Hell Town: Dark Days Book 7: A Post-Apocalyptic Series
Date: 2020-11-10 08:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Post-Apocalyptic | Infected
Description: Welcome to Hell Town . . . Ray, Mike, Josh, Emma, and Luke leave the cabin after it is destroyed by a gang of Dark Angels. They head south, but one of Ray's worst fears comes true when they are caught in a blizzard, trapped inside a gas station and surrounded by rippers. Petra tries to make her way back to Jo's store after being set up by the Dragon's mole. After narrowly escaping a horde of rippers, she comes across a stranger who may or may not be friendly. Jo, Kate, Max, and the others at Jo's store begin to pick up the pieces after an attack from the Dark Angels, but Max is committed to le

HELL TOWN

DARK DAYS BOOK 7

A post-apocalyptic series by

MARK LUKENS

Contents

OTHER BOOKS BY MARK LUKENS:

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

PART ONE

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

CHAPTER 28

PART TWO

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 42

CHAPTER 43

CHAPTER 44

CHAPTER 45

CHAPTER 46

PART THREE

CHAPTER 47

CHAPTER 48

CHAPTER 49

CHAPTER 50

CHAPTER 51

CHAPTER 52

CHAPTER 53

CHAPTER 54

CHAPTER 55

CHAPTER 56

CHAPTER 57

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Hell Town: Dark Days Book 7 © 2019 by Mark Lukens

All Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be reprinted without written permission from the author.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (or in any other form), business establishments, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by: Extended Imagery

Special thanks to: Jet, Ann, Kelli, Valerie, and Mary Ann—your help is immensely valuable to me, and I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate it.

OTHER BOOKS BY MARK LUKENS:

ANCIENT ENEMY – www.amazon.com/dp/B00FD4SP8M

DARKWIND: ANCIENT ENEMY 2 – www.amazon.com/dp/B01K42JBGW

HOPE’S END: ANCIENT ENEMY 3 – www.amazon.com/dp/B07G1MS6RK

EVIL SPIRITS: ANCIENT ENEMY 4 – www.amazon.com/dp/B07L8KLXVB

ANCIENT ENEMY BOX SET – www.amazon.com/dp/B084TSK32N

DESCENDANTS OF MAGIC – www.amazon.com/dp/B00FWYYYC

SIGHTINGS – www.amazon.com/dp/B00VAI31KW

DEVIL’S ISLAND – www.amazon.com/dp/B06WWJC6VD

WHAT LIES BELOW – www.amazon.com/dp/B0143LADEY

NIGHT TERRORS – www.amazon.com/dp/B00M66IU3U

THE SUMMONING – www.amazon.com/dp/B00HNEOHKU

THE DARWIN EFFECT – www.amazon.com/dp/B01G4A8ZYC

GHOST TOWN – www.amazon.com/dp/B00LEZRF7G

THE VAMPIRE GAME – www.amazon.com/dp/B07C2M72X9

FOLLOWED – www.amazon.com/dp/B078WYGMJN

THE EXORCIST’S APPRENTICE – www.amazon.com/dp/B00YYF1E5C

POSSESSION: THE EXORCIST’S APPRENTICE 2 – www.amazon.com/dp/B07NCZQTNR

A DARK COLLECTION: 12 SCARY STORIES – www.amazon.com/dp/B00JENAGLC

RAZORBLADE DREAMS: HORROR STORIES – www.amazon.com/dp/B076B7W252

SLEEP DISORDERS – www.amazon.com/dp/B07XX9WVGM

COLLAPSE: DARK DAYS BOOK 1 – www.amazon.com/dp/B07SCPL6QB

CHAOS: DARK DAYS BOOK 2 – www.amazon.com/dp/B07TVYNW19

EXPOSURE: DARK DAYS BOOK 3 – www.amazon.com/dp/B07TY5S1S8

REFUGE: DARK DAYS BOOK 4 – www.amazon.com/dp/B07VR8KNJ6

AFTERMATH: DARK DAYS BOOK 5 – www.amazon.com/dp/B0821PWVH5

SURVIVORS: DARK DAYS BOOK 6 – www.amazon.com/dp/B0821QWTGB

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

Hell Town: Dark Days Book 7 picks up right after Book 6.

I hope you’ll look out for Book 8, the final book in this series. It should be available soon. Thank you for reading!

PART ONE

CHAPTER 1

Ray

They had barely escaped the burning cabin. Rose had been a mole; she’d led the Dark Angels right to their cabin. The Dark Angels had almost killed them. She’d also led the Dragon to their cabin, letting him see the food and supplies hidden in the bunker under the cabin through her eyes . . . through her dreams.

Ray thought about the food and supplies as he drove away from the cabin. He wondered if the supplies in the bunker were still good, some of it still salvageable after the cabin finally burned all the way down into the basement and the bunker. He even thought they could go back to collect the supplies.

And do what with them? There wasn’t enough room in the van and the Jeep to load those supplies. And it would take days for the logs to burn down, days before it would be cool enough to sift through the wreckage and ash, to dig down into the bunker. And in that time more Dark Angels would come back, if the rippers hadn’t already sniffed out the supplies first.

No, all of the food and water, all of those supplies, were gone, lost to them now.

Ray was certain that more Dark Angels were on their way, a new battalion to replace the ones they had killed. The Dragon, after seeing what was in the bunkers through Rose’s eyes, wouldn’t give up on all of that.

They had fled the cabin in the two vehicles they had, Josh and Emma in the old Dodge van, and Ray, Luke, and Mike in the new Jeep they’d found parked in the garage when they’d first gotten to Doug’s cabin. Ray drove the Jeep now, his eleven-year-old son (only a few days away from twelve years old) Mike riding shotgun, and Luke in the back with the weapons he’d taken off the Dark Angels he’d killed and the two metal boxes of ammo and the few hand grenades left. Luke had killed most (or more likely all) of the Dark Angels by himself, which had allowed all of them time to flee the cabin. Luke had also picked off many of the rippers rushing toward them from the woods, trying to block off their escape through the open gate on the dirt drive that led to the seemingly endless dirt roads that wound their way through these woods deep in the mountains of southern West Virginia. Luke had thrown a few of the hand grenades, blowing some of the rippers apart, but more importantly driving the rest of them back, halting their progress just long enough for Ray to speed through the metal gate the Dark Angels had smashed open with their military trucks less than an hour ago. Josh had followed Ray through the open gate, the old van right on the Jeep’s rear.

After they had gotten through the gate and away from the horde of rippers coming at them from the woods, Luke had laughed like a maniac—an eerie laughter that he hadn’t seemed to be able to control. And that laughter had been infectious, spreading to Mike. Ray had laughed too, though he wasn’t sure now what he’d found so funny at the time. Maybe it was the idea that they had escaped almost certain death; maybe it was just the joy of being alive for the moment, unhurt and alive.

But that joy had passed quickly by the time they’d gotten to the end of the dirt drive, turning onto the dirt road they drove now. A silence blanketed them, the melancholy of the “real world” suddenly hitting them.

Yes, they were alive, and that was good. Yes, they were unhurt for the most part. Ray’s ankle still throbbed, and they all had bumps and bruises, scratches and cuts, and Ray wasn’t even sure if Luke was hurt, but if he was it couldn’t be too bad because he wasn’t complaining about anything. Yes, they were alive and mostly unhurt, but they still had this nightmare world all around them, this world of rippers—humans infected with some kind of plague that had turned them into flesh-eating monsters. And there were still the gangs, the Dark Angels being the worst of them. And there was still no food, no clean water, no medicine. Nothing anymore.

Reality was coming back to Ray hard, weighing him down, crushing any of the laughter and joy out of him that had been there moments ago. They had their lives, their two vehicles, the few packs of supplies and collection of weapons they’d managed to save from the bunker. And that was it. Nothing else. They’d found a paradise at Doug’s cabin, a bunker stocked with several years’ worth of food, water, and supplies. But the Dark Angels had found them and destroyed it, and now they had nothing.

Ray gripped the steering wheel even harder, trying to fight the sudden anger that threatened to overwhelm him. But at least the anger pushed away the sadness a little, the hopelessness. He could still smell the smoke on his clothes, in his nostrils, the smoke from the cabin fire spiraling up into the sky above the trees behind them. And it wasn’t just the smell of the smoke that clung to him, but also the stench of death.

He’d been driving for almost an hour now on the dirt roads. Everything looked the same, nothing but dirt roads and woods with another dirt road branching off from the one they were on every once in a while. It felt like they were trapped on the same never-ending trail road in an unescapable nightmare.

“You okay, son?” Ray asked Mike, glancing at him. It was the first he had spoken in forty-five minutes.

Mike nodded.

“You’re not hurt? Burned? Sometimes you don’t know at first if you’re hurt. Shock.”

Mike shook his head slowly, looking down at his hands and arms, then his lap and legs like it was the first time he’d really thought about checking to see if he was injured. He looked ready to burst into tears at any moment. “No,” he said softly. “I’m not hurt.”

“Good.”

“You?” Ray looked into the rearview mirror at Luke who sat in the back seat staring out the window.

“I’m okay,” Luke said without looking away from the window.

“Thank you, by the way,” Ray said to Luke, still watching him in the mirror. “You saved us. All of us. Killing all of those Dark Angels. Those rippers.”

Luke said nothing.

“I’m sorry,” Mike said. His face crumpled, tears threatening. “I . . . I shouldn’t have trusted her.”

“It’s not your fault,” Ray said. He grabbed his son’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “We’re alive. That’s what matters. We’re all alive and well.”

“But if I hadn’t taken her down to the bunker, if I hadn’t trusted her . . .”

“It’s not your fault. You didn’t know she was with the Dark Angels—they were going to find us sooner or later.” He realized that the tone of his voice had a sharpness to it, like he was snapping at Mike. “Really, Mike,” he continued, struggling to soften his voice. “It’s not your fault.”

But Ray knew deep down that some of this had been Mike’s fault. Some of what had happened had been Josh’s fault for wanting to let Rose in when they’d found her on the front porch. And Ray figured he shared the blame when he had defended Rose even though Luke had begun to believe that her story was filled with lies. Yes, maybe they all shared some of the blame. But what did it matter now? What good would it do to blame each other now?

Mike looked out the passenger window.

Ray slowed the Jeep down, parking in the middle of the dirt road, keeping several feet away from the edge—he knew better than to get too close to the woods. There could be rippers in those woods. The memory of stopping for the little girl in the middle of the road before they’d gotten to the town of Heaven came back to him with a shocking clarity. The rippers had been hiding in the woods, waiting to ambush them, using the little ripper girl as bait—the girl ripper who had sat in the middle of the shadow-speckled road with her back to them, waiting for them to get out of their truck.

You had to be careful now in this new world . . . always so careful.

They’re getting smarter; they’re evolving. Josh’s voice echoed in his mind, repeating words written down by a man named Isaac who had hidden in an attic after his wife had turned and killed their sons. Isaac was dead now—he had taken his own life rather than carry on in this bleak world.

“What are we stopping for?” Mike asked. He was suddenly tense, his eyes darting to the woods; he was like a soldier trying to spot the enemy among the trees.

His son, a veteran of war already.

“Is the Jeep okay?” Luke asked, hunching forward from the back seat. “We out of gas?”

“No, we’re fine,” Ray said. “But we don’t even know where we’re going. We need to map out a route. Take an inventory of what we’ve got. How much gas we have.”

Ray glanced at the rearview mirror and saw that Josh had parked his van a few feet behind the Jeep. Leaving the Jeep running for a moment, Ray rolled down his window and listened to the woods. He didn’t hear any rippers—no sounds out there except for the freezing wind ruffling the leaves of the trees and the rumbling of their vehicles.

Luke had his M-16 ready in his hands, tense and on guard.

Ray got out of the Jeep.

CHAPTER 2

Josh

Josh slowed down and parked behind Ray’s Jeep.

“What are we doing?” Emma asked. She had moved up from the back to the passenger seat once they’d gotten onto the road from Doug’s long driveway—one dirt road leading to another in this maze of dirt roads cut through the vast forest.

“Ray’s stopping.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

Ray got out of the Jeep and made a slashing gesture across his throat.

Josh rolled down the driver’s window and turned off the van’s engine. Everything was quiet, but Josh was still tense. He had his shotgun and a pistol within easy reach from the driver’s seat.

Ray came up to the window as Mike and Luke got out of the Jeep. Luke had an assault rifle in his hands, one of the two weapons he’d taken off the dead Dark Angels. He waited by the open back door of the Jeep, on guard and ready to shoot.

“Something wrong?” Josh asked when Ray got to the window.

“No. I just wanted to stop in a relatively safe place so we could gather our thoughts and route out where we’re going. Get a little to eat and drink. Stretch our legs. Inventory what we have.”

Josh almost made a joke about Ray’s obsession with inventories and lists, but he didn’t. He had to practically clamp his mouth shut again after it almost opened on its own, spilling out some jackass comment. Instead he said: “Okay.”

“It’s safe?” Emma asked.

“So far,” Ray said. “I think we need to stop while we can.”

Emma nodded, staring toward Ray like she was looking at him through her dark glasses, like she could see him with her blind eyes. She opened the passenger door and got out.

Ray backed away so Josh could get out. Josh was around the front of the van in a flash to help Emma, getting her cane for her, the one he had carved from a thick tree branch.

“Thanks,” she whispered to him.

Ray went back to the Jeep and opened the back. He rummaged through the packs for a moment. He came to the side of the van with Mike and Luke. Josh already had the two packs from the back of the van at the open side door for Ray to inventory.

“How much gas do you have?” Ray asked.

“A little over half a tank. I’ve got the two five-gallon gas cans strapped in the back of the van.” They’d put those gas cans there the first day they’d stayed at the cabin, getting the vehicles stocked in case they ever had to leave in a hurry. Now those plastic gas cans were a godsend.

“Jeep’s still practically full of gas,” Ray said. “And with the packs, we have about two to three weeks of food. I packed some blankets, some medical supplies, soap, bathroom stuff, extra socks and shirts in the packs.”

“Good,” Josh said. “That’s better than getting out of there with nothing.”

“The map to Avalon,” Ray said with an ominous tone to his voice. “The one I made in Craig’s office from his laptop, it was upstairs in my room when the Dark Angels hit the cabin. It’s gone.”

Josh thought of the other things they’d lost in the cabin fire. He thought of the photos of his sister and nephew that he’d taken from Marla’s apartment.

Gone.

The notebooks he’d taken from Isaac’s attic with all of Isaac’s notes written in them.

Gone.

His extra clothes. Emma’s extra clothes and shoes. Mike’s comic books that he’d managed to hold onto all the way from their home until now, including one of Kyle’s comic books he had given to him.

Gone.

So much gone. So much burned up. So much food and so many supplies that Doug had gathered were now left behind in the bunker. Maybe they were going to burn up if the fire managed to get down there. At least the heat and smoke might damage a lot of it even if the fire didn’t get to them, cooking the supplies and boiling the tanks and jugs of water, the bunker turning into one gigantic oven.

What a waste. The Dark Angels had wanted the supplies, but apparently killing them was worth more than a bunker full of supplies.

Even though Ray didn’t have the map to Avalon, he had a map of the eastern United States from one of the packs spread out on the floor of the van just inside the door. He used a ballpoint pen to draw a route from southern West Virginia down through the sliver of Virginia, then into North Carolina, and then a small section of South Carolina, and then into northern Georgia. But then he stopped, tapping his pen on the stretched-out map.

“What is it?” Josh asked him.

“I don’t know where Avalon is. It’s somewhere around here in northern Georgia, but I can’t remember exactly where.” He threw the pen down. It slapped the map. “Damn. I should’ve had that map on me. I should’ve had it in my pocket at all times.”

“We’ll find Avalon,” Emma said.

Ray looked at Emma.

Josh watched the anger slowly fade out of Ray. Josh knew Ray was unquestionably their leader. They hadn’t voted on a leader or spoken it aloud, but it was like everyone just knew. And Ray seemed to assume the role automatically, also taking all of the responsibility onto his shoulders. They all had their own ideas about things, and all of them were able to express those opinions, but Ray seemed to be the one who spoke for all of them. And if Ray was their leader, then Emma was their spiritual guide, their hope, their beacon of light. And just her words, just her voice, her sense of unwavering assurance, had calmed Ray down a little.

“We’re meant to be there,” Emma said. “We’re meant to find it. I know it. Just like we were meant to find each other.”

Ray just nodded. He looked at Josh, then Luke, and then Mike. He nodded again. “Okay. We follow this route down to Georgia. We stay off the highways and main roads as much as possible. We avoid the cities and large towns as much as possible. The cities will have more rippers. The highway, especially the bridges or tunnels, could be bottlenecked with cars and trucks. Could've been roadwork being done in some places when the Collapse began, roads closed, abandoned cars waiting in lines, even blocking the shoulders. Massive wrecks.”

Josh felt like telling Ray that he didn’t need to explain all of that to them—they got it. But he let him go on; it seemed to be good for Ray, a therapeutic grounding for him, a nostalgic sense of his former self in the former world, a moment where he felt like himself again.

“We’ll keep using both vehicles,” Ray went on.

“In case one of them takes a crap,” Josh said.

Mike giggled and it made Josh feel good for a second. Mike needed to laugh.

“My money’s on the van taking a crap first,” Josh said.

“We’ll get as far as we can with both vehicles,” Ray said. “We’ve got a siphoning hose and a hand pump in the back with the two cans of gas. When we see a vehicle somewhere that looks safe enough, we’ll try to siphon some gas.”

“What about stopping to sleep?” Josh asked.

“I was thinking about driving straight through,” Ray said. “It’s roughly six hundred miles or so. If we can average forty to fifty miles an hour, with a few breaks here and there to stretch our legs and go to the bathroom, I figure we could get down there in twenty-four to forty-eight hours.”

“You know it’s going to be a lot longer than that,” Josh said.

Ray glared at him.

“Like you said, we could run into a lot of obstacles,” Josh added. “That’s all I’m saying.”

“What about switching drivers?” Luke suggested. “There’s only three of us. We’ve got to sleep sometime.”

“We’ll just have to switch off,” Ray said. “Me and Josh first. You take over for one of us, and then one of us for the other one. We’ll keep switching like that.”

“We could teach Mike how to drive,” Josh said.

Ray’s eyes cut to Josh; he was already shaking his head no.

“Yeah, Dad,” Mike said. “I could learn to drive. I know I could.”

“No,” Ray said right away. “Later. There’ll be time for that later. But this . . . this is too dangerous right now.”

“He needs to learn at some point,” Luke said. “Right here on these dirt roads might be as good a place as any.”

“And what if he runs the Jeep or the van into a tree? Off the road into a ditch? What if he panics? Then we’ve lost a vehicle. Maybe Mike gets hurt in the crash. Or someone else gets hurt.”

“I just think he needs to learn, that’s all I’m saying.”

“Later,” Ray promised. He looked at Mike. “Okay? We’ll teach you later. Right now we need to get down to Georgia first. When we find Avalon . . .” He let his words trail off.

Josh didn’t think Ray was too sure they were going to find Avalon now that they didn’t have the map he’d drawn anymore.

“We still have two of the walkie-talkies,” Ray said, changing the subject. “We’ll keep in contact while we drive. We only use them if we absolutely have to. Who knows who might be monitoring those channels?”

Josh just nodded.

“Okay,” Ray said. “We should get going soon.”

CHAPTER 3

Emma

Emma stood next to Josh. The air was cold, but it also felt good to be outside the van. She knew she was going to be cramped in that van for a long time soon enough.

She didn’t doubt Ray’s strategy of trying to drive straight through, or at least drive as far as they could. It would be safer to stay on the move. Finding shelter from rippers and Dark Angels was going to be difficult. They’d been mostly in rural parts of West Virginia over the last few weeks, so avoiding rippers and Dark Angels had been a little easier, but both had still managed to find them. She remembered how it had been in Washington D.C. and the surrounding area. And that had been at the beginning of the plague—she could only imagine what those cities were like now. There would be so many more rippers. And as they made their way south in the van and Jeep, there would be more Dark Angels. The rippers were getting more and more desperate, growing bolder from their hunger. They’d probably eaten up most of the easily available food, and now they would have to hunt, maybe even eat their own: the young, the old, the sick, the weak. The cold weather might kill some of them. Maybe infections or diseases like the flu. Or malnutrition. But enough of them weren’t going to die. Even with deaths from disease, cold, hunger, and infections, there would still be a lot of them. So many of them.

“How’s your ankle?” she asked Ray.

“I wrapped it while I was getting the packs ready in the bunker.”

She heard him set his foot up on the ledge of the van’s doorway, the rustle of cloth as he pulled up his pants leg, inspecting the wraps around his ankle.

“How about you?” Ray asked. “You hurt anywhere?”

“No,” she told him.

“You sure? We were in a hurry getting out of there. Adrenaline running high. Some of us could’ve gotten hurt without realizing it at the time. Now that the shock has worn off, we might notice some injuries.”

She knew Ray was looking around at the others for their answers.

“No,” Josh said. “I’m fine.”

“Okay,” Ray said, exhaling a sigh with the word. “Everyone get enough to eat and drink? Anyone need a bathroom break? We’re going to be on the road for a while.”

Mike went over by the trees to relieve himself.

“I should go,” Emma said.

Josh helped her to the back of the van and stood watch while she went to the bathroom.

“This isn’t that embarrassing,” she said when she was done and pulled up her jeans. But she smiled at Josh to let him know she’d been joking.

“I made sure nobody was peeking,” Josh told her.

“Thanks,” she said.

Once everybody was done, they got back into the two vehicles. Mike and Luke rode with Ray, and Emma got back into the van with Josh.

Josh started the van and rolled his driver’s window up, the window motor whining just a bit like it was getting ready to break. The window clunked into place when it was all the way up.

“Ray drew me a map in case I get lost or we get split up,” Josh said.

Emma just nodded as she put her seatbelt on.

“Sorry you don’t have your books on tape to listen to.”

She’d left her tape player and earphones up in the bedroom at Doug’s cabin along with her clothes. Josh’s clothes had been up there too when the fire started. His photos of Marla and Kyle. The comic book he’d given to Mike.

“I finished the book,” she told him.

“Was it good? Did it have a happy ending?”

“Yeah. Happy enough. I was going to listen to The Tommyknockers next.”

“I never read any of those books. Any books, really. I never liked reading. I might have listened to books, though. Never even knew that was a thing.”

“I . . . I just feel so bad,” Emma said. She turned away from Josh, toward the passenger window, fiddling with her glasses on her face.

“Bad about what?”

“About Rose. I should have known something was wrong. I should’ve felt something sooner.”

“Hey,” Josh said.

She felt his hand on her shoulder, then her thigh. Not sexual, but comforting. “You saved us,” he said.

They were driving now, bumping along the hard-packed frozen dirt trail.

“Like you said before,” Josh continued, “you’re not a machine. You can’t control what comes to you and what doesn’t.” Josh mimicked a robot’s voice: “I am Emma. Give me a quarter and I will tell you your future.”

Emma couldn’t help laughing, but then the brief joy was gone.

“We all trusted her,” Josh said. “Or we wouldn’t have let her in.”

“Ray didn’t want to let her in.”

“Okay. We’re human. Eventually Ray let her in. We all did. We all agreed. No one blames you for this any more than they blame Mike for his crush on her and blabbing his guts to her about the secret passageways.”

Emma nodded. She knew Josh was right, that the others weren’t blaming her in any way, but she couldn’t help feeling that maybe deep inside they did blame her, but they didn’t want to say it.

Josh rested his hand on her thigh again as he drove. His touch felt good, the slight heat of his flesh comforted her. And actually, even though it had happened under terrible circumstances, it felt good to be traveling south . . . it felt right. It felt like they were finally on the course that they were supposed to be on, heading for a destination that was unavoidable. Yes, maybe Ray had left his map of Avalon upstairs like they’d left so much other important stuff behind when the cabin caught fire, but she was sure that when the time came they would find Avalon. It was fate. Destiny. It was meant to be.

“It’s starting to snow a little,” Josh said.

She heard the van’s wiper blades thumping back and forth on the slowest speed.

A storm was coming—she could feel it. Something she remembered from one of her dreams, bits and pieces of it coming back. She tried so hard to block out her dreams, afraid the Dragon would latch on to them like he was picking up a ping from sonar. But dreams of a snowstorm, a blizzard, were coming back to her now.

Even if Avalon was their eventual destiny—for some of them, anyway—they were going to have to go through the storms first.

Bad storms.

They were going to have to go through hell.

CHAPTER 4

Luke

Luke stretched out as best he could in the back seat of the Jeep. He had lain the M-16 down in the back where he could grab it quickly if he needed to. The metal boxes with the two grenades and extra magazines of ammo were on the floorboard behind Mike’s seat, which was reclined back a bit. Mike was already dozing, and Luke felt it might be a good idea to try to get some sleep while he could, while they were still on these backwoods roads.

Ray had stopped once for a few minutes at a crossroads, studying the map that he had refolded neatly into a fat square he could hold in one hand. He jotted a few notes down in the small spiral notepad he’d found in the center console of the Jeep. Then he turned right and they were driving again.

Luke didn’t worry about Ray getting lost—he was like a human computer, able to visualize whatever he wanted in his mind. Luke imagined that visions of maps and coordinates and calculations popped up in Ray’s mind like one of those cyborgs in the movies, like The Terminator or Robocop seeing computer readouts in their fields of vision. Luke knew it wasn’t exactly like that for Ray, but he found the thought of it amusing.

He was comfortable enough with Ray’s driving and directions that he could lean back and close his eyes, his hoodie wadded up behind his head like a pillow. He didn’t really plan on sleeping, just resting his eyes for a bit, resting his body. Sometimes he was able to half sleep—not fully asleep but not fully awake, floating somewhere in between, letting his mind and body relax.

Usually Luke didn’t dream very much when he slept. He never remembered dreaming very much before the Collapse, but now it seemed like every time he fell asleep he dreamed. Now he dreaded sleep, knowing he would dream and those dreams would be as vivid as memories, as vivid as another life, like he’d been teleported to another reality.

And before he knew it, he was dreaming.

In the first part of the dream he was back in Cleveland, at the beginning of the Collapse, running down the street where he had rented his house. It was dark. Firelight flickered above the rooftops from front-yard bonfires on other blocks, the sounds of drunken revelry floating on the cold night air, the occasional shouts and clattering of gunfire. Those fools were celebrating the end of civilization with one last night of debauchery.

More gunshots in the distance. Screams of terror and pain. Police and ambulance sirens. Car alarms going off. Airplanes and helicopters roared past in the night air, lights flashing, cones of bright searchlights creeping along the rooftops and trees.

So much activity. So much noise. So many people. Luke was suddenly nostalgic for even this chaos—at least it was still recognizable as civilization; it wasn’t the wastelands the world had become only a few days later.

There was another noise in the background of his neighborhood streets. This noise was closer than the other noises. Footsteps. Someone was following him down the street in the darkness, hunting him, stalking him.

It was Jacob.

Jacob could be anywhere in the dark, his gun aimed at him, waiting for the right moment to squeeze the trigger. A panic rose inside of Luke, a feeling he was unaccustomed to. Jacob was like a bogeyman, a childhood monster lurking in the closet, an unbeatable force, an unwinnable battle.

And then Luke was in the Dragon’s town, in Hell Town, like he knew he would be. It was the same as the other dreams he’d had: his gun was gone, his knife was gone; he had nothing but his bare hands. And like the previous dreams, he heard the roar of the Dark Angels in the distance as they celebrated their new life, their new mission, their allegiance to the Dragon. Someone (not the Dragon—Luke was sure of that) yelled through a megaphone, the words inaudible to Luke, just more noise like the noise around his street moments ago.

It wasn’t dark here in the Dragon’s hell town like it had been in Luke’s neighborhood; it was daytime, late afternoon, with gray clouds hanging low over the earth, crushing down on him, the ceiling seeming to lower inch by inch.

Luke kept walking. He was afraid of something here in this town, yet he let his anger take over. He wanted to kill the Dragon. If he could kill the Dragon, cut off the head of the beast, then maybe all of this would be over.

He ventured deeper into the neighborhoods just off the main square of the town. He walked down the wide, tree-lined streets with older homes on each side, two and three-story homes with sagging front porches, cars and trucks abandoned on the sides of the streets and in the driveways, some with their doors wide open, metal left to rust.

Hell Town seemed empty, but Luke knew people lived here—the denizens of this town now congregated around their cheerleader behind the megaphone somewhere in the distance. Luke was getting farther and farther away from that crowd. But it didn’t matter because he knew, like in the previous dreams, the noise from that crowd would stop soon.

And there it was . . . the silence, nothing except the freezing wind blowing through the skeletal trees and whipping at loose metal and wood on the houses and roofs. And here Luke was again, at the corner where the house stood across the street, a dark tower of evil. And as with previous dreams, Luke was suddenly afraid of what waited in that house, yet at the same time he knew he had to go in there. Something important was inside that house, something the Dragon was hiding in there.

But getting to that thing the Dragon was hiding wasn’t going to be easy. Jacob had followed him from his previous dream, from Cleveland. Jacob was inside that house now.

“Luke . . .” Jacob whispered.

Luke was already across the street, up the steps of the front porch, almost to the open front door.

“Luke . . . come inside. We’re all waiting for you. She’s waiting for you.”

She? Who was he talking about?

Luke could feel the evil coming from the house as he stood on the front porch, his fingers twitching instinctively, ready to grab his gun from the shoulder holster under his hoodie that wasn’t there anymore.

Another noise sounded from deep inside the house, a scratching sound, then a cry for help. A woman’s voice.

Luke opened the front door and saw Jacob there, aiming his gun, smiling.

A blast of light from Jacob’s gun was the last thing Luke would ever see—he wasn’t going to save anyone. He wasn’t going to kill the Dragon. Jacob was going to be here at the house waiting for him, and all Luke was going to do was die.

Luke woke up with a start, a scream trapped in his dry throat. He sat up in the back seat, not sure for a second where he was.

I’m in the Jeep with Ray and Mike. Ray’s driving.

“Nice nap?” Ray asked, not turning around, keeping his eyes on the road.

Luke just grunted. He grabbed the bottle of water on the floorboard where he had wedged it against the metal ammo box.

“Bad dream?” Ray asked, still not turning around to look at him.

Luke didn’t answer.

“You were snoring,” Mike said with a smile.

Luke just nodded.

“And mumbling,” Mike added. “Saying things.”

“What was I saying?”

Mike shrugged. “I don’t know. Like . . . uhh . . . and . . . err . . . nooo . . . stuff like that.”

“Leave him alone,” Ray told Mike.

Luke looked out the back windows, alarmed a little. They weren’t deep in the woods anymore, and there was a lot of snow around, a whole field of it they were passing, abandoned cars blanketed under it, roofs covered with it.

“How long was I asleep?”

“About two hours,” Ray answered.

“No troubles, I guess.”

“Seen a few rippers, but far off from the road. It seems like we’re still in a pretty rural area.”

“It’s snowing.”

“Yeah. Started about an hour ago. Seems like a lot more is coming. Look behind us.”

Luke looked out the rear window. “Shit,” he whispered. The horizon behind Josh’s van was a black wall with a gray mist mixed in.

“Storm’s coming from behind us,” Ray said. “Seems like it’s coming from the northwest. It’s going to catch up to us.”

Luke didn’t say anything.

“We might need to start looking for a place to stop for the night,” Ray said. “I don’t think we should try to drive through what’s coming this way.”

Luke whole-heartedly agreed.

CHAPTER 5

Petra

Petra’s body was stiff from the cold. She jumped awake with an inhale of breath that sounded so loud in the silence.

Then she froze, waiting and listening.

It took a second for everything to come back to her, everything that had happened. For just a moment she’d been trapped in a void between the nightmare she’d been having and the reality she’d woken up to.

But then the memories came back, jumbled together, like snapshots in a random pile on a table: driving to Jeff’s house miles away from the store, the store that Jo the manager ran . . . the Dark Angels pulling up into the front yard of Jeff’s home, parking behind their vehicles . . . shooting at the house . . . running. It had been a trap that Jeff had set for them, and there had probably been another group of Dark Angels attacking Jo’s store at the same time.

Petra shivered, wondering if the Dark Angels had killed everyone at the store. Was she alone now? The only one left?

Now that the nightmare was slipping away and she was grounded firmly back in the real world, as improbable as the real world had become, she was instantly on guard, her body tense as she listened for any noises in the house.

She had survived the night without being attacked by rippers, but that didn’t mean that rippers might not be in the house or just outside of it; she still needed to be careful.

It was dark in the closet she had curled up inside of, just a strip of weak daylight shining in under the door. Her backpack was beside her. She took a sip of water from a bottle. That took care of her thirst, but it only intensified her hunger.

Food would have to wait—she needed to make sure she was safe. At least she hadn’t frozen to death, but she didn’t think it was cold enough yet for that. Soon, though. The closet was probably a little warmer than the rest of the house, and warmer than outside. An abandoned house like this might attract a ripper or two, or a group of them, a place to get out of the cold for the night.

Her gun was right beside her on the floor. She rested her hand on the cold metal, the reassuring metal. In her backpack she only had a box of bullets to load the magazine of her gun, three protein bars, and two bottles of water.

She remembered running from Jeff’s house and then through the woods for miles. She had come across this house in the darkness. The house had looked abandoned, ransacked. She hadn’t found much in the way of supplies last night during her quick search by flashlight. She’d found an old blanket that smelled musty and probably had spiders on it.

At first she had curled up against the wall with the blanket, her pack and gun right beside her. She’d been too tired and had drifted off to sleep right there on the floor against the wall. She had dreamed. She always dreamed now—every time she went to sleep the dreams came. She’d woken up from the dream and at some point in the night found this closet in the hallway. It wasn’t the greatest hiding place, but it was better than being out in the open.

She’d dreamed again while sleeping in the closet. In the dream she was in a hospital, in a bed. Maybe she was sick or injured. And then all the lights went out, swallowing everything in the darkness. She sat up in her bed, breathing quickly, her heart thumping so loud she could hear it.

She waited for the emergency generator to kick in. Hospitals had to have backup generators when the power went out, didn’t they? They had to.

But the electricity didn’t come back on. No lights, no beeping machines, nothing. She didn’t even hear the sounds of other panicked people in the hospital. Surely other patients would cry out in alarm by now, calling for nurses and doctors. There should be the sound of hospital staff running up and down the halls, flashlight beams bouncing off the walls or lights from cell phones. Soon she would hear a nurse calling out for everyone to remain calm. Soon a nurse would open the door to her room to make sure she was okay.

But there was none of that.

Petra felt that she was alone in the hospital, floors and floors devoid of people, of all life. Or maybe they were all dead, just bodies lying in the dark, sightless eyes staring up at the ceilings from their beds or the floors.

Except she wasn’t entirely alone—she was sure of that. There was one other person in this massive building, someone making his way toward her.

Then she heard the footsteps, slow and deliberate, in no hurry, like the person knew she had nowhere to run to, nowhere to go.

The Dragon?

No, it was someone else this time. The approaching man whistled a tune, a familiar tune. There was even something familiar about his footsteps, the way he walked, a boldness. A dangerous predator.

“Petra,” the man sang out. He was right down the hall, maybe only a few feet away from the door to her room.

She couldn’t answer. A terror seized her, thrumming through her like live electricity. She twitched, like her body was trying to move before her mind even figured out where she was going, what she was going to do.

“I finally found you, Petra. You thought you could hide from me? From me?”

It was Diego, her boyfriend. He’d worked for a drug cartel. She had run away from him because he beat her all the time. He was going to kill her; she had no choice but to run.

But he’d found her now, and he was going to kill her.

The door to the hospital room creaked open.

That’s when she had woken up, and here she was now, sitting in a closet: cold, hungry, and alone.

She stood up. Her muscles felt achy and tight from the cold. She left her backpack on the floor, but grabbed her gun, holding it in one hand while slowly turning the doorknob with her other hand. She eased the door open and stepped out into the hallway.

After waiting for almost a full minute, she crept down the hallway to the two bedrooms and the bathroom on this side of the home. Each room had a bed, one with just a bare mattress, one without a mattress. There were old dressers and end tables, closet doors open, hangers on rods, clothes and debris all over the floors. She checked through the drawers of the dressers: old papers, more clothes, nothing she needed or could use.

Nothing much in the bathrooms she wanted.

She moved back down the hall and inspected the living room and kitchen, peeking out through musty drapes and plastic blinds. No vehicles out there, just like she’d noticed last night. More junk and trash in the living room and kitchen.

The kitchen had food wrappers all over the floor, dark stains on the linoleum that could have been old food, juice, or even blood. Any boxed or bagged food was trash now, the food gone, the shredded wrappers left behind. She found a few cans of tuna and a handheld can opener. She opened the lid and ate the tuna right out of the can with her fingers, her stomach grumbling.

After she was done, she wiped her hands on a dishtowel and went back to the hall closet for her backpack. She found a few more cans of food in the cabinets and she stuffed them down into the pack.

She used the bathroom and then went back to the kitchen, going out the same door she’d used last night. She made a quick trip across the half-bare backyard to the edge of the woods. She didn’t have a compass and she couldn’t really see the trail she’d traveled through the woods yesterday, but she would just keep going in the direction she thought she’d come from yesterday, trying to keep the morning sun to her left so she knew she was traveling south.

Maybe she would find one of them still alive, maybe Tamara or Tyrone. Or even Lance, Dale, or Zak. She didn’t think it was too likely, but she remembered the blind woman who had come to her in her dream last night—she’d told her that some had survived. Maybe she was talking about them.

CHAPTER 6

Petra

It took Petra an hour and a half to get through the woods back to the edge of Jeff’s backyard. She was surprised she’d found his house again and wasn’t still wandering the woods.

The woods had seemed so empty, devoid of all life, like rippers had come through and consumed everything in their path, all other animals fleeing. She had tried to be quiet as she made her way through the woods, but it sounded to her like she’d been making so much noise, trampling over dead leaves and twigs like a herd of cattle. She looked behind her every few seconds, expecting to see a group of rippers racing toward her. But she never spotted any rippers.

It was cold, but it felt a little warmer than the day before. She had her backpack on, the straps tightened, the pack a little heavier with the canned food inside that she’d scrounged from the abandoned house. She kept her pistol in her hand. She knew if she needed to shoot the gun the sound would bring more rippers, but if she had to use it she would; she’d use every bullet she had on the rippers, saving the last one for herself.

After an hour had passed in the woods, Petra began to believe that she had strayed off the trail back to Jeff’s house, sure that she’d gotten lost in these unending woods. She wished she had a map, but Lance would’ve had the map on him, or maybe he’d left it in the van. Maybe the van was still parked in Jeff’s front yard, but she was pretty sure the Dark Angels would have taken it.

Petra wondered if the Dark Angels had rounded Lance, Crystal, and the others up instead of killing them. Maybe they had taken them hostage. Maybe there was a chance they were still alive, and that hope had spurred her on through the woods.

Now she stood at the edge of Jeff’s backyard, where the trees had thinned out. The grass was gray and dormant. The back door of the house was halfway open, but there didn’t seem to be any movement beyond the door or in the windows, no sounds coming from the house.

She made herself wait a few more minutes, watching and listening.

Nothing.

Petra took a deep breath and bolted across the backyard to the house. She crouched underneath the window closest to the back door, then rose up and peeked through the glass into the formal dining room. One of the chairs was tipped over. There was trash all over the floor, furniture disturbed, bullet holes in the walls.

She thought about going in through the open back door but decided to go around to the front of the house first. She hurried to the corner and peeked around to the side of the house and the narrow yard, the woods crowding in close on this side. No movement in the part of the front yard that she could see. Nothing in the trees. She saw a scattering of black and camouflage clothing strewn across the dry grass in the side yard, some of the clothing twisted around bloodstained bones. She’d shot two of the Dark Angels here, the ones who tried to abduct Crystal. But more Dark Angels had come and taken Crystal. That’s when Petra had run deeper into the woods—she’d had no choice. She stared down at the bones that used to be inside those Dark Angels, their skin and flesh eaten at some point yesterday or last night by rippers.

Rippers had been here. She needed to be even more cautious now.

The wind picked up just a little, whistling through the trees, rattling the dry leaves, the sound prickling her skin.

She made her way down the side of the house, taking her time, peeking in each window as she passed it. Another window to the dining room, two more windows that looked in on the formal living room, and then she was at the edge of the front porch, crouching down next to the lattice work. She could see more of the front yard now. Tyrone’s pickup was still parked at an angle in the front yard, just like he’d left it.

She moved closer to the corner of the porch, not daring to raise her head up. She peeked around the corner and saw the whole front yard and the road a hundred yards away. The gravel drive was flanked by brownish-gray grass and weeds, the woods dense beyond the lawn on each side of the front yard, this plot of land carved out of the thick forest.

Petra remembered Lance talking on their way up here yesterday, talking about how nature would eventually take over everything again, manmade structures rotting away and forgotten over time.

God, that trip here from Jo’s store seemed like such a long time ago.

No one around so far, but the Dark Angels could be hidden in the trees somewhere.

Or the rippers.

The only vehicles in the yard were the two pickups: Tyrone’s Dodge Ram and the pickup with the big tires that Dale had driven. Lance’s van was gone; taken by the Dark Angels, she guessed. She couldn’t allow herself to believe that Lance had gotten away.

The all-too-familiar smell of death and decay hit her, a stench that seemed to hang in the air all the time now like a summer haze.

There were more dead somewhere in the front yard.

Petra gripped her gun harder and looked around at the front yard, studying the trees, the road, listening for any sounds. The van was gone, which meant the map Lance had with him was gone. She focused on the two pickup trucks. The tires looked inflated, but the windows were busted out, little gems of shattered glass twinkling in the overcast sunlight. One of the passenger doors was open on Tyrone’s truck so the battery might have been drained if the interior lights were on.

She looked at the other pickup . . . Dale’s pickup.

She needed that truck. Maybe the keys were still in the ignition, or on the floorboard, or under the seat.

But probably not. More likely they were in Dale’s pocket—wherever he was.

She had to try. It was better than walking. Maybe she could find a screwdriver and hammer it into the ignition. It was an older truck, maybe it would work.

Maybe she was getting ahead of herself. First things first: check the truck.

After another few glances around, she ran from the corner of the front porch to Dale’s pickup, not even bothering to stop at Tyrone’s truck. As soon as she was halfway across the front yard she saw the body on the other side of the truck—or what was left of it. The body was now just a collection of bones with bits of gristle and darkened meat stuck to them, the bones scattered among shredded, blood-soaked clothing.

Was it Dale? As soon as the question popped into her mind she saw the paintball mask he used to wear all the time, his bloody baseball cap a few feet away from the mask. Dale was dead. But what about Tyrone? Or Tamara. Tamara had been in the woods watching for rippers when the Dark Angels had come—she’d been the one who had warned them. Maybe she had gotten away.

Petra didn’t think so. The Dark Angels had come and killed some of them, maybe all of them. But she’d seen them take Crystal. Maybe they had taken some of them. Maybe some of them were still alive. But obviously some of them hadn’t made it; probably shot and then the rippers had feasted on their flesh.

She got to the front of the truck and saw another body at the back of the truck, this one stripped of clothing and flesh just like the other one, just bones pulled apart and scattered all over the ground. It could be Tyrone, or maybe Zak. A cloud of flies hovered above the bones.

Hurry! The rippers might come back. They might even be inside the house, sleeping off their meals.

Petra crept up to the driver’s door of the truck. The glass was busted out, but both doors were closed. Blood was smeared all over the door and down the side of the truck. Rippers had been inside the truck, looking for more food.

She pulled up on the doorhandle of the truck carefully until she heard it unlatch. She eased the door open and looked for the keys. They weren’t on the seat or among the shards of glass on the floorboard. They weren’t hanging from the ignition or in the center compartment, or on the dash, or tucked down in the seats. Maybe the keys were somewhere in the scraps of clothing among Dale’s bones. She was going to have to search for them.

“Shit,” she whispered.

This wasn’t going to be easy. Nothing was ever easy. Why would she expect this to be easy?

Maybe she could try the screwdriver trick. Maybe she could find a screwdriver and a hammer inside the house or the garage, get the truck started that way.

But she needed to be careful. She hadn’t seen any rippers inside the house when she had peeked in through the windows, but they could still be in there. Maybe upstairs.

She looked back at the front of the house while crouched down by the open door of the pickup truck. The smell of rotten meat and death was stronger down here by the ground. The front door of the house looked like it was ajar. Bullet holes dotted the red door and the siding of the home from when the Dark Angels had shot at them. The front windows were busted out from the bullets.

It was still morning; maybe ten or ten thirty, she guessed. She needed to check the house, see if she could find some keys. Maybe there was a car in the garage, or even a motorcycle, something she could use. If not, she was going to have to search through the bones and gore on the ground for the keys to Dale’s truck. The worst-case scenario would be walking out of here, walking down the road; that would have to be her last resort.

A screech sounded from behind her, then another yell. It almost sounded like words, like someone was trying to form words, but couldn’t. Then she heard the stampede sound of running feet.

She turned around and stared at the street.

Rippers were coming. A lot of them.

CHAPTER 7

Petra

Fifteen rippers. Maybe twenty. Maybe even more than that. Petra didn’t have time to count them. They were coming from the street, a few of them coming out of the woods: men, women, teenagers, even a few children. Even from the pickup truck where she stood, she could see the ferocity in their eyes, their desperation for food.

Petra had her gun in her hand, but she couldn’t pick them all off. She wasn’t that good of a shot, and she didn’t have enough bullets—all she had were the bullets left in her gun and the bullets in her backpack that she would have to load her magazine with when she’d used the ones up in her gun. How many bullets? She wasn’t sure, but probably not enough. She had no choice but to run for the house.

Pure animal fear took over, shutting down her rational mind. Thoughts blanked out and her body almost seemed to move on its own. She was across the front yard in what seemed like a few strides, then up the porch steps and through the open front door.

Where to hide?

She remembered that the house didn’t have a basement. There was nowhere to hide downstairs. The garage? Out the back door? Into the woods again? The rippers would run her down in the woods before she even got a quarter of the way back to the abandoned house where she’d slept last night.

Up the stairs.

She was upstairs before she even realized she’d made the decision. She wished she would have had time to bar the front door shut. But what good would that have done? They would just come in through the windows or the back door.

She could hear the rippers rushing inside the front door, slamming it open. It sounded like the door had been torn off its hinges. She rushed down the hall to the last bedroom, the master bedroom. She darted inside and closed the door, locked it. She shoved the bed in front of the door.

How long was that going to hold?

Now she was trapped up here. She only had a few seconds to live. But at least she could shoot them as they came in through the bedroom door, maybe even creating a logjam of dead bodies they would have to crawl over to get to her, slowing them down even more.

A quick glance out the bedroom window, she looked out onto the side yard. From this window she could also see part of the front yard.

“Fuck,” Petra breathed out.

There were more rippers coming from the street. Another thirty of them. Maybe thirty-five of them.

Too many. I can’t get them all. And I don’t have enough bullets even if I could.

Bodies slammed against the bedroom door. Growls and screams, howls from behind the door. It even sounded like two of them might be fighting each other.

I’ll take as many of them out as I can. Then I’ll jump out the window. Maybe they’ll all be up here by then.

And then what?

Run into the woods while the rippers were upstairs. What else could she do? She wished she would have entered the house before inspecting the pickup. Maybe they wouldn’t have seen her. Maybe they would have come into the yard and inspected the bones of the dead and moved on.

But it was too late for that now.

The bodies pushed against the bedroom door. The bed slid back a few inches from the force of the blows, scooting easily across the wood floor. Another slam against the door. More grunts as bodies pushed against it like they had melted together and become one being.

Petra opened the other window in the room that looked down onto the backyard. She looked down at the ground, seeing what she would land on when she jumped out the window. It looked like a long drop, but maybe she could crawl out and hold onto the window sill, dropping down the rest of the way. She’d be lucky if she didn’t break her leg in the fall, or even break her back. Knock herself out for a few seconds.

Don’t think about that.

She pulled her backpack off and threw it out the window. It landed down on the ground with a soft thud.

I don’t think I’m going to land so softly.

She positioned herself in front of the window, her back to it, in the shooting stance she’d been taught at the gun range, both hands on the gun, her finger on the trigger, gun aimed at the bedroom door. She was as ready as she was ever going to be.

The door crashed in, wood splintering in the door frame, the bed pushing back. Hands reached in the opening door, fingers like claws, fingernails black with dirt, arms covered with grime and stains. Then the first head poked through the opening, a man with hair spikey from dirt and filth. His eyes were wild, his teeth still white and strong in his dirty face. He spotted her, growling, drooling. He seemed to be trying to talk, like he was trying to form words but had forgotten how.

They pushed against the door as one, the bed finally moving out of the way. The door flung open.

Petra shot Spikey in the forehead, rocking his head back, a spray of blood from the back of his head splashing the two rippers right behind him.

It didn’t slow them down.

She shot the next two, hitting the next one in the face and the third one in the throat. The woman’s hand went to her throat instinctively, her wide blue eyes balls of shock, almost like she couldn’t understand what was causing the pain, what was making it so hard to draw another breath.

The gun bucked in Petra’s hands as she shot again and again. She tried to stay patient, waiting a few seconds for the next rippers to crawl over the dead and the dying.

“Die, motherfuckers!”

Two more shots. Two more rippers down, but she missed the head and got one of them in the shoulder.

She thought the rippers might stop their surge, suddenly tempted by the dead, by the fresh meat right underneath them. But they didn’t, they kept coming in through the doorway like mindless animals, like killing and eating machines, growling and snarling, screeching and yelling.

She was going to run out of bullets soon. She hadn’t been counting, but she knew she only had a few left in this magazine. She could hear the horde of rippers in the hallway. She even heard more of them downstairs, still trying to fight their way up here. Even if the doorway got clogged up enough, she still wasn’t going to be safe. They wouldn’t give up. She was going to have to jump.

It was now or never.

The cold wind blew in through the open window behind her. She glanced out the window. No rippers down there that she could see. They were all probably inside the house now, pushing at each other to get up here to the bedroom, following the herd, hoping for their small sliver of raw flesh.

Petra shot three more times, hitting the next three rippers: a man, an older woman, and a boy who couldn’t have been older than twelve years old—she caught him in the side of his face, his ear and part of his cheek erased away in an explosion of blood and bone fragments, knocking him back into the next wave of oncoming rippers.

She stuffed the gun into the waistband of her pants and crawled out the window, turning around and letting her legs drop and hang down the side of the house, the toes of her hiking boots banging into the siding. She held on to the window sill and glanced down at the ground. Even though she was a little closer to the ground by dangling out the window, it still looked like a long way down. For a moment she couldn’t let herself go, it was like her fingers wouldn’t let loose of the window sill, like they had cramped up on their own, freezing into that position, hardening like concrete.

The rippers were coming. She heard their cries, utterances of possible forgotten partial words along with the thunder of running feet. Some had weapons: knives, sticks, hammers, metal pipes. If they got to her they could stab the knives down into her hands, pin her hands to the window sill. They could pull her back up and into the bedroom. She would be helpless to stop them.

Petra let go.

It felt both like time had stretched out during her plummet to the earth, but also like she was immediately on the frozen ground, crashing down onto it. Pain shot up through her ankles, then her knees, then her hips and back, like a live current of electricity zapping her body. The sudden crash to the ground had jarred her bones and sizzled her nerves.

For just a moment she couldn’t move, sprawled out on the cold ground.

Was she paralyzed? Had she broken her neck in the fall?

No. She could definitely still feel the pain in almost every part of her body; it thrummed through her muscles and bones, a full-body nerve stinger. Her vision seemed to have blacked out for just a second, the world around her fading away to darkness, creating tunnel vision. All she heard was a high-pitched whining noise that drowned everything else out. But then her hearing was suddenly back, crystal clear and sharper than ever, a super sense replacing the old one.

The rippers were coming—she could hear that. They’d heard her clatter and slide down the side of the house; they’d heard the thud of her body hitting the ground, and maybe her cry of pain when she had landed—the unmistakable sound of wounded prey.

Her gun. She moved numb fingers to her waist, feeling for her gun. But her fingers still didn’t seem to be working right.

She struggled to her feet. She was able to stand up. Could she run?

The rippers rushed around the corner of the house. No way was she going to ever get the bullets loaded into the magazine of her gun in time. No way was she going to outrun them. She was dead.

It was over.

CHAPTER 8

Petra

Petra knew she was dead—in seconds the rippers would be on her, stabbing at her, beating at her, clawing at her, tearing and ripping at her like a pack of wild dogs fighting over scraps of meat. But she still couldn’t give up; she still couldn’t stop fighting until the last second.

She watched as the rippers came for her. She wasn’t going to look away. She would watch death approach; she would stare into its bulging, crazy eyes.

There were subtle spitting noises coming from somewhere, a sound she heard under the cries of the rippers and their pounding footfalls. The spitting sound seemed familiar; she knew instinctively what it was, but she couldn’t seem to bring it to her conscious mind.

The two male rippers in the lead collapsed, sprays of blood flying from the sides of their heads, a pink mist in the pale morning light.

They’d been shot. Someone had just shot both of them.

Spit. Spit. Spit.

Three more rippers were down. The others slowed just a little, turning toward where the shots were coming from. They knew a threat was somewhere around, they just couldn’t see where it was.

Above Petra, one of the rippers leaned out of the bedroom window. He threw his metal pipe down at her. It missed her by inches. He was halfway out the window now, maybe being pushed farther out by the others, maybe hoping to fall on her, stun her so the others could get to her.

Petra shot the ripper hanging out the window; the spray of blood splattered the window panes above him and the rippers right behind him. His body went instantly limp over the window sill, arms and head hanging down, a thin line of blood dripping down from the wound at the top of his head like leftover rain dribbling down from a gutter.

She moved away from the window and turned, shooting two more rippers, killing one instantly, wounding the other. One of the wounded still charged her like a rhino.

Spit.

The wounded ripper was dropped in mid-stride.

The gunshots were coming from the woods. Someone was in the trees picking off the rippers, saving her life. He had a silencer on his gun.

Petra didn’t know who her savior was, but she ran toward the woods. She heard the commotion upstairs in the house and on the front porch; some of the rippers were leaving, others were probably already feasting on the dead she’d left in the bedroom doorway. But the others weren’t going to give up so easily.

Her body still hurt, but the nerve pain from her fall to the ground was fading fast and she had complete control over her muscles again. Nothing seemed to be broken or sprained, but with the adrenaline kicking in she couldn’t be sure if she was truly injury-free.

When she got to the tree line she saw a man among the brush, half hidden behind a pine tree trunk. He was older, maybe mid to late forties, hard and lean. His salt-and-pepper hair was cut very short. He wore dark clothing and gloves, his gun still aimed at the rippers, the barrel so long with the suppressor screwed onto the end of it.

“Come on,” he yelled as soon as she was close to him.

Petra didn’t waste time with words; she followed the man through the woods, right on his heels, her boots thudding on the ground, crashing through the carpet of dead leaves. She didn’t ask who he was or why he had saved her or where they were going—she just ran, her mind and body working together toward a single purpose: to get away from the horde of rippers.

More noises came from behind her, the sound of feet running over the dead leaves and tree limbs. Some of the rippers were following them into the woods.

The man hopped easily over a deadfall and crouched behind it.

Petra didn’t ask questions, she just did as he did, mimicking his movements. He brought his gun up and aimed it at the rippers approaching through the trees.

She did the same.

There weren’t as many rippers as she thought. It had sounded like hundreds of them were following from the sound of the dead leaves, but it was only six of them, all males, all younger, the daring of the group.

“Let me get them,” the man said without looking at her.

She didn’t question him, but she kept her gun aimed just in case she needed it. No way was this guy going to get all six of them.

He did.

Within a few seconds all six of the rippers were dropped by bullets, all six head shots.

Petra was amazed with the man’s shooting skills.

He waited behind the large fallen tree for a moment longer, watching the woods and listening. There were sounds coming from the house somewhere beyond the trees, the rippers eating the dead, but none of them were coming. They finally knew when to quit.

Petra still had her gun aimed, her arms trembling as they rested on the log. She realized that the man hadn’t wanted her to shoot because the sound of her gun might have drawn more rippers into the woods.

Finally, the man seemed satisfied that another wave of rippers wasn’t coming. He exhaled a long breath and got to his feet.

Petra waited in her position behind the tree trunk.

“Come on,” he said. It didn’t seem to be an invitation, but more of an order, and he seemed to expect her to follow it unquestioningly.

“Go where?” she asked.

“I’ve got a vehicle parked on the road. It’s about a mile northwest of here. Just a quick walk through the woods.”

Petra didn’t respond.

“You coming or not?” He didn’t seem angry. In fact, he didn’t seem to show any kind of expression at all, his small dark eyes emotionless black pebbles. It was almost like he was just asking her what decision she had come to.

Petra got to her feet, but she didn’t put her gun away. She stood rigid and tense, staring at the man. “Where are you headed to?”

“South.”

She nodded. “Okay. Let’s go.”

“What’s your name?” he asked as they started walking.

“Petra.”

“I’m Jacob.”

CHAPTER 9

Kate

It was chaos for a few hours even after the Dark Angels left after attacking the store. They had killed Lance, Crystal, and Dale; two Dark Angels had slaughtered them right in the middle of the parking lot. Kate hadn’t seen it happen; she’d been down in the store, not on the roof with Jo, Fernando, and Tina. She’d been in the loading bay trying to talk Jeff out of pulling the pin out of the grenade he had in his hand, the one he’d been hiding in his daughter’s music box. Jeff had been a mole for the Dark Angels . . . for the Dragon. He’d been promised a reward if he sabotaged the store by creating an unsealable hole in the building, a way for the Dark Angels to get inside without destroying the fence around the back of the store.

Kate hadn’t been able to talk Jeff out of pulling the pin on the grenade. But just as he did, Neal had jumped down from the rafters and landed on him, covering him with his body when the grenade went off, blowing them both to pieces but saving the rollup door. The Dark Angels couldn’t get inside now.

Jo had heard the explosion from the roof and figured the Dark Angels had gotten inside, but Kate told Max what had happened, and he radioed her and the others on the roof.

At least Jo and the others had shot the two Dark Angels who had murdered Lance, Crystal, and Dale, killing both of them—at least those two were dead. After that, the Dark Angels retreated as hundreds of rippers poured into the parking lot from all directions.

Yes, chaos had reigned for hours, through the night as the rippers swarmed outside the building. The chain-link fencing had held up, electrified by the car batteries. The jolt wasn’t enough to kill the rippers, but enough of a deterrent to keep them away from it. If they got through the fence, they might be able to get through the metal rollup doors in the loading bay. In the front of the store, the rippers had busted the sliding glass doors and windows beside them, but the chain mesh security doors had held, even with dozens of rippers pushing against them.

But how long would the fencing and security mesh doors last? Would they stand up to the next wave of rippers? Would they stand up if the Dark Angels attacked again with more powerful weapons?

Finally the sun rose and most of the rippers had scattered. Kate had kept watch at the front doors with a few of the others through the night, standing guard in case the rippers got through the security mesh doors beyond the glass, and then the plywood and rows of shopping carts they had pushed in behind the doors for another barricade. She had a pistol with her as she stood guard, a pistol she really didn’t know how to use, and she’d stood shoulder to shoulder with the others guarding the front entrance through the night, just waiting.

It had been tense. Even though she wasn’t a believer, she had prayed that the rippers wouldn’t get through. She had prayed with another woman, Sophie, who had stood guard with her. They had prayed for each other, for the others in the store, and Kate had said a special prayer for Brooke.

Now that the rippers were wandering off to find food in other areas, there was so much to do, so much to fix, to inspect, to restock, to clean up.

It was still dark enough inside the store for Kate to use her flashlight to guide her back to their tent to check on Brooke.

Brooke was still in the tent. Kate thought she might be sleeping, but she was awake, lying on her stomach with a flashlight in front of her, drawing on her drawing pad. Tiger, the cat Max had found for her, was curled up right next to her. Brooke looked up when Kate entered the tent, her eyes wide with fear.

“Hey, you still up?” Kate said.

Brooke nodded. She talked much more now than when Kate had first met her down in the brick tunnels underneath her parents’ warehouse in the small town where the rippers had cornered her in an alley. But she still didn’t talk a lot.

“You didn’t get any sleep?”

Brooke just shrugged. Not really an answer.

“I guess Tiger didn’t have any problem sleeping.”

Almost a smile from Brooke.

“It’s over for now,” Kate told her. “The rippers are gone. So are the Dark Angels.”

Brooke looked relieved, but she still didn’t say anything.

“You can get some sleep now if you want to. Okay?”

“Where are you going?”

“I still need to help clean things up. Jo’s going to have a meeting. We’re going to check everything in the store, all the doors, make sure everything’s safe. Make sure the rippers or Dark Angels can’t get through anywhere.”

Brooke just stared at her.

“Hey, what are you drawing?”

Brooke didn’t answer.

“Can I see it?”

Brooke seemed hesitant, but then she slid the drawing tablet across the floor to Kate.

Kate stared at the sketches, caught off guard again by how talented Brooke was. Like many of her other sketches, these were of people she’d seen in her dreams. The sketches were only partially finished, parts of an arm or the rest of the legs disappearing with less and less detail, almost like Brooke couldn’t see those clearly enough in her mind. But the faces and torsos were done in great detail.

“I’ve seen these people, too,” Kate said. They were some of the same people Brooke had drawn before on the tablet they’d had to leave behind at the motel office when the two Dark Angels in the black van had tried to abduct them.

The first drawing was of the man and his son. They stood side by side in the drawing, the son only a few inches shorter than the father and much thinner, an expression of fear and nervousness on his face, his eyes wide like he was on a constant lookout for threats.

Kate knew that expression—she felt that way every day. Everyone here at the store did.

The father was sturdy and strong, his body tense, his eyes watchful. But Brooke had captured something else in the man’s eyes, just the hint of an anger he was holding on to, an anger that kept him going. And there was something else in those eyes.

Sadness?

Yes, sadness was there too. Exhaustion. Maybe even shock that the world had changed so suddenly and they had all lost so much. How had Brooke been able to capture all of those emotions on their faces in the pencil sketch? She was like a modern master artist.

Kate carefully turned the page to the next drawing. Two more people, a man and a woman. The man was slim, bordering on skinny with long scraggily hair and the hint of tattoos on his neck and wrists. He had on a hoodie and layers of clothes underneath, just like the others in the drawings.

The blond woman standing next to the man was the blind woman they’d all seen in their dreams, the only one (besides the Dragon) who had spoken to them in their dreams. She looked small and fragile even next to the thin man, but there was a determination to her, the set of her jaw, the way she held her head high. Brooke had managed to capture the woman’s expression even though her eyes were covered with a pair of dark glasses.

The third drawing was of a lone man, a muscular man with a crewcut and a gun in his hand with a silencer on it, the silencer barely drawn in, just the hint of it at the end of the gun barrel, just lines suggesting that it was there, with a little shading to make it look dark and metallic.

Kate flipped to the next drawing, the last one, and her breath caught in her throat. She looked at Brooke.

Brooke just stared back.

“This is Petra,” Kate said.

Brooke didn’t nod or say anything.

Kate looked back down at the drawing. Petra stood with her wrists handcuffed in front of her. And looming right behind her was the Dragon, his gloved hands on her shoulders. He was dressed in some kind of black robes with a cowl covering his head, his face mostly in shadows with just the hint of a sharp chin and a strong jaw. The glowing eyes allowed no more of the features of his face to be seen.

She looked at Brooke again. “Petra’s with the Dragon?”

Brooke shrugged then nodded slightly.

“Is she still alive?”

Brooke just shrugged again, not committing to an answer.

“Do you know where they are?”

Brooke shook her head no.

Kate handed the drawing pad back to Brooke. “Thank you for letting me see it.”

Tiger woke up from Brooke’s movements on the sleeping bag. He opened his sleepy eyes, watching Kate for just a moment before closing them again.

“I need to go help Jo and Max,” Kate told Brooke. “You’ll be okay here.”

“You’re sure the rippers are gone?”

“Yes. They’re gone for now. I promise. They couldn’t get inside the store, but we need to make sure they never get in here.”

Brooke understood.

“It’s almost morning now. The sun’s coming up. Try to get some sleep, okay?”

Brooke nodded. She set her sketch pad to the side and turned off her flashlight.

“I’ll be back in a few hours to get some sleep too.”

Brooke rolled over on her side under the blanket, disturbing Tiger a little more, and then they both closed their eyes.

Kate left the tent and closed the flap. It was still dark, but the early-morning light was beginning to filter down through the skylights. She could make out the other tents and stacks of supplies in the distance without her flashlight on.

She left the tents to find Jo. She needed to tell Jo about what she’d seen in Brooke’s drawing tablet.

CHAPTER 10

Jo

Jo had remained on the roof until the eastern sky began to lighten. She had remained on the roof until the rippers began to give up on the building, beginning to scatter, on the hunt for easier food or perhaps a place to sleep for a few hours—this seemed to be the time when a lot of them slept. It was almost like all of them had come to the decision together to leave without talking to each other. Who knew? Maybe they were able to communicate somehow through their grunts and screeches, just from their hand gestures and expressions. Maybe they had leaders down there, alphas, and the herd had followed them when they had decided to leave. Or maybe there was no order to their group; maybe some saw others leaving and eventually they all followed suit, like a school of fish or a flock of birds that all seemed to move together with no leader.

She didn’t know and she didn’t care, she was just glad they were leaving.

Now that it was a little lighter outside and most of the rippers had moved on (except for a few stragglers here and there), Jo could make out the damage to the parking lot. She used her binoculars to scan the parking areas, and then the shrubs and ditch that made up the perimeter, and then the grassy areas beyond the ditches and shrubs where the Dark Angels had lined up their vehicles last night with the headlights shining.

After the Dark Angels retreated and the rippers swarmed the building, Jo had used one of the rifles to shoot at the mass of rippers, but only when they tried to use each other’s bodies as human ladders or steps to get up to the roof of the building. But the roof was too high and the gunshots were enough to deter them, a few dead rippers at the top of the human piles were enough to send the whole collection of bodies collapsing down to the sidewalks below.

The rippers hadn’t gotten in through the security mesh doors, and that was a relief. She’d kept in contact with Kate and others through the night on the walkie-talkie, getting constant updates. The rippers busted the glass of the windows and sliding doors, but they couldn’t get through the steel mesh no matter how much they rattled it and pushed against it.

At least Neal had saved them by jumping down from the roof to land on Jeff and his hand grenade. Neal had been dying anyway—he knew it by then, Jo knew it, everyone knew it. At least he’d gone out a hero; he’d gone out saving all of their lives.

The straggler rippers left behind by the horde picked at the bones that used to be Lance, Crystal, Dale, and the two Dark Angels who had murdered them. They also picked at the bones of other rippers who had died during the night. Now the dead were just bones, bits of flesh, bloodstains, and strips of torn cloth smeared along the blacktop. The Dark Angels’ weapons were still down there on the pavement—the M-16 they had used to shoot Lance, Crystal, and Dale—it laid on the pavement near the bones, untouched and unnoticed by the rippers.

One of the rippers had picked up the M-16 a few hours ago when the rippers were still swarming, many of them feasting on the dead. The ripper had fiddled with the weapon, eventually swinging it around, holding his finger on the trigger, spraying any rippers nearby with bullets, mowing them down. The rippers that had died were eaten quickly, their bones and torn clothing mingled in with Lance’s, Crystal’s, and Dale’s until Jo couldn’t tell whose bones were whose.

Now rats would come for the last little bits. And the birds when the sun was all the way up. There wasn’t anything Jo could do about that.

“We should go down there and get that weapon,” Fernando said. “Might be other weapons, too.”

Jo nodded. “In time. We’ll work something out. Let’s give those rippers a few more hours to get out of here.”

“What now?” Tina Yang asked.

“We’re all going to need to get some rest. Sleep in shifts. I want to have a quick meeting with everyone first. Discuss some things.”

The other two shooters, Wes and Lisa, who had remained on the roof with them last night, came over.

“Could you two stay up here for the next thirty minutes?” Jo asked them. “Keep watch while we see what needs to be done down there?”

Wes and Lisa nodded.

Jo handed Lisa her walkie-talkie. “Let me know if any Dark Angels come back. Or that herd of rippers.”

Lisa nodded. “I will.”

Jo let Fernando and Tina go down through the skylight first. On Jo’s way down into the store, she noticed that the ladder tied to the scissor lift shook quite a bit as she climbed down. They were going to need to retighten the ropes before the ladder came all the way loose and someone fell.

So much to do. So much to fix, to clean up, to inspect.

Fernando and Tina helped spread the word about the morning meeting to the others. Jo wanted to keep the meeting quick; she just wanted to let everyone know that the store hadn’t been breached, that for now they were safe. But they needed to make plans to defend this building and themselves. And that was going to be a hell of a lot harder now that their best shooters were gone. They’d lost Lance, Crystal, and Dale. Petra, Zak, Tamara, and Tyrone were gone too. Not only had they lost seven people, but they’d lost the weapons they’d had on them and the three vehicles they’d been driving. They’d lost so much, but they had no choice but to carry on.

Jo wished she never would have let them go on that last run. Jeff had been a mole, suggesting his own house (if the address he had given them had really been his house and not just a place to ambush them), and he’d tricked them into going there where the Dark Angels had been waiting.

But it was her fault—she should have put her foot down. She was the leader. This was her store. She should have told Lance no. Max and Kate had even come to her with bad premonitions about this last run, but she’d let them go anyway.

It was done and over, that’s what her rational mind told her. But she couldn’t suppress the guilt she felt. She’d gotten all three of them killed, watched the three of them die right down there in the parking lot.

It took fifteen minutes for almost everyone to meet Jo near the deli where they ate a lot of their meals. A few of them weren’t there: Wes and Lisa, who had stayed on the roof to keep watch; Brooke, who Kate said was sleeping in her tent; and the doc, who was still sleeping.

“I tried to get her up,” Tina said.

“No,” Jo answered. “Let the doctor sleep for now. I’ll talk to her later.”

Fernando, Tina, Kate, Max, and the others who were left, stood in a big semi-circle around Jo, waiting for her to talk.

“Okay,” Jo said. “I know everyone’s tired after the night we went through, and I want to thank all of you for everything you’ve done. I know we were all in different areas of the store over the last few hours, so I just want to catch everybody up to speed on what’s happened. Make sure everyone’s on the same page.”

Nods all around.

“Some of you may not know yet in all of the confusion, but the ones who went out on the last run to look for supplies—Lance, Crystal, Dale, Zak, Tyrone, Tamara, and Petra—they never returned. The Dark Angels came last night with three hostages: Lance, Crystal, and Dale. They killed all three of them in the parking lot. Shot all of them.”

Some concerned expressions, a few shocked faces.

“They were brave,” Jo continued. “They knew the risks they were taking by going out there on that last run.”

“But they were also set up,” Max said.

Heads turned toward Max.

“When you asked if anyone had suggestions on where to go, Jeff spoke up,” Max said. “He said they could go to his house. He knew the Dark Angels were going to be waiting there for them. He was a mole.”

A few more surprised looks.

“Thanks, Max,” Jo said. “I was getting to that. Yes, somehow the Dark Angels had gotten to Jeff. Probably before he even came to us. He might have waited days before he was ready to play his part.”

“He had a hand grenade hidden in his daughter’s music box,” Kate said. “He was waiting for the right time, probably when the Dark Angels had the store surrounded.”

“Yes, the explosion everyone heard,” Jo said. “That was Jeff blowing himself up. It seems he was supposed to blow the rollup door in the loading bay, make sure it couldn’t be repaired or closed again, so the Dark Angels could get inside with the fencing still intact. Kate figured it out and tried to talk Jeff out of pulling the pin. You remember Neal, the man with the bandages on his head. He had a bad infection from a wound. He was most likely dying. He dropped down from the rafters in the loading bay and covered Jeff and the grenade, saving the door but sacrificing himself. Saving all of us.”

A few murmurs from the small crowd.

“But I want to assure everyone that the door wasn’t damaged. Kate and Max checked it out. The security doors in the front entrances also held up, but we may want to fortify the barricades in front of those doors a little more this morning just in case. Also, anything we can do to shore up the metal roll down door in the loading bay would be a good idea. Any ideas would be appreciated.”

“The rippers are all gone?” Sophie asked.

“Most of them have moved on. There were a few stragglers in the parking lot last time I was up on the roof a few minutes ago.”

“But the rippers could come back,” Sophie said.

“And the Dark Angels,” Phil said.

“Yes, I’m sure the Dark Angels will be back. This store, this target, is too tempting for them.”

“They could fire a missile at us,” Sophie said. “Or set the store on fire.”

“Yes, those are possibilities,” Jo answered. “But I don’t think they’re going to destroy the building because they don’t want to destroy the food and supplies in here. They may try to wait us out first.”

“Wait us out?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. All we can do is plan for the worst. We’ll sleep and work in shifts. Help each other out. Right now we need to check all the doors, locks, the security doors, make sure nothing was damaged, make sure nothing needs to be repaired and see if they can be fortified in any way. We also need to change the batteries outside that are hooked up to the fence. They saved our butts already and we’re going to need fresh batteries. The ropes holding the ladder to the lift need to be retied and tightened before it slips down and hurts someone. And the two bodies in the loading bay—Jeff and Neal—need to be cleaned up. I need volunteers for these jobs. With us losing so many already, we’re down to a skeleton crew and we all need to do our part to help us survive.”

Kate raised her hand. “I’ll volunteer to clean . . . to help with the bodies in the loading bay.”

“Thank you, Kate.” Jo was surprised. She thought that would be the job most difficult to find volunteers for.

“I’ll help her.”

Jo turned to Max. “Thank you.”

“What are you going to do with the bodies?” Sophie asked.

“We’ll put them outside.”

Sophie shook her head, like she wasn’t sure that was a good idea. She looked at the others. “Won’t the rippers come?”

“We can’t leave the bodies in here,” Jo said. “And yes, putting them out there will attract the rippers, but the rippers will keep the Dark Angels away. For a little while, at least.”

“Good idea,” Max said.

Jo looked at Max; she could tell he had more to say. She waited for him to continue.

“What about Petra?”

Jo didn’t answer.

“Petra could still be alive. She could still be out there somewhere. The Dark Angels didn’t use her as a hostage like they did with Lance, Crystal, and Dale.”

“They might’ve still had Petra, Zak, Tyrone, and Tamara in one of their vehicles,” Jo said.

“I don’t think so,” Max said, shaking his head. “I can’t help feeling that she got away, that she’s still out there. I think she might need our help.”

“Max, we can’t spare anyone right now. We just . . . we can’t.”

“We can’t turn our backs on her, either.”

“Max . . .” Jo looked at Kate, hoping she would chime in. “Could we talk about this later? We need to check all the doors and tend to the bodies.”

Max stared at Jo for a moment. She wondered if he was going to continue challenging her. She could see it in his eyes, but then he gave a curt nod.

But Jo knew Max wasn’t going to let it go.

CHAPTER 11

Ray

An hour later the snowstorm caught up to them. Ray felt like he was driving into a wall of snow.

“Dad . . .” Mike said, holding on tighter to the armrest of the Jeep.

“I know,” Ray said. He needed to find a place to stop—they couldn’t keep driving too much farther in this storm.

“I saw a gas station up ahead on the right,” Luke said from the back seat.

Ray nodded—he’d seen it too. He slowed the Jeep down to a crawl. The world was whited out only a few feet away; the snow driving toward the windshield reminded Ray of the hyperspace scenes from the Star Wars movies.

“Dad!” Mike yelled, holding on even tighter.

Ray remembered Kim holding on just like Mike was when they had raced out of their subdivision weeks ago—she had been holding on exactly like Mike was now. That day seemed like a million years ago.

Ray saw what had alarmed Mike, a ripper materializing out of the driving snow at the last second, the headlights illuminating the man dressed in soiled rags, his arms out, hands formed into claws, one hand holding a broken-off piece of stick. The ripper looked like a ghost forming from thin air, solidifying from its world into ours. No, not a ghost, a ghoul. Or maybe a demon.

The front of the Jeep clipped the ripper, knocking him back into the swirling snow—here one moment in the glare of their headlights and then gone the next. Ray had slowed down so much that he doubted he had killed the ripper or even knocked him unconscious. If he slowed down much more the rippers might be able to get in front of the Jeep and bog it down.

“We need to get to that gas station,” Luke said. “We can’t drive in this.”

“The rippers,” Mike said.

“They’ll bog us down in this Jeep,” Ray told Mike. And if they drove faster they would eventually hit a parked car or a light pole or run off the road into a ditch, or any other of the countless things they could run into in this snowstorm, things they wouldn’t see until the last second.

“This storm’s only going to get worse,” Luke said.

Ray thought Luke was speaking from experience. He was sure Luke had seen far worse snowstorms and blizzards in Ohio than he’d seen in D.C.

Little by little Ray slowed down and veered to the right, looking for the turnoff into the gas station, but the roads were becoming indistinguishable from anything else with the accumulating snowfall. Luke was right—it was going to get worse as more snow fell. They needed to stop now, take their chances in a building before they wrecked the Jeep and the van. They would be sitting ducks for the rippers in their smashed-up vehicles.

Another ripper materialized out of the snowstorm. Another inhale of breath from Mike. Another clench of Mike’s hands on the armrest of the Jeep.

Ray knocked the ripper out of the way with a soft thump, but the woman managed to whack the hood of the Jeep with a pipe she swung before she was pitched back into the swirling whiteness of snow.

How many rippers were out there in the storm? How many that they couldn’t even see? It was impossible to tell. There could be more rippers in the gas station parking lot, or inside the gas station store.

“There,” Luke said. “I see it.” He was at the passenger side of the Jeep in the back seat, his gun in his hand, looking out the window. “The entrance to the gas station. It looks like the rippers are heading for it too.”

Ray had just seen the building. He turned gently, but he could feel the rear of the Jeep sliding on the slick road. After what seemed like minutes, the Jeep straightened out and Ray felt like he had more control over the truck.

Luke turned around to look out the rear window, looking for the headlights of Josh’s van.

“They still with us?” Ray asked. He grabbed the walkie-talkie and handed it to Mike. “Try to get a hold of them.”

Mike took the walkie in his shaking hands and pressed the button on the side. “Come in, Josh. It’s Mike.”

“We’re here,” Josh said through a blast of static.

“We’re going to a gas station store,” Mike said.

“I see you, buddy,” Josh answered back.

Ray concentrated on the parking lot, staring into the whiteout. A pickup swam suddenly into view a little to the right and Ray swung to the left to avoid it, the rear end sliding just a bit then thumping the pickup, not enough to do any real damage, but enough to rattle them inside the Jeep.

A few seconds later the massive metal awning over the gas station pumps came into view, the poles like the legs of some gigantic creature, the rest of its body lost in a mist.

And to the left of the awning, the outline of the gas station store could be seen. It looked like a bigger building than usual. Maybe it housed more than just the store, maybe a small plaza with other shops and businesses, but Ray couldn’t tell in the storm.

Ray checked the rearview mirror and could just make out the faint glow of the van’s headlights. Josh was staying with them, but still far enough back so he wouldn’t slide into the back of them if Ray had to stop.

“Another one,” Mike shouted, pointing at a ripper appearing in front of them.

Ray’s eyes darted from the rearview mirror back to the windshield—he saw the ripper too late and instinctively braked.

Too hard.

They started to slide and Ray cut the steering wheel into the slide, the driver’s side of the vehicle sliding helplessly toward the two rippers who waited, maybe dumfounded, for the impact that was coming. But the impact was only going to be a love tap.

Luke rolled down his window and aimed his gun with the silencer at the gray blobs in the blizzard—the two rippers.

Spit. Spit.

He got them both in the head, dropping them just before the Jeep slid into their fallen bodies and came to a stop.

“Let’s go!” Luke said, already grabbing the M-16 and the metal box with the two hand grenades and extra ammo inside. He grabbed the packs from the back of the Jeep, throwing two of them over the seats at Ray and Mike.

The inside of the Jeep was an explosion of movement and voices. Ray shoved one of the duffel bags Luke had just thrown up front at Mike. “Get out and go to that building over there. See it?”

Mike nodded, staring back with wide eyes.

“We gotta go, Mike!”

For a second Ray was sure Mike was going to stall, to hesitate and argue about remaining in the Jeep where it seemed safe for the moment.

But he didn’t—he moved into action immediately, tearing off his seatbelt and opening the door, stepping out into the snow and wind.

Ray shut the headlights and engine off, grabbing the keys out of the ignition.

Luke tried to open his door on the passenger side, but the two dead rippers were blocking his way. He crawled across the back seat to the driver’s side and got out.

Ray was out, his pack slung over his shoulder, his gun in his hand. He looked past the rear of the Jeep and saw the shadowy rectangle of Josh’s van sliding to a stop five feet away.

It was a little easier to see now that he was out of the Jeep, but the swirling snow was still masking everything beyond ten feet, and anything beyond twenty-five feet was lost in the blizzard.

Ray stood by the Jeep, watching the van.

“It’s us,” Josh called as he and Emma ran toward the Jeep, their faces and bodies slowly defined as they got closer.

Emma tapped frantically at the snow with her cane.

“Inside the building over there,” Ray yelled at Josh and Emma. “Hurry!”

Ray turned and saw Luke at the front of the Jeep, the M-16’s strap looped over one shoulder, the metal box of ammo and grenades in one hand, his pistol in the other.

“Where’s Mike?” Luke yelled.

CHAPTER 12

Josh

Even through the driving snow Josh could see the expression of horror on Ray’s face. Josh felt his own stab of fear in his heart at the thought of Mike lost in the snowstorm.

“He was . . . I told him to get to the building,” Ray said. “He should be right here.”

Josh heard the roar of a ripper. Close by.

Another one called out.

How many were here, masked by the blizzard? Was it a horde of rippers wandering blindly through the storm, following the sound of their shouting voices? Or maybe it was only a few of them. There was no way to tell.

“More rippers coming,” Josh shouted at Ray and Luke when he was right beside them. Emma held her cane, her other hand gripped in Josh’s hand, holding on tight.

For just a second Josh realized that he was experiencing just a taste of Emma’s world of blindness and the panic it could bring. Even with the reduced visibility Josh still felt blind, helpless to see an attack until it was only a few feet away.

“Let’s get to the building,” Luke said. “Mike has to be there.”

Ray nodded. He and Luke hurried toward the vague shape of the building only ten feet away. Josh squeezed Emma’s hand just a little, his sign that they were on the move again. She fell into step right beside him, swinging her cane back and forth quickly in front of her in case she was about to walk into something. Back and forth. Tap, tap, tap.

Even though the tapping of Emma’s cane was muffled by the snow, Josh thought the sound was carrying easily through the storm somehow, a low and steady drumbeat picked up by any rippers nearby. But he couldn’t tell Emma to stop—he knew she needed to use her cane; it was instinctual to her now.

“It will be all right,” he told her. “We’ll find Mike. We’ll get inside. Get somewhere safe.”

Emma answered by squeezing his hand a little harder.

Josh heard Ray’s voice before he saw him.

“He’s not here,” Ray said. “I don’t see him.”

Luke murmured something, probably trying to calm Ray down.

The side of the building loomed into Josh’s vision to the left, a wall of stucco, then glass windows and a set of glass doors a little farther down, the glass all shattered, the sidewalk and the floor inside the store covered with broken glass.

Josh’s heart sank—the windows had already been busted out. This place wasn’t going to be safe. It had already been ransacked and looted. Whether it had been ransacked by looters or rippers didn’t matter—what mattered was that they weren’t going to be able to get inside the building and lock the doors.

Two rippers ran up to them, materializing out of the snowstorm, each of them carrying some kind of stick, one of the sticks was a metal pipe or maybe a snapped-off golf club handle. They screeched, their kamikaze cry as they rushed them.

Luke shot both of them in seconds, his silenced gun spitting into the snowstorm. Both young men dropped to the ground as sprays of blood mixed into the swirling snow for just a moment.

“Mike!” Ray yelled. “Mike, where are you?”

If Mike had walked away from the building instead of toward it, he’d be lost out there in that blizzard.

“Mike, answer me!”

Josh thought Ray was at the edge of full-blown panic, about to rush into the storm and look for his son—he’d rather die than be without him.

“Dad,” Mike called back. His voice seemed to be coming from everywhere at once, from all around them, the storm insulating them and throwing off the acoustics.

“Mike!” Ray answered, his voice almost hitching. “Where are you?”

“Inside the store.”

Josh saw Mike in the gloom of the store just beyond the metal frames that formed the sections of windows, jagged bits of glass stuck to the insides of those frames.

Josh and Emma followed Ray and Luke down the sidewalk to the wall of windows and doors that used to have glass in them, their packs moving and jostling as they ran. Emma’s cane tapped at the concrete and broken glass, more furious than ever.

More screeches and yells rang out from the storm. More rippers were on their way. A lot of them.

Luke was inside the store first, not bothering with the doors that still looked closed, possibly locked even though a lot of the glass was gone. He stepped over one of the lower metal frames that used to separate the large glass panels before they were all shattered.

“You have to step over this metal bar,” Josh told Emma as he guided her toward what used to be the windows. Their shoes crackled over the millions of shards of glass among the snow, grinding them into the concrete. She tapped at the ground, then at the metal bar. She was up and over the strip of metal in a flash.

They were inside what was once a gas station store, a pretty large store from the look of it. A long counter with two cash registers ran along the wall to the left. Aisles of shelves were in front of them, some of the shelves tipped over. At the far ends were standup coolers barely visible in the gloom. Everything was dark, but Josh could make out enough details to see that any edible food and drinks were gone long ago. The floor was a collage of trash: crushed boxes, old bags, shredded paper, spilled food that were now just dark stains among the trash, broken glass, bits of metal and wood. It looked like someone had opened a hundred household bags full of garbage and dumped it all over the floor.

“Any rippers inside?” Luke asked Mike.

Mike stared back with wide eyes. “I didn’t see any.”

Ray grabbed his son and held him for a moment. “Thank God,” he whispered. “Where did you go?”

“You said to go to the building,” Mike answered, on the verge of breaking down. “I came to the building.”

“I meant to stay together and then get to the building,” Ray said.

Mike just stared at him.

Luke aimed his gun at the windows, backing a few steps away from them.

There were more rippers out in the snowstorm.

“They’re going to get in here soon,” Luke said. “They’ll want to get out of the storm like we did.”

“Let’s get deeper inside the store,” Ray said.

“And go where?” Josh asked.

“Away from the windows,” Ray barked.

Three rippers roared as they ran toward the windows, waving their weapons, one of them throwing a rock, hoping for a lucky hit.

Luke shot all three of them.

But more were coming.

CHAPTER 13

Luke

Luke killed the next two rippers that came from the storm, two humans that had turned into these monsters. He’d gotten both of them in the forehead. They ran right at him. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. But as easy as it was for him to kill them, more were still coming. He had the M-16 and the extra ammo in the metal box, but he wanted to save that weapon and the bullets. He had a feeling they were going to need it at some point in the future.

More rippers were out there, dozens of them at least.

Maybe getting inside this store hadn’t been the best idea, but it wasn’t like they’d had a lot of time to find just the right place. This storm had come on so quickly, like a fast-moving thunderstorm of snow.

At least the storm hampered the rippers’ senses as much as it had theirs—it might have been the only thing saving them from a more organized assault from them.

Ray, Mike, Josh, and Emma moved deeper into the store, past the tipped-over shelving and then past the coolers built into the far wall, looking for a place to hole up, maybe an office or a walk-in cooler, some kind of room they could barricade themselves into. Luke wanted to go with them, but he was hesitant to leave his post at the windows just yet. He could hear the rippers out there, calling to each other, stumbling around in the blinding storm.

“I hope you motherfuckers all freeze,” Luke whispered.

While he waited by the windows, standing next to the wall to keep from being seen, he set the metal ammo box and the M-16 down on the floor. They hadn’t been able to get all the packs from the Jeep, and he thought Josh had only been able to get one of the packs from the van. Maybe when this storm was over they could go out and get the other packs, or maybe if the rippers wandered off.

He wondered if either (or both) of the vehicles had been damaged. Ray had hit quite a few rippers on the road and in the parking lot. He could have damaged the radiator or flattened one of the tires. And eventually the rippers would get inside the Jeep and the van, looking for any food they might find in there.

For just a moment Luke considered going after the packs they’d left in the van and Jeep. Everything they owned in the world was now either on them or in those two vehicles.

More screams and yells came from somewhere in the blizzard. There were more rippers out there than he thought. Maybe they’d been coming this way when the storm started, or maybe the glow of their headlights and the sound of their vehicles had drawn the rippers and they followed them here. At least there were no rippers inside the store right now.

Luke picked up the assault rifle, shouldering it by the strap. Then he picked up the metal ammo box. He backed away from the windows with his gun in his hand, aimed at the windows and glassless doors.

The sound of running feet in the snow, the slapping and thudding of shoes, and maybe even bare feet, heard over the howling wind. The rippers seemed to have come together out there, forming into one army now, and they were coming this way.

He hoped to God that Ray and the others had found somewhere safe back there beyond the store.

“Luke,” Ray called from the back.

Luke didn’t bother shooting out through the windows into the blizzard. He couldn’t see the rippers yet. Why bother wasting the bullets?

He raced deeper into the store, through an archway that led to a broken door held open by Ray that led to a small hallway.

“A lot of them out there,” Luke told Ray. “Coming this way. Maybe they’re looking for shelter from the storm. You find something back here?”

“This hall leads to a mechanics’ bay. There are other entrances to the bay, but they all seem to be closed off. Not the most ideal location, but better than nothing.”

Luke agreed. He followed Ray into the hallway. He wanted to close the door, but it was busted open, nearly off its hinges—useless as a barrier now. The hallway was gloomy, almost too dark to see. Ray already had his flashlight out, aiming it down at the floor as they hurried past two doors: one was labeled Employee Restroom, and the other Locker Room.

There was another door on the left side, a door with a big glass panel in it that led to a waiting area for the oil and tire business. The door was locked, but it wouldn’t be difficult for the rippers to get through it. The hall ended at a metal door that looked a lot sturdier. Ray opened it and went inside. Luke followed him.

Once inside the mechanics’ bay, Ray closed the door. Even though he tried to be quiet, the door made a metallic thump in the frame. He locked the doorhandle and the deadbolt. Then Luke and Ray pushed a piece of equipment in front of the door.

The mechanics’ bay was much larger than Luke thought it was going to be. There were four bays to work on cars, each with a lift and a crawlspace underneath. Each bay had its own large rollup garage door. All of the doors were closed.

“All of them are locked,” Ray said, noticing that Luke was staring at the doors.

Luke nodded. “Good.”

Against the back wall were some wood and metal cabinets and countertops, with spaces in between them where large tool boxes had been wheeled into place. There were pegboards on the walls with tools and auto parts hanging from hooks. At the far end of the large room racks of tires were lined up all the way to the ceiling. Hoses for impact tools snaked along the floor. There was a big air compressor near the tires. Posters and signs hung on the walls higher up, advertising brands of tires, oil, and auto parts.

It was cold inside the bay, but at least it was a little warmer than outside, at least they were out of the freezing wind. The smell of oil and grease lingered in the air—Luke could practically taste it on his tongue. There were dark stains all over the floor. Some of it was probably oil and grease, but some of it could be blood. Tools were scattered all over the floor and benches, some of the toolbox drawers open. It looked almost like the mechanics had dropped their tools and run, or maybe had fought rippers, or fought each other when they started to turn. Luke could imagine what it would have been like here as mechanics and customers turned into rippers, the mechanics holding dangerous tools in their hands, suddenly unsure of what they’d been doing only minutes before, looking down and wondering what the tools were for, their minds suddenly scrambled.

Josh led Emma over to a spot where a toolbox had been rolled out of the way. He helped her sit down on the floor so she could rest. Mike cleared any tools away so they would have a place to sleep for the night.

A banging noise sounded against the first rollup garage door.

Luke spun toward the door, his pistol aimed at it, his outstretched arm rock-steady.

Screeches and yells came from beyond the door, then kicks and punches at the metal. It was so loud. The metal seemed so flimsy.

“It’ll hold,” Ray said in a whisper from right behind Luke.

Luke figured Ray was saying that more for Mike’s sake than anyone else’s.

“Shhh,” Ray said, putting a finger to his lips.

They all stayed quiet, none of them making a sound. But Luke kept his pistol aimed at the garage doors just in case.

There were more rippers at the other garage doors, pounding on them, kicking at them, beating at them with weapons. Yelling and screaming.

It was so loud in the mechanics’ bay now, the funhouse sound of monsters trying to get inside.

Luke aimed his gun at the doors. They were holding so far.

But for how long?

CHAPTER 14

Petra

Petra and Jacob didn’t talk much on their trek through the woods to the road where his pickup truck was parked. Both of them were quiet, listening for sounds of rippers, keeping their eyes peeled for any movement among the trees.

But none of the other rippers had followed them. The rest were probably feasting on the other dead rippers—they obviously had no problem eating their own.

As they walked, Petra finally had time to assess her body, making sure she hadn’t really injured herself from her fall from the second-story bedroom window. The nerve stinger pain was gone and her legs seemed okay. No bad pains in her neck, back, or arms.

Her second order of business was to assess the threat Jacob might pose. She studied him as he walked ahead of her. He knew she still had her gun in her hand, but he didn’t seem worried that she might shoot him in the back. He seemed confident. Almost cocky. Of course his confidence might come from whatever kind of conditioning he’d done through the years.

Ex-military? Special Forces? Maybe, but it didn’t feel right to her. His skill with a gun might point to military training, but he could have trained in other ways. Petra knew that some of Diego’s men had trained constantly with weapons.

Jacob was definitely in his forties, probably late forties, or maybe even early fifties. He had fine wrinkle lines around his eyes and mouth, gray in his short dark hair, but he was in very good physical condition. He navigated the hilly terrain easily, obviously familiar with the outdoors.

His clothes looked newer, his black hiking boots sturdy. He didn’t look like someone hiding in the woods or living out of a vehicle. He looked like someone who had a place to stay, like the people at Jo’s store: newer clothing, nourished bodies, weapons with plenty of ammo.

Could he be a Dark Angel? He didn’t have the letters carved into his forehead, but that might not mean anything. The ones with the DAs carved in their foreheads could be soldiers or slaves. The Dragon could have officers or spies who weren’t made to take the brand.

Jacob had saved her life, and Petra appreciated that, but she was still wary of him. He felt like a bad man. She’d been around plenty of bad men in her life, and she liked to think that she had developed a radar for those kind of men. But these days a lot of men had to be bad—they had no choice. It was a new world now.

Petra wasn’t normally much of a talker, and she usually found herself not very interested in other people’s conversations or anything about their lives, but she felt that it was imperative that she try to find out more about Jacob.

“You’re heading south,” she said as she moved up beside him. The trees had thinned out a little, the terrain flattening, making the walking easier.

He nodded.

“Where down south? You have a destination in mind?”

He shrugged, not looking at her. “Just heading where it’s warmer.”

“Florida?”

“Probably.”

“There will be a lot of rippers down there.”

He nodded like he’d already taken that into consideration.

“Where were you coming from?”

“Cleveland,” he said. The word was clipped just a little, but he didn’t seem too aggravated about the interrogation just yet. “You?”

“Virginia.”

He smiled—a cold smile on an expressionless face. “I see we don’t trust each other completely yet.”

“Thank you for what you did back there.”

“Saving your life?”

“Yeah. And sorry, I don’t trust anyone right away. Especially not now.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“Where’d you learn to shoot like that? In the military?”

“No.”

“You’ve had some training.”

He didn’t answer.

“You have a silencer on your gun. That’s not something you see every day.”

He shrugged again but still didn’t respond.

“You traveling with anyone else?”

“Not at the moment. Not unless you want to go with me.”

“Have you seen a lot of the Dark Angels on your travels down here from Cleveland?”

“A few.”

“Killed some of them?”

“A few.”

Petra was still getting a bad feeling about Jacob. Something was really bothering her about him.

He stopped walking and looked at her. His gun was holstered inside his jacket, tucked away somewhere in there.

Petra stopped and faced him. She still had her gun in her hand. She wasn’t putting it away just yet.

“Look,” he said, sighing like the whole conversation was beginning to wear him out. “You don’t have to go with me. Just because I . . . helped you back there doesn’t mean that you owe me your life or your allegiance. You’re free to go your own way any time you want to.”

Petra didn’t say anything.

“But we’re kind of out here in the boonies. Not a lot of vehicles around, but plenty of rippers from what I’ve seen so far. You can ride with me for a little while if you want to. If we spot another vehicle somewhere, you can take it. There are millions of them sitting around with gas in the tanks. That sound fair?”

Petra nodded, still watching him.

He started walking again. “Where were you headed?”

“South,” she answered.

“Did you have a specific destination in mind?”

“Somewhere warmer,” she said, matching his earlier answers.

He smiled at their impasse. “Okay. We’re still feeling each other out. I get that. My truck is just ahead. Over that hill and through those trees. If you want to go with me, fine. If not, that’s fine too. Your choice.”

Petra didn’t respond. She kept walking beside him.

“But could you do me a favor and put your gun away?” he asked her. “It’s kind of making me nervous.”

Petra kept her gun in her hand for a moment as they walked through the trees, both of them trying to be quiet, but it was impossible to be silent while walking over the carpet of dead leaves.

Maybe Jacob was okay. Maybe he wasn’t going to hurt her or kill her. If he wanted to kill her he could have shot her when she’d jumped out the window. He could have just waited in the woods while the rippers tore her apart.

She slid her gun into the waistband of her pants and pulled her hoodie down over it.

Jacob sighed with relief, smiled at her.

They climbed the small hill up to the road, then moved to the edge of the woods. Jacob made a gesture for her to wait while he moved closer to a tree, scanning the road for rippers.

While Jacob looked for any rippers, Petra stared at his truck, a Ford F-150 with an extended cab. It looked newer, maybe only a year or two old. The bed looked empty from what she could see, the windows and windshield intact. She wondered why he had parked here on the side of the road. To go into the woods? Why? It was almost like he had gone specifically through the woods to Jeff’s house, like he knew someone was going to be there at Jeff’s house. Had he been waiting in the woods for her?

She looked at Jacob. He had his gun out now, aiming it at her. He wasn’t smiling, but he wasn’t angry. His face was a blank slate.

“I’m going to give you some instructions,” he said, “and you’re going to follow them. Is that understood?”

CHAPTER 15

Petra

Petra remained still. She knew she couldn’t grab her gun quickly enough. And even if she could, there was no way she could outshoot Jacob.

“I could practically see the wheels turning in your mind,” Jacob said with a smile, the mean twist of a smile, like he was trying to look charming. But anyone could see through his façade; anyone could see the evil just underneath.

Petra didn’t answer, didn’t ask what the hell he was babbling about.

“You saw my truck. You wondered why I had parked it here. Why I would park and walk a mile and a half through the woods to Jeff’s house?”

“You knew I would eventually come back to the house.”

“It seemed like the most logical thing. I figured you would want to see if there might be any survivors among your friends.”

“And were there?”

“So I hiked through the woods a few hours ago,” he continued, not answering her question, “and I waited, watching the house.”

“You’re with the Dark Angels. You’re with him.”

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” he said, his smile disappearing so quickly, his face suddenly stone cold. “You’re going to take your backpack off and toss it over there on the ground. Then you’re going to take your gun and any extra clips you have out and throw them over by your backpack.” He gestured with a nod of his head at the strip of grass between the edge of the woods and the road where the truck was parked. “You’re going to move nice and slow. Nice and easy.”

Petra thought about asking Jacob why he was doing this. If he wanted to kill her he could have done it by now. No, he wanted her alive. He wanted to take her somewhere.

South? To him? To the Dragon? To the hell town she’d seen in her dreams?

“We ain’t got all day,” Jacob said. His voice was lower, a warning tone. “You’re a smart cookie, I can tell that. You've figured out that I don’t want to kill you, that I want you to go somewhere with me. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t, or won’t, hurt you. You’ve seen the way I can shoot. I could take out one of your kneecaps if I wanted to. Hell, I could shoot off each of your fingers from here. Lots of things I could do. Painful things.”

Petra shrugged her backpack off and tossed it onto the strip of grass. She used her left hand to pull her pistol out of the waistband of her pants. She tossed it onto the grass beside the backpack. “No extra clips,” she told him. “Just a box of bullets in my bag.”

“Good, Petra. You’re doing very good so far.”

She felt like telling him to drop the act, but she didn’t bother.

“I’ve got a pair of handcuffs on me. I can either handcuff you in the front where you’ll probably be a lot more comfortable, or I can handcuff your hands behind your back. Or, if you really feel like fighting—and let me just warn you that I fight as well as I shoot—I could hogtie you and lay you down in the bed of the truck. You see? How things go are all up to you.”

“You always talk this much?”

The first genuine smile from Jacob. “Funny.”

He pulled out the pair of handcuffs from a pocket of his jacket while keeping his pistol aimed at her. He dangled the cuffs from his finger for a moment, then tossed them to her. They landed on the ground in front of her with a faint metallic clinking.

“All up to you,” he reminded her.

Petra bent down slowly and picked up the handcuffs. She snapped one of the cuffs on her left wrist and closed it. She closed the other one on her right wrist and locked it so that it wasn’t too tight.

“You chose wisely. Don’t blame you at all.”

Petra didn’t say anything.

“Now comes the next part. You’re doing so well. Don’t go and screw it all up. Okay?”

She still didn’t say anything.

“We’re going to walk to the truck, and you’re going to get in the passenger seat. If you’re good, I won’t tie your legs together. Which is important if we need to run for any reason. I might not have time to cut your legs loose.”

She nodded, showing him that she understood.

“Good. Let’s walk.”

Petra walked to the truck. Jacob darted ahead of her and opened the door for her. She got up inside of the truck and seated herself with no problem. Jacob closed the door and bolted around the front of the truck with her backpack in one hand. He opened the driver’s door and threw her pack onto the back seat. He got into the truck, closed the door and shoved his gun into a holster inside of his jacket. He started the truck.

“Remember . . . be cool,” he said.

Petra remained motionless.

“I’m going to put your seatbelt on.”

She didn’t resist. She remained still as he pulled the shoulder and lap belt over her and clicked it in place.

“Safety first,” he said as he put his own seatbelt on and shifted into drive, turning around on the road, then picking up speed.

“You’re taking me to see him, aren’t you?”

“No sense lying about it, I guess. We’re not going back to the store, I can tell you that.”

Petra’s heart skipped a beat. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“We know all about the store. All the food and supplies there.”

“What did you do? Did you kill them?”

He didn’t answer. Only smiled.

“No,” she said as it dawned on her. “You haven’t yet, have you? You weren’t able to get inside, were you?”

“We’ll get in eventually.”

“Don’t you guys have enough already?”

“It’s not about having enough. It’s about control. He can explain it a lot better than I can.”

Petra was quiet for a moment. They were still driving down the road through the woods.

“Besides, he’s got something special planned for them. For the store.”

She didn’t bother asking him what the special plan was—he wasn’t going to answer her; he was just teasing her.

“Crystal. Did she make it?”

Jacob shrugged.

“She was with me. She went to help Lance. They didn’t shoot her. They took her. Is she still alive?”

“Don’t know. That’s not my area. I was sent up here to track you down.”

“And bring me back to him. Why? What does he want with us?”

“That’s between you and him.”

“Yeah, that’s right. You don’t know anything. You’re just an errand boy.”

He glanced at her, that mean twist of a smile back on his face, the cold glint in his eyes. “Careful, Petra. Remember, be nice and I’ll be nice to you. Otherwise, you could have a very uncomfortable ride.”

She looked away from him, unable to stand the sight of the smile smeared on his face. She looked at the woods—they were already thinning out, opening up to fields, a few houses and trailers on large lots. Rippers came from one of the houses up ahead, at least a dozen of them, pouring out into the street, alerted by the sound of Jacob’s truck approaching.

CHAPTER 16

Petra

Jacob hammered the gas pedal down, the Ford picking up speed.

“Hold on,” he told her.

How? she felt like asking, but didn’t. She grabbed the arm rest on the passenger door as best she could with her shackled wrists.

Jacob hit the first ripper that ran into the street, knocking him back out of the way—just a blur of movement after a thump that hardly registered inside the big truck. Jacob hit the next ripper, knocking him out of the way. The third ripper rushing out into the path of the truck on a suicide mission was a teenage girl; Jacob mowed her down, dragging the girl’s body underneath the truck, the tires on the driver’s side bumping up and over her body easily, the girl’s high-pitched screams cut off suddenly.

Jacob smiled.

Petra prayed that one of the rippers with a piece of pipe or kitchen knife would manage to stab the grill of the truck, piercing the radiator. Or maybe one or more of the tires would flatten. But what good would stranding them here do? She wasn’t going to be able to outrun Jacob even if they were suddenly on foot, not with her hands cuffed in front of her. And she probably wouldn’t be able to outrun the rippers. And even if she ran, she had a feeling that Jacob’s orders included killing her and leaving her body behind if he absolutely had to.

And Petra didn’t want to die. Not yet, anyway. Maybe being abducted by this man was a blessing in disguise. She’d wanted to get close to the Dragon; she’d wanted a chance to kill that monster. Maybe this was exactly what she needed.

Jacob raced past the last of the rippers, the rest of them backing up out of the way of the speeding truck like they had figured out that it was useless to attack.

“Yes,” Jacob yelled. “That always gives me a rush.” He glanced at her and his smile was different this time, not the mean little smile, but an insanely happy one now. “If you would’ve told me a few weeks ago that I’d be allowed to run people down right on the street, I would’ve been like, ‘Yeah, right.’ But here I am, able to run down as many as I want. Shoot as many as I want.”

“Obviously you like to kill.”

“I was born to do it. You know how some people know at an early age that they want to be an artist or a singer or that they want to build houses? Their dream, their passion in life? Well, I knew a long time ago that I wanted to kill people. I trained myself to do it. I’ve always loved to fight, to hurt people, to be the baddest, most dangerous man in the room. The top of the food chain, baby. And that’s what I’ve become.”

Petra looked away from Jacob, out the passenger window again. “And now you work for the Dragon. So you’re not really at the top.”

“Hey, he’s the guy with the big ideas. I knew I wasn’t like that. I was never going to be the boss, but I was going to be the boss’s number one man, the enforcer. We all have our roles to play in life. I’m sure you have your role to play.”

She didn’t respond.

“I used to work for a guy who was a lot like the Dragon. I swore never to talk about him or what I used to do for the family . . .” He let out a chuckle. “But, with the circumstances now, I guess it really doesn’t matter anymore. Vincent turned into a ripper. I watched him turn. His whole family turned. I killed them all. None of them left. All gone.”

Petra pretended not to be interested in what Jacob was saying, but she listened as she stared out the passenger window at the cold and gray world whipping by. And Jacob droned on because he knew she was really listening.

“I worked for some lower-level guys at first in Cleveland. But eventually Vincent and his family noticed me. That’s how it works. You work your way up, just like any business. Well, I worked my way up to the top crime family in Cleveland—hell, maybe all of Ohio. I met with Vincent and told him what I could do for him, and he told me what he could do for me. And word hit the street that Vincent had a new enforcer, someone you didn’t want to fuck around with.”

Jacob paused; he was staring at her—she could feel it.

“See, that’s the secret a lot of those younger guys didn’t seem to realize—you don’t need to be violent if they’re already afraid of you. Why waste the time and energy? If we had any trouble, I’d go in to talk to someone and they’d start pissing their pants, stumbling all over themselves to accommodate or apologize. They’d straighten up right away. Yep, they sure would. They knew what I could do. They knew what I’d done before.”

“And now you’re with the Dragon.”

“The Dragon is like Vincent in some ways, but different in so many other ways. You’ll see what I mean.”

“So I’m going to meet him?”

Jacob laughed. “Oh, I think he really wants to meet you and the others.”

Petra looked at Jacob. “What others? The people I was with at the store?”

Jacob stared at her for a moment like he was trying to decide what she meant. “I think you know what I mean.”

The dreams? Was he talking about the people she’d seen in her dreams? She looked out the window again.

“I know you think the Dragon is the enemy, but he’s not. He’s a leader rising up from the ashes of this chaos, giving everyone left a guiding light.”

“He’s hogging up all the food and supplies,” Petra said. “Hoarding everything.”

“Only to redistribute to everyone else. If not, then there would be small bands of gangs, feuds over food and shelter. This way everything will be controlled, everyone eventually getting their fair share.”

“Getting their fair share only if you pledge your allegiance to the Dragon and his laws, right?”

Jacob didn’t answer, quiet for once, watching the road as he drove. “You still don’t understand.” He shook his head slightly. “But you will. You’ll see soon enough.”

Petra looked out the passenger window again, getting comfortable. It was warm inside the truck now with the heater on low, but not too warm. She hadn’t slept well last night in the closet and now she could feel her body practically wilting. She was at the brink of exhaustion, the edge of passing out.

“What did you do with my friends?” she asked without looking at him, without opening her eyes. She didn’t want to look at him any more than she had to. She didn’t want to look into those lifeless eyes, the lack of humanity there—his shark eyes. She wasn’t really afraid of him because she was sure his orders were to keep her alive unless the circumstances were extreme, but at the same time she was still wary of him because Jacob was a man to be feared.

“Friends?”

She could hear the smile in his voice as he taunted her.

“Crystal. Lance. Zak.” She opened her eyes and turned her head to look at him.

He kept his eyes on the road, grinning like he knew a secret.

“Did the Dark Angels take them? Some were killed back at Jeff’s house. I saw their bodies. One was Dale. Who were the other ones? Tyrone? Tamara, maybe? Maybe a Dark Angel or two?” She knew she’d been responsible for the two piles of bones in the side yard that used to be Dark Angels, but she didn’t bother telling him that. “Hard to tell when there’s nothing but bones and bloodstains now.”

“I don’t know.”

He was lying. “Lance’s van was gone. The Dark Angels took it. Does that mean they took Lance and Crystal? Did the Dark Angels take them back to the Dragon?”

“Not my area,” he said. “You’ll have to ask the Dragon about that when you see him.”

She planned on asking him about that . . . and a lot of other things.

CHAPTER 17

Kate

Kate went with Max to collect the supplies and gear they would need to clean up the bodies of Jeff and Neal in the loading bay—or what was left of their bodies. Max had an empty shopping cart, pushing it toward the other side of the store where tools and other supplies were kept. As they walked away, Kate looked back at the collection of tents. Brooke was still in the tent. Hopefully she was sleeping by now.

She thought about telling Max about Brooke’s drawings, about the drawing of Petra handcuffed with the Dragon looming right behind her. But she didn’t want to tell him yet. He would obsess over it, and she wanted to get this chore over with as quickly as possible, and she wanted Max to help her with it.

Max loaded the shopping cart with supplies he found on the shelves: a flathead shovel, an ax, a heavy-duty mop and bucket, and two plastic tarps still folded up neatly and sealed in clear plastic.

They went back to the other side of the store where the cleaning products were stored near the aisles of dry food. Kate used another shopping cart and filled it with a few gallons of bleach, a package of rags, a box of heavy-duty contractor garbage bags, and a roll of duct tape. For their personal protective gear, she grabbed four packages of long dishwashing gloves, two heavy-duty rubber aprons, two pairs of rubber boots, a few dust masks, two rubber shower caps, and a pair of goggles for each of them.

It took nearly fifteen minutes just to get the supplies together that they were going to need. Hopefully they hadn’t forgotten anything. Hopefully once they started this, they could just get it done and over with.

Kate definitely wasn’t looking forward to cleaning up two exploded bodies. But she probably wouldn’t have been much help with the other tasks, and she figured nobody would be jumping up and down to volunteer for this. At least Max had volunteered to help her. She was happy about that.

They pushed their shopping carts back through the hall toward the loading bays.

The smell of the bodies assaulted Kate almost immediately, not the rotting smell she’d come to know so well over the last few weeks, but the coppery scent of blood and fresh meat.

Fernando offered to bring them some buckets of rainwater that they had collected on the roof for later when it came time to clean up the rollup door and the concrete floor.

They pushed the shopping carts into the loading bay, toward the unrecognizable bodies melted together on the floor, two lumps of gore twisted together among ragged clothing. The blast radius was almost twenty-five feet. Blood, bits of meat, clots of hair, and slivers of bone were all over the rollup door, the wall, and the floor. Puddles of it all around.

Max looked up at the rafters. “At least it’s not up there.”

“Yeah,” Kate said. “Way to look on the bright side.”

Max chuckled a little as he opened the package of shower caps, pulling one of them onto his head.

“Neal’s body kept most of the blast underneath him. I guess it could’ve been a lot worse,” Kate said.

“So Neal jumped down from those rafters?”

“He said he used to do that kind of work. Construction. Said he was good at the high work. Never afraid of heights. Said he always knew he wasn’t going to die by falling.”

For once Max remained silent, opening the packages of gloves, goggles, and aprons.

“He said a lot of weird stuff the last time I talked to him,” Kate continued. “I figured the infection and fever were getting to him.”

“He saved our lives,” Max said. “Even if the Dark Angels wouldn’t have gotten in here through the blast in the door, eventually the rippers would have.”

Kate could imagine hundreds of rippers pouring in through the shredded hole in the metal rollup door.

Max slipped on one of the aprons, wrapping the string around his waist and tying it in front in a neat bow. He slipped on one of the goggles, adjusting it over the shower cap, making sure none of his hair was poking out. He put on a dust mask and then a pair of yellow dishwashing gloves.

Kate picked up the other pair of goggles. “These were the kind we had to use in science class.”

“We had to dissect frogs,” Max said.

“We got to dissect an octopus.”

Max stared at her. “That’s weird.”

“And frogs, too,” Kate added as she put her apron on, tying it in place.

“Let’s talk about something else.”

After they were dressed in their protective gear, they both slipped off their shoes and shoved their feet down into the rubber boots.

“I wish we had a garden hose,” Max said. “Probably make this a lot easier. Just wash everything out the door.”

There were a lot of things Kate wished for, things that made life easier, things she had taken for granted. But wishing wasn’t going to make any of it come true. She opened the packages of tarps and took out a few of the heavy-duty garbage bags while Max started mopping up the blood, working from the farthest spray of blood, working toward the two bodies.

They used one of the yellow buckets with a ringer attached to it. When the water got too bloody, they switched it out with the next bucket of rainwater Fernando had brought them, using a lot of bleach with the water.

Kate worked on the rollup door, scrubbing the grooves, spraying bleach cleaner on it. Even with her goggles on, the bleach was bothering her eyes a little. The locks on the rollup door and the smaller door to the right looked okay. At least the blast hadn’t damaged them. A few parts of the metal rollup door were bent, pushed in, but nothing was torn.

After they cleaned the walls, door, and the floors, it was time to deal with the bodies.

Max laid out two tarps and dragged the largest pieces of the bodies onto them, blood trailing and smearing across the floor and the tarp. After that, Kate held the garbage bags open while Max shoveled the last bits of flesh, pieces of bone and torn, ragged strips of cloth into them.

They scrubbed the floor where the pieces of bodies had been and the floor around the edge of the tarps. They folded the tarps up carefully, using a whole roll of duct tape to secure the tarps and keep them closed.

After they were done, Fernando came back. He unlocked and opened the rollup garage door, trying to do it as quietly as he could. The door slid up easily in its track. He looked around at the fenced-in area, making sure there were no rippers beyond the fence.

Nobody out there.

Phil and Tina had come with Fernando this time. Phil went down the ramp to where the pallets of car batteries were laid out against the outer wall where they were protected from rain and snow by the overhang there. He changed the cables on the batteries, from the used batteries to the fresh ones while Tina kept watch with a walkie-talkie in her hand.

Fernando started the pickup truck up and backed it up to the ramp. He slipped on a pair of rubber gloves and helped Max get the tarps and garbage bags into the back of the truck. Tina walked down to the corner of the building, still watching, keeping in contact with the shooters on the roof of the store.

“I can get it from here,” Max told Kate. He pulled off his shower cap, goggles, dust mask, apron, and gloves and threw them into the last open garbage bag. Kate pulled off her cap, goggles, dust mask, apron and gloves and threw them into the bag. Max put on a fresh pair of gloves and tied the bag up.

“Okay,” Kate told him. “Thanks for your help.”

“Sure.”

“Just . . . just be careful out there.”

“I will. Now go get some rest.”

“I will.” She wanted to get some rest, and she would, but first she wanted to talk to Jo—she wanted to show her Brooke’s drawings.

CHAPTER 18

Max

Max rode with Fernando in the pickup truck. He had a handgun and Fernando had a shotgun, their only weapons. Not much of an arsenal if a horde of rippers came running into the parking lot. But Tina had been watching and keeping in contact with the spotters on the roof. Fernando also had a walkie-talkie in the truck, tuned to the channel, listening for any alarms. So far the ripper reports from the roof were just a few stragglers at the edge of the parking lot, but there were a lot of them across the street and beyond the intersection at the gas station and the store. There were also a few dozen rippers roaming around the partially constructed building across the side street. Two rippers were seated in the middle of the intersection for some reason.

The sun was higher in the sky now, the day brightening up. But it was still very cold. This was supposed to be the least active time for the rippers—pre-dawn and the first hour or two of morning—but there still seemed to be a lot of activity according to the reports from the roof. And maybe many of the rippers were sleeping somewhere, maybe even most of them. But not all of them. Never all of them. And they could be awakened easily.

Fernando was a quiet man, a brooding man. Maybe the apocalypse had made him that way, losing his family, his friends, everyone he knew, trying to survive in this new hellish world. But Max suspected that Fernando had always been this way—a man of few words, a man who kept his thoughts and emotions to himself.

While cleaning up the two dead bodies, Max had planned to talk to Kate about Petra, about his feelings that she was still alive. But he hadn’t. He had spoken to Jo and everyone about it at the little meeting they’d had an hour ago, but nobody else seemed concerned about going to look for Petra. Like he’d told Jo, they knew roughly where she was, at Jeff’s house. It had obviously been a setup by Jeff, and the Dark Angels had been waiting there to attack them. Max supposed it was possible they’d been ambushed along the way to Jeff’s house, but it just made more sense to attack at Jeff’s house. That meant that Petra, if she got away, could still be somewhere around Jeff’s house.

The Dark Angels had taken Lance, Crystal, and Dale and used them for ransom out here in this parking lot last night. But only those three, not Zak, Tyrone, or Tamara. And not Petra. That meant only three things: either they were saving those four for a future ransom and still had them, or those four were dead, or they had gotten away. Max felt in his heart that at least Petra had survived. He couldn’t explain why he was so sure, maybe it was the same thing as the dreams, but it was an ache that wouldn’t go away.

Petra was alive; he knew it. And he was sure Kate knew it too. Kate had to feel something for Petra by now, but maybe she wasn’t as close to her as he was. He and Petra had spent more time together. They had saved each other’s asses more than a few times, but Max had to admit that Petra had saved him more than he had saved her. And now he owed her. He owed her a lot.

The beginning of a plan had been forming in Max’s mind as he had helped Kate clean up the bodies. He understood if Kate didn’t want to go with him to Jeff’s house; she had Brooke (and Tiger) to look after now. Jo’s duty was the store—her whole world—and she wasn’t going to volunteer anyone to go with him to look for Petra. He would be on his own.

And he would go alone if he had to.

But he needed weapons first. He had his handgun, the one he’d gotten when he and Petra had first met up on the road in Virginia. He had a little ammo left, and he was sure Jo would let him take a few boxes of bullets with him. He was also sure she’d let him take some food and bottles of water. But he still needed more, some other kind of weapon. Something more powerful. And he needed a vehicle. Maybe one of these vehicles in the parking lot.

Fernando drove around to the far side of the fence after Phil moved the box truck out of the way after sliding the gate open.

There was still no warning on the walkies from the spotters on the roof. Everything seemed to be okay so far.

Fernando pulled forward when he got to the corner of the fence where part of the parking lot continued to the edge of the ditch. He shifted into reverse and backed up toward the ditch. He parked and left the pickup’s engine running.

They got out and went to the back of the truck. They dragged the garbage bags out and threw them down into the ditch. They dragged the two tarps to the edge of the open tailgate and carried them to the edge of the ditch. The tarps were folding as they carried them, the contents squishing around inside, blood already dripping from an open corner. Max hoped the tarps weren’t going to rip open. If they did, he’d just drop them and leave them where they were.

They were making too much noise. The rippers across the side street at the partially constructed building were looking their way. The walkie-talkie was still in the truck, but Max didn’t need a report from the store’s roof to know that the rippers were coming—he could hear them.

The tarps never burst open, and they only had the last two garbage bags to go. Max made sure he threw his bag in first and hurried back to the pickup truck. He got into the driver’s seat and slammed the door shut.

Fernando was at the passenger side, eyes wide with shock. “What are you doing?”

“Driving us back. Get in. The rippers are coming. We need to go.”

The suspicion wasn’t hidden on Fernando’s face, but he got into the truck.

Max shifted into drive. He drove forward, but instead of turning toward the chain-link fence, he drove toward the middle of the front parking lot.

“What are you doing?” Fernando asked. He didn’t yell, and there was no panic in his voice; he was just asking a question.

You know what I’m doing.

“We need those guns,” Max said. “The guns the Dark Angels used to kill Lance, Crystal, and Dale with.”

“This wasn’t part of the plan.”

“The Dark Angels will be back eventually. They’ll get those guns. Or the rippers will carry them off. We need to get to them first.”

“The rippers are coming.”

“This is our only chance. Those human burritos we left in the ditch back there will bring rippers around here for the next day or so.”

Fernando didn’t say anything.

“We might not get another chance like this.”

Fernando still didn’t say anything.

Max scanned the parking lot as he drove diagonally across it, swerving out of the way of tipped-over shopping carts and other trash. He drove twenty-five miles an hour, not too fast. He saw the smears of blood in the distance, the scattering of bones, and dried and frozen twists of torn, bloody clothing.

“Fernando, Max, come in,” Lisa said on the walkie-talkie as it crackled with static.

Fernando picked up the walkie-talkie and pressed the button. “We’re getting the two guns the Dark Angels left behind.”

Static.

“Is it clear?” Fernando asked into the walkie-talkie.

“So far, but there are rippers heading to the parking lot. They can hear your truck. Probably see it now. They’re on the way.”

Still no panic from Fernando. “How far away?”

“I . . . I don’t know. A few football fields. Some of them are running now.”

“Better hope they don’t run a 4.2 flat,” Max said with a smile.

Fernando didn’t return the smile.

Max got to the bones and bloodstains. He turned the pickup around so that it was facing back toward the Super Bea’s building.

Fernando set the walkie-talkie down as Max put the truck in park.

“I’ll get the guns,” Max said and jumped out. He bolted to the bloody sprays. The blood had washed over the yellow lines that used to mark the parking spaces. He saw one of the M-16s. He stooped down to pick it up. It had a magazine in it, but he knew it was empty because a ripper had picked the gun up and pulled the trigger last night, mowing down his own as he kept his finger on the trigger.

Other magazines? He looked around for them. Maybe they were twisted up among the clothing of the Dark Angels.

He ran over to a few strips of bloody cloth, pulling at the cloth with his dishwashing gloves still on his hands. The bloody cloth was frozen to the pavement and it made a shredding sound as he pulled on it, tearing free from the pavement.

No magazines.

Nothing.

Where was the other M-16? Had one of the rippers taken it? Thrown it somewhere else? Were they using it as a club?

This was stupid—even if he found the other weapon it was probably going to be out of bullets anyway.

Why am I still looking for it?

But he kept running, breathing hard, his exhales fogging up in front of his face, the cold air numbing his exposed skin, the only weapon he’d managed to find so far still in his hands as he ran.

The rippers were coming now, screaming and yelling. They sounded so close. One of the rippers let out a high-pitched scream, something from a slasher movie. The sound seemed so close, and the shrill noise set Max’s teeth on edge.

He was beginning to get the tingly feeling in his brain and stomach that he’d just made a very bad decision, a fatal mistake.

Yet he kept running. He kept looking for the other M-16 and magazines.

And then he heard another sound among the horde of approaching rippers, the sound of the pickup truck’s motor revving . . . driving away.

Fernando was ditching him.

CHAPTER 19

Max

Max didn’t even turn around to watch Fernando drive away. As insane as it was, he kept his eyes on the prize he was after, the other machine gun and any magazines of ammo he could find.

He could use the other M-16 on the rippers if he had to . . . if he could find it, if it had bullets in it. But could he get them all?

The truck’s motor was louder now . . . closer, not driving away. The truck skidded to a stop right in front of him.

“Get in!” Fernando yelled, his head and an arm hanging out the driver’s window. Fernando had backed up the pickup right next to Max, only a few feet away. “We don’t have time!”

The rippers were closer now, storming the edge of the parking lot, hopping over hedges and parked cars that made up the barricades, running down into the ditches. And there were a lot more behind the first wave. They were coming from several directions at once. But the worst part was that some of them were coming from the edge near the fenced-in area that led to the back of the store. Those rippers were going to head them off before they could get back to the gate.

What have I done?

“Get in!” Fernando roared again.

Max didn’t want to throw the M-16 he had in the bed of the truck even though he was ninety percent sure there were no bullets left in the magazine—absurdly, he didn’t want the rippers to get the gun on their way back to the gate, he didn’t want them to take the prize he’d worked so hard to get, the prize he had risked his (and Fernando’s, without asking his permission) life for. But the reality of his quickly-approaching death was hitting him hard, the reality of the situation he had put himself and Fernando into, and trying to scramble inside the truck with the M-16 might just slow him down enough, wasting the precious seconds they needed to get back to the gate. He threw the assault rifle into the back of the truck where it clattered loudly against the metal bed. He pulled the passenger door open and got into the truck. Fernando was already flooring the gas before Max could get the door all the way shut.

The walkie was crackling with static; Lisa’s panicked voice telling them that the rippers were closing in, to get the hell back right now.

Fernando drove across the parking lot much faster than Max had, the light poles with their bases of concrete whipping by, the shopping carts on their sides like dead animals, the trash strewn across the yellow lines that cars used to park between. Fernando didn’t even go around the raised concrete sidewalks separating parts of the parking areas, he drove right over them, the pickup seeming to float in the air for a moment until it came crashing down on the other side. Max popped up in his seat from the momentum, rapping the top of his head against the ceiling of the truck.

“No time for the box truck,” Fernando yelled into the walkie.

Max hadn’t even seen Fernando grab the walkie-talkie while speeding toward the far corner of the superstore.

“Get ready to close the gate as soon as we’re inside. And hook the batteries back up now.”

For just a second Max was stunned at Fernando’s demeanor, at the way he seemed so calm even though he was barking orders into the walkie. And it wasn’t only that, it was Fernando’s certainty that they were going to make it through the gate, even though the rippers heading toward the gate told a different story. And maybe that positivity was rubbing off on Max because he began to believe that they just might have a chance.

Tina was at the gate with the walkie-talkie in her hand, probably coordinating with the spotters on the roof.

Shots rang down from the roof a moment later, stunning the rippers for just a second.

And maybe that second was all they needed.

They were getting closer to the gate, the pickup’s engine roaring, sounding like it was pushed to its limit, like it was going to explode.

The rippers were getting close, trying to cut them off. A few of them had stopped to chuck rocks and pieces of concrete at their truck.

Max held on to the handle on the truck’s passenger door as Fernando sped toward the open gate, not slowing down yet. Phil wore long rubber gloves, already starting to pull the gate shut. Tina set her walkie down and came up with a gun, aiming at the first of the rippers about to get to the gate.

Fernando was going to have to slow down soon, wasn’t he?

They sped through the opening of the gate as Tina and two of the spotters from the roof fired at the rippers. Max thought he’d not only heard the whine of a bullet whiz right past his open window, but felt the disturbance in the air, maybe only inches away from getting shot.

Fernando stood on the brake pedal, the truck’s tires out-screeching the rippers as the truck slid to a stop. Max felt the truck tipping as it stopped, sure that they were going to flip over and keep rolling right into the fence on the other side of the back area, tearing a giant hole in the chain-link and creating an opening for the rippers to come through, his and Fernando’s bodies trapped inside the crushed, burning wreckage.

But somehow Fernando got control of the truck, and it came to a stop right near the far fence, the engine still running, the smell of burnt rubber hanging in the cold air.

Max turned and saw Phil sliding the gate shut and locking it. Tina fired her gun through the chain-link fence five times, only hitting one ripper, but halting them just long enough so Phil could back away.

The first of the rippers ran into the fence, then were knocked off with a jolt of electricity from the batteries. More were coming, but they were already slowing down, already wary of what they’d seen, knowing the pain they would feel from touching the fence. Other rippers had discovered the two tarps and garbage bags in the ditch not too far away, and others were turning to get their piece of the feast before it was all gone.

Fernando shifted into reverse and backed the truck up to Tina and Phil. They got into the back of the truck. Fernando shifted into drive and sped along the back of the building to the loading bay.

Jo and Kate were at the rollup door with a few others. None of them looked happy about what had just happened.

Fernando parked the truck as Tina and Phil got out. Phil grabbed the M-16 that Max had risked his life for. Max hurried up the ramp to the door, following Fernando inside. A line of rippers had already run down the back of the fence, but they kept well away from it. They yelled and threw rocks over the rolls of barbed wire strung across the top of the fence.

Phil pulled the garage door down, the door rumbling in the metal tracks and then thumping closed. He locked it. The daylight was shut out quickly, leaving only the murky light coming down through the two skylights in the loading bay ceiling. Max’s eyes adjusted quickly—he saw how angry Jo was.

“What the hell do you think you were doing?”

“I was trying to get those guns. We need them. The Dark Angels are going to come back eventually. We needed to get them before they did.”

“We could’ve made a plan to do that.”

“A plan?” Max asked. “The rippers are still out there. They were going to crowd the parking lot like a buffet as soon as we left those pieces of Neal and Jeff out there. They’ll probably be out there for days now, waiting around for food like stray cats. This was our only chance to get the guns.”

Jo seemed like she was going to argue against his reasoning, but she didn’t. The anger was still etched on her face, her pale skin flushed.

Max saw a glimpse of what Jo’s employees had experienced on rare occasions, her anger flaring up, and it was not a pretty sight. But he didn’t back down from her. What was she going to do? Yell at him some more? Kick him out? He was planning on leaving soon, anyway. He’d go alone to look for Petra if he had to.

“You endangered yourself and Fernando,” Jo said, her voice slow and low, like she was doing her best to keep herself from shouting at him. “You endangered Tina and Phil. You endangered one of our last vehicles. You endangered all of us. If Phil hadn’t gotten the gate shut and locked . . . if the rippers had gotten in . . .” Her words died off like she was too angry to even articulate what she wanted to say.

Max didn’t say anything. He stood in front of Jo and took it all, letting her anger soak into him, taking all the blame.

Jo’s expression softened just a little. “We can’t lose you, Max. Or Fernando. Or Tina or Phil. We can’t lose anyone else.”

Max nodded. He felt that there was a double meaning in her words, like she was telling him that he couldn’t go look for Petra because she and the rest of her team couldn’t afford to lose him or anyone else.

“Is that the gun?” Jo asked.

Phil handed the M-16 to Fernando who pulled the magazine out and inspected it. He looked at Jo. “No bullets.”

“I didn’t think so,” Jo said. “We watched the rippers shoot the guns last night, playing with them like they were toys.”

“I thought I might find some extra clips on the . . . in the Dark Angels’ clothing,” Max said. “I know it was stupid. I know. I . . . I just wanted to get them before the Dark Angels did, or the rippers carried them off, using them as clubs.”

Jo stared at him like she knew his true intentions, like she knew the true selfishness of his actions; she knew he’d been trying to get the M-16s and the ammo so he could take them with him when he went to look for Petra.

CHAPTER 20

The Dragon

The Dragon left his home on Elm Street. He had two of his most trusted guards with him, Dark Angels who hadn’t needed to take the mark on their foreheads. The brands were for the soldiers, for the expendable. But the expendables were valuable in their own way—everyone here was. Everyone had their own talents and abilities. Some were meant to be soldiers, others were meant to be cooks and servers, others were meant to be builders and laborers. And then there were those meant to be in his elite guard. There weren't many of those, but those were the men and women he trusted the most. And of the elite guard, he trusted Jacob the most of all.

He walked with the guards across the intersection to the next side street, the three of them making their way to the middle of the town, what used to be the town square. In the distance the sound of construction could be heard, heavy machinery strengthening the walls that were in place around this town, made from a mixture of materials: metal, wood, block . . . combinations of all three in some places. It was a temporary wall for now, and it would be rebuilt section by section over time, but right now they just needed a barrier to keep the rippers out, a wall with turrets every so many yards where soldiers watched with guns, firing at any rippers who ventured too close.

And even the permanent walls wouldn’t really be permanent. The Dragon believed a day was coming when the rippers would be wiped out, or diminished so much that they would no longer be a formidable force. They were a pest that would eventually be wiped out, or driven so far back into the wilderness to live in small groups, dying out over time from disease and starvation. When the rippers were no longer a threat, the world could be rebuilt like he wanted it to be, his vision finally realized.

As he walked toward the center of town—a roughly four-block area around a large field of grass that had served as part of the schoolyard and a place for town events—the Dragon’s thoughts turned to Jacob.

Jacob was a strange man, maybe the most dangerous man the Dragon had ever met, maybe one of the most dangerous men on the planet. He had a Special Forces background from long ago, but he had drifted over to the darker side when he’d gotten out of the military, after they had trained him to kill in limitless ways. Jacob had trained with the best, learning how to shoot every type of weapon there was and mastering many different hand-to-hand fighting styles. But he had nowhere to go once he was ejected back out into the “real” world, and he had gravitated toward crime, eventually working for a top crime family in northern Ohio. Jacob was a man to be feared, but he also seemed comfortable in his place here, not seeking to overthrow anyone and become the leader. It was rare to find that quality in a man, that level of loyalty, and the Dragon cherished it.

Early this morning the Dragon had received word that the troop of Dark Angels he’d sent to attack the store in North Carolina had returned to report their failure. He had listened to this report from one of his guards and told the guard to gather that troop in the town square at noon. Anger burned in the Dragon—everyone was going to have to see what happened when you failed.

It was a little warmer today than yesterday, but there was still a cold chill in the air. And colder weather would be coming. He wore a black trench coat over his black pants and shirt. He had on black boots and gloves, a black felt hat was pulled down low to his eyes. His guards were dressed somewhat similarly, not the mishmash of clothing the soldiers wore. Someday soon, maybe by the summer, they could come up with proper uniforms for his elite guard. But there were so many other things that needed to get done, so many plans he had, notebooks filled with his ideas for this new world.

But first the battle had to be won, the war for the resources, for control. Once he had total control things would begin to run smoothly. He could see it, and soon everyone would see his vision of the future.

He was sure his plans would work, that he would win this war, but there was a resistance out there. It was led by the blind woman and the group she traveled with. And another pocket of resistance was led by the manager of the store. As soon as he either defeated them or brought them into his fold, he could carry on with the rest of his plans.

First things first—he needed to hear the soldiers’ reports, the explanations for their failure.

The troop of soldiers had gathered in the town square. There was a school on the far side, and some businesses around the other sides of the square: a post office, an antique store, a restaurant, a café, a chiropractor’s office, a barber shop. Those businesses were now used as stores for the supplies his Dark Angels brought back to town. (But he also had utilized basements of a few of the houses for other stores of food and supplies, locked away and safe from theft or attacks from rippers.) Kitchens in those businesses were going to be reopened eventually, plumbing working again, electricity one day.

The troop of soldiers stood at attention a few feet away from the raised wooden platform that had been built right on the edge of the street where parking places used to be. They formed a line of men and a few women, all of them wearing the uniforms of mish-mashed clothing that looked more like rags these days: black clothing, leather, camouflage, red scarves, belts, boots, packs, knit caps.

A few dozen people from the town stood off to the right as witnesses. The Dragon wanted witnesses. He wanted people to see what happened, to see decisions made right in front of them in real time. He wanted transparency with his people, something they’d never gotten from governments in the past.

The Dragon and his two guards climbed the four wooden steps to the large platform that was about the square footage of a small apartment. Built right in the middle of the platform was a set of old-fashioned stocks, much like the stocks used for punishment and public humiliation in 1600s Salem.

Yes, someone had to be punished today.

And the soldiers knew it. Nervous faces stared back at him, bodies tense, legs jiggling, eyes wide and alert.

The Dragon walked across the platform—his stage—to the edge of it, closer to the line of soldiers. His guards moved to opposite corners of the large rectangle of wood planks, standing at attention and waiting. The townspeople crowded in a little closer; whispers floating through the group, but silence for the most part.

The Dragon loved this moment when all waited to hear what he had to say. He was used to a stage, used to being the center of attention—it had been part of his old life for a while, until everything had come crashing down in that small northern Florida town, that panhandle town of sin. But he had crawled away from that place and remade himself over time. He’d always known he’d been meant for greatness, that he would lead humanity out of the darkness one day, and now that day had come.

Yes, his life had been hard, and he had learned so many painful lessons. But everything had been a preparation for this. Now he was here on this stage, comfortable on this stage, confident as their leader, certain that his decisions and actions—no matter how painful or even cruel they might seem at the time—were for the best; his decisions and actions were going to help all humanity, they would bring everyone out of these dark days and into the light.

“My fellow citizens,” the Dragon said, addressing the crowd of townspeople first, his voice carrying easily. He had a strong voice, a voice trained over the years to carry through crowds. He turned to the line of soldiers. “Soldiers.”

The soldiers all gave a curt nod, their form of salute.

“Who led this attack?” the Dragon asked.

A man at the end of the line stepped forward. He tried to hide the fear on his face, but he wasn’t succeeding very well. He nodded once. “Officer Dawson reporting.”

“Dawson,” the Dragon said. “Would you please step up to the stage?”

Dawson swallowed hard, nodded again. He stepped up onto the large wood platform, facing the Dragon from the other side of the stocks.

“You have failed to overtake the store.”

“Regrettably, yes.”

“Explain.”

“We had a mole inside the store. He’d been in there for almost a week.”

The Dragon nodded impatiently and gestured for the officer to continue. He knew about the mole; he had seen the mole in his dreams, promising to reunite him with his family once his mission was accomplished. The mole couldn’t simply just open up one of the garage doors in the back of the store, he needed to destroy it so they had no way of closing it again, and then he was supposed to unhook the car batteries electrifying the fence so the soldiers could get over it while still leaving the fence intact. The fence was important.

Clearly, none of that had happened.

“We caught the people at the mole’s house looking for supplies. The mole told them he had supplies there, but . . .”

“One got away,” the Dragon finished for Dawson.

Dawson swallowed hard and gave a quick nod. “Yes. A woman.”

The Dragon already knew about the woman. He’d sent Jacob to retrieve her, but he didn’t need to let Dawson know about that.

“Three others were killed in the firefight at the mole’s house, and four of our Dark Angels. But we got three of them: a man named Lance, another man named Dale, and a woman named Crystal. We brought them back to the store to use as a ransom, and a distraction while the mole blew the doors open while our other team got into the back of the store.”

“So where did it all go wrong?”

“The doors were never blown. We heard the explosion, but the doors were still intact. We killed the hostages, and then the shooters on the roof killed our two men. By then hundreds of rippers were coming. Maybe thousands. We had no choice but to retreat.”

The Dragon nodded like he understood.

“The mole failed to blow the doors,” Dawson went on quickly. “Maybe he . . . he changed his mind. Maybe they found out what he was trying to do and stopped him somehow.”

The Dragon knew someone had stopped the mole—one of them inside the store, one of the resistance.

“If the mole would have done what he was supposed to,” Dawson said, “we would have gotten inside. The store would be ours right now. And . . . and it will be. We’ll get it. I can promise you that. We just need another chance.”

“You were in charge of this mission, Dawson?”

“Yes, sir.”

A murmur of nervousness rippled through the crowd of townspeople. Or was it anticipation? They knew what was coming next.

CHAPTER 21

The Dragon

“Someone has to pay for this,” the Dragon told the crowd of townspeople near the platform.

Nods and murmurs of agreement from the people.

“Isn’t that correct, Dawson?” the Dragon asked, turning to Dawson. “Someone needs to pay for this.”

Dawson’s eyes welled up with tears, but he remained rigid, his body tense. He was noble to the end, ready to sacrifice himself for his troop of soldiers. “Yes, sir,” he answered.

The Dragon’s eyes shifted to the stocks between them, then back to Dawson. “Pick one of your men. Any of them.”

“Sir?”

The Dragon took a step closer to Dawson, towering over him by six inches. “Select one of your men.”

For a moment Dawson was frozen. The Dragon could see the temptation of Dawson to sacrifice himself for his men—he could practically feel it coming off of Dawson, the indecision. But then Dawson turned to the line of soldiers standing at attention. Their eyes stared back in fear.

Dawson walked to the edge of the platform and pointed at the last man in line to the left, the one he’d been standing next to. “Lanier.”

Lanier nearly collapsed, but the two guards were down off the platform in seconds, dragging him up the four wooden steps to the stocks.

“Strip him,” the Dragon ordered.

In less than a minute Lanier stood naked in the cold air, his penis and balls shriveled in fear. One of the guards led Lanier to the stocks while the other lifted up the top half of the stocks. Lanier’s wrists and neck were pushed down into the slots, then the stocks slammed down over him, locking him into place in a slightly bent-over position, most of his body exposed on one side, his hands and head exposed on the other side. He trembled, his knees so weak he looked ready to collapse at any moment. He tried not to shed tears, but his eyes welled up with them, his teeth chattering.

“We cannot accept failure,” the Dragon shouted at his townspeople. “It’s not for just me; it’s for all of you. All of us. The more we fail, the longer it takes for us to gain back our world, the more the world suffers, the more all of us suffer.” He turned back to Lanier in the stocks. “And for that, someone must pay.”

“Please . . .” Lanier said. “We’ll go back. We’ll take the store this time.”

The Dragon turned to Dawson. “Your knife.”

Dawson looked confused for a moment.

“Your knife,” the Dragon repeated. “Take it out.”

Dawson did as he was told, his hand trembling as he held the knife.

“Lanier is no longer a soldier. We will find another job for him to do, but he is no longer a Dark Angel and must not wear the brand anymore.”

“Please . . .” Lanier said, tears dripping from his eyes and dropping onto the wood planks, his breath fogging up in front of his face, his hands clenched into fists, anticipating the pain that was coming.

“Take his brand from him,” the Dragon told Dawson.

Dawson didn’t move for a moment.

Again, the Dragon sensed the hesitation in Dawson, the moment where he considered trading places with his soldier—he’d been the leader; he should be the one being punished, the one stripped of his rank. But as it was last time, and as the Dragon knew it would be, Dawson walked over to Lanier with the knife clenched in his hand.

Dawson grabbed Lanier’s hair in his hand, holding his head still. He brought the edge of his knife up to Lanier’s forehead as the man pleaded with his eyes closed. He cut a line along the edge of the brand, a circle around it as Lanier wailed in pain, then Dawson dug the knife blade underneath the patch of skin, digging and sawing the flap of skin loose with the brand on it, blood flowing down from the brand and into Lanier’s closed eyes, dripping down his chin onto the wood planks with his tears, bright red spots of blood on the gray, cold wood. Lanier let out one long continuous scream as Dawson got most of the flap of skin free and then ripped the rest of it away with his fingers.

Dawson held up the flap of skin at the soldiers and then at the crowd, his own eyes filling with tears, his mouth a grim line. The crowd erupted in half-hearted cheers.

The Dragon held his gloved hand out for the flap of skin.

Dawson handed it to him.

Lanier collapsed, choking on the wood slot around his neck as his body lost control, his head trapped inside the wood, his eyes bulging but not seeing anything anymore.

“Help him,” the Dragon called out to the crowd.

Two women rushed up onto the platform, one of them holding Lanier up, the other one freeing him from the stocks then grabbing his pile of clothes.

“We will find something for Lanier to do for us,” the Dragon told the crowd. He looked at Dawson. “You did well, Dawson. Return to your men.”

Dawson saluted the Dragon with a curt nod and then hurried back to his troop with his bloodstained knife still in his hand.

The Dragon looked at the crowd again as the two women escorted Lanier away, one of the women holding a cloth to his wounded forehead. “We will go back to that store soon, and this time we will take it. We need the food and supplies in there. We all need it.”

Cheers erupted from the crowd. The troops remained still, staring straight ahead.

“This mission is important,” the Dragon said. “The soldiers are important, but we are all important. All of our tasks have meaning. We will all find the salvation that is coming.”

More cheers.

“Back to your duties,” he told the crowd and the soldiers, and then he glanced at his two guards as he tucked away the bloodied flap of skin inside his coat pocket.

The guards walked with the Dragon as he left the town square, back to his house on Elm Street, the house where terrible things had been done in the past.

It was time to prepare for the special guest Jacob was bringing soon.

CHAPTER 22

Kate

Kate went back to the tent to check on Brooke. Jo was definitely angry with Max for going to get the M-16, and there weren’t even any bullets for it. Kate knew why Max had gone for the gun, and she figured Jo did too—Max wanted a weapon to take with him when he set out on his journey to find Petra.

Brooke was awake, eyes wide and sitting on her bedroll when Kate entered the tent.

“It’s okay,” Kate told her. “Max and Fernando had to get rid of the two bodies in the loading bay. The rippers chased them when they were outside, but they got back inside the fence.”

“You said the rippers were gone.”

“They were, but there were some across the street at the gas station we didn’t know about. They heard the truck out there and came running. But they won’t be out there long. They’ll move on eventually.”

Brooke didn’t look so sure about that.

Kate felt bad about lying. Now that they had dumped Neal and Jeff’s bodies out beyond the fence, she knew the rippers would probably be out there for days, which, as Jo had said, would help keep the Dark Angels away. But she didn’t feel the need to tell Brooke that.

“Did you sleep?” she asked, changing the subject.

Brooke shrugged.

“You need some sleep. I need some sleep too. You want me to lay down here with you?”

Brooke nodded.

“Okay.”

Kate let Tiger out to go to his litter box. He ate a few bites of the hard cat food in his bowl. Kate thought Tiger might wander off, but he pawed at the flap of the tent so Kate let him back inside.

Brooke snuggled up beside Kate and was asleep in minutes, Tiger curled up on the other side of Brooke, purring.

Kate lay awake, not sure if she would be able to fall asleep. She stared at the ceiling of the tent. It was dark inside the tent, but not pitch-black like at night. The skylights allowed a lot of the daylight in and it was easy enough to see inside the tent, but also dark enough to go to sleep.

Before Kate knew it, she was asleep.

In her dreams she saw the man and his son, the ones Brooke had drawn in her tablet. They ran through the snow, running from rippers. The other two men were with them. And the blind woman.

They were at some kind of gas station in the middle of a blizzard, running from the rippers. Then they were inside the store, then inside a place where mechanics once worked, where oil was changed and tires replaced. And the rippers were all around outside, trying to get in through rollup garage doors, like the one in the loading bay. They were banging on the metal doors, kicking at them, beating on them with pipes and sticks. The metal was tearing, the track breaking loose from the block wall, glass shattering.

The rippers were getting in, pushing the twisted metal door back, hands with weapons reaching in through the torn hole as they screamed and yelled . . .

Kate snapped awake.

She didn’t know how long she’d been asleep. It was still light inside the tent, but it felt like a few hours had gone by. Her body felt rested even though it seemed like she had dreamed the whole time she’d been asleep.

Brooke was still asleep, but Tiger was up. She didn’t want to wake Brooke up—she needed as much sleep as she could get.

Kate got up and opened the flaps in the tent to let Tiger out before he started meowing. He was probably hungry and he probably wanted to prowl around the store. She would check his food and water, making sure they were filled.

She was hungry too. She hadn’t eaten much last night and nothing this morning.

She got out of the tent, still trying to be quiet. But she was pretty sure Brooke was sound asleep now, pure exhaustion finally taking over. Kate left the flap open and looked back at Brooke, at the drawing tablet lying near her.

Kate stood up outside the tent. She could tell from the light coming down through the skylights that it was probably late afternoon now. She’d slept through most of the day. She felt a little groggy as she checked Tiger’s food and water bowl, adding a little more food. Tiger came running to inspect what had been added to his bowl.

Kate left the flaps open on the tent in case Tiger wanted to go back inside. She checked on Brooke one more time. She was still sleeping. She saw Brooke’s drawing tablet again and she reached for it, slipping it out of the tent.

She thought of the latest drawings in the tablet, especially the last one, the one of Petra and the Dragon. She wanted to show Jo the drawing.

Moments later Kate was at the door to Jo’s office, knocking on it.

“Come on in,” Jo called out.

Kate pushed the door open, poking her head in. “Were you sleeping?”

“I slept for a few hours. Just got up a few minutes ago.” Jo sat on the edge of her air mattress on the floor.

Kate suspected that her knocking might have just awakened Jo.

“Come on in,” Jo said again. She got up and grabbed a water bottle from the bookshelf at the head of her bed and walked the few steps to her desk, sitting down behind it.

Kate noticed that the M-16 Max and Fernando had risked their lives for was leaning upright in a corner of the cluttered office.

And Jo noticed the drawing tablet tucked under Kate’s arm. “Close the door,” she said. “Come sit down.”

Kate closed the door and sat down in the chair in front of Jo’s desk.

Jo lit another battery-powered lamp on her desk, brightening the small room up a little more. She took a few long sips from her water bottle. “You want a bottle of water?”

Kate realized she was thirsty. She nodded.

Jo reached down behind her desk and opened up a cooler. She gave Kate the warm bottle of water. “What’s on your mind?”

“Sorry about Max this morning.”

“Max is his own man. Just because you guys traveled together for a few days doesn’t make him your responsibility.”

Kate shrugged and took a sip of her water. It was warm but tasted so good.

“The problem is that I think Max may have been right,” Jo said. “We needed to go after those weapons while we had the chance, before the parking lot was swarming with rippers after we dumped those bodies, or before the Dark Angels had a chance to come back.”

“The Dark Angels will be back whether there are rippers out there or not. They’re not going to give up so easily.”

It was Jo’s turn to shrug. “Yeah, I know. But Max was also right about the rippers maybe carrying the M-16s and ammo away. They’d played around with them before, might use them as a club, like he said.”

Kate didn’t say anything. She drank more of her water—she’d drunk half of it already.

“Anyway, I think Max was right. This morning may have been our only chance to get to those guns.” She paused for a second. “I should’ve told Max he was right. And I will soon.”

“Max should’ve told us what he was going to do. We should’ve all talked about it together.”

“Maybe he was worried I would second-guess him. And maybe I would have. Maybe I would’ve overthought it. Paralysis by analysis, as they used to say. Afraid to make the wrong decision, afraid of losing someone else.”

“You’re still our leader here.”

Jo smiled. “Thanks.”

“It doesn’t excuse what Max did. He should’ve told us. I have a feeling that Fernando didn’t even know what Max was going to do.”

Jo nodded like she had come to the same conclusion, or maybe she had already talked to Fernando. She was quiet for a moment, staring at Kate with her intense green eyes. “Why do you think Max went after that gun out there?”

“I think he wants a weapon,” Kate said without hesitation. “I think he was hoping you would let him take it with him when he leaves.”

Jo didn’t say anything.

“He wants to find Petra.”

“I know he thinks he owes her,” Jo said. “Hell, we all owe each other in some way or another. I’m sorry Petra’s gone, but she took a risk going with Lance and the others. She wanted to go with them, practically demanded it.”

Kate knew.

“We have no way of knowing if she’s still alive. Going after her right now, without being sure, it could be a suicide mission.”

“I know, but I think Max is still going to do it.”

“What about you? Are you going with him?”

“No.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“Yes. Max wants to go to Jeff’s house. He thinks Petra got away there. He thinks she’s still hiding out around there.”

“But you don’t seem like you believe that.” Jo’s eyes shifted down to the drawing tablet Kate had laid on the desk.

“No.”

“I see Brooke’s been drawing again.”

Kate opened the drawing tablet up to the man and his son. She turned the tablet around so Jo could see it better. “She drew these sometime last night.”

Jo studied the drawing.

“You haven’t seen these two in your dreams?”

Jo shook her head no, sighing heavily. “If I have, I don’t remember it.”

“There are more drawings after that one.”

Jo flipped to the next page, and then the next. She studied the two men, the thin and scraggily one, the muscular one with the crewcut and a pistol with a silencer on it, and the blond woman with the dark glasses. There was no recognition of them in her eyes.

Another page and Jo froze, staring at the drawing for a long moment. “It’s Petra.”

“Yeah. Petra with the Dragon right behind her.”

Jo slid the tablet back to Kate, the tablet still open to the drawing of Petra—an exact likeness of her. Petra was wearing the same clothes she’d had on when she’d left with Lance and the others. Her hands were handcuffed in front of her. Petra’s expression was a mixture of uncertainty and stoic resolve—somehow Brooke had captured that in the drawing. And hovering right behind her, with his hands on her shoulders, just a gentle touch, nothing too threatening, was the Dragon.

“What’s this supposed to mean?” Jo finally asked.

“I don’t know. I think it means that the Dragon has Petra.”

“It means she’s still alive?”

“I think so. Max seems to believe she’s alive.”

“Could we ask Brooke about it?”

“I did. She doesn’t know. She just draws what she sees in her dreams.”

“You didn’t see this in your dreams?” Jo asked, nodding down at the open drawing tablet. “You didn’t see Petra and the Dragon?”

Kate shook her head no.

“But you’ve seen these other people, the three men and the boy, the blind woman?”

Kate nodded.

“You think these dreams are being sent to you and Brooke by the blind woman?”

“And Max,” Kate reminded her. “He sees them too. Yes, I believe that. I never used to believe in stuff like that, but I do now. I think she’s sending us . . . like visions. And I think the Dragon is sending them too.”

“You think the Dragon sent a message that he’s holding Petra?”

“Maybe. Could be.”

“Have you shown this drawing to Max?”

“No. Not yet. But I think he needs to see it before he sets out for Jeff’s house.”

“Yeah, but it will make him want to go after Petra even more.”

“But at least Max will know that Petra’s not around Jeff’s house. He’ll know that she’s with the Dragon.”

Jo sighed. “But we don’t even know where the Dragon is.”

Kate thought of the hellish town she’d seen in her dreams so many times, but she shook her head. “No, we don’t know where he is.”

Jo stood up. “I’m going to take a shift up on the roof. It’ll be dark soon and we all need to stay alert.” She paused. “Max isn’t going to try to sneak out tonight, is he?”

“I don’t know. I’m going to talk to him about this.” Kate closed Brooke’s drawing tablet and stood up to leave.

CHAPTER 23

Kate

Kate went back to the tent. She was hoping Brooke was still asleep so she could take the drawing tablet to Max without her knowing.

Brooke was gone.

So was Tiger.

“Damn,” Kate whispered. She stood up and looked around, seeing if she could spot Brooke somewhere near the tent. Her eyes stopped at Neal’s tent. She figured they would have to fold his tent up now. No one would want to sleep in there now. Jeff’s tent, either. Maybe if others came to the store, they could sleep in them, others who wouldn’t know who used to sleep in those tents.

Others? Was she thinking about the people she’d seen in her dreams? The people Brooke had drawn?

It didn’t matter; the tents weren’t her decision—that was Jo’s decision.

Kate thought Tiger might have run off exploring the store again. Maybe Brooke had gone looking for the cat. Last time Tiger had wandered off, Kate had found Brooke in the sporting goods section.

Instead of looking for Brooke, Kate went to the other side of the store. She walked past the cleaning and bathroom supplies, then the dry and boxed food, the stacks of drinks down another aisle, then the row of empty coolers and freezers. Then she passed the fruit and vegetable area and headed for the deli. Before she even got there, she heard voices—she heard Max’s voice.

Brooke was with Max. They sat together with two of the others: Phil and the doctor. They were all eating some kind of sandwiches.

Max smiled at Kate. “Pull up a chair and make a sandwich. The bread isn’t going to last too much longer. Who knows when you’ll ever get to eat bread again?”

The thought of it depressed her.

Brooke stared at Kate, her eyes shifting down to the drawing tablet tucked under her arm.

Kate didn’t say anything about Brooke’s drawing tablet, and Brooke didn’t ask for it, didn’t throw a tantrum, demanding it back. Tiger sat between Max and Brooke, waiting for the occasional scrap of meat or cheese to be handed down to him.

As Kate pulled up a chair, the doctor and Phil stood up. Both had already finished their sandwiches.

“I need to talk to Jo,” the doctor said.

“I’m going to help clean up in the kitchen,” Phil said.

Max handed Kate a plate with sandwich fixings, and then another plate of bread. Kate made a quick sandwich while the doctor and Phil left them alone.

“I guess you talked to Jo,” Max said with a sheepish smile. “Let me guess. She’s not only pissed but also disappointed in me.”

Kate didn’t want to talk with her mouth full, but she couldn’t help taking a big bite of her sandwich. She was surprised by how hungry she was, just like she’d been surprised at how thirsty she’d been in Jo’s office. “You took quite a risk this morning.”

Max nodded.

Brooke kept her eyes on Kate.

“But Jo understands why you did it,” Kate said and then took another bite of her sandwich, chewing quickly. “She said it was probably the right thing to do.”

Max’s eyebrows arched up in surprise. “Oh really?”

Brooke looked at Max, smiling at the expression on his face, the tone of his voice.

Kate couldn’t help smiling at Brooke, and then she took another bite of the sandwich she’d made: salami, hard cheese, spicy mustard. It tasted like heaven, and it was already halfway gone.

Max waited patiently for Kate to continue.

“She’s worried you might be planning to leave,” Kate finally said after swallowing her food.

Brooke’s smile disappeared, her body suddenly tense, worried eyes fixed on Max.

Max frowned at Brooke then looked at Kate. “Maybe this isn’t the right time to discuss this.”

“Because Brooke’s here?”

Max didn’t answer.

“You don’t want Brooke to know you’re planning on leaving?”

Brooke searched Max’s face for the truth.

Max smiled sheepishly at Brooke, but he didn’t deny it.

Kate ate the last bite of her sandwich and drank some water to wash it down. “I know you’re worried about Petra.”

“She’s alive, Kate. I don’t know why I’m so sure, or how I even know, but I’m sure of it. She’s alive and she needs our help.”

“I think you’re right.”

Again, a look of surprise from Max. And there was hope in his eyes.

“I think there’s something you need to see,” Kate said, picking up Brooke’s drawing tablet.

Brooke looked alarmed for a moment.

“Max needs to see this,” Kate told Brooke.

Brooke gave a reluctant nod.

Max accepted the sketch pad from Kate—she’d already opened it to the drawing of the man and his son. He stared down at the drawing pad in the fading daylight, using his small flashlight to illuminate the page better. “This guy and his son . . . I’ve had dreams about them too.”

“Yeah,” Kate said. “I have too. But you need to keep going to the last drawing.”

Max flipped through the pages carefully, like he was looking through a fragile antique book. He looked at the drawing of the skinny guy with the shotgun and the beautiful blind woman for a moment, and then turned the page to the muscular man with the pistol and the silencer. He turned the next page and stared in shock at Petra and the Dragon, his breath caught in his throat. He looked at Brooke, then at Kate.

“I think he has her,” Kate said. “If you would’ve run off to Jeff’s house, you never would’ve found her.”

“The Dragon has her,” Max whispered. “How do we find her now? How do we know where the Dragon is?”

“I don’t know, but at least we know she’s with him. I think it means she’s still alive. I think he wants us to find her. He might even show us where she is.”

“She’s in that town, isn’t she?” Max said. “That . . . that place with the dead and the tortured. The place we’ve all seen in our dreams. Hell Town.”

“I think so.”

“But we don’t know where that place is.”

“I think he might show us the way eventually. I think he wants to lure us there by using Petra.”

Max blew out a long exhale and shut off his flashlight. He handed the drawing tablet back to Brooke like he didn’t want to touch it anymore, like he didn’t want to see Petra like that on the page or imagine what was happening to her right now. He looked at Brooke. “Have you seen where Petra is?”

Brooke just stared at him.

“Brooke,” Max said, his voice a little lower and sterner, like a father’s voice. “Petra’s in trouble. She might be hurting. Scared and alone. She needs our help.”

“I don’t know,” Brooke whispered.

“You’re sure?” Max pressed.

Brooke nodded.

“You saw Petra with the Dragon,” Max persisted. “But you didn’t see where they were?”

Brooke shook her head no. She looked like she was on the verge of tears. “It was . . . it was foggy. Gray. I couldn’t see anything else.”

“Max,” Kate warned.

He looked at Kate, his expression softening like he just realized he’d been trying to bully the answer out of Brooke.

“Jo’s right,” Kate said. “Petra knew the risks she was taking when she left with Lance and the others. Just like Lance did. Just like the others did. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t help her, but we can’t do anything until we know more.”

Max sighed again, a sound of frustration. He looked away.

“Promise me, Max . . . promise that you’re not going to take off.”

Max didn’t promise—he didn’t say anything.

“Max?”

He finally nodded.

“We need to stick together right now. We need to protect this store. It’s the only future we have. I’m pretty sure the Dragon isn’t going to kill Petra. I’m sure he needs her alive to lure all of us to him.”

Max nodded, wiping at his face with his hands.

“You won’t go yet?” Kate asked him.

“No,” Max said. “I’ll wait.”

Kate wasn’t sure if she could believe him.

CHAPTER 24

Petra

The drive down to the Dragon’s town took less time than Petra thought it would—but she’d slept for hours in Jacob’s pickup truck, leaning against the passenger door. Her arms were a little sore from being handcuffed in front of her for so long, her right shoulder a little raw from where the seatbelt had pulled at her. But she actually felt physically better than she had in a long time; she felt like she’d finally gotten the best sleep in weeks, the best sleep since this whole nightmare had started. Part of the reason was that she felt relatively safe for the first time in a long time; even though she was being abducted by Jacob and being taken to the Dragon, at least she wasn’t outside and trying to sleep with one eye open, constantly afraid of the rippers coming to get her. Yes, maybe it was absurd to feel safer riding in this truck with Jacob, a dangerous man who could kill her at any time, but she couldn’t help it—she felt safe for the moment.

Another reason she felt better was that for the first time in a long time her dreams hadn’t been haunted by nightmares. Of course she was probably heading to a nightmare right now, and maybe that’s why the Dragon hadn’t invaded her dreams. And maybe part of it was pure exhaustion taking over; maybe she had literally passed out for a few hours in this truck.

As she came fully awake, she realized she was hungry and thirsty.

“Welcome to South Carolina,” Jacob said.

“Looks like North Carolina,” Petra muttered.

Jacob laughed. “You were out. Didn’t move a muscle.”

She was glad Jacob found all of this so amusing. “You got something to drink? Something to eat?”

“Certainly. I’m not a thug, you know.”

Jacob slowed the truck down, pulling over to the side of the road.

Petra looked around and saw that they were in a remote area. There were hills to one side, the land dipping away on the other side of the road, down into a valley. The sky was gray with clouds, but they were quick-moving clouds, revealing small areas of bright blue sky every so often, the shadows painting the valley, lightening and darkening.

“I probably shouldn’t have to tell you not to do anything stupid, right?”

Petra didn’t bother answering.

Jacob removed his seatbelt and got out of the truck. He opened the small back door to the cab of the pickup, rummaging around in the back seat. He got back in the truck with some food and two cans of soda.

“Coke or Sprite?” he asked when he sat back down, closing the door. The engine had been running the whole time, rumbling with power, the heater still on low. A blast of chilly air had drifted into the cab of the truck while Jacob had been out.

“Sprite.”

He handed her the can of Sprite. She opened it and drank down half of it.

He threw a bag of trail mix and a protein bar at her; they landed in her lap. He tore the wrapper off his own protein bar and buckled his seatbelt. He shifted into drive and bit off a large hunk of the protein bar, chewing quickly, swallowing, then eating more.

Petra ate her protein bar more slowly. It tasted terrible, but she savored it. She’d been eating so much canned food lately that it was wonderful to eat something that resembled chocolate just a little. After she was done with the protein bar she started on the trail mix.

“It’s not too much farther,” he said.

*

An hour later Jacob drove down a small back road, passing a few houses and businesses. He drove toward a large wall blocking the road. The wall stretched off in both directions. It didn’t look like a formidable wall to Petra; it was made up of wooden pieces, metal panels, angle iron, two-by-four wood studs, everything seemingly tied together with wire. There were four-by-four wooden posts and metal poles every eight feet or so.

“It keeps the rippers out,” Jacob said as if Petra had asked. “The Dark Angels have been bringing back any construction supplies they can find. The other stuff we took from the houses and buildings around here.”

Petra didn’t really care.

Jacob waited, parked in front of a big corrugated metal gate, the truck idling. He rolled down his window.

Two guards popped their heads above the ten-foot wall, rifles in their hands aimed at the truck.

Jacob opened his door and got out, still standing behind the open door. He waved his hands in the air. “It’s me!” he called out to them.

One of the guards yelled down to someone below.

Jacob got back in the truck, put it in gear and waited as the metal gate was rolled open. He drove through after the gate was halfway open.

There was a small town inside the fencing. They drove down a short road to a town square, then around it, passing what used to be small businesses: little shops, offices, cafés, and diners. A large brick three-story school stood on the other side of the town square, taking up most of that block. The field of grass was empty, but in front of it, where some shrubs and flowers were dying, a large statue of some kind of Civil War hero had been toppled over.

“The Dragon had that statue knocked down. Somehow it had survived the Ripper Plague, but he still wanted it knocked down. It’ll be taken away soon. He doesn’t want anything from the past, only from the future. A species reborn, as he calls us.”

Petra remained silent for a moment. The town inside the fence was bigger than she had expected. “There are walls around this whole place?”

Jacob smiled as he puttered down the road in the truck. “Almost completed. But we’ll get there. The few open areas are always patrolled and watched, in case you’re getting any funny ideas about running.”

Petra heard the sounds of machinery somewhere in the distance, the sounds of men working.

As Jacob drove to the other end of the square, Petra noticed the large platform with the stocks built on top of it.

Jacob didn’t comment on it even though he knew she was staring at it.

“Where are all the dead bodies?” Petra asked.

“Dead bodies?”

Petra recognized some of the buildings and streets from her nightmares, but at the same time everything seemed so different, felt so different. “I thought there were dead bodies hanging from light poles and front porches and trees. Tortured people strapped down over the roofs of cars and staked to the sides of buildings.”

Jacob’s face scrunched in disgust. “Where’d you hear shit like that?”

Petra didn’t answer.

Jacob didn’t seem angry about her silence. He seemed amused by it. “I guess rumors have been spreading about this place. I can see that. People tell stories, and those stories grow and grow.”

Petra still didn’t say anything.

“You really don’t know anything about this place, do you? You don’t know what we’re trying to do here. We’re not the enemy. In fact, you guys might be the enemy and not even know it.”

Petra lifted her handcuffed hands. “Yeah, I can tell you’re good people here.”

“I needed to bring you here,” he said, still not angry, the amused (but wicked) smile still on his face. “You’re telling me you would’ve come along peacefully?”

Petra didn’t answer him.

“Dead bodies hanging from light poles,” Jacob said, smiling as he turned off the main square onto a side street. He drove to an intersection.

Just beyond the intersection of Warner Street and Elm Street Petra saw a house she’d seen in her dreams—the house where the Dragon lived.

“Hanging bodies all over the place would be pretty dumb,” Jacob continued. “It would bring rippers for sure.” He pulled up in front of the house on Elm Street, parking in the road next to the sidewalk.

The other homes all around seemed empty to Petra. At the end of the street she saw part of the fence that surrounded this town.

Jacob shut off the truck and got out. He walked around to the passenger door and opened it for Petra. She got out. Her legs were stiff from riding in the truck so long. She stared at the house looming in front of her as Jacob slammed the passenger door shut. The home looked well-cared for at some time in the past, but it had slowly deteriorated over the last few decades. It had a walkway that split the front yard, leading up to a wide front porch that kept the front door in shadows. The front door was painted a dark red color that reminded Petra of blood. The windows were dark; a few of the panes of glass were cracked. Dead weeds crowded the overgrown shrubs. The house didn’t look too bad, but it felt bad.

Jacob gingerly grabbed Petra’s right arm with his left hand and led her up the cracked walkway to the front porch. Brown weeds poked up through the cracks in the concrete.

Maybe the house seemed okay at a distance, but the closer Petra got to it the worse it looked, the more she noticed the cracks, the rot, the mildew, the mold. Even though the house seemed shabby and weak, it exuded strength, like a monstrous creature playing possum, pretending to be hurt and defenseless, luring its prey in close enough so it could attack.

Jacob didn’t knock on the front door, he just opened it. He led Petra inside the house, into a small foyer. A set of stairs led up into the murky darkness to the left, up to a landing, then up to the second floor. To the right was an archway that opened up to a living room. Old furniture in the room, knickknacks, paintings on the walls. It seemed like this house hadn’t been ransacked during the Collapse, like it had been avoided purposely. Or maybe the Dragon had ordered everything repaired and redecorated, a snapshot of the past.

“Through here,” Jacob said, leading Petra past the fireplace that dominated the end of the living room. The next room was a formal dining room.

She thought about asking Jacob if he was taking her to see the Dragon right now, but why bother—she would find out soon enough. As they walked through the house, Petra committed the layout to memory, noticing little details like the front door didn’t seem to be locked.

They walked past an eight-seat dining room table and into a large kitchen with outdated wood cabinets, Formica countertops, white appliances, and a linoleum floor. A door with a large glass panel led out to a big back porch off of the kitchen, but Jacob led her to a door on the opposite side of the room.

He opened the door and flipped on a light, barely illuminating a set of stairs that led down to the basement.

“Down you go.”

Petra walked down the steps, careful with her hands cuffed in front of her. Jacob followed her down, lighting the way with a flashlight. She had the strange feeling that he was going to shove her in the back and send her tumbling down the steps.

The basement was large and gloomy. The tiny rectangular windows at the top of the wall had small, thick curtains over them. A few bare lightbulbs hung from a ceiling of floor joists, exposed electrical wires and plumbing, all of it covered with a layer of dust and cobwebs.

The place looked like it had been someone’s bedroom in the past, maybe a teenager’s bedroom. Jacob shined his flashlight around, illuminating a bed against the wall at the far end, a small table beside it, a cedar chest at the foot of the bed with two thick blankets folded up on top, a bookcase with books and magazines stacked up on the shelves, a small table and two metal folding chairs. A small cooler sat on the floor next to the table. A plastic gallon of water and a battery-powered lantern sat on top of the table.

“There’s a small bathroom over there through that door,” Jacob said, pointing with his flashlight. “It’s got a toilet and a sink, but there’s no water. There’s a bucket in there you can use. I’d recommend keeping the door closed.”

Thanks.

He pushed a button to turn on the battery-powered lantern on the table next to the gallon of water. He turned to Petra and pulled a key out of his pants pocket, holding it up in two fingers with a smile.

She thrust her handcuffed wrists toward him.

He unlocked the cuffs and took them, slipping them into his jacket pocket. He replaced the key in his front pants pocket.

“Make yourself at home,” he told her.

Petra didn’t move.

Jacob walked back to the foot of the basement stairs. He was about to ascend the steps, but then he stopped and looked back at her. “You hungry?”

She nodded.

“Good. Get some rest. Clean up a little. He’s going to want to have you for dinner in a little bit.”

Jacob walked up the stairs without another word. When he got to the top of the stairs he closed the door and locked it.

She was going to have dinner with the Dragon soon. She was finally going to meet him face to face.

CHAPTER 25

Petra

An hour later it was almost dark. The battery-powered lantern was the only light in the basement. It was cold. Petra spread the two blankets out on the bed. She had used some of the water from the plastic jug to wash her hands and face as Jacob had suggested. There was a tube of toothpaste and a toothbrush still in the plastic packaging in the bathroom. It felt wonderful to brush her teeth. It felt wonderful to have her face and hands clean. She felt nearly human again, not so savage.

After she had cleaned up and used the bucket, she inspected the basement—her prison for now. There was no food in the cooler, not even any snacks. The only water was the gallon of water on the top of the table. She had used almost half of it, so she decided to conserve it from now on in case that was the only water she was going to get.

She paced the basement, inspecting the walls and the windows. There were no windows in the bathroom, just the small rectangular windows on the one long wall, three of them. There was no way she could fit through them to climb out. The walls were block and poured concrete, bowing in slightly in some places, with many coats of paint over them. Concrete floors. A section of the basement in the corner was devoted to a large furnace, the water heater, and a small sink with bare plumbing—none of it any good now.

After creeping up the steps to check the basement door (it was locked, but you couldn’t blame her for trying), she checked out the bookcase against the longer wall. She’d never been much of a reader, but there probably wouldn’t be much else to do down here. There were twenty-seven books and fourteen magazines on the shelves. Some James Patterson hardbacks and paperbacks, some Nora Roberts, and a Stephen King book—a fat tome called Duma Key. There were a few other western paperbacks, a few gothic romances, and a small Bible.

She sat down on the bed, and then she lay down, stretching out, staring up at the ceiling. She listened for any noises coming from upstairs.

Nothing.

She closed her eyes. She couldn’t believe she was tired after all the hours she had slept in Jacob’s truck, but she was sleepy. Maybe she was catching up on some badly needed rest. Even though she’d basically been abducted, at least she was safe from rippers for the moment. And maybe that was allowing her mind and body to relax.

Her thoughts turned to escaping this basement, this town. Most of the town had been walled in with various types of fencing, and Jacob told her that guards were posted everywhere in the few open sections. She didn’t doubt that—they had to keep any rippers out.

But how many guards could there be here? How many lived in this town? She imagined many of the soldiers were out on their missions, collecting supplies, food, and even other survivors to bring back here.

Or were there other places, other towns like this that the Dragon had set up?

Maybe the Dark Angels weren’t as organized and formidable as she had thought at first, or as they pretended to be. Maybe they had their defectors among them, their doubters. Jacob definitely wasn’t a doubter, he seemed as loyal to the Dragon as a person could get, buying into the Dragon’s bullshit—hook, line, and sinker. But maybe others around here weren’t as loyal. She would have to keep an eye out for someone like that, a possible ticket out of here.

But not until she tried to kill the Dragon first . . . if she could get that chance.

Even if she managed to escape the basement, where would she go? The Dark Angels would know the surrounding areas pretty well. She would have to get lucky enough to escape, then find some kind of vehicle, then maybe even a map so she would know where she was going.

She thought about Max, Kate, and Brooke. She wondered what they thought about her. Did they think she was dead? Did they even know she’d been taken by the Dragon? Were Lance and Crystal dead? Dale and Zak? Tyrone and Tamara? Or were they being held somewhere in this town, in some other basement in some other house? The idea of them being here gave her hope. If she could find them, then maybe they could all get out of here together.

She’d asked Jacob about Lance, Dale, and Crystal, but he hadn’t given any information away, not a clue. He pretended not to know about anything going on in this town, but she was pretty sure he knew more than he claimed.

The Dark Angels had attacked the store—he’d said that much. Jeff had been a mole; he had suggested there were supplies at his uncle’s house, but it had really been his own house, it had really been a setup. Had the Dark Angels overrun the store? Had they gotten to Max, Kate, and Brooke? To Jo and the others in the store? Had some of them been abducted or killed, the supplies taken? Were some of them here in this town too?

It was all driving her crazy. She couldn’t think about things that she had no control over, things that she had no way of knowing at this time.

She heard someone unlocking the basement door at the top of the stairs.

She sat bolt-upright on the bed and swung her feet to the floor, her body tense.

For what? What was she going to do? What could she do?

The door opened. From down here in the basement she couldn’t see the door at the top of the stairs because it was hidden by the wall of the basement—all she could see was the bottom of the stairs.

Someone was coming down the stairs, taking their time, slow and easy.

“Petra,” Jacob called out.

She didn’t answer. She just waited.

“You still hungry?” he asked when he got to the bottom of the steps.

She still didn’t answer.

“I’ll take that as a yes. You’ve got a dinner date waiting for you upstairs.”

Petra remained sitting on the edge of the bed.

Jacob waited at the bottom of the steps, on the small wood landing. “Don’t make me come over there and get you,” he said, his smile disappearing, his eyes cold, all amusement gone.

She stood up and walked toward Jacob.

He waited with one hand tucked inside his hoodie.

She got to Jacob and held her wrists together in front of her so he could cuff them.

His smile was back again, an eerie thing that didn’t match his eyes. “How are you going to eat with your hands tied?”

Petra dropped her hands to her sides.

“After you,” he said, gesturing at the stairs.

She slid past him and walked up the stairs to the open door. She entered the kitchen. Jacob was right beside her a few seconds later.

“The dining room,” he told her in a low voice. He darted past her into the dining room, pulling a chair out at the head of the table closest to the archway into the kitchen.

She sat down in the chair and scooted closer to the table. A plate, napkin, and some silverware (no steak knife, she noticed) were laid out in front of her on a cloth placemat. There was only one other setting at the other end of the table.

Jacob stepped back from the table, standing nearly against the wall.

“You’re not joining us?” Petra asked.

“Nope. This is your dinner date.”

Petra waited. As nervous as she was, she found that she was hungry. Just the sight of the plates and silverware got her stomach growling. Odors of food drifted in from the kitchen.

She wondered if she was going to be brought up here every time to eat, or was this a one-time thing? Again, she was worrying about things she didn’t know and had no control over at the moment. She would find out the answers soon enough.

Footsteps sounded from the living room, someone coming this way. More than one person.

And then she saw the Dragon in the archway to the living room, two guards dressed in black right behind him.

CHAPTER 26

Petra

Petra hadn’t been sure what to expect when she first saw the Dragon in the archway that separated the dining room from the living room. She’d seen him in her dreams, but he’d always been a shadowy figure in those dreams, blurry and dark, his face mostly hidden either by the hood he wore or shadows. The man who stood before her wore dark clothing—a long-sleeved black shirt, black slacks, black boots, but no gloves or hood or coat, his pale hands and face exposed.

“Petra,” he said with a small smile.

She didn’t respond, just staring at him like she was seeing a mythical figure.

The Dragon didn’t seem upset by her silence. He walked to the other end of the table and sat down. His movements were quick and sure, the movements of a confident man. He was tall and thin but exuded strength and power, his shoulders broad, hands large, limbs long. He had a long, narrow face, a strong jaw, a sharp chin. His dark hair was combed back, slicked down. He had no facial hair. His dark eyes were set deep, and he had the same expression in them that Jacob had, a lack of empathy but a sick amusement, like he was holding a magnifying glass on a bunch of burning ants and enjoying it.

The two guards dressed in black stood watch, one at the archway, and another in the far corner on the Dragon’s side of the room.

“Thank you, Jacob, for bringing Petra upstairs,” the Dragon said.

“Not a problem.”

The Dragon looked at Jacob and gave him a curt nod.

Jacob left the room, leaving Petra alone with the Dragon and the two armed guards, both staring straight ahead like they were doing their best to ignore everything going on in the room. But Petra knew they would react like a sprung trap if they needed to.

“Would you like some wine before dinner?” the Dragon asked. He had a lilting Southern accent, an almost hypnotic cadence to his words.

“I don’t drink.”

He seemed surprised by her answer, eyebrows shooting up, a smile playing at the corner of his lips. “Neither do I.”

A woman came in from the kitchen carrying a bowl balanced on a plate. She set them down before Petra. It was some kind of soup with a dozen club crackers fanned out like a hand of playing cards on the plate around the bowl. She hurried away with just the rustle of her white dress. She was back a moment later with a bowl of soup and a plate of crackers for the Dragon.

“Chicken noodle,” the Dragon said. “I hope that’s okay.”

Petra didn’t respond.

“My mother used to say chicken noodle soup could cure all ails. But I’m afraid this isn’t homemade. It’s from a can.”

Petra grabbed the spoon. She couldn’t control the grumbling in her stomach. Her mouth was salivating. She ate a spoonful of the soup, then another.

“Soon, in the spring, we’ll have gardens. We’ll grow carrots, celery, potatoes, green beans. All kinds of vegetables. We’ll raise chickens. Eventually we’ll be able to make our own soups.”

“Behind these walls?” Petra asked while taking another slurp of her soup.

“It might not be these walls, specifically. It might be other places. We’ve got many places. We’ve got an office building on the edge of one town. A hospital in another city. A cave. An underground bunker. You’d be surprised at what we have.”

Petra didn’t comment.

“The rippers are a problem now, but they won’t be a problem forever. They’ll die off, and the rest we will kill off. Many will freeze to death, get sick, starve or eat each other. Their numbers will dwindle drastically over the next twelve months. They’ll die off—the old species—making way for us, the new species. A new beginning. A chance for us to start over.”

Petra ate more soup.

The Dragon slurped a spoonful of his soup, then munched on one of the club crackers.

She felt his dark eyes on her. She looked at him.

“You think I’m evil, don’t you?”

Petra wasn’t sure if she could trust herself to answer that question. “You’re killing people. Taking everything. Hoarding everything.”

“Only to eventually redistribute it.”

“To control it.”

“Yes, you could look at it that way. But, unfortunately, it has to be that way. People can’t be trusted to distribute among themselves. They can’t be trusted to govern themselves. Never have been able to, and certainly not able to now. They will always need rules and laws. They will always need someone to lead them.”

“And you’re the one to lead us?”

“People need laws. Anarchy only works so long. Little communes only work for so long before one village gets greedy and wants the other villagers’ stuff. People need a leader and laws to abide by. If not, we’re just a bunch of animals. Only one notch above the rippers.”

“Why aren’t your eyes glowing?” Petra asked. “I’ve seen you in my dreams and your eyes glowed.”

He showed a secretive smile. “I manipulated myself in your dreams.”

“And this town? Did you manipulate this town in my dreams too?”

He didn’t answer.

She wondered what else about him was a manipulation . . . a lie. “What happened to Lance, Dale, and Crystal, and the others?”

“They’re dead.”

A jolt hit Petra, then anger like the warmth of the soup spreading in her stomach.

“They attacked us,” the Dragon said. “We fought back.”

“The store?”

“We just want what’s inside. You call me a hoarder? Those few people in that store are sitting on years’ worth of food and supplies, which should be shared with everyone. I can lay the groundwork to share everything. I can provide an army to defend us against the rippers. I, all of us together, can rebuild humanity.”

Jacob entered the dining room through the archway with a cell phone in his hand, holding it up.

“You’re filming me?” Petra asked Jacob.

“Ignore that,” the Dragon said. “We still have so much more to discuss.”

Petra found her attention drawn back to the Dragon. Maybe he wasn’t the supernatural being he pretended to be in her dreams, but there was something about him that captured her attention, something darkly hypnotic about his voice. Even though his eyes didn’t glow, there was something magical in their darkness.

“Do you believe in God?” the Dragon asked.

Petra didn’t answer. She had finished her bowl of soup and crackers. The young woman in the white dress appeared at her side to take her empty bowl and plate away. Her face was an emotionless mask, a blank slate. Petra wondered if she was on some kind of sedatives.

“You’ve heard the story of Noah’s Ark, I’m sure,” the Dragon continued.

Petra nodded, sighing.

“God found man wicked, so he flooded the world, started everything over again. He saved only a few of us, Noah and his family. Eventually, he sent his son to forgive our sins. But I believe we got too corrupt again in these last days. I believe God had to do another re-set, another do-over. The Ripper Plague came, turning us back into the animals we were before God allowed souls into our bodies, And, like Noah and his family, there are only a small percentage of us to start over, to get things right this time.”

“And you’re the messiah? Is that it?”

“I don’t know about that,” he said, smiling bashfully. “But I know I’ve been called to do this, to lead us out of the darkness. I’ve had premonitions my whole life that I was meant for something, that I was meant for this.”

Petra didn’t touch the dessert that was brought to her by the same servant woman.

Jacob stopped shooting video with his cell phone and left the dining room without a word.

“Why are you filming me?” Petra asked. “For some kind of ransom?”

“We just want a peaceful end to everything,” the Dragon said. “We just want you to join us. We want your friends at the store to join us. And the ones you’ve seen in your dreams.”

Petra didn’t say anything.

The Dragon smiled. “Yes, you’ve seen the blind woman. All of you have.”

“Are you afraid of her?”

The Dragon laughed like the idea of it was silly.

“Scared of her?” Petra pressed. “Scared of the others? Why? They’re just a small group of people.”

“It only takes a few to be dangerous. It only takes a few to spark a resistance.”

Was that what the people in her dreams were? The resistance?

“You’ll be useful to me,” the Dragon said, and for just a moment his “gentleman” façade vanished, the true evil underneath showing just a little. Then he smiled again and ate a piece of his snack cake.

“I’ll never help you with anything,” Petra said.

“Oh you’ll help me. You’ll help me without even realizing it.”

CHAPTER 27

The Dragon

After his dinner with Petra, the Dragon went back to his bedroom. It was the master bedroom in this house and it was upstairs, along with the other two bedrooms. Jacob slept in one of the bedrooms and the other bedroom was empty. There were always two guards in the house, one at the bottom of the stairs, and one patrolling the grounds outside the house. With Petra in the basement now, it was even more important that the guards stayed alert. The Dragon trusted Jacob more than anyone else here, but he had to trust his small band of personal guards, too. As superhuman as Jacob was, he couldn’t be available twenty-four hours a day—the man had to sleep sometime.

The only other room upstairs was a guest bathroom in the hall that Jacob used to brush his teeth and go to the bathroom. They had buckets of water to flush the toilets with. The Dragon had his own bathroom in his bedroom, and his own bucket of water. The plumbing didn’t work, but one day it would. One day they would install septic tanks and get a water tower working. They would have electricity again, too. Someone out there had to possess the knowledge needed to get those services working again. And if not, there were books in the libraries.

But before all those dreams could come true, he needed to have order.

Absolute order.

If he let everyone run around doing this and that, surviving in little hovels, always on the lookout for rippers, nothing would ever get done. It would be the Dark Ages, and it might last a thousand years, like the Dark Ages had.

Couldn’t everyone see what he was trying to do for them, how he was ultimately trying to help everyone? They just couldn’t see the vision like he could. It was like talking to a child who couldn’t understand at the time why he was being disciplined and trained to do things the right way, but years later that child would finally understand why he had to go through hell, why he had to suffer.

The Dragon thought of his own childhood, his own suffering.

He’d grown up in a small town in northern Alabama, close to the Tennessee border, a rural county in the foothills of the Appalachian mountain chain. His father was a very religious man who had secretly wanted to be the pastor of his own church, but who had never had the determination, or the brains, to accumulate any success or possessions in his life. He worked in a factory for a few years, then he was a coal miner, then a day laborer. He would get fired from a job eventually because the other men couldn’t take the preaching from his father, his constant fire-and-brimstone condemnation of the others around him. When he was a child, the Dragon hadn’t known the reasons his father was forced to move from job to job, but he would see it later when he got older.

The Dragon had one brother and one sister, both older than him, and neither of them wanted anything to do with him. He’d been the third child in a family where mouths were hard to feed; he was the straw that had broken the camel’s back, a curse straight from God—that’s the way his father, and his brother and sister, had always looked at him. Like they hated him.

But there was another reason for their hatred, for their hidden fear of him. When the Dragon had been young—he couldn’t be sure of the age—he’d begun to exhibit psychic abilities. He didn’t think it was so strange; it was the only life he’d known. He could pick up random thoughts from other people or find things people had misplaced or lost. He could see the dreams others had, and sometimes they swore they saw him in their own dreams.

It wasn’t normal—his father showed him how truly evil his abilities were.

“Touched by the devil,” his father often said.

The Dragon was beaten. He was thrown into a cellar, alone in the dark, sometimes for days at a time. At their small church, Pastor Johns, whom the Dragon’s father idolized and at the same time envied, was notified of the dark arts bestowed onto him by Satan. The Dragon was baptized over and over again. He was made to sit in a chair or tied down to a bed for hours, sometimes for days, while Pastor Johns tried to exorcise the demons from him. And eventually everyone in their small town (hell, probably half the people in their county) knew about his dark abilities, how he’d been touched by the devil, how he needed to be constantly washed clean. He had no friends. No one talked to him in school. No one played with him after school.

He was alone.

When he was sixteen, his mother got sick. Six months later she was dead from cancer. The Dragon’s father blamed him, said he’d gotten her sick.

When the Dragon turned seventeen years old he left home. He’d saved a little money shoveling shit at some of the small farms around the county, but mostly he’d worked for Old Man Chalmers, who didn’t seem to believe the rumors about him, yet he didn’t help him in any way besides giving him the worst jobs on his farm that no one else wanted to do.

The Dragon packed a bag with the few changes of clothes he owned, his work boots, the little money he had, the few photos of his mother, and he left. He caught a ride out of town to a neighboring town where he bought a bus ticket to Florida.

He worked jobs in Florida, day labor jobs, just like his father.

But he wasn’t going to be like his father. He was going to be much more than his father, more than his father could have possibly imagined.

On the jobs he worked, the Dragon got friendly with his co-workers. He finally had friends, people who liked him, people who knew nothing about his past. He went drinking with them. He got into trouble. He spent a few nights in jail. He moved on down the road to a new town, to a new job.

There were a few women here and there, but nothing serious. He would get drunk with them, sometimes get high on pot or pills. He’d tell them about his visions of the future, of an apocalypse that he was sure was coming and how he was going to play an important role in it.

And they’d laugh.

He could read their thoughts. It wasn’t like a tape recorder in his mind, just feelings he got, a certainty of things. It was difficult to explain how it worked, and he didn’t bother trying. But he knew these women didn’t love him. They didn’t really even like him.

He moved on down the road, to another town, to another job, to other people. As he wandered he picked up paperback books from thrift stores and library sales. He read books on philosophy and different religions of the world. He opened his mind up to other possibilities, but he still couldn’t get the idea of a God or a Supreme Being out of his mind. He saw things from many sides, from all sides. He knew in his heart that some of what Pastor Johns had taught was right, but not all of it. There had been pieces missing, and the Dragon was able to fill them in; he was beginning to see the whole picture of the universe and his place in it. He felt the urge to preach about what he’d learned, to teach people the true vision.

He got fired. He got another job. He got drunk. He spent half a week’s pay on a dragon tattoo on his chest and stomach. He got in a fight. He went to jail for two days before getting released with a fine. He left town again, traveled up the east coast of Florida, sometimes spending the night on the beach, bitten by sand fleas all night, waking up in the morning to find crabs inches from his face, skittering away when he moved.

As he wandered more, the vision of the universe became clearer to him. He was meant to be here, on some kind of path. His gifts weren’t from the devil, they were from God. And that meant they were important. That meant he was important.

Some of his new coworkers and girlfriends laughed at him, but a few were mesmerized when he spoke. He used them as sounding boards, honing his skills as a speaker. He saw a little of Pastor Johns in his own sermons . . . and maybe even a little of his own father.

A month later he stumbled into a church in a suburb of Melbourne, Florida. It was a small church, the fire-and-brimstone kind of church he was used to. They had a guest speaker that day, an evangelist, an older man with electric-blue eyes who prowled the church’s stage like a panther, preaching his fury, holding the congregation in his hypnotic grip.

The Dragon knew what he wanted to do, what he wanted to be . . . he’d found his mission, his purpose. He would become an evangelist like the man with the electric-blue eyes. He would travel from church to church, preaching the truths he had discovered, the secrets that had been hidden from the rest, the secrets that he had uncovered, the puzzle he had pieced together when no one else could.

He moved north, up into Leesburg. He found a small church there. He told them he was an evangelist. They let him preach on Sunday. The pastor and his wife let him stay in a travel trailer they had in the backyard. The next Sunday when he preached, their small church was full. Word had spread. When he preached the next Sunday, dozens more people came. They crowded into the church, many of them having to stand against the back wall. They watched as he prowled the stage. He saw into their minds. He saw their loves, their hatreds, their prejudices, their secrets. He knew the things to say to them, the ways to reach them. They thought his words were coming straight from God; they thought God was speaking directly through him to them. And in a way, maybe He was.

News traveled quickly. Other churches in several counties asked about him. He stayed with pastors and their families. He split the tithes with them when he preached at their churches. He was treated like royalty. They treated him with respect. They could see how important he was.

After a year of traveling from church to church, he saved up enough money to buy his own RV so he always had a place to stay. He’d always been good at saving his money, ever since he had shoveled shit for Old Man Chalmers on his farm. He stashed money in various places inside his RV. He bought booze and pot. He picked up women in different towns, miles away from the churches where he preached.

Things went well for almost nine years. He had become a local superstar in the southeast. He traveled all over Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky. He’d been on several radio shows and on TV a few times. He’d thought about writing books, maybe doing podcasts, possibly getting his own TV show one day. But not a church of his own, never a church. A church was his father’s dream—a small dream. His dreams dwarfed his father’s dreams.

He was sure the news of his success had traveled to his father, but his old hometown in northern Alabama was one place he would never preach. He still reveled in his father’s jealousy—he could practically taste the bitterness of it even from a hundred miles away. He could see his father’s tormented dreams when he visited them.

One night in a small town in the Florida panhandle, the Dragon was cornered outside a strip club. The four men knew who he was; they’d seen him in the church only two days before. They accused him of ripping off the elderly, convincing them that he could talk to God directly for them if they would only dig a little deeper into their hearts (and a little deeper into their pocketbooks). The Dragon saw into those men’s minds that night, into their hearts. He knew what was coming. He tried to fight back, but there were too many of them.

They put him in the hospital with a cracked skull, broken nose, broken fingers, broken ribs, internal bleeding. He had come close to dying, but he fought to survive.

When he got out of the hospital no one was there to greet him. No one had visited him while he’d been in there. He’d gotten a couple of “Get Well” cards sent to his hospital room, with writing scrawled inside, warnings to leave the county and never come back. His RV had been burned to the ground with everything in it. He had nothing but the clothes on his back. His reputation was ruined. He could never preach again.

He hitched a ride north with a trucker. He called his brother. He found out his dad was dying.

The Dragon went home to see his dad. His father was still vile and mean on his deathbed, still unforgiving, still blaming him for his mother’s death. His father had heard the news about him, about the fraud he was, and he relished it.

The Dragon didn’t wait around for his father to die. He moved on to northern Georgia, then to South Carolina. He was older now, but suddenly back to square one, back to the same spot he’d been when he’d left home at seventeen years old. He started working day labor again, gathering enough money to afford a motel room and some food. He stayed in his motel room at nights, alone. No women, no friends, just some books he had picked up, some paper and a pen for his thoughts. He still had dreams of himself in front of crowds of people, and he wrote those dreams down. He saw himself in those dreams as a savior to humanity, and he still believed . . . no, he knew in his heart that he was meant for something great. These last nine years and his childhood before that had all been tests from God, a hell to walk through that only made him stronger.

A few years later he was drawn to a small town in South Carolina. It had a dark past: slave plantations, the Civil War, segregation, even a serial killer in the early 80s who had murdered eight people in town. This town had seen so much suffering, just like he had. And there was one house in particular, a house on Elm Street where a father had killed his wife and tortured his children for months before finally being caught and sent to prison, then executed. The new owner of the house had turned it into a rental, but no one in town would stay there. Most believed it was haunted.

But the Dragon stayed in that house. He rented a room from the landlady. He felt the dark energy from the house, he fed off it, let it power him. He realized then that there was power in the world, neither all good nor all bad, but able to be harnessed. He fed off that power like a battery drawing electricity from a wall socket, like a predator feeding on meat to make its muscles stronger.

He fed, he grew stronger, and he waited. He worked and came home to his room—the room Jacob slept in now—and then he dreamed. In those dreams he saw the future, a bleak future to most, but in that darkness would come a light. He would be that light. He would lead them out of the dark days.

Then the Collapse came. The weak turned into rippers so quickly, and only the chosen remained.

He remained.

And now it was time to fulfill the destiny that he had waited so long for.

CHAPTER 28

Emma

Night had come and the rippers had finally calmed down a little outside the mechanics’ bay where Emma, Ray, Mike, Josh, and Luke were hiding. The metal door sounded sturdy to her, but the rollup garage doors didn’t sound as sturdy.

But the rippers hadn’t gotten in. And maybe they had grown frustrated and tired, the snowstorm pounding them out there. Maybe they were beginning to freeze as the night came and the temperature dropped even more. Whatever the reason, she was glad they were leaving, if only until morning. She imagined that a lot of them had holed up inside the gas station store, the oil-change business, the office, the hallway with the employee bathroom and locker room. She could see them in her mind, sleeping together in groups like hibernating bears, like a pack of wolves crowding together for body heat, waiting until their prey tried to get out of the mechanics’ bay.

She couldn’t think about that.

As Emma had figured, Ray took an inventory of what they had been able to salvage from the Jeep and the van. They’d been able to take a few of the duffel bags and packs, but not everything. At least they had some food and medical supplies. Luke had the metal box with the ammo for the machine gun he’d gotten off the Dark Angels back at Doug’s cabin. The rippers were surely going to get to the rest of whatever they had in the two vehicles—probably already had. They would bust out the windows, eventually open the doors. The snow would drift inside the two trucks. Ray spelled out the likely scenario to all of them in his deadpan voice, like a reporter on the scene of a disaster.

Josh suggested that they eat.

Ray suggested that they conserve their food.

Josh suggested that if they didn’t eat they would be too weak to run or fight back and therefore conserve their food.

They met somewhere in the middle.

Ray was frustrated and taking it out on Josh a little. She wished he wouldn’t do that, but he did. Maybe he had warmed up to Josh a little in the last few days, but not all the way. Maybe he never would.

Ray mourned the loss of their bags in the van and the Jeep, but more than that he mourned the loss of Doug’s cabin and the supplies that were there. “Every time we build up a supply of food,” he’d said, “every time we find somewhere safe to stay, we lose it all.”

“At least we’re safe now,” Josh had said, looking on the bright side.

And Luke reminded them that at least they had most of their weapons with them.

After they ate, they felt a little better, and after the rippers finally quit banging on the rollup doors and the metal door that led to the hall, they felt even better. They relaxed, all of them still trying to stay quiet.

Ray made plans with Luke about getting back to the two vehicles in the morning, about picking off the rippers that were still around. He also prepared them, saying they might have to stay here for a few days until enough of the rippers eventually left. Hence his reason for conserving food, he’d told Josh.

Luke helped Ray make some vague plans.

Ray told everyone that the snowstorm had been what he’d feared, the reason he’d wanted to stay somewhere for the winter.

Yes, Ray was right. She wanted to tell him that. But what good would it do? They couldn’t change things now. The feared storm had happened, and they had survived it. They were all still here, and for the moment they were okay.

“We’ll get out of here,” Emma said to everyone, but mostly to Ray.

Silence. She could tell they were all listening to her.

“We’ll get out of here, and we’ll keep heading south. We’ll find Avalon. I know we will.”

Ray didn’t say anything.

“She’s right,” Josh said.

She felt Josh’s hand on her knee.

A little while later, Luke and Josh looked for anything they could find in the mechanics’ bay that could be useful. But they didn’t find much. Ray went over by the doors. Emma sat on the floor, her back resting against one of the metal cabinets. She heard Mike sitting down next to her.

“You okay?” he asked her in a low voice.

“Yeah,” she told him.

“You think we’ll dream again tonight?”

“I don’t know,” she lied. “Right now I think I’m too tired to even dream.” She smiled at him.

“Do you think I’ll have those dreams again?” Mike asked her in a low voice. She could tell he was keeping an eye out for his father.

Mike had discussed his dreams with her before. In his dreams he saw himself ten or fifteen years in the future, a strong man, alone in a desolate world that had never recovered from the Ripper Plague. What seemed to scare Mike the most was that he was alone in every one of the dreams; his father wasn’t there, she wasn’t there, no one he knew was there.

“What do you think the dreams mean?” he’d asked her back at Doug’s cabin when he had talked to her about them. “You think those are dreams of my future?”

She didn’t know for sure, and she’d told him that.

He’d asked if it meant that he was the only one who was going to survive out of them, that his father and everyone else he had left in the world were going to die.

She’d told him that he might not be seeing the future, but only a possible future, one of many possibilities. She told him that maybe he was scared of that possibility and that was his mind’s way of dealing with that fear.

Her explanation seemed to have consoled him at the time, but obviously he was still worried about it.

“Are you tired?” she whispered to Mike.

“Yeah, but I don’t want to dream.”

“I know,” she said.

She listened as he lay down. A few minutes later he was breathing heavily.

The rippers seemed to have been gone for a while now, but they still had to keep as quiet as they could in case the rippers were still out there, in case they were hiding right behind the metal door to the hallway.

Josh came back and laid down right next to her, snuggling up to her. “Got to survive on body heat,” he said in a low voice and kissed her neck.

She couldn’t help smiling.

“Get a room,” Luke whispered.

Josh snorted out a laugh with his lips still against her neck, blowing her hair a little, tickling her skin.

Ray had decided to take the first watch. He stood somewhere else in the mechanics’ bay, sitting alone somewhere in the dark, away from their little sleeping area near the wall. He’d probably heard Josh joking around, and she was sure he wasn’t amused.

It didn’t take long for Josh and Luke to fall asleep, their breaths deep and heavy, like Mike’s. Josh was close to snoring, and if he started snoring too loud she was going to have to wake him up. The exhaustion was catching up to all of them. And even though it was freezing inside the building, at least their bellies were full and they were safe from the rippers for the moment.

But what about the morning? Would they be able to get back to their vehicles? Would the rippers be sleeping inside the gas station store, waiting for them?

Emma listened to the gusts of wind outside, the snow pelting the metal rollup doors; it sounded like sand hitting the metal. The wind howled in the eaves. Occasionally she heard the cries and screeches of the rippers, but they sounded so much farther away now.

Maybe they had moved on.

But probably not all of them.

Soon she was sleeping, lost in the dark halls of her own dreams, the gray mists where she only saw shadows. But she heard things in that darkness, she smelled things, and she felt things.

“I’ll find you,” a deep voice with a slight southern accent whispered from the darkness. “I’ll find all of you very soon.”

PART TWO

CHAPTER 29

Ray

Ray woke up with a start. No one had touched him or woken him.

The dream woke him up.

His sluggish mind tried to catch up, his body aching from the cold, his sore ankle really throbbing now.

The others were awake, sitting grouped together on the floor thirty feet away, whispering to each other conspiratorially.

It was light inside the mechanics’ bay, not bright light, but some of the gray daylight seeped in around the edges of the garage doors. It was brighter than it had been yesterday, so maybe it wasn’t snowing anymore and the sun was shining.

Had he slept straight through the night? He remembered being on watch for a while, and then Luke had taken over at the end of the watch. He’d gone over to lie down near Mike, who hadn’t moved a muscle in his sleep. And then Ray had fallen asleep.

He’d had dreams. He could remember flashes of Avalon, inside the chain-link fence, the small building inside that fence that led to the elevators, the path down to Avalon. A mist clung to everything, a mist similar to the blizzard that had just raged outside on their way here to this gas station. And like the blizzard, rippers had materialized out of the mist in his dream, so many of them outside the chain-link fence, grabbing onto it, pushing against it, some of them kicking at it. The rippers were everywhere outside the fence.

The fence was going to collapse at any moment and the army of rippers was going to get inside.

But Ray wasn’t alone inside the fenced-in area. Kim and Vanessa were there with him. He tried to get them to go into the building with him. He tried to explain that they needed to get away from the rippers, get down underground where it was safe. But his wife and daughter weren’t coming with him. Ray knew somewhere in his mind that his wife was already dead and that Vanessa had turned into one of those monsters outside the fence, but at the same time in the dream he believed they were still the same as they used to be, still his wife and daughter. He needed to get them inside that small white building because the fencing wasn’t going to hold much longer.

But the fencing was much stronger than it looked; it bent a little, bowed in, but it wouldn’t break. More rippers came from the fog, pushing against those pushing against the fence, adding more weight to their masses, crushing those at the fence, pushing their bodies through the holes in the chain-link, their bodies liquefying, pouring in through the holes like hamburger through a meat grinder, multicolored liquid flesh and blood, spilling down to the ground as the rippers kept pushing, wave after wave of them. The screams of pain and terror didn’t stop them—they just kept on coming, they just kept on pushing.

The rippers.

Ray listened for the rippers outside. They had run from the rippers yesterday in the blizzard and had gotten here into this mechanics’ bay. The metal door that led to the hall and the four garage doors had held. After a few hours, as night came and the snowstorm still raged, the rippers had gone away.

No rippers now, at least none that he could hear. No rippers banging on the doors, none screeching in the hall or anywhere outside. Everything was silent.

Ray got to his feet slowly, his body felt like a rusted machine that had run out of oil to lubricate the moving parts. He tested his weight on his ankle. A burst of pain shot up his leg, but he pressed his weight all the way down, gritting his teeth and clenching his fists.

The others were watching him, saying nothing, still trying to be quiet.

Ray hobbled at first, but all the eyes on him gave him strength. It was like at a football game when he was younger, when he’d gotten hurt on a tackle. He’d be down for a moment, unsure of how badly he was injured until the coaches, trainers, and medical staff ran onto the field, crouching down around him, moving his leg or foot, asking questions. It was the fear at first that he had really hurt himself, the fear of a season-ending injury, or worse, a career-ending injury. But as soon as the trainers said it wasn’t that bad, the pain seemed to melt away. He’d hop back onto his feet, the crowd cheering, giving him even more strength as he jogged off the field.

And today Mike, Josh, Emma, and Luke gave him that strength. But there were no cheers today. The pain was still there with each step, but with each step it became more tolerable.

Ray figured they had moved farther away from him so they wouldn’t wake him up. Luke drank a bottle of water. Mike had eaten a small can of fruit, the empty can beside him on the floor.

“How long have you guys been up?” Ray asked in a low voice.

“Maybe an hour,” Josh answered.

“You want something to eat?” Emma asked. “Something to drink?”

“Not hungry,” Ray said, but he felt the first pangs of hunger in his stomach. His mouth was dry.

Josh rummaged in the pack and pulled out a can of soda. He tossed it to Ray.

Ray sat down and opened the can. He drank down the soda in a few swallows. With the shot of sugar and caffeine, he felt a little better. “You hear anything out there since you’ve been up?”

Luke and Josh shook their heads.

“I was listening by the door over there for a while earlier,” Luke said. “I haven’t heard a thing from the hallway. It’s weird. It’s like they all just left.”

Ray nodded. He agreed. “Seems like some of them would’ve stayed the night in the store, especially if they still thought we were in here.”

“But it doesn’t mean that they’re not out there,” Emma said.

Ray nodded; he agreed with that too. The rippers could be trying to be quiet to lure them out through the door.

“We’ve been talking about going out there and taking a look around,” Luke said. “We were waiting for you to get up.”

“You should’ve got me up earlier.”

“You needed your rest,” Emma said with just a slight sternness in her voice.

Ray didn’t argue.

“Me and Josh will go out there,” Luke said. “He can cover me with the shotgun. Use it only if he absolutely has to.”

“I can go,” Ray said.

“Your ankle,” Luke reminded him.

“It’s fine. I can walk on it. Run on it if I have to.”

“Might be better if you stay here with Emma and Mike.”

Ray felt like arguing, but he knew Luke was right. The two younger men were making him feel like he was a crippled old man, like he was a weight for them to carry, a burden. He wondered if this was how Emma and Mike felt.

“Okay,” Luke said, like their debate had finally been decided. He got up to walk to the metal door. He had his pistol holstered under his coat and he had the M-16 with him. Josh had his shotgun gripped in one hand.

Emma got up and put an arm around Josh. He hugged her and gave her a kiss.

“Be careful,” Emma whispered.

“You know I will. We’ll be back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. Whatever the hell that means.” He smiled.

She smiled back at him.

“You coming?” Luke asked Josh in an annoyed whisper.

“My boss is beckoning me,” Josh told them, and then he hurried to catch up with Luke.

CHAPTER 30

Josh

Josh and Luke pulled the boxes and equipment away from the metal door that they had crammed up against it yesterday. They worked as quietly as they could. Ray helped a little, hobbling along, trying to prove to them that his injured ankle wasn’t hurting him that bad. After they were done, Josh and Luke waited while Ray slowly twisted the knob on the deadbolt.

Ray had his gun in his hand as he readied himself to pull the door open for Josh and Luke.

Josh had his shotgun ready. Luke was right beside him with his pistol in his hand.

There was no shrieking wind blowing around outside like yesterday to mask the noise they made in here so they had to be even quieter, even more careful. Even the clicking of the deadbolt sounded so loud; it seemed to echo through the mechanics’ bay, and Josh imagined the sound traveling down the hall to the gas station store where rippers sat bolt-upright from their slumber.

But it was too late now, the noises had sounded; they had to go out there and check things out. Ray opened the door.

Josh and Luke aimed their weapons at the doorway and the murky hall beyond it. A shaft of weak morning light poured in from the right where a door with a glass panel led to an office where customers used to wait for tires to be replaced and oil to be changed. But everything beyond the shaft of light on the floor and wall was hidden in shadows. No movement in those shadows yet, and no sounds coming from the store beyond the hallway.

Luke had his pistol in his right hand and his flashlight in his left hand. He had pasted a few strips of electrical tape to the end of his flashlight to cut down on the light, but there was enough light for him to see. He shined the light down the hall, keeping it aimed down at the floor.

No rippers so far . . . nothing.

Josh let out a breath he’d been holding, but he still listened for sounds of rippers. If they had come in from the storm yesterday, they could be holed up in one of the rooms off the hall or in the gas station store. They could still be waiting for them. In fact, it seemed more probable than possible. What seemed strange was that there didn’t seem to be any rippers in the store right now.

Had they all left during the storm? Could that be possible? Where did they go?

Luke nodded at Ray and he nodded back. Ray knew what to do—they’d gone over the plan a few minutes earlier in whispers: Ray was to close and lock the metal door after they were in the hall, wait by it, ready to unlock and open it if they had to come right back.

Josh knew Emma didn’t like him going with Luke, and Luke had offered to search the gas station store on his own, probably thinking it would be easier if he went alone with his silenced weapon. But Josh had insisted on going. If Ray’s ankle was better, Josh was sure Ray would be going instead of him. Josh wanted to take Ray’s place, wanted to prove to Ray that he was capable and valuable. Even though he felt that his relationship with Ray was a little better now than it was only a few days ago, he still felt that Ray didn’t trust him completely; Josh still felt like he had to constantly prove his worth to Ray.

They were in the hallway. Ray eased the door shut behind them. Josh heard the clicking of the deadbolt as it slid into place. On their mad dash through the building yesterday afternoon, Josh hadn’t really had a chance to look around. Now he saw the door to the right with the window in it, the short hall that led to the customer waiting room and a manager’s office. The employees probably used to write the paperwork up in the waiting/reception area then walk down the hall and enter the mechanics’ bay through the metal door behind them.

Another door farther down on the left had a sign above that read: LOCKER ROOM.  And another door farther down was the employee restroom. The customers’ restrooms were probably in the gas station store. They were going to have to check all of these rooms for rippers.

Josh waited in the hall with Luke, both of them standing still and listening. Josh waited to follow Luke’s lead. He glanced at Luke who had his flashlight aimed down at the floor, creating a small, weak circle of light on the concrete floor.

Everything was quiet for now, but they waited another moment longer.

Luke caught Josh’s eye. He nodded at the door to the office and motioned for Josh to step back toward the metal door.

Josh stepped back.

Luke tested the doorknob of the office door with his gloved hand. All of his clothing was black—he looked like a shadow in the darkness. He eased the door open and gestured at Josh to wait where he was.

Josh waited, but he didn’t think it was a good idea to split up. Luke acted a little like Ray did (well, maybe not quite as bad), like Josh was incompetent and undependable. Hadn’t he saved Luke’s life? Not once, but twice, when they were getting the van from that junkyard of a house? Hadn’t he proved his worth by now? Hadn’t he stayed clean from the pills even though they still had some in the pack for emergencies? What was it going to take for these two to believe in him?

But he heeded Luke’s gestures and waited by the door while Luke entered the short hall to the reception area and the bank of glass windows.

Luke moved silently over the ground-in broken glass from the door, then down the short hall into the reception area, just a silhouette against the windows for a moment, then he disappeared around the corner.

Josh waited, listening. Luke didn’t make a sound from the reception area. Maybe he was checking out the windows to see if he could spot any rippers moving around outside. Josh almost expected to hear the spitting of Luke’s suppressed pistol, but there was nothing.

In the quiet, Josh heard his own heartbeat, heard the pulse of blood in his ears. He tried to breathe as shallowly as he could through his open mouth. It was cold but Josh’s body was flushed with heat now, his muscles energized, his palms beginning to sweat a little. He kept glancing from the locker room door to the bathroom door farther down, and then to the opening at the other end of the hall that led to the gas station store.

He had a sudden flashback of being in Marla’s apartment building in Pittsburgh, moving blindly down the pitch-black hallway, his hands feeling along the wall until he came to doorways of apartments, the doors to those apartments kicked open, the wood splintered in the doorjambs.

But at least he could see a little better now, and Luke was with him. He wasn’t alone.

Josh moved closer to the locker room door. The door was ajar . . . barely open. The door to the bathroom was closed. He crept up beside the locker room doorway, flattening himself against the wall with his shotgun in his sweaty hands. He was only inches away from the edge of the doorway, listening for any sounds inside the room. If the rippers would have holed up anywhere last night, it would have been here in one of these rooms; maybe the gas station store would have been too cold because of the busted-out plate glass windows, too exposed to the wind and snow. They would have moved deeper into the building to get away from the cold, and closer to the metal door to the mechanics’ bay—the barrier to their prey.

A hand fell on Josh’s shoulder. He jumped, whirling around, bringing his shotgun up.

Luke’s hand with the flashlight shot out like a cobra, pushing the barrel of Josh’s shotgun back down, aiming it down at the floor instead of at him. Josh could read Luke’s dark eyes: I told you to stay put.

Luke gestured at Josh to wait, and then he crept around him to the locker room door.

But Josh had no intention of waiting behind this time.

CHAPTER 31

Luke

Luke eased the door to the locker room open and shined the flashlight inside. He’d pulled off the strips of tape so he could use the full strength of the beam of light.

The door opened to a long rectangular room with rows of lockers against the far wall. There were two showers at the end of the locker room, one of the curtains pulled back, the other one closed almost all the way. The smell of rot and death was heavy in the room, almost suffocating.

No rippers.

It was strange. Luke had been prepared for rippers, his gun aimed into the room, sure that some of them would have spent the night inside the building, at least a few of them. But maybe they’d already left early this morning, or even last night as soon as the storm had passed by. Maybe they had moved on while the storm was still raging.

It just didn’t make sense to him.

Josh had followed him inside the room, waiting by the doorway. Luke had gestured at Josh to wait in the hall, but Josh wasn’t the best at following directions. Luke wanted him in the hall as a lookout in case rippers came from the store or even from the office and waiting room he’d just checked. With both of them in this room, they could get bottled in.

He moved down the room, passing the row of lockers. There was nowhere to hide in the room except for in the shower with the curtain closed. The smell of rotting meat was stronger the deeper he got into the room. He needed to check those showers.

Some of the locker doors were open, a few of them torn off the hinges, one of those doors in the middle of the floor, almost bent in half, another one leaning against a long wooden bench in front of the lockers. Smears of blood stained the lockers, with more streaks of blood along the floor among the trash and torn clothing. People had been attacked in here. Killed. Maybe eaten.

But that smell . . . it couldn’t just be from the blood. Had to be from something else.

Luke looked at the shower with the open curtain—it looked like something from a murder scene. Blood everywhere, but no bodies, or parts of bodies.

He used his flashlight to push the curtain of the other shower back, his pistol ready in his other hand. This shower was larger and equipped with safety bars on the walls. On the floor were broken pieces of human bones, with teeth marks and bits of meat and gristle stuck to them. He pointed his flashlight down at the bones, dried blood, and pieces of torn cloth on the floor. A family of cockroaches crawled around, some of them scurrying down the cracked drain covering when the light shined on them. Luke turned, aiming his flashlight beam and gun back at the lockers. He’d heard the skittering sound of claws and one squeak. Rats were hiding, waiting for them to leave so they could resume chewing the bits of rotten meat from the bones.

Luke left the showers and checked the lockers. They’d already been ransacked, searched through. Nothing of any value left in them.

At least Josh had waited by the door at the other end of the room.

Luke walked past Josh to the doorway. He turned his flashlight off and peeked out through the doorway, looking up and down the hall.

Clear.

He went into the hall, followed by Josh. He went to the next door, the one that led to the employee restroom. He pushed the door open and turned on the flashlight, shining it inside the small, dark room.

No rippers, just a urinal, a sink, and a stall with a toilet inside. The stall door was wide open. More bloodstains and smears in here, but no bones or body parts.

Luke was back in the hall a few seconds later. He crept down the hall to the corner where the hall turned sharply and led to a door to the gas station store. Luke motioned to Josh that he would go into the store first.

Josh nodded.

“Stay right behind me,” Luke whispered into Josh’s ear. “Don’t shoot unless you have to.”

Again, Josh nodded.

Luke crept down the hall, turning off his flashlight and sticking it back into his jacket pocket. There would be plenty of light from the busted-out windows, but he would need it later to check the customer restrooms and an office, if there was one. He slipped out through the doorway; the door was still stuck open, one of the hinges broken. A blast of freezing wind hit him as soon as he peeked around the corner at the store. It wasn’t nearly as windy as yesterday, but a strong breeze was blowing, and it was still just as cold.

From where he stood, it seemed clear. No rippers anywhere. None sleeping in packs or moving around. No grunts or screeches from outside.

Nothing.

Luke waited another minute longer, scanning the store, beginning at the checkout counter to his right where the coffee station was, a warmer for hotdogs and buns, a soda fountain next to that. He scanned the middle of the store where the shelves had been tipped over into the aisles, a sea of trash on the floor. There were more bloodstains on the floor and walls, more signs of violence. At the other end of the store were lines of standup coolers that used to hold cold drinks and food. But all of those drinks and food were gone now, most of the glass in the doors shattered.

Snow had blown into the store through the busted-out windows and glass doors from yesterday’s blizzard, the snow all the way to the middle of the store. There were drifts of snow against the checkout counter and against some of the fallen shelves.

There were no clear tracks in the fresh snow, so Luke was fairly sure no rippers had come in through that way during the night or this morning. He relaxed, but only a little.

So all of those rippers they’d seen yesterday had to have moved on to other shelters. But why wouldn’t some of them come into the gas station store, especially when they knew prey was holed up inside? It didn’t make sense to him.

He looked back at Josh and nodded, letting him know that everything was okay.

Josh nodded back.

Luke moved across the room toward the counter and soda fountains. A door was open to a small room, a manager’s office. It was wrecked, but no one was inside. Josh waited by the door to the hall while Luke went to the other side of the store and checked the two restrooms, shining his flashlight inside, the beam playing across a pile of clothes and blankets in a corner, like a nest. It looked like rippers had stayed in these restrooms before, and it definitely smelled like it.

But they weren’t here now.

He left the restrooms and walked toward the wall of windows, his hiking boots crunching on the snow blown into the store. His boots were waterproof, but he wasn’t sure about Josh’s boots or any of the others. Wet and cold feet could become a problem quickly.

He got to the end of the bank of windows. He crouched down and watched the parking lot. Everything was clearer now with the storm gone. He saw the large metal awning beyond their Jeep and van that covered dozens of gas pumps. There were buildings across the street, some kind of plaza. Maybe the rippers were over there in those buildings. Maybe that’s why they weren’t in the gas station—they were over there watching and waiting for them to come out and go for their vehicles.

Josh hurried over and crouched down beside Luke. “See anything?” he whispered.

Luke shook his head and focused on their vehicles. Both the Jeep and van were parked about twenty feet away from the front of the store, the van parked right behind the Jeep. The doors of the vehicles were open, most of the windows busted out; the windshields had spider webs of cracks.

“Shit,” Josh breathed out. “Doors have probably been open all night. Batteries could be dead.”

Luke nodded in agreement, still not saying anything. He watched the vehicles. Layers of snow covered the hoods and roofs. Snow had blown inside the trucks through the night—their packs had been pulled out of the vehicles, trash and food wrappers scattered in the snow: empty plastic bottles, survival gear, clothing that was now soaked. It looked like the rippers had eaten any food and drank any liquids they’d found, maybe even taking some of the extra clothing, shoes, and blankets.

The rippers Luke had shot lay in the snow, partially buried under it, just lumps now. Dark blood was mixed in with the snow. The bodies looked half-eaten, the rest of the meat probably beginning to freeze.

“I don’t see any rippers,” Josh whispered. “Just the dead ones.”

Luke studied the snow. There were no fresh tracks. That was good, but Luke still suspected that rippers were around, waiting in the buildings across the street. He thought about going out to the van to check it, see if it started. Same thing with the Jeep. But once he started the engines (if they started), that would alert any rippers hiding in the other buildings. They couldn’t start the vehicles until they were ready to go. But they couldn’t be sure the vehicles were going to start until they tested them.

Luke pulled out the small pair of binoculars from his jacket pocket and studied the building across the street, focusing on the busted-out windows and half-open doors. It was too dark for him to see inside. There were abandoned cars and trucks in the parking lot, most of the windows busted out, many of the car doors wide open. Everything lay under a blanket of snow.

“Something doesn’t feel right,” Luke whispered, still watching through his binoculars.

“You see something?” Josh asked.

“No, but I think they’re out there. I think some of them went to those buildings across the street during the storm. But not this building, even though it seemed like they’ve stayed here before.”

“Food ran out,” Josh said. “Maybe they moved on. Like a herd of buffalo grazing the plains, always looking for more food.”

“Maybe. But there was food out there.” Luke nodded toward the dead rippers. “They ate most of them. They knew we were in here. More food. So why leave like they did?”

“Yeah, but they also saw some of their own shot and killed. Maybe the dead bodies were a warning to stay away.”

Luke gave a slight shake of his head, still watching the building through the binoculars. “I don’t think so. I think they’re still around. I think they’re watching and waiting.”

“Like an ambush.”

“Yeah,” Luke breathed out, the word barely audible in the freezing wind. He lowered the binoculars and rubbed at his eyes.

“What do you think, then?”

“If we’re going to go for the vehicles, we need to all be together. We need to have our packs with us. We might only get one shot at this. Once we start those trucks up, the rippers might come running and we need to be ready to go. And if I’m right and they are watching us, waiting for us, then they’ll come running as soon as they see us outside before we even get to the trucks.”

“Wait them out?”

“I don’t know. Let’s get back to Ray. Talk to him. See what we’re going to do. We can’t wait too much longer. If those batteries have any life left, then we need to start those trucks up soon.”

“Okay,” Josh said, already backing up deeper into the store. “Let’s go back.”

CHAPTER 32

Ray

Ray heard the light knocking at the metal door: three taps, then two, then three more. He’d been waiting beside the door the whole time Luke and Josh had been gone, almost twenty minutes now.

Mike had stayed over near the wall with Emma most of the time. He’d come over once, but Ray told him to go back and keep Emma company. Mike had made a slight pouty face, but he’d gone back.

The twenty minutes had crept by while Ray ran different scenarios through his mind. He knew it didn’t help to worry about things, to try to plan, especially when he had no control over many things, but he couldn’t help it—that was the way he was built.

He remembered Kim telling him all the time to relax, to stop taking the world on his shoulders. Sometimes they would argue about it. God, he would love to have an argument with Kim right now, anything to see her again, to hear her voice again, to touch her again.

He’d been thinking about Kim, lost in a memory of her for a moment, when the tapping at the metal door had sounded. He opened the door for Luke and Josh. At least they weren’t screaming and pounding on the door with rippers on their heels. At least that was a good sign, he hoped.

After Luke and Josh slipped in through the doorway, Ray looked down the hall. Common sense told him there was nothing to see out there, no danger, but he couldn’t help looking. He closed the door as quietly as he could, locking the deadbolt and then the lock on the doorknob, testing it to make sure it was locked.

They grouped together with Mike and Emma near the wall, huddled in a circle like they were around an invisible campfire.

“What’s it look like out there?” Ray asked.

“Clear so far,” Luke answered. “No rippers anywhere in the hall. None in the bathrooms, locker room, or the store.”

Ray was surprised to hear that. “None anywhere outside?”

Luke shook his head no. “But they’ve been here before. Probably slept here before.”

“Definitely dined here before,” Josh said.

Ray looked at him.

“There’s a dead body in the locker room,” Josh said. “In the shower. Not really a body anymore. Mostly bones now.”

Ray didn’t need the description. He looked at Luke—he could tell something was troubling him. “What’s wrong?”

“Jeep and van have been ransacked. A lot of our stuff was pulled out into the snow. I’m sure any food and water we had in those bags are gone.”

Ray figured that would happen.

“Windows are busted out and some of the doors are still open. Inside lights have been on all night.”

“Damn.”

“They still might start,” Josh said.

“But we can’t wait too much longer,” Luke added.

Ray nodded.

“I couldn’t test the trucks right now,” Luke said. “Not while we were out there.”

“So you saw some rippers?”

“No. None that I could see, but it was like I could feel them watching. They ate most of the rippers we shot yesterday, and then they tried to get in here through the metal door and the garage doors. They knew we were in here, but then they didn’t stay the night inside the building.”

That bothered Ray, too.

“Same thing happened when I was at Isaac’s house,” Josh said. “We stayed up in the attic. After he saved me, after I wrecked the truck I was driving, we got up to the attic before the rippers caught up to us. They were frustrated because they ran upstairs but couldn’t figure out where we’d gone to. They stayed in the house for a while, and you’d think, just like Luke said, that they’d stay in the house for days and wait us out.”

“Maybe they can’t think that far ahead,” Ray said. “Maybe after a few hours they move on to other things.”

“I don’t know,” Josh said. “It seems like it’s the other way around, like they leave to give us a false sense of security, then they hide and wait, pretending like they’re gone, but really watching for us to come out. That’s what they did at Isaac’s house. They waited across the street in houses. They even used a man as bait, leaving him in the middle of the intersection where we could see and hear him. They cut and bit off pieces of him, trying to lure us out.”

“Okay,” Ray said. He didn’t need Mike to hear the more graphic details of Josh’s story—he got the point of it. He looked at Luke. “And you think they’re doing this now, hiding and waiting for us to come out? Making us think it’s safe?”

Luke shrugged. “Maybe. It’s strange not a single ripper stayed in this building last night. I think we have to consider that they’re watching us. Waiting for us.”

“It’s like they know we need to get to our trucks,” Josh said. “Or what’s inside of them.”

“But if we’re going to go, then I think we need to go soon,” Luke said. “Very soon. All of us together. I think when we get out there, we need to move very quickly. Get into the vehicles as fast as we can. See if they start.”

“And if they don’t start?”

“Then we need to retreat. Back in here. I can cover us while we run back. We’ll need to make different plans. Maybe find a battery in here.”

“We should take a battery from here with us anyway,” Josh said. “We might not have time to charge the trucks now, but we might need one with us even if we get the Jeep and the van started. We might need one down the road.”

Ray nodded. “Good idea.”

Josh practically beamed with pride.

“I think the Jeep has a better chance of starting,” Josh added. “When we found the van, we had to jump it with a battery. If it wore down through the night, it might be too weak to start. I just think we need to be ready to all pile into the Jeep if we have to.”

“Good thinking,” Ray said.

Josh was still beaming. “I’ll go look for a battery.”

“Can I help him, Dad?” Mike asked.

Ray nodded. “Just be quiet.”

“I will.”

Josh and Mike took off to the other side of the room where the tires were stacked, searching through racks and shelves.

“So we all go out there together,” Ray said.

“Yeah,” Luke answered. “I think we need to go soon. Like now. It’s clear out there right now. So far, anyway. We all go out together, then two of us go out to the trucks to start them, see which one of them starts, or if either of them start. I think Josh is right about the Jeep’s battery being stronger than the van.”

“Yeah,” Ray said with a sigh.

“I mean, we’ll have to play it by ear,” Luke continued. “See how much time we’ve got when we get out there. If the rippers come running, we’ll need to get ready to drive away or retreat back inside here.”

Ray nodded in agreement. “We can’t even put our packs in the trucks until we’re sure they’re going to start. Mike and Emma will wait right inside the store until we’re sure about the trucks.” He looked at Emma.

“Okay,” she said like she knew he was looking at her.

“Josh and I will start the vehicles,” Ray said, looking at Luke again. “That way you and Mike can keep watch for rippers.”

“What do you want me to do?” Emma asked.

Ray just stared at her.

Emma broke into a smile. “Sorry. I was just kidding.” Then she tried to erase the smile, but she wasn’t doing a good job of it. “Probably not the best time for jokes.”

“You’ve been hanging around Josh too long,” Luke told her. “His bad jokes are rubbing off on you.”

“No, wait. There’s something she can do,” Ray said and looked at Emma. “Your hearing is better than ours. You might hear something before Luke and Mike even see something.” Or you might even sense something, he almost added, but didn’t say it.

Josh and Mike came back. Josh carried a car battery.

“Are we all ready to go?” Ray said.

They all nodded—they were as ready as they could be.

“Can I make a suggestion?” Luke asked.

“Of course,” Ray told him.

“I think me and Josh should go out there first, just one quick look around before we bring you, Mike, and Emma out there. Those rippers might have seen me out there by the window. They might have come to the store while we’ve been in here.”

“Okay,” Ray said.

“I’ll stay out there by the windows with my binoculars. I’ll send Josh back for you guys. You and Josh will have the keys for the trucks on you already. When we all get out there, I’ll keep watch with Mike . . .” He looked at Emma. “And Emma. You and Josh get the trucks started.”

“Can I have a gun?” Mike asked.

“No,” Ray answered without hesitation.

“You’ll be helping us enough just by watching,” Josh told Mike. “You point ‘em out and Luke’ll mow ‘em down.”

Mike looked happy about that prospect, but he looked like he’d be happier with a gun.

“Okay,” Ray said. “You two go out there. We’ll be waiting by the door with the packs.”

CHAPTER 33

Josh

Josh followed Luke out the door with his shotgun in his hands. They waited for a moment after Ray eased the metal door shut and locked it. Ray was trying to be quiet as he shut the door, but everything they did seemed so loud in the hallway.

Luke had the M-16 looped over one shoulder, his pistol and flashlight in his hands. He didn’t seem so worried about shining the light around now, like he knew the rippers already knew they’d be coming out soon.

They checked the locker room and the employee restroom again, just a quick shining of the flashlight inside, and then they went right out to the gas station store. Luke waited a few seconds at the doorway into the store, Josh still behind him in the hall. A moment later Luke seemed satisfied that everything was clear. He crept out and across the trash and scattered snow to the busted windows, crouching down in the same spot as before, his body partially hidden from view outside by the wall at the end of the windows.

Josh walked the same path as Luke, hunched forward a little, holding the shotgun tight in his hands. He crouched down behind Luke, who had his binoculars up to his eyes, his gun holstered inside his jacket for the moment.

Josh could tell Luke was still uneasy about this. “You know they’re out there, don’t you?”

“I haven’t seen a sign of them yet. No movement in the windows that I can see. No footprints in the parking lot in front of the building. No screams or yells from them. Everything should tell me that they’re gone.”

“But you still feel like they’re there. In that building.”

“Maybe other places around here too.”

“You can feel them?”

“Can’t you?”

Josh didn’t answer. He wasn’t a psychic like Emma (or the Dragon—let’s not forget about him), not by a longshot, yet it felt like some of Emma’s abilities had rubbed off on him just a little, and now he could sense the threat out there. But then again maybe it was a sixth sense soldiers developed after time on a battlefield, after experiencing the trauma of war over and over again, a sixth sense that signaled an alert when danger was near.

“What do you think?” Josh finally said. “Wait a little longer?”

“Can’t wait too much longer if we want those trucks to start.” He lowered his binoculars for a moment. “I really hope at least one of them fires up, or we’ll all be running back inside here as fast as we can. We need to be ready to do that.”

“We will be.”

“If they won’t start, I don’t think we’re going to have time to change a battery.”

“We’ll figure it out somehow.”

Luke raised the binoculars back up to his eyes, watching the building across the street, then panning as far as he could left and right, staying close to the edge of the window frame so he couldn’t be seen from outside.

Josh wondered if a group of rippers was really in those buildings. He felt it in his guts, in his bones, but it didn’t make logical sense to him. It would be amazing if a group of rippers were disciplined enough to stay hidden and quiet all that time, not one of them breaking ranks. It just proved that Isaac had been right—the rippers were getting smarter; or adapting, as he had put it. It seemed like over the last few weeks that the rippers had learned basic hunting techniques, that they had learned some kind of rudimentary communication skills with each other through grunts and hand gestures, and it seemed like they had learned to use weapons better: their knives, their sticks, their rocks. What was next? Spears? Bows and arrows? Fire?

They’re not that smart, Josh told himself. He also remembered Isaac saying that the rippers only seemed smart, that they were working off animal-like instincts and not logical reasoning.

“You ready?” Luke asked without looking back or lowering the binoculars from his eyes.

“Yeah. You ready?”

“Ready as I’m ever going to be. Let’s try it. Go get them.”

“Be back in a jiffy.”

Josh hurried back to the doorway that led to the hall. He tried to be quiet, and he was, but not as quiet as Luke had been, but quieter than all four of them were going to be on the way back out.

He rushed down the hall, past the employee restroom, past the locker room with its door still ajar, and then he stopped as he passed the door that led to the customer area, the door with the busted-out window in it.

Had something moved out there?

From where Josh stood he could see the bank of windows beyond the door and the hall that led to the customer waiting area. Beyond the windows was part of the parking lot, another building a few hundred yards away, some kind of field with a line of shrubs in between, layered with snow. But there was nothing else out there.

He was sure something had moved out there, something darting past the windows, near the bottom. Like someone crouching down? A ripper?

Josh remained frozen, watching the windows down the short hall, waiting to see the flash of movement again.

One ripper? More than one? Were they sneaking along the side of the building, moving toward the front? Were they on the other side of the building, waiting to converge from both sides at the front?

Josh didn’t hear anything out there. No footsteps in the snow, no grunts, no calls from the rippers.

Were they being quiet? Again, that didn’t seem right. They were like animals now.

Maybe it had been a bird swooping down low under the bottom of the window, or a piece of paper blowing around in the freezing wind like tumbleweeds down a ghost town street. Or even his imagination.

He needed to do something. Precious seconds were ticking by while he waited in the hallway, only steps away from the metal door to the mechanics’ bay. Luke was right, they couldn’t wait too much longer if they were going to have any hope of getting the Jeep and the van started. With every second, Josh imagined the cold air seeping the power out of the batteries. Either he needed to go back and warn Luke that rippers might be creeping down the side of the building or he needed to get Ray, Mike, and Emma and make a run for it.

Or maybe he could go to the windows and check.

But that was going to waste time. If there were rippers out there, then they were getting ready to attack. If they didn’t get to the vehicles now, then the rippers might wait them out. If the rippers had gotten this smart, adapted this much, were this desperate for food, then the rippers might wait them out for weeks and the vehicles would never start. They would be trapped here. And in that time Josh was sure the rippers would find a way in to the mechanics’ bay.

He still hadn’t moved, still staring through the door’s window to the customer area beyond it. He wanted to make the right decision. He didn’t want to screw this up like he’d screwed up so many other things in his life. This was too important. All of their lives depended on him doing the right thing, the smart thing.

Josh made his decision. He rushed to the metal door and tapped on it lightly: three taps, then two, then three again.

Ray opened the door and Josh rushed inside.

“Everything’s okay?” Ray asked.

“Yeah.”

“You see any rippers out there?” Mike asked, not even trying to hide his fear.

“No,” Josh said, giving Mike a weak smile. “Everything’s clear, buddy.”

Mike stared at him like he could tell he was lying.

Josh looked away from Mike, at Emma. Her expression of concern shocked him. She knew he was scared, she’d heard it in his voice, a slight tremor the others couldn’t tune in like she could.

“We haven’t seen any rippers,” Josh said again. And it wasn’t a lie, was it? They hadn’t seen any rippers. If there was a ripper outside that line of windows in the customer waiting area, then Josh couldn’t be sure about it.

He felt a little sick to his stomach, suddenly sure that he’d made the wrong decision. He should have gone into the waiting area and checked. He should have made sure. He should have taken the extra seconds to do that.

But he hadn’t. It was too late for that now.

“Alright,” Ray said. “Let’s go.”

They all had their packs. Ray carried the ammo box and his gun. Mike carried a pack and Emma carried a pack. She handed the last pack to Josh and he slipped the straps over one shoulder. Then he picked up the car battery, cradling it under one arm, holding his shotgun in his other hand.

They hurried out the door, making sure it was still unlocked in case they needed to get back inside. Josh couldn’t help looking through the door to the waiting area, staring at the windows as he rushed past them.

Nothing out there. Maybe it had been nothing.

They were making too much noise as they hurried down the hall, rustling and jostling, footsteps too loud, Emma’s cane tapping lightly but furiously at the floor in front of her. Josh tried to help guide her, but they had too much to carry. Mike helped Emma with his free hand when they got to the jog in the hall, then around it to the broken door, out to the gas station store.

Ray led the way to the grid of metal framework where the walls of glass and the doors used to be. The wind sliced through the openings at them. Mike and Emma were right behind Ray, and Josh brought up the rear.

Luke popped up to his feet, his binoculars tucked away inside his jacket pocket, his pistol in his hand, the M-16 looped over his shoulder by the strap. He was the first one outside, bolting out into the snow-covered parking area, looking across the street, waiting for where he knew the rippers would be coming from. But he wasn’t looking at the front corners of the gas station store, he wasn’t even thinking about the rippers coming up from the sides of the building to the front.

Josh kept his eye on the corner of the building as he ran to the van. Ray went to the Jeep, hobbling less now on his bad ankle; he got to the vehicle, slipping down inside the driver’s seat. Mike and Emma hung back a few steps. Mike looked where Luke was looking, neither one of them looking at the front corners of the building.

And now it was too late. Josh could already hear the rippers running; he could hear their grunts, the first of their war cries.

“The corners of the building!” Josh yelled. “They’re coming up the sides of the building!”

He reached into the van and stuck the key into the ignition. His hands were trembling. He fumbled with the keys, almost dropping them.

I should’ve told them I thought I’d seen something out the windows. I should’ve taken the time to look.

Josh caught the keys before they slipped out of his fingers, which were already a little numb from the cold air. He slid the key into the ignition and twisted.

Nothing. The van wouldn’t start—it was dead.

CHAPTER 34

Ray

As soon as Ray got to the Jeep he heard Josh call out a warning about rippers coming up the sides of the building to the front of the gas station store. Something clicked in Ray’s mind, some connection about Josh warning them before they’d even heard the rippers, but he let the thought slip away. And now he heard the screeches of the rippers, their feet pounding the snow as they ran, their yells echoing in the freezing air. They weren’t coming from across the street where Luke had been certain they’d been hiding, they were coming from the back of the gas station store, sneaking up on them from the sides. The rippers were going to be on them in seconds. If they didn’t get these trucks started, there was no way they were going to get back inside the building, back down the hall to the mechanics’ bay.

Ray felt his stomach drop, his knees threatening to go weak even though adrenaline was running through his veins like a shot of speed. The world seemed to have slowed down just a little, everything seeming like it wasn’t real. His stomach fluttered with fear, his head grew light, and there was the high-pitched whine somewhere in his mind, a siren warning him that they had made a crucial mistake.

“Luke!” Mike shouted, pointing at the far corner of the gas station store.

Luke turned and shot the first two rippers coming around the corner, then he turned back the other way and picked off two more coming from that side of the building. But Ray knew as good of a shot as Luke was, he wasn’t going to be able to do that forever; there were too many of them coming.

And now more of them were pouring out from the buildings across the street and coming this way.

Ray’s body seemed to be moving on its own while his mind panicked. He looked down through tunnel vision at his hands as he slipped the key into the Jeep’s ignition on the first try. It almost felt like he was hovering just a little off the ground, his body felt so incredibly light. He twisted the key and the Jeep started.

“Come on!” Ray yelled at Mike and Luke.

Josh was already running toward the Jeep. “Emma,” he yelled.

Emma ran toward the sound of Josh’s voice, pushing her feet through the layer of snow, tapping one of the packs the rippers had dragged out of the vehicles, half buried in the snow. She skirted it quickly.

Mike was at the Jeep in a flash.

“In the back,” Ray snapped at Mike. “Throw your bags in the back. Get in. All of you get in the back.”

Mike got in first, then Emma, and then Josh. He still had the car battery cradled in one arm and he tossed it into the back along with the pack he had. He turned back around with the shotgun in his hands, the back door still wide open, ready to shoot. He blasted a ripper that was getting close to the Jeep. The sound was deafening inside the Jeep. He pumped the shotgun and fired again.

Ray slammed his door shut and shifted into drive. He stomped his foot down on the gas pedal. The tires spun, the rear end of the Jeep sliding in the snow.

Too much gas.

Ray backed off the gas and then eased down on the gas pedal again. For a moment Ray was afraid the Jeep was stuck in the snow, afraid maybe some of their supplies the rippers had taken out were wedged under the tires. But then the Jeep began to move.

Take it easy on the gas . . . take it easy on the gas . . .

Something hit the back of the Jeep below the rear window, bouncing off the metal. A rock? The rippers were already at the van now.

So close.

The other rippers were getting closer to Luke, running through the snow, some of them slipping and bumping into each other, pulling each other down as they lost their footing. It would have been a comical scene if it weren’t for the insane rage on their faces and the bloodstains on their skin and clothes, the knives and other weapons in their hands.

Luke ran toward the Jeep, getting around the front of it just before Ray had a chance to stop, the vehicle sliding helplessly in the snow, missing Luke by inches.

“Get in!” Ray yelled at Luke.

Luke jumped inside the passenger seat while the Jeep was still moving. He slammed the door shut.

Ray hit the door lock button, locking all the doors. He stomped down on the gas pedal a little too hard again, then eased up a little, letting the tires get some kind of traction. The Jeep seemed to be taking forever to gain any kind of speed. Freezing wind rushed in through the broken windows. Another rock struck the back of the truck and ricocheted in through the busted-out window, landing among their packs in the back.

Ray turned the Jeep toward the road, trying to get to it before the horde of rippers from across the street got to them. But it seemed to be taking so long to get there in the snow. At least the snow was slowing down the rippers as much as it was slowing down the Jeep, many of them slipping and falling.

A few rippers got to their Jeep. One was at the driver’s window: a middle-aged man screaming, his eyes wild, a few of his front teeth broken off, his hands coated with so much blood and grime they looked like they’d been dipped in old motor oil. He held a long wooden stick and jabbed it in through the window, missing Ray’s head by inches. Ray shoved his head back against the seat, locking his arms, hands still clutching the steering wheel, his eyes on the stick that had just poked through his window.

Luke leaned over and shot the ripper, the gun right in front of Ray’s face. Ray swore he felt the heat coming off the weapon as it fired at the ripper. The bullet knocked the ripper back, the stick dropping from his hands. Ray swatted the stick back out through the window.

Josh had his shotgun leveled on the top of the door, aimed out the shattered window. He fired, blasting another ripper that had gotten too close to the Jeep. Mike screamed at the sound of the gunshot and Emma held on to him.

The Jeep was finally picking up enough speed to knock a few of the approaching rippers out of the way.

Finally, they were getting closer and closer to the road, but it was hard to make out where the road ended and the grass began under all the snow. Ray kept his foot pressed down on the gas pedal, muscling the steering wheel, turning left where he guessed the road was. He braced himself, waiting to slam into a concrete curb or something else buried in the foot of snow, but they didn’t hit anything.

The Jeep’s back end slid to the side as Ray made the turn. He let off the gas and for a few seconds he was sure they were going to spin around in a complete circle and end up facing the direction they had just come from.

“Come on, Ray,” Luke yelled. “They’re coming!”

Don’t you think I’m trying? he almost snapped. But he didn’t have the time. He could hear the yells of the rippers, like some invading army on an ancient field, a clan at war with another clan long ago, savage cries and cheers ringing through the air as they charged each other in almost certain death.

The Jeep stopped sliding, and it hadn’t slid as far as Ray thought it was going to. Miraculously they were still pointed in the direction Ray wanted to go.

“Go, Dad,” Mike yelled from the back seat. “Go, go, go!” He stared out through the hole where his window used to be, staring at the crowd of rippers that were only twenty feet away, running as fast as they could through the snow.

Ray stomped down on the gas pedal. The Jeep lurched forward, the tires grabbing traction somewhere under the snow, the engine revving. They gained speed, but not as quickly as Ray wanted. He didn’t dare look back at Mike or the rippers that were approaching from that side of the Jeep, rushing out from the plaza.

Don’t let them get him, Ray prayed. Don’t let them get my son. He saw images of the horde of rippers overrunning the Jeep, some of them sacrificing themselves in front of the Jeep, clogging up the path with their bodies, others pulling Mike out through the back window, his body scraping over the bits of broken glass as he screamed for help.

No, he wasn’t going to let that happen.

He pressed down a little harder on the gas pedal, pushing the Jeep faster through the snow.

A rock pinged off the side of the Jeep, hitting somewhere on the rear quarter panel.

“Get down,” Ray yelled at Mike.

Luke shot at the coming rippers.

Spit. Spit. Spit.

He killed three of them in seconds, their bodies collapsing instantaneously, falling and tripping up several more rippers.

Josh watched from the other side of the Jeep, his shotgun still aimed out the window. The rippers weren’t as close on that side, but they were still coming; they weren’t giving up yet.

Ray concentrated on what he could see of the road, trying to stay in the middle of it, praying that he wasn’t going to run over a car part covered in the snow, something metal and jagged that would slash their tires.

The Jeep was building up speed. Thirty miles an hour. Then thirty-five. Then forty. They were getting away. Ray finally allowed himself to glance around, to check the rearview mirror. He saw Mike’s wide eyes, the relief on Josh’s face as he pulled his shotgun back inside, the fear on Emma’s face. He looked past them at the busted rear window—there were no rippers right behind them; they were falling back farther and farther.

Luke let out a long slow breath that misted up in front of his face. “That was close. Real close.” He looked at Ray. “Good driving.”

“Good shooting,” Ray answered back.

Ray slowed the Jeep down a little, turning onto the county road they had traveled yesterday. They had made good time yesterday, until the storm came. Driving was going to be much more difficult today with all the snow.

The rippers still hadn’t given up. A large group of them were running across the frozen fields, trying to get to the county road before Ray could, waving sticks, knives, and other weapons, screaming and yelling. They weren’t giving up—they were never going to give up.

Ray relaxed a little as he drove, but just a little. He was sure there would be a lot more rippers along their journey south.

CHAPTER 35

Jo

Jo saw it coming while she was on the roof. It was late afternoon, the sun setting in a haze of muted, washed-out colors. Even though the sky was darkening overhead, the first few stars beginning to twinkle, she saw it. She couldn’t miss it—it was lit up in the sky.

She’d been down in the store earlier. She had gotten some sleep throughout the day, her mind and body bone-weary from staying up most of last night, but even more from the nonstop stress. She wished she could have a little break from the constant worrying and planning and fear, just a few hours of sleep that wasn’t riddled with nightmares that woke her up every hour or so.

She’d just been thinking about when Kate had knocked on her office door yesterday. Kate had shown her Brooke’s drawing tablet, the drawings Brooke had done. Jo remembered the drawing of Petra with the Dragon right behind her, his hands on her shoulders, the look on Petra’s face.

Of course Jo wanted to believe Petra was alive, and she wanted to believe Zak, Tamara, and Tyrone were still alive too. She wanted to believe the four of them were safe, maybe even together. She understood Max’s need to go after Petra, his loyalty to her. But Jo had the rest of the people here at the store to think about. Max could leave on his own—he was free to do that—but she didn’t want him taking anyone else with him. She couldn’t lose anyone else. Their best shooters and fighters were gone now. How long could they last when another attack came from the rippers? Or the Dark Angels.

She tried to catch a little more sleep two hours ago, but she gave up. Maybe she had slept and hadn’t realized it, drifting in and out. She couldn’t be sure. Maybe she didn’t have the prophetic dreams that Kate, Brooke, Max, and Petra seemed to share—she didn’t see those people in her dreams like they did—but she still had the feeling that something bad was coming. And after Kate showed her Brooke’s drawing of Petra handcuffed with the Dragon hovering right behind her like a shadow, she was sure something bad was coming.

She wanted to be up on the roof tonight. She wasn’t any better of a shooter or a spotter than anyone else up here, but she was the unelected leader, the manager of this store, and she should be up here doing her part.

And now, as night came, she saw the bad thing she’d been worried about approaching the store from the sky.

Fernando was up on the roof with Jo. So was Tina. She trusted both of them the most, and they were invaluable to her right now, both seemingly tireless and fearless. She couldn’t ask for more.

“You see that?” Jo asked Fernando.

He was already looking at the sky through his binoculars. He’d heard it before seeing it; they’d all heard it before seeing it, a whining buzz in the air, an alien sound now that nothing except birds flew in the air anymore.

Jo could see the small aircraft approaching with her naked eye. It was lit up with small bright lights.

“It’s a drone,” Fernando said. “I bought one for my son.” He sounded like he was choking up at the sudden memory of his son.

Tina watched the sky through her own pair of binoculars, standing a few feet away. “It’s coming right for us.”

“Dark Angels?” Jo asked.

“Maybe,” Fernando answered.

“Could the drone have a weapon on it?” she asked Fernando. “A bomb?”

“They can be rigged like that,” he answered.

Fernando handed Jo his binoculars and picked up the .30-06 rifle, tracking the drone through the scope as it hovered closer to their store. “Just say the word,” he said as he aimed the rifle.

“Not yet.”

Jo used Fernando’s binoculars to scan the parking lot, then the street beyond the parking lot, the partially constructed building on the large lot beyond that street.

She wondered if the drone might be a distraction while the Dark Angels attacked from a different direction. But she didn’t see any Dark Angels. No military trucks or vans with the DA symbol painted on them. She saw a few rippers, a few of them racing toward the store, attracted by the lights and buzzing of the drone.

Then she saw a black pickup truck parked half a block down from the gas station on the far corner of the intersection. She couldn’t make out the people inside the truck. There was no DA symbol on it, but she had to assume they were Dark Angels. The truck had what looked like big pieces of metal grids welded to the grill and the tailgate, with other smaller pieces of armor attached to the sides. There was a kind of steel mesh over the side windows.

“It’s still coming this way,” Tina said as she watched the drone through her binoculars.

“It’s definitely carrying something,” Fernando said. “A small box. Maybe a wood box or a metal box.”

Jo grabbed her walkie-talkie. “Max. Kate. Come in.”

“We’re here, Jo,” Max answered.

“Get ready down there. Something’s coming for the store.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a drone. It’s carrying something. Might be a bomb. Just get ready down there.”

CHAPTER 36

Max

Max hurried to the ladder attached to the scissor lift while Kate took Brooke back to the tent. Max didn’t wait for Kate; he scrambled up the ladder, which was tied tighter to the lift now. Someone had retied the ropes, securing the ladder better, just one more job that had to be done in the seemingly endless tasks around the store.

His heart thudded as he climbed the ladder up to the skylight. Jo had sounded alarmed on the walkie-talkie. She’d sounded scared. She’d said a drone was coming toward the store and that it was carrying something. Possibly a bomb. She’d told him to get ready down in the store, warning him, probably expecting him to stay down in the store. He couldn’t do that. He needed to be up there on the roof—he needed to help.

It was another attack from the Dark Angels, that much was certain to Max. How many were out there now? Had they doubled their forces? Tripled them? Would they bring more powerful weapons? They’d brought a drone. Would they bring a bomb? A rocket launcher?

Max’s mind turned to Petra and the other hostages. The Dark Angels had used Lance, Crystal, and Dale as hostages last time, and then slaughtered them in the parking lot. Had they brought other hostages this time? Had they brought Petra? Max already decided he couldn’t watch Petra die—he’d give up the store if he could save her life. If they could all get out of the store, if they could survive, then they could come back to fight another day. But they couldn’t do anything if all of them were dead, picked off one by one over the next few days.

He knew Jo was loyal to the store, but it was more than that—the store was her only source of comfort. She was like a shut-in afraid to venture out into the world, into the unknown. Jo hadn’t been out there traveling the roads and journeying through the cities and towns; since the Collapse she’d been here in the store, hidden behind the safety of these walls. She was afraid, pure and simple. But Max had survived out there in the wilds. So had Petra, Kate, and Brooke. They’d survived before and they could do it again.

When he got onto the roof he expected to hear the sounds of an approaching army, maybe a Dark Angel shouting orders and directing troops through a megaphone. But everything was strangely quiet except for the buzzing/whining sound in the sky.

He hurried to Jo. She stood near the knee wall at the edge of the roof at the front of the building. Fernando and Tina were beside her, Fernando with his rifle aimed up at the drone in the sky, Tina tracked the drone with her binoculars. They looked like three people staring in awe at a UFO.

“It’s a drone,” Jo said as soon as Max was beside her.

Max watched the little drone fly toward the store, but it was slowing a little, hovering toward the far end of the store, over the fenced area in back.

“What’s it doing?”

Max whirled around when he heard Kate’s voice.

“Looks like it’s landing in the fenced-in area,” Fernando said.

“It’s got a small wooden box attached to it,” Tina told Kate.

“You think it’s a bomb?” Kate asked.

“Could be C-4 explosive,” Fernando said as he watched the drone hover in the air forty feet above the fenced-in back area.

“You think they’ve got C-4?” Jo asked.

“They have other military equipment,” Fernando answered. “Maybe they found some C-4.”

“Then why not drop it on the building?” Max asked. “Blow a hole in it.”

“Maybe they’re trying to get it to the rollup doors,” Fernando suggested. “The one Jeff tried to blow with the grenade.”

“But even if they blow the door, they still need to get through the fence,” Max said. “Why not blow a hole in the front? Easier to get in that way.”

“The explosion would attract rippers,” Fernando said. “Maybe that’s why they want the fences intact, so they can still have a barrier around the store.”

“Why is the drone just floating there?” Kate asked. “What’s it waiting for?”

“If they’re planning on blowing a hole in the doors, then where are all the Dark Angels?” Jo asked. “I haven’t seen any except for a black pickup truck near the gas station over there by the intersection. I’m guessing someone in the truck is piloting that drone.”

“There’s something else on that drone,” Tina said. She held her binoculars steady, watching the drone as it hovered in the sky.

“What?” Max asked. He hurried to the middle of the roof to get a closer look.

“What do you see?” Jo asked Tina.

“It looks like a little white flag on the corner of the wooden box.”

“A white flag?” Kate asked. “You mean like a surrender flag?”

Max thought of the cartoons he’d watched as a kid where a character raised a white flag after being blown up, the flag full of holes, the stick bent.

“No,” Jo said immediately. “They’re not giving up. They still want this store. They want the food and supplies we have inside.”

“Maybe the flag is a message,” Tina said. “To let us know that the wooden box is safe. Maybe that’s why it’s hovering there so long, so we know they don’t mean us any harm.”

“Yeah, for now,” Jo said.

“They want to show us something,” Kate said. “They want us to see what’s inside the box.”

As if the drone had heard them, it lowered to the ground out of their view for a moment.

Max and Fernando hurried over to the other side of the roof.

“It’s setting the box on the ground,” Fernando called out.

“Being careful with it,” Max added. He watched as the drone lifted up from the ground, leaving the small box behind, the little motors buzzing louder, the drone moving faster as it rose above the fence and then flew away toward the small street on that side of the parking lot.

“I could take the drone out,” Fernando said, looking through the rifle’s scope at the drone as it flew away.

“No, wait,” Jo said. She had come to that side of the building with Kate and Tina.

“They’ll just send another one,” Kate said.

Max wasn’t so sure Fernando could shoot the drone out of the air, but he didn’t say anything.

The drone was across the parking lot, then to the side street, then to the intersection and to the pickup truck, landing down in the bed.

The drone had caught the attention of the rippers that had been wandering around the parking lot and near the partially constructed building across the street, riling them up. Some ran toward the store, a few were already at the base of the building, yelling and screaming. One of them touched the fence and shocked himself, knocked back onto the ground, dazed for a moment.

Some of the rippers across the street ran for the black pickup.

“They’re leaving,” Tina announced, her binoculars trained on the black pickup truck. “Rippers headed their way.”

Max heard some machine-gun fire from the pickup as it sped away.

The truck was gone; the world silent again except for a few calls and screeches from the rippers, but even those seemed to be half-hearted now.

Max stood at the edge of the roof that looked down onto the fenced-in area of the back of the store. Jo and the others were lined up beside him, all of them staring down at the small wooden box at the far end of the fenced area.

“If that’s supposed to be a message,” Jo said, “let’s see what they have to say.”

CHAPTER 37

Kate

“It could still be some kind of bomb,” Kate said. “Maybe not something to blow a hole in the doors, maybe not yet, but something to hurt or kill one of us, take some of us out.”

“Like an I.E.D.” Fernando said.

Jo looked at him.

“An improvised explosive device. They used them in Iraq, blowing up military vehicles.”

“Like a booby trap,” Jo said. She looked at Kate. “What do you suggest?”

“Shoot it?” Max asked.

“No,” Kate said. “It might not be a bomb. If it really is a message, we might need to see it.” She looked at Jo. “I think one of us needs to go open the box. One of us needs to volunteer. Just one of us. That way if it is an explosive, only one of us will get killed.”

“Who’s going to volunteer?” Jo said.

“I will,” Kate answered.

“No, let me,” Fernando insisted.

“I should do it,” Jo said. “I’m the manager here. If anyone is going to get hurt . . . or killed . . . I can’t ask anyone to do that.”

“We need you,” Fernando said.

“We need you too,” she answered. “Everyone is needed here.”

“We draw straws,” Max suggested. “Or something like that. Maybe a bag of marbles. A bag of black marbles with one white one.”

“Okay,” Jo said.

*

It took a few minutes, but Jo came to them in the loading bay with a small cloth bag. “No marbles,” she said. “Probably with all the other toys stacked up in the loading bay. But I’ve got a bag of walnuts. One of them is marked with an X. Whoever draws that walnut will go open the box. Is that okay with everyone?”

Kate nodded. They all nodded.

“Okay,” Jo said. “We all reach into the bag one at a time and grab a walnut. We don’t look at it until we’ve all drawn. Okay?”

Again, they all nodded in agreement.

They went one at a time: Kate first, then Max, then Tina, then Fernando, and finally Jo.

“Okay,” Jo said. “Let’s open our hands and look.”

Kate opened her hand and looked down at the walnut in her hand with a big black X drawn on its shell with a marker.

“No,” Max said. “No. We should do this over.”

“We agreed,” Kate told him.

“But Brooke, she needs you.” He looked at Jo. “We should do this over again, this time without Kate.”

“Nothing’s going to happen,” Kate told him. “We’re all in agreement that there’s some kind of message in that box.” She knew what she was saying made the most sense, but it still didn’t push away the fear or slow her racing heart. “They have a white flag on it.” She tried to smile, but it felt like her face was cracking.

“Yeah, of course,” Max said. “They would never lie or try to trick us.”

“It’s settled,” Kate said.

“I’m going too,” Max said.

“Max,” Jo warned. “We agreed. If this is some kind of bomb, they want as many people around that box as they can get.”

“I don’t care. What’s one more of us?” He stared at Jo like he was daring her to keep him away.

Kate saw a dark look in Max’s eyes, like he was bracing to defend himself against Jo.

“Okay,” Kate said. “Let’s just all calm down.” She looked at Max. “We’ll both go.” Then she looked at Jo. “And everyone else will stay back.”

Jo didn’t look happy, but she nodded.

“You should take something with you,” Fernando said. “Something to help protect you.”

“Yeah,” Tina said, her face brightening. “Like a blast shield or something.”

“What do you have in mind?” Max asked.

A few minutes later Fernando and Tina came back with two metal panels with handles on them.

Fernando smiled sheepishly as he handed one of them to Kate. “They’re metal cabinet doors from the deli kitchen. I unscrewed the hinges. Not the thickest steel, I know, but maybe it will help.”

“Thank you,” Kate told him and then looked at Tina. She had images of a bomb shredding through the flimsy metal door, shards of steel embedded in her face and body.

It was almost dark outside when they opened the smaller back door and stepped outside. Tina and Fernando went with Kate and Max, then stopped halfway to the box. Fernando had his rifle with him, and Tina had her flashlight and binoculars with her. Jo waited by the door—she’d gotten the doctor, who stood ready with a first-aid kit.

Max carried a flashlight in one hand and his metal cabinet door in the other, but he hadn’t turned the flashlight on yet. It was still light enough outside to see, but in ten or fifteen minutes it would be nearly pitch-black. Kate’s eyes had already adjusted to the darkness.

They walked slowly across the pavement toward the far edge of the back area where the gate was. The small wooden box sat halfway between the gate and the back fence.

“Thanks for coming with me,” Kate whispered to Max as they got closer to the box.

“I can do this myself. You can go back.”

“I got the walnut with the X,” she reminded him.

“It’s not like we all signed a contract, you know.”

“We agreed. That’s as good as a contract.”

“I meant what I said about Brooke needing you. You should protect yourself for her. She needs you.”

For just a moment Kate felt the pressure of taking care of a child, of someone’s life being so much more important than her own. She wondered if this was how a parent felt. For just a moment she considered Max’s suggestion of letting him inspect the box on his own; it seemed more logical than both of them risking their lives. But this wasn’t the last dangerous situation she was going to find herself in. At some point Brooke would have to learn to survive on her own.

And who was she kidding? Brooke had survived on her own before Kate had met her. Brooke had saved her life. They all had survived on their own, and they would all have to face the possibility of going on alone. It was just a fact of life now.

She wanted to tell Max her thoughts, but not right now. They needed to be as quiet as possible in case rippers were close by. But she wasn’t backing down—she made that clear by still walking beside Max.

He didn’t say anything, knowing she’d made her decision.

The wooden box was about the size of a paperback book, only much thicker. It was made of plain wood with a little white flag poking up out of one corner on a stiff wire. A clasp kept the box closed, but there was no lock on it. Simple hinges and a light varnish on the wood. Not a jewelry box, maybe something homemade.

Kate and Max crouched down in front of the box with their “shields” in front of them.

“Let me open it,” Max pleaded.

Kate just nodded.

Max brushed his fingers along the top of the box. He pushed the box back a little on the pavement, being careful with it. He turned the box all the way around, studying it in the beam of his flashlight in the dusk.

“Nothing written on it,” Max whispered. “Nothing written on the flag.”

He picked up the box with trembling hands and gave it a gentle shake. Something solid and heavy bumped around inside, a muffled thump against the inside walls. He set the box back down.

Kate aimed her flashlight down at the box, keeping her other hand over the front of it to cut down on the beam of light.

“Okay,” Max said, breathing the word out. “Let’s open it.” He flipped up the little clasp and opened the lid.

No explosion.

Kate pulled her fingers away from the front of her flashlight to give Max a little more light. Inside the box she saw a cell phone and a small gray cloth sack closed and tied with a drawstring.

“A cell phone,” Max said like he’d stumbled onto some mythical object that shouldn’t exist anymore. He picked it up.

Kate knew cell phones could be used in bombs as triggering devices. Could the little gray cloth contain some kind of explosive? If so, it seemed kind of elaborate rather than just having a pressure bomb go off as soon as they opened the lid. And there was no cell service anyway. There were no wires attached to the cell phone, nothing else inside the box except the small gray sack.

After Max turned the phone on, waiting for it to power up, Kate covered the end of her flashlight to cut down on the light. The rippers hadn’t come to the fence or the gate yet, but if they saw the light, they’d come. A few of them called out from the parking lot and the side street. Maybe some were already on their way.

“We need to hurry,” she told Max. “The rippers are coming. I think they’ve seen our flashlights.” And they had already gotten worked up from the drone a little earlier.

“Why a cell phone?” Max muttered to himself. “They’re not going to call us. They can’t. No phones. No internet.” He pushed icons on the screen. “A message? Just like you said. I think there might be a video on here.”

The rippers were getting closer, getting louder.

“Max . . .”

Max found the gallery of photos and videos. “There’s only one video on here.” He pushed his thumb down on the screen and watched.

Kate heard the tiny voice coming from the phone and saw movement on the screen, but from her angle she couldn’t make out what was on the phone. But there was no mistaking the shock on Max’s face. “What is it?” she asked, but she already knew. She recognized the woman’s voice on the phone now—it was Petra.

A ripper bounced off the fence, screaming after being shocked. More were coming.

Kate wondered if the rippers could short out the car batteries hooked up to the fence if enough of them grabbed onto the fence.

“Max, we need to go.”

Max set the phone down on the pavement and grabbed the small cloth sack from the box. He opened it with shaking fingers and shined his flashlight down inside, his face going slack with horror. “Oh God . . . no.”

“Max, we need to go.”

Max wasn’t listening.

Another ripper hit the fence, screaming after he bounced off it.

Kate got to her feet.

Max shoved the sack and the phone back into the wood box and closed it, picked it up, and fell in beside Kate, both of them running back to the doorway at the back of the store.

CHAPTER 38

Kate

“Look what they did to her,” Max raged when they were back inside the loading bay of the store.

Kate and Max had run back to the door as more and more rippers ran down along the fence line, screaming and yelling, throwing rocks and sticks. Tina and Fernando had joined them halfway to the open back door. Jo waited at the doorway, opening the door wide so all four of them could get inside the store.

Dozens more rippers ran out from the woods, a few grabbing onto the chain-link fence and shocking themselves. Kate wondered again how long the car batteries were going to last.

Jo backed out of the doorway so Max could rush inside first; he seemed oblivious to the rippers outside, fixated on getting the wooden box safely inside. Kate followed him inside, then Tina, and then Fernando. Jo closed the metal door and locked it.

Kate could still hear the rippers outside. They were worked up. They were starving, getting more and more desperate for food each day.

Max went to the middle of the loading bay and practically collapsed down on the floor, cradling the wooden box in his hands, setting it down so gently on the concrete, opening the lid and pulling the cell phone out.

Kate, Jo, Tina, Fernando, and the doctor huddled around him.

“What is it?” Jo asked. “A cell phone?”

“A video on the phone,” Kate told her. “A video of Petra.”

“A video?” Jo asked, like the idea of a video was suddenly science-fiction technology. “What’s she doing on the video?”

Kate gave a small shrug. “I don’t know. I haven’t had time to watch it.”

“They’ve got her,” Max said, still watching the phone’s screen. “The Dragon’s got her.”

“Are they . . . are they demanding something?” Jo asked, but it seemed like she already knew the answer as soon as she asked the question.

“There’s something else in the box,” Kate said.

“What?” Jo asked.

Kate looked at Max. “Max? You need to open the cloth sack in there. Show us what it is.”

Max set the phone down and pulled out the cloth. He laid the cloth open, revealing four severed fingers.

“Oh shit,” Fernando whispered.

“Her fingers,” Max said. “They cut off her fingers.” There were tears in his eyes. “And they’re going to do more.”

*

Fifteen minutes later they had all watched the video on the cell phone. The battery on the phone was getting low and Max wanted to turn the phone off to save the battery. The footage hadn’t been that long, only one minute and forty-two seconds. The footage was a little shaky, someone holding the phone in a dining room inside a house, moving closer to Petra who sat at one end of a table with a bowl of soup and plate of crackers in front of her. But Petra wasn’t eating.

A guard of some kind stood just beyond Petra, standing sentry in a corner, ramrod straight, eyes staring straight ahead, pistol at his side. Someone was talking to Petra off screen, someone with a deep and smooth voice, a lilting southern accent.

The Dragon.

But the camera never panned over to the other end of the table where the Dragon sat. Petra only looked at the phone once, only speaking once right at the beginning of the video: “What are you doing? Filming me?”

The footage in the dining room stopped, and then a man’s face filled the screen a second later, a mean face with an evil smile and cold eyes. He wasn’t the Dragon; it wasn’t the same voice. But he warned that bad things were going to continue happening to Petra if they didn’t voluntarily vacate the store. He said they could even take a pack of food and water with each of them.

“She has all of her fingers in the video,” Kate told Max.

“It might have been taken before they . . .” He let his words die away, unable to finish his sentence. “He’s using her as bait. Trying to get us to leave. Just like he did with Lance, Crystal, and Dale.”

Kate remembered how that had worked out.

“You don’t know that they’ve hurt her,” Kate said. “You don’t know for sure those are her fingers.”

Max didn’t answer.

The fingers seemed to be a woman’s fingers, but Kate continued: “They could be anyone’s fingers. Maybe fingers taken from a dead person or a ripper. Or some other prisoner.”

Jo sighed heavily like she was about to deliver some bad news. “We can’t give them this store.”

Max turned to Jo, his eyes already glowering with rage. “I can’t lose her.”

“And I can’t lose everyone here,” Jo snapped, matching the ferocity of his stare.

“I think all of us need to rest,” Kate said. She touched Max’s arm, forcing his attention away from Jo and onto her. “I need to check on Brooke. Will you come with me?”

Max stared at her for a moment, the anger draining out of him suddenly. Now he looked exhausted, ready to collapse where he stood. His eyes were a soft, gentle brown again. He nodded without a word and got to his feet.

Kate left with Max. She felt Jo’s eyes on them as they walked away, Fernando and Tina’s eyes too. In the silence the rippers could still be heard outside the loading bay’s walls, somewhere out there beyond the fence.

Brooke and Tiger were outside the tent when Kate and Max walked up, the cat in her lap, purring and content. Brooke had her drawing tablet on the floor beside her, a pencil on top of it, a battery-powered lantern beside her. Rebecca and Patrick, the young boy she took care of, were a few tents down. Maybe the close proximity of others near the collection of tents made Brooke feel a little more comfortable, but she still looked scared.

“You okay?” Kate asked her.

“Where did you go? Did you go outside?”

For a moment Kate thought about lying to Brooke; it was a natural reaction to try to shield her from any more horrors than she needed to endure, but maybe lying to her wasn’t the best option. Brooke had seen enough horrors already, that was true, but she was going to see many more in the future. They all were. A chill ran through Kate as she thought about the wooden box that the drone had dropped off. What if it had been a bomb? She would be dead or dying right now. Max too. Brooke would be alone after that, on her own again. Of course Jo would be here. And the doc, Fernando, Tina, and the others, but Brooke would be traumatized again, starting over with new people who she would have to learn to trust, until those people died or got sick or were eaten by rippers, then it all started over again.

Kate shut off those thoughts. What good would it do to lie to Brooke? She would see right through it.

“There was a box delivered by a drone. You know what a drone is, right?”

Brooke nodded.

“The box had a cell phone inside with a video on it. Petra is on the video. The Dragon has her.”

This wasn’t news to Brooke, she already knew that, she’d seen it in her dreams, drawn it in her tablet.

“You didn’t see anything else in your dreams?” Max asked Brooke.

Brooke shook her head, glancing down for a moment like she’d done something wrong and was being scolded. “I don’t remember the dreams. When I dream . . . it’s like . . . like I don’t see anything.”

“Like your mind is blank?” Kate asked.

Brooke looked at Kate, a little life back in her blue eyes, the hint of a smile at one corner of her mouth. She nodded. “Yeah. Blank.”

“Like you’re zoning out,” Kate said.

“But you’re still remembering images from your dreams,” Max insisted.

Brooke shrugged.

Max gave up. “Well, if you remember anything from your dreams, anything about Petra or the Dragon, you’ll tell us, right? Petra needs our help. The Dragon has her, but we don’t know where they are.”

Brooke stared at Max and nodded. Tiger got up and sauntered over to his food bowl to nibble on the hard food.

“You should try to get a few hours of rest,” Kate told Max. “Maybe something will come to you in your dreams.”

“Like Hell Town?” he asked.

“Yeah, like Hell Town.”

“I’m sure that’s where they are. We just don’t know where the town is.” He was quiet for just a moment, all energy draining out of him again, exhaustion taking over. “I think you’re right. I need a few hours of sleep.”

Kate watched Max walk away toward his tent at the far side of their little neighborhood. She jumped to her feet and caught up to Max before he got to his tent.

He turned around, staring at her. “Come to tuck me in?”

“Promise me you’re not going to take off on your own in the middle of the night.”

Max smiled, but it was a lifeless smile. “I won’t.”

“We all need to stay together. If we all decide to stay here or decide to leave, we should do it together. At least the three of us.”

He nodded, the smile slipping away.

“Promise me,” she said again.

“I promise,” he whispered.

She still wasn’t sure she could believe him.

CHAPTER 39

Petra

Petra woke up on the bed, the blankets pulled up to her chin. She sat up, pushing the covers back. For just a second she was still trapped in her nightmare, forgetting for a moment where she was.

And then she remembered—she was locked in the basement under the Dragon’s home.

Something had torn her from sleep, from the sticky tendrils of the dream she’d been having, a dream she’d had before, the dream of being in the hospital bed. The hospital room felt so cold in the dream, like the basement. And dark like the basement. She’d heard Diego coming down the hall toward her room, walking slowly, knowing she had nowhere to run. But when Diego got to the door she knew it wasn’t him anymore. It had never been him. The Dragon was on the other side of her hospital room door, unlocking it, the locks sounding so loud in the silence.

And now she heard those same sounds: someone unlocking the door to the basement at the top of the stairs. She couldn’t see all of the stairs from the basement, the wall blocking most of them, only the landing and the last few steps visible. The basement was dark. She had the one battery-powered lantern down here, but she didn’t use it much, conserving the batteries. Who knew if she would get any more batteries for it? But it wasn’t as dark as before; daylight seeped in around the short, heavy curtains covering the small rectangular windows on the far wall.

Someone was coming down the steps.

Jacob? The Dragon?

It sounded like only one person.

The daylight from the stairwell splashed down to the bottom steps, a swath of light painted along the basement floor and then fading to darkness, the daylight barely illuminating the objects and furniture closest to the stairwell. Petra could barely make out the bookcase of books, the small table and two chairs, the cedar chest at the foot of her bed.

She was still fully dressed, her boots at the side of her bed. She whipped her legs out from under the blankets and shoved her feet into the boots, pulling up on the laces and tying them quickly. Whoever was on the steps was either taking his time or treading them very carefully; it gave her time to tie the laces of her hiking boots. Her feet felt like blocks of ice inside the shoes, her body so cold her joints felt rusty, but the now-flowing adrenaline was warming her up quickly.

The person on the steps was still taking their time, just slow and light footsteps.

And the tinkling of china plates and cups.

Food?

Petra’s stomach rumbled. She hadn’t realized she’d been so hungry until that moment. She stood up next to the bed, waiting for the person to come into view at the bottom of the steps. A moment later the woman descended the last few steps. She was young, dressed mostly in white, her blond hair pulled back with a white cloth tie. Her skin was pale, eyes big and nervous. She held a plastic tray with dishes on it in her bandaged hands, balancing them carefully—she was the woman who had served Petra the bowl of soup at last night’s dinner with the Dragon.

“I’ve got dinner for you,” the young woman said, her voice barely above a whisper. The door at the top of the stairs was still open, the daylight washing the woman in light like a glow from Heaven.

Petra was across the room in a flash, taking the tray from the woman and setting it down on the small table. “Thank you.”

The woman managed a small smile; it never touched her eyes. But it was more than that; her eyes looked empty, devoid of hope. She was ready to turn and leave, her job complete.

“Wait,” Petra whispered. “Your hands. What happened to them?”

The woman looked down at her hands wrapped in gauze, bandages, and tape. Dried blood crusted the ends of the bandages around her fingers. She was missing two of her fingers, the index one on her right hand and the middle one on her left hand, the dried blood heavier on the gauze and tape covering the nubs where her fingers used to be.

“Your fingers . . . two of them are gone.”

The woman’s face crumpled. She seemed like she was about to sob. “They took them,” she whispered.

“Why?”

“They didn’t tell me.”

The door at the top of the steps was still open. Was someone up there watching the door? Or did they trust that Petra wouldn’t dare escape because she had nowhere to run to. Even if she escaped the house, or even this hell town, where would she run to after that?

But the temptation of escape was still there. Were they tempting her with the open door?

“What’s your name?” Petra asked the woman.

“Audrey.”

“I need to get out of here, Audrey. Okay?”

Audrey just stared at Petra.

“I’m being held as a prisoner here. You know that, right?”

Audrey glanced at the stairs just behind her, the steps still washed in the muted afternoon daylight from above.

Was Audrey expected back upstairs by a certain time? Was she only allowed a few minutes down in the basement? Petra had a feeling she only had a few seconds to convince Audrey to help her, and if not convince her, then at least plant the seeds in her mind.

“You’re a prisoner here too, aren’t you?” Petra said. “All of you are. The Dragon pretends all of you are here willingly, and maybe a few of you are—his guards, Jacob, some of the Dark Angels—but I bet there are plenty of others who are not here willingly, frightened into staying here, into serving the Dragon.”

“I have to go. I’m sorry.”

“Look at your hands. Look what they’ve done to you already. You don’t think they’ll do worse? Your hands could get infected. You could get sick. You could die.”

Audrey looked down at her bandaged hands with dull eyes. Petra wondered if she was doped up or on some kind of painkillers, or maybe she was just stuck in the fog of unending shock.

“I have a place where we can go,” Petra whispered. “We have doctors there. Medicine. We’ve got food and water and guns. We can fight the Dragon and his Dark Angels. We’ve been fighting them all along. I just need to get back to them. You can come with me.”

“I need to get back up there.”

“Who’s up there? Jacob? Some of the Dragon’s guards? Dark Angels? How many are posted outside the door? Do you know a weak spot in the wall around this town?”

Audrey was getting flustered, on the verge of panic. “I have to go. Just leave your tray and dishes on the top step in front of the door when you’re done.”

Petra wanted to say more, wanted to grab Audrey and convince her somehow. But then Audrey was gone, rushing up the stairs. A few seconds later she was through the basement door, closing it, locking it.

“Shit,” Petra said, breathing the word out into the darkness. She walked over to the windows at the top of the wall and pulled the dark curtains back, letting a little of the gray afternoon light into the basement.

She went back to the small table and sat down in front of the tray of food. She found that she wasn’t as hungry as she’d been before, but she knew she still needed to eat. Dinner was some kind of stale sliced bread with a canned gravy and beef mixture ladled over it, a bowl of small Mandarin orange slices from a can, a cup of tepid coffee with some cream and sugar already added, and a bottle of water.

The food wasn’t warm and only getting colder. It tasted terrible but she forced it down. She still needed the calories and whatever nutrients the food provided.

She had eaten dinner with the Dragon last night. She’d eaten nothing today except the dinner Audrey just brought down. Maybe that meant that her dinner dates with the Dragon were over now. But she suspected the only reason she’d been up there last night at the dining room table was so Jacob could film her with the cell phone.

A ransom video. That’s surely what Jacob had been filming. They were going to send the cell phone back to the store somehow, try to get Jo and the others to leave the store for her. Petra wondered if the others were also being used as ransom. The Dragon had told her that the others were dead, but she wasn’t so sure that was true—he could be lying.

A horrifying thought came to her. Audrey’s fingers had been taken. Had they taken Audrey’s fingers and sent them along as a motivation for the others to leave the store? Maybe they were pretending the fingers were hers, or maybe the fingers were a sign of what they would (and could) do.

God, they had taken Audrey’s fingers. Not because they were injured or because she was being punished, they had taken them to send a message to Jo and the others at the store, demonstrating their power and cruelty. What would the Dragon do next?

Petra needed to get out of this basement whether she was going to get Audrey’s help or not.

CHAPTER 40

Ray

Ray had driven forty miles down the road before it began to snow again. Nothing like the blizzard they’d gone through yesterday, but enough to slow them down even more, making the driving conditions even more dangerous than they already were.

The farther south they drove the less snow there was on the ground. Ray guessed that the snowstorm had been smaller than he thought or that they’d just caught the edge of it at the gas station, or maybe it had moved diagonally and after ten or fifteen miles they had driven out of the path of snow it had dumped onto the world. Ray couldn’t be sure, all were equally good guesses. How could he know without a weather report, without satellite images, or an instant update on his cell phone? None of that was available anymore in this new hellish world. Now he drove blind, driving into another blizzard for all he knew.

But it wasn’t a blizzard so far, and the snowfall wasn’t that heavy, the snow barely sticking to the ground. It was probably warmer farther south, but it sure didn’t feel that much warmer with all the windows in the Jeep busted out and the freezing air rushing in. Ray had the heater blasting, but it wasn’t reaching the back very well. Josh had grabbed a blanket from one of the packs they had managed to save and covered all three of them with it in the back seat.

“We need to find a place to stay the night,” Ray said. “It would be dangerous enough to drive at night, but in this sleet and snow, it will be worse. We could slide off the road into a ditch. We could run over a piece of metal covered by the snow and flatten a tire. We could make a wrong turn and get stuck somewhere.”

“We get it,” Luke said.

They’d been driving down the back country road for miles now, the road twisting and turning through the hills and woods, only the occasional farm or house every mile or so. They had passed by the edge of a small town, but they’d kept far enough away from any rippers there. A few had spotted them and chased the Jeep, throwing rocks and screaming in rage. One of the rocks sailed through the open window and hit Josh in the side of his head, but the wound wasn’t that bad.

After they were past the town, the hills rose up and they were in the woods again, the stands of trees giving way to farms and small groups of trees and brush. Tiny ponds were frozen over. They had traversed two small bridges spanning streams, one of the streams down in a gorge full of boulders. They saw a few abandoned cars, and two abandoned box trucks, but not too many vehicles, and they hadn’t come across any blockages in the road so far. The road was even clearer in these backwoods.

“How’s the gas?” Luke asked.

“We could use some soon,” Ray said. He thought about the two five-gallon cans of gas they’d left behind in the back of the Dodge van at the gas station. The siphoning hose and hand pump were in the van too. Josh hadn’t had time to get to them; he’d barely had enough time to get himself and Emma out of the van and into the gas station store yesterday. They’d left so much behind, but there was no use lamenting over it now—all they could do was carry on.

“We could use a different vehicle,” Josh said.

“A semi-truck,” Mike suggested.

Josh looked across Emma at Mike. “A semi?”

Mike smiled. “Yeah. Then we could just drive right through the rippers. And knock any cars in the road out of our way.”

“You know, that’s not a bad idea,” Josh said. “A big truck. We could carry a lot of stuff in the back too.”

“Do you know how to drive one?” Luke asked Josh.

“No.” Josh looked at Mike. “What about you? Do you know how to drive a semi?”

“No,” Mike answered, still smiling. “But I could learn.”

“That’s the spirit. We could all learn.”

“One of those military vehicles the Dark Angels were driving in that town we were holed up in would be even better,” Luke said. “If we could just get one of those from them.”

Ray tuned their conversation out as he watched the curving road in front of him, glancing down dirt drives as he drove past them, checking out the occasional small farm or abandoned house, any place that looked safe enough to stay the night. The afternoon was turning dark quickly, the shadows lengthening, the air getting colder, the eastern horizon purplish with the coming night.

The woods thinned out and opened up to fields and homes, a few small businesses. If Ray remembered correctly, they were passing the border of another small town. He had mapped out a route that missed most of the towns, but it was impossible not to brush by some of them, and this was one of those instances. But, even though it was more dangerous, it would also give them more opportunities to find somewhere to stay the night.

They passed a gas station and store with abandoned vehicles in the parking area, a few cars parked by the pumps with their car doors open. They drove past a veterinarian’s office, a small diner with the door halfway open. More homes, a few more small farms in the distance dotting the rolling hills.

The buildings and homes were thinning out a little more, the woods getting thicker again. Ray needed to find somewhere to stop soon before they were past the edge of this small town.

“Hey,” Luke said. “Up there on the right. What about that? Might solve both of our problems.”

Ray saw what Luke was talking about, a small used car lot next door to a place that sold wooden sheds that had been “built to suit any needs.” The two entrances to the car lot were blocked with two cars each, parked nose to nose with each other, like the owner of the lot had barricaded his business at the beginning of the Collapse.

Could the owner still be there? Or someone else?

Ray slowed the Jeep down, pulling over onto the shoulder of the road right next to the first driveway that led up to the two vehicles blocking the way onto the small car lot. A row of cars and trucks formed a line between the two driveways, the fronts of them facing the road, a few with signs inside their windshields that read: No Money Down!; First Two Months Free!; Bad Credit, No Problem! A doublewide trailer sat beyond the car lot.

The snow began to fall a little heavier as they parked, the snow sticking to the ground now, collecting on the cars, just a light dusting so far, but it could be blankets of snow by the morning. Snow swirled in the air in front of the windshield in the darkening world.

“What do you think?” Ray asked.

“We haven’t seen that many rippers around here,” Luke said. “Especially with all these buildings around.”

“Doesn’t mean they’re not around,” Josh said.

“I think we should check it out,” Luke said. “We go down the road, we might not find much else for a while.”

Ray turned off the Jeep. With the windows broken out they could hear if any rippers were around. If any of the rippers had heard their Jeep, they would come running from the woods.

Silence. No sounds except for the freezing wind rustling the dead leaves of the trees and the forest floor, tree branches blowing back and forth, snow drifting along the street.

“We should all go in there together and check it out,” Luke said. “Probably won’t be safe leaving Josh, Emma, and Mike by themselves out here in the Jeep.”

Ray didn’t like the idea of them all going together in case someone was waiting inside, but Luke was right—leaving them out in the Jeep and splitting up might be worse. If rippers came at them from the woods Josh was only going to get so many shots off with his shotgun, and the blasts would bring more rippers.

“Okay,” Ray said. “I don’t hear any rippers right now.”

Luke nodded in agreement. “Look at the cars and that trailer. None of the windows are busted out.”

Ray noticed it now. The front door of the trailer looked closed, not busted in like so many other front doors they’d seen. “What do you think? The owner might still be in there?”

“Maybe he was during the Collapse,” Josh said. “Then he left. I mean, unless there’s a lot of food and water in that trailer, how long could he have survived here?”

“What about these cars and trucks?” Luke asked, turning around to look at Josh in the back seat.

“Should start,” Josh said. “Batteries shouldn’t be too drained.”

“Okay,” Ray said. “It’s getting dark quick. This is the place for the night.”

“Looks good to me,” Luke said. “I don’t know what other choices we—”

“Listen,” Emma said, cutting off Luke’s words. “You hear that?”

They were silent for a moment, then Ray heard it: a ripper calling. It sounded like it had come from somewhere in the woods across the street. Another scream, then a woman’s scream, an eerie sound echoing from the woods.

“They’re getting pretty close,” Luke whispered. He looked back at Emma.

She nodded like she knew he was looking at her. “Yeah. Close. Coming this way.”

“Maybe we should check out another place,” Josh said. “A trailer might not be the sturdiest place to hole up for the night.”

Ray didn’t really want to drive too much farther in the dusk, but he had no idea how many rippers were out there in the woods or down the street. At least the rippers’ calls and screams hadn’t come from the trailer or anywhere on the car lot or from the shed business next door.

“Maybe he’s right,” Luke told Ray. “Maybe we should check somewhere else.” He didn’t look happy about the idea of driving in the dark any more than Ray did.

Ray twisted the key to start the Jeep. The motor tried to turn, making a weak whirring sound. And then the engine died.

CHAPTER 41

Ray

“No,” Ray whispered, twisting the key again and again. The engine didn’t even try to start—it only made a clicking noise.

“It’s dead,” Josh said impatiently.

Ray twisted the key again, hoping like hell Josh might be wrong.

“We’ve got another battery,” Mike said, panic in his voice.

“Not enough time to change it,” Josh said.

The rippers were getting closer, their yells and screams louder. It sounded like there were quite a few of them in the woods across the street.

“Let’s get inside that trailer,” Luke said. “We need to go now.”

They were all out of the Jeep at the same time, Josh helping Emma out. She had her cane, tapping it in front of her. Josh grabbed the ammo box and his shotgun. Mike grabbed one of the packs and the wadded-up blanket, Ray grabbed another duffel bag, and Luke picked up the M-16 and the smallest of the packs, slinging it over his shoulder. They hurried around the rear of the two cars parked nose to nose, blocking the entrance to the car lot. They ran past the lines of cars to the next line of cars, closer to the trailer.

Almost there, Ray thought. Please let the trailer be unlocked.

Rippers yelled. The woman’s scream from the woods pierced the night, a lonely and gut-wrenching sound. Ray thought it sounded purposeful, not like the woman was in pain, but more like she was belting out some kind of siren or war cry.

Luke turned as he ran, the M-16 tucked close to his side, his finger on the trigger, aiming it toward the woods across the street, ready to shoot if an army of rippers came rushing toward them through the swirling snow.

Ray got to the trailer door first. Mike was right behind him, the blanket balled up under his right arm; he hadn’t let an inch of the blanket touch the wet ground.

Please be unlocked. Let us have at least one break.

He grabbed the doorknob and twisted. It turned easily. As soon as he pulled the door open he thought of their earlier conversation about someone being inside, perhaps the owner of the car lot, or someone else who was staying in the trailer, a gun aimed at the door.

It was too late to worry about that now—the door was all the way open. If anyone was inside and they were going to shoot, they would hit Ray first. And he didn’t bother calling out a hello as he stepped inside.

The trailer smelled stale, but at least there wasn’t the all-too-familiar scent of rot and decay. That was one good thing.

It was darker inside the trailer than it was outside, and it took a moment for Ray’s eyes to adjust, but he was beginning to make out big blocks of objects in the blackness: a desk to the right, another possible desk farther to the left, a lighter rectangle across the room that must be a window with a blind pulled down.

Ray moved to the center of the large room. Mike was right behind him. Luke waited outside while Josh helped Emma up the steps to the door. She mostly navigated her way on her own, Josh only helping a little, a whisper here and a guiding hand there.

After Josh and Emma were inside the trailer, Luke darted up the steps silently. He closed the door softly, locking it. He hurried to the window near the door that looked onto the car lot. He pried the plastic blinds apart, peering through them.

“Did they see us?” Emma asked.

“I don’t know,” Luke answered.

Ray heard the yells and calls of the rippers outside, but he couldn’t tell if they were any closer or if they were moving away. The woman’s scream sounded again—a long, high-pitched cry that seemed to rise higher then lower. It was a strange sound that raised goose pimples on his skin.

It was a little easier to see inside the trailer with the last bit of light from the dying day coming in through the blinds, but in a few minutes it would be pitch-black inside. This was Ray’s chance to look around the trailer and see what they were working with. His mind automatically went to a list. The first order of business was to check the windows and a back door, if there was one. The second order was to find where the car lot owner kept the keys to the vehicles outside. He hoped to God they weren’t in some kind of safe.

“I don’t see our tracks in the snow,” Luke said in a low voice. “It’s not cold enough yet for the snow to really stick to the ground. It will be cold enough soon, though.”

“Maybe they won’t follow us,” Mike said.

Ray was sure the rippers would be drawn to this trailer. They had gotten into most of the buildings Ray had seen so far, why would this trailer be any different?

Ray moved toward the desk that was farther away. A doorway and a tall filing cabinet were at the other end of the room. The doorway led to a short hall with a bathroom off to one side and a closet on the other, and then a back door that led outside. He checked the door; it was still locked, but it didn’t seem that sturdy.

The short hall ended at a bedroom.

Someone used to live here? The owner? A night watchman?

Ray didn’t know, didn’t care. He checked the closet in the bedroom and then the drawers in the small dresser, sifting through contents in the fading light. Maybe the owner had stayed here, had tried to protect his property as the world ended, but in the end he had left. There didn’t seem to be any signs of violence, so maybe the person hadn’t turned into a ripper. Maybe he had just gotten into his car or truck and drove away.

To where?

Who knew? Ray would never know. The main thing was that the doors and windows were locked and secure. Well, as secure as a trailer could be, anyway.

Now to find the keys.

“Bedroom back there,” Ray announced as he went back to the main office area. “Back door too. Door’s locked. Windows are shut and locked.” He looked at Luke still crouched down in front of the window. “Any rippers out there?”

“I don’t see any,” Luke said without looking away from the window. “I still hear them out there, though.”

Ray heard them too. He went to the desk closer to the door, but then stopped when he saw the large metal box attached to the wall. He pulled on the door. It was locked. There was a slot for a key. He rushed over to the desk, looking through the drawers. He found two keys on a large ring in the top drawer. He tried the key in the metal door and it worked. He pulled the door open and saw the rows of keys hanging from hooks with little white tags attached to them, labeling them.

One good break, but only if those vehicles out there were going to start after sitting in the cold for the last few weeks.

He took a deep breath. They were safe for the moment; they were inside some kind of shelter, even though this wasn’t the most formidable structure. But at least it was a little warmer inside than out there in the cold wind and sleet. They had their packs with them, the meager amount of food and supplies and ammo that they had managed to save from the Jeep and the van.

What next?

They just needed to get through the night. Just make it until morning and they could drive right out of here.

“Shit,” Luke breathed out, still peeking out through the blinds. “Here they come.”

CHAPTER 42

Luke

Luke saw the first rippers come out of the woods across the street from the used car dealership. There were three of them. They all looked like men, all three of them wearing torn and ragged clothing, all of them carrying some kind of weapons: two had sticks or maybe metal pipes (it was hard to tell in the dark) and the other one carried a long knife. They hurried across the road to the Jeep, drawn to it. Two of the rippers (the ones with the sticks) looked through the broken windows while the one with the knife stood in front of the Jeep; he laid a hand on the hood, feeling the warmth from it. Even from the trailer Luke thought he saw an expression of recognition on the ripper’s face, like he was struggling to remember something, a memory just out of his reach. His arm was thin, a few loose strands of his shirt fluttering in the cold wind, his scraggily hair blowing around, his teeth white among his facial hair and the dark stains on his face. He seemed young; all three of the rippers did. Maybe they were part of the larger group in the woods, a smaller recon team for them. The rippers in the woods were still making their noises, including the woman with her long, wailing screams. But none of them were coming this way yet and joining the three-man scout team.

Watching the rippers out the window reminded Luke of being at the safe house with Wilma for a few days before they headed south on the dirt bikes to the Ohio River. He had spent hours staring out the window of the safe house, watching the small band of rippers that remained among the houses that lined the small street off of that rural county road. The rippers knew he and Wilma were inside the safe house. They knew Wilma’s brother and the other two had left the house on their dirt bikes. But instead of leaving to search for more food, the rippers had stayed around the safe house, watching and waiting for an opportunity to get to them.

During those few days of watching the rippers Luke had discovered a few things about them. He discovered that they were least active just before dawn and about an hour or two after dawn. But not totally inactive—there were always some rippers roaming around at all times of the day or night. He also realized that there seemed to be some kind of organization among their group, like a pack of wolves led by an alpha. It also seemed like the rippers communicated in their own way through grunts, screeches, and hand gestures. And the cold didn’t seem to bother them as much as it should. Luke knew he hadn’t been imagining those things. The man Josh had stayed with in the attic—Isaac—he had figured out the same things.

The memories of the safe house led to memories of Wilma, and he didn’t want to think about her, but at the same time he did. He wished he could see her in his dreams again, but other than the night in the cell where she had come to him, he hadn’t seen her. He’d wanted to ask Emma about it, but he was afraid she wouldn’t have any answers for him.

“What are they doing?” Josh asked.

“They’re around the Jeep.”

“How many?” Ray whispered.

“Three.”

“There are more than that out there,” Josh said.

“Yeah, but I only see three right now. They’re looking in the Jeep. One of them is touching the hood. Feeling the heat.”

“They know we were just in that Jeep,” Josh said.

“Are they coming this way?” Ray asked.

“Not yet. One of them is inside the Jeep. Looking through it.”

“What are we going to do?” Mike asked.

“We’ll just hang tight,” Ray answered. “Be as quiet as we can. There’s a back door if we need it. But only if we really need to run.”

Luke could imagine all of them rushing out the back door to the fence at the back of the car lot, trying to climb over it in the darkness, trying to get into the woods beyond the fence as a horde of rippers came like a rushing tide from the ocean. Luke would shoot as many rippers as he could, but he couldn’t see them surviving the attack.

The ripper at the front of the Jeep seemed to come out of his daze, suddenly energized like the heat from the Jeep had thawed him out from the cold. He looked around, his eyes clear now. He looked at the line of used cars and trucks for sale. He looked at the two vehicles blocking the entrance into the car lot, then right at the trailer, seemingly right at the window Luke was in front of, like he was locking eyes with him.

The other two rippers stopped searching through the Jeep, almost like the other ripper had commanded them to. Maybe he’d made a subtle noise to them that Luke hadn’t heard from inside the trailer.

“They’re coming this way,” Luke said.

“Shit,” Josh breathed out. Luke heard him getting his shotgun ready.

Mike breathed in sharply, but he didn’t say anything.

One of the rippers with a metal pipe smashed out the window of the car closest to him.

“What the hell?” Josh said.

“They’re smashing out windows in a few of the cars. But they’re still coming this way.”

“They’re going to get in here easily,” Ray said. “All the noise they’re making, it’s going to draw the other rippers from the woods.”

Luke nodded—that was true.

“I think we should just let them in,” Ray said.

This time Luke turned around and looked at Ray; he could barely make him and the others out in the darkness of the trailer.

“We unlock the door,” Ray explained. “We open it. Let it slowly swing open. Then you wait,” he told Luke. “You hide back here against the wall. We wait until all three are inside, and then I turn on the flashlight and you shoot them. Your gun won’t make a loud sound. Maybe it won’t draw other rippers.”

Luke didn’t say anything. He looked back out the window. The three rippers were halfway to the trailer now, not running . . . taking their time, almost like they knew their prey was trapped inside the trailer. Ray’s plan sounded okay to him; he couldn’t think of anything else to do.

“Come on,” Ray told Mike and Emma. “Let’s get you two in the hallway.”

“I’ll take them,” Josh said.

Luke hurried to the door of the trailer, moving silently through the darkness. But why be quiet now? The rippers knew they were in here. Maybe they’d been in the woods and had seen them run to the trailer, or maybe (and this might be worse) the leader of the three rippers had figured out from the heat of the Jeep’s engine that they were around the car lot somewhere and ha deduced that the trailer was the most likely place to hide.

The three rippers weren’t calling out to the other rippers nearby, the ones making the calls from the woods, the woman belting out her high-pitched scream every so often. Maybe they wanted to be sure before they called the rest of them, but Luke thought the more likely answer was that the three of them were saving the prey for themselves—they were starving and keeping the meat from the others.

Luke unlocked the door and twisted the doorknob to open it. He would have to hurry back to the other side of the room, back to where the desk would block their view of him. He’d have to wait until all three came in or they would call the other rippers as they ran back to the woods.

He had no way of knowing where the rippers were, if they had already started running and were right on the other side of the door. He didn’t know where Ray and Josh were posted, if they were backing him up with their own guns.

The rippers were coming fast now; he could hear them. They were running. But they weren’t screaming; they were silent, not calling the others just yet.

Luke darted back to the wall and crouched down, leaning over the desk to support his arms as he aimed his gun at the doorway.

The door of the trailer slowly swung open, revealing a lighter patch of darkness compared to the inside of the trailer. And then, framed in the doorway, was one of the rippers.

Even if Luke hadn’t seen the ripper, he would know it was a ripper by the stench, a combination of rotting meat and filth drifting inside . . . the smell of death.

But only one of the rippers was coming in through the door, and he was cautious, not rushing in blindly like rippers usually would.

Come on. Come on inside. I need all three of you in here.

The ripper stood silhouetted in the open doorway for a moment, a thin body that was all ropy muscle and bone. Tattered, soiled clothing and long hair fluttered in the cold wind. He wore shoes. He held a metal pipe gripped in one hand. He sniffed at the air, hesitating in the doorway, a low growling noise coming from his throat. He reminded Luke of a cat cautiously entering a room, checking out the surroundings carefully before committing himself.

They’re changing, getting smarter. Adapting. Evolving.

Luke didn’t move a muscle as he aimed his gun at the ripper. He hoped he looked like part of the furniture, but if the ripper waited long enough for his eyes to adjust to the interior of the trailer he would spot him behind the desk. Luke was going to have to make a decision to shoot.

“Hey,” Ray whispered from the other side of the room, near the hallway. “Hey, stinky.”

The ripper turned to Ray, searching the darkness for the source of the voice.

“Come on, stinky. Over here.”

The ripper took a step toward Ray, raising his pipe up a little, the growl louder in his throat.

“That’s it,” Ray cooed, still whispering. “You can do it. Keep coming.”

Luke heard the shudder in Ray’s voice, and he was sure the ripper could hear the fear in Ray’s voice too. Maybe Ray wanted his voice to tremble, or maybe he was just scared shitless.

The ripper took another step deeper into the trailer, another step closer to Ray. He was near the window where Luke had peeked through the blinds only seconds ago.

The next ripper climbed the steps and entered the trailer. This one also had a metal bar, but now that he was closer Luke saw that it was some kind of crow bar. This ripper was just as skeletal as the first one, with similar ripped clothing and scraggly hair that was shorter and matted with dirt.

Where was the third one? Luke couldn’t see him outside beyond the second ripper. Why were they entering the trailer so cautiously? Why one at a time? Was the third one going around to the back of the trailer, waiting by the back door while the first two flushed the prey out? Were they that smart now, or had they just instinctually learned these tactics? Or were there some reasoning capabilities still left over from their former selves, their human brains?

They were still human—somewhere deep down underneath these monstrous faces, they were still human.

“Keep coming, stinky,” Ray whispered.

Luke didn’t know where Ray was whispering from. He hoped Ray wasn’t going to panic and shoot at the two rippers; he also hoped Josh wouldn’t shoot. Yeah, Ray and Josh might kill the rippers in the trailer, but the gunshots would echo for miles, bringing the other rippers from the woods.

“Come on, motherfucker,” Ray said, his voice lower, angrier, but the fear was still there.

Luke kept his gun aimed at the first ripper, but his eyes darted back to the second ripper, and then to the doorway, searching the night beyond the door for the third ripper.

The two rippers moved closer, both growling. The stench inside the trailer was nearly unbearable, almost making Luke’s eyes water.

The rippers were getting closer to where Ray was, both still moving slowly, both still tense, but both ready to explode with movement at any moment.

“Luke,” Ray hissed. “Now.”

“Not yet.”

Luke watched the doorway, his eyes darting back and forth. The snow blew in through the doorway, big wet flakes melting immediately when they hit the threshold.

Where was he? Luke couldn’t let the third ripper get away, couldn’t let him alert the rest of the horde.

“Now,” Ray yelled. A flashlight beam lit up the inside of the trailer.

Luke had been watching the doorway, waiting to catch a glimpse of the third ripper, the leader of this trio, his arms tense, his muscles twitchy, ready to shoot. But it was too late for that. Maybe Ray had panicked and turned on his flashlight, spotlighting the rippers. The light had taken the two rippers by surprise, freezing them for half a second. Luke pulled the trigger twice.

Spit. Spit.

The two head shots dropped the rippers to the trailer floor with a loud crash. Was the crashing sound loud enough to carry all the way to the woods?

He didn’t have time to think about that. He was around the desk in a flash and to the doorway, looking for the third ripper. An explosion of dread blossomed in his stomach as soon as he ran through the doorway.

I screwed up.

He felt the pain in his leg as soon as his foot hit the top step. He should have known where the third ripper was just from the smell. He should have known what the ripper had been planning. He should have guessed that the ripper would be crouched down by the steps waiting for one of them to flee, waiting to stab and slice with his knife.

CHAPTER 43

Josh

Luke was down, stabbed by the third ripper.

Was Luke dead? Dying? Where had he been stabbed?

Luke had cried out, a startlingly loud sound. Would his yell, perhaps a foreign sound to the rippers, bring them now? Would they immediately know the cry of anguish and surprise from possible prey?

Everything had happened so fast. Josh had waited behind Ray at the beginning of the hallway with his shotgun in his hands. Mike and Emma were farther down the hall. Ray had coaxed two of the rippers inside the trailer while Luke waited for the third one to enter. But the third one hadn’t entered; he had waited outside the door for one of them to escape. Almost like they were purposely splitting up and dividing their forces.

They’re getting smarter. Isaac’s voice echoed in Josh’s mind, the voice of a ghost who had figured out that whatever this plague was, it had fundamentally changed most human brains, shutting off parts of their brains that made them human, but perhaps also strengthening parts of the brain that made us all animals. And Isaac had thought the rippers were evolving, adapting, still basically animals, but smart and instinctual animals. These weren’t brainless zombies rushing in now; they were more intelligent, more organized, even though their desperation for food could impair their decisions.

Ray had had no choice but to shine the flashlight on the two rippers in the trailer—they’d gotten too close. Luke had killed the two rippers in less than two seconds, then he had bolted out the trailer door where the third one was waiting for him.

Josh ran to the trailer door. He knew he shouldn’t use his shotgun unless he absolutely needed to, and he figured this was definitely one of those situations.

Luke was sprawled down on the wet ground, snow swirling in the air. The ripper that had stabbed him had backed away, but he was rushing at Luke again, screeching now, his knife up and ready to stab down at Luke.

Luke had lost his gun in the fall down the steps to the ground. Maybe he’d dropped it so he could break his fall, or maybe the ripper had knocked it away. Josh couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t think about that right now, his mind went blank as he aimed his shotgun at the attacking ripper, the world seeming to slow down. Josh’s body seemed to move on its own at lightning speed, his movements a stark contrast to the slowed world. It seemed like he could see better now out here in the dark after being in the trailer for the last five minutes; the ripper seemed so defined in the moonlight, the blade of his knife a silver streak in the air.

Josh pulled the trigger, absorbing the recoil from the shotgun. The blast knocked the ripper back, part of his head and shoulder erased in a spray of blood that looked black in the moonlight. The sound of the shotgun was deafening, the echo of it rolling down through the trees and hills like a crack of thunder.

“That’s gonna bring them,” Luke yelled from the ground.

“That ripper’s screams were going to bring them, anyway,” he argued back.

Ray was out the door, crouching down beside Luke, helping him up into a sitting position.

“You’re welcome, by the way,” Josh said. “For, you know, saving your life. Again.”

Mike was at the door behind Josh. Emma was with him.

“We gotta go,” Luke said. “This trailer isn’t going to keep those rippers out.”

Josh could hear the rippers coming now. It sounded like a stampede from the woods, the woman’s high-pitched scream urging them on, a scream that seemed to last forever.

“Mike,” Ray said. “Remember where all the keys are in that metal box on the wall? Grab a bunch of those keys.”

Josh knew what Ray was thinking: they had to take one of those vehicles in the car lot and get out of here. It was their only chance. While Mike went for the keys, Josh helped Emma down the slick trailer steps.

Ray had Luke up to his feet. “Can you walk?”

“I’m going to sure as hell try.”

“The packs,” Emma said, turning in Josh’s arms. “We need them. We’ve got some medical supplies in one of them. We’ll need those to help Luke.”

“Okay. You go with Ray and Luke. I’ll be right back.”

Josh ran back inside the trailer while Mike darted back out with a handful of keys. The packs were in the hallway, all of them lumped together. He picked up the M-16 and slung the strap over his shoulder and then grabbed the ammo box and tucked it under his arm. He grabbed the other three packs, barely able to hold them all along with his shotgun, but he managed.

When he got out of the trailer, Ray already had Luke, Emma, and Mike by the line of cars facing the street. Luke limped along, leaving behind dark wet spots on the snowy pavement from the wound in his leg; he was bleeding pretty good, but not as bad as it could have been. Maybe his injury was similar to Josh’s when the old woman had sliced his forearm open.

The rippers were coming, the trees and brush rattling with their movements. They were only minutes away now, maybe even seconds from exploding out of the trees across the street. How many? Dozens? Hundreds?

Josh handed one of the packs to Mike so he’d be able to use his shotgun if he had to drop the other packs. Luke had his pistol in his hand, and even with an injured leg he would probably be able to take quite a few of them out. But Josh didn’t really want to test that theory.

Ray pushed the buttons on the key fobs, the lights of cars and trucks lighting up, some of them making little beeping sounds, doors unlocking.

“That one,” Luke said, nodding at a van two cars away.

Ray rushed to the back of the van and lifted the hatch. Interior lights came on, blazing in the darkness.

“We need to make sure it’s going to start,” Ray said, opening the driver’s door and sitting down inside, stabbing the key into the ignition.

Josh didn’t wait; he threw his two packs, ammo box, and the M-16 into the back. If this truck wasn’t going to start, they might not have enough time to find the next one before the rippers got there.

This was it, their only chance.

Mike followed Josh’s actions and threw his pack into the back with the others.

The van started, the engine quiet, barely heard over the approaching mob of rippers.

“Let’s go!” Ray yelled from the open driver’s door.

Josh helped Emma as Mike crawled into the back and over the back seat. Josh closed the back hatch as Luke hobbled to the passenger door. Josh slid the side door open and helped Emma inside, practically shoving her in, but she was doing well enough on her own. Josh got in and slid the door shut as Ray shifted the van into drive and stomped on the gas. Josh just got down into the seat as the van lurched forward, driving down into a ditch that separated the car lot from the road.

The ditch was deeper than it looked, and for just a moment the van got hung up as it tried to climb the other side up onto the road, tires spinning in the icy grass.

Rocks pelted the truck, one of them cracking the windshield. Rippers were running out from the woods onto the road, roaring with rage.

Ray punched the gas, the motor revving. Clumps of frozen dirt clattered against the undercarriage of the van as the back tires kept spinning.

“Get us out of here,” Luke growled.

“I’m trying,” Ray said,

More rocks bounced off the front of the van, the first wave of the rippers’ attack. But the second wave was coming, only seconds away.

Suddenly the van drove up out of the ditch, the motor revving even harder, the van sliding on the wet road. Ray turned on the headlights, illuminating the wall of rippers coming toward them, more of them rushing out from the trees down the street. He turned the steering wheel sharply to the right but kept his foot down on the gas pedal, the rear of the van still sliding.

Emma grabbed on to Josh. Mike was in the back, his hands cupped over the back of the seat, holding on as best he could.

Ray struck one of the rippers, knocking him out of the way, the stick he’d been carrying bouncing off of the van’s hood. More rippers jumped in front of the van as it sped up, trying to bog it down, but Ray kept the gas pedal down, mowing them down, their faces a blur, their hair flying, clothes whipping past the headlights, all of it happening so fast.

They were driving faster as more rocks pummeled the side of the van, rippers at the edge of the woods throwing more of them. One rock shattered the rear window.

“You okay, Mike?” Josh asked, turning around to the back.

Mike was hunched down, his hands protecting his head. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m okay.”

Why can’t we keep a rear window in any vehicle we drive? Josh asked himself. He held on to Emma, her hands clutching at him as they drove faster down the street, speeding away from the mob of rippers.

CHAPTER 44

Ray

Ray assessed the damage to the van as he drove farther away from the horde of rippers that had come from the woods across the street from the used car lot. One of the headlights was busted, but the other one was still working; none of the tires seemed to be flat, the engine seemed okay, the temperature readings still good. Everything seemed to be okay. They had a little over half a tank of gas and only one window had been shattered. More importantly Mike was okay in the back. They were all alive and okay, except for Luke—he was still bleeding pretty bad, holding onto his leg and clenching his teeth.

“We need to find somewhere to stop,” Emma said from the back seat. “You need to look at Luke’s leg.”

Ray didn’t respond. He knew they needed to stop; he was trying to spot a place in the darkness while also keeping an eye on the road ahead of them that was illuminated only by their one headlight.

“Mike, Josh,” Ray said. “Help me look for a place.”

Anywhere they went rippers would hear them if they were close by, they would see the headlight of their van like a lighthouse in the darkness, a beacon calling them forth.

“You check that side of the road, buddy,” Josh told Mike. “I’ll check this side.”

Mike didn’t answer. Maybe he had nodded at Josh.

Can’t hear your head rattle, Ray thought. What a weird thought, a phrase he’d never used before. Maybe Emma had said it once, but he couldn’t remember when.

He glanced at Luke in the passenger seat. His eyes were closed. Maybe he was just resting. Hopefully he hadn’t passed out yet.

“What about that place?” Mike said.

Ray slowed down a little. “Where?”

“Back that way. I think it was a house.”

A building might be safer than a house, but Ray figured a house was better than a trailer. And there wasn’t much on this lonely road—they couldn’t be too choosey right now. Anything was better than staying somewhere in the van out in the open.

They were going to have to try the house Mike had seen. Luke needed some kind of medical attention soon. They had driven several miles, almost ten. Was it far enough away from the horde of rippers back at the car lot? Would the rippers eventually catch up to them by morning if they kept on the move through the night? Would the group be that purposeful?

Maybe they would just stay a few hours in the house, until an hour before dawn, enough time to look at Luke’s leg, eat and drink a little, reload their weapons, rest a bit, and then get back on the road.

Ray came to a stop and then turned the van around, driving back down the road slowly, his headlight off now. He saw the driveway meeting the street, a knocked-over mailbox lying in the brown weeds, dusted with a light layer of snow. Maybe this house had been abandoned long before the Collapse. He could only hope so.

He pulled into the driveway, the tires crunching slowly over dirt and gravel. He stopped a few feet down the driveway and rolled down his window, listening for a moment. The van’s motor was a lot quieter than the Jeep’s had been. He stared out through the cracked windshield at the shape of the house in the distance, the roof a sharp black triangle above the tree tops to the right of the driveway. There were no lights on in the house, no sounds coming from it.

And there were no sounds of rippers. No calls or screeches in the distance, just the slight rustle of dry, frozen brush as the wind sliced through them.

Ray shifted into drive again, letting the van creep forward. He kept the headlight off and kept his window rolled down. The heat blasted from the dashboard vents. He could just make out the driveway and withered vegetation at the edges of it in the moonlight. There was some kind of field of dormant grasses and weeds to the right, maybe part of a front yard at some point in the past. Brush and a few trees were to the left, the woods denser only a few hundred yards away.

It was taking a while to get down the long driveway to the house, but Ray let the van idle down the dirt drive, up and down slight rises and dips in the land, a slow curve to the driveway, rounding back to the house, which was at least one hundred and fifty yards off of the small country road they’d been driving. It was amazing that Mike had even spotted the home. They might have driven another five or ten miles before seeing another building. He needed to tell Mike that he’d done a good job; he needed to remember to do that.

Ray didn’t know how bad Luke’s injuries were: he could be losing a lot of blood, or it could get infected like Josh’s arm had. They had probably come close to cutting Josh’s arm off. If Josh hadn’t found the hidden bunker behind the basement wall at Doug’s cabin with the stock of antibiotics and other medical supplies, it might have come to that to save his life.

Did they still have antibiotics in one of the packs in the back of the van? God, he hoped so. He wasn’t sure which pack the medical supplies had been in, if they still had that pack or if it was back at the gas station, still buried somewhere in the snow. He had packed the bags while waiting down in the bunker, but that seemed like a million years ago, and he couldn’t remember which bag he had put which supplies in.

If the worst was coming, if Luke was going to become incapacitated, or even worse, dead, then Ray was going to need Mike to assume more of a role with them. He’d been too soft with Mike so far, too protective of him. But he couldn’t help wanting to protect him, wanting to shield him from these horrors as much as possible. Luke had done the right thing showing Mike some of his MMA moves, teaching him a little about the guns. Josh was also right about wanting to teach Mike how to drive. Ray thought if something happened to him, or the rest of them, and if Mike was on his own, the worst thing would be for him not to be prepared, to not have knowledge of these basic skills that were so important now. Just thinking about it brought on a wave of panic, the thought of Mike alone and unprepared.

Ray tried to shake off those thoughts, forcing himself to concentrate on the house they were slowly approaching, the deeper shadows of the trees and the house swallowing them up.

Luke was still passed out, so if there were rippers around he wasn’t going to be able to pick them off like usual; it would be up to him and Josh.

Ray parked the van next to the house, hiding in the shadows the house painted along the ground in the moonlight. He had turned the van around so that it was pointed back at the driveway, ready for a quick escape if they needed it.

“We home yet?” Luke mumbled.

Ray stared at Luke in the darkness; there was just enough moonlight shining down through the clearing clouds for Ray to see him crack a smile.

“You’re awake?”

“Just resting a minute,” he answered.

“Don’t drift off right now,” Ray said. “You need to stay awake. We’re at a house Mike saw from the road. Josh and I are going in there to check it out. And I need you awake out here for a few more minutes.”

Luke didn’t answer, but he nodded.

Ray looked at Josh in the back seat. “I might need some of your B & E skills.”

“What’s B & E?” Mike asked.

“Bacon and eggs,” Josh said.

“Come on,” Mike said.

“Your dad wants me to help him gain access to an abode,” Josh said.

Mike nodded like he understood.

“I’ll watch over them,” Luke said, sitting up a little straighter in the passenger seat, wincing as he moved. He had his gun in his gloved hand, resting it on his lap.

“Okay,” Ray said. “We’ll be back as fast as we can. Keys are in the ignition if you need them.”

Luke nodded, breathing heavily, his eyes half-closed.

Ray opened the door as quietly as he could, stepping out and shutting the door softly, pushing his bodyweight against it until he heard it click. The interior lights had come on when he’d opened the door, but maybe the part of the house and the trees around it hid the light from the road.

He met Josh at the other side of the van. “You ready?”

Josh nodded. “Let’s see what we’ve got in there.”

They crept to the house. It looked dilapidated, ready to fall apart. Maybe it had been abandoned for a while now. Déjà vu washed over Ray as they approached the door hidden in the shadows of the front porch; this place reminded him of the house they had stayed the night in not so long after meeting Josh, when Josh had picked the lock on the door with a screwdriver in less than thirty seconds. He’d told Emma that night what Josh had done, that Josh obviously had a criminal past. But she’d said that they needed him, that they all needed each other, that they were all meant to be together.

Maybe she was right. Maybe they needed to be together. And that meant that they had to save Luke. They needed him.

Josh checked the doorknob on the front door, twisting it, then letting it go. He looked back at Ray, whispering: “It’s unlocked.”

Two unlocked doors in one day? Maybe their luck was finally changing.

Ray pulled his flashlight out of his jacket pocket, turning it on but covering most of the end of it with his hand. Josh was right beside him with the shotgun in his hands.

When they were inside the house, Ray shut the door. He took his hand off the flashlight, sweeping the beam of light around the living room. There was very little furniture, and a lot of trash and old wood along the floors. One wall was torn apart, but the floor looked pretty solid. The place had been abandoned for a while, just like Ray had suspected.

“You want to check the rest of the house?” Josh whispered.

“I think it’s clear,” Ray answered. “We need to get Luke in here quick.”

Josh nodded in agreement.

They had walked through the living room toward darker areas of the kitchen and another room that had probably been a family room or a dining room. A set of stairs off to the right ascended up into the air, disappearing in the darkness. Ray and Josh turned around, about to head for the front door at the far end of the room.

A clicking noise stopped them in their tracks, the unmistakable sound of a handgun being cocked.

“Don’t move a muscle,” a man said from behind them.

CHAPTER 45

Ray

Ray froze. He still had his flashlight in his hand, the beam aimed down at the floor. Josh stood right beside him with his shotgun in one hand. They were both facing toward the door that led back out to the front porch.

“I’ve got a gun pointed at you,” the man said from somewhere behind them.

Ray imagined the two of them were lit up like a streetlamp with his flashlight on while the man had stayed hidden somewhere in the darkness. They had been careless, not bothering to search the rest of the house, in too much of a hurry to get Luke inside. And now they had paid the price.

“We didn’t know anyone was here,” Ray said. “We were just looking for a place to stay the night. Just for a few hours.”

“How many of you are there?” the man asked. “I heard you talking about someone named Luke.”

Ray thought the man sounded older, but he couldn’t pinpoint the man’s age. He had a deep voice with a slight southern twang, more west in it than Deep South. But it was the calmness in the man’s voice that worried Ray—the man obviously knew how to handle himself.

“Luke’s hurt,” Ray said, still not moving at all. “He was stabbed by a ripper.”

“Stabbed where?”

“In his leg.”

“Thigh or calf?”

Ray wasn’t sure.

“Calf, I think,” Josh said. “I’m pretty sure it was his calf.”

“How long ago?”

“Maybe . . . half an hour ago. Maybe forty minutes.”

“Is he conscious?”

“He was,” Ray said. “He’s out in our van. We’ve got a few medical supplies with us. We just need to clean his wound and wrap it. Then we could move on and be out of your way.”

“You Dark Angels?”

“No,” Ray said, practically spitting the word out. “No. Not at all. We’ve got two others with us. My son, he’s almost twelve years old. And Emma. She’s blind.”

“You’ve got a blind woman with you?” The first sound of emotion in the man’s voice: amused curiosity.

“Yes,” Ray said. “We went to see if she was okay at the beginning of the Collapse. My neighbor asked me to check on her. Emma’s her . . . was her daughter. She’s been with us ever since.” Ray thought of being in Emma’s condo with his wife and daughter, where his wife died and his daughter had turned into a ripper.

The man said nothing.

Ray could feel the tension easing just a bit from the man. “Look, sir. If we could just stay a few minutes. We’ll set our guns down by the door. You can keep your gun on us the whole time.”

The man seemed to be thinking it over.

“We’ve got food we could share,” Ray offered. “And some water. We’re not Dark Angels. We wouldn’t be traveling with a kid and a blind woman if we were.”

“Where are you headed?” the man asked. He sounded like he was a little closer.

Ray almost said Avalon, but he stopped himself. He didn’t want to explain all of that. “South.”

“I was heading west. Lot of Dark Angels to the south.”

“Warmer weather,” Ray said.

“Okay. Set your guns over there by that wall. One of you stays here with me while the other one gets Luke and the other two. I don’t care which one it is.”

“Thank you,” Ray said.

“Bring some of that food and water with you when you come back.”

Ray walked toward the wall that separated the kitchen from the living room and set his handgun down on the floor, pushing it away with his foot. He went back to Josh who walked over to set his shotgun down on the floor next to Ray’s gun.

“Back over here,” the man said.

Josh came back to Ray, standing next to him, both of them still facing the front door across the room.

“Okay,” the man said. “One of you goes. One of you stays in here with me.”

“I’ll stay,” Josh said.

Ray nodded. “Okay. Josh will stay here with you, and I’ll be right back in with the rest of us. And the food and water.”

Josh looked at Ray, his face just visible in the light from Ray’s flashlight aimed at the floor. Ray saw the unease in Josh’s eyes, the fear that he was going to be left behind if Ray decided to make a run for it.

Ray turned off his flashlight when he got to the front door. He opened the door and slipped outside onto the front porch. It was a relief not to have a gun aimed at his back anymore. He hurried down the porch steps to the van, hurrying to the passenger side.

Luke’s window was rolled down. He watched as Ray approached.

“It’s okay in there,” Ray lied. “Let’s get in the house. We need to move quick. Mike, grab some of those packs in the back. No guns right now, just the packs.”

Luke’s eyes widened a bit. No guns?

“We’ll come back out for the guns and ammo box,” Ray said. “We need to look at your leg first.”

Mike was out the side door of the van, handing one of the packs to Ray.

“Where’s Josh?” Luke asked as he opened the passenger door and got out, wincing in pain but still keeping his gun in his hand. “How come he didn’t come back to help us with the packs?”

Ray glanced at the house behind them, just a dark monolith in the night, so dark and quiet. Their whispers seemed to carry. He tried to think of a lie, a reason Josh would have remained in the house instead of helping Emma. He couldn’t tell Luke the truth; even in Luke’s condition he might go in with his gun blazing.

“Is everything all right, Ray?” Emma asked. She had the wooden cane Josh had carved for her in one hand, the tip of it lightly touching the ground.

Emma knew. She knew something was wrong.

“He’s coming soon,” Ray said. “He’s just checking the house.”

“Why would you come back out here if the house wasn’t checked?” Luke asked. He winced as he asked the question, but there was a dangerous edge to his voice.

“He was right behind me,” Ray said. “He was supposed to be.” He looked at Luke, reaching a hand out to him. “Come on, we need to get you inside so we can look at your leg.”

Luke hesitated.

“Ray,” Emma whispered. “What is it?”

“There’s someone in the house,” Ray whispered at them. His skin tingled; he felt like a laser beam from a rifle was fixed on him, the man about to shoot at any second. Or even worse, that he’d hear a gunshot from inside the house.

Emma inhaled a sharp breath. “Josh?” she asked.

“He’s in there too. The man has a gun on him. He’s waiting for all of us to get back in there.”

CHAPTER 46

Ray

It had only taken a few seconds to make their plans. Ray knew once Luke knew someone was inside the house he would want to take his gun inside; he wasn’t going in there defenseless. But Emma wasn’t as onboard with the plan as Luke was.

“If we don’t do this, that guy, whoever he is, could be waiting until we’re all inside, waiting until he gets all of us together,” Luke said. “Right now, he can’t do that. We could leave or we could come at him from different directions.”

Emma was worried about Josh, Ray understood that. But if this man was going to kill all of them, then Josh was as good as dead either way.

For just a few seconds the thought of jumping into the van with the others and driving away had occurred to Ray. It would have been easy. He could have made some excuse about moving the van around the side of the house so it would be hidden better from the view of the road, and then he could have gunned the engine, sped down the driveway. But Emma, and probably Mike, would have been devastated, maybe inconsolable. And there was one other reason, a reason Ray didn’t even want to admit. Emma’s words kept coming back to him: They needed to be together. They were together for a reason. There was no denying that Emma had some kind of psychic powers, even if she didn’t fully understand them or have full control of them, so maybe it was true, maybe they belonged together.

Luke tucked his pistol inside of his hoodie, holstering it there. Ray could smell Luke’s blood, his sour breath, the sweat coming from him.

“We act natural,” Luke said, his words barely a whisper, so low Ray wasn’t sure Emma could even hear them now. “We wait until I can get a good shot. You have your flashlight ready to spot him, Ray. Just like you did in the trailer.”

Ray helped him to the front porch, Luke’s arm around his shoulders. Mike helped Emma, but she had her cane and didn’t need much help; she navigated the darkness as well as they did, or maybe even a little better right now. Ray carried one of the packs over his shoulder and Mike carried another one.

This was it.

They climbed the front porch. Ray and Luke went in through the door first. If the man was going to shoot, Ray wanted Emma and Mike behind him and Luke, he wanted Luke to have a chance at killing the man first. Ray had his flashlight ready. He wasn’t sure exactly where the man was inside the house, but he’d given Luke a rough guess, unless the man had moved in that time.

Luke hobbled, breathing hard as Ray helped him inside. Luke babbled, making more noise than necessary, playing up his injury. Ray helped him into the living room, holding his arm, muscles tense beneath his hoodie, coiled and ready to strike.

“Ray. Luke.”

Ray and Luke froze. It was Josh. Ray shined his flashlight beam at Josh, who stood fifteen feet away, at the other end of the living room, his shotgun in his hands. A few feet behind Josh stood a man deeper in the shadows.

“Don’t shoot,” Josh said. “This man’s name is Gil. He’s the only one in the house. He doesn’t mean us any harm.”

“He aimed a gun at us,” Ray said.

“He was scared. Any one of us would have done the same.”

Ray felt Luke tensing even more under his hand.

“Luke,” Josh said. “Don’t. This man can help you with your leg.”

“He’s a doctor?” Ray asked.

“He was a veterinarian. He can probably do better than any of us can.”

Gil stepped forward into the weak beam of light from Ray’s flashlight. He was older than Ray had expected, maybe in his late fifties or early sixties, but he was lean and compact; he moved with agile grace. His hair was a little long, but thinning at the top, combed back straight. He had a large mustache and thick stubble, all of it gray. He didn’t have a gun in his hand, and he raised his hands up a little to show that he was unarmed.

“You look like you’re bleeding pretty bad there, Luke,” Gil said.

Emma and Mike came inside the house.

Ray let Luke go and turned around. “I told you to wait outside for a minute.”

“He’s no danger to us,” Emma said.

She could hear it in Gil’s voice, Ray thought.

“Ray, you and Mike go and get the other stuff from the van,” Emma said. “Josh, you get Luke on the floor, get another flashlight so this man can see what he’s doing.” She looked at Gil like she knew exactly where he was. “Sir, I hope you can help Luke. We have some medical supplies. I hope we have what you need.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Gil said.

Ray nodded at Mike and they left the house.

“Who’s that guy in there?” Mike asked when they got to the van.

“He’s a survivor. Like us.”

“He pointed a gun at you,” Mike said. “Didn’t he?”

“Yes. He didn’t know us yet. He was scared. We’re all scared.”

Ray handed the last pack to Mike from the van and then grabbed the ammo box and the M-16, handling it gingerly. He still wasn’t comfortable with firearms.

“You think Luke will be okay?” Mike asked.

“Lower your voice a little, Mike.” Ray looked around at the darkness, listening for any sounds coming from the distance. The cold moonlight shined down but only revealed so much.

Mike stared at Ray, waiting for an answer.

“I think so, Mike. I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

Mike didn’t ask anything else as he followed Ray up the front porch to the front door. They went inside and closed the door, locking it. Ray set the pack down with the other packs. Josh was already going through the packs, pulling out the medical supplies they had with them.

Luke lay on the floor, his head propped up a little with an extra jacket. His hoodie, shoulder holster, gloves, and pants were off, heaped up on the floor in a pile a few feet away. His lower right leg was a bloody mess.

“Someone should keep watch outside,” Luke said. “Listen for the rippers. Make sure they aren’t getting close.”

“I’ll do it,” Ray said. He looked at Mike. “You want to help me?”

Mike’s face lit up. “Yeah.”

Gil organized the medical supplies on a rolled-out towel, looking over what he would need. Josh was nearby to help him. Ray closed the door on them. He and Mike went to the edge of the front porch and sat down on the steps beside each other. Ray had his flashlight with him, but it was turned off. He had his handgun on the step beside him, and he had Luke’s binoculars.

“You cold?” Ray asked.

“No.”

“If it’s too cold—”

“I’m okay.”

Ray sat in silence for a long moment, listening to the night sounds: the freezing wind blowing through dead and dying leaves, a small creature rutting through the brush. Ray was glad Mike was with him, glad he was still alive and still okay. He was also glad Mike wasn’t inside watching Gil treat Luke’s leg, most likely sewing it up, or, God forbid, cutting it off.

“Mike.”

He turned to him, his face barely visible in the darkness.

“I just wanted to let you know that I’m really proud of you. You’ve been so brave, so strong through all of this. I know things haven’t been easy, but I believe one day they will be easier than this. I can feel it.”

“I can feel it too, Dad.”

“As soon as we get settled again, in a safe place, we’ll teach you how to drive. Luke will teach you how to shoot.”

“And how to fight.”

“I’m sure he will.” Ray put his arm around his son, tears threatening, but he held them back. He didn’t want Mike to see him cry, he still wanted to be strong for his son.

PART THREE

CHAPTER 47

Luke

The last hours (or was it longer than that?) seemed to both stretch out and go by in a blur for Luke. The pain in his leg from where the ripper had stabbed him wasn’t so bad, and he took that as a good sign. He felt weak, his body cold, his mind light. His thoughts were a little scattered, like he was on the verge of falling asleep, already dreaming. For just a moment he didn’t know where he was or who the people were around him.

A house. I’m in an abandoned house. I’m with Ray. And his son. With Josh and Emma. And another man. A doctor? No, they said he was a veterinarian. He was bending down over my leg, cleaning the wound, inspecting it. Josh gave me something . . . some kind of pill. One of his pain pills. Maybe more than one.

Luke was glad Gil the veterinarian wasn’t a threat. He’d been ready to shoot the man as soon as they’d entered the house, but Josh had stopped him. Josh had talked to the old man, letting him know that they weren’t a threat to each other.

He felt like he was floating. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew he should be on guard. Even though Gil turned out to be okay, there were still threats out there beyond the walls of this house. There were rippers out there. And there were Dark Angels. The Dragon.

But it felt safe in the house for the moment, even though he teetered on the edge of consciousness. He would normally feel a sense of panic, of a loss of control, but he felt okay now, at peace.

His mind slipped away and he floated in the darkness. The house and everyone around him was gone. But he wasn’t alone. Someone was in the dark with him.

“Wilma,” he breathed out.

She walked toward him, materializing out of the darkness, illuminated by a soft light coming from somewhere above in the darkness. She was still ten feet away.

Luke ran up to her, grabbed her, holding her arms, feeling them, making sure she was real. And she was. He could feel the heat of her body, the sleeves of her shirt under his hands, the faint scent of shampoo in her hair.

“Luke,” she said into his shoulder as he hugged her fiercely. “You have to come save me. We all need to be together.”

“Tell me where you are. I’ll come get you. No matter where you are, I’ll come get you.”

He pulled away from her to hear her answer.

But it wasn’t Wilma anymore. It was another woman. She was shorter than Wilma, but just as strong and beautiful in her own way. Her hair was dark and short, her skin a caramel color with edges of tattoos peeking up from the collars of her shirts. Her body was taut and muscular, her eyes steady and confident and dark.

Yes, the woman was strong and confident, but she was also worried. Scared.

Luke wanted to ask who she was, but somewhere deep down inside he knew she was part of them, part of Emma and Ray and Josh and Mike. He wanted Wilma back, but he didn’t lash out at this woman because he knew she hadn’t been the one who had taken Wilma away.

“Tell them to come get me,” the woman said. “Tell them to kill the Dragon.”

A noise sounded behind Luke in the darkness. He turned and saw a shadowy figure twenty yards away, tall and lean, face hidden by a cowl, eyes that shined a dull yellow.

The Dragon.

Luke looked back at the woman. She was gone.

He turned back around. The Dragon was closer now, covering half the distance between them in that second he’d been turned away, moving soundlessly toward him.

Luke could see the Dragon better now, but it wasn’t the Dragon anymore. He wasn’t wearing a hood and his eyes weren’t glowing. Now that the man was closer, Luke could see him better. It was Jacob.

“You come after her and I’ll be waiting for you, Luke.”

Luke didn’t answer.

“You know where I’ll be,” Jacob said, smiling. “You know I’ll be in the house waiting for you.”

Luke still didn’t say anything. He looked down at the gun in Jacob’s hand, the silencer attached to the barrel, just like his own weapon. He watched as Jacob raised the gun, aimed it at him, and pulled the trigger. There was a bright flash of light . . .

Luke’s eyes popped open.

It was light in the house. He could see the splotchy, stained ceiling of the living room. He was still lying on the floor, the folded-up hoodie under his head like a pillow. It was cold and the pain flared in his leg when he moved just a little, a sharp pain, but then a dull ache under that.

The pain was a good sign, wasn’t it? That meant he still had his leg, right?

He was afraid to look.

Footsteps, soft and cautious.

He turned his head. Emma crouched down next to him. She reached out, touched his forehead, checking for a fever. Her hand felt so cold.

“Where . . .” He tried to talk. His throat was so dry. “Where is everyone?”

“Still asleep. Ray and Mike stayed outside all night on watch. Josh took over this morning.”

“My leg?”

“Gil sewed up the wound. Bandaged it. He said he thinks you’ll be fine. We had some antibiotics. Gave you one last night.”

Luke couldn’t remember that.

She pulled her hand away from his forehead. “You’re still pretty warm, but I think your fever’s breaking.”

Luke shivered, his body shaking with the cold. He wanted to sit up, but he felt so weak.

Ray was beside him in a flash. He looked tired. “You okay, Luke?”

Luke nodded.

“We probably should get on the road soon,” Ray said. “That horde of rippers might make it here eventually. I can’t believe we haven’t seen or heard any yet.”

“Yeah,” Luke whispered.

“We’ll eat something first,” Ray said. “Real quick. And then we’ll get going.”

Someone else was coming over. Luke stared up at Gil. He got a better look at the man in the morning light. The man looked older and more tired than Luke remembered, frail but capable of explosive power if he needed it.

“You feeling okay?” Gil asked in his deep southern drawl.

“Yeah. Thank you.” Luke looked at Ray, then at Emma. “What did Josh give me? One of those pain pills?”

Emma and Ray nodded.

“I don’t want any more of those.”

“Some Tylenol or ibuprofen,” Gil suggested.

“How’d you get here to this house?” Luke asked Gil.

Gil and Ray exchanged glances. Luke could tell these things had already been discussed.

“I drove,” Gil said. “My truck is around back. Hidden behind the house.”

“Your truck still runs?” Luke asked.

Gil nodded.

“Gas?”

Gil nodded again.

“We asked him to come with us,” Ray said. He looked at Emma.

Luke looked at Emma.

“He’s on his own,” she said. “We’ll all be stronger together.”

“I’m not a Dark Angel,” Gil said. “If that’s what you’re thinking.”

Luke remembered Rose, how she had infiltrated their cabin, a spy for the Dark Angels. But this was the other way around—they had found Gil; he hadn’t come to them.

Ray and Gil left to get the food from the packs. Emma and Luke were alone. He sat up, looking at Emma. She waited like she knew he had something to tell her.

“Last night,” Luke whispered. “Last night I was dreaming. I saw Wilma. I haven’t seen her since . . .”

She nodded. She understood.

“But then there was this other woman in the dream. I felt like I knew her, like I’d seen her in another dream before. I know it doesn’t make any sense. She said I needed to find her, that we needed to kill the Dragon. That we all needed to be together.”

Emma didn’t say anything.

“And then I saw the Dragon. When I turned around the woman was gone, but the Dragon was there.” Luke didn’t say any more than that. He didn’t want to tell Emma that he’d seen Jacob in his dream.

Emma waited patiently for him to continue.

“I need to find her,” Luke said more to himself than to Emma. “She’s in trouble, and I need to find her.”

Ray and Gil came back with a few bottles of water, cans of food, and the can opener. Josh came inside as Mike woke up. They all gathered around Luke, all of them eating quickly and silently.

CHAPTER 48

Ray

Ray left Josh, Mike, and Emma in the house with Luke. Josh was getting the packs ready so they could leave.

As Ray walked toward the van Gil pulled his pickup truck from around from the back of the house, parking it right next to the van, both of the vehicles facing toward the driveway that led back down to the road. His truck was a late-nineties Ford F-150, red and white, the red paint faded so badly it almost looked pink in the yellowish morning light. The truck was full of dents and scratches, the windshield cracked in two places, a big hole in the back window where a gun rack held two rifles. The bed had a metal tool box bolted to it and two extra tires. The truck was big and had a lift kit on it. Bloodstains along the grill of the truck were old and brown now, with more smears of blood down the sides of the truck from where Gil had struck rippers before, running them down in the street.

“You can follow us if you want to,” Ray said.

“South, right? That’s what you said last night.”

Ray nodded.

“I’d offer someone to ride with me, but the passenger seat is full. I’ve got a few cardboard boxes of food and water in there. Other supplies too. But I can put some of that stuff in the back. Make some room.”

“I’ll ask, but I think we’ll be fine.”

Gil seemed to accept that.

“You think Luke will be okay?” Ray asked, looking for the real answer.

“I think so. He lost a lot of blood. He really needs some nourishment and rest.”

“Thank you for what you did for him.”

Gil just nodded.

“You said you were heading west,” Ray reminded him.

Gil shrugged. “I hadn’t made any real plans. I just thought of heading somewhere remote, somewhere where the rippers won’t be everywhere. Maybe west Texas or New Mexico.”

“Where were you coming from?”

“Eastern Kentucky. Small shithole of a town. My wife and I lived there for years.”

Ray nodded knowingly. “Your wife turned?”

“No. She died almost a year ago. Cancer. She was as healthy as a horse her whole life, and then out of the blue, the cancer came.”

Gil paused for a moment, looking away at the woods. “When she died, my world ended. I didn’t work much after that. Sold my veterinarian business, let my license lapse. Couldn’t hardly eat. I was drinking more than I should. And then this happened, all this shit. I don’t know what the hell this thing is, this disease that turned everyone into rippers. Something manmade. Some kind of biological terrorist weapon. Or maybe it was just something natural. Like the meteor wiping out the dinosaurs, maybe it was just our time.”

“We know a place that might have some answers to what happened.”

Gil’s gray bushy eyebrows shot up in surprise.

“I used to work for the government,” Ray continued. “The CDC.”

“Centers for Disease Control?”

Ray had to continue quickly before Gil jumped to conclusions like everyone else usually did. “I wasn’t a scientist. Never even got near that kind of stuff. I wasn’t even in the same building as the scientists. I was an accountant. Worked in an office in Washington D.C. But my supervisor, a man named Craig, he knew something about all of this. I don’t know if he had friends at the Atlanta offices, or who he knew, but he said he had information about the Ripper Plague, as they were calling it on the news before everything shut down. I went to his house with my son and Emma. I found something on his laptop, reports and articles about an underground facility they called Avalon.”

“And that’s where you’re headed?”

“I think it’s the best bet. There were no answers to this plague on Craig’s computer or the reports he had on there from the CDC, but the answers might be in Avalon. They were doing some kind of research there. Maybe they knew about this before it started.”

“Or maybe they were the ones that released it.”

Ray shrugged; that could be true. “Either way, we might find answers there. Maybe there’s a vaccine, or some kind of treatment, or maybe a cure. Maybe there are still people there, people underground who weren’t exposed to this plague.”

Gil’s face fell into a frown. He didn’t look convinced about finding a cure or a group of people holed up in the ground.

“Like I said, you’re welcome to go with us. You said you were going west. If Avalon isn’t the place for you, you could always head west from there.”

“Where is this place? This Avalon?”

“Northern Georgia.” He didn’t want to tell Gil that he didn’t actually have a map anymore, that they were going to rely on Emma’s abilities once they got into Georgia. He didn’t want to tell Gil about Emma’s psychic talents at this time either, or about the dreams they all shared. Gil didn’t seem to recognize any of them from his dreams, and Ray hadn’t recognized Gil from his dreams. Maybe that meant something, and maybe it didn’t. But if Ray told Gil about that kind of stuff right now, he might think he was a crackpot.

“I’ll go with you,” Gil said. “What the hell else do I have to do? Ever since Claire’s been gone, I don’t really care about much. I don’t want to die, but I kind of don’t care if I do. Does that make any sense?”

Ray nodded. It made perfect sense to him. “We’re going to need to get some gas from somewhere. We still have half a tank, but we’ll need to be on the lookout for more gas.”

“Hold on, I got some.” Gil hurried to the metal tool box in the back of his truck and lifted the lid on one side. He pulled out two ten-gallon plastic gas cans. He left one by his truck and brought the other one over to Ray. “This might help a little.”

“Yes, it will. Thank you.”

“No problem. I’ve got a siphon hose too.”

“Good. We lost ours.”

Ray drained the can of gas into the van’s tank, careful not to spill any. He handed the gas can back to Gil, who had just finished filling his own truck up. Gil put the empty cans back into the tool box in the bed of his truck.

“You all did real well traveling together,” Gil told Ray. “Sticking together through all this shit. But I bet you’ve been through hell.”

“We’ve had our run-ins with the Dark Angels, and with plenty of rippers. We were in a safe place once, a cabin in West Virginia, but the Dark Angels found us.”

Gil nodded. “Yeah, they’re kind of a persistent bunch.”

Ray turned when he heard Josh, Luke, Mike, and Emma leaving the house, coming down the front porch steps. Josh and Mike had the packs, and Josh held Emma’s hand.

“I guess we’re ready to go,” Ray said.

Ray got in behind the wheel of the van. Luke sat down in the passenger seat. Josh, Emma, and Mike got into the back. Ray started the van and glanced at Gil in the truck next to them. Gil tipped an imaginary hat, waiting for Ray to drive away first.

*

Two hours later Ray was still driving. Luke was asleep in the passenger seat, just like everyone in the back seat. They probably hadn’t slept well in the house and now they were all out. Ray felt a little drowsy, but still alert enough. He kept glancing at the sides of the road, keeping watch for any rippers. The traveling had been pretty smooth so far, only a few pileups to navigate around; he’d had to drive down into muddy ditches to get past them.

The sun was higher, but it was still pretty cold. At least there was no snow and mostly clear blue sky. He’d glanced at the map moments ago. They should be coming up to the town of Perry. There was a back road they could take around it, but they would have to go into the edge of the town to get to it—no getting around it any other way. He didn’t really want to drive that far into the town, but he didn’t have a choice.

Ray had spotted some rippers on their drive, a few stragglers here and there, but not too many. There were two large groups he’d seen; one of the groups was far off in a field of what might have been crops at one time. They seemed to be picking through the plants, trying to find anything edible. The other group came from some buildings just off the road, running at them, but they’d driven past fast enough before the rippers could start throwing rocks at them.

So far, so good. But how long was their good fortune going to last? From experience, Ray knew it wouldn’t be long before something bad happened.

As they approached Perry, just passing the first of the edge-of-town businesses and homes, Luke stirred and woke up, almost like he had sensed they were getting close to danger. Ray had been about to wake him up soon, anyway.

Luke looked around, stretching his legs and wincing. He turned and looked at the back of the van. Everyone else was still asleep.

“Coming up to a town called Perry,” Ray told Luke.

“We’re in North Carolina?”

“Yeah. Have been for a while.”

Luke nodded. “Man, how long did I sleep?”

“A few hours. You needed it.”

Ray’s eyes kept darting back and forth from each side of the road, looking for any movement.

Luke stared straight out the windshield as Ray slowed down, approaching Fairmont Street. This road would take him to another road and get them around most of the downtown area of Perry.

“Holy shit,” Luke said.

Ray saw what he was staring at in the distance.

“You see what I’m seeing?” Luke asked in a whisper.

“Yes,” Ray answered. “I see it.”

CHAPTER 49

Luke

Luke couldn’t believe what he was seeing in the sky—an airplane. It was small and flying low to the ground, just above the buildings in the distance beyond the outskirts of Perry. He pulled out his binoculars from his hoodie pocket, adjusting them when he got them up to his eyes for a better look at the plane.

“What’s going on?” Josh asked in a sleepy voice.

“An airplane,” Luke said.

Ray had slowed the van almost all the way down to a stop.

“A plane?” Mike asked, coming instantly awake.

“That’s not a military plane,” Ray said.

“No,” Luke said. “It’s like a small plane. Like a Cessna or something. I’m not an airplane expert or anything.”

“Dark Angels?” Ray asked.

“Yeah,” Luke said. “I see their symbol on the side of the plane.”

“Shit, they’ve got planes,” Josh said. “They’ve got trucks, guns, rocket launchers, and now they’ve got planes. Great.”

“What’s the plane doing?” Ray asked.

“It’s circling back toward some kind of store. Like a Wal-Mart or something. The side door of the plane is open. There’s a man there with a gun. He’s shooting at the store. I think there are people on the roof.” Luke could hear the machinegun fire now. He lowered the binoculars, watching as the plane swooped down low above the store’s roof.

Emma leaned forward from the back seat. “We need to help them.”

“She’s right,” Luke said. “We should shoot that plane down. I don’t know if the M-16 is the best weapon for that, but I saw two rifles on Gil’s gun rack.”

“If we shoot at them, they’re going to come for us,” Ray said.

Luke put the binoculars back up to his eyes, watching as the plane circled back again toward the store, flying high up into the air. “I think it’s too late for that. I think they’ve already seen us. After they’re done with the store, they’ll probably come for us anyway.”

“Okay,” Ray said. “Where do you think is the best place to shoot from?”

Luke lowered the binoculars again. “Let’s get closer to the store.”

Ray drove straight instead of turning left to skirt the town. The road dipped down past some buildings and strip plazas of businesses, restaurants and fast food places. They drove through an intersection jammed up with cars and trucks, driving off the side of the road to get around them. Two blocks away was another intersection with a large gas station on one corner and a partially constructed building on the opposite corner in the distance. A small side road led to the entrance of a large parking lot of the store the airplane kept buzzing over.

“Super Bea’s,” Josh said. “Never heard of it.”

Luke tried to track the plane with his binoculars, keeping an eye on it but also looking for a place to shoot from. “Turn around and go through that restaurant back there,” he told Ray. “To the back of the parking lot.”

Ray turned around and Gil followed. They entered the restaurant parking lot and drove to the back where a few scraggily trees were planted in a wide strip of grass with a large ditch beyond that and then a line of waist-high shrubs that delineated the border between the restaurant’s property and the edge of the Super Bea’s parking lot.

“Look at all those cars and trucks over there,” Ray said, pointing after he parked on the grassy strip, the front of the van facing the large ditch. “They’re all lined up on that side over there, blocking the two entrances. Someone did that on purpose. The people in that store.”

“There’s got to be someone up there on the roof, someone they’re shooting at,” Luke said.

Ray glanced at the deep tire tracks in the grass. “Looks like other vehicles have been here before.”

“Dad, is that plane coming over here to shoot at us?” Mike asked.

“I think they’re more concerned with the people on that roof,” Ray told Mike, not really answering his question.

Luke focused the binoculars on the roof of the store, then he panned until he found the plane again; it had circled away, looping in a wide circle and getting ready to make another pass over the building. The plane couldn’t hover like a helicopter; it had to keep making pass after pass with someone shooting out through the doorway on the side. Luke couldn’t make out enough details, even with the binoculars, but he guessed that the shooter had some kind of safety harness strapped to him that kept him inside the plane. The pilot wasn’t an aerial pilot, but he seemed capable and experienced enough.

Gil parked his truck right next to the van, facing the parking lot of the Super Bea’s store just like the van was.

“Luke,” Josh said. “That plane’s going to see us. They’ll come over here soon.”

“Right now they’re too interested in whoever’s on that roof. Must be at least one person still alive up there or they wouldn’t keep shooting—maybe more than one.”

“You don’t see anyone up there?” Ray asked.

“There’s a knee wall around the edge of the roof. Can’t see past that. Whoever’s up there is lying low, trying to hide.”

“The Dark Angels want those people pretty bad,” Josh said.

“Or they want what’s inside that store,” Ray said.

Luke panned back down to the store with his binoculars, focusing on the front entrance. “Looks like the front entrance is boarded up. Glass is broken everywhere, but it looks like there’s some kind of steel mesh there.” He scanned the parking lot, the litter and debris, the few overturned shopping carts, the scattering of bones, the darker spots on the pavement that must be blood.

Screeches filled the air.

“Rippers,” Mike said.

“They’re pretty close,” Emma added. “A lot of them.”

“We need to do this now if we’re going to do this,” Josh said. “Or get the hell out of here while we still can.”

Luke stared at the store. There was something familiar about it, even though he’d never heard of a Super Bea’s before. Yet déjà vu washed over him, like he’d been to this exact store before, like he’d at least seen it before. Maybe in a dream. He couldn’t be sure where he’d seen the store, but he was sure that Emma was right—they needed to help the people here. It felt right. It felt like destiny.

“That plane’s coming back around again,” Josh called out.

Luke got out of the van, hobbling around the front to Gil’s truck. Gil had his driver’s side window rolled down, waiting for Luke to talk.

“I need your rifle,” Luke told him.

Gil didn’t waste time with words; he got out and grabbed a rifle from the rack. “.30-30. Already loaded. You know how to use it?”

“I’ve shot one a few times,” Luke said as he went to the back of Gil’s truck and lowered the tailgate. He set the rifle on the bed and climbed up inside.

“You’re gonna tear your stitches,” Gil warned. “If it bleeds too much—”

“Then we’ll sew them up again,” Luke snapped as he pulled himself up into the bed. The truck was higher than he had expected and his calf screamed in pain, the skin stretching, stitches tearing. He felt warm liquid running down his leg into his hiking boot, but he ignored it as he walked over the tires and sat down on the metal tool box pushed up to the back window of the pickup. He rested his arms on the roof of the truck, aiming the rifle at the plane as it made its next pass across the roof, spraying bullets as it whizzed by.

Luke followed the plane in his scope, levering the bolt back and caressing the trigger with his finger, holding his breath for a second and letting it out slowly. He tracked the plane as it banked, circling back toward the store, its speed slowed just a bit in the turn, almost like it had hung frozen in the air for just a second.

Perfect.

Luke pulled the trigger and the rifle bucked in his hands a little. The shot echoed across the parking lot. The bullet found its home into the propellers and the engine. The motor’s sound cut out immediately, chugging for just a second as it lost power and plummeted to the ground, twirling, whining, leaving a trail of black smoke behind it. The plane crashed into a building a few blocks away. There was a brief flash from a fireball, and then a column of smoke rose up into the blue sky.

“Holy hell,” Gil said. “First shot. That was a hell of a thing, son.”

“Luke!” Ray yelled. “Rippers are coming up behind us!”

Luke turned around in the bed of the truck and saw the rippers pouring into the street, rushing toward the restaurant parking lot. Other rippers were coming from the partially constructed building across the street from the store, and others were coming from the other direction where the plane had crashed.

“The store,” Luke said. “It’s our only chance now!”

Gil climbed back into his truck and shut his door.

“Get back in the van,” Ray yelled out his window.

“No time! We need to get across that ditch into the parking lot!” He beat on the roof of the truck twice and then got down into the bed of the truck, holding on to the tool box as best he could as Gil took off for the edge of the ditch, the back tires spinning and spitting out frozen bits of mud and grass.

CHAPTER 50

Kate

Kate jumped awake. It was still dark in the tent, but she could tell the store was lighter; it was daytime. She’d slept for hours, but a noise had woken her. A familiar noise, and then screams.

For just a second she thought she’d still been dreaming, that she was still trapped in the nightmare, still trapped in the hell town where the Dragon lived, the hell town under the constant gray clouds, the litter and trash blown across the streets, the dead and tortured hanging everywhere.

She’d seen Hell Town so many times before, and she’d seen others in that town—in this dream and the dreams before—the others that Brooke drew in her art tablet: the man and his son, the other two men, and the blind woman.

But the others weren’t there in Hell Town this time; she’d been alone. And she’d been in a different part of the town, away from the town square and the businesses, away from the congregation of the Dragon’s followers, his worshippers. Now she was a few blocks away, drifting along the neighborhood streets, drawing closer toward an intersection of streets, toward a three-story house that was beginning to fall apart, the porch beginning to sag.

She’d felt like she’d been floating a few inches above the street in the dream, being both pushed toward the house and pulled toward it at the same time. The front door was opening, only blackness beyond it. But there were people inside that darkness. She knew Petra was in there, and she knew the Dragon was in there too.

“Leave the store,” the Dragon said from the darkness. “Leave the store, and I will let her go.”

The Dragon’s voice was clearer in this dream than it had been in other dreams, not so deep and demonic. His voice was low, but more human now. And she heard a southern twang that he seemed to have suppressed before.

The Dragon stayed hidden in the darkness beyond the front door. He hadn’t come out to show his face. Why? Because she knew his secret? She knew he wasn’t the monster he pretended to be. His eyes weren’t going to shine anymore. His spell over them in the dreams was weakening.

Suddenly Kate had stopped in the dream, just hovering above the street, her body floating in the air. He had stopped pulling her.

Or maybe she had stopped him from pulling her.

Yes, his powers were weakening.

“You’re no monster,” she yelled at the open doorway. “You’re just a man, just a person like the rest of us.”

“Men can be far worse than monsters,” another voice said.

She recognized the voice—it was the man from the video on the cell phone, the man with the cruel smile and small, hard eyes. “You’ll only get one last warning to leave. You don’t have any idea what we can do.”

An arm shot out through the open doorway of the front door, a hand holding a pistol. The man started shooting at her, bullets flying. Even though he was holding a pistol, the gunshots sounded like a machine gun.

And then there were the screams.

But the screams weren’t in the dream anymore; they were real. They were coming from the roof. Someone was shooting up there. A machine gun? Did they even have something like that?

“Stay in here!” Kate yelled at Brooke as she bolted out of the tent, running over to the ladder attached to the scissor lift. The sounds of screams and shooting came down from the shattered skylight, shards of glass all over the lift and the floor.

And there was another sound, the sound that had been familiar to her. An airplane. There was an airplane up there.

Tina came down through the skylight, grabbing the ladder, blood soaking her arm. She climbed down the ladder, but slid down the last few feet, dropping to the floor with a thud.

“Oh shit,” the doc said as she rushed up to Kate and Tina.

Tina lay on the floor, staring up in shock, her face splattered with blood.

“Who’s shooting?” Kate asked Tina.

“Airplane . . .” she whispered. “. . . shooting at us.”

“We need to get her away from that skylight,” the doc said.

Just then a few bullets rained down through the skylight, one of them ricocheting off the ladder with a pinging sound.

Kate didn’t hesitate, she grabbed one of Tina’s wrists and the doctor grabbed the other one. They dragged Tina away from the ladder, out of the light shining down through the shattered skylight as she howled in pain.

When they got Tina thirty feet away from the ladder, they stopped dragging her, lowering her arms back down gently.

Tina’s eyelids fluttered; she was close to passing out.

“Tina,” Kate said. “Stay with us.”

“I need to get my bag,” the doc said. “Some more supplies from the office. Stay with her.”

Kate nodded but kept her eyes on Tina. “Please, Tina, stay awake. What happened? Who’s up there?”

“Dark Angels . . . in a . . . in a plane . . . shooting . . .”

“Who else is on the roof? Fernando? Jo?”

Tina gave the slightest of nods, her breathing so shallow it was almost silent. She lay absolutely still, like she was afraid of making the slightest movement, like it would be too painful. Her eyes were glazed, her blood pooling around her body from the gunshot wounds in her torso, a lake of blood.

“Max? Was Max up there with you?” Kate asked her.

Tina didn’t answer.

“Kate!”

Kate looked up and saw Max rushing toward her. He had a gun in one hand and walkie-talkie in the other. “What’s happening?” he asked, then stopped, staring down in horror at Tina.

“There’s an airplane up there—”

“An airplane?”

“—it’s shooting at us, at anyone on the roof.”

“Who’s on the roof?”

“Tina said Fernando and Jo are up there. But I don’t know who else. Could be more. The doc was just here. She went back to get some medical supplies.”

“Just one plane?” Max asked. “Are there more Dark Angels on the ground? Trucks?”

“I don’t know. I’m just telling you what Tina told me.” Kate looked down at Tina—she was out now. She reached down with a trembling hand and felt for a pulse in her neck. There was no pulse.

Max looked over at the ladder that led up to the skylight. Blood was smeared all over the ladder from Tina’s descent, more blood on the floor from her fall. Diamonds of glass winked back the daylight at them from all over the floor. A wide trail of blood led from Tina’s body to the bottom of the ladder where they had dragged her from.

Kate watched Max as he stared at the ladder. She knew what he was thinking. “No, Max. Don’t do it. You can’t go up there.”

“Fernando and Jo are up there.”

Kate wasn’t so sure either one of them was still alive.

“Listen,” Max said. “The plane’s going away. It must be circling in the sky. It has to keep passing by so they can shoot. I can go up there when it’s flying away and circling back, when the shooting stops.”

The shooting had stopped now for the moment.

The doc came rushing up to them with two duffel bags. She crouched down beside Tina, doing her best to stay out of the puddle of blood.

“I don’t think she’s . . .” Kate didn’t want to finish the sentence, didn’t want to say the rest out loud.

The doc had a pair of blue nitrile gloves on. She reached out and felt Tina’s neck just like Kate had done, then she picked up Tina’s right hand, feeling her wrist.

Kate looked at Tina’s eyes; they were still halfway open, any light in them gone, just dead eyes in a dead face now.

Max stood up.

“Max, no. Please.” Kate jumped to her feet too.

Max looked down at the walkie-talkie in his hand. He pressed the button. “Jo. Fernando. Come in. It’s Max.” He let the button go. There was a burst of static. He pressed the button again. “Fernando. Jo. It’s Max. Come in.” He waited for another few seconds, listening to the static. He pressed the button again. “I’m coming up there.”

Jo’s voice came through the burst of static. “No, Max. Don’t.”

Kate’s heart jumped. Jo was still alive, but she sounded like she might be hurt; her breath was labored as she spoke.

“Jo,” Max snapped. “Are you okay?”

“I’m . . . I’m okay.”

Kate didn’t believe her.

“Is Fernando okay?” Max asked. “Is he shooting back at the plane?”

“He’s dead,” Jo said. “Two others up here are dead. Tina got away, though. She got down the ladder.”

Tears welled up in Kate’s eyes.

“You’re the only one alive up there?” Max asked.

“Yes.”

“Are you hurt? Shot?”

“I’m okay for now. Don’t come up here. The plane is coming back. A man is shooting from it.”

“They’re coming back to shoot you,” Max said. “They won’t stop until they get you.” He looked at Kate. “I have to help her.”

“Don’t, Max,” Jo said from the walkie-talkie, her breathing heavy. “The plane’s coming back now.”

“Are there other Dark Angels out there?” Max asked. “Dark Angels on the ground? In trucks?”

“I didn’t see any,” Jo answered. “But this could be the first wave of the attack. The others could be coming.”

The machinegun fire from above started again.

“Oh shit,” Kate said. She was sure the shooter in the plane was going to get Jo this time. Where could she hide up there?

Max started for the ladder.

“Max, no!”

He wasn’t going to be stopped, Kate knew that. They had lost Tina and Fernando and two others up there on the roof. And now they were going to lose Jo and Max. A quarter of their people were going to be wiped out within minutes.

The gunfire stopped and Max was ready to climb the ladder, his foot on the last rung of the ladder when he froze. There was another gunshot. The airplane’s engine died. A second later there was a crash, and then an explosion.

Kate wondered if Jo had gotten to Fernando’s rifle. Had she shot the plane down?

Max ripped his walkie-talkie off his belt. “Jo!”

“Max,” she said, breathing the word out from the walkie-talkie. “Kate. The plane went down. Someone just shot it, and it . . . it crashed. Exploded.”

Kate stared at Max. Who had shot the plane down?

CHAPTER 51

Kate

Kate ran over to Max at the bottom of the ladder.

“You didn’t shoot that plane down?” Max asked Jo, pressing the button on the walkie-talkie.

The doc came toward them. Others were coming from the tents. Rebecca and Patrick stood twenty feet away, Rebecca’s hands on the boy’s shoulders. They’d all heard the gunfire from the roof, the whining drone of the plane as it flew by, and now the explosion.

“No,” Jo said. “Someone else did.”

“Who?” Kate asked Max.

Max handed the walkie-talkie to Kate and then climbed the ladder.

“I don’t know,” Jo said. It sounded like her breathing was heavier, like she was moving around.

Kate saw Brooke come from the gloom of the store, standing beside Patrick and Rebecca.

“Don’t go up there,” Brooke pleaded.

“It’s all right. The plane is gone now.”

Brooke just stared at her, on the verge of tears.

“I have to go up there and help.”

Brooke didn’t say anything else, just watched Kate. Patrick took a step over to Brooke and took her hand in his. Rebecca put her hand on Brooke’s shoulder. Tiger wound himself around Brooke’s legs. It looked to Kate like a family photo. She realized that if something happened to her, maybe Rebecca could take care of Brooke like she took care of Patrick.

Kate promised herself to talk to Rebecca about that soon, but right now she needed to focus on what she was doing. She climbed the ladder and crawled up through the shattered skylight like she’d done dozens of times before. It wasn’t quiet on the roof. The gunshots and the drone of the airplane were gone, but other sounds had taken their place: a mob of yells, screeches, a few high-pitched screams from the rippers, running feet.

Max was already with Jo at the other side of the roof that looked over the parking lot. They were both keeping low behind the knee wall, Jo with a pair of binoculars up to her eyes. Max had Fernando’s rifle with him.

Fernando. He lay only twenty feet away in the middle of the roof, sprawled out, limbs flung out from his torso like a discarded ragdoll. He was facedown and half of his head had been blown away. His back was riddled with bullets. More bullet holes dotted the roof and the massive HVAC units. Two other people, Wes and Sophie, lay farther away, struck down while running, full of bullet holes, lying in pools of blood.

Kate had paused for a moment to stare at the dead. Jo had been the only one who had survived. But was she wounded? Bleeding out? Was she dying?

Kate rushed to Jo and Max, crouching low as she ran, like a cat on the prowl. But she didn’t feel like a cat, like a predator; she felt more like the prey.

“Are you hurt?” Kate asked Jo when she crouched down next to her at the knee wall.

“My arm,” she said.

Kate saw the blood on Jo’s shirt sleeve; it was soaked with it.

“I think it grazed me,” Jo said, glancing away from her binoculars to look at Kate. She handed the binoculars to Max.

“Can you move your arm okay?”

“Yeah. I don’t think it’s broken.”

Max stared through the binoculars, peering up over the edge of the block wall. “They’re coming.”

For a moment Kate thought Max was talking about the rippers. The screams and calls of the rippers filled the air—of course they were coming. But then she realized that he was talking about the two vehicles parked at the edge of the parking lot. She saw a van and a pickup truck drive down into the shallow ditch and then come up the other side with ease. They crashed through the line of shrubs and bounced onto the edge of the parking lot.

“The rippers are going to get them,” Max said.

“They’re not Dark Angels, are they?” Kate asked.

“No,” Jo said. “Can’t be. They wouldn’t have shot the plane down if they were. They helped us. Saved us. We need to help them.”

Max jumped to his feet and ran to the skylight. “We need to get that back gate open!”

Kate followed Max to the skylight and then down the ladder.

Before Kate was even on the floor of the store, Max was barking orders at Phil and Lisa, both of them standing nearby. Kate followed the three of them as they sprinted to the loading bay. Phil opened the rollup door and Lisa opened the small metal door, running outside to unhook the wires from the car batteries that electrified the fence.

“You wait three minutes,” Max told Lisa as he jumped down from the ramp to the pavement. “Then you hook them back up. No matter what.”

Lisa nodded, waiting next to the plywood platform of car batteries, the leads in her hand.

Kate caught up to Max and Phil as they ran alongside the back of the building. Phil had the key to the padlock, and he got to the gate first, unlocking it and sliding it open. The box truck they used to have blocking the gate had never been returned after Max and Fernando had dumped Jeff and Neal’s bodies and gone for the weapons in the middle of the parking lot, so the gate was clear for the two vehicles.

Max ran out through the gate as Phil slid it all the way open, standing by it, ready to slide it closed again. Max didn’t have his rifle with him—he’d left it on the roof with Jo. He was defenseless as he ran out to the parking lot. The vehicles were coming, Kate could hear them, but there were also hundreds of rippers coming too.

“What are you doing, Max?”

“Showing them the way inside!” he yelled back. “Stay there!”

Kate stopped just outside the gate, watching as Max ran to the far corner of the front of the building. She looked to her right, beyond the cars and trucks that had been lined up in front of the entrances and the row of shrubs on that side of the parking lot. Dozens of rippers were coming from the partially constructed building; they were almost to the cars and trucks now, ready to crawl over them like a wave of insects.

She looked back at Max as he waited for the van and the pickup truck. She didn’t think they were going to make it.

CHAPTER 52

Petra

Petra had fallen asleep again even though it was the middle of the day. What else did she have to do? She’d checked all the basement windows again. Even if they were unlocked, there was no way she could squeeze her body through them. She had crept up the stairs to check the door, trying to twist the doorknob gently. It was locked, the door sturdy. She had even climbed up on the table to check for any weak spots between the floor joists in the ceiling, looking for a place she could push the wood flooring up.

Nothing. There was no escape. She stretched out on the bed under the blankets and fell asleep.

And now, again, she had been awakened by a noise: the basement door opening up. The daylight splashed down the steps.

She sat up in bed. Who was coming down the steps? She’d already had breakfast, and she wondered if that would be her only meal of the day. It seemed too early for dinner. She didn’t hear the dishes rattling lightly on the tray, the careful footsteps of Audrey as she descended the steps.

Maybe it wasn’t Audrey. Maybe it was Jacob coming down this time. Or one of the Dark Angels. Or maybe the Dragon himself. She figured they were going to interrogate her soon. It had to happen eventually. They would want to find out anything she knew about the store, any weaknesses in the defenses, a list of the food and supplies in the store, the names of the people there and what weapons they had. But she thought the Dragon might have different questions for her, questions about the others she saw in her dreams.

The footsteps seemed too light for a man. Maybe it was Audrey, or maybe it was one of the other “housemaids” coming down to change the bucket in the small bathroom she used—God knew it needed it.

Petra waited in her bed. She was still dressed, her hiking boots on the floor beside the bed. She was cold from inactivity even though she’d been under the blankets.

Audrey appeared at the bottom of the steps, washed in the muted daylight for a moment, hesitating at the landing above the last few steps like she had to wait for her eyes to adjust to the darkness of the basement, perhaps nervous about a surprise attack. She was dressed in the white clothing she usually wore, but this time she had on a pair of brown ankle boots laced up tight and a dark sweater wrapped around her that was too big for her.

“Petra,” Audrey hissed.

Petra got up and approached Audrey. “I’m here.”

“You said you wanted to leave.” A nervous glance up the stairs, at the open basement door.

“Yes.”

“Now’s the chance. We don’t have a lot of time, though. We need to hurry if we’re going to go.”

“Where is everyone?”

“I don’t know. The Dragon is out. Jacob too. There’s only two guards. One inside the house and one out on the front porch.”

“Where are the Dragon and Jacob?”

“I don’t know,” Audrey snapped, yet she kept her voice down to a hoarse whisper. “You said you wanted to escape. This is the chance. Maybe the only one.”

“Let me get my shoes,” Petra said and raced back to the bed. She slid her feet into her hiking boots and laced them up quickly. She hurried back to Audrey, who waited in the same spot on the landing.

“You said you’ll take me to your people,” Audrey said.

“Yes. I promise.”

“You said they have doctors there. Medicine.”

One doctor. A nurse, really. But Petra wasn’t going to argue with her. “Yes. We have all that.”

“I need help. I don’t feel good. My hands, they’re starting to hurt bad.”

“We’ll get you help. But you need to help me first.”

“I am.”

“I know. And I appreciate that. But I need to know if any of my other people are here. A woman named Crystal. Short hair, tattoos. Another woman named Tamara. A man named Tyrone. Dale, Zak, or Lance.”

“I don’t know any of them. No one’s been here except you.”

“Could they be held somewhere else? In a different house or building? Is there somewhere else where prisoners are held?”

“I don’t know,” Audrey whined, her right leg jiggling.

For just a moment Petra wondered if this was some kind of setup, wondering if Audrey had been sent down here to do this.

But why would the Dragon do that? What would he gain from it? And if Audrey was acting, then she was doing a hell of a job. Petra had no choice but to trust the woman. Audrey’s fingers had been taken, and it seemed like she was already getting sick from an infection; she might be getting desperate.

“What’s the plan?” Petra asked.

“We go upstairs. Out the back door in the kitchen. Out there, you’ll wait in the bushes. Let me check things out first. Okay? Then I’ll come back and get you. We’ll cut through some backyards until we get to the fence. There’s a way through the fence in one of the sections.”

“How do you know that?”

Audrey hesitated.

“Audrey?”

“One of the Dark Angels told me.”

Petra stared at Audrey, searching her light blue, watery eyes for the truth. “And you’re absolutely sure you can trust this person?”

“His name is Scott. We’ve talked before. He wants out too. It’s like you said. There are others who want out. Everyone is scared of the Dragon, of Jacob, of the guards. But there are some who want to leave. Scott’s one of them.”

Petra didn’t like the idea of it. She had a feeling that Scott was going to want to leave with them, his payment for helping them. And she wouldn’t really have a choice in the matter. Maybe it would even be good, maybe Scott would at least have a weapon on him, and he would know the terrain around Hell Town better than she would. Maybe he had a vehicle.

“Okay. Sounds good. Are you ready?”

Audrey nodded and seemed to relax just a little now that they were ready to go. She hurried up the stairs, barely making a sound.

Petra followed Audrey up to the doorway and then into the kitchen. The kitchen was empty, the house silent. Food preparations were on the countertop next to the sink: canned and boxed goods, plates and utensils, other dishes.

Audrey closed the door to the basement, twisting the lock on the door and then closing the latch and the padlock. She turned and nodded at the door that led to the back porch. Petra followed her silently across the kitchen and then out to the long back porch. They waited there for just a moment, listening. Things were still pretty quiet with only the sounds of men working in the distance, hammers banging and battery-powered circular saws whining.

“Okay,” Audrey whispered, pointing at a line of hedges just beyond the back porch. “Wait in there. Hide. I’ll be back when everything’s clear.”

Petra nodded. She rushed down the steps and went around to the hedges, crawling between them, backed in behind them as far as she could go, hiding right next to block wall that made up the top of the basement wall.

Audrey left.

Petra waited in her hiding spot for a few minutes, listening. She thought she might hear the guard outside making rounds around the house, or maybe the guard inside the house coming out to check on the back porch. But no one came. Nothing. She slowly got her breathing under control, breathing through her mouth until her heartbeat calmed down. It was cold out here, but she had her jacket on, her hood up over her head. It didn’t feel any worse to her than the basement had. But maybe she was warmer now because she was moving around, and because she was excited. And because she was scared.

Audrey was back in five minutes, whispering: “Petra.”

Petra crawled out from behind the hedges without a word. She followed Audrey through the backyards, moving past hedges and fences, but trying to look as natural as possible.

After another block of homes they walked toward a high wooden fence that had been constructed. A Dark Angel waited there, an assault rifle in his hands. Petra tensed.

“It’s Scott,” Audrey whispered. “He’s waiting for us.”

Petra nodded.

“We’ve got to hurry,” Scott said. He was tall and lanky with a lot of acne scars on his face. His wide brown eyes were large and always shifting, never seeming to focus on Petra or anything else longer than a second. A DA symbol was carved into his forehead, his knit hat pulled down low covering most of it. The funk of body odor drifted from his skin and dark clothing, the scent of fear. “I’ve probably already been away from my post for too long now.”

“Okay,” Petra told him. “Let’s go.”

“Over here,” he said and hurried to the next section of wood fencing. It looked like pieces of plywood and particle board had been nailed over 4x4 posts, barbed wire strung on top in some places. There were metal poles driven into the ground and bracketed to the wood panels in a few spots, strengthening the fence.

Scott pulled a bottom piece of the paneling away, a two-foot-by-four-foot section. It looked like it had been nailed, but it came away easily, revealing a narrow space to crawl through. He waited with the piece of paneling in his hands. Audrey went through first. Petra followed her. Scott came through next, setting the piece of paneling back in place as best he could from this side of the fence.

Audrey motioned for Petra to get down, and she did, both of them waiting for Scott.

“Straight that way,” Scott whispered. “To those trees over there. We wait there for a minute, making sure everything’s cool.”

Audrey nodded.

“Rippers?” Petra whispered.

“None so far,” Scott whispered. “They stay away most of the time.”

“Most of the time?”

“Yeah. We shoot at them. Throw grenades. But sometimes they come back.”

“How many around here?”

“I don’t know. A lot. Parsons, another Dark Angel, told me there’s a truck at a gas station a few streets over. He saw it on patrol and hid the keys inside. He said it runs.”

“And you trust him?”

“He wants out of here as bad as we do. A lot of us do. If your people can defeat the Dragon, if we all can, then there are some of us willing to help—even from the inside.”

Petra just nodded. She wasn’t going to argue about it. Too late now. All she could do was go along with the plan. “You got any other weapons on you?”

“No. Just this.” He lifted the assault rifle in his hands.

“No pistol. Nothing I could use?”

“No. Just my knife.”

Petra thought about asking him for that, but decided not to. They just needed to get to the truck, get away from Hell Town. She wondered if Scott had a route planned out, but she didn’t bother asking. First things first.

“Okay,” Scott said. “We need to go. They’re going to miss me and Audrey any minute now.”

Scott led the way through the brush to the copse of trees. They crouched down by the trunk of the largest tree, waiting and listening. Petra saw a sentry farther down the fence, walking along a scaffolding behind the fence, watching with a rifle in his hands. He walked to the end of his scaffolding and then turned to walk the other way.

“Okay,” Scott hissed. “Let’s go.”

They ran from the copse of trees to the back of a house, and then around to the side of it. They ran up to a car in the driveway with smashed windows and flattened tires. The front door of the house was ajar with a big DA symbol painted on it.

Scott didn’t wait long. He seemed to have this route planned out somewhat, so it gave Petra hope that he had a plan later on. He glanced around, listening for a moment. A few calls from rippers sounded from somewhere else among the houses. The sounds of hammering and men working could still be heard, but it wasn’t as loud from this house.

Petra followed Scott and Audrey as they ran across the street from the house to a stand of trees, then across a front yard to the next house, keeping low as they ran. Petra could see the gas station now on the corner. It seemed like the buildings of this small town were thinning out along this road, with not much beyond the gas station in the distance.

It took a few more minutes to get to the gas station. The farther they got away from Hell Town, the bolder Scott and Audrey seemed to grow, or maybe it was desperation. Petra could imagine guards and other Dark Angels discovering that the two of them were gone.

The pickup truck was backed up to the gas station. It looked old, maybe late eighties or early nineties, with patches of rust on it and faded stickers on the back window. Most of the glass looked intact and the tires were inflated—all good signs. Scott looked around, up and down the street that stretched down toward a small store, a bar, and a small housing development to the right. The road curved sharply to the left, maybe back to the downtown area of Hell Town. Across the intersection, where dark traffic lights hung from wires, the road stretched away toward a massive field with trees in the distance.

Everything seemed clear. No sounds except for the rippers calling every so often. They didn’t seem any closer, but they were still too close for Petra.

Scott opened the driver’s door of the truck, the squeal of metal when it opened sounded so loud. Petra cringed. Scott looked for the keys. He found them and got into the driver’s seat. Audrey took Petra around the front of the truck to the passenger side. They got in and closed the door as softly as they could.

Scott stuck the key into the ignition and twisted.

Nothing.

“You said this truck worked.” Petra didn’t bother whispering anymore.

“It did.”

“The battery,” Audrey said with a frown. She looked like she was about to burst into tears, like she wanted to ring her hands in nervousness but they were too painful.

Scott tried the key again and again. “Nothing,” he said. “It’s not even clicking.”

Petra heard the sound of engines—trucks approaching. Coming fast. At that moment she realized they’d been sold out by Scott’s friend. The Dark Angels had already been here; they had either unhooked the battery or taken it. They’d probably known about their ridiculous escape plan all along. Maybe they’d even been watching them.

Scott and Audrey watched the approaching trucks through the windshield, the three trucks speeding around the sharp bend in the road to the left. Scott and Audrey tried to get out of the pickup, but the three trucks skidded to a stop in the gas station parking lot in front of them. Dark Angels jumped out of the vehicles with their weapons aimed.

The passenger door of the black van in between the black pickup trucks opened and Jacob got out, moving casually—no hurry. He was dressed in black, but there was no gun in his gloved hand. He stared at them, a cruel smile on his face. He walked toward them. Scott and Audrey remained still, their hands raised.

“This . . . this isn’t what it looks like,” Audrey said.

Jacob ignored Audrey and Scott—he looked right at Petra, the smile disappearing, eyes growing cold like a star burning out. “Get out of the truck, Petra.”

She got out and stood next to Audrey.

“Out in front of the truck,” Jacob said, barking the order. “All of you. In a line. Now.”

They followed instructions.

Jacob approached them, the Dark Angel soldiers and guards moving in closer with him, their assault rifles still aimed at the three of them.

“I think the Dragon is going to be highly disappointed,” Jacob said, shaking his head.

Petra couldn’t help feeling that Jacob was talking directly to her.

“We’ll take them to the field,” Jacob told his soldiers.

“No,” Audrey said, slipping down to the ground, all strength draining from her.

Petra didn’t bother asking what the field was—she could tell from Audrey’s collapse that it was something bad . . . something real bad.

CHAPTER 53

Ray

The van they’d gotten from the used car lot had gone down into the ditch and up the other side easier than Ray had expected; he’d just kept his foot pressed down on the gas pedal, keeping the van going. Luke was still in the back of Gil’s pickup truck, holding on to the tool box as best he could, bouncing around with the two tires in the back as the truck crawled up the other side of the ditch and then crashed through the shrubs, the Ford’s engine growling with power. Now both vehicles were on the pavement of the parking lot. The horde of rippers was coming from behind them, and from both sides. The store seemed so far away.

“Hurry, Dad!” Mike yelled.

“Mike, get up there with your dad so I can have more room,” Josh said, getting his shotgun ready, positioning himself by the sliding door.

Mike crawled up front between the seats like a spider, sitting down in the passenger seat.

Ray glanced at his son and saw the fear in his eyes. A sick feeling exploded in Ray’s stomach when he saw Mike’s eyes. It felt like he’d made a really bad choice. This wasn’t the first time he’d felt this way, like he, like all of them, had made a choice that was finally going to kill them. But he’d gone along with Emma, trusting her when she said that they needed to help these people. It was like she knew there were people inside the store, people they needed.

But were there more people inside the store? Obviously there had been some people on the roof, people the Dark Angels had wanted to kill. But for all Ray knew a few people had gotten up to the roof, hiding there from the rippers for days. But deep down inside that didn’t make sense to Ray, deep down inside he was sure there had to be something pretty important inside the store to send an airplane to attack them—either supplies and food inside, or certain people the Dragon wanted dead.

Just like he wants us dead.

These thoughts raced through his mind within a few seconds, and then the rippers had come running from seemingly every direction. They had no choice but to go for the store. Would the people in the store let them in? Would they trust them? Would they think they were more Dark Angels coming to attack them? It wasn’t like they were waving a white flag as they sped toward the store across the parking lot.

Ray drove toward the front entrance. But maybe there was a way inside around back. Or was there a way to get up onto the roof?

And then the most chilling thought of all struck Ray: What if there weren’t many survivors left on the rooftop after the Dark Angels had flown by shooting at them? What if they were all dead or dying up there right now?

There was no time to question things. They were already racing across the parking lot, driving to the front entrance. But the glass doors of the front entrance had been shattered and there was some kind of steel mesh security doors behind them. Maybe rippers had gotten in, but that way looked blocked off. Then maybe they needed to try the back of the building. Maybe there was some way they could escape back there, driving through the grass until they could get away from the mob of rippers coming.

“Dad, look!”

Ray thought Mike was pointing out the advancing rippers.

“On the roof, Dad!”

Ray saw a person up there, a woman pointing frantically to her right. Ray looked that way and saw the approaching rippers from across that street getting closer to the parking lot. Was she pointing at the rippers?

My God, lady, we see them.

“She’s pointing at the corner of the building,” Mike said. “She wants us to go that way!”

Ray had already been turning that way, but he turned the wheel a little sharper, pressing down on the gas, speeding up. Gil was right beside him, the Ford’s engine racing.

“Trust her,” Emma said from the back seat.

Ray drove the van right at the corner of the building. They raced over trash and debris, over strips of cloth pasted to the ground with dried blood, over scattered bones that crunched under their tires, past light poles with bases of concrete painted a Super Bea’s yellow.

They got to the corner, slowing down as much as Ray dared, the tires squealing, the back end sliding just a little. Ray took his foot off the brake and stomped back down on the gas pedal. A man stood at the other end of the building, twenty feet beyond an open gate to a fence that surrounded the back area of the building. He waved his arms frantically. It looked like a box truck had been parked in front of the gate before but had been moved.

“He wants us to go there!” Mike shouted, gripping the arm rest and center console, shoving his feet down like he was already bracing himself for a crash.

I know, Ray wanted to shout back, but he didn’t have time.

Gunshots exploded from Gil’s truck right behind them. Luke must be shooting at the rippers with the rifle he had, lying down in the bed of the truck. He would only be able to get one or two at a time with the rifle, but maybe the gunshots would slow the rippers down just a little. Other gunshots came from the roof.

The man who had been waving frantically at them backed out of the way so Ray had a clear shot through the open gate. He sped past the man and slammed on the brakes as soon as he was through the gate, trying to slow the van down without skidding, but the tires screeched as they slid to the side, smoke drifting up from the back of the van.

Gil came in right behind them, slamming on his brakes, sliding right at them.

He’s going to hit us. He’s going to flip over and roll right into us.

But he didn’t. Gil’s truck got close, but the vehicle didn’t collide with the van.

The man got back inside the gate as another man slid the gate shut, locking it with a padlock. A woman stood by the corner of the building, gesturing at them to keep driving down the back of the building. Ray stared at the woman. Even from this far away he was sure that he recognized her, but he couldn’t figure out from where.

“Oh my God,” Josh whispered. “I’ve seen that woman before. I’ve seen her in my dreams.”

Ray drove past the woman at the corner, slower this time but still driving fast. Gil followed right behind their van.

Josh was right; that’s where Ray had seen the woman, from his dreams. She’d been with a little girl in the dreams. And the man waving his arms at them, the one guiding them to the gate and through it, he’d been in those dreams too. A strange feeling washed over Ray, the feeling of déjà vu again, replacing the sick, sinking feeling he’d had only seconds ago. All of this felt like it was meant to be. If the airplane hadn’t been attacking the store at precisely this time, if it had come earlier or later, Ray would have driven right past this store, this town, and they would never have met these people. He felt a chill dance across his skin.

Ray had never been a very religious man, but a sudden feeling came to him that stronger forces were at play; if not God, then something powerful and perhaps incomprehensible. And he felt certain that if they hadn’t been here at this moment, then things would have shifted in the near future to bring all of them together, just like they had found Josh, and then Luke.

A concrete loading ramp sloped down from the other end of the building where the large fenced-in area ended. A set of concrete steps with a metal railing led up to a door next to another large rollup garage door where semi-trucks could back up to be unloaded. Three big green dumpsters were grouped together at the far end. A woman waited by the smaller door of the building, gesturing at a place to park their vehicles, pointing at the ramp.

Ray pulled up next to the ramp. Gil parked right behind him. Ray’s head felt light as he turned off the van, holding the key for just a moment. None of this felt real, but at the same time it did. He was still jittery from the adrenaline rushing through him, still amazed that they had made it through the parking lot without being overcome by the horde of rippers out there. They could have died out there. Mike and Emma could have died. He began to tremble, and he couldn’t stop for a moment. He felt tears forming in his eyes, and he fought them back.

Screeches and calls from rippers filled the air. Ray turned around in his seat and looked out the shattered rear windows of the van. Rippers were coming from the woods, rushing toward the fence.

Josh jumped out of the van with his shotgun in his hands.

“It’s okay,” the woman said as she came running up to them, out of breath. The other two men were twenty yards behind her. “The fence is electrified.”

Electrified? They have electricity here?

“But we should still get inside,” the woman said. Then she froze suddenly like she’d finally gotten a good look at all of them as they got out of the van. The man who had waved them in through the gate and the other one came running up behind her, stopping in their tracks.

Ray and Mike were out of the van, and Josh helped Emma out from the side door. Luke crawled out of the back of Gil’s pickup with Gil’s rifle in his hands.

The woman stared. Ray knew exactly what she was thinking: I’ve seen you before.

CHAPTER 54

Ray

It took less than a minute for all of them to get in through the door into the loading bay of the store. Ray grabbed one of the packs on his way in. Josh and Mike grabbed the other packs. Luke had his M-16, the ammo box, and Gil’s rifle he’d used to shoot the small plane down earlier. Gil had a small duffel bag of his own.

When they were all inside, the man who’d shut the gate outside closed the door and locked it. The loading bay was massive. It was murky but easy enough to see with the two dingy skylights in the ceiling high above them.

The two women and the two men grouped together, standing a few feet away, and even in the gloom Ray saw the shock and the confusion on the woman’s face—the one he’d seen in his dreams, and the tall man with the graying hair and beard.

“This might sound a little crazy,” the woman said, still out of breath from her run to the door from the gate. “I think I’ve seen you in my dreams before.” Her eyes roamed across the rest of them. “All of you.” Her eyes settled on Emma like she had finally witnessed a mythical creature, someone she never believed actually existed.

The tall man next to the woman nodded, his face numb with shock. The other man and woman (Ray heard the tall man with gray hair call the man Phil) looked more confused, like they didn’t understand what was going on.

Like Gil, Ray thought. Gil didn’t understand what this woman was saying any more than the young man and woman did. But Ray understood what the woman meant. So did Emma. So did Mike, Luke, and Josh.

Ray nodded at the woman. “Yes. It probably does sound crazy. But I’ve seen you in my dreams too. And you.” He looked at the man with the gray hair and beard. “My son’s seen the two of you, too.”

“Me too,” Josh said.

“And me,” Luke added.

“What are you guys talking about?” Gil said, suddenly wary, like he’d just come into the middle of a movie he couldn’t understand.

“It’s kind of tough to explain,” Josh said. He chuckled, trying to stifle his laughter. “You probably wouldn’t believe it.”

Gil didn’t say anything—but he seemed to be waiting for an explanation.

“Thank you for saving us out there,” Ray said to the woman he recognized from his dreams.

“No . . . thank you,” the woman said. “You shot that plane down, didn’t you?”

Josh nodded at Luke. “He’s our sharpshooter. He’s the one that did it.”

The woman looked at Luke. “Thank you. You saved someone on the roof, someone very dear to us. Jo.”

“Joe?” Ray asked.

“JoAnne,” the woman said. “Everyone calls her Jo. She’s the manager of this store. She saved this store, and we’ve helped her protect it. My name’s Kate.”

“I’m Ray Daniels. This is my son Mike. That’s Josh. Emma next to him. Our shooter is Luke. And that’s Gil. We just met him. He’s a veterinarian. He helped patch up Luke’s leg after he got stabbed by a ripper.”

Kate looked at Luke, her eyes shifting down to his leg, noticing the blood puddling up under his foot on the concrete floor. “Do you know you’re bleeding?”

Luke looked down at his foot, his pants legs soaked with blood, his black hiking boot shiny with it. “Yeah.”

“We have a doctor,” Kate said.

“She’s really a nurse,” the tall man said. “I’m Max.”

Ray nodded.

“Our doc is taking care of Jo—she was shot on the roof,” Kate said. “Maybe she can help Luke.”

“I’ll take him there,” the other woman offered. “My name’s Lisa.”

“I’ll go with you,” Gil said, then he looked at Kate. “I already stitched his wound up once. If you’ve got some extra medical supplies, I can do it again.”

“We should have everything you need,” Max said.

“I’ll just leave these here,” Luke said, bending down to set the two weapons and the ammo box on the floor.

“That’s fine,” Max said.

Luke was about to walk away with Gil and Lisa, both waiting on him, but he looked at Kate. “In my dreams you were with a little girl.”

Kate nodded. “Yes. Her name is Brooke.”

“Is she okay? I saw the two of you in one of my dreams. You were in a motel lobby. You were both sleeping. Dark Angels pulled up in a van, they were sneaking inside, sneaking up to you, but you were still sleeping.”

Kate’s face clouded a bit—she remembered. “They tried to take us. But we got away. Brooke’s okay. She’s here with us.”

Ray could tell something bad had happened at that motel, something Kate didn’t feel like going into, maybe something she would rather not remember ever again.

“I couldn’t warn you in the dream,” Luke said. He glanced at Emma. “Not sure why. It was like you couldn’t hear me, like I couldn’t move.” He looked back at Kate. “I’m just glad you and the girl are okay.”

“Thanks,” Kate said.

Luke walked away with Gil, following Lisa to the door in the distance, Luke limping a little now.

“You’ve got a store in there?” Ray asked, watching Luke, Gil, and Lisa go through the door. “A real store?” He looked over at the towering stacks of boxes and crates at the other side of the room, a forklift parked in front of the supplies.

“Yeah,” Kate said. “It’s kind of amazing. Jo really did all of this. We’ll let her tell you about it. But that stuff over there is stuff they didn’t think was important: electronics, furniture, some household stuff, movies, jewelry, stuff like that.”

Ray nodded.

“She had the workers who were here with her at that time reorganize the stuff that was essential in the store, making room in the middle for tents to be set up.”

“So there’s food in there?” Josh asked with amazement.

“Yes,” Max said. He couldn’t help smiling. “A lot of food.”

“That’s what they wanted,” Ray said. “The Dark Angels in the plane, the ones that were shooting at you when we drove up. They want the food in this store.”

“Yes,” Kate said. “The food and anything else we have.”

“They’ve been ransacking towns,” Josh said. “Hogging up any food, water, and supplies they can find.”

Kate stared at Emma. “I can’t believe you’re really here. I’ve seen you in my dreams. You talked to me.”

“She doesn’t really remember that,” Josh said, his arm around Emma protectively. “It’s like her subconscious does it. Otherwise the Dragon would know where she is. Where all of us are.”

“He still manages to find us sometimes,” Emma said.

“Yeah,” Josh agreed. “We’ve had plenty of run-ins with the Dark Angels so far.”

“I’m sure Jo is going to want to meet all of you when she gets patched up,” Max said. “But in the meantime, we have some restrooms where you can get cleaned up. We’ll get some food and drinks for you after you’re done.”

That sounded good to Ray.

CHAPTER 55

Petra

Audrey fought at first as the Dark Angels tried to handcuff her hands behind her back. She roared with fear and rage, her body bucking with panic like a terrified horse, eyes wild. But after she was cuffed she became strangely passive, her body suddenly still, eyes blank, like she had resigned herself to her fate. Scott hadn’t put up a fight at all, his body going into a limp shock. Perhaps Scott’s behavior had rubbed off on Audrey—his apathy, his total surrender. Why fight? Scott’s eyes said. What was there to fight for in this world anymore?

They were going to die—Petra had figured that much out from the bits of broken phrases she’d been able to understand from Audrey as she had spit and fought before they cuffed her hands. Whatever was in the field, it was meant to kill them.

After they were cuffed, the Dark Angels loaded Scott into the back of one of the pickups with one soldier. Petra and Audrey were loaded into the bed of the other pickup truck with two Dark Angels. The trucks started up, turned around in the gas station parking lot, drove through the intersection in a line down the long, winding road through the fields and woods.

Petra was in the last truck in line. She watched Audrey for a moment, but the woman just stared down at her lap. She’d lost the white kerchief that she’d had on her hair during her fight with her captors, and now her blond hair spilled down in front of her face. She was still breathing hard. Petra could try to offer words of comfort to her, but why bother? What did it matter now?

She watched the edge of the town disappear as they drove farther away from it. This town used to have a name before it became the hell town it was now, before the Dragon had walled part of it in and made it his kingdom. Petra was cold and being in the back of the pickup made it even colder.

Ten minutes later they pulled onto a dirt drive, driving through a vast field with woods lining the horizon. She didn’t bother turning to see where they were going. A moment later, the trucks drove into the field and turned around so they were facing the dirt road they’d driven on a moment ago. All three vehicles backed up to a large wooden structure: two thick poles with a beam across the top, pieces of wood bracing the poles to make them even stronger. Three metal cables with some kind of hooks dangling from the end of them hung down from the crossbeam, the cables running down to a smaller wood structure and wound around metal wheels with handles to wind the cables up and down over the crossbeam.

Gallows, Petra thought. They’re going to hang us.

Petra looked at her two guards in the back of the pickup. They didn’t look back at her; they glanced around nervously at the field all around them, the woods in the distance.

They’re looking for rippers.

The trucks were still, all three in a row, all backed up fifteen feet away from the wood structure, the top crossbeam at least twenty feet above the ground.

Petra knew she was going to die in a few minutes, but she’d been a dead woman anyway. The only use the Dragon had for her was to lure Jo and the others out of the store, or to lure the others from her dreams to Hell Town. She probably would have been allowed to live a little longer, but she’d done the one thing Jacob had warned her not to do—she had tried to escape. She was sure if she had tried to escape from Jacob on their way down here to this town from Jeff’s house he had the authority to kill her if he needed to, and she was sure that the same authority was at play here.

The drivers and passengers got out of the three trucks, the guards dressed mostly in black, the Dark Angel soldiers dressed in a mishmash of clothing, the brands etched into their foreheads—the stamp of their servitude.

The two Dark Angels escorted Petra and Audrey from the back of the pickup truck, helping them down onto the ground. Audrey seemed to be coming alive again, breathing heavier, looking around, then staring at the wooden structure in front of them.

“No, don’t do this,” she said. “It wasn’t me. They . . . they kidnapped me. Petra and Scott, they made me go with them.”

Jacob wasn’t listening.

Petra didn’t fear the death that was coming—she looked forward to the peace, to the sweet release from this horrible life. She’d been expecting death for so long now that it had just become a part of her life. First, it had been Diego. She had planned on killing him for what he’d done to her, what he’d done to her family, what he’d done to countless others. She’d been willing to die for a shot at killing Diego; she’d gotten used to the certainty of it.

Then the Collapse came, and the Ripper Plague. She was one of the few immune, untouched by the plague in this new hellish world, and again, she hadn’t expected to live long. She kept on surviving because she was a fighter, but she wasn’t afraid of death. She’d led a meaningless life and she was sure her death would be just as meaningless.

But then she met Max on the road. She had another to protect, to fight for. And then they’d found Kate and Brooke. Then she had dreamed of the blind woman and the people she traveled with.

What was life now? It was hell. If there was a higher purpose, something to do with the people she saw in her dreams, she didn’t know what it was. And now she never would. Her only regrets were that she’d never gotten the chance to kill Diego, and now she’d lost the chance to kill the Dragon. Like Diego before, the Dragon would be free to continue his reign of terror.

The Dark Angels were still nervous, still looking around like they expected rippers to come running from the woods at any moment.

Two of the black-clad guards pushed Scott and Audrey forward to the wooden structure, positioning them under the wire cables. Two other guards approached, aiming their weapons at the two of them, all four guards working together like an experienced military unit.

One guard uncuffed Scott’s hands from behind him and cuffed them in front of him. He remained limp the whole time, a mannequin being manipulated. A Dark Angel was at the smaller wood structure, turning the metal wheel to lower the cable down to Scott. The guard who had cuffed Scott’s hands in front of him clipped the end of the cable to the chain between the two handcuffs.

The soldier cranked the wheel, slowly raising Scott’s arms up into the air, then his whole body. When the soldier stopped cranking the wheel, Scott’s feet hung at least five feet from the bloodstained ground. He groaned from the strain on his wrists, the metal cuffs biting into his flesh.

Audrey was next. She went wild when they uncuffed her and re-cuffed her hands in front of her. She collapsed to the ground, shrieking, kicking at the guards.

Jacob stepped forward and drew his gun with the silencer on it, aiming it at Audrey’s legs. He shot once and her left knee exploded in a bloody spray.

Audrey screamed, trying to grab for her knee, which looked like a piece of hamburger under the hem of her white dress that was now spattered with blood.

Jacob nodded at the guards to continue. They stood her up and raised her hands up, attaching the cable to the chain. Two soldiers cranked the wheel this time, raising her up much faster than they had with Scott. When she hung a little higher than Scott, the Dark Angels let the wheel come back down a little before catching it with a levered brake, the sudden motion snapped the bones in Audrey’s wrists—Petra heard what sounded like a bundle of dry sticks being broken across someone’s knee.

Audrey howled as she spun around on the cable, twisting in the cold air, her broken wrists swelling up immediately inside the metal cuffs, her hands turning red, then purple. The Dark Angels hoisted her back up to the same height as Scott.

There was only one cable left dangling to the left of Audrey.

Scott mumbled incoherently as he stared down at his dangling feet.

“Loyalty,” Jacob said as he moved closer to Petra.

Petra looked at him, waiting for the Dark Angels to drag her to the last hanging metal cable.

“The Dragon values loyalty above all else. He’s trying to help all of you, and you can’t even see it. You’re as ignorant as the rippers.”

Petra could hear the calls of the rippers somewhere in the woods beyond the fields. They were coming. She realized that’s why Scott and Audrey had been hung so high, so the rippers could only get to their legs, maybe up to their waists—they would watch as their lower bodies were ripped and torn to shreds by a horde of rippers, watch while the flesh was cut and peeled from their bones and eaten.

One of the Dark Angels pulled out a flare gun and aimed it at the blue sky. He shot one flare, the streaking red light arcing high up into the air. The rippers had seen it—more of them were coming now, an army of them.

“Get her back in the truck,” Jacob said—he almost sounded disappointed with his own order.

Petra had planned on marching to her death with dignity, not the zombie daze of Scott or the panic and begging of Audrey—no, she would march nobly to her death, spitting in their faces, angry right up until the last second of her life.

But that had been taken from her.

She fought now, but she couldn’t do much with her hands bound behind her. Two Dark Angels got her into the back of the pickup truck easily enough, one of them climbing into the back with her, sitting right behind her, holding on to her neck and her hair, the other one shutting the tailgate.

“Why?” Audrey wailed. “Why does she get to live? She did this! It was all her fault!”

Jacob ignored Audrey as he walked up to the side of the pickup.

Petra stared back at Jacob, held tightly by the Dark Angel right behind her, his hand in her hair, holding her head still, forcing her to watch Audrey and Scott hanging from the wood frame, both of them slowly twisting in the cold air, blood dribbling down Audrey’s left leg, soaking it, dripping to the ground where the earth was painted brown with previous bloodstains.

“You’re going to watch this,” Jacob said. “They’re dying because of you, because of your selfishness. You wanted to escape, and you took them with you.”

“They were going to escape anyway,” Petra said, trying to cut her eyes to Jacob, trying her best to look at him with the Dark Angel grabbing her hair—it felt like her head was trapped in a vice.

“The Dragon wants you back. He has other plans for you. And when he’s done, I have some plans for you. But first you’re going to bring your friends to us. And there’s one particular person I’ve been waiting to see again, a former protégée of mine.”

The rippers were louder, some of them bursting out from the trees and brush at the other end of the field. They ran toward the wooden structure, knowing food was hanging there for them.

“Time to go,” Jacob said, slapping the side of the truck.

Petra’s head was still frozen in the Dark Angel’s iron grip, her eyes still on Audrey and Scott. She heard the truck doors slamming shut, engines starting. She felt the rumble of the truck beneath her as it started up. Then they were rolling forward, bouncing along the hard ground.

As the rippers attacked Audrey and Scott, a few of them came for the trucks. The Dark Angels picked them off as they came, the rippers falling and tumbling, losing the knives, sticks, and other weapons they’d been carrying.

The rest of the rippers clung to Scott and Audrey’s legs, cutting into them with knives, tearing and ripping at muscle and skin, snapping bones. Audrey’s screams reached a fever pitch, her body thrashing about. Petra couldn’t tell if she was flailing or the rippers were pulling her body back and forth like a group of sharks attacking a swimmer. Scott came to life, his screams as high-pitched as Audrey’s were, just a constant scream. It sounded like their vocal chords might snap from the strain.

The trucks drove away slowly. At least Petra saw less detail of the slaughter now, but she still heard the screams. How long were the two of them going to live? How long before they passed out from pain and loss of blood? Two young male rippers shimmied up the thick poles to the crossbeam, crawling out on it to get to the top half of the hanging prey.

The grip of the Dark Angel’s fist in Petra’s hair loosened, but he still held on a little. He bent closer to her, whispering to her. “My name’s Dawson.”

She didn’t answer. She didn’t care who the hell he was.

“There are some of us who want to fight the Dragon, defeat him. But we need your help. Your friends’ help.”

Petra didn’t say anything, her body still.

“I can’t help you escape, but when we go to attack the store again, a few of us are going to get to your friends. We’re all going to help kill the Dragon. Okay? Do you understand? Give me a slight nod if you do.”

Petra nodded slightly.

“Don’t give up hope. Stay alive, and we’ll be back to get you, and to kill the Dragon.”

Not if I can kill him first, Petra thought. But she didn’t reply.

“I’m going to push you away from me, towards the tailgate. Okay? Just fall down and lay there.”

Dawson let Petra’s hair and neck go. He pushed her forward and she fell over onto her side at the rear of the truck, right against the tailgate. Her arms were sore, the handcuffs biting into her skin, the air so cold on her exposed skin. But she felt a warmth growing inside of her, a flickering of hope. Maybe there was still a chance to kill the Dragon . . . and if she got that chance again, she was going to take it.

CHAPTER 56

Ray

Ray couldn’t believe the stuff the store had. There were rows of dry, boxed, and canned foods; shelves of drinks: bottled water, canned and bottled sodas, juices, and other drinks, plastic containers of powdered mixes for drinks. Other shelves held bags of potato chips and cartons of snack cakes. Shelves of medical supplies, cleaning products, bathroom supplies, toilet paper, napkins, paper plates and cups.

At the other end of the store there were more supplies, which had been arranged closer together, the middle of the store cleared out for the “tent city,” as they called it, and the scissor lift that was raised up to the skylight, an extension ladder tied to it. There were clothes, camping gear, weapons, guns, bullets, household goods—anything that had been deemed valuable; the rest of the supplies were stacked up in the loading bay.

They didn’t have showers, but they had water they collected on the roof in buckets. They used the water to clean up with, using bottled water and brand new toothbrushes to brush their teeth. It felt so good to wash with soap and water, to brush his teeth. Mike joked and laughed while they cleaned up in what used to be the employee restrooms. He seemed happy and relaxed since they had left the cabin. Ray hugged his son when they were done cleaning up, telling him how proud of him he was.

After they were all cleaned up and had changed into new pairs of clothes they had picked out from the store shelves, Ray and the others met at the deli area. A few tables and folding chairs had been set up, food already on trays and bowls in the middle of the table, a feast Ray could only dream about before.

The store manager, Jo, sat at the head of the table, her arm bandaged up completely. Gil and Luke were there. Kate, Max, and Brooke. And others from the store—it seemed that all of them were there.

“Phil and Lisa offered to take a shift on the roof,” Jo said. She looked at Ray. “We try to keep a few spotters up there at all times.”

“The dead are still up on the roof,” Max said. “Fernando. Sophie. Wes.”

“Tina’s covered up,” the doc said. “We got her into the loading bay.”

“What are you going to do with them?” Josh asked.

“We can’t really bury them anywhere,” Jo said. “And we can’t keep them in here very long. We take them out there.”

“And the rippers eat them?” Josh asked, horrified by the idea.

Mike looked sick at the thought of it.

“We can’t help what they do out there.”

“Seems like that would bring a lot more rippers around,” Ray said.

Jo nodded. “It does. But right now the rippers are helping to keep the Dark Angels away.” She paused for just a moment. “Except for the airplanes and drones.”

“They have drones?” Luke asked.

“Yes,” Jo said. “A drone brought a box to us and dropped it off. It wasn’t a weapon. It was a message.”

“There was a cell phone inside with a video,” Kate explained further. “A ransom video. They have one of ours with them.”

“A woman,” Luke said. It wasn’t a question but a statement of fact, like something had clicked into place for him.

“This might help,” Kate said. She picked up a drawing tablet, glancing at Brooke as she did so.

Brooke looked back at Kate, but she didn’t say anything. She hadn’t said a word the entire time they’d been at the table.

“Thank you,” Ray said after accepting the drawing tablet from Kate.

“Brooke drew these a few nights ago.”

Ray opened up the tablet and his breath was caught in his throat for a moment.

“Dad, that’s us,” Mike whispered in awe.

“She drew you guys?” Josh said.

“Yeah,” Ray breathed out. “A perfect likeness.”

“She’s seen you in her dreams,” Kate explained. “Just like you saw us in your dreams.”

Ray flipped the page. He saw Josh holding a shotgun, Emma standing right next to him. On the next page was a drawing of Luke with his pistol and silencer. The drawing of the three of them was a spitting image of them.

On the last page was a woman Ray recognized vaguely, someone he’d seen at some point in one of his dreams. But he definitely recognized the man hovering right behind the woman, his hands on her shoulders—the Dragon. “This is the one who’s been captured?” Ray asked.

“Yes,” Jo said. “She went out on a run to get supplies with some of our other people. The Dark Angels brought three of them back here, wanting to exchange them so we would leave the store to them.”

“But they were going to kill us anyway,” Max said, jumping in quickly.

“They killed all three of them,” Jo went on. “Shot all three of them right in the parking lot. Right in front of me.”

“But Petra wasn’t with them,” Max said. “That’s her name, the one in the drawing. Petra.”

Ray handed the drawing tablet to Josh. He looked through them, breathing out in amazement, whispering details to Emma. Then he handed the drawing tablet to Luke.

Luke flipped through the drawings faster, like he wanted to get to the last one. Then he froze.

“What is it?” Ray asked him.

“This woman. Petra. I saw her in my dreams last night. First I saw Wilma, and then it was her. She told me to come find her, to save her.” He hesitated like he didn’t want to say any more. “And then the Dragon was there.”

“Where is she being held?” Ray asked, turning back to Jo and Max.

“We don’t know,” Jo said.

“In the hell town,” Luke said. He looked up. “That’s where the Dragon is. That’s where Petra has to be.”

“Yeah,” Max agreed. “We’ve all seen that hell town in our dreams. But we don’t know where it is.”

Luke handed the drawing tablet back to Josh who handed it back to Ray.

“Those drawings are amazing,” Josh told Brooke.

Brooke smiled at him, but she still didn’t say anything.

Josh looked at Emma. “She captured your beauty perfectly.”

Emma blushed a little, trying to hide her smile.

“How did you guys get together?” Kate asked. “Did you know each other before the Collapse?”

Ray told Kate and the others about escaping the neighborhood with his family during martial law. He told them about how Emma’s mother had asked him to take care of Emma, and then they had ended up at Emma’s condo. He told them about Kim dying and Vanessa turning into a ripper at the condo, but he left out details that Mike didn’t know about, like how Kim had begged him to kill her, and how Emma had just happened to have a bottle full of sleeping pills. No, there was no use in Mike knowing about those things.

Ray told them about Craig’s cryptic message on the cell phone before it had died, and his invitation to come to his house to find the answers. He told them about how he, Mike, and Emma had traveled to Craig’s house and what they had found there: Craig and his family dead in a car in the garage, and the files on his laptop, files about a place called Avalon where research about the Ripper Plague was being done.

He told them how they had narrowly escaped Craig’s house and how they had found Josh in a small town where three Dark Angels had attacked them and almost killed them. Josh had saved their lives by throwing Molotov cocktails at the Dark Angels. And then he told them how they’d found Luke holed up in a restaurant in a small West Virginia town called Heaven. He told them how they had gotten to a school building, how Luke and Josh had gone to look for a van so they could drive to his friend Doug’s cabin in the mountains.

The cabin had been a safe place, but the Dark Angels found it eventually. The Dark Angels had attacked the cabin with a rocket launcher, but they had escaped through the tunnels underneath the cabin, getting away and heading south, right into a blizzard. He told them how they had hidden inside a mechanics’ bay for the night until they got away from the rippers. He told them about driving south to a used car lot where Luke had gotten stabbed, and the house where they had met Gil. Again, he left out details they didn’t need to know, like how Gil had aimed a gun at them.

“And now we’re here,” Ray said. “We were headed to Avalon.”

“What about you?” Josh asked Jo. “What’s the story with this place?”

Jo told them about how she’d kept the store closed right after the Collapse, losing most of the people she’d been with at the beginning, most of them either leaving or turning into rippers. (All of them were gone now that Tina was dead.) But others had come, and she told them how Lance and Dale started going on runs, finding other people and supplies to bring to the store.

“Lance and Dale found us,” Max said.

“And Crystal,” Kate said. “She was with them too.”

“They took us back here,” Max said. “We’ve been here ever since.”

“We’ve weathered a few attacks from the Dark Angels so far,” Jo said. “And more attacks from the rippers. So far this store has held up. And we’ve held up.”

“You’ve done an incredible job,” Ray said.

“What about now?” Max asked Ray. “What are your plans now?”

“Well, we were hoping to rest up here for a little while, and then we planned on continuing down to Avalon.” He looked back at Josh and Emma. They nodded in agreement. But Luke hadn’t nodded.

“And you’re sure about this place?” Jo said. “Avalon.”

“Not one hundred percent,” Ray said. “But there’s something there. Craig wouldn’t have told me to come to his house, to find those files on his computer, if it didn’t mean something.” He paused for just a moment, staring at Jo. “What about you? What are your plans?”

“To hold the store,” she said without hesitation. “If we lose what we have here, then we have nothing.”

Everyone was quiet for a moment.

“You’re welcome to join us,” Jo said. “We could definitely use your help.”

“We need to get Petra back,” Max said.

Jo and Max locked eyes for a few seconds, and then Max looked at Ray again. “If you guys stay, then I’m going to go look for her. I’ll go by myself if I have to.”

“We don’t even know where she is yet,” Jo said.

“I’ll find her. I know I will.”

Ray felt the tension between Jo and Max—this seemed like an argument they’d been having for a while. “Thank you for the food, the water, the new clothes,” he told Jo, trying to change the subject.

“Thank you for what you did out there,” Jo said. “You saved me. You probably saved all of us.” She smiled. “You probably want to get some rest now. Please . . . stay as long as you want to. I know you want to get to Avalon, but I’m sure it’s not going anywhere.”

“Thank you,” Ray said. He wondered what it was going to feel like to sleep in a place where he didn’t have to constantly worry about rippers.

CHAPTER 57

Ray

Ray and Josh helped with the bodies on the roof, rolling them up in tarps, lifting them up over the knee wall and dropping them over the edge. The bodies fell to the ground with a splat, rippers charging the parking lot from the streets, running at the sight of the falling bodies. Ray didn’t look when the rippers got to the dead; he didn’t want to see them feasting on them.

It was almost dark when Ray and Josh got cleaned up again in the bathrooms, using buckets of water. Mike was helping Kate and Max set up a few tents for them to sleep in.

“This is some setup here,” Josh said, shaking his head in disbelief. His hair was slicked back with water, his sleeves still rolled up to his elbows. He was smiling.

“Yeah, they’ve got something good here,” Ray said. “But I still want to go to Avalon. I think we still need to go. But I would understand if you didn’t want to go.”

Josh shook his head. “Emma thinks we should go, too.”

“I’m not asking you two to go with me, but I think we should all try to stay together.”

“Yeah,” Josh said. “I agree.”

*

Later, they selected tents to sleep in. Ray and Mike slept in one tent, Josh and Emma in another tent, and Luke and Gil each had a tent to themselves.

Ray wasn’t sure he would be able to sleep, but weariness overcame him, his body surrendering to it. And for the first time in what seemed like such a long time, Ray slept without dreams. If he had dreamed, he couldn’t remember them.

He woke up early. Mike was still asleep. He let him sleep.

Ray crept out of the tent, trying not to wake Mike. He got up and stretched. He knew some of the other people were up, some of them on the roof keeping watch. He walked toward Luke’s tent. The flaps were open. He wasn’t inside.

He found Luke seated in a lawn chair close to the non-food supplies on the other side of the store. Luke had his weapons with him, cleaning them, using a battery-powered lantern and a flashlight so he could see. The store was lightening up with the morning, the daylight pouring down through the skylights, some of them shattered now from the gunfire from yesterday. The sounds of rippers could be faintly heard from outside, herds of them still around the front of the building, still waiting and hoping for more food to drop to the sidewalks below. But Jo was right, at least the rippers kept the Dark Angels away for a while.

“Can I sit down?” Ray asked Luke.

Luke nodded, gestured with his head at the other lawn chairs folded and stacked up on a shelf.

Ray grabbed a lawn chair, opened it and sat down close to Luke. “I still think we should go to Avalon. That’s where we were headed all along, and I think we should still go.”

Luke nodded. “I agree.”

Ray exhaled a held breath, worried for a moment that Luke wouldn’t want to go.

“But I have to go get Petra. Max is already going, and I can’t let him go alone. He said a guy named Phil volunteered to go with us.”

Ray sighed.

“You could come with us,” Luke said. “Come with us and save Petra. We’ll defeat the Dragon. End this war. After that, we’ll be free to go where we want. Yeah, the rippers will still be out there, but at least we won’t have to worry about the Dragon and the Dark Angels.”

“I just think if we could get to Avalon, there might be people there who could help us fight the Dragon. Government. Military. Maybe there’s a cure there.”

Luke didn’t look like he believed that. “If you want to go, you should still go.”

“Emma thinks we should go,” Ray said, hoping Emma could sway his decision.

Luke just nodded.

“I don’t know if we should split up right now,” Ray said.

“Maybe it’s the best idea. Divide our forces. I just think we need to go get Petra and kill the Dragon. If we wait too much longer, the Dragon will just get stronger. The Dark Angels will never stop attacking.” He hesitated for a moment like he wanted to say something.

“Go ahead, spit it out.”

“What if you get to Avalon and nothing’s there? If we all went, wasted time looking for this place, then Petra might die. The Dark Angels will attack this store again. Jo’s right, we need to protect this store.”

Ray could see that Luke had made up his mind. He stood up and folded his chair back up, set it on the shelf. “When you get to the Dragon, make sure you kill that motherfucker.”

“Oh, I plan to.”

Ray left. He walked back to the tents. He walked past them and climbed the ladder up to the roof. He figured Jo would be on watch.

Jo was hunkered down near the knee wall with a rifle and a pair of binoculars. The sound of the rippers was much louder on the roof. Hundreds of rippers milled around the parking lot, some screeching and yelling, some pushing and shoving, a few fighting. They looked like something from a zombie movie, so ragged and thin now. Starving.

Ray sat down next to Jo. The sun was up on the horizon. A few other spotters were on the roof with their weapons and binoculars. The mannequins Jo had put in place weeks ago lay exposed, the tarps and nets fallen off of them, the metal pipes meant to look like guns on the floor of the roof. They hadn’t been posed to look like shooters again—they weren’t fooling anyone anymore.

“Thank you for all you’ve done for us,” Ray told Jo.

“But you’re going to be moving on.”

“Probably in a few days, when this group of rippers dies down.”

Jo nodded. She was trying to hide her disappointment.

“Luke is going with Max to get Petra,” Ray told her. “The rest of us are going to Avalon.”

“I hope there’s something there. I really do. We could all use a bit of good news.”

“We’ll be back either way,” Ray promised. He figured Jo couldn’t feel the pull of Avalon like he could, like Emma could. She couldn’t sense it. She hadn’t had the same dreams that he and the others had shared. She hadn’t been around Emma very long, and maybe she didn’t totally believe in Emma’s abilities.

“You’ll still be here for another day or two,” Jo said, glancing down at the rippers roaming around the parking lot. “And you’re welcome to anything we have.”

“And we’ll help in any way we can.”

Jo nodded. “We’ll do our best to defend the store while you’re gone. I hope it will still be here when you get back. I hope we’ll still be here.”

“You could go with us,” Ray said. “All of you. We could all go.”

Jo seemed to think it over for a moment, but then she shook her head. “Sorry. My place is here for now.”

Ray understood; Jo wasn’t going to risk something she knew for something she didn’t. But Ray was sure about Avalon, as sure as he’d been about anything in his life. And Emma was sure too—that was enough for him. He stood up and walked back to the skylight to get back down to Mike and the others, to begin preparations for leaving.

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

Thank you so much for reading my book. I hope you’ll keep a lookout for Book 8 of the Dark Days series, the last book of this series. You can follow my blog or subscribe to my newsletter to get updates about upcoming releases and sales.

Being an author is a dream come true for me, and it only happens because of readers like you. Thank you!

Blog:  https://www.marklukensbooks.wordpress.com

Newsletter:  https://mailchi.mp/56a39e9c3a90/marklukensbooks

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Mark Lukens has been writing since the second grade when his teacher called his parents in for a conference because the ghost story he’d written concerned her a little.

Since then he’s had several stories published and four screenplays optioned by producers in Hollywood. He’s the author of several bestselling books including: The Ancient Enemy series, Devil’s Island, Sightings, The Exorcist’s Apprentice, The Dark Days series, Followed, and many others. He’s proud to be a member of the Horror Writers Association.

He grew up in Daytona Beach, Florida. But after many travels and adventures, he settled down near Tampa, Florida with his wonderful wife and son . . . and a stray cat they adopted.

He loves to hear from readers! You can find him on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/Mark-Lukens-Books-670337796318510/

You can follow him on Twitter here: https://www.twitter.com/marklukensbooks

You can follow his blog here: https://www.marklukensbooks.wordpress.com

He can be reached via email at marklukensbooks@yahoo.com and mark@marklukensbooks.com

Ancient Enemy . . . it wants things. You have to give it what it wants.

www.amazon.com/dp/B00FD4SP8M

A billionaire leads a team of ghost hunters to an abandoned Caribbean island with a dark and bloody past . . . an island with a terrible secret.

www.amazon.com/dp/B06WWJC6VD

Four film school students investigate a remote cabin where an alien abduction reportedly took place years ago . . . but they encounter much more than they ever could have imagined.

www.amazon.com/dp/B00VAI31KW

After a tragic accident, seventeen-year-old Danny agrees to train as an exorcist with his father. But their first case together may kill them both.

www.amazon.com/dp/B00YYF1E5C

As a stalker terrorizes Phil and Cathy, dark clues surface from Phil’s past, convincing Cathy that Phil may know who their stalker is and what he really wants.

www.amazon.com/dp/B078WYGMJN