nearby.

Before the man could fire a third time, Smith was inside his defenses and grabbing the rifle by the barrel with one hand, while his other struck the man in the chin. The head snapped back, and before it could come forward again, Smith hit it again—this time in the turned cheek.

Then again, in almost the same spot.

And again.

The man’s body slumped against the door as Smith wrestled the rifle out of his grip. Not that Smith let up. He had to be sure, even though he could see blood dripping down the right temple along the man’s head. Apparently, Smith’s baton had done more than just distract the shooter; it’d landed and broken skin.

Smith drove one knee into the man’s gut, even as the body slackened. Then, as his attacker, now prey again, was halfway to the floor, Smith smashed the buttstock of the man’s rifle into his face, because why the fuck not?

The man crumpled in a pile on the floor, his back against one of the doors.

Groaning from behind him.

Smith turned just as the man he’d shot with the TASER picked himself back up. The guy was already on his knees and was staring at Smith as he reached for his holstered pistol. But he was having difficulty getting a grip on the weapon, and after a while, gave up trying to perform the act with one hand and began using both.

Smith walked the short distance over and struck the man in the face with the buttstock of his newly-acquired rifle. The man’s nose shattered, and blood sprayed the cold air, not that Smith gave a damn. When the man collapsed to the floor, his drawn gun falling next to him, Smith stepped over him, legs on both sides of the man’s prone form, and looked down.

The man stared back up at Smith, his face a bloody mask. Smith couldn’t tell where the blood began or ended. “Don’t, please,” the man said, holding up both hands. If he even remembered about his fallen pistol—it lay dangerously close to him, easily within reach—he hadn’t reached for it.

“What’s happening outside?” Smith asked as he pointed the rifle down at the man and slipped his forefinger into the trigger. He was slightly out of breath and his stomach was hurting, but it was better than being dead.

“What?” the man said. Smith hadn’t just gotten him in the nose with the buttstock of the rifle, but part of his mouth, too. His lips were split, and he might have lost a tooth or two because his words were slightly slurred.

Smith didn’t feel very much sympathy for the man. He was pretty sure his own mouth was cut. Fortunately, he seemed to still have retained all of his teeth.

“Outside,” Smith said. “Who’s attacking the ranch?”

“I don’t—I don’t know,” the man said. He hadn’t lowered his hands.

“You don’t know, huh?”

The man shook his head. “Please. Don’t kill me. I didn’t do anything.”

“You didn’t?”

“No.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t believe you,” Smith said.

Pop!

Then he walked back to the first man, still sitting against the door. Unlike his partner, this one didn’t get up or beg for his life. As far as Smith could tell, he wasn’t even moving.

Pop!

Luckily, two more gunshots inside the barn, in the midst of the ongoing chaos outside, didn’t draw any attention.

Smith took off one of the men’s gun belts and slid a Glock into the holster while a 1911 Colt went behind his back. He left the other rifle on the floor and hurried to the back of the barn to get the women.

It was time to make his exit.

Nineteen

He couldn’t see a damn thing from the first floor of the barn without opening at least one of the double doors, and he didn’t want to do that. It would expose him to not only gunfire (he still remembered that “stray” round that had nearly taken off the heads of one of the men he’d killed) but anyone who might be looking in his direction when he did.

Fortunately, Smith had other options.

While Mary and the other women waited on the first floor, he climbed up a ladder to the second and scooted his way along the darkness over to one of the windows. It was smaller than a door and less likely to be noticed when he eased it open and peered out.

It was a full-blown gun battle, all right, and it was still going on.

There were two factions that he could see: One was inside the main two-story house, the staccato flashes of their muzzles flickering in the darkness as rifles fired from windows on both floors. They were exchanging fire with people camped out among the hills, but the other side wasn’t constrained to that location. Some of the attackers had made it onto the ranch’s property, and he could see more muzzle flashes from within the fence, some firing on the house from a couple of the outlying supply shacks.

It was difficult to tell who was winning, if anyone was. The attackers were pushing in on the house, pelting the building with bullets. Whoever the attackers were, they had either shot out all the spotlights that had nearly blinded Smith earlier, or the ranchers had shut down the generator, because Smith couldn’t hear it humming anymore. The other possibility was that the attackers had taken the machine out, which was also possible. At the moment, the only lights Smith could see were coming from within the house, creating strange otherworldly glows along the corners of the windows the shooters were using to return fire.

Smith looked for but couldn’t find any casualties along the ground. Either the sides had retrieved their dead and wounded, or there hadn’t been any. He found that hard to believe, given how long the fighting had been going on.

Ten minutes? Twenty? An hour?

Who knew how long they’d been at it before he popped out of the barn basement and heard the shots for the first time. Hours, for all he knew, but that seemed unlikely since Gruff and Not-So-Gruff had come to fetch Mary as if it was just another day on the job for them.

The more obvious answer was that he’d heard the start of the fighting, or close enough. Not that that meant anything—

A strand of sunlight started to peek out from one of the hills in the distance.

Smith glanced reflexively down at his wrist, but there was nothing there. They’d taken his watch. Not that he needed a timepiece to be able to tell that morning was fast approaching. An orange glow was starting to wash across the landscape in front and all around him.

That prompted Smith to lower the window slightly so as not to be spotted by either faction. He left it propped open just enough to be able to see out and in both directions, but not enough to—

“Ron!” A voice, shouting. Then, again, “Is that you?”

Ron?

Smith leaned closer toward the crack in the window and turned toward the source of the voice: The house.

Then, the same unseen voice, just as loud as the first time, “Hey, Ron!”

It took Smith a couple of seconds to realize the voice was shouting in his direction.

Guess I wasn’t being as slick as I thought.

Whoever had spotted him sneaking a peek thought he was Ron. So who was Ron? It had to be one of the two men that had fled into the barn earlier, that Smith had shot, and were now lying dead below him.

Again, the same voice, “Ron! Answer me!”

Smith tried to pinpoint the speaker but couldn’t locate him. The man had to be in one of the house windows facing the barn, but from his vantage point all Smith could make out were the edges of naked window frames, the glass themselves having been shot out earlier in the gun battle. Although Smith couldn’t see the people inside the house, it was clear now that they could see him.

But not enough of him to make out that he wasn’t this Ron person, apparently.

Smith cleared his throat slightly, before shouting back, “Yeah! It’s me!”

“Ron?” the same voice asked. Smith couldn’t be sure if the man sounded suspicious or relieved to get a reply.

“Yeah!” Smith shouted. “It’s me!”

“Where’s Mack?” the voice asked.

Mack?

Then: Ah. Mack. The other guy.

“He’s here, too!” Smith shouted back.

He waited.

One second.

Two…

Three…

Smith was about to call back when—

Pek! as something struck and sliced through the wooden board that covered up the window in front of him, about half a foot over his head.

Shit!

Smith dropped to the floor, eating a handful of stray strips of old hay as he did so. The round hadn’t been close, but it’d felt like—

Move move move! he thought just before he did just that, about half a heartbeat before three more rounds pelted the piece of flimsy wood and a trio of hot lead entered the barn loft at almost the exact spot he’d been lying in.

Fortunately, he’d had the wherewithal to move just in the nick of time and was spared one or two or all three of those bullets going right through his stupid forehead.

Smith didn’t stop rolling until he was well clear of the window frame and the shooting had stopped. Just to be safe, he rolled a few more times, putting another few yards between him and the streaks of orange-ish sunlight pouring in through the newly-made holes.

He scrambled to his knees, then began scooting cautiously away from the front of the barn. Why the hell were they shooting at him? He thought he’d gotten away with it, impersonated this Ron guy, whoever he was. He’d even “confirmed” that Mack was still alive.

And yet, they’d still shot—

Pop-pop-pop! as a torrent of gunfire rang out nearby from the main house, and rounds began pouring through the flimsy barn wall all around him.

Smith spun and ran, then all but jumped through the hole in the floor. He bypassed the ladder entirely and went flying through the opening and—

Crashed into the first floor.

He landed, thankfully, in a big pile of hay.

Hallelujah! he thought as he listened to the continued volley of gunfire and the resulting pek-pek-pek! of rounds hitting, then coming through the second floor of the barn above him. Wood splintered and pelted the loft, and more than a few strips floated down through the opening above him.

“John, are you okay?” Mary, running over to him. “Are you okay? Are you shot? Are you shot?”

“No, I’m fine,” he said.

It was technically true, even though his back felt like someone had cracked a 2x4 piece of lumber across it, then did it again five more times. He supposed it was better than if he’d landed on the hard ground and not the stack of hay, which had cushioned his fall.

He stumbled up to his feet, slipping slightly on all the strands of hay. Mary helped him up and out of the pile, and Smith spent the next few seconds brushing hay off his clothes and out of his hair.

“What happened? I heard gunshots,” Mary said.

She had the other rifle slung over her shoulder, along with the other gun belt, a 1911 pistol in the holster. Smith had considered giving one of the other women either the rifle or the handgun, but he remembered how Mary had handled herself with Peoples. Besides that, she was probably the least traumatized of the five women, so the choice was pretty easy.

“They took a few shots at me,” Smith said.

“A few shots?” Mary said. “It sounded like everyone was taking a shot at you up there. What happened? I heard you shouting back at them. What did you say, exactly?”

Smith glanced toward the front doors, across the barn. The other women were scattered between him and Mary. Smith looked past them to make sure both double doors remained closed. They were, so the shooters hadn’t tried to storm in to finish him off. Not that he was surprised by that. To do so, they would have had to brave the property grounds, along with whoever was attacking the ranch.

The two dead bodies had been moved away from the doors and to the side. One of them was Ron and the other was Mack.

Or were they?

“Why were they shooting at you?” Mary was asking him.

“I think I was bamboozled,” Smith said.

“What? Bamboozled? What’s that mean?”

Smith couldn’t help himself and smiled. The voice from the house had asked for Ron, and when Smith had responded—impersonating Ron—had inquired about Mack. Smith had “confirmed” that Mack, too, was fine.

Then they’d shot at him.

With a vengeance.

Why? Because there was no Mack.

Smith stared at the two dead guys. One of them was definitely Ron, but the other guy wasn’t Mack. Whatever his name was, Smith had fallen for the trick. The shouter from the house had used a fake name to check if he really was Ron, and Smith had failed the test.

Slick bastard.

“Did you see who they were fighting?” Mary was asking him.

Smith shook his head. “Just shadows and muzzle flashes.”

“So we still don’t know if they’re friendlies or not.”

“No.”

The gunfire had resumed, this time going back and forth between the ones hunkered down in the house and the attackers on the outskirts of the property. Smith couldn’t tell if the unknown faction had made it closer while the ranchers were trying to kill him from the sporadic pop-pop-pop of their exchange. He’d need to get another look at what was happening to find out. That was going to be tricky now that the house people knew he was out here, and he wasn’t one of them.

Anne, with the other women in tow, walked over to where Smith and Mary stood. The young woman who had been down in the basement the longest was Jackie, while the oldest of the group was Carol. Anne’s little sister was Jessica. Smith wanted to say he got to know each and every woman in the last few minutes since they all escaped the underground room together, but all he really knew was their names. The truth was, he didn’t want to know more than that.

All four women looked even more haggard with the extra light that was filling up the barn from the coming morning. Their clothes were stained and torn in spots, and their hair was a mess. Jackie, in particular, looked almost like a feral animal as she stood in the back of the others, shyly peeking through the bodies in front of her at Smith.

“What are we going to do now?” Anne asked. “How are we going to get out of here?”

“Slowly and carefully,” Smith said.

“But how?”

“Slowly and carefully,” Smith said again. He turned to Mary. “I need you to keep an eye on them.”

“What are you going to do?” Mary asked.

Smith glanced around the barn. “Did you find another way in and out of this place?”

“A side door.”

She led him to a door near the back and just to the left of the room Smith and the women had emerged out of earlier. He hadn’t seen it before because it was still too dark; but now, with their brightening surroundings, it was hard to miss.

“What are you going to do with it?” Mary asked.

“Find out who else is out there,” Smith said. “Then figure out if they’re friend or enemy.”

“Who do you think they are?”

“I don’t know. I’m hoping they might be Mandy’s people.”

“Who’s Mandy?”

It hadn’t occurred to Smith until now that Mary had never met Mandy or knew anything about her people or their fight against the Judge. She’d gone straight from the encounter with Peoples to Gaffney. Unlike him, she’d never had the pleasure of finding herself locked in a shack inside the junkyard.

He glanced over at Anne and the others, but the women hadn’t followed them over. The sisters stood huddled together while Carol and the young one had wandered over to the two dead bodies farther back. He wondered if any of them knew who Mandy was. He remembered what Blake had told him about how they had friends that had been brought here for “reeducation.” Was one of them a friend of Blake’s?

“John?” Mary was saying when he didn’t answer her. “Who’s Mandy?”

No one, now, he thought but said, “A group that didn’t like what the Judge was doing out here, so they were resisting him.”

“You think that’s them outside?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I have to go out there and find out.”

“And if they’re not this Mandy person’s people, but someone else?”

Smith drew the Glock. The holster wasn’t nearly as comfortable or well-designed as the one he was used to, but it would suffice. He tapped the extra magazine in his back pocket to make sure it was still there.

“What happens if they’re the enemy, too?” Mary was asking him.

“Then I shoot them,” Smith said.

“What if there’s a lot of them?”

“I have plenty of bullets.”

Twenty

“I have plenty of bullets,” he’d said to Mary, and he was pretty sure he did. He had ten rounds left in the 17-round magazine that was in the Glock he’d picked up off one of the dead men (either Ron or Mack, or whatever Mack’s real name was), plus the additional seventeen in the unused spare mag he’d located in the man’s pocket. That gave him twenty-seven rounds total.

More than enough, even if he did face an army outside, which Smith didn’t think he was going to have to.

The Glock 17 was a Gen4 with MOS configuration for easier aiming. Smith thought that was a bit overkill. He’d given Anne one of the AR rifles and left her along with Mary to watch the other three women. They didn’t look especially convinced about Smith’s plan, not that he asked for their opinions. It wasn’t that Smith was a misogynist or anything, but, well, it was his neck on the line and the only person who needed to be comfortable with that was him.

Even so, Mary insisted on coming with him.

“I can help,” she said.

“No, you can’t,” Smith answered.

That had drawn a scowl from her. “I can help,” she had said again, gripping the AR rifle with both hands as if to prove that she could. Or maybe, more likely, to remind him that she’d used something like it before, on Peoples’s poor face not too long ago.

“I need you here,” Smith said. “I need you to watch over them.”

To drive his point home, Smith glanced over at the other four women. Mary did, too, and that finally convinced her.

“Just be careful,” she said.

“I plan to.”

“No, John, I mean it. Be careful.”

He nodded. “I will.”

“Promise?”

He thought that was a little childish. He wasn’t going to be careful? It wasn’t like he wanted to get killed out there.

“Yes,” he said anyway, just before she leaned in and kissed him.

That was a surprise. He hadn’t been prepared for it and was about to pull away…

…but didn’t.

Mary’s lips were soft and pliant and oh so sweet, and he found himself leaning into her kiss instead of pulling away. He’d forgotten the other women were in the barn with them, probably watching (probably, because he didn’t stop kissing Mary back to confirm), but he didn’t particularly care.

It was Mary who pulled away first. There was just a ghost of a smile on her face, barely visible in the slightly semi-dark of the part of the barn they were standing in.

“You promise,” she said, quieter than before, as if she only wanted him to hear.

“Yeah,” Smith said, thinking to himself, Remember Blake, you fucking asshole?

He did remember Blake, and that made liking the taste and feel and everything about Mary’s kiss even more problematic.

* * *

He was still thinking about Mary’s kiss as he slid out of the barn and into the just-a-tad-too-bright ranch property. It was still dark, but there was already a huge difference between now and the last time he was out here.

Still, all he could think about was Mary—

Get your head in the game! You wanna die?

No, he didn’t.

So focus!

The shooting had lessened noticeably, with only the occasional gunshot or two, and then a long period of eerie quiet again. It was very clear to Smith now that he was eavesdropping on to two sides that had realized they weren’t going to take out the other, and were settling down for a long fight.

That, unfortunately, wasn’t something Smith was good with. He was perfectly fine with sitting out a protracted battle where no one was shooting at him, but the problem was what happened after that. Sooner or later, someone was going to win, and when they did, they’d come after him and the women.

Mostly, they’d come after Smith.

…and Mary.

And Mary? Why did he just think about Mary again? He should have been more worried about his own hide right now.

Shouldn’t he?

Goddammit. This is getting confusing.

The door he’d stepped through was on the other side of the property grounds, so he wasn’t immediately afraid of being picked off by a sniper from the house or the hills as soon as he poked his head out. He hugged the wall now, the big red barn’s two-story structure blotting out most of the scattered morning sunlight rising and leaving him with some cover. Not a lot, but some. The house was somewhere in front and to his right, with the hills—and the attackers—behind him. There were open flat fields in front of him, but Smith didn’t see anyone out there when he’d peeked out earlier through a crack in the door.

Smith moved quickly, remaining mostly quiet thanks to the socks he was still wearing. Or he thought he was being pretty stealthy. He might have been making a whole lot of noise for all he knew, but he didn’t think so.

When he finally reached the corner and the front of the barn, Smith leaned out and looked right toward the house some fifty meters away.

The windows were just as blown out as he’d seen it earlier, but now with spreading morning light to help his cause, he could make out that one of the double doors was just barely hanging on its hinges. The front side of the building was damaged by bullets, and there wasn’t a single window that was still intact—

Pop!, followed by a resounding pek!, as a round blew off a chunk of brick and mortar just above one of the second-floor windows. A flash of movement as someone scurried away from that opening and behind some better cover.

Smith remained where he was, listening to the shot echoing, echoing…then fading completely. Erratic—or was that excited?—voices from the house, but he was too far to make out any of the words.

He couldn’t hear anything from behind him either, but what Smith focused on the most was that he was quickly losing what little cover he had. The morning was coming up fast on him, and he didn’t need a watch to know it wouldn’t be long now before the whole valley was awash in daylight. Even now, he could feel the warmth on his skin underneath his clothes.

Smith thought about turning back and returning to the barn to rejoin the women. It was a far better option than standing out here waiting for something to happen. He wasn’t going to get a much better look at the house or however many people were still alive in there, that much was certain. As for the attackers…

Go back. Make sure Mary’s safe.

Mary? Why was he thinking about Mary again?

Get focused, man! Focus!

He couldn’t go back to Mary yet. He still had to find out who the attackers were, and they were on the other side of the barn.

He turned around and headed back, keenly aware that most of the shadows he’d been using as cover earlier were gone.

Smith picked up his pace.

Scratch-scratch from the other side of the wall, now to his left. Horses moving around, either sensing him or hearing his movements. He hoped it wasn’t the latter because he didn’t think he was being that loud. Was he?

No, definitely not.

The side door was in front of him, just five yards away, with the other corner on the other side. He needed to find out who the attackers were. What were the chances they were Mandy’s people? That was the ideal answer, but there was no guarantee of that. For all he knew, it could have been another group that had stumbled across the ranch and decided they wanted it for themselves.

He had to find out one way or another, and that meant getting a good look at the attackers.

Something flicked in the corner of Smith’s right eye, and he turned his head to look. It was, he would realize later, the only thing that saved his life. If he hadn’t stopped moving and turned around, the bullet would have struck him either in the temple or somewhere else along the length of his head. Bottom line: He would have been dead.

But he wasn’t, and instead he heard the soft, almost muffled pop! of a suppressed rifle firing, just before the bullet zipped! past his face, inches from slicing his nose off at the bridge, and piercing the barn wall.

A loud snicker and the suddenly wild clop-clop of hooves moving around as the horse on the other side of the wall jumped, spooked by its own near-miss. At least Smith assumed it hadn’t been hit, because he was too busy ducking his head and running.

The pop! of a second muffled rifle shot, followed by the almost simultaneous pek! as the sniper’s second round smashed through the wooden boards somewhere behind Smith. He didn’t know exactly where, just that it was too damn close, and he could feel splintered wood flicking against his back as he ran.

And he was running.

Fast.

Or as fast as he could, anyway. He hoped it was fast enough.

Shit. He better be fast enough!

Then the side door in front of him burst open, and Mary lunged outside.

“Get back inside!” Smith shouted.

She saw him and froze, one hand on the barn door, the other holding her rifle. He didn’t know why he shouted, because all it did was paralyze her in place.

Even as he ran, Smith glimpsed sunlight glinting off the sniper’s rifle scope out of the corner of his eye for the third time.

He dived at Mary just as the sniper fired, and Smith crashed straight into Mary, knocking her into the door. She must have bounced off it, and he along with her, because soon they were both tumbling to the ground. Mary was screaming as he held onto her, his arms wrapped tightly around her waist.

Was she hit?

Was he hit?

Sunlight filled Smith’s eyes as he landed on his back and rolled over, Mary clutched tightly in his arms. He waited for the sniper to fire again.

One second…

Mary was still screaming.

Two…

He wasn’t sure what she was screaming at, or who.

Three…

Him. She was screaming at him.

Four…

Why was it taking the shooter so long to get another shot off and finish him?

Five…

And Mary was still screaming even as she somehow got loose from his arms.

Six…

Why was she screaming at him?

Seven…

“…bleeding! John, you’re bleeding! Oh my God, you’re bleeding!”

Oh, that was why she was screaming. Because he was bleeding out, which meant he’d been shot and was probably gonna die pretty soon.

Makes sense, he thought as he closed his eyes and drifted off, with the sound of Mary’s voice in his ears, screaming his name over and over and over…

Twenty-One

“What happened?”

“You were shot.”

“Yeah, I figured that part out. What happened after that?”

“Oh. They showed up.”

“‘They’ who?”

“I don’t know. They.”

Mary was looking off to one side. Smith turned his head slightly to follow her gaze.

Two figures stood nearby talking quietly. He wasn’t sure if they were doing that on purpose to keep him and Mary from eavesdropping or if they were just— No, they were definitely trying to keep their conversation a secret.

One of them looked familiar…

Roger. It was Roger. Mandy’s second-in-command.

Mandy’s replacement, now, as far as Smith knew since Mandy was dead and the folks at the junkyard would need a new leader.

He was lying on some kind of futon in the same mobile building that Mandy had called her command center/office/living quarters before she was unceremoniously picked off by the Judge’s sniper yesterday. Or was that two days ago? Smith had no idea how long he’d been unconscious after getting shot.

He struggled to sit up, but Mary was there, grabbing his arms. “Hey, what are you doing? Stay down.”

“I need to get up.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No, you don’t,” Mary said, and pushed him back down.

He would have resisted her if he could, but he couldn’t. Not only did he not have the strength, but there was that look in Mary’s eyes that made him want to do what she said.

Caring. She cared for him.

Shit. This is no good.

Smith lay back down on the soft bedsheet and sucked in a fresh lungful of air. His head was spinning slightly, though it wasn’t nearly as bad as when he’d been grazed in the head by a bullet days ago. Still, it was enough that he didn’t think he could have made it to his feet anyway, even if Mary wasn’t there to insist he stay down.

He took a few seconds to get a better look at his wound. Or the bandage wrapped around his midsection. The bullet had struck him somewhere in the side; he knew that because that was where the throbbing pain was coming from. It must have gone clean through, considering how much he had been bleeding after getting shot. Not that he’d seen all the blood, but that was what he guessed from Mary’s terrified voice as she screamed his name after he collided with her and they both fell to the ground.

The lower half of his midsection was wrapped in gauze tape. Whoever was responsible had done a pretty good job from the looks of it. There was pain from the spot where he’d been shot, but not of the debilitating variety. At least, he didn’t think so. Then again, he could have been swimming in morphine or some other painkiller and not know it.

“What happened?” he asked Mary.

She was dabbing his forehead with a slightly damp towel while kneeling next to him. He wasn’t sure how long she’d been there, but she looked at home leaning over his prone form. Or maybe he just wanted to think that she looked at home because she felt like home to him.

Yeah. This is definitely no good.

“You were shot,” Mary said. “I already told you that.”

“By who?”

“One of them.”

Mary glanced over at Roger and the woman he was talking to, the two of them standing close to the door. They were much farther than he’d realized when he first looked over in their direction. No wonder he couldn’t hear what they were saying; they were standing well across the elongated building a good twenty yards or so. Smith didn’t recognize the woman Roger was talking to; she was blonde, early twenties. She wore a gun belt and carried a rifle over her back. Roger was, too. They looked very much like two people that had just been in a firefight. Or waiting for one to show up at their doorsteps.

“Why did they shoot me?” Smith asked.

“She said she didn’t recognize you when she fired,” Mary said.

“‘She?’”

“The one that shot you.”

“Who was she?”

“I don’t know. I think they called her Grampa?”

“Gramps?”

“I think that’s it.”

“Figures.”

“Who is she?”

“Someone I’ve met before.” Then, “She said she shot me by accident?”

“Yes. Why?”

Smith shrugged. Or did something that slightly resembled a shrug. “She didn’t exactly like me when we first met.”

“You’ve been here before?”

“Yes.”

“So you know these people?”

Smith turned to look over at Roger again. The man was staring back at him now. “I’ve met them, yeah.”

“They saved our lives,” Mary said. “After you were shot, they converged on the barn. I think they were going to attempt to take on the house.” She paused for a bit, before continuing. “Apparently they’d been preparing for the attack all night, but then you showed up and the woman, Gramps, took the shot.”

“So they took the house?”

Mary shook her head. “After they found us and the others inside the barn, they decided to retreat. We came back here instead.”

“What about the ranch?”

“It’s still there.”

“It wasn’t taken?”

“No.”

“So last night was all a waste of time.”

“Depends on your perspective,” a voice said.

Smith turned his head as Roger walked over to them. The woman was leaving the building, closing the door after her.

Up close, Roger looked different than the last time Smith saw him. It was in the way he walked, the way he talked, and even the way he stood with his hands on his hips as he sat down on the edge of a dirty couch and stared back at Smith.

“You attacked the ranch but didn’t take it,” Smith said. “Sounds like a waste of time to me.”

“It wasn’t,” Roger said. “We got what we went there for.”

“Which was?”

“Jackie and the sisters.”

“And Carol?”

Roger shook his head. “We didn’t know about her. But we got her, too.”

“You attacked the ranch just to save your friends?”

“That, and to let the Judge know that killing Mandy isn’t going to put a stop to this. We’re not going to just go away. Not by a long shot.”

“They didn’t get everyone,” Mary said.

Smith looked over at her. “Who did they leave behind?”

“No one,” Roger said.

“My son,” Mary said.

“He’s in Gaffney. We can’t do anything about that. Gaffney’s…more complicated.”

“But the ranch wasn’t?” Smith asked.

Roger shook his head. “The ranch is isolated. It’s not a town with hundreds of buildings and streets and places to hide. We’ve—” He stopped himself for a moment. Then, continuing, “Mandy and me have been talking about attacking it for a long time now. It was the most obvious choice to take the fight to the Judge.”

“Gaffney didn’t send help?”

“We kept expecting it. They would have heard all the shooting last night. And they had radios. But no one showed up to help the ranch. I had people waiting just in case.” He shook his head and looked thoughtful. Smith wasn’t sure if that was disappointment or relief on his face. “But no one showed up. Maybe they thought the ranch wasn’t worth saving.”

“Or maybe the Judge thought his men could hold out against you. Which, in this case, he was right.”

“Maybe.”

“So what happens now?”

Roger shrugged. “We haven’t thought that far ahead.”

“By ‘we,’ you mean you.”

“Yeah,” Roger said, a little quieter that time.

“You’re in charge now.”

“I guess I am.”

“You made the call to attack the ranch.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, thanks. You saved our lives. Even if Gramps did shoot me.”

“She didn’t know it was you. She was too far away.”

“Was that her excuse?”

Roger chuckled. “That’s what she claims, anyway.”

“By the way, you couldn’t get me a bed? Or a cot, at least?”

“You’re lucky I found that futon for you.” Roger got up from the couch and walked across the building.

“Hey,” Smith said after him.

Roger stopped at the door and looked back. “What? More complaints?”

“I wanted to say thanks.”

The other man raised both eyebrows. Smith guessed he was surprised to hear that. “For what?”

“You know what.”

Roger grunted. “Okay, tough guy.” Then, turning away, “Try not to die on my floor, okay?”

“I’ll do what I can.”

Roger left. Smith heard voices from outside. Roger, calling out to someone. Silhouetted figures moved across the windows to his right as they responded to the junkyard’s new leader.

Smith turned back to Mary. She remained where she was on the floor next to him. He wondered how long she’d been there, taking care of him while he was recuperating. She hadn’t said very much during his conversation with Roger, and he didn’t have to wonder what she was thinking about then; and still was, now.

“Aaron,” Smith said.

Mary stopped what she was doing—wringing water out of the same damp towel she’d been using to clean him, into a bowl next to her—and looked over.

“I’ll get him back,” Smith said.

“How?”

“Whatever it takes.”

Mary pursed her lips. He wasn’t sure if she believed him or not.

She was wiping down his face when Smith reached up and took her hand. He squeezed as hard as he could. It was probably not all that hard, seeing as how he wasn’t even close to being 100 percent yet.

“I’ll get him back,” he said.

She didn’t say anything.

“I swear to God,” Smith said.

She smiled. “I believe you.”

He returned her smile, glad that she did believe him, because he really had meant it. Every single word of it: He would get Aaron back, even if it killed him.

Now all he had to do was figure out how…without actually getting killed in the process.

Twenty-Two

Roger had attacked the ranch with twelve people and left with the three they’d been looking for—Jackie and the sisters—along with Carol, who decided to come along. He’d taken two wounded but no KIAs. Roger was certain they’d killed at least one of the Judge’s men and wounded three others, but couldn’t be sure about the latter.

“Saw them dragging away one body, but I don’t know about the rest,” Roger said. “Maybe two dead? I don’t know. Can’t be sure.”

“So the goal was never to take the ranch?” Smith asked.

“No. It was always just to get our friends back.”

“Mission accomplished.”

“You’re damn straight.”

Smith didn’t think Roger should have been that proud of last night’s raid. One confirmed kill and two, possibly three wounded wasn’t really the kind of enemy casualties he would have called a success. Especially since Roger had the ranch outnumbered and outgunned, not to mention attacking with the element of surprise on his side.

But Smith didn’t bring those points up. Roger was a new leader, taking over for, from what Smith could tell, a beloved predecessor in Mandy. He’d done his best, and for a first time, well, it wasn’t too bad. At the very least it hadn’t been a clusterfuck, which it could have very well been if the Judge had counterattacked from behind the junkyard folks last night. Instead, the Judge had hung back, either confident in his belief the ranch could hold out, or he just didn’t care what happened to them.

Frankly, Smith was leaning toward the latter.

Smith also didn’t mention that he’d taken out four of the ranch’s manpower nearly singlehandedly. He had two confirmed kills alone with a possible third, not to mention a fourth that was incapacitated. Probably four in all, because he didn’t think Not-So-Gruff was going to wake up from his wounds anytime soon, but that wasn’t a given. Three was a safe number.

“What are you gonna do with him?” Roger asked as they walked through the junkyard.

“Ask him some questions,” Smith said.

“You sure you’re up to it? I mean, no offense, but you look like shit.”

Smith grunted. Roger wasn’t wrong. The first few steps from the building where he’d been sleeping off his wound for the majority of the day had been an adventure. Mary hadn’t wanted him to leave and insisted on holding onto him as he climbed down the steps. She’d wanted to come along, too, but Smith told her not to. He didn’t want her to see what he was going to do. Reluctantly, she had acquiesced.

He didn’t so much as walk alongside Roger as he limped. Or hobbled. A mixture of the two. He wasn’t feeling 100 percent. Hell, he’d be lucky if he was 50 percent.

Right now, he felt more like…30 percent?

Feeling a little generous, eh?

More like 20 percent, maybe.

…or just shy of 10 percent...

“I can do this, you know,” Roger said. “You just have to talk me through it.”

“No,” Smith said.

“Why not?”

“Because he wouldn’t believe you.”

“And he’d believe you?”

“Yes.”

“Looking like that?”

“Especially looking like this.”

“Come again?”

Smith shook his head. “You don’t want to know.”

He thought Roger would argue, but instead the man kept quiet. Maybe he really didn’t want to do what Smith had proposed and had just offered to be nice. Or maybe he didn’t want Smith to think he wasn’t up to the task.

They walked on, Smith taking the time to glance around him at Roger’s small army of young women and even younger men. There were lookouts all around them, some perched on the piles of junk that littered the place. They were mostly silhouettes in the dwindling sunlight, hidden against the shadows cast by their hulking stations. The fences were still intact, and no one strayed out into the open where they could be picked off. Roger had organized the place with an eye toward safety in the aftermath of their attack on the ranch. Smith guessed the younger man had learned well at the feet of his former leader.

To stay out of the sights of any snipers that might have been out there, Smith and Roger walked along the rear of the manufactured buildings. It was a good thing they didn’t have to run from cover to cover, because Smith didn’t think he could. Hobbling/limping, or whatever he wanted to call it, wasn’t exactly effective for dodging bullets.

It didn’t take them long to reach the shack. It was the same one that Smith had been kept in not all too long ago. It was just as small and nondescript and ugly as the last time he’d seen it. There were two people standing guard outside, with one of them being Gramps. The young woman sat on the ground, cleaning an AR with a rag. The weapon had a big scope on top. It was probably the same rifle she’d used to shoot him earlier this morning.

Smith didn’t recognize the other woman, who was just a little older than Gramps.

When she heard them coming, Gramps looked up and grinned at Smith. “You looking good for someone who was just shot today.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?” Smith asked.

“Who, me?”

“Yeah, you.”

Gramps shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“Uh huh.”

“That’s Lorna,” Roger said, nodding at the tall and attractive brunette standing next to Gramps. She was cleaning her nails with the point of a knife.

Lorna glanced up and gave Smith a What’s up? nod.

Smith returned it, before asking her, “Can I borrow that?”

“What?” Lorna said.

“That,” Smith said, nodding at her knife.

It was about five inches of rubber handle and five more inches of a double-edged stainless steel blade. Nothing special at all, but it would get the job done.

“What’d you need it for?” Lorna asked.

“I have to ask someone some questions,” Smith said.

Lorna turned to Roger, who nodded.

“I want it back,” Lorna said as she handed the knife to Smith.

“I won’t need it for very long,” Smith said.

“What are you gonna do?” Gramps asked.

“He’s gonna interrogate Travis,” Roger said.

“He’s not talking. We already tried.”

“He’ll talk to me,” Smith said.

“To you?”

“Yeah.”

“Why would he do that?”

“I’m gonna ask him nicely,” Smith said. “Really, really nicely.”

* * *

Travis Clarence, the man with two first names, sat on the floor inside the shack, fastened to the same heavy telephone pole that Smith had been when he was last in here. And like Smith before him, the only part of Travis the man could move was his head, which he lifted up when Smith stepped inside and closed the door softly behind him.

The Gaffney man’s wound, the bullet crease on his forehead courtesy of Smith, had been treated, but the original bandage they’d put on the gash remained. Blood had turned it a mostly pale shade of pink, and it was long overdue for a changing.

“Sonofabitch,” Travis said. “I was wondering if you’d gone and gotten yourself killed yet.”

“Why would you say that?” Smith asked.

“Figured you had headed back to Gaffney to get your woman back.”

“You did, huh?”

“So, did you?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“So what happened?”

“I’m still alive, aren’t I?”

“Barely, from the looks of it.”

Smith smirked. He wasn’t trying to hide his condition from Travis. He knew that even with the gauze hidden inside his shirt he was still moving gingerly and was barely at 30 percent strength.

Okay, more like 10 percent.

“Hobson’s dead,” Smith said as he walked toward Travis.

“What happened to him?” Travis asked.

“I shot him.”

“Why’d you do that?”

“He went for his gun.”

“Goddamn. Tough guy, huh?”

“Me or Hobson?”

“You.”

“Nah. Just faster.”

“Hey, what are you doing?” Travis asked, turning his head and trying to follow Smith’s movements as he walked past before disappearing behind the man.

Smith tugged at the thick rawhide rope tying Travis into place. It was as tight and impossible to break free as when Smith had been caught in the same position.

They have friggin’ Hercules tying these things.

Smith made a mental note to ask Roger who that mysterious Hercules was, but that was for later. Right now, he took out Lorna’s knife and went down on one knee so he could place the sharp—and cold—edge against one of Travis’s fingers.

“Hey, what’s that? What are you doing?” Travis asked. The sudden alarm in his voice was impossible to miss. “Stop doing that! Is that a knife? Hey!”

“I’m going to ask you some questions,” Smith said. “You’re going to answer them.”

“Is that a knife? Hey, take that knife away! Hey!”

Smith cut off the forefinger on Travis’s right hand, and the man screamed.

It was an incoherent scream, and it went on for some time.

While Travis struggled futilely against his bounds, Smith took out the duct tape from his jacket pocket and wrapped it around the finger. It was a little difficult because Travis didn’t have very big fingers, and covering the small stump to stanch the spurting blood took more effort than Smith had expected. He had to put down the knife next to the severed piece of finger to make sure Travis wouldn’t bleed to death on him.

“Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ!” Travis was screaming. “Jesus Christ! What did you do? Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ!”

“Oh, relax,” Smith said. He pinched the duct tape to ensure there were no gaps for the blood to squirt through. Travis screamed louder as Smith put pressure on the wound. “You still have four perfectly good fingers left. Well, three and a thumb. And that’s not even counting the five on your other hand. What’s one less?”

When he was done, and was sure Travis wouldn’t bleed to death on him, Smith picked the knife back up.

“Now, I want you to concentrate,” Smith said. “Are you concentrating?”

“Jesus Christ!” Travis said, half-shouting and half-screaming. “You’re fucking insane! You’re fucking insane, you know that?”

“I need you to calm down.”

“What? Fuck calming down! You cut off my finger, you goddamn maniac!”

“I need you to calm down quickly.”

“What? What? Fuck you!”

Smith placed the cold—and now blood-smeared—edge of the knife against Travis’s middle finger.

Travis shut up quickly and stopped moving entirely.

“You calm now?” Smith asked.

“Yes,” Travis said. Or squeaked out. It was mostly a squeak.

Smith couldn’t see Travis’s face, but he assumed the other man was sweating despite it being quite chilly inside the shack. Travis’s entire body seemed suddenly frozen in place, incapable of even the slightest movement.

“You ready to answer my questions?” Smith asked.

“Yes,” Travis squeaked.

“Question number one: Is the Jeep the only vehicle the Judge has at his disposal?”

“Yes.”

That was easy, Smith thought, before he said, “Question number two: Who is the most dangerous man among the Judge’s men?”

Travis didn’t answer right away, but not, Smith was pretty sure, because he didn’t want to. The man was, in all likelihood, thinking about the answer. Smith could have confirmed that by coming out from behind Travis to glare at his face, but he didn’t want Travis to see him—or how weak he was feeling.

Because he was feeling a little sick and wanted to vomit. Maybe it was the painkillers he’d been swallowing all day or the two he’d taken before leaving the building where he’d been sleeping for most of the day, where Mary was still waiting for him. Walking from there to here hadn’t felt very good, but Smith didn’t really know how taxing it’d be for his currently depleted health until now.

Then again, maybe it was looking at the stump that used to be Travis’s forefinger. Smith was used to killing and death and blood, but he’d never actually had to interrogate someone like this before. He never had to. But he also knew that there was only one way to get Travis talking, and this was it.

“Roman,” Travis finally said. “It’s Roman.”

“The sniper,” Smith said.

“Yes.”

“He’s dead. Remember? I shot him at Lucky’s.”

“Oh.”

Smith smiled. Either Travis had forgotten about that little incident, or he thought Roman had survived. Not that it mattered.

“Who’s next, after Roman?” Smith asked.

“Stephens,” Travis said without hesitation.

“Not you?”

“Huh?”

“You don’t think you’re very dangerous?”

Travis shook his head. “I assumed we weren’t including me in this.”

Smith chuckled. “Good point.”

Travis might have swallowed. Smith saw his throat moving up and down slightly. “That’s it? That’s all you want to know?”

“Are you kidding? I have about twenty more questions for you.”

“Oh.”

“Do I even need to say it? Make me ask any of them more than once, and I’ll cut off another finger.”

“No,” Travis said, shaking his head quickly, even violently. “No, you don’t have to say it. Just ask. Just ask!”

Smith smiled. “Question number three…”

* * *

He handed Lorna her knife back.

“Jesus Christ, what did you do to him?” Lorna asked as she stared at the knife, almost reluctant to reach for it.

It wasn’t really the knife itself that made Lorna hesitant, but the blood on it. Travis’s blood. Fortunately, there wasn’t a lot, because Travis hadn’t forced Smith to cut off another finger. He’d been extremely compliant after losing just one.

Roger and Gramps were also outside the shack, waiting for him. In total, Smith had spent about an hour inside, and by the time he stepped back out, the air had grown a whole lot chillier and night had fallen around them.

It was dark, but it was easy to see the look on Gramps’s face. She was almost beaming. “How many fingers did you cut off?”

“Just the one,” Smith said.

“Just one?”

“Yeah.”

Gramps chortled. “Fucking pussy. I would have held out for at least three fingers.”

Smith grinned at her. “He’s not as tough as you.”

“No shit.”

“What did he tell you?” Roger asked.

“Everything,” Smith said.

“Everything?”

“Yeah, everything.”

“So what now?”

“Now, I go get some rest, because I don’t feel so good.”

“What’s—” Roger began to ask but never finished.

Or maybe he did finish, but Smith just didn’t hear him because he was too busy falling, falling—

—and landing on the hard junkyard ground on his face, for God only knew how many times in the last week.

Like all the other times, he was pretty sure this one looked pretty embarrassing, too.

Twenty-Three

“You really wanna do this?”

“Why not?”

“It’s dangerous, for one.”

“Have you looked around you? Everything is dangerous out there.”

“But this is more dangerous.”

“How you figure?”

“Well, for one, you’re going to drive right into a town where there are rifles on the rooftops waiting to pick you off.”

“They gotta hit me first.”

“All it’ll take is one lucky shot.”

“You mean, unlucky shot?”

“Either/or.”

“That’s fine. I was born underneath a lucky star.”

“Who told you that?”

“My momma.”

“Ah. Must be true, then.”

Gramps chuckled at that. “Then again, Momma did tend to lie about the occasional things.”

“Such as?” Smith asked.

“Lucky stars, things like that.”

“I see.”

“I like you, Smith.”

“Is that right?”

“You got a sense of humor.”

“Can’t be helped, considering what I’m about to do.”

That had elicited a loud chortle from the young woman who called herself Gramps, who was neither a grandpa (or grandma, in this case) or all that grumpy. Smith still remembered the first time Blake had talked about Gramps. She’d been slightly grumpy then, but the woman Smith was talking to now looked like she was ready to take on the world and didn’t give a shit if she died in the process.

Smith, on the other hand, did give a shit. He wasn’t interested in suicide missions, even if this particular stunt could very well be interpreted as that. He told himself that he had all the angles covered. He told himself that all day yesterday as he lay on the futon while the plan gestated inside his head and Mary took care of him.

Mary…

He told himself he wasn’t doing this for her, to save her son from the Judge’s clutches. That he was just going back to Gaffney because he needed to put an end to this, that although he could just ask for a horse from Roger and take off north and never once look back over his shoulder, that he couldn’t. Because the Judge had pissed him off, and now the fat man had it coming. And Smith was just the guy to give it to him. None of it had anything whatsoever to do with Mary or wanting to reunite her with her son, because he had feelings for her.

Because he didn’t, even though she was a very good kisser.

And pretty.

And he dreamt about being with her last night.

And—

Goddammit, Smith thought as he sat up on the hillside and gazed forward at the rooftops of Gaffney.

He was far enough away from the town limits that he could see the men on the roofs with binoculars, but they couldn’t see him back. Or, at least, they didn’t give any indication they had spotted him.

There were only two ways into Gaffney by road—north and south. You could enter it from other directions, but you’d need to be on foot. Smith had taken advantage of that two nights ago when he snuck into Gaffney. This time, he didn’t think it would be quite as easy. The Judge would know he was coming. Or if he didn’t, the fat man would be ready for anything, including a full-frontal assault by Roger’s crew.

“They’re in town,” Roger’s spy had said when the young woman reported back to them earlier in the morning. “The ones from the ranch. The Judge pulled them all back into Gaffney. The ranch is undefended.”

“How many?” Roger had asked.

“A dozen. Two dozen,” the spy had said.

“Which one is it? There’s a big difference between a dozen and two dozen.”

The spy, who couldn’t have been more than twenty, had shrugged. She was covered in dirt and dust and wearing natural earth tones to stay hidden as she kept an eye on Gaffney from the edges. “Let’s go with two dozen, just to be safe.”

“Two dozen,” Roger had said, looking over at Smith. “That’s a lot. I didn’t even think he had that many men left.”

“You weren’t sure how many he had back at the ranch?” Smith had asked.

Roger shook his head. “No. We had a guess, but… No.”

“So he’ll be ready for you when you show up,” Gramps, who was in attendance, had said.

“Apparently,” Smith said.

“So what are you gonna do?”

“I wouldn’t want to disappoint him.”

Gramps laughed. “Man’s got a death wish.”

“I have a plan.”

“Same difference.”

“Not really,” Smith said.

Mary had been there during the conversation, but she hadn’t interjected. Instead, she’d sat back and listened as Smith laid out his plan. Then, when the others left, she’d kissed him—caught him by surprise, again—and left without saying a word. Smith wasn’t sure if that was her way of saying good-bye or—

Yeah, it was probably her way of saying good-bye.

Smith sat on the hill now, the fading sunlight still high above him but getting lower. He felt good, but that was probably all the painkillers he’d dumped into his system starting in the morning and continuing throughout the day. His adrenaline was pumping as he scooted down the hillside and back toward the Chestnut horse waiting below at the base. The animal lifted its head as Smith glided down, and gave him a snort.

“It’s a perfectly good plan,” he said to the animal.

The horse snickered and looked away, apparently a disbeliever.

“Oh, what do you know? You’re just a horse,” Smith said as he climbed into the saddle. He barely felt the gunshot wound in his right side.

Barely.

* * *

He heard the first shot about ten minutes after he picked up the sound of the Jeep’s engine. Smith couldn’t see the vehicle from his position, but he didn’t have to. The Nebraska landscape was deathly quiet, and there was nothing to stop the only working car in what was probably a good hundred miles from making a nuisance of itself.

That was the plan, after all.

Smith didn’t hear the first rifle shot until almost fourteen minutes later. The gunshot was followed by another one, then another a third. Soon, there was just the pop-pop-pop of semiautomatic weapons firing, sometimes rewarded by the occasional ping! as the rounds found their target.

Not that that did anything to stop the vehicle. If bullets hitting the speeding car had managed to stop it in its tracks, then Smith wouldn’t have been able to keep hearing it as it got closer to Gaffney. The city’s rooftop guards would have surely ceased shooting if they’d managed to stop or even slow the approaching Jeep.

“Will this work?” Smith asked when he saw what Lorna and the others had done to the Jeep that he’d brought to them in the aftermath of Mandy’s death. Lorna, as it turned out, was a welder’s assistant before the end of the world, and she had taken charge when it came to shielding the car.

And that was what they did—using thick sheets of metal from around the junkyard to encase the vehicle into something from Mad Max, a post-apocalyptic cinematic tale that was popular with the recruits on Black Tide Island. Smith was told there were sequels, but he’d never seen them.

The continued pop-pop-pop of gunfire got more intense as the Jeep neared the town, followed by the ping-ping-ping! of those same rounds ricocheting harmlessly off the armor plating around the vehicle.

Smith pictured Gramps and Lorna in the front seats of the Jeep as they made a beeline toward Gaffney, probably having the time of their life. Or Gramps, anyway. Lorna was older and clearly didn’t have the same level of death wish as Gramps.

“I’m gonna ram this thing right up their assholes,” Gramps had said to Smith just before he climbed onto the Chestnut to go ahead of them.

“You don’t have to do that,” Smith had said. “I just need you to distract them long enough for me to get in there.”

“I can do both. Ram it up their ass and distract them long enough for you to sneak in.”

“Let’s just concentrate on the latter.”

“Okay, Mr. Buzzkill.”

Lorna, standing nearby, had given Smith an almost pitying look before saying, “We’ll get it done. You can count on it.” She then smacked one of the thick plates of metal that had been welded into place, giving the Jeep a protective ceiling that it was never supposed to have.

“And the Jeep can handle the extra weight?” he asked.

“We tested it out,” Lorna said. “She’ll be a little sluggish, but once she gets going she should be fine.”

“‘Should?’”

Lorna shrugged. “Hey, it’s not like any of us have done this before, you know. I guess we’ll find out when we find out.”

Yeah, I guess so, Smith had thought, but for the sake of his own confidence and the women’s, had said, “Let’s shove it up their asses, then.”

That had elicited a big grin from Gramps. “Yee fucking haw!”

* * *

Gramps and Lorna were trying to “shove it up their asses” while Smith snuck his way back into Gaffney. It was easier than he had anticipated, but then again it wasn’t like the Judge’s men didn’t already have their hands full with the armored-plated Jeep driving straight up the road toward them. Smith could hear the shouts and sounds of shod horses clopping away on the streets as they rushed to the north side to stop the incoming vehicle.

The gunfire got louder and more intense, and the ping-ping-ping! of ricocheting bullets picked up speed. Soon, that was all Smith could hear.

Two men on horseback galloped up the road in front of Smith while he was sidling his way along the darkening alleyway. Just like last time, getting into Gaffney wasn’t very hard. There weren’t any walls or fences to keep him out, and the Judge’s men didn’t have nearly enough manpower—especially tonight, after everything that had happened at the ranch—to cover every inch of the city, while also trying to fight back Gramps and Lorna’s charge.

Not that the women were going to actually attempt to make it into the city. Their job—their only job—was just to draw the men over to them. Which, from the sounds of continued gunfire and bouncing bullets, they were doing with aplomb.

Eventually, the shooting slowed down, and the sound of car engine began to fade.

The women had stopped their push and reversed course. They would have only done that under one circumstance: The shielded vehicle was in danger. As long as it didn’t run out of gas—and it wouldn’t for a while; they had checked—it could return to base just fine even damaged. Chances of the Judge’s men pursuing was low. Just in case, Roger and a few others were waiting farther down the road to help. All it would have taken was a couple of good shots to puncture the Jeep’s tires. The vehicle could still move on flat wheels, but it would have been a little difficult given its additional weight.

Smith stopped thinking about what was going on out there and concentrated on the mission at hand.

Him, inside Gaffney, all alone.

Second time’s the charm…

Twenty-Four

“The big white house, about two blocks north from here. The one with the guards outside. I don’t know how you missed it in the first place.”

Hobson had said that, before Smith shot him, three nights ago.

“What are you going to do?” Hobson had asked.

“I already told you,” Smith had said.

“You won’t be able to get to him.”

“How many guards does he have?”

“I won’t tell you that.”

Hobson had kept his word—he hadn’t told Smith. But he didn’t have to, because Travis, the man with two first names, had spilled the beans.

“You believe him?” Roger had asked.

“Yeah,” Smith had said.

“How can you be so sure?”

“I cut off his finger.”

“So? He still has nine left.”

“That guy’s not going to let me cut off another finger just to sell a lie. No, he told me everything he knew. The truth. The whole truth.”

“You better hope you’re right,” Roger had said.

Yeah, me, too, Smith had thought, even though the words that came out of his mouth were, “I’m right.”

I hope I’m right, Smith thought now as he sat in the dark and waited.

He’d found the house easily enough, but its owner wasn’t home. It wasn’t the “big white house” that the Judge was living in, likely still guarded by a good number of men even after Gramps’s distraction had lured most of the guns over to the north side of town. The Judge wouldn’t have been stupid enough to send everyone to stop the vehicle. A man like that would always keep plenty for himself. After all, what was the point of being the alpha male if you couldn’t order people to die for you 24/7?

Besides, Smith had other plans, and other priorities. One of them was Aaron. He had to find the kid first. That was what he’d told Mary he’d come here to do, after all: get her son back. But Smith knew that even if he succeeded in that, it would only be winning a battle. He still needed to win the war.

And the war began and ended with the Judge. Cut the head off the snake, and the body would die, as the saying went. It was easy enough to say but harder to accomplish.

But that was for later. Now, Smith had something else to do…like sit in the dark for a good two, maybe three hours. He stopped keeping track of time once it got so dark outside the window that he couldn’t see the streets beyond anymore. The house was mostly black except for a small sliver of curtain left open to the right of him, the window looking down at Gaffney’s main street below. The north side of town, where all the action had taken place, was a good two hundred meters or so behind him.

After Gramps and Lorna reversed course in the Jeep, Smith watched some of the Judge’s men returning to their posts inside the town. Some were on horseback, others on foot. About ten men in all. He hadn’t expected that many, but it looked as if Roger’s spy was pretty close to the number of reinforcements the Judge had gotten from the ranch.

Smith nodded off a couple of times out of boredom, only to snap right back awake. Or Smith told himself it was boredom, and not because his side had started to hurt from the gunshot wound. But once he took out and knocked down a couple of painkillers, he hardly felt anything anymore.

After what seemed like an eternity, the house’s owner finally returned.

Smith quickly checked his watch. 11:09 p.m.

He listened to the owner walking up the stairs after a few minutes on the first floor. She had light footsteps, but it was so quiet inside the building—and outside in the town—that Smith thought he could hear her breathing even with the closed bedroom door.

The owner spent some more time outside on the second floor in the bathroom next door. Smith thought that was a little odd since her master bedroom that he was waiting inside had an en suite bathroom.

She finally stepped inside the bedroom, already working on the top two buttons of her long-sleeve work shirt. She didn’t bother with the light switch because there was no electricity, so Smith watched her silhouetted form moving across the room. She came to within ten feet of where he sat on the armchair in the corner but didn’t see him. Instead, she went straight to the window and jerked the curtains closed completely, then turned around and flicked on the LED lantern resting on a nightstand between the window and the queen-size bedroom.

“Amy,” Smith said quietly.

“Jesus!” Amy said even as she spun around, hands clutching at her partially opened shirt. “Smith!”

Smith put a forefinger to his lips. He hadn’t drawn his gun, and he didn’t think he needed to. Amy realized her mistake and glanced quickly toward the window. Thankfully she had closed it, so her startled gasp wouldn’t have traveled very far.

“What the hell are you doing back here?” Amy asked.

She walked over to the bed and sat down on the end, facing him from across the room. If she was a little bit scared, he didn’t see it on her face. She did, though, look slightly annoyed, but he thought that had more to do with him catching her almost in the act of taking her shirt off. Smith couldn’t help but notice she wasn’t wearing anything underneath as she did the buttons back up.

“Aaron,” Smith said.

“What about him?”

“I need to find him.”

Amy didn’t say anything. She finished buttoning her shirt, then put her hands in her lap and stared back at him.

“You know where he is, don’t you?” Smith asked.

“Lucky guess?”

He shrugged. “You would have gone looking for him after our conversation at the clinic.”

“You sound very sure about that.”

“I am.”

“Why?”

“Because you care. Because you’re not like the others. Am I wrong?”

She shook her head. “No.”

Smith smiled. At least he’d read her correctly.

One out of two ain’t bad.

“They’re keeping him with one of the families down the street,” Amy said. “Harris and Janice. They’ve been trying to have a baby since they got here, but so far, no luck. I guess the Judge thought they’d appreciate Aaron more.”

“Does he know what happened to his mom?”

“No. I went to see him yesterday under the guise of checking up on him. He doesn’t know about his mom, and he’s not happy about it.”

“He said that?”

“He’s a mute, Smith. But he can write.”

“What did he write?”

“‘Mom?’ With a question mark. When I told him I didn’t know, he got visibly agitated. I talked to Janice about him earlier today, and she said he hasn’t eaten anything since my visit. He’s not a happy camper.”

“You didn’t tell him the Judge had sentenced his mom to be reeducated?”

Amy smirked. “Why the hell would I tell him that?”

“Just wondering.”

He stood up, and he must have been slightly unsteady on his feet—or maybe it wasn’t all that slightly—because Amy saw it right away.

“What happened to you?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re hurt.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Seriously? You don’t think I’d see it?”

Smith grunted. He wanted to blame being unsteady on his feet on having sat down for so long, but the truth was, the pain from his side had come back. It wasn’t a full-blown five-alarm fire, but it was close. Maybe a two-fire alarm.

Or a four…

“What happened?” Amy asked. “Something to do with that shootout at the ranch?”

“You heard about that?”

“Who didn’t?” She stood up. “Sit back down, and let me look at you.”

“I’m fine,” Smith said. He walked across the room and toward the door. “You said Aaron’s being kept somewhere down the street?”

“916 Tanner Street. Go south down the street, and turn left. Fifth house from the corner.” Then, without missing a beat, “You sure you’re okay?”

“Dandy,” Smith said.

He opened the bedroom door and stepped outside, doing his very best not to fall right back down on his face.

* * *

He left Amy’s house the same way he got in—through the kitchen back door. Amy had locked it, but he’d simply jimmied it with his knife. There were no alarm systems in place, and the doctor hadn’t bothered to check every door before she went up to her bedroom.

Smith stepped back out into a mostly dark town of Gaffney and stayed away from the sparsely-located LED lights. He maneuvered his way through the backyards of multiple uninhabited homes, comfortable in the knowledge there was no one inside them. You could tell from the overgrown grass, fading paint, and fallen white picket fences.

Locating Amy’s house was easy, thanks to Travis, who had provided Smith with the address and a way to reach it safely. But Travis had no idea about Aaron, which was why Smith had taken the chance of approaching the former Black Tider. That shared history was why he thought she could be trusted. If he’d been wrong…

But he hadn’t been. That was all that mattered. He hadn’t been wrong about her.

It wasn’t difficult to find where Aaron had been taken. The house where the couple Harris and Janice lived was exactly where Amy had told him it would be. Like Amy’s, Harris and Janice’s was flanked by a pair of unoccupied buildings. As far as Smith could tell, the ones across the street didn’t have owners, either. Aaron’s relocated home, on the other hand, had an LED lamp hanging from the awning over the front porch.

On his way over, Smith had glimpsed a big white two-story house in the distance. It sat in a cul-de-sac, with lights moving around along the rooftops. Guards. Smith was too far to make out how many, but it was more than one.

The Judge’s mansion.

It wasn’t very far. Maybe 500 meters, give or take. A part of Smith wanted to go straight to it and put an end to this. Yes, he’d come here wanting to safeguard Aaron first, but the kid would be safe anyway if Smith took out the Judge. Mary, also.

So why didn’t he?

For one, he wasn’t feeling 100 percent yet. Way, way less than that, if he were being honest. The truth was, he should have waited, healed up a little bit more (or a lot more) before coming back here. Another day. Or two. (Or a week.)

But he hadn’t.

He was here now, and if the Judge had as many men with him as Smith thought…

Go get Aaron. You promised Mary, remember?

He’d promised Mary. Shit. Why had he done that?

Because you like her, obviously.

Goddammit. He liked her. He liked her.

That was a mistake.

He sighed now as he rounded Harris and Janice’s two-story house and stepped into their backyard. There were no fences to hop, which was good because Smith wasn’t sure he could have made it over without fainting.

He stopped temporarily to gather his breath. When he was sure he was feeling better, Smith used the same knife to pry open a back door with a glass window that revealed a dark kitchen on the other side. As with Amy’s house, Smith didn’t have to worry about alarms blaring away when he pushed the door open and stepped through, exchanging the chilly backyard for the comparably warm kitchen.

The house was quiet, just as he had expected. It was already well past midnight, and Harris and Janice would be sound asleep by now. People in Gaffney would have adapted to normal sleeping patterns a long time ago.

Smith walked softly across the kitchen, the rubber soles of his boots barely making any noise against the smooth linoleum tiles. There was leftover food on the dining table to his left, and a recently used wok sat on the stove to his right. There were no lights in here, but Smith could see the glow from the LED lantern hanging over the front porch spreading across parts of the living room, past the doorless kitchen entrance.

He stepped through—

And stopped.

“Mr. Smith,” a familiar voice said. “There you are. I was starting to think you weren’t ever going to show up.”

Twenty-Five

Well, this sucks.

That was an understatement. This did, indeed, suck, but it was way worse than that. The FUBAR type of suck.

He remembered asking someone at Basic what FUBAR meant. The word (or acronym—or was that initialism? He could never get the two straight.) wasn’t something you wanted to hear when you were out in the field doing operations.

“Fucked up beyond all recognition,” was the answer.

Yeah, that about describes this, all right, Smith thought now as he stood with his dick in his hands and nothing else.

They had him.

They had him good.

More than good, actually.

It was real good.

Real fucking good.

Motherfucking real fucking good, but maybe that was putting too fine a point on the situation.

FUBAR described it pretty well.

“But I had faith that you would, eventually. I thought it would be yesterday, but I was wrong about that. Then when I heard about the supposed attack on the north road, I knew that today was the day.”

The only thing missing from the voice was a villainous cackle as the man’s sausage-like hands played with his mustache. But the Judge didn’t have a mustache, and Smith didn’t think the man was capable of cackling without hurting himself.

“So tell me, Mr. Smith. Has this gone the way you though it would?”

No, it hadn’t. Not by a long shot.

It was times like these that Smith remembered a conversation with his mentor.

“You’re not smart,” the older man had said.

Smith had taken offense to that, as well he should have if he even had a tiny bit of self-respect. He had more than that, so he took exceptional offense to the blunt statement.

“Don’t get me wrong, you’re no dummy,” his mentor had continued. “But you’re not Lara. Then again, no one is, but you don’t even come close.”

“You trying to piss me off?” Smith had said. “Because you’re doing a pretty good job of it, old man.”

His mentor had scoffed. “You telling me you didn’t already know that?”

“Know what?”

“That you’re not going to be a Rhodes Scholar anytime soon. Do you even know what that is?”

Smith didn’t, but he wasn’t about to give the other man the benefit of the doubt. “What’s your point?”

“My point is, while you’re no dummy, you’re not going to outthink a lot of people. That’s where that hand of yours comes into play. It, and how fast and how straight you can pull the hog.”

“The hog? What hog?”

“That’s what they used to call a gun back in the old Wild West days. ‘Pull a hog’ meant going for your pistol.”

“A hog, huh?” Smith had found the whole concept more than a little ridiculous.

“Whatever you wanna call it, that’s where you’re exceptional. Better than almost anyone I’ve trained on this backwater of an island.”

Smith couldn’t help himself and felt a little bit of proud there. Oh, who was he kidding? It was more than a little bit. It was a lot. To be told how good he was by a man like Peters was like being anointed knight by the Queen of England herself. Peters wasn’t just any man; he was the man at Basic.

“But I’m not smart,” Smith said.

“You’re not dumb,” Peters said.

“But I’m not ever going to outthink someone.”

“Maybe some, but not all of them. And you won’t have to. Because you will almost always be faster and a straighter shot than them. Remember, kid, it’s not about who shoots first; it’s about who shoots last.”

“Dead man can’t shoot last?”

“Dead man can’t do shit.”

Dead man can’t do shit, Smith thought now as he stared across the living room space of Harris and Janice’s home at the Judge and his flunkies.

There were two of them (Because of course there would be two of them; assholes always came in threes these days.), flanking the Judge on both sides. The man himself sat on an armchair, maybe because he was too lazy to stand like his underlings. Smith didn’t know how long they’d been there, waiting for him. What would they have done if he hadn’t shown up, he wondered. Maybe sit around in the dark. Or the Judge would, anyway, while the other two would stand guard and look for signs of him.

“Who is the most dangerous man among the Judge’s men?” Smith had asked Travis back at the junkyard two days ago.

Travis had answered Roman, the sniper. Then, when he’d learned Smith had already taken out the man, Travis had replied, “Stephens.”

And it was Stephens on the Judge’s right that Smith kept an eye on now. Stephens wore that same well-beaten Cornhuskers hat on his head like the first time Smith had seen him outside of Gaffney. Stephens wasn’t really standing, he was leaning against a flower-printed wall at a slight angle, his right hand casually resting on the butt of his holstered pistol. A Glock, from the looks of it. Stephens hadn’t drawn the weapon yet, something he could have done before Smith showed himself. Instead, he’d left it in place, maybe because he didn’t think he needed to have it out and ready. Either he was a stupid man or a very arrogant one.

“He’s a stone-cold killer,” Travis had said about Stephens.

“He’s killed before,” Smith had said.

“Plenty of times. When the Judge needs someone gone, Stephens always gets the job. Hell, he volunteers most of the time.”

“Not Roman?”

“Roman’s a sniper. He kills from long-range. Stephens does it up close and personal, and he enjoys every second of it.”

Not stupid, just arrogant, Smith thought now as he eyeballed Stephens back. And maybe, if Travis was to be believed—and Smith did believe him—then Stephens had a good reason to feel confident.

The other flunky, to the Judge’s left, must not have been as convinced about his ability with a gun as Stephens, because he had his weapon out. Not a handgun, which would have been preferable for Smith, but a pump-action shotgun that was up at chest level and pointed straight at Smith’s midsection. Or chest. Not that the exact location mattered, because either place would tear a hole in him. Or holes, depending on what the weapon was loaded with—buckshot or slug rounds.

Smith recognized the other man. He was the oldest member of the posse that had intercepted Smith and Mary out in the wilds not too long ago. Smith still didn’t know his name, but he remembered that the man always stuck to Kyle, the youngster that Smith had killed at Lucky’s. Smith had wondered if they were related or had some kind of mentor-student relationship. Not that he ever asked, or cared.

Right now, as the man glared at him from across the semi-dark living room, Smith got the impression the old man knew about what Smith had done to Kyle, and he was none too happy about it. His forefinger was in the trigger guard of the shotgun, and he had the look of someone just waiting for an excuse to fire.

The reason he hadn’t was probably because Smith’s own Glock was still in its holster and the Judge had given explicit instructions not to fire at first sight. If Smith had a gun in his hand when he stepped out of the kitchen, would the old man have shot him dead? Smith didn’t know the answer to that one, and, frankly, didn’t care. This was the situation he’d found himself in, so he dealt with the reality and not the what-ifs.

FUBAR. Now this is FUBAR, all right.

Smith looked from Stephens to the old man to the Judge…

…then at Aaron.

The Judge had brought Aaron out here to wait along with them. The boy was perched on the big man’s right knee, his eyes wide open as they stared back at Smith. He looked tired, as if he’d been rustled from sleep to join this little charade that the Judge had cooked up for…whose benefit? Smith’s? Aaron’s? The Judge’s?

Did it even matter?

“What’s the matter?” the Judge said. “Cat got your tongue, Mr. Smith?”

Smith didn’t answer. He also kept his hands where they were—hanging at his sides where they’d been since he stepped through the kitchen’s doorless entrance. He didn’t want to give the old man the excuse he was probably looking for to pull that trigger.

Stephens, for his part, just looked bored with the whole thing.

Stay bored, asshole. You won’t be so bored when I shoot you to death.

Smith looked past Aaron’s terrified face and at the Judge. “This all seems a little dramatic, don’t you think?”

“What can I say? I’m a sucker for drama,” the Judge said.

“Me, not so much.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. You were pretty dramatic when you showed up here two nights ago. I hadn’t expected that.”

“No?”

“I’m man enough to admit it. After what happened to Mandy, and having learned you’d survived, I was convinced you’d run. After all, none of this is any of your business. It was always between me and Mandy’s band of ne’er-do-wells. Now between me and Roger’s band of ne’er-do-wells. I was sure you’d focus on that part and leave well enough alone.”

The big man sighed, almost as if he was disappointed with Smith. It was, Smith thought, overly dramatic and clearly done for his benefit. All for the sake of drama, or the Judge would have told either Stephens or the old man to shoot Smith as soon as he stepped out of the kitchen.

Because either one of them could have done that. They could have done that pretty goddamn easily, and Smith wouldn’t have been able to do a damn thing about it.

“My point is, while you’re no dummy, you’re not going to outthink a lot of people,” his mentor had said.

Fuck if Peters hadn’t been right. Smith had thought he’d been pretty clever two nights ago when he came back to Gaffney. Then, again, pretty clever when he sent Gramps and Lorna to attack the north side of town with their armor-plated Jeep while he snuck in. He thought he’d been pretty clever both times.

Not so much, as it turned out.

“It was a nice touch,” the Judge was saying. “The car, I mean. I was surprised when they drove it back toward town. More surprise when the guards told me it had been modified. But then again, those folks at the junkyard are nothing if not scrappy.”

Smith’s eyes snapped from the Judge’s fat face to Aaron’s. The boy looked ready to defecate in his pants. He might have been mute and young, but he clearly knew what was happening. Smith felt sorry for him. The kid had seen more in a week than most people had seen in a handful of lifetimes.

He moved his eyes slightly to pick Stephens back up. The Gaffney man still looked as bored now as when Smith revealed himself. He also hadn’t drawn his weapon yet, even though he could have at any time.

“He’s a stone-cold killer,” Travis had said about Stephens. “When the Judge needs someone gone, Stephens always gets the job. Hell, he volunteers most of the time... Stephens does it up close and personal, and he enjoys every second of it.”

Stephens. The very bored-looking asshole staring back at Smith now, that slight smirk plastered all over his shootable face.

Smith looked back at the Judge. “So what now?”

“Now, you take off your gun belt and put it on the floor,” the Judge said.

“And then?”

“And then you surrender yourself to me.”

“Why? You want to reeducate me, too?”

“I think we both know that’s not going to work with you, Mr. Smith.”

Smith couldn’t help himself and smiled. “You’re probably right.”

His eyes snapped from the Judge’s pudgy face to Aaron’s round and almost cherubic face as it trembled slightly.

Then to the old man with the shotgun.

And finally, back to Stephens.

“Mr. Smith,” the Judge said. “Do you want me to count down from five?”

“And why would I want you to do that?” Smith asked.

The big man shrugged. “For the sake of drama. They do this in the movies all the time.”

“You really had this all planned out in your head, didn’t you?”

“Most of it. Enough that I had someone watching the good doctor’s place long before you showed up to wait for her.”

“You saw me?”

“Not me, of course.”

“One of your flunkies.”

“One of my assistants.”

“What’s the difference?”

“One title is more…prestigious than the other.”

Smith smiled. “Nah.”

“‘Nah?’”

“Nah. I don’t think I’ll play your game and drag this out.”

The Judge’s lips curved into a wide frown. “Are you sure? Because I don’t think you’ll like the alternative.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure.”

“Then how do you propose you surrender yourself?”

Smith’s eyes shifted slightly over to Aaron, still perched precariously on the Judge’s right knee.

“Aaron,” Smith said.

The boy’s eyes lit up. They hadn’t, as far as Smith could tell, ever left his face. He wasn’t sure the boy could even move, and that played into Smith’s decision.

“Close your eyes,” Smith said.

Aaron continued to stare at him, confused.

“Close your eyes, son,” Smith said. “Now.”

Thank God Aaron obeyed and quickly squeezed both eyes shut.

“Shoot him!” the Judge screamed.

Smith drew.

Twenty-Six

It takes, give or take, a second for a person to complete the pull on a gun’s trigger. That is, if they were prepared to do it and simply acted without hesitation.

That was the important part: Simply acted without hesitation.

The problem for the older man with the shotgun pointed at Smith was that he’d been holding that weapon—and it was a heavy weapon, too, much heavier than a pistol—for a while now. Perhaps it wasn’t “long” in the sense that it had been hours, but it’d been more than a few seconds and way more than a few minutes as the Judge played out his little dramatic scene with Smith.

How long, though? Two minutes? Three? Five?

It was more than a few seconds, that much was a certainty. The old man had had his forefinger in the trigger guard and on the trigger the entire time but hadn’t begun the pull. That required applying pressure to the trigger, then following through with the full pull.

One second. That was all it should have taken. One second.

Except the old man had been holding his pose, finger lazily in the trigger guard but not in the process of pulling the trigger, that when the Judge finally screamed “Shoot him!” it took a moment for the command to register. It took, from what Smith could tell, about two and a half seconds longer than it should have for the old man to pull the trigger.

In fact, the old man took so long that Stephens already had his gun out of its holster by the time the old man finally acted and pulled the trigger.

Stephens was fast, but he wasn’t fast enough.

Smith shot him in the forehead even as the man managed to get his Glock out and began lifting it to take aim. That was his mistake. Aiming. Smith didn’t have to do that. He’d learned how to shoot without wasting time lifting the gun once it cleared leather. He simply drew and fired from the hip.

Stephens didn’t get off a shot, but the old man did, even as Smith was swiveling around to face him. The shotgun fired buckshot, and Smith heard rather than felt the multiple balls of steel as they whistled around his head and body. Some struck him in the left shoulder, spinning him slightly, but Smith didn’t let go of his gun.

Bang!

The old man didn’t go down from the first bullet, but instead staggered backward, appearing more shocked than hurt. The shotgun dipped slightly, and he was trying to raise it back up when Smith shot him again, this time in the middle of the face. The head snapped back, and the body collapsed, but Smith was already turning to face the Judge.

The fat man remained sitting in the armchair with Aaron perched on his right knee. The boy still had his eyes shut just as Smith had told him. In fact, Smith could see his face scrunched up in a tight ball even as the kid shivered on the Judge’s knee.

The Judge looked to his right at Stephens’ crumpled body, before glancing left at the old man on the other side. He was breathing hard. Smith could hear every loud heave from all the way across the living room.

“Don’t shoot; you’ll hit the boy,” the Judge said even as he lifted his left hand toward Smith, the palm turned up. All the while, his right hand was coming out from behind Aaron’s back.

Smith didn’t know what was in that hand and he didn’t particularly care.

Bang!

The Judge’s head snapped backward and bounced against the armchair’s plush upholstery and froze in place, the blood that had sprayed out the back of his skull causing him to stick to the chair behind him.

Aaron fell off the Judge’s suddenly slack knee and to the floor. He picked himself up and glanced around—at Stephens, then the Judge, then the old man—before looking across the room at Smith. He was breathing hard, his chest heaving.

“Get over here, boy,” Smith said.

The boy got up and ran over just as light appeared outside the window behind the Judge’s unmoving body.

Lanterns. LED lanterns.

And men holding them were rushing toward the house.

Smith didn’t bother reloading the Glock. He’d fired four shots and still had eleven left in the magazine. The pistol felt a little light in his hand, but maybe that had a little something to do with—

Aaron grabbed at Smith’s hand, and Smith was about to turn around and ask him what he was doing when he almost fell down. Apparently, the kid had either sensed it or saw him about to topple right over, and took action.

Smart kid, Smith thought as he collapsed to his knees in the middle of the living room. Aaron crouched next to him, staring at him with those big brown eyes of his. He didn’t say a word because he couldn’t, but there was no missing the fear in his eyes.

Not for himself, Smith saw, but for Smith.

Shit, I’m bleeding.

He’d been bleeding since the old man let loose with the shotgun. As he replayed the shootout in his head, Smith guessed he should have taken out the old man first and neutralized the pump-action. But he’d gotten it into his head that Stephens was the more dangerous one and needed to be dealt with. He’d committed. Maybe he was right. Maybe he was wrong.

All he knew was that he was still alive.

He had buckshot in his left shoulder and along the length of his arm, and maybe a few of the pellets had taken chunks from one of his cheeks. And he was bleeding. He’d been bleeding since he fired the last shot but just hadn’t felt or recognized it until now that the danger was over.

No, the danger wasn’t over. The danger was just getting started.

Smith stumbled up from the carpeted floor with Aaron clutching his arm. He felt the boy trying to tug him back down, but Smith was bigger and stronger, and dragged the both of them up to their feet.

“It’s okay,” Smith said. “Go hide behind the sofa.”

The boy stared at him.

“Go,” Smith said.

The boy didn’t move, and he didn’t let go of Smith’s arm.

“Go,” Smith said again. Louder and with more authority, but not quite screaming. Or, at least, he didn’t think he was screaming. But he had to get the boy to do what he was told because—

Smith glanced toward the windows as the halo of lights grew closer.

They were in the front yard now but advancing slowly. No doubt they’d been stationed in some of the houses across the street this entire time, waiting for the Judge’s orders to advance, if necessary. Because all of this was a trap, and he’d fallen for it.

You’re right, Peters. I’m not nearly as smart as I think I am.

Smith counted three lanterns moving toward him now…

When he looked back at Aaron, the boy was already scooting behind one of the big sofas across the living room, on the far wall. It was a big couch, but it wouldn’t stop a bullet. Still, it was better than having the kid standing in the middle of the room while hot lead was flying around.

“Stay there,” Smith said.

Aaron poked his head out from one end of the furniture and bobbed his head up and down. He was well-hidden in the shadows of the living room, but Smith could just see enough of his face—and those big brown eyes—to know he was still scared.

Smith didn’t blame him. Hell, he was scared.

“Judge?” a voice called from outside.

Smith hurried to the door, but not before snatching up the shotgun from the old man’s lifeless hands. The old bastard had managed to hold onto it even after he fell.

“Judge! You in there?”

Smith hobbled to the front of the house, then slid up against the wall. He checked the shotgun. It was a nice weapon: a Remington 870 pump-action 12-gauge. Five-round capacity, so four shells left inside. He was pretty sure the old timer had more ammo on his person, but Smith hadn’t bothered to search him. Besides, he still had his holstered pistol, not to mention the spare SIG Sauer behind his back. He had plenty of bullets to deal with however many were out there.

Probably.

“Judge!” The same voice, sounding a little closer now, but not too much closer. They were still taking their time, erring on the side of caution.

“He’s dead!” Smith shouted back.

He didn’t peer out the window behind him, but he could hear the sudden shuffling of boots moving around out there in response. Not quite panic, but realization that someone was still alive inside the house who may not welcome them with open arms.

“Keep on coming closer, if you wanna join him!” Smith shouted.

He thought he sounded pretty good. Not just confident but loud and brash, and not at all like the hurt and bleeding (Christ, where was all the blood coming from?) man he really was. He hadn’t bothered to catalog where the buckshot had managed to hit him, but enough had to make every word he shouted feel like it might be his last.

He blinked through something dripping down his left eye—

Blood. He was bleeding from the forehead.

Smith reached up and swiped at the wetness, then wiped it on his pant legs. His side, where Gramps had shot him yesterday, felt fine. Or maybe that was just all the new pain overwhelming the old one.

Either/or.

Smith fished out the bottle of painkillers and downed two more, even as someone outside shouted, “You’re a dead man!”

“Not as dead as your Judge!” Smith shouted back.

“How do we know he’s really dead?”

“You hear him shouting back at you, genius?”

Silence.

Smith imagined the man outside—and however many he had with him—trying to decide if Smith was lying or not. But then, the Judge hadn’t answered, so why would they think he wasn’t dead? Or incapacitated?

That was what Smith was counting on, anyway. He wasn’t sure if he could take on three or four men right now, in his current condition. For all he knew, there were more than that outside.

Five? Six?

Ten?

Crap. He hoped it wasn’t ten.

“He’s dead!” Smith shouted, mustering every ounce of energy he had left to broadcast the sound of his voice. “So’s Stephens! So’s the old man!”

“Randolph?” the same voice replied.

Randolph, huh? Smith thought, looking over at the old man lying nearby.

“That’s right,” Smith said. “But he was nice enough to give me his shotgun before he went. Stephens, too, with his Glock. Not to mention all their spare ammo. So if you boys wanna come in, go right ahead! I got plenty of bullets for all of you, and then some! It’s a big, dark house! Let’s play!”

Silence again from his would-be attackers. Smith strained to listen but couldn’t hear whispers or even the sounds of moving boots anymore. Whoever and however many they were out there, they had found spots to camp. Unless…

The back door.

Smith’s eyes snapped to the oval-shaped opening that connected the living room with the kitchen. The same entryway he’d come through earlier, only to find the Judge waiting for him. It would be just as easy for whoever was out there to circle around the property and come through it. He had.

“Come on in, boys!” Smith shouted. “Let’s get this party started! The Judge is dead—long live the Judge—and I got more bullets for the rest of you! Come on! I’m bored! Don’t keep me waiting!”

Again, there was no response.

Smith kept his eyes on the kitchen door, expecting figures to run through at any moment. Aaron was hiding behind the couch nearby, and the kid hadn’t poked his head out again after the first time.

Smart kid, Smith thought, wondering what Mary would say to him if he got the boy shot up while trying to rescue him. Not that he’d have to worry about Mary, because if Aaron got shot up, chances were Smith would be, too.

That is, if he didn’t die from his wounds before then.

He wiped at more blood dripping down his forehead and to his left eye. There wasn’t a lot of blood, but the constant drips were annoying. He didn’t even want to see what the rest of him looked like. There was a mirror across the living room, but Smith purposefully avoided it. He felt like shit already; he didn’t necessarily need, or want, visual confirmation.

“Well, come on, then!” Smith shouted. “Don’t keep me waiting, boys! The night’s just getting started! Let’s have some fun! All these bullets are heavy! Help me get ridda some of them, will you?”

Finally, Smith heard movement from outside.

Here we go.

He tightened his grip on the Remington, reminded himself he only had four shells left, when the realization hit.

The sounds weren’t coming toward him, they were going away from him.

The would-be attackers were retreating.

Smith risked a quick glance out the window, just in time to spot a pair of figures fleeing down the street to the right—while a third went left. Smith might not have seen them—it was way too dark outside—if all three weren’t carrying their own light sources. None of them looked as if they were trying to outflank him or maneuvering around to come through the back.

They didn’t look like they were doing that, anyway.

He leaned back against the wall and waited, his ears listening for noise from the front of the house while his eyes remained fixed on the kitchen doorway.

A minute of silence followed.

Then two…

Aaron poked his head out from behind the couch, brown eyes searching for, found, and settling on Smith’s.

“Not yet,” Smith said.

The boy nodded and vanished back behind the sofa.

Three minutes of silence…

Five…

Smith’s legs were getting tired, so he walked over to the armchair where the Judge was slumped, and pushed the fat man out of it. There was blood on the upholstery and even more on the headrest, but Smith didn’t care and sat down. The armchair was perfectly turned to face the kitchen, which, Smith guessed, the Judge had done so he could dramatically welcome Smith to the living room.

He leaned over and switched off the LED light resting on the nightstand next to him, and the room quickly faded into darkness. He put the shotgun on his lap, his forefinger still in the trigger guard, and waited.

It was a long wait.

A quiet wait.

And more importantly, an uneventful wait.

* * *

Sometime in the middle of the night, Smith woke up with a start.

Shit!

He’d fallen asleep.

He’d fallen asleep.

Fortunately, it hadn’t cost him his life, because there was no one in the living room with him except Aaron. The boy was curled up in a ball on the floor at Smith’s feet and snoring lightly. Smith didn’t know when he’d come out from hiding or how long it’d been since he lost consciousness.

Smith was still bleeding, but the blood had caked along one side of his face. His sides throbbed, as did all the other parts of him that had taken buckshot.

But he was alive.

Still kicking.

Okay, maybe not kicking, but breathing.

And for now, that was good enough.

Twenty-Seven

“You’re one stubborn man, you know that?”

Smith smirked. “That’s no way to talk to a patient, Doctor.”

Amy matched his smirk with one of her own. “You’re lucky you’re even a patient. You should be dead. Ten times over. What were you thinking, coming in here like that?”

“He was waiting for me. The Judge. He had men watching your place.”

Amy shook her head. “I didn’t know anything about that.”

“I know. I’m not saying you did.”

“Okay. I just wanted to get that out of the way.”

“Relax. It’s out of the way.”

The doctor nodded, and he saw the relief on her face. Maybe she had thought he’d blame her for the ambush, but Smith didn’t. It had never even occurred to him that she was a part of the scheme, which meant he was either a very good judge of character or a really, really poor one.

“What happened?” Smith asked as he sat up on the cot.

He was back in her clinic, and the fact that he wasn’t handcuffed or, well, dead meant everything had mostly worked out for the best. Smith’s last memory was of falling asleep with Aaron at his feet.

There, his gun, still in its holster on a table next to him. That reinforced his belief that everything had, somehow, worked out for the best. Or, at least, worked out in his favor even though he didn’t have a clue how.

“Roger and the junkyard gang took Gaffney in the afternoon,” Amy said. “By then, the others had left.”

“‘Others?’”

“The Judge’s men. The ones you didn’t kill.”

Smith couldn’t help but grin at that.

“They took everyone with them that wanted to go, but left everyone who didn’t,” Amy continued.

“Including you?”

“Me, Aaron, and 50 percent of everyone here.”

“50 percent?”

Amy nodded. “I know it’s hard to believe, but other than the Judge being a royal asshole, Gaffney isn’t all bad.”

“I don’t find that hard to believe at all.”

“You don’t?”

Smith shook his head. “I’ve been out there, Doc. It’s not all games and lollipops. I get why people would prefer the comfort and safety of a place like Gaffney.”

Amy gave him a surprised look before going back to cleaning her hands in a bowl. “That’s ironic, coming from you.”

“Why?”

“You seem like the kind that prefers to be out there than in a place like this.”

“I do.”

“So what are you doing in here?”

“Trying not to die.”

He felt good. He didn’t know why, but it was as if he’d woken up from a long sleep and every part of him was refreshed. Sitting up on the cot wasn’t too much trouble except for the pain vibrating from his midsection and almost the entire left side of his body. All Smith had to do was glance in those directions to know why: He was wearing a hospital gown, but it didn’t do anything to hide the bandages underneath, from his thigh all the way up his side, to his jaw and cheek.

“You want a mirror?” Amy asked.

Smith shook his head. “No.”

“Good choice.”

He smiled. He didn’t have any illusions that he was a mess.

But he was also still alive, if just barely. And for now, just barely was good enough.

“They came to see you,” Amy said. She was cleaning up a counter with a rag.

“Who?”

“The mother and son.”

“Oh.”

Amy glanced down at her watch. “Mary said she’d come back in an hour to see how you were doing.”

“Are they okay? The boy?”

“Everyone’s fine, including the boy.” Amy stopped cleaning the counter to look back at him. “The Judge’s dead.”

“I know. I shot him.”

The doctor grinned. “I figured that.”

“What happened after?”

“The others packed up and left in the morning. They took as much as they could carry with them. The ranch, as far as I know, is empty; all the horses are gone. Roger and his people showed up later. Everyone who’s still here, wants to be here.”

“Including you,” Smith said, swinging his legs off the cot to test his body. Just moving should have hurt, but it didn’t. He wondered what kind of painkillers Amy had given him and if she had more available.

“Including me,” Amy said, nodding.

“The ranch…”

“What about it?”

“There was a ghoul there.”

“There was more than a ghoul in that place.”

“How many?”

“I don’t know the exact number, but more than one. That place draws nightcrawlers every now and then. No one knows why. They just seem to find their way there. Sometimes more than one at a time.”

No kidding, Smith thought, rubbing his legs to get the blood flowing again.

“Mary and Aaron are staying too, by the way,” Amy said.

Smith looked up at her. “They’re staying?”

“Looks like it. What about you?”

“What about me?”

“You staying, too?”

Smith shrugged. “I haven’t decided yet.”

“They seem to like you.”

“Do they?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s good to know.”

“Is it?”

Smith smiled. “Of course.”

“Ah,” the doctor said, but Smith didn’t think she was convinced. “Lay back down. It’ll be a few more days before you’re ready to walk around Gaffney on your own power.”

“Sure thing, Doc,” Smith said, and did just that, lying back down.

“Doc?” a voice said from the front of the clinic, on the other side of the curtain that separated the areas. “You around here, Doc?”

“Back here,” Amy said.

“We could use some help.”

“I’ll be right there.” Amy walked across the room, but not before glancing in Smith’s direction. “Don’t go anywhere.”

“Where would I go?” Smith said.

Amy stopped at the curtain and looked over at him again. “I can’t believe you did that.”

“Did what?”

“Kill the Judge.”

“Which part’s tripping you up?”

“You shot him.”

“And?”

“That’s all it took? A guy with a gun is all it took to end a man like the Judge’s hold over Gaffney?”

“Why? Did you think it’d take more than that?”

She shrugged. “Sort of.”

“That’s all it usually takes, Doc. A guy with a gun. I just happen to be that guy this time.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Doc?” a voice called from the other side of the curtain.

“Coming,” Amy said, before leaving Smith alone in the back of the clinic. “What happened?” he heard Amy ask someone.

“We were at the ranch, cleaning the place out, when she fell off her horse; might have broken her hand,” a familiar female voice said. It sounded like Gramps, but Smith couldn’t be sure.

Smith sat back up, then climbed off the cot and looked around. It took him about twenty seconds longer than it should have to find his clothes, piled up on a counter at the back of the room. They weren’t the same ones he’d worn when he confronted the Judge; Smith knew that because they weren’t covered in blood. But they were men’s clothes and his size. He didn’t think Amy would bother trying to find new clothes for him, so it was probably Mary.

Mary…

He thought about her as he pulled the clothes on, doing his best not to make a sound as his side began to ache. He kept expecting Amy to return and chastise him, but she was apparently too busy with her new patients. Smith was pretty sure one of them was Gramps from the sound of the voice.

“How did she fall?” Amy was asking.

“I guess she’s not good at riding,” the person who may or may not have been Gramps said.

“I guess not,” Amy said.

Smith searched for and found bottles of painkillers in a cabinet. He pocketed a couple and picked up his gun belt and cinched it tight. That was a mistake, and he grimaced slightly from the pain. He found a go-bag in a closet and filled it with bandages, bottles of water, and some bread and sausages in a box with the word Doc written on the lid. Amy’s lunch, maybe.

Mine, now.

He opened the back door and slipped out, and blinked underneath the harsh sunlight. He could see and hear people on the street to his left, so Smith turned right and moved through the back alleys of Gaffney. He was familiar with the turns, having taken them previously. They looked slightly different in the daylight, but it wasn’t too hard to find the edge of town.

Smith thought about Mary and Aaron, and why he was leaving them behind. Mary, especially. He’d liked kissing her, liked having someone beside him as he recuperated from his wounds. And she was one hell of a beautiful woman. He could have done much worse, that was for goddamn sure.

So why was he leaving her? Was it the boy? Was it the idea of having an instant family that was making him run? Or was it just the commitment that was needed? Was he terrified of having someone depending on him? Of having to constantly worry about another life—or two—besides his own?

Then he thought about Blake, and the reasons were as plain as day.

He was almost out of Gaffney when he saw a pair of horses tied to a streetlight, outside some kind of convention hall. Smith could hear voices coming from inside the big building but couldn’t see the speakers.

One of the horses looked familiar. It was the same Chestnut he’d ridden into town one night ago. The animal looked up and snickered as he walked toward it.

“You miss me?” Smith asked.

The horse looked away and shuffled its feet.

Guess not, Smith thought as he untied the horse from the streetlight, then walked it out of town.

He climbed into the saddle about ten yards later, then turned the Chestnut north.

“Ever been to Canada?” he asked the animal.

The horse didn’t reply but did respond when he tapped its flanks with his boots. It quickly picked up pace and was in a full trot out of Gaffney a few seconds later, apparently just as anxious to get the hell out of town and back into the open countryside as him.

Then they were in the fields, with nothing between them and whatever was out there but clear blue skies and wide-open grass. The road was visible to his left, but Smith angled the Chestnut away from it.

His body ached and his wounds throbbed, but he closed his eyes and sucked in the clean air.

Smith smiled and rode on.